Centre for Internet and Society

Announcing Silicon Plateau #01

sumandro — 2015-10-05T15:00:59Z

We are very pleased to announce that the RAW programme is supporting a new collaborative publishing project led by T.A.J. Residency / SKE Projects and or-bits.com. The first volume of the series titled 'Silicon Plateau' will feature contributions by a group of artists, researchers, and writers, including IOCOSE, Tara Kelton, Anil Menon, Sunita Prasad, Achal Prabhala and Sreshta Rit Premnath, along with contextual writing and documentation material. Here is an excerpt from the editorial note written by Marialaura Ghidini, the co-editor of the volume.

The scope of the series is to explore the contemporary interaction between the arts and technology as informed by experiences of Bangalore (the ‘Silicon Valley’ of India). Such exploration will be guided by the perspectives of contemporary artists, writers and thinkers, national and international, who have either spent a period of time in the city or crossed paths with its communities whose work and interests — from the creative industry to law and historical research — lie at the intersection between the arts and technology. The approach we have adopted to explore how technology informs the arts and the socio-cultural environment, and how the latter affects usages and understandings of technological tools, is multidisciplinary and hybrid, and uses the city of Bangalore as the starting point for broader reflections and actions.

Advocating for the importance of thinking about digital and web technologies in their specificity rather than their universality, the series will propose across-disciplines narratives about the encounters — fortuitous, anticipated or even inconvenient — that artists, writers, technologists, lawyers, economists and more have had with the city. The nickname of Bangalore, Silicon Plateau, which derives from its geographical location on the Deccan Plateau in the state of Karnataka, has been used as the title of the series because we think it metaphorically highlights the contradictions inherent to our exploration. Adopting the term plateau, which indicates the reaching of a state of little change, to refer to a city that has transformed at rapid speed over the last few decades results in a linguistic combination that reflects the complexities inherent to discussing arts and technology in relation to local histories and occurrences rather than global narratives and popular beliefs.

This fist edition of Silicon Plateau #01 will focus on the way in which the city is represented in the public realm, from public spaces to those manufactured by the real estate industry. It will look at representations of Bangalore as a set of phenomena triggered by the ways in which the IT industry is reflected in the city, such as its market-driven narratives, and how passers-by and short term residents encounter them in the everyday. The contributors have been invited to reflect on how these modes of presenting and representing often lead to the creation of metaphors and cultural signs that might tell us more about discussing the interaction between the arts and technology.

Silicon Plateau #01 will be about that which lies behind first ‘impressions’ and constructed representations as determined by uses and understanding of technology, the tools and its infrastructures, existing, imagined, or projected.”

Silicon Plateau #01 will be released, in print and online, in May 2015 and launched soon after.

Image Credit: Sreshta Rit Premnath, Projections (1964/2014), photocopies on corrugated plastic and chroma key paints.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/raw/announcing-silicon-plateau-01

Networked Expressions

sumandro — 2015-08-28T06:21:21Z

Networked expressions refer to our daily practices, habits and experiences of self-articulations in and through digital media, online spaces and virtual networks. This cluster is configured to focus our studies on the networked lives of human, non-human, and cyborg being in the digital era; the questions of expressions of body, sexuality, gender, caste, class, abilities, religion, and power as mediated by digital conditions and virtual contexts; the practices of art, representation, instrumental communication, and self-making through digital artifacts, interfaces, technologies, and networks. We are especially interested in foregrounding the networked technologies that shape the socio-material context of such expressions. Also, this cluster is specifically driven by applied and curatorial works.

Projects

Maps for Making Change (2009-2010)
Habits of Living: Global Networks, Local Affects (2012)
Interface Intimacies (ongoing)

Publications

Material Cyborgs; Asserted Boundaries by Nishant Shah
Silicon Plateau Vol. 01 edited by Marialaura Ghidini and Tara Kelton (forthcoming)

Posts

sumandro — 2015-09-13T10:41:28Z

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/raw/posts

Featured

sumandro — 2015-04-10T10:54:23Z

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/raw/featured

Humanitarian OSM: Mapping Nepal

sumandro — 2015-04-27T07:46:16Z

To support the disaster relief work in progress in Nepal, the Humanitarian OSM Team (HOT) is busy mapping roads, settlements, and buildings in Nepal. Creating a detailed map of the area in OpenStreetMap will give the relief workers much valuable open data that can be used for planning their efforts. Contribute to the efforts of the Humanitarian OSM to map features in Nepal to support relief work.

Please join the efforts wherever you are.

The pending tasks are listed here: http://tasks.hotosm.org/.

Documentation to help you through the tasks is here: https://datameet.hackpad.com/Nepal-Earthquake-Mapping-YDjLauUK0Ek.

If you are in Bangalore, head to MapBox office: https://goo.gl/maps/bkqKF.

The DataMeet Delhi chapter will start organising mapping sessions in different offices in Delhi from today 14:00. Follow the DataMeet list for information about that: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/datameet.

Or, you can stay where you are and work on this remotely.

If you need support, please feel free to write to Sajjad [sajjadkm@gmail.com], Shashank [srinivasan.shashank@gmail.com], or Sumandro [sumandro@cis-india.org].

A big thanks to Sajjad for putting it all together and leading the efforts.

Image credit: MapBox.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/humanitarian-osm-mapping-nepal

UIDAI and Welfare Services: Exclusion and Countermeasures (Bangalore, August 27)

sumandro — 2016-08-22T13:25:03Z

The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) invites you to a one day workshop, on Saturday, August 27, 2016, to discuss, raise awareness of, and devise countermeasures to exclusion due to implementation of UID-based verification for and distribution of welfare services. We look forward to making this a forum for knowledge exchange and a learning opportunity for our friends and colleagues.

Invitation

Download (PDF)

Venue

Institution of Agricultural Technologists, No. 15, Queen’s Road, Bangalore, 560 052.

Location on Google Map: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Institution+of+Agricultural+Technologists/.

Agenda

10:00-10:30 Tea and Coffee

10:30-11:00 Introductions and Updates from Delhi Workshop

11:00-12:45 Reconfiguration of Welfare Governance by UIDAI

12:45-14:00 Lunch

14:00-15:00 Updates on Ongoing Cases against UIDAI

15:00-15:15 Tea and Coffee

15:15-16:45 Open Discussion on Countering Welfare Exclusion

16:45-17:00 Tea and Coffee

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/events/uidai-and-welfare-services-exclusion-and-countermeasures-aug-27

UIDAI and Welfare Services: Exclusion and Countermeasures

sumandro — 2016-08-22T13:23:24Z

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/files/uidai-and-welfare-services-exclusion-and-countermeasures

Nirmita Narasimhan - Resume

sumandro — 2017-04-28T01:19:36Z

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/files/nirmita-narasimhan-resume

Submitted Comments on the Telangana State Open Data Policy 2016

sumandro — 2016-09-01T05:49:51Z

Last month, the Information Technology, Electronics & Communications Department of the Government of Telangana released the first public draft of the Telangana State Open Data Policy 2016, and sought comments from various stakeholders in the state and outside. The draft policy not only aims to facilitate and provide a framework for proactive disclosure of data created by the state government agencies, but also identify the need for integrating such a mandate within the information systems operated by these agencies as well. CIS is grateful to be invited to submit its detailed comments on the same. The submission was drafted by Anubha Sinha and Sumandro Chattapadhyay.

Download the submitted document: PDF.

1. Preliminary

1.1. This submission presents comments and recommendations by the Centre for Internet and Society (“CIS”) [1] on the proposed draft of the Telangana Open Data Policy 2016 (“the draft policy”). This submission is based on Version 1 of the draft policy shared by the Information Technology, Electronics & Communications Department, Government of Telangana (“the ITE&C Department”).

1.2. CIS commends the ITE&C Department for its generous efforts at seeking inputs from various stakeholders to draft an open data policy for the state of Telangana. CIS is thankful for this opportunity to provide a clause-by-clause submission.

2. The Centre for Internet and Society

2.1. The Centre for Internet and Society, CIS, is a non-profit organisation that undertakes interdisciplinary research on internet and digital technologies from policy and academic perspectives. The areas of focus include digital accessibility for persons with diverse abilities, access to knowledge, intellectual property rights, openness (including open data, free and open source software, open standards, open access, open educational resources, and open video), internet governance, telecommunication reform, digital privacy, and cyber-security. The academic research at CIS seeks to understand the reconfiguration of social processes and structures through the internet and digital media technologies, and vice versa.

2.2. This submission is consistent with CIS’ commitment to safeguarding general public interest, and the interests and rights of various stakeholders involved. The comments in this submission aim to further the principle of citizens’ right to information, instituting openness-by-default in governmental activities, and to realise the various kinds of public goods that can emerge from greater availability of open (government) data. The submission is limited to those clauses that most directly have an impact on these principles.

3. Comments and Recommendations

This section presents comments and recommendations directed at the draft policy as a whole, and in certain places, directed at specific clauses of the draft policy.

3.1. Defining the Scope of the Policy in the Preamble

3.1.1. CIS observes and appreciates that the ITE&C Department has identified the open data policy as a catalyst for, and as dependent upon, a larger transformation of the information systems implemented in the state, to specifically ensure that these information systems.

3.1.2. CIS commends the endeavour of the draft policy to share data in open and machine-readable standards. To further this, it will be useful for the preamble to explicitly mandate proactive disclosure in both human-readable and machine-readable formats, using open standards, and under open license(s).

3.1.3. CIS recommends that the draft policy state the scope of the policy at the outset, i.e. in the Preamble section of the document. This will provide greater clarity to the stakeholders who are trying to ascertain applicability of the draft policy to their data.

3.1.4. CIS commends the crucial mandate of creating data inventory within every state government ministry / department. We further recommend that the draft policy also expressly states the need to make these inventories publicly accessible.

3.1.5. CIS commends the draft policy’s aim to build a process to engage with data users for better outcomes. We suggest that the draft policy also enumerates the “outcomes” of such engagement, in order to provide more clarity. We recommend that these “outcomes” include greater public supply of open government data in an effective, well-documented, timely, and responsible manner.

3.1.6. Further, CIS suggests that the draft policy define “information centric and customer centric data” to provide more clarity to the document, as well as its scope and objectives.

3.2. Provide Legal and Policy References

3.2.1. Strengthening transparency, predictability, and legal certainty of rules benefits all stakeholders. Thus, as far as possible, terms in the draft policy should use pre-existing legal definitions. In case of ambiguities arising after the implementation of the policy, consistency in definitions will also lead to greater interpretive certainty. It must be noted that good quality public policies which promote legal certainty, lead to better implementation.

3.2.2. CIS observes that the draft policy re-defines various terms in Section 4 that have already been defined in National Data Sharing and Accessibility Policy (“NDSAP”) 2012 [2], the Right to Information 2005 (“RTI Act”) [3], and IT (Reasonable security practices and procedures and sensitive personal data or information) Rules 2011 [4]. We strongly recommend that the draft policy uses the pre-existing definitions in these acts, rules, and policies.

3.2.3. Further, CIS observes that while certain sections accurately reflect definitions and parts from other acts, rules and policies, such sections are not referenced back to the latter. These sections include, but are not limited to: Sections 3, 7, 8, 4 (definitions of Data set, Data Archive, Negative list, Sensitive Personal data). We strongly recommend that accurate legal references be added to the draft policy after careful study of the language used.

3.3. Need for More Focused Objective Statement

3.3.1. While the draft policy has a very comprehensive statement of its objectives, including "all issues related to data in terms of the available scope of sharing and accessing spatial and non-spatial data under broad frameworks of standards and interoperability," it may consider offering a more focused statement of its key objective, which is to provide a policy framework for proactive disclosure of government data by the various agencies of the Government of Telangana.

3.3.2. Further, the objective statement must clearly state that the policy enables publication of data created by the agencies of the Government of Telangana, and/or by private agencies working in partnership with public agencies, using public funds as open data (that is, using open standards, and under open license). The present version of the objective statement mentions "sharing" and "accessing" the data concerned under "broad frameworks of standards and interoperability" but does not make it clear if such shared data will be available in open standards, under open licenses, and for royalty-free adaptation and redistribution by the users concerned.

3.4. Suggestions related to the Definitions

3.4.1. The term “Data” has not been defined in accordance with NDSAP 2012. We suggest that the definition provided in NDSAP is followed so as to ensure legal compatibility.

3.4.2. The term “Sensitive Personal Data” seems to have been defined on the basis of the definition provided in the IT (Reasonable security practices and procedures and sensitive personal data or information) Rules 2011. Please add direct reference so as to make this clear. We further suggest that the term “Personal Information”, also defined in the same IT Rules, is also included and referred to in the draft policy, so that not only Sensitive Personal Data is barred from disclosure under this policy, but also Personal Information (that is "any information that relates to a natural person, which, either directly or indirectly, in combination with other information available or likely to be available with a body corporate, is capable of identifying such person") [5].

3.4.3. The term “Negative List” is defined in a manner that allows the state government ministries and agencies to identify which data are to be considered as non-shareable without any reference to an existing policy framework that list acceptable grounds for such identification. The term must be defined more restrictively, as this definition can allow an agency to avoid disclosure of data that may not be legally justifiable as non-shareable or sensitive. Thus, we recommend a more limited definition which may draw upon the RTI Act 2005, and specifically consider the factors mentioned in Sections 8 and 9 of the Act as the (only) set of acceptable reasons for non-disclosure of government data.

3.4.4. The terms “Shareable Data” and “Sensitive Data” are used in several places in the draft policy but are not defined in Section 4. Both these terms are defined in NDSAP 2012. We suggest that both these terms be listed in Section 4, in accordance with the respective definitions provided in NDSAP 2012.

3.4.5. The terms “Data Archive”, “Data Acquisition”, “Raw Data”, “Standards-Compliant Applications”, and “Unique Data” are defined in Section 4, but none of these terms appear elsewhere in the draft policy. We suggest that these terms are either better integrated into the document, or may not be defined at all.

3.5. Rename Section 6 to Focus on Implementation of the Policy

3.5.1. Though the Section 6 is named as “Shareable Data”, it instead categorically lists down how the policy is to be implemented. This is a very welcome step, but the Section title should reflect this purpose of the Section.

3.5.2. The decision proposed in the draft policy to make it mandatory for "each funding organization" to "highlight data sharing policy as preamble in its RFPs as well as Project proposal formats" is much appreciated and commendable. For a clearer and wider applicability of this measure, we recommend that this responsibility should apply to all state government agencies, including agencies where the state government enjoys significant stake, and all public-private partnerships entered into by the state government agencies, and not only to "funding organizations" (a term that has also not been defined in the draft policy).

3.5.3. While the Section details out various measures and steps of implementation of the policy, it does not clarify which agency and/or committee would have the authority and responsibility to coordinate, monitor, facilitate, and ensure these measures and steps. Not only governmental representatives but also non-governmental representatives may be considered for such a committee.

3.6. Host All Open Government Data in the State Portal

3.6.1. We observe that the Section 6 indicates that , the designated domain for the open government data portal for the state of Telangana, will only store metadata related to the proactive disclosed data sets but not the data sets themselves. This is further clarified in Section 10. We strongly urge the ITE&C Department to reconsider this decision to not to store the actual open data sets in the state open government data portal itself but in the departmental portals. A central archive of the open data assets, hosted by the state open government data portal, will allow for more effective and streamlined management of the open data assets concerned, including their systematic backing-up, better security and integrity, permanent and unique disclosure, and rule-driven updation. This would also reduce the burden upon all the government agencies, especially those that do not have a substantial IT team, to run independent department-specific open data portals.

3.7. Reconsider the Section on Data Classification

3.7.1. While it is clear that the Section 7 on Data Classification follows the classification of various data sets created, managed, and/or hosted by government agencies offered in the NDSAP 2012, it is not very clear what role this classification plays in functioning and implementation of the draft policy. While Open Access and Registered Access data may both be considered as open government data that is to be proactively disclosed by the state government agencies via the state open government data portal, the Restricted Access data overlaps with the kinds of data already included in the Negative List defined in the draft policy (and elsewhere, like the RTI Act 2005). Further, the final sentence in this Section ensures that all data users provide appropriate attribution of the source(s) of the data set concerned, which (though is an important statement) should not be part of this Section on Data Classification. We suggest reconsideration of inclusion of this Section.

3.8. Reconsider the Section on Technology for Sharing and Access

3.8.1. While it is clear that the Section 8 on Technology for Sharing and Access is adapted from the Section 9 of the NDSAP 2012, the text in this Section seems to be not fully compatible with other statements in this draft policy. For example, the Section states that "[t]his integrated repository will hold data of current and historical nature and this repository over a period of time will also encompass data generated by various State Government departments." However, the draft policy states in Section 10 that "data.telangana.gov.in will only have the metadata and data itself will be accessed from the portals of the departments."

3.8.2. We strongly urge the ITE&C Department to revise this Section through close discussion with the NDSAP Project Management Unit, National Informatics Centre, which is the technical team responsible for developing and managing the portal, since the present version of this Section lists the original feature set of the portal as envisioned in 2012 but does not reflect the most recent feature set that has been already implemented in the portal concerned.

3.9. Current Legal Framework (Section 9) should List to Relevant Acts, Rules, Policies, and Guidelines

3.9.1. CIS observes that the draft policy attempts to lay out the applicable legal framework in Section 2 and 9 of the draft policy, and submits that the legal framework is incomplete and recommends that the draft policy lists all the following relevant acts, rules, policies and guidelines:

National Data Sharing and Accessibility Policy, 2012
Right to Information Act, 2005
Information Technology Act, 2002
Information Technology (Reasonable security practices and procedures and sensitive personal data or information) Rules, 2011.

3.9.2. CIS submits that apart from the policies mentioned above, the implementation of the draft policy is intricately linked to concepts of "open standards," "open source software," "open API," and "right to information." These concepts are governed by specific acts and policies, and are applicable to government owned data, as follows:

Adoption of Open Standards: CIS observes that the draft policy draws on the importance of building information systems for interoperability and greater information accessibility. Interoperability is achieved by appropriate implementation of open standards. Thus, CIS submits that the Policy on Open Standards for e-Governance [6] which establishes the guidelines for usage of open standards to ensure seamless interoperability, and the Implementation Guidelines of the National Data Sharing and Accessibility Policy, 2012 [7] should be mentioned in the draft policy.
Adoption of Open Source Software: The Policy on Adoption of Open Source Software for Government of India states that the "Government of India shall endeavour to adopt Open Source Software in all e-Governance systems implemented by various Government organizations, as a preferred option in comparison to Closed Source Software [8]." As the draft policy proposed to guide the development of information systems to share open data is being developed and implemented both by the Government of Telangana and by other agencies (academic, commercial, and otherwise), it must include an explicit reference and embracing of this mandate for adoption of Open Source Software, for reasons of reducing expenses, avoiding vendor lock-ins, re-usability of software components, enabling public accountability, and greater security of software systems.
Implementation of Open APIs: CIS observes that the draft policy refers to Standard compliant applications in Section 4. CIS suggests that final version of the policy refer to and operationalise the Policy on Open Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) for Government of India [9]. This will ensure that the openly available data is available to the public, as well as to all the government agencies, in a structured digital format that is easy to consume and use on one hand, and is available for various forms of value addition and innovation on the other. Refer to Official Secrets Act, 1923: The Official Secrets Act penalises a person if he/she "obtains, collects, records or publishes or communicates to other person any secret official code or password, or any sketch, plan, model, article or note or other document or information which is calculated to be or might be or is intended to be, directly or indirectly, useful to an enemy for which relates to a matter the disclosure of which is likely to affect the sovereignty and integrity of India, the security of the State or friendly relations with foreign States [10]." CIS submits that this Act should be referred to in this context of ensuring non-publication of the aforementioned data.

3.10. Mandate a Participatory Process for Developing the Implementation Guidelines

3.10.1. We highly appreciate and welcome the fact that the draft policy emphasises rapid operationalisation of the policy by mandating that the ITE&C Department will prepare a detailed implementation guideline within 6 months of the notification of this policy, and all state government departments will publish at least 5 high value datasets within the next three months. Just as an addition to this mandate, we would like to propose that it can be suggested that the ITE&C Department undertakes a participatory process, with contributions from both government agencies and non-government actors, to develop this implementation guideline document. We believe that opening up government data in an effective and sustainable manner, for most government agencies, involves a systematic change in how the agency undertakes day-to-day data management practices. Hence, to develop productive and practical implementation guidelines, the ITE&C Department needs to gather insights from the other state government agencies regarding their existing data (and metadata) management practices [11]. Further, participation of the non-government actors in this process is crucial to ensure that the implementation guidelines appropriately identify the high value data sets, that is data sets that should be published on a priority basis.

3.11. Defer the Decision about Roles of Data Owners, Generators, and Controllers

3.11.1. As the draft policy does not specifically define the terms “Data Owners”, “Data Generators”, and “Data Controllers”, and the Section 11 only briefly describes some of the roles of these types of actors, we suggest removal of this discussion and the decision regarding the specific roles and functions of the Data Owners / Generators / Controllers from the draft policy itself. It will be perhaps more appropriate and effective to define these terms, as well as their roles and functions, in the implementation guidelines to be prepared by the ITE&C Department after the notification of the open data policy, since these terms relate directly to the final designing of the implementation process.

3.12. CIS is grateful to the ITE&C Department for this opportunity to provide comments, and would be honoured to provide further assistance on the matter.

Endnotes

[1] See: http://cis-india.org/.

[2] See: http://data.gov.in/sites/default/files/NDSAP.pdf.

[3] See: http://rti.gov.in/webactrti.htm.

[4] See: http://meity.gov.in/sites/upload_files/dit/files/GSR313E_10511(1).pdf.

[5] See Section 2 (1) (i) of IT (Reasonable security practices and procedures and sensitive personal data or information) Rules 2011.

[6] See: https://egovstandards.gov.in/sites/default/files/Published%20Documents/Policy_on_Open_Standards_for_e-Governance.pdf.

[7] See: https://data.gov.in/sites/default/files/NDSAP_Implementation_Guidelines_2.2.pdf.

[8] See: http://deity.gov.in/sites/upload_files/dit/files/policy_on_adoption_of_oss.pdf.

[9] See: http://deity.gov.in/sites/upload_files/dit/files/Open_APIs_19May2015.pdf.

[10] See: http://www.archive.india.gov.in/allimpfrms/allacts/3314.pdf, Sections 2 (2) and 3 (1) (c).

[11] A similar process was undertaken by the IT Department of the Government of Sikkim when developing the implementation guideline document. The ITE&C Department may consider discussing the matter with the said department to exchange relevant learnings.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/comments-on-the-telangana-state-open-data-policy-2016

CIS - Telangana State Open Data Policy v.1 - Submission

sumandro — 2016-09-01T05:45:54Z

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/files/cis-telangana-state-open-data-policy-v-1-submission

IIRC: Reflections on IRC16

sumandro — 2016-09-06T09:28:51Z

The first edition of the Internet Researchers' Conference (IRC) series was held on February 26-28, 2016. It was hosted by the Centre for Political Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University, and was supported by the CSCS Digitial Innovation Fund. Here we share our reflections on the Conference, albeit rather delayed, and lessons towards the next edition to be held in March 2017.

Note: IIRC stands for 'if I remember correctly' in ancient internet acronym culture. Thanks to Sebastian for the inspiration.

For several months, we have been trying to organise our thoughts, as well as post-conference documentation efforts, emerging from the Internet Researchers' Conference 2016. We have not been very successful in either till now. And like most unsuccessful ventures, it has been a robust learning experience. We are working on giving the IRC16 Reader a final shape, before it becomes more of an academic legend. We hope to launch the beta version of the Reader in mid-September. Here, let me quickly share my reflections on IRC16, at least what I remember of it.

A Game of Selections

The Conference departed from most other academic conferences in two obvious ways: 1) the sessions were not selected by a programme committee but through votes cast by all the teams that proposed a session, and 2) the Conference programme consisted of both panel discussions and workshop sessions, and there was no requirement for the panel discussions to be structured around papers (though some sessions did involve presentation of papers). At the feedback session of the Conference, and also in conversations afterwards, it was pointed out that this manner of session selection (not based on paper abstracts, and through voting by peers) is perhaps “too democratic / too wiki-like,” which undermines the ability to curate the Conference effectively. Several participants also presented the opposite viewpoint – that a more peer-driven selection of sessions better reflects the immediate interests and priorities of the community of internet researchers who are gathering at the Conference. As one participant articulated: “we must have faith in our ignorance.”

We at CIS are still confident about this mode of selection but at the same time we do recognise three key concerns in conducting the selection process:

Anonymity: The anonymous selection process breaks down since we expect the potential participants of the Conference to share early ideas about their potential sessions, and scout for potential session team members, through the mailing list (and elsewhere) before actually submitting the panel proposal. We still prefer that participants discuss the session before proposing it, so perhaps we will have to live with the incomplete anonymity when it comes to the session selection process. Perhaps we can make the votes non-anonymous too to keep parity – that is, all the proposed sessions would be published with the names of their proposers, and all the teams will publicly indicate which other sessions they are voting for.
Disciplinary capture: While peer-based voting works very well when it comes to reflecting the interests of the community, it might quite easily break down if there is a concentration of teams coming from a specific disciplinary background. How we approach research objects and questions, and hence how we appreciate how exciting a research object or question is, can be quite intimately shaped by our disciplinary locations. A dominance of a specific discipline among the peer-group (that is among all the teams that have proposed sessions) can potentially lead to a 'capture' of the Conference by research objects and questions of interest to specific disciplines. This is something we have to be more aware of when casting our votes.
Peer-review before peer-votes: The process followed last year only allowed a session team to vote on the sessions proposed by other teams, but not to review and comment on those proposals. This review process is not only useful to infuse the session proposals with ideas and concerns coming from other disciplinary and methodological locations, but also to support the teams to revisit their articulation and structuring of the session before their peers start to cast votes. This is something we must aspire to do during the selection process for IRC17.

A Clash of Disciplines

Continuing from the “disciplinary capture” point above, the presence of researchers and practitioners from various fields and disciplines was, according to me, the most exciting part of the IRC16, and also the part that led to significant frustration. I felt that we were able to gather people from various disciplinary backgrounds – academic and otherwise – but could not provide sufficient space or time for the inter-disciplinary conversations to a take more fuller form. We saw clear disagreements emerging between researchers coming from different disciplinary locations, though most of them did not have the opportunity to be developed into a detailed discussion.

This is quite a high ambition for a conference of this kind; that is given the conference was not focused narrowly on a set of topics. Nonetheless, this remains one of the key objectives of the IRC series, and we need to understand how better to create opportunities for participants to communicate their disciplinary concerns and create inter-disciplinary discussions.

One possible way to create context for more inter-disciplinary conversations is by requesting all the sessions’ teams to include members from different disciplines. Also, we can try to keep more open discussion space (but that means less selected sessions) to provide time for the discussions spilling over from the sessions. Thirdly, we can think of including “inter-disciplinary conversations” as one of the key themes for potential sessions of IRC17.

Further, though we experienced several clashes of disciplines, methods, and approaches, these were all limited to a completely anglophone intellectual environment. We failed substantially, as was pointed out by a participant at the feedback session, to create space at the Conference for Indic language practices and concerns – both for researchers and practitioners working in these languages, and the criticisms of anglophone academic framings and practices coming from such researchers and practitioners. This is something we must address proactively during the future editions of the Conference.

A Storm of Sessions

One of the often heard criticisms of the conference was regarding the decision to have parallel sessions. While the decision was taken purely to accommodate as many sessions as possible, this of course imposed an undesirable burden upon the participants to choose between two rather desirable sessions. We as organisers of IRC16 faced the same tough decision of choosing between sessions that should both be part of the Conference agenda, and conveniently decided to let the participants choose (instead of us choosing for them). It is quite likely that we would do this again, or at least would like to do this again – that is, we expect that for IRC17 too we would receive a lot of wonderful sessions and decide against a fully single-track conference.

The question of sessions, however, is not only one of tracks. It is also about formats. In the feedback session, there was a clear recognition of the value of “workshop” sessions – that is sessions that involved all the participants doing something – in a conference like this, which is explicitly interested in the conceptual and technical challenges of digital media research. There was also a demand that we have more workshop sessions in IRC17, as opposed to “discussion” sessions that involved paper presentations. While the original plan was that all the participants will primarily be learning or doing something at a workshop session, and will not be talking, as the discussion sessions were primarily meant for talking, the actual sessions in the Conference differed from each other essentially in terms of whether papers were presented or not.

Thus, it perhaps makes sense, for the IRC17 call for sessions, to not to separate out these session types in terms of workshop/discussion but in terms of paper-driven/non-paper-driven. Maybe this separation itself is avoidable and all that we need to say is that the Conference is fundamentally interested in sessions that drive conversations, both intra- and inter-disciplinary. While presentation of papers can surely drive conversations, they are not necessary at all.

A Feast for Researchers and Practitioners

A key objective, if not the key objective, of IRC16 was to build a temporary space for researchers and practitioners studying internet and society in India (though not necessarily from or located in India) to gather and share thoughts. While we felt that the conference has been quite effective in doing that, we have been rather clueless when it comes to sustaining the momentum of interactions that was achieved at the Conference, or documenting the various kinds and threads of conversations taking place there.

The first problem, we may say, is not something that CIS (as the organiser of the conference series) should be concerned with too much, since our aim and responsibility is to make possible this temporary space and not to host all conversations and collaborations coming out of it. In fact, we should not be interested in hosting and/or facilitating all such initiatives. The second problem, however, is a serious one for us. Since the Conference is not organised around pre-written papers, we will have to depend on the efforts by the participants either during, or after (or both) the Conference to produce an output that documents, narrates, and/or reflects on the conversations that took place. Such an approach, thus, is fundamentally based upon the trust that the participants will prepare and share these materials after the Conference. On a lighter note, we also hope that social embarrassment and pressure will also play a role here (but that only works when the majority of the participants are actually sharing).

There are two connected points here:

While the majority of the documentation happens either at the Conference or after that, what kind of pre-Conference efforts (by the participants) would be useful in ensuring productive sessions?
Who all contribute to this post-Conference Reader? Should it be restricted to teams/people whose sessions were selected, or all who proposed a session, and/or took part in the Conference?

A recommendation at the feedback session of IRC16 touched upon the first question, while the second question is derived from a critical question posed at the same session. The recommendation was that the teams whose sessions get selected for the Conference should share a more detailed session agenda note before the Conference to better inform the participants about the content and approach of the same. The critical question mentioned earlier was regarding the imagination of the community of researchers and practitioners being gathered at the Conference, and if it is only limited to the people whose sessions got selected. In our minds it is clear that everyone gathering at these conferences, and those who proposed sessions but could not attend, are all part of this imagined community, and thus should also contribute to the post-Conference Reader.

A Dance with Sustainability

IRC16 was supported very generously by the Centre for Political Studies at JNU (as part of an ongoing project titled UPE2 Project: Politics on Social Media), the CSCS Digital Innovation Fund, and CIS. The first provided us with the conference venue and accommodation, the second provided financial support towards food and travel expenses (and bit of accommodation too), and the third picked up all the remaining expenses and efforts. While we will keep doing what it takes to organise the next editions of IRC, we are dependent on academic and other institutes that are willing to host the event and accommodate the participants, and on various sources of funding that may be available to cover the miscellaneous expenses.

When we started planning for IRC16, we decided not to conceptualise this as part of an ongoing or future project – that is, the conference series should not itself become a deliverable under a project at CIS. While this gives us intellectual and functional independence, it entails serious financial limitations. We are of course open to the conference series becoming a site for developing or communicating a deliverable under an ongoing project at CIS or any other involved actor (especially the host and funding agencies) but such matters, we feel, are best discussed in a case-to-case basis. The bottom line remains that we need financial and human support to take this conference series forward. This is definitely something to be discussed further at IRC17.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/raw/iirc-reflections-on-irc16

NETmundial - Contributions by Countries of Origin

sumandro — 2014-04-25T09:55:43Z

This set of analysis of the contributions submitted to NETmundial 2014 is part of the effort by the Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore, India, to enable productive discussions of the critical internet governance issues at the meeting and elsewhere.

Created by Sumandro using Google Charts.
Google Terms of Use and Data Policy.
Download the data.

This treemap chart divides up contributions submitted to NETmundial 2014 into their countries of origin, which are also clustered into regional divisions. The size of the rectangles indicate the total number of submissions from the respective region/country.

Right click on the regions to see the division of submissions from the countries within that region. Left click to go back.

Certain submissions have been contributed by global organisations, such as Internet Society, ICANN and Commonwealth agencies. These submissions have been included in the 'Global' division in the above chart. Also, Russia has been included within Europe, and China has been included within East Asia.

The Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore, India, is a non-profit research organization that works on policy issues relating to freedom of expression, privacy, accessibility for persons with disabilities, access to knowledge and IPR reform, and openness, and engages in academic research on digital natives and digital humanities.

The visualisations are done by Sumandro Chattapadhyay, based on data compilation and analysis by Jyoti Pandey, and with data entry suport from Chandrasekhar.

All code, content and data is co-owned by the author(s) and Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore, India, and shared under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 India license.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/net-mundial-contributions-by-countries-of-origin

NETmundial - Which Governments Have Not Submitted Contributions to NETmundial?

sumandro — 2014-04-25T09:47:53Z

Created by Sumandro using Datamaps.

The map shows (in *green*) all the countries from where no government agency has submitted any contribution to NETmundial. Governments of the countries appearing in *white* have contributed to the NETmundial process.

Inter-governmental and international bodies that have submitted contributions to NETmundial -- such as OECD and UNESCO -- have not been considered while creating the above map.

To see the map of all the countries from where there have been no contributions (by any kinds of organisation) to NETmundial, click here.

The visualisations are done by Sumandro Chattapadhyay, based on data compilation and analysis by Jyoti Panday, and with data entry support from Chandrasekhar.

Built on Bootstrap by Sumandro.

All code, content and data is co-owned by the author(s) and Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore, India, and shared under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 India license.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/net-mundial-which-governments-have-not-contributed-to-net-mundial

NETmundial: Tracking Multistakeholder across Contributions

sumandro — 2014-04-25T09:53:37Z

Created by Sumandro using Google Charts.
Google Terms of Use and Data Policy.
Data compiled by Sumandro and Jyoti.
Download the data .

This scatter plot shows the number of times the word *multistakeholder* (including *multi-stakeholder* and *multistakeholderism*) appears across contributions submitted to NETmundial.

X axis (horizontal) gives the serial number of contributions and Y axis (vertical) gives the number of times the word appears on a contribution.

Click on the types of organisation below the chart to highlight the corresponding organisations on the chart.

The visualisations are done by Sumandro Chattapadhyay, based on data compilation and analysis by Jyoti Panday, and with data entry suport from Chandrasekhar.

Built on Bootstrap by Sumandro

All code, content and data is co-owned by the author(s) and Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore, India, and shared under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 India license.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/net-mundial-tracking-multi-stakeholder-across-contributions

Amber Sinha - The Fundamental Right to Privacy: Part I - Sources

sumandro — 2017-09-28T08:45:11Z

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/files/amber-sinha-the-fundamental-right-to-privacy-i-sources-pdf

Centre for Internet and Society

Announcing Silicon Plateau #01

Networked Expressions

Projects

Publications

Recent Posts

Posts

Featured

Humanitarian OSM: Mapping Nepal

UIDAI and Welfare Services: Exclusion and Countermeasures (Bangalore, August 27)

Invitation

Venue

Agenda

UIDAI and Welfare Services: Exclusion and Countermeasures

Nirmita Narasimhan - Resume

Submitted Comments on the Telangana State Open Data Policy 2016

1. Preliminary

2. The Centre for Internet and Society

3. Comments and Recommendations

3.1. Defining the Scope of the Policy in the Preamble

3.2. Provide Legal and Policy References

3.3. Need for More Focused Objective Statement

3.4. Suggestions related to the Definitions

3.5. Rename Section 6 to Focus on Implementation of the Policy

3.6. Host All Open Government Data in the State Portal

3.7. Reconsider the Section on Data Classification

3.8. Reconsider the Section on Technology for Sharing and Access

3.9. Current Legal Framework (Section 9) should List to Relevant Acts, Rules, Policies, and Guidelines

3.10. Mandate a Participatory Process for Developing the Implementation Guidelines

3.11. Defer the Decision about Roles of Data Owners, Generators, and Controllers

Endnotes

CIS - Telangana State Open Data Policy v.1 - Submission

IIRC: Reflections on IRC16

A Game of Selections

A Clash of Disciplines

A Storm of Sessions

A Feast for Researchers and Practitioners

A Dance with Sustainability

NETmundial - Contributions by Countries of Origin

NETmundial - Which Governments Have Not Submitted Contributions to NETmundial?

NETmundial: Tracking *Multistakeholder* across Contributions

Amber Sinha - The​ Fundamental​ Right​ to​ Privacy:​ Part​ I - Sources

NETmundial: Tracking Multistakeholder across Contributions

Amber Sinha - The Fundamental Right to Privacy: Part I - Sources