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IRC19 - Proposed Session - #DigitalPlatformAttributes
https://cis-india.org/raw/irc19-proposed-session-digitalplatformattributes
<b>Details of a session proposed by Nandakishore K N and Dr. V. Sridhar for the Internet Researchers' Conference 2019 - #List.</b>
<p> </p>
<h4>Internet Researchers' Conference 2019 - #List - <a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/irc19-list-call">Call for Sessions</a></h4>
<hr />
<h4>Session Plan</h4>
<p>Digital platforms have been in the news for quite a few years now in India. Some of the most prominent sectors which has seen platforms flourish are transportation, e-commerce, education and social media. But platforms are taking root in other sectors as well, with the potential to disrupt existing businesses.</p>
<p>The session proposes to examine the attributes of digital platforms, particularly with reference to the quality and regulatory aspects of platforms. Quality influences regulation and vice versa. Depending on the context and type of platform, both of these aspects need to be comprehensively listed and defined to enable platform stakeholders like platform and service providers, users, and regulatory authorities ensure proper and successful conduct of businesses so as to benefit all the stakeholders.</p>
<p>The session hence deals with the "list" as a taxonomy of attributes. The session is envisaged to consist of two parts. The first part will draw from previous research work by the team on quality attributes of digital platforms and will illustrate the methodological reasoning and some of the challenges faced in the endeavour. This part leans towards an academic contribution to the conference. The second part will focus on the platform attributes important from regulatory perspectives, and will seek to crystallise the emergent attributes in juxtaposition to the quality attributes identified already, with the ultimate goal of identifying a checklist of regulatory attributes for digital platforms which will be of interest to policy planners. The entire exercise is also a step towards establishing a comprehensive taxonomy of platform attributes as a superset of attributes from different perspectives.</p>
<h4>Session Team</h4>
<p><strong>Nandakishore K N</strong> is a Master of Science by Research student in the IT and Society domain at the International Institute of Information Technology Bangalore (IIIT-B). His recently completed thesis was on design of a Quality of Service framework for digital platforms. Nandakishore joined IIIT-B with an experience of 20+ years in the IT industry, the last decade of which was in project and quality management roles, and includes an 18-year stint with TCS.</p>
<p><strong>Dr. V. Sridhar</strong> is Professor at the Centre for IT and Public Policy at the International Institute of Information Technology Bangalore (IIIT-B). He is a prolific writer on matters related to telecom regulation and policy in India, with two books and contributions to peer-reviewed leading telecom and information systems journals and prominent business newspapers and magazines. He is a member of GoI committees on Telecom and IT. Dr. Sridhar has taught at many Institutions in the USA, Finland, New Zealand and India, and was the recipient of Nokia Visiting Fellowship. Prior to joining IIIT-B Dr. Sridhar was a Research Fellow at Sasken Communication Technologies. Dr. Sridhar has a Ph.D. from the University of Iowa, U.S.A., Masters in Industrial Engineering from NITIE, Mumbai, and B.E. from the University of Madras, India. His work can be accessed at: <a href="http://www.vsridhar.info">http://www.vsridhar.info</a></p>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/raw/irc19-proposed-session-digitalplatformattributes'>https://cis-india.org/raw/irc19-proposed-session-digitalplatformattributes</a>
</p>
No publishersumandroProposed SessionsInternet StudiesInternet Researcher's ConferenceIRC19Researchers at Work2018-11-26T13:15:04ZBlog EntryIRC19 - List of Proposed Sessions
https://cis-india.org/raw/irc19-proposed-sessions
<b>Here is the list of sessions proposed for the Internet Researchers' Conference 2019 - #List.</b>
<p> </p>
<h4>Internet Researchers' Conference 2019 - #List - <a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/irc19-list-call" target="_blank">Call for Sessions</a></h4>
<hr />
<h4><a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/irc19-proposed-session-ayushmanbhavah" target="_blank">#AyushmanBhavah</a> - Arya Lakshmi and Adrij Chakraborty</h4>
<h4><a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/irc19-proposed-session-butitisnotfunny" target="_blank">#ButItIsNotFunny</a> - Madhavi Shivaprasad and Sonali Sahoo</h4>
<h4><a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/irc19-proposed-session-callingoutandin" target="_blank">#CallingOutAndIn</a> - Usha Raman, Radhika Gajjala, Riddhima Sharma, Tarishi Varma, Pallavi Guha, Sai Amulya Komarraju, and Sugandha Sehgal</h4>
<h4><a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/irc19-proposed-session-digitalplatformattributes" target="_blank">#DigitalPlatformAttributes</a> - Nandakishore K N and Dr. V. Sridhar</h4>
<h4><a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/irc19-proposed-session-enlistingprivacy" target="_blank">#EnlistingPrivacy</a> - Pawan Singh and Pranjal Jain</h4>
<h4><a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/irc19-proposed-session-fomo" target="_blank">#FOMO</a> - Pritha Chakrabarti and Dr. Baidurya Chakrabarti</h4>
<h4><a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/irc19-proposed-session-legitlists" target="_blank">#LegitLists - Form follows function: List by design</a> - Akriti Rastogi, Ishani Dey, and Sagorika Singha</h4>
<h4><a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/irc19-proposed-session-listinterface" target="_blank">#ListInterface</a> - Bharath Sivakumar, Rakshita Siva, and Deepak Prince</h4>
<h4><a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/irc19-proposed-session-listsasdatabase" target="_blank">#ListsAsDatabase</a> - Ria De and Samata Biswas</h4>
<h4><a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/irc19-proposed-session-loshaandwhatfollowed" target="_blank">#LoSHAandWhatFollowed</a> - Anannya Chatterjee, Arunima Singh, Bhanu Priya Gupta, Renu Singh, and Rhea Bose</h4>
<h4><a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/irc19-proposed-session-powerlisting" target="_blank">#PowerListing</a> - Dr. Shubhda Arora, Dr. Smitana Saikia, Prof. Nidhi Kalra, and Prof. Ravikant Kisana</h4>
<h4><a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/irc19-proposed-session-socialmediationasgenderedjustice" target="_blank">#SocialMediationAsGenderedJustice</a> - Esther Anne Victoria Moraes and Manasa Priya Vasudevan</h4>
<h4><a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/irc19-proposed-session-storiesrecordslegendsrituals" target="_blank">#StoriesRecordsLegendsRituals</a> - Priyanka, Aditya, Bhanu Prakash GS, Aishwarya, and Dinesh</h4>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/raw/irc19-proposed-sessions'>https://cis-india.org/raw/irc19-proposed-sessions</a>
</p>
No publishersumandroProposed SessionsInternet StudiesInternet Researcher's ConferenceIRC19Researchers at Work2018-11-28T15:40:58ZBlog EntryIRC19 - Proposed Session - #StoriesRecordsLegendsRituals
https://cis-india.org/raw/irc19-proposed-session-storiesrecordslegendsrituals
<b>Details of a session proposed by Priyanka, Aditya, Bhanu Prakash GS, Aishwarya, and Dinesh for the Internet Researchers' Conference 2019 - #List.</b>
<p> </p>
<h4>Internet Researchers' Conference 2019 - #List - <a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/irc19-list-call">Call for Sessions</a></h4>
<hr />
<h4>Session Plan</h4>
<p>All our tangible history can be attributed to our records-making going back to when the records were literally set in stone, so to say, archived using human digits (digital heritage!). Oral traditions such as songs, stories and recitals, performative traditions, arts and other cultural expressions that reaffirm of our collective experiences remain intangible. Stories create Legends, Rituals physically embody the legends through performances, Records attempt to freeze time at a moment. Thereby characterizing culture and memories of a community. Our effort here is to visit and discuss who creates the records, discuss the affordance of lists as an information artefact for exchange, facilitating dialogue and collective meaning-making. We peek at the traditional community of Helavaru as map and genealogy tellers, their legends, rituals / performances and the cultural economy involved in making and circulating the archives of cultural memories in contrast with the technology driven formulation of lists that are founding the Internet culture. Allegorically, if the memory of stone as a medium of a message is still alive in us, how are people included and who all are excluded from our “memories”.</p>
<p>Our session would be a performative through experimental list artefacts that intend to make visible the interplay between the form of the information artefact and the content. How do we perceive information when the form of the list changes. The implicit structure of lists is suggestive of a certain order, priority and disconnected connections. We intend to play with those structures, breaking them and making new ones in the process. What do we call a list? and what does it do?</p>
<ul>
<li>Priyanka and Aditya will bring "poetic" list artefacts that juxtapose traditional aspects of list making and lists as a dynamic phenomenon on the internet (ex. #Metoo).<br /><br /></li>
<li>Bhanu will introduce the traditional storytelling community of Helavaru as list performers.<br /><br /></li>
<li>Aishwarya will bring in the current context of social auditing and the stories from the ground today, from a rural context.<br /><br /></li>
<li>Dinesh will illustrate 3 ways list are formulated today mathematically, socially and technologically.</li></ul>
<h4>Session Team</h4>
<p><strong>Priyanka</strong> is a new media artist-researcher, currently engaged with Microsoft as an interaction designer. While at Microsoft she solves design problems for the browser, her personal inquiries run deep into understanding people’s lives on the internet, nature of the digital-materiality and its affordances for expression and exchange in networked societies.</p>
<p><strong>Aditya</strong> is a designer and an entrepreneur always thinking of ways to display information beautifully. Lately he has been working on interfaces for lists to provide a clear stream of reason to anyone through simple model(s) of visualisation of information and, therefore attempt to make knowledge more accessible.</p>
<p>Priyanka and Aditya intends to play with the form of lists to investigate its effect on narrative construction. They will bring in “poetic-lists” - experimental list artefacts that probe into the implicit order and biases that lists bring to the act of meaning making, especially in the context of a collective audience.</p>
<p><strong>Bhanu Prakash GS</strong> - As Web application developer at Servelots(.com), he contributes to the open and free software, and has been working on developing tools for delivering visual stories from archives. He has worked with the NCBS@25 project titled “13 Ways” where stories from the history of National Centre for Biological Sciences, Democracy Archives for University of Gottingen, and also on methods to render the folk stories of Vijayadashami rituals into visual stories on the Web.</p>
<p>Bhanu introduces the ways the Helavaru community, in the pre-internet era, created, “circulated” and mutated Lists of names, facts and events forming the information networks of communities, castes, jaatis, clans, tribes. The Helavas are a nomadic community visible around Karnataka and Andhra who deck up their bullocks and carts, set out to the villages of their patrons to sing praises of great deeds of their forefathers and the genealogy of the families with great detail, and end their performance with a ritual Harike - a wish for the well being of their patrons. In return they are paid for their services with grains, clothes, goat, sheep, cow, bullocks and money as much as one can afford.</p>
<p>Their story is an indicator of the cultural economy, of interweaving a web of communities, their systems of socio-political-cultural organisation by developing competence in data indexing, backups and restores, dealing with identity and authentication, conflicts and negotiations and more from generation to generation. The Helavaru claim that each family recorded genealogy of at least 3 lakh families, and passing it on, and also losing in some cases is fascinating.</p>
<p><strong>Aishwarya</strong> is a Communication Strategist at the Society for Social Audit, Accountability and Transparency (SSAAT) - Andhra Pradesh, Department of Rural Development, Government of Telangana. SSAAT has been set-up with a vision to uphold the concept of eternal vigilance by the people, facilitated by social activists and Government acting in conjunction.</p>
<p>A social audit is a standardised way of facilitating people to critique the implementation of a welfare scheme, and demand accountability from the government. It is a powerful tool which enables people to come forward, demand information, question officials, and fight for their rightful deliverables of a government scheme. This mechanism ensures transparency in the way a government functions, and has helped recover a lot of money lost to corruption.</p>
<p>In India, a Supreme Court mandate made the social audits of MGNREGS compulsory in all states. However, Social Audit units have been successful in empowering the people only in a few states. While the SAU facilitates an audit, it is conducted by people from the families of the beneficiaries. One social audit is a 15-day process of record verifications, door-to-door verifications, awareness rallies, a Gram Sabha and a Public Hearing. While a social audit ensures accountability, it lacks the guarantee of enforcement. The different layers of bureaucracy often swallows the essence of public participation and grievance redressal does not have follow-ups.</p>
<p>All grievances are recorded in the form of paras in the social audit database. While our on-ground social auditors may be socially and politically aware enough to observe and call out patterns in caste and gender discrimination, the results remain, but in a list on the MIS.</p>
<p><strong>Dinesh</strong> is part of Janastu team - a non-profit group. The team is eager to help address Web content accessibility for the low-literate using social semantic web concepts and are also looking at 3D methods for spatial navigation, location interpretation and storytelling. Janastu engages with software commons by developing and supporting open source social platforms.</p>
<p>Dinesh, with a Computer Science background, will bring list comprehension to this platform using map/reduce, monads, and blockchain as the technical formalisms that make the Internet work and how people are made to toe these invisible lines. Then initiate discussions on Machine Learning within the history of page ranking and how the who, where, what of lists manifest. This will be contextualized with the traditional, the social and the new media social networks and processes that nurture community memory by tuning the semantic distance needed for privacy and by making room for forgetting in ways that communities heal from trauma.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/raw/irc19-proposed-session-storiesrecordslegendsrituals'>https://cis-india.org/raw/irc19-proposed-session-storiesrecordslegendsrituals</a>
</p>
No publishersumandroProposed SessionsInternet StudiesInternet Researcher's ConferenceIRC19Researchers at Work2018-11-28T15:55:24ZBlog EntryDigital Native: One Selfie Does a Tragedy Make
https://cis-india.org/raw/nishant-shah-indian-express-november-11-2018-digital-native-one-selfie-does-a-tragedy-make
<b>The great find of this century – life’s worth just a selfie. Channeling the inner narcissus is now human hamartia. </b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The article was published in <a class="external-link" href="https://indianexpress.com/article/express-sunday-eye/digital-native-one-selfie-does-a-tragedy-make-5438970/">Indian Express</a> on November 11, 2018.</p>
<hr style="text-align: justify; " />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Selfies are suddenly back in news. In a tragic accident in Amritsar, a collective of people stood on train tracks, surrounded by the festive fire and the ferocious fireworks of Dussehra, taking selfies, and so involved in this immersive environment of self-gratified feedback loops that they did not see or hear a fast train hurtling at them in the dark. In the aftermath, as video footage and people’s testimonies stitched the gruesome picture together, selfies have emerged as a part of the problem. Apparently, there is something that goes off in our brains, when we see ourselves, glittery, lit, filtered, and modified on the flickering light of our cellphones – in that brief long moment of us watching ourselves, everything else seems to disappear. All that is left is that hungry moment where we consume the self, and the world can literally collapse around us.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><aside class="o-story-content__related--large o-story-content__related"> Advertising </aside></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">These incidents of selfie-love leading to danger and death of the self has been globally reported, and reported often. Each time, over the grief and pain of the families and friend who lament these deaths which looked like just fun and games till they were not, we hear the warning signs that selfies can be dangerous for health. We don’t yet know enough about why we become completely oblivious to everything and everyone around us, in this minute of peak narcissism, when we see ourselves in an image of our own. However, one thing is certain, lately, every time we hear news of public accidents and private tragedies, selfies seem to be implicated.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">India leads the way in selfie-related deaths in the world, accounting for 60 per cent of all such deaths around the globe. Selfies are the reason behind fatal accidents on the road as people, whether driving, or walking, seem to lose all sense of self and crash to death. Selfies seem to be lurking in stories of people going on holidays and falling down cliffs, losing themselves in watery depths, or even being mauled by wild animals in their quest for snapping their own images. Selfies seem to be just around the corner in stories of household accidents, street-corner collisions, and even personal fights.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Selfies, like cigarettes, are soon going to come with statutory warnings and images of all the ridiculous ways in which people have harmed themselves in the pursuit of a selfie. I have spent the last two weeks, engaging with the good folks at the online group, Selfie Research Network, and one of the things that has stood out is that selfies are no longer just describing our reality, they are defining it. Selfies used to be a way of capturing some moments of our lives — they now seem to be the only way by which our life can be defined. Selfies are not about our relationship with ourselves — but about our relationship with the world out there, that is no longer accessible but mediated only through the algorithmic platforms of selfie-interaction.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Or to put it other way, we used to think that selfies are the occasional manifestations of our inner narcissus, surfacing in performative moments, to capture an exceptional state of affairs. From there, we have come to a straight-forward internet maxim “pic or it didn’t happen”. We have learned to externalise ourselves, and, in the process, created selfies that stand as a beacon of hope, joy, celebration, attention — superficial, flat, caricatures of life, and trapped in the minutes of their posting, hoping that life will be an endless loop of that endless happiness. Even as we post selfies, we are aware of the hollowness that surrounds them, and desperately hope that if we perform enough happiness, distributing our pearlies on display, maybe things will change. Selfies are now how we live.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">And this is not just a personal phenomenon any more. The erection of the <a href="https://indianexpress.com/article/india/what-is-statue-of-unity-5426543/">Statue of Unity</a>, on a river-island, overlooking an artificial lake, facing the Narmada Dam is a great example of the selfie times we live in. A look at the statue, in its gargantuan stature, smiling benignly for the whole world to look at, and we can now forget the reality that it hides in its concrete steadfastness. It stands on a site that witnessed enormous agitations over people’s rights to their lands. It stands in a state where 25 per cent of its population face hunger and malnutrition, according to International Food Policy Research Institute (Ifpri). It celebrates the man who organised peasants in Gujarat for non-violent civil disobedience, and was inaugurated by a leader whose party has preached and practised communal hatred and violence. It is a selfie of the country that hides the self, and the state of the state where people are struggling to eat, drink, and breathe.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/raw/nishant-shah-indian-express-november-11-2018-digital-native-one-selfie-does-a-tragedy-make'>https://cis-india.org/raw/nishant-shah-indian-express-november-11-2018-digital-native-one-selfie-does-a-tragedy-make</a>
</p>
No publishernishantResearchers at WorkDigital Natives2018-12-05T02:20:03ZBlog EntryInternet Researchers' Conference 2019 (IRC19): #List - Call for Papers
https://cis-india.org/raw/irc19-list-call-papers
<b>Who makes lists? How are lists made? Who can be on a list, and who is missing? What new subjectivities - indicative of different asymmetries of power/knowledge - do list-making, and being listed, engender? What makes lists legitimate information artifacts, and what makes their knowledge contentious? Much debate has emerged about specificities and implications of the list as an information artifact, especially in the case of #LoSHA and NRC - its role in creation and curation of information, in building solidarities and communities of practice, its dependencies on networked media infrastructures, its deployment by hegemonic entities and in turn for countering dominant discourses. For the fourth edition of the Internet Researchers’ Conference (IRC19), we invite papers that engage critically with the form, imagination, and politics of the *list*. </b>
<p> </p>
<h3><strong>Call for Papers</strong></h3>
<h4>For the fourth edition of the Internet Researchers’ Conference (IRC19), we invite papers that engage critically with the form, imagination, and politics of the *list* - to present or propose academic, applied, or creative works that explore its social, economic, cultural, material, political, affective, or aesthetic dimensions.</h4>
<p>Paper abstracts (of not more than 500 words) are to be submitted by <strong>Sunday, December 23</strong> via email sent to <strong>raw@cis-india.org</strong>.</p>
<p>Authors of selected paper abstracts will be informed by Monday, December 31, and will be expected to present the full paper (either in person, or remotely) at the IRC19 - #List, to be held in Hyderabad during Jan 31 - Feb 2, 2019.</p>
<p>Selected paper authors, who are unemployed or underemployed, will be offered support to cover travel expenses fully/partially.</p>
<p>The only eligibility criteria for submitting papers is that they must engage with the thematic of the conference - *list*.</p>
<h3><strong>IRC19: List</strong></h3>
<p>For the last several years, #MeToo and #LoSHA have set the course for rousing debates within feminist praxis and contemporary global politics. It also foregrounded the ubiquitous presence of the list in its various forms, not only on the internet but across diverse aspects of media culture. Much debate has emerged about specificities and implications of the list as an information artifact, especially in the case of #LoSHA and NRC - its role in creation and curation of information, in building solidarities and communities of practice, its dependencies on networked media infrastructures, its deployment by hegemonic entities and in turn for countering dominant discourses. Directed by the Supreme Court, the Government of India has initiated the National Register of Citizens process of creating an updated list of all Indian citizens in the state of Assam since 2015. This is a list that sets apart legal citizens from illegal immigrants, based on an extended and multi-phase process of announcement of draft lists and their revisions. NRC is producing a list with a specific question: who is a citizen and who is not? UIDAI has produced a list of unique identification number assigned to individuals: a list to connect/aggregate other lists, a meta-list.</p>
<p>From Mailing Lists to WhatsApp Broadcast Lists, lists have been the very basis of multi-casting capabilities of the early and the recent internets. The list - in terms of list of people receiving a message, list of machines connecting to a router or a tower, list of ‘friends’ and ‘followers’ ‘added’ to your social media persona - structures the open-ended multi-directional information flow possibilities of the internet. It simultaneously engenders networks of connected machines and bodies, topographies of media circulation, and social graphs of affective connections and consumptions. The epistemological, constitutive, and inscriptive functions of the list, as Liam Young documents, have been crucial to the creation of new infrastructures of knowledge, and to understand where the internet emerges as a challenge to these.</p>
<p>As a media format that is easy to create, circulate, and access (as seen in the number of rescue and relief lists that flood the web during national disasters) or one that is essential in classification and cross-referencing (such as public records and memory institutions), the list becomes an essential trope to understand new media forms today, as the skeletal frame on which much digital content and design is structured and consumed through.</p>
<ul>
<li>Who makes lists?</li>
<li>How are lists made?</li>
<li>Who can be on a list, and who is missing?</li>
<li>Who gets counted on lists, and who is counting?</li>
<li>What new subjectivities - indicative of different asymmetries of power/knowledge - do list-making, and being listed, engender?</li>
<li>What modalities of creation and circulation of lists affords its authority, its simultaneous revelations and obfuscations?</li>
<li>What makes lists legitimate information artifacts, and what makes their knowledge contentious?</li>
<li>What makes lists ephemeral, and what makes their content robust?</li>
<li>What makes lists hegemonic, and what makes them intersectional?</li>
<li>What makes lists ordered, and what makes them unordered?</li>
<li>What do listicles do to habits of reading and creation of knowledge?</li>
<li>What new modes of questioning and meaning-making have manifested today in various practices of list-making?</li>
<li>How and when do lists became digital, and whatever happened to lists on paper?</li>
<li>Are there cultural economies of lists, list-making, and getting listed?</li>
<li>Are lists content or carriage, are they medium or message?</li></ul>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/raw/irc19-list-call-papers'>https://cis-india.org/raw/irc19-list-call-papers</a>
</p>
No publishersneha-ppResearchers at WorkInternet StudiesInternet Researcher's ConferenceIRC192018-12-06T07:00:30ZBlog EntryNovember 2018 Newsletter
https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/november-2018-newsletter
<b>Our newsletter for the month of November.</b>
<h2 style="text-align: justify; ">Highlights</h2>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>CIS has <a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/about/statement-on-serious-allegations-on-social-media-24112018">published a statement</a> on its website in response to the serious allegations against CIS members and the CIS workplace on social media. CIS has taken note of the concern raised on a social platform, and its Internal Committee (IC), constituted as per the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013, has taken some critical steps. CIS has engaged <a class="external-link" href="https://www.poshatwork.com/">POSH at Work</a> to review the case and make recommendations to the Executive Director of CIS.</li>
<li>Anubha Sinha attended the 37th meeting of WIPO SCCR held in Geneva in the month of November 2018. During the week she made two statements on behalf of CIS and participated in a panel discussion and a closed door meeting to brief government delegates from the Asia pacific region on the WIPO limitations and exceptions agenda. CIS made statements on <a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/37th-sccr-cis-statement-on-the-agenda-on-limitations-and-exceptions">limitations and exceptions</a> and the <a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/cis-views-on-on-the-proposed-wipo-treaty-for-the-protection-of-broadcasting-organizations-at-side-event-organised-by-knowledge-ecology-international">proposed treaty for the protection of broadcasting organizations</a>. Transcript of her talk can be <a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/cis-views-on-on-the-proposed-wipo-treaty-for-the-protection-of-broadcasting-organizations-at-side-event-organised-by-knowledge-ecology-international">accessed here</a>.</li>
<li>A <a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/arindrajit-basu-and-elonnai-hickok-november-30-2018-cyberspace-and-external-affairs">memorandum outlining India's strategy to global cyber norms formulation processes</a> authored by Elonnai Hickok and Arindrajit Basu and edited by Aayush Rathi and Shruti Trikanad. The memorandum seeks to summarise the state of the global debate in cyberspace; outline how India can craft it’s global strategic vision and finally, provides a set of recommendations for the Ministry of External Affairs as they craft their cyber diplomacy strategy. </li>
<li>The institution of open standards is as a formidable regulatory regime governing the Internet while facilitating its growth as a network of networks. As a nation digitising rapidly and facing concerns in cybersecurity and Internet governance, there is a need for the Government of India to meaningfully participate at standards development organisations to represent the interests of the Indian populace and become a voice for the global South. Authors Aayush Rathi, Gurshabad Grover and Sunil Abraham <a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/regulating-the-internet-the-government-of-india-standards-development-at-the-ietf">examine this in a policy brief</a>.</li>
<li>The Convention on Cybercrime adopted in Budapest (“Convention”) is the first and one of the most important multilateral treaties addressing the issue of internet and computer crimes. Vipul Kharbanda has analyzed this in his research paper titled <a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/budapest-convention-and-the-information-technology-act">Budapest Convention and the Information Technology Act</a>.</li>
<li>Amber Sinha was one of the stakeholders who provided inputs to the Danish Expert Group on Data Ethics in June 2018 during their visit to New Delhi. The Expert Group has prepared and <a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/danish-expert-group-on-data-ethics">submitted its final report</a>. </li>
<li>For the fourth edition of the Internet Researchers’ Conference (IRC19), CIS invited sessions that engage critically with the form, imagination, and politics of the *list*. The list of proposed sessions are finalized and <a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/raw/irc19-proposed-sessions">posted on this page</a>.</li>
</ul>
<h2 style="text-align: justify; ">Articles</h2>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/hindu-businessline-arindrajit-basu-october-30-2018-lessons-from-us-response-to-cyber-attacks">Lessons from US response to cyber attacks</a> (Arindrajit Basu; edited by Elonnai Hickok; Hindu Businessline; October 30, 2018). <i>Mirrored on CIS website on November 1</i>.</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/raw/nishant-shah-indian-express-november-11-2018-digital-native-one-selfie-does-a-tragedy-make">Digital Native: One Selfie Does a Tragedy Make</a> (Nishant Shah; Indian Express; November 11, 2018).</li>
</ul>
<h2 style="text-align: justify; ">CIS in the Media</h2>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/deccan-chronicle-november-21-2018-open-street-maps-help-tackle-disaster-experts">Open Street Maps help tackle disasters: Experts</a> (Deccan Chronicle; November 21, 2018).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/livemint-november-22-2018-abhijit-ahaskar-are-connected-tech-toys-too-smart-for-their-own-good">Are connected tech toys too smart for their own good?</a> (Abhijit Ahaskar; Livemint; November 22, 2018).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/girls-schools-womens-pgs-the-shocking-results-when-you-google-bitches-near-me">Girls' schools, women's PGs: The shocking results when you Google 'bitches near me'</a> (News Minute; November 26, 2018).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/hindustan-times-november-28-2018-kul-bhushan-amazon-launches-machine-learning-based-platform-for-healthcare-space">Amazon launches Machine Learning-based platform for healthcare space</a> (Kul Bhushan; Hindustan Times; November 28, 2018).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/report-from-oppression-to-liberation-reclaiming-the-right-to-privacy">Report: From Oppression to Liberation: Reclaiming the Right to Privacy</a> (Privacy International; November 28, 2018).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/economic-times-nilesh-christopher-november-30-2018-are-chinese-video-apps-violating-the-indian-law">Are Chinese video apps violating the Indian law?</a> (Nilesh Christopher; Economic Times; November 30, 2018).</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>----------------------------------- </b><br /> <a href="http://cis-india.org/a2k">Access to Knowledge</a> <br /> <b> ----------------------------------- </b><br /> Our Access to Knowledge programme currently consists of two projects. The Pervasive Technologies project, conducted under a grant from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), aims to conduct research on the complex interplay between low-cost pervasive technologies and intellectual property, in order to encourage the proliferation and development of such technologies as a social good. The Wikipedia project, which is under a grant from the Wikimedia Foundation, is for the growth of Indic language communities and projects by designing community collaborations and partnerships that recruit and cultivate new editors and explore innovative approaches to building projects.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">►Copyright and Patent</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Blog Entries</b></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/37th-sccr-cis-statement-on-cis-statement-on-the-proposed-treaty-for-the-protection-of-broadcasting-organizations">37th SCCR: CIS Statement on the Proposed Treaty for the Protection of Broadcasting Organizations</a> (Anubha Sinha; November 29, 2018).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/37th-sccr-cis-statement-on-the-agenda-on-limitations-and-exceptions">37th SCCR: CIS Statement on the Agenda on Limitations and Exceptions</a> (Anubha Sinha; November 29, 2018).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/cis-views-on-on-the-proposed-wipo-treaty-for-the-protection-of-broadcasting-organizations-at-side-event-organised-by-knowledge-ecology-international">Views on on the proposed WIPO Treaty for the Protection of Broadcasting Organizations at side-event organised by Knowledge Ecology International</a> (Anubha Sinha; November 29, 2018).<br /> <br /> </li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">►Wikipedia</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">As part of the <a href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/access-to-knowledge-program-plan">project grant from the Wikimedia Foundation</a> we have reached out to more than 3500 people across India by organizing more than 100 outreach events and catalysed the release of encyclopaedic and other content under the Creative Commons (CC-BY-3.0) license in four Indian languages (21 books in Telugu, 13 in Odia, 4 volumes of encyclopaedia in Konkani and 6 volumes in Kannada, and 1 book on Odia language history in English).</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Blog Entry</b></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/aditya-365">Aditya 365</a> (Pavan Santhosh; November 7, 2018).</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">►Openness</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Our work in the Openness programme focuses on open data, especially open government data, open access, open education resources, open knowledge in Indic languages, open media, and open technologies and standards - hardware and software. We approach openness as a cross-cutting principle for knowledge production and distribution, and not as a thing-in-itself. <b><br /> Teaching</b></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/openness/news/lecture-on-open-access-and-open-content-licensing-at-icar-short-course">Lecture on Open Access and Open Content Licensing at ICAR</a> (short course) (ICAR-Indian Institute of Horticultural Research; Bangalore; November 13 - 22, 2018). Anubha Sinha delivered a lecture.</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>----------------------------------- </b><br /> <a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance">Internet Governance</a> <br /> <b> -----------------------------------</b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">As part of its research on privacy and free speech, CIS is engaged with two different projects. The first one (under a grant from Privacy International and IDRC) is on surveillance and freedom of expression (SAFEGUARDS). The second one (under a grant from MacArthur Foundation) is on restrictions that the Indian government has placed on freedom of expression online.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">►Cyber Security</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Research Papers<br /> </b></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/budapest-convention-and-the-information-technology-act">Budapest Convention and the Information Technology Act</a> (Vipul Kharbanda; November 20, 2018).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/arindrajit-basu-and-elonnai-hickok-november-30-2018-cyberspace-and-external-affairs">Cyberspace and External Affairs:A Memorandum for India Summary </a>(Arindrajit Basu and Elonnai Hickok; edited by Aayush Rathi and Shruti Trikanad; November 30, 2018).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/regulating-the-internet-the-government-of-india-standards-development-at-the-ietf">Regulating the Internet: The Government of India & Standards Development at the IETF</a> (Aayush Rathi, Gurshabad Grover and Sunil Abraham; November 30, 2018).</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Event Co-organized</b></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/events/workshop-on-cybersecurity-illustrations">Workshop on Cybersecurity Illustrations</a> (CIS, Bangalore; November 15, 2018).</li>
</ul>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<br />
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Participation in Events</b></p>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/connections-2018">Connections 2018</a> (Organized by Internet Engineering Task Force; Bangalore; October 31 - November 1, 2018). Gurshabad Grover attended the event.</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/ietf-103">IETF103</a> (Organized by Internet Engineering Task Force; Bangkok; November 3 - 9, 2018). Gurshabad Grover attended the event.</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><br />►Free Speech and Expression</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Research Paper<br /> </b></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/icann-work-stream-2-recommendations-on-accountability">ICANN Workstream 2 Recommendations on Accountability</a> (Akriti Bopanna; November 23, 2018).</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Blog Entry</b></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/didp-31-on-icanns-fellowship-program">DIDP #32 On ICANN's Fellowship Program</a> (Akriti Bopanna; November 12, 2018).</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Participation in Event</b></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/internet-freedom-at-crossroads-common-paths-towards-strengthening-human-rights-online">Internet Freedom at Crossroads - Common Paths towards Strengthening Human Rights Online</a> (Organized by Freedom Online; Berlin; November 28 - 30, 2018). Elonnai Hickok was a speaker.</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">►Privacy</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Blog Entry<br /> </b></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/clarification-on-the-information-security-practices-of-aadhaar-report">Clarification on the Information Security Practices of Aadhaar Report</a> (Amber Sinha and Srinivas Kodali; November 5, 2018).</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Participation in Events</b></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/building-a-community-of-practice-reflections-from-2nd-all-partners">Building a Community of Practice: Reflections from 2nd All Partners</a> (Organized by Partnership on AI; San Francisco, California; November 14 - 15, 2018). Elonnai Hickok spoke on the panel on the PAI working groups and co-lead the AI Labor and Economy working group meeting as co-chair of the group.</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/briefing-on-bbc-news-pan-india-research-on-how-fake-news-digital-misinformation-spreads">Briefing on BBC News pan-India research on how 'fake news' / digital misinformation spreads</a> (Organized by BBC; New Delhi; November 16, 2018).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/dsci-bangalore-chapter-meet">DSCI Bangalore Chapter meet</a> (Organized by Data Security Council of India; 10K NASSCOM Startup Warehouse; Bangalore; November 22, 2018). Gurshabad Grover and Karan Saini attended the DSCI Bangalore Chapter meet.</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/informational-privacy-in-india-an-emerging-discourse">Informational Privacy in India: An Emerging Discourse</a> (Organized by Centre for Policy Research and supported by Omidyar Network; New Delhi; November 29, 2018). Amber Sinha was a speaker on the first panel on privacy and its tradeoffs.</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/facebook-privacy-design-sprint">Facebook Privacy Design Sprint</a> (Organized by Facebook and Quicksand; WeWork, Bangalore; November 30, 2018). Pranav Bidare and Saumyaa Naidu participated in the event.</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">►Miscellaneous <b></b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Event Co-organized</b></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/events/sotm-asia-2018"><span class="external-link">SOTM Asia 2018</span></a> (Co-organized by CIS and Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore; November 17-18, 2018). Saumyaa Naidu, Aayush Rathi and Ambika Tandon participated in the event.</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Participation in Events</b></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/speculative-futures-lab-on-artificial-intelligence-in-media-entertainment-and-gaming">Speculative Futures Lab on Artificial Intelligence in Media, Entertainment, and Gaming</a> (Organized by Quicksand; Bangalore; November 16 - 18, 2018). Pranav Bidare was a panelist.</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/future-tech-and-future-law">Future Tech and Future Law</a> (Organized by Dept. of IT & BT, Government of Karnataka as part of Bengaluru Tech Summit; November 29 - December 1, 2018). Aayush Rathi was a speaker.</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">►Gender <b></b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Statement</b></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/about/statement-on-serious-allegations-on-social-media-24112018">Statement on Serious Allegations against CIS Members and the CIS Workplace on Social Media</a> (Sunil Abraham; November 24, 2018).</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Participation in Events</b></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/roundtable-on-intermediary-liability-and-gender-based-violence-at-the-digital-citizen-summit-2018">Roundtable on Intermediary Liability and Gender Based Violence at the Digital Citizen Summit, 2018</a> (Organized by Digital Empowerment Foundation; India International Centre, New Delhi; November 1, 2018).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/international-network-on-feminist-approaches-to-bioethics-2018">International Network on Feminist Approaches to Bioethics 2018</a> (Co-organized by Feminist Approaches to Bioethics and Sama - A Resource Centre for Women and Health; St. John's Medical College; Bangalore; December 3 - 5, 2018). Aayush Rathi and Ambika Tandon participated in the event as speakers. Aayush presented a paper 'Sexual Surveillance and Data Regimes: Development in the Data Economy' co-authored by himself and Ambika.</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">----------------------------------- <br /> <a href="http://cis-india.org/telecom">Telecom</a> <br /> ----------------------------------- <b><b><br /> </b></b>CIS is involved in promoting access and accessibility to telecommunications services and resources, and has provided inputs to ongoing policy discussions and consultation papers published by TRAI. It has prepared reports on unlicensed spectrum and accessibility of mobile phones for persons with disabilities and also works with the USOF to include funding projects for persons with disabilities in its mandate:</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Article</b></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/business-standard-november-1-2018-shyam-ponappa-a-great-start-on-wifi-reforms">A great start on Wi-Fi reform</a>s (Shyam Ponappa; Business Standard; November 1, 2018 and Organizing India Blogspot; November 1, 2018).</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>-----------------------------------</b><br /> <a href="http://cis-india.org/raw">Researchers at Work</a> <br /> <b> ----------------------------------- </b><br /> The Researchers at Work (RAW) programme is an interdisciplinary research initiative driven by an emerging need to understand the reconfigurations of social practices and structures through the Internet and digital media technologies, and vice versa. It aims to produce local and contextual accounts of interactions, negotiations, and resolutions between the Internet, and socio-material and geo-political processes:</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>IRC19</b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">List of proposed sessions:<br /> <b> </b></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/irc19-proposed-session-ayushmanbhavah" target="_blank">#AyushmanBhavah</a> - Arya Lakshmi and Adrij Chakraborty</li>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/irc19-proposed-session-butitisnotfunny" target="_blank">#ButItIsNotFunny</a> - Madhavi Shivaprasad and Sonali Sahoo</li>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/irc19-proposed-session-callingoutandin" target="_blank">#CallingOutAndIn</a> - Usha Raman, Radhika Gajjala, Riddhima Sharma, Tarishi Varma, Pallavi Guha, Sai Amulya Komarraju, and Sugandha Sehgal</li>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/irc19-proposed-session-digitalplatformattributes" target="_blank">#DigitalPlatformAttributes</a> - Nandakishore K N and Dr. V. Sridhar</li>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/irc19-proposed-session-enlistingprivacy" target="_blank">#EnlistingPrivacy</a> - Pawan Singh and Pranjal Jain</li>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/irc19-proposed-session-fomo" target="_blank">#FOMO</a> - Pritha Chakrabarti and Dr. Baidurya Chakrabarti</li>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/irc19-proposed-session-legitlists" target="_blank">#LegitLists - Form follows function: List by design</a> - Akriti Rastogi, Ishani Dey, and Sagorika Singha</li>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/irc19-proposed-session-listinterface" target="_blank">#ListInterface</a> - Bharath Sivakumar, Rakshita Siva, and Deepak Prince</li>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/irc19-proposed-session-listsasdatabase" target="_blank">#ListsAsDatabase</a> - Ria De and Samata Biswas</li>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/irc19-proposed-session-loshaandwhatfollowed" target="_blank">#LoSHAandWhatFollowed</a> - Anannya Chatterjee, Arunima Singh, Bhanu Priya Gupta, Renu Singh, and Rhea Bose</li>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/irc19-proposed-session-powerlisting" target="_blank">#PowerListing</a> - Dr. Shubhda Arora, Dr. Smitana Saikia, Prof. Nidhi Kalra, and Prof. Ravikant Kisana</li>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/irc19-proposed-session-socialmediationasgenderedjustice" target="_blank">#SocialMediationAsGenderedJustice</a> - Esther Anne Victoria Moraes and Manasa Priya Vasudevan</li>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/irc19-proposed-session-storiesrecordslegendsrituals" target="_blank">#StoriesRecordsLegendsRituals</a> - Priyanka, Aditya, Bhanu Prakash GS, Aishwarya, and Dinesh</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>----------------------------------- </b><br /> <a href="http://cis-india.org/">About CIS</a> <br /> <b> ----------------------------------- </b><br /> 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 disabilities, 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 reconfigurations of social and cultural processes and structures as mediated through the internet and digital media technologies.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">► Follow us elsewhere</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li> Twitter:<a href="http://twitter.com/cis_india"> http://twitter.com/cis_india</a> </li>
<li> Twitter - Access to Knowledge: <a href="https://twitter.com/CISA2K">https://twitter.com/CISA2K</a> </li>
<li> Twitter - Information Policy: <a href="https://twitter.com/CIS_InfoPolicy">https://twitter.com/CIS_InfoPolicy</a></li>
<li> Facebook - Access to Knowledge:<a href="https://www.facebook.com/cisa2k"> https://www.facebook.com/cisa2k</a> </li>
<li> E-Mail - Access to Knowledge: a2k@cis-india.org </li>
<li> E-Mail - Researchers at Work: raw@cis-india.org </li>
<li> List - Researchers at Work: <a href="https://lists.ghserv.net/mailman/listinfo/researchers">https://lists.ghserv.net/mailman/listinfo/researchers</a></li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">► Support Us</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Please help us defend consumer and citizen rights on the Internet! Write a cheque in favour of 'The Centre for Internet and Society' and mail it to us at No. 194, 2nd 'C' Cross, Domlur, 2nd Stage, Bengaluru - 5600 71.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">► Request for Collaboration</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">We invite researchers, practitioners, artists, and theoreticians, both organisationally and as individuals, to engage with us on topics related internet and society, and improve our collective understanding of this field. To discuss such possibilities, please write to Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, at <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:sunil@cis-india.org">sunil@cis-india.org</a> (for policy research), or Sumandro Chattapadhyay, Research Director, at <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:sumandro@cis-india.org">sumandro@cis-india.org</a> (for academic research), with an indication of the form and the content of the collaboration you might be interested in. To discuss collaborations on Indic language Wikipedia projects, write to Tanveer Hasan, Programme Officer, at tanveer@cis-india.org.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><i>CIS is grateful to its primary donor the Kusuma Trust founded by Anurag Dikshit and Soma Pujari, philanthropists of Indian origin for its core funding and support for most of its projects. CIS is also grateful to its other donors, Wikimedia Foundation, Ford Foundation, Privacy International, UK, Hans Foundation, MacArthur Foundation, and IDRC for funding its various projects</i>.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/november-2018-newsletter'>https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/november-2018-newsletter</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaTelecomResearchers at WorkInternet GovernanceAccess to Knowledge2018-12-19T02:41:01ZPageSilicon Plateau: Volume Two
https://cis-india.org/raw/silicon-plateau-volume-two
<b>Silicon Plateau is an art project and publishing series that explores the intersection of technology, culture and society in the Indian city of Bangalore. Each volume of the series is a themed repository for research, artworks, essays and interviews that observe the ways technology permeates the urban environment and the lives of its inhabitants. This project is an attempt at creating collaborative research into art and technology, beginning by inviting an interdisciplinary group of contributors (from artists, designers and writers, to researchers, anthropologists and entrepreneurs) to participate in the making of each volume.</b>
<p> </p>
<h4>Download the book: <a href="https://files.cargocollective.com/c221119/SiliconPlateau_VolumeTwo.epub">Epub</a> and <a href="https://files.cargocollective.com/c221119/SiliconPlateau_VolumeTwo.pdf">PDF</a></h4>
<hr />
<p><em>Silicon Plateau Volume 2</em> explores the ecosystem of mobile apps and their on-demand services. The book investigates how apps and their infrastructure are impacting our relationship with the urban environment; the way we relate and communicate with each other; and the way labour is changing. It also explores our trust in these technologies, and their supposed capacity to organise things for us and make them straightforward—while, in exchange, we relentlessly feed global corporations with our GPS data and online behaviours.</p>
<p>The sixteen book contributors responded to a main question: what does it mean to be an app user today—as a worker, a client, or simply an observer?</p>
<p>The result is a collection of stories about contemporary life in Bangalore; of conversations and deliberations on how we behave, what we sense, and what we might think about when we use the services that are offered to us on demand, through just a tap on our mobile screens.</p>
<p>Website: <a href="https://siliconplateau.info/" target="_blank">siliconplateau.info</a></p>
<h4>Contributors</h4>
<p>Sunil Abraham and Aasavri Rai, Yogesh Barve, Deepa Bhasthi, Carla Duffett, Furqan Jawed, Vir Kashyap, Saudha Kasim, Qusai Kathawala, Clay Kelton, Tara Kelton, Mathangi Krishnamurthy, Sruthi Krishnan, Vandana Menon, Lucy Pawlak, Nicole Rigillo, Yashas Shetty, Mariam Suhail</p>
<h4>Editors</h4>
<p>Marialaura Ghidini and Tara Kelton</p>
<h4>Publisher</h4>
<p>Institute of Network Cultures, Amsterdam, in collaboration with the Centre for Internet and Society, India, 2018. ISBN: 978-94-92302-29-8</p>
<h4>Book and Cover Design</h4>
<p>Furqan Jawed and Tara Kelton</p>
<h4>Copyediting</h4>
<p>Aditya Pandya</p>
<h4>Supported by</h4>
<p>Jitu Pasricha, Bangalore; Aarti Sonawala, Singapore; and the Centre for Internet and Society, India.</p>
<hr />
<p>Cross-posted from <a href="https://networkcultures.org/blog/publication/silicon-plateau-volume-two/" target="_blank">Institute of Network Cultures</a>.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/raw/silicon-plateau-volume-two'>https://cis-india.org/raw/silicon-plateau-volume-two</a>
</p>
No publishersneha-ppSilicon PlateauRAW PublicationsWeb CulturesFeaturedPublicationsResearchers at Work2019-03-13T01:01:27ZBlog EntryWelcome to r@w blog!
https://cis-india.org/raw/welcome-to-raw-blog
<b>We from the researchers@work programme at the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) are delighted to announce the launch of our new blog, hosted on Medium. It will feature works by researchers and practitioners working in India and elsewhere at the intersections of internet, digital media, and society; and highlights and materials from ongoing research and events at the researchers@work programme.</b>
<p> </p>
<h4>r@w blog: <a href="https://medium.com/rawblog" target="_blank">Visit</a> (Medium)</h4>
<hr />
<h3>A space for reflections on internet and society, r@w blog is also an attempt to facilitate conversations around contemporary debates and foster creative engagement with research and practice through text, images, sounds, videos, code, and other media forms offered by the internet.<br /><br /></h3>
<h3>r@w blog opens with an essay on ‘<a href="https://medium.com/rawblog/information-offline-labour-surveillance-and-activism-in-the-indian-it-ites-industry-903c71567d1a" target="_blank">Information Offline: Labour, Surveillance, and Activism in the Indian IT & ITES Industry</a>’ by Rianka Roy - as part of an <a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/call-for-essays-offline" target="_blank">essay series</a> exploring social, economic, cultural, political, infrastructural, and aesthetic dimensions of the "offline" - and audio recording from a session titled <a href="https://medium.com/rawblog/iloveyou-167665a5145a" target="_blank">#ILoveYou</a> by Dhiren Borisa and Dhrubo Jyoti, which was part of the <a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/irc18" target="_blank">Internet Researchers’ Conference 2018 - #Offline</a>.<br /><br /></h3>
<h3>We will publish our (including commissioned/supported) writings and works on this blog, as well as submitted and compiled materials. Please write to raw[at]cis-india[dot]org to submit your works to be considered for publication. Copyright to all material published on this blog are owned by CIS and author(s) concerned, and they are shared under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.</h3>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/raw/welcome-to-raw-blog'>https://cis-india.org/raw/welcome-to-raw-blog</a>
</p>
No publishersneha-ppHomepageRAW BlogResearchers at WorkFeaturedInternet Studies2019-01-02T11:48:04ZBlog EntryRAW Lectures #01: Nishant Shah on 'Stories and Histories of Internet in India' - Video
https://cis-india.org/raw/raw-lectures-01-nishant-shah-video
<b>Dr. Nishant Shah spoke on the 'Stories and Histories of Internet in India' at the first event of the RAW Lectures series in Bangalore on March 6, 2015. Here is the video recording of the talk and the discussion that followed. </b>
<p> </p>
<iframe src="https://archive.org/embed/CISRAWLectureSeriesIDr.NishantShah" frameborder="0" height="480" width="640"></iframe>
<p> </p>
<h2>RAW Lectures</h2>
<p>The Researchers at Work programme initiated the RAW Lectures series to take stock, reflect, and chart courses into the studies of Internet in/from India. The lectures address the experiences and practices of Internet in India as plural and intertwined with longer-duration processes. The lectures also critically respond to the questions around the methods of studying Internet in/from India, and the opportunities and challenges of studying Indian society on/through the Internet.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Lecture #01 - Stories and Histories of Internet in India</h2>
<p><a href="http://cdc.leuphana.com/people/#nishant-shah" target="_blank"><strong>Dr. Nishant Shah</strong></a> is the Professor of Culture and Aesthetics of New Media at the Leuphana University Lüneburg, Research Associate at COMMON MEDIA LAB, Affiliate at DIGITAL CULTURES RESEARCH LAB, and International Tandempartner at HYBRID PUBLISHING LAB. He is the co-founder and former-Director-Research at the Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore, India.</p>
<p><strong>More:</strong> <a href="http://cis-india.org/raw/raw-lectures-01-nishant-shah" target="_blank">http://cis-india.org/raw/raw-lectures-01-nishant-shah</a>.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Download</h2>
<p><strong>Video files:</strong> <a href="https://archive.org/download/CISRAWLectureSeriesIDr.NishantShah/CIS%20RAW%20Lecture%20Series%20-%20I%20(Dr.%20Nishant%20Shah).mp4" target="_blank">MP4</a>, <a href="https://archive.org/download/CISRAWLectureSeriesIDr.NishantShah/CIS%20RAW%20Lecture%20Series%20-%20I%20(Dr.%20Nishant%20Shah).ogv" target="_blank">OGG</a>, and <a href="https://archive.org/download/CISRAWLectureSeriesIDr.NishantShah/CISRAWLectureSeriesIDr.NishantShah_archive.torrent" target="_blank">Torrent</a>.</p>
<p>The video is shared under Creative Commons <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" target="_blank">Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International</a> license.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/raw/raw-lectures-01-nishant-shah-video'>https://cis-india.org/raw/raw-lectures-01-nishant-shah-video</a>
</p>
No publishersneha-ppResearchers at WorkInternet HistoriesLearningRAW Lectures2016-02-09T08:45:00ZBlog EntryInternet Researchers' Conference 2016 (IRC16) - Selected Sessions
https://cis-india.org/raw/irc16-selected-sessions
<b>We are proud to announce that the first Internet Researchers' Conference (IRC16), organised around the theme of 'studying internet in India,' will be held on February 26-28, 2016, at the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), Delhi. We are deeply grateful to the Centre for Political Studies (CPS) at JNU for hosting the Conference, and to the CSCS Digital Innovation Fund (CDIF) for generously supporting it. Here are the details about the session selection process, the selected sessions, the Conference programme (draft), the pre-Conference discussions, accommodation, and travel grants. The Conference will include a book sprint to produce an open handbook on 'methods and tools for internet research.'</b>
<p> </p>
<h2>Session Selection Process</h2>
<p>We received 23 superb session proposals for the IRC16. All the teams that submitted sessions were invited to vote for their eight favourite session in a double-blind manner - the teams did not know the names of the people who proposed other sessions, and we at CIS did not know which team has voted for which particular set of sessions. After receiving all the votes, we could not help but change the format of the Conference (as planned earlier) to accommodate 15 sessions in total. All Discussion and Workshop sessions of the Conference are double track, except for the three Discussion sessions that received most number of votes.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Selected Sessions</h2>
<ol>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/raw/irc16-proposed-digitaldesires"><strong>#DigitalDesires</strong></a>: Received 8.15% votes. Proposed by Silpa Mukherjee, Ankita Deb, and Rahul Kumar.</li>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/raw/irc16-proposed-followthemedium"><strong>#FollowTheMedium</strong></a>: Received 7.60% votes. Proposed by Zeenab Aneez and Neha Mujumdar.</li>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/raw/irc16-proposed-stsdebates"><strong>#STSDebates</strong></a>: Received 7.60% votes. Proposed by Sumandro Chattapadhyay and Jahnavi Phalkey.</li>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/raw/irc16-proposed-digitalliteraciesatthemargins"><strong>#DigitalLiteraciesAtTheMargins</strong></a>: Received 7.06% votes. Proposed by Aakash Solanki, Sandeep Mertia, and Rashmi M.</li>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/raw/irc16-proposed-internetmovements"><strong>#InternetMovements</strong></a>: Received 7.06% votes. Proposed by Becca Savory, Sarah McKeever, and Shaunak Sen.</li>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/raw/irc16-proposed-futurebazaars"><strong>#FutureBazaars</strong></a>: Received 5.97% votes. Proposed by Maitrayee Deka, Adam Arvidsson, Rohini Lakshané, and Ravi Sundaram.</li>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/raw/irc16-proposed-minimalcomputing"><strong>#MinimalComputing</strong></a>: Received 5.97% votes. Proposed by Padmini Ray Murray and Sebastian Lütgert.</li>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/raw/irc16-proposed-webofgenealogies"><strong>#WebOfGenealogies</strong></a>: Received 5.97% votes. Proposed by Ishita Tiwary, Sandeep Mertia, and Siddharth Narrain.</li>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/raw/irc16-proposed-wikishadows"><strong>#WikiShadows</strong></a>: Received 5.97% votes. Proposed by Tanveer Hasan and Rahmanuddin Shaik.</li>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/raw/irc16-proposed-literaryspaces"><strong>#LiterarySpaces</strong></a>: Received 5.43% votes. Proposed by P.P. Sneha and Arup Chatterjee.</li>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/raw/irc16-proposed-archiveanarchy"><strong>#ArchiveAnarchy</strong></a>: Received 4.34% votes. Proposed by Ranjani M Prasad and Farah Yameen.</li>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/raw/irc16-proposed-afcinema2.0"><strong>#AFCinema2.0</strong></a>: Received 3.80% votes. Proposed by Akriti Rastogi and Ishani Dey.</li>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/raw/irc16-proposed-manypublicsofinternet"><strong>#ManyPublicsOfInternet</strong></a>: Received 3.80% votes. Proposed by Sailen Routray and Khetrimayum Monish.</li>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/raw/irc16-proposed-politicsonsocialmedia"><strong>#PoliticsOnSocialMedia</strong></a>: Received 3.80% votes. Proposed by Rinku Lamba and Rajarshi Dasgupta.</li>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/raw/irc16-proposed-spottingdata"><strong>#SpottingData</strong></a>: Received 3.80% votes. Proposed by Dibyajyoti Ghosh and Purbasha Auddy.</li></ol>
<p> </p>
<h2>Dates and Venue</h2>
<p>The IRC16 will take place during <strong>February 26-28, 2016</strong>, at the <a href="http://jnu.ac.in/"><strong>Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU)</strong></a>, Delhi. We are delighted to announce that the Conference will be hosted by the <a href="http://www.jnu.ac.in/SSS/CPS/"><strong>Centre for Political Studies (CPS)</strong></a> at JNU, and will be generously supported by the <a href="http://cis-india.org/raw/cscs-digital-innovation-fund"><strong>CSCS Digital Innovation Fund (CDIF)</strong></a>.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Conference Programme</h2>
<p>Access the draft programme (v.2.1): <a href="https://github.com/cis-india/IRC16/raw/master/IRC16_Programme-v.2.1.pdf">Download</a> (PDF).</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Pre-Conference Conversations</h2>
<p>Please join the researchers@cis-india mailing list to take part in the pre-conference conversations: <a href="https://lists.ghserv.net/mailman/listinfo/researchers">https://lists.ghserv.net/mailman/listinfo/researchers</a>.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Accommodation</h2>
<p>CPS and CIS will provide accommodation to all non-Delhi-based team members of the selected sessions, during the days of the Conference.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Travel Grants</h2>
<p>We will offer 10 travel grants, up to Rs. 10,000 each, for within-India travel. The following non-Delhi-based team members of the selected sessions have been selected for travel grants: Aakash Solanki, Dibyajyoti Ghosh, Neha Mujumdar, Purbasha Auddy, Rahmanuddin Shaik, Rashmi M, Rohini Lakshané, Sailen Routray, P.P. Sneha, and Zeenab Aneez.</p>
<p>The travel grants are made possible by the <a href="http://cis-india.org/raw/cscs-digital-innovation-fund">CSCS Digital Innovation Fund (CDIF)</a>.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/raw/irc16-selected-sessions'>https://cis-india.org/raw/irc16-selected-sessions</a>
</p>
No publishersumandroInternet Researcher's ConferenceFeaturedLearningIRC16Researchers at Work2016-01-18T09:23:06ZBlog EntryConsultation on 'Digital Futures of Indian Languages'
https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-futures-of-indian-languages-2015
<b>A consultation on 'digital futures of Indian languages' will be held at the CIS office in Bangalore on December 12, 2015, to generate ideas and structure the Indian languages focus area of the CSCS Digital Innovation Fund (CDIF). It is being led by Dr. Tejaswini Niranjana, Centre for the Study of Culture and Society (CSCS), and Tanveer Hasan, A2K programme at CIS; and is supported by CDIF.</b>
<p> </p>
<h2>A Consultation to Generate Ideas for the CSCS Digital Innovation Fund (CDIF)</h2>
<p>We at the Centre for the Study of Culture and Society, Bangalore; Centre for Indian Languages in Higher Education, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai; and Access to Knowledge Programme, Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore, have between us more than a decade-long experience in the field of Indian languages for higher education and Indic language computing. Together we have, over the past ten years, produced new research and incubated innovative pilot projects to stimulate the use of Indian languages in higher education, especially in the context of a widening linguistic divide in that sphere.</p>
<p>As a new phase in this process, we would like to explore the possible digital futures of Indian languages. Already, there have been many interesting but sporadic attempts at digitization of Indian language text resources and development of software for translation between Indian languages and a host of Indian language support platforms for web-based services. While this momentum is impressive, a lot more remains to be done, when seen against the backdrop of the surging demand for Indian language computational tools, especially those with potential for knowledge-use, that is, tools which could be used by students, teachers, researchers, media analysts, self-learners, bibliographers, librarians, archivists, collectors and the public at large.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://cis-india.org/raw/cscs-digital-innovation-fund" target="_blank">CSCS Digital Innovation Fund</a> is looking to help set up new platforms that aid in generating, processing and making available a wide range of born-digital content. Under the CDIF, the Indian Languages initiative will support the development of new technological aids, apps, software programmes, websites, DYI digitisation devices, and any other project which will enrich the digital use of Indian languages.</p>
<p>We are organising this national consultation with the intention of bringing together people who have been or would like to be involved in such initiatives. We expect each participant to make a short 10-15 minute presentation on an idea they would like to develop, to take part in the general discussions, and to offer feedback to other speakers. We hope to learn from these conversations so that our own research and initiative development will benefit from the inputs as also to contribute to the conversation in such a way that isolated practices, innovations and opportunities are given a platform for greater generalisation and scalability.</p>
<p>- <em><strong>Tejaswini Niranjana, Ashwin Kumar AP, and Tanveer Hasan</strong></em></p>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-futures-of-indian-languages-2015'>https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-futures-of-indian-languages-2015</a>
</p>
No publishersumandroLanguageCDIFLearningIndic ComputingResearchers at WorkEvent2016-01-15T06:10:57ZEventSarah Zia - Not knowing as pedagogy: Ride-hailing drivers in Delhi
https://cis-india.org/raw/sarah-zia-not-knowing-as-pedagogy-ride-hailing-drivers-in-delhi
<b>Working in the gig-economy has been associated with economic vulnerabilities. However, there are also moral and affective vulnerabilities as workers find their worth measured everyday by their performance of—and at—work and in every interaction and movement. This essay by Sarah Zia is the second among a series of writings by researchers associated with the 'Mapping Digital Labour in India' project at the CIS, supported by the Azim Premji University, that were published on the Platypus blog of the Committee on the Anthropology of Science, Technology, and Computing (CASTAC). The essay is edited by Noopur Raval, who co-led the project.</b>
<p> </p>
<p><em>Originally published by the <a href="http://blog.castac.org/category/series/indias-gig-work-economy/" target="_blank">Platypus blog</a> of CASTAC on July 18, 2019.</em></p>
<h4>Summary of the essay in Hindi: <a href="https://youtu.be/KSYcT8XD0H4" target="_blank">Audio</a> (YouTube) and <a href="http://blog.castac.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/07/CASTAC_Sarah_audiotranscript.docx" target="_blank">Transcript</a> (text)</h4>
<hr />
<p>Ride-hailing [1] platforms such as Olacabs and Uber have “disrupted” public transport in India since their arrival. It has been almost seven years since app-based ride-hailing became a permanent feature of urban and peri-urban India with these aggregators operating in over a 100 Indian cities now. Akin to the global story, much has happened – there was a period of boom and novelty for passengers and drivers, then incentives fell. Ride-hailing work has become increasingly demanding with reduced payouts. But what hasn’t received enough attention (especially outside the US) is how these platforms create a deliberate regime of information invisibility and control to keep the drivers constantly on their toes which works to the companies’ advantage. What then are the implications of this uncertainty, which is fueled by app design as well as by the companies’ decision that drivers need little or no information about users? How does service delivery operate in a context where those actually delivering it have little or no idea about the workings of the system?</p>
<h3><strong>When algorithms make us not know</strong></h3>
<p>Algorithmic interactions form the core of the technology in ride-hailing apps through which service seekers and providers interact. As Lee et al. (2015) describe, “Algorithmic management allows companies to oversee myriads of workers in an optimized manner at a large scale, but its impact on human workers and work practices has been largely unexplored… Algorithmic management is one of the core innovations that enables these (cab-riding) services.”</p>
<p>Algorithms are procedural logics that produce different effects depending on the data they receive and the outputs they are optimized for (Wilson, 2016). Moreover, platform companies are not transparent about how their business logics contribute to these “optimizations”, which makes it difficult for all the stakeholders (passengers, drivers, police personnel, etc.) to make an accurate assessment of their functioning. This essay, then, explores how the lack of transparency around algorithmic structures not only prohibits drivers from knowing completely and surely about their work (“why did I get this ride?”, “why did my ratings drop?”) but also how they build tactics of coping and earning from a place of unknowing. Algorithms act as a regulator of work and their inherent structure constrains drivers from knowing fully about their work. Unknowing thus has two aspects: first, drivers do not have access or means to gather information; second, it is difficult to be sure of the existence of the said information in the first place.</p>
<p>In my research on ridehailing in the Delhi-National Capital Region (NCR), there were three things that I asked drivers about which led to ambiguous and inconsistent replies: how rides were allocated, how fares were determined and how ratings worked. While some drivers told me upfront they did not know how these systems worked, others offered explanations that they had devised or heard from somewhere else. For instance, not knowing what they will make per trip means that drivers plan their day in terms of target earnings instead of number of trips. Nearly all drivers I spoke to said they aimed to make Rs 1500-2000 (approx USD 20-25) per day in order to break even, irrespective of whether that goal requires 10 or 15 trips in a day. Yet not knowing what the next trip will earn them means they can’t refuse rides easily. Many drivers expressed discomfort about this fact, especially when compared to other means such as auto-rickshaws and traditional cabs where drop destination is known beforehand and fares can also be pre-negotiated, Unlike ride-hailing drivers, auto rickshaw drivers have the right to refuse passengers.</p>
<p>Many drivers now call passengers after accepting their booking to find out the destination. According to some drivers, this call also helped them understand the kind of passengers they were about to get and sometimes even allowed re-negotiation of the drop location to a mutually convenient spot if it was originally in a congested area. They also felt that assessing passengers before a trip was important so that they could act as mediators in the information gatekeeping process, because the passengers would have seen the fare already. For a driver, the lack of information added many layers of constant negotiation in a single trip—starting from the call to find out the destination to conversations during the trip to gauge potential earnings to finally suggesting alternative drop locations if there are any constraints in accessing the original destination—before they can claim their rightful earnings.</p>
<p> </p>
<img src="https://cis-india.org/CIS_APU_DigitalLabour_PlatypusEssays_SZ_01.jpeg/image_preview" alt="CIS_APU_DigitalLabour_PlatypusEssays_SZ_01" class="image-left image-inline" title="CIS_APU_DigitalLabour_PlatypusEssays_SZ_01" />
<h5>Ridehailing drivers only get the user’s name and pickup location as details about an upcoming trip. <em>Photo by Noopur Raval</em>.</h5>
<p> </p>
<p>Knowing the terms of work—such as when work ends and begins, how the good jobs are being allocated and to whom, and an explanation of one’s income—is a foundation of formal and informal work. Such information is crucial because it allows us to separate our work and personal lives. Knowledge of these obviously quantifiable parameters can help drivers plan their earnings and investments and, crucially, when they can take a break based on much more or less work they have to do in order to meet their income targets.</p>
<p>Furthermore, as drivers showed me, ride-hailing companies spontaneously change the revenue model for “driver-partners” (as they are called) by sending them an SMS right before the change happens, thereby altering trip and mileage targets frequently to keep a degree of unknowability in drivers’ work. This unknowability disincentivizes drivers from going off the road as per their will and helps maintain a steady supply of cabs on the road. As Alex Rosenblat has demonstrated in her study of US Uber and Lyft drivers, they are compelled to accept rides without knowing their profitability. While the app design gives them an option to “choose” to accept or reject a ride, drivers are constrained by lack of adequate information pertaining to the trip as well as the rider in making this choice. The ‘information asymmetry’, as Rosenblat calls it, also feeds into drivers’ mistrust of the companies and their policies (Rosenblat, 2018). Moreover, these feelings and the uncertainty fed by unknowing were not limited to drivers. Passengers also noticed that a ride between two points could cost different prices at different times of day and they were not sure why or how this cost was calculated.</p>
<h3><strong>Unknowability as a form of knowing: A pedagogy of coping</strong></h3>
<p>As I observed in my interactions with drivers online and offline, new drivers often struggled with the degree of uncertainty and unknowability while more experienced drivers had accepted ‘not knowing’ and the opacity of the system as features of their work.</p>
<p> </p>
<img src="https://cis-india.org/CIS_APU_DigitalLabour_PlatypusEssays_SZ_02.jpg/image_preview" alt="CIS_APU_DigitalLabour_PlatypusEssays_SZ_02" class="image-left image-inline" title="CIS_APU_DigitalLabour_PlatypusEssays_SZ_02" />
<h5>Not knowing enough about how much will a ride earn them means drivers are forced to be on the roads, often without a break. <em>Photo by author</em>.</h5>
<p> </p>
<p>Similar to what Rosenblat, Gray et al. and others have observed in the US, in India drivers were constantly engaged in meaning-making through communicative labor, i.e., sharing their experiences with other local drivers online and offline. Agreeing, reassuring, and repeating that drivers actually do not know enough through these discussions also gave them shared confidence in their own abilities and how they were approaching work despite being firmly rooted in unknowing. For instance, when I asked one Uber driver about how ratings worked, they said that all 5-star drivers were matched with 5-star passengers. Another Uber driver said that the higher a passenger’s ratings, the less time they would have to wait for pick-up.</p>
<p>Other forms in which this kind of unknowing manifested was the lack of a fare chart or any minimum or uniform rating system, leaving drivers to offer their own interpretations and coping strategies. For instance, a driver pointed out how very few rides are likely to be available in a specific suburb during hot afternoons and therefore he avoided dropping passengers to that location after 2PM.</p>
<p>How, then, does one learn to cope with such unknowable systems as a worker? And what values does such a pedagogy of coping with algorithmic opacity imbibe? In my fieldwork, apart from answering my questions, drivers were extremely interested in talking about the companies, including news about companies’ stock value, their futures, profits, etc. A persistent rumour in the field was that Reliance, the country’s largest telecom provider, was soon coming up with a competitor ride-hailing app, suggesting that there could be an incentive boom again. In online Facebook groups, drivers often discussed company CEOs’ salaries, comparing them to their own. On the flipside, when videos of ride-hailing and food-delivery drivers getting beaten up or arrested or cheated surfaced, drivers would comment with advice on how to safeguard oneself, how to deal with errant customers and so on. I interpret these practices of making sense of long and short-term work, framed as responses to constant ambiguity and uncertainty, as the development of an “algorithmic gut”.</p>
<p>This gut responds to the anxieties produced by platform infrastructure through a keen awareness of the shifts, the tweaks, the changes and the errors. And it orients how drivers approach and cope with their work by acknowledging that there is a lot unknown (and unknowable) in this kind of daily work. It also guides how drivers focus on the short-term (daily) goal of making profit, such as by tuning into peer groups both online and offline where grievances are discussed, collective action planned, and floating rumours assessed. This gut is an affective, sensorial attunement to how platforms are allocating and shifting power among drivers and plays a generative role in guiding drivers’ work decisions.</p>
<h3><strong>Conclusion</strong></h3>
<p>Uncertainty is an embedded part of a ride-hailing cab’s model of service delivery. For ride-hailing drivers, this ambiguity translates into less control over everyday negotiation of work as well as planning of financial assets for the future.</p>
<p>In my interactions, I discovered that drivers are certain that they will never know more than the company. What this has led to is a driver who is cynical but not entirely pessimistic. Drivers acknowledge that while companies and their structures may be problematic, what will keep them employed is passengers’ appetite for a service like this. They would like to imagine the future of their work but are cognizant of the dual challenge of the present: making money while struggling for self-preservation in order to perform immediate activities. Drivers are cognizant of an ambiguous future and even hesitant to engage in long-term planning. For now, they would prefer better earnings and greater control over how they perform labour. Hence, their focus is on devising specific strategies for known, short-term challenges instead of running after an unknown future.</p>
<h3><strong>Endnotes</strong></h3>
<p>[1] Uber and homegrown Ola both started operations in India as ride-hailing services with the sharing options being added in 2015. Hence, the term ride-hailing has been used to describe these services which also includes ride sharing.</p>
<h3><strong>References</strong></h3>
<p>Davis, Jenny L. 2014. “Triangulating the Self: Identity Processes in a Connected Era.” Symbolic Interaction 37 (4): 500-523.</p>
<p>Dodge, Martin and Kitchin, Rob. 2005. “Codes of life: identification codes and the machine-readable world.” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 2005 (23): 851-881</p>
<p>Gray, Mary L., et al. 2016. “The Crowd is a Collaborative Network.” Proceedings of the 19th ACM conference on computer-supported cooperative work & social computing. ACM, 2016.</p>
<p>Kitchin, Rob. 2017. “Thinking critically about and researching algorithms.” Information, Communication & Society 20 (1): 14-29.</p>
<p>Lee, Min Kyung, et al. 2015. “Working with Machines: The Impact of Algorithmic and Data-Driven Management on Human Workers.” Proceedings of the 33rd Annual ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems.</p>
<p>Rosenblat, Alex & Stark, Luke. 2016. “Algorithmic Labor and Information Asymmetries: A Case Study of Uber’s Drivers.” International Journal of Communication 10: 3758–3784.</p>
<p>Ruckenstein, Minna and Mika Pantzar. 2017. “Beyond the Quantified Self: Thematic exploration of a dataistic paradigm.” New Media & Society 19(3): 401-418.</p>
<p>Willson, Michele. 2016. “Algorithms (and the) everyday”. Information, Communication & Society 10.1080/1369118X.2016.1200645</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/raw/sarah-zia-not-knowing-as-pedagogy-ride-hailing-drivers-in-delhi'>https://cis-india.org/raw/sarah-zia-not-knowing-as-pedagogy-ride-hailing-drivers-in-delhi</a>
</p>
No publisherSarah ZiaDigital LabourResearchPlatform-WorkNetwork EconomiesPublicationsResearchers at WorkMapping Digital Labour in India2020-05-19T06:35:21ZBlog EntryAnushree Gupta - Ladies ‘Log’: Women’s Safety and Risk Transfer in Ridehailing
https://cis-india.org/raw/anushree-gupta-ladies-log-women-safety-risk-transfer-ridehailing
<b>Working in the gig-economy has been associated with economic vulnerabilities. However, there are also moral and affective vulnerabilities as workers find their worth measured everyday by their performance of—and at—work and in every interaction and movement. This essay by Anushree Gupta is the third among a series of writings by researchers associated with the 'Mapping Digital Labour in India' project at the CIS, supported by the Azim Premji University, that were published on the Platypus blog of the Committee on the Anthropology of Science, Technology, and Computing (CASTAC). The essay is edited by Noopur Raval, who co-led the project concerned.</b>
<p> </p>
<p><em>Originally published by the <a href="http://blog.castac.org/category/series/indias-gig-work-economy/" target="_blank">Platypus blog</a> of CASTAC on August, 1, 2019.</em></p>
<h4>Summary of the essay in Hindi: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ty0a_u9lzCE" target="_blank">Audio</a> (YouTube) and <a href="http://blog.castac.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/07/Blog-Post-Audio-Transcript-Devanigiri.docx" target="_blank">Transcript</a> (text)</h4>
<hr />
<p>Mumbai, India’s financial capital, is also often considered one of the safest cities for women in India, especially in contrast with New Delhi which is infamously dubbed as the “rape capital” within the country. Sensationalised incidents of harassment, molestation and rape serve as anecdotal references and warnings to other women who dare to venture out alone even during the daytime. The Delhi government recently proposed a policy for free transport for women in public buses and metro trains with the objective of increasing women’s affordability and access and to ensure safety in public transportation. [1] Despite such measures to increase women’s visibility and claims to public utilities and spaces, women who use public transport have historically suffered groping and stalking on buses and trains, which uphold self-policing and surveillance narratives. The issue of women’s safety in India remains a priority as well as a good rhetorical claim and goal to aspire to, for public and private initiatives. Ironically, the notion of women’s safety is also advanced to increase moral policing and censure women’s access to public spaces, which also perpetuates exclusion of other marginalised citizens (Phadke 2007). Further, and crucially, whose safety is being imagined, prioritized and designed for (which class of women are central to the imagination of the safety discourse) is often a point of contention.</p>
<p>In this context, ridehailing services offered by Uber and Ola have come to be frequently cited as safer and more reliable options for women to traverse the cityspace, compared to overcrowded buses and trains. Their mobile applications promise accountability and traceability, enforcing safety standards by way of qualified and well-groomed drivers, SOS buttons and location-sharing features. However, it has increasingly become common knowledge that these alternatives are prone to similar, if not worse, categories of crimes against women. While reports of violence against women in cabs have mostly been outside of Mumbai, due to “platform-effects,” such incidents have widespread ramifications for drivers across the country. Cab drivers who operate via cab aggregator platforms have come under heavy scrutiny not only by the corporate and legal infrastructures of aggregator companies but also in the public eye. On the other hand, platform companies independently, and in partnership with city and state administrations, continue to launch “social impact” initiatives aimed at women’s safety as well as employment (through taxi-driving training). [2] Incidents of violence against women present jarring narratives of risk not only for female passengers but also for the platform-workers, both of whom are responsible for abiding by the constructed notions of safety for women in urban spaces.</p>
<p>In this post, I explore women’s presence as workers as well as passengers/customers in the ridehailing platform economy, in the context of women’s safety, situating the analysis with a focus on Mumbai. The related discourses around risk for female commuters give rise to various interventions and women-centric services through female-only cab enterprises and training more women drivers to mitigate this risk. Through these, I will think through the figure of the woman in the ridehailing economy in Mumbai and by extension in India.</p>
<h3><strong>Platforms in Gendered Cityscapes</strong></h3>
<p>Mumbai’s public transport is comprised of the local train network, BEST buses and auto rickshaws, with the metro being the newest addition to the mix. Unlike in most of India, kaali-peelis (black-yellow cabs) have been a permanent feature of Mumbai’s landscape since the 1950s and, taking a cab is not necessarily a luxury. Against this backdrop, platform companies have sought to make the claims of democratizing public transport and providing safer travel options to women in the city.</p>
<p>Cab drivers on ridehailing platforms in Mumbai are usually domestic male migrants or Muslim drivers from within and outside the city, who are more often than not overworked and stressed due to the falling incomes and rising debts. It is important to recognise the ‘veiled masculinities’ (Chopra 2006) which labor to service the emergent platform economy and the hierarchies of caste and class which are sustained through their labor. The incongruence between the masculinity of a working class man and the demands of the service economy (Nixon 2009) exacerbates emotional pressures in customer-facing services, which can offer an explanation for angry outbursts and conflicts between drivers and customers.</p>
<p> </p>
<img src="https://cis-india.org/CIS_APU_DigitalLabour_PlatypusEssays_AG_01.jpg/image_preview" alt="CIS_APU_DigitalLabour_PlatypusEssays_AG_01" class="image-left image-inline" title="CIS_APU_DigitalLabour_PlatypusEssays_AG_01" />
<h5>Uber’s ad on a billboard in Mumbai promises earnings of more than Rs. 1 lakh per month. Using a woman’s image illustrates the extent of their potential for transforming lives and livelihoods. <em>Source: Drivers’ Union Telegram Group</em>.</h5>
<p> </p>
<p>While Uber and Ola claim that a large number of women drivers work on their platforms, actual experiences of passengers and the male drivers I spoke to, suggested otherwise. Ironically, mass driver-training programs are seen as a quick way to make low-skilled and migrant male workers employable in Indian cities while, despite public-private partnerships to train women, it has been impossible to retain women drivers due to stereotypical perceptions of gender and persistent social stigma. [3] This made the ridehailing passenger woman (upper middle class, affording professional) a stakeholder to design for, while female drivers (but all female workers) appeared as liability for platforms.</p>
<p>These narratives speak directly to the construction of insecurity and risk for women (Berrington and Jones 2002) on public transport systems as they highlight vulnerabilities due to public exposure of women’s bodies. Pandering to a moral panic standpoint and creating personalised or ‘inside’ safe spaces for women to manage risk (Green and Singleton 2006), these platforms can then be imagined as a boundary-setting exercise. Access to public spaces is encouraged but it is delimited by confining the woman’s body to a singular vehicle in the custody of the cab driver. Autonomy and access afforded by the platform manages to transform women—particularly upper class and upper caste women who can afford these services—into potential customers. Their agency is bounded though by tasking the driver to ferry her across the otherwise hostile cityscape filled with ‘unfriendly bodies’ (Phadke 2013). The production of the city’s gendered space goes hand in hand with the confinement/erasure of female bodies in the public space as they embody patriarchal norms even in a city as ‘progressive’ as Mumbai. As demonstrated by studies mapping the movement of women in the city (Ranade 2007), the spatio-temporal factors lend themselves to creating gendered bodies in order to keep patriarchal norms intact. These norms, as I argue in this post, are detrimental not just to women but also other marginalised sections of the urban population, in this case platform workers.</p>
<h3><strong>Terms of Safety</strong></h3>
<p>Male drivers’ social identities as lower class, lower caste individuals do not inspire confidence in the standards of safety boasted by these companies in the eyes of their predominantly upper caste and upper class customer base. Risk to female passengers is further exaggerated due to the closed space in which the service is provided, highlighting the proximity to a potential aggressor by way of these platforms. In specific situations wherein a female passenger is inebriated or is travelling alone at night, drivers report being extra cautious and helpful towards her. Many respondents proudly mention going out of their way to make sure women get home safely, for instance, prolonging waiting time or escorting them to the entrance of their residential buildings or involving the security guard at the gate.</p>
<p>However, there have also been cases wherein the driver has been under scrutiny either by an overly careful passenger or by the public. One driver reported being surrounded by a crowd at a traffic signal, only to realise that he was being suspected of foul play with the female passenger who had fallen asleep on the backseat of the car. In contrast to their western counterparts, the class differences between drivers and passengers in India exacerbate doubts, fears and insecurities in India which tend to take a caste-purity angle as well. The woman’s body undergoes an exchange of custody in these instances wherein she is deemed incapable of taking care of herself and requires external assistance. Imagining a deterrence effect of ridesharing services (Park et. al 2017) reinforces the logic of guardianship and protectionism for the woman. The risk of carrying her in the vehicle in these situations is borne by the cab driver, operating under a framework of overbearing protectiveness which holds him culpable for any misgivings, assumed or otherwise.</p>
<p> </p>
<img src="https://cis-india.org/CIS_APU_DigitalLabour_PlatypusEssays_AG_02.jpg/image_preview" alt="CIS_APU_DigitalLabour_PlatypusEssays_AG_02" class="image-left image-inline" title="CIS_APU_DigitalLabour_PlatypusEssays_AG_02" />
<h5>Cautionary listicles advise women to not take a cab alone at night, carrying pepper sprays/umbrellas as tools for self-defence, refrain from conversations with drivers or talk continuously on the phone, among other things. The onus of the woman’s safety is either on the individual herself or the driver who is ferrying her. Moreover, the driver is a likely assailant whom the woman should guard against as well. <em>Source: <a href="https://www.hellotravel.com/stories/10-ways-for-women-to-ensure-safety-when-boarding-cab" target="_blank">HelloTravel</a></em>.</h5>
<p> </p>
<p>Notions of safety and risk are embodied in everyday interactions in urban spaces and mediated by disparate infrastructures of knowledge across distinctions of caste, class and gender. These distinctions define constraints which govern social interactions between actors of these categories. Interactions between lower caste or Muslim men and upper caste/class women are circumscribed by what Tuan (1979) describes as ‘landscapes of fear’. Be it the apprehensions about sharing a ride with a passenger of the opposite sex (Sarriera et. al 2017) or reports of gang-rapes by cab drivers, the boundaries of social conduct are laid out clearly by constructing narratives of risk and safety. The protection of the female body and her sexual safety is not her responsibility alone but that of the society as a whole. The so called preventive measures for rape and violence against women produce the dichotomies of frailty and strength (Campbell 2005) in so far as they project the woman as always at risk with the shadow of a potential assault always looming large.</p>
<p>When asked about interactions with women as customers or fellow drivers, drivers performed exaggerated respectability for women. The catch in these narratives however was that drivers justified and extended respect only to ‘good’ customers, where a ‘good’ woman was a certain kind of a moral actor.</p>
<p>Given the prevailing discontent with redressal mechanisms for workers on the platforms, it was not surprising to witness a group of drivers at the Uber Seva Kendra (help centre) in Mumbai, debating whether they should be accepting requests from any female customers at all. Drivers also had to attend mandatory training sessions for ‘good conduct’ with customers wherein they underwent behavioral correction and gender sensitisation lessons. [4] The gendering of the platform economy is baked into these instructions and trainings that reproduce male drivers as figures of safety and constant positive affect.</p>
<h3><strong>Gender, Safety, and Enterprise</strong></h3>
<p>In my fieldwork, I also came across a slew of ventures run by fleet owners and others that sought to service women passengers and employ women drivers exclusively. Claiming to fill in the gaps of inadequate vetting mechanisms in existing platforms, these alternate ventures purportedly smoothened out some anxieties by eliminating the risk of interacting with a man from different socio-economic strata. The premium charged by these companies was telling of the value of safety and affordability of these services for a large section of their intended audience, namely women with higher disposable incomes residing in metropolitan cities.</p>
<p>On the flipside, these enterprises encouraged women to break stereotypical perceptions about women drivers, also giving a nod to increasing and diversifying opportunities of employment for women. However, these ideas remained attractive only in principle and fizzled out sooner or later as most of these ventures did not succeed. A severe capital crunch due to unsustainable business models, limited funding options and lack of substantial supportive ecosystems for training and upkeep are possible reasons for failure. [5] Even so, the idea of a women-centric service continues to remain valuable because of the promise of safety which is produced through considerations of class, caste, gender and religion (Phadke 2005). Any alternative to avoid interaction with men from a lower class or caste background or from another religion (especially Hindu/Muslim in Mumbai) is welcome in a society which is deeply stratified and entrenched in caste-class systems of religion and economy alike.</p>
<h3><strong>Conclusion</strong></h3>
<p>The pervasiveness of the discourses of safety and risk in the ride hailing space became apparent to me during field research. Respondents indicated a heightened awareness of my gender, referring to me as “madam” and taking measures to ensure my safety. They advised me to use a separate phone to interact with drivers and moderated my interactions with drivers on the Telegram group (run by one of the Unions in Mumbai). Union representatives were also diligent in moderating the group to filter out abusive language as a token of respect for women. My apprehensions in interacting with drivers, most of whom were older men from a lower class/caste community, were also indicative of my social conditioning as an upper class and upper caste woman. Self-policing and boundary setting in both physical and virtual interactions, while necessary to some extent, were often rendered useless as the shifting of risks became apparent to me in my interactions with the drivers.</p>
<p>In this piece, I have tried to show how gendered norms govern the construction of safety and risk which in turn regulate social interactions. Limiting exposure in a personal cab as opposed to a public bus/train also heightens considerations of intimacy and proximity to a potential aggressor (often from a marginalised sociocultural background). Women-centric cab services mitigate this by promoting the image of the female driver who breaks social norms. However, these services dwindle till they completely disappear due to a capital crunch or insufficient infrastructural support. Patriarchal contexts reaffirm the woman as a risky object by highlighting narratives of vulnerabilities and insecurities in the ridehailing space. Besides the woman, the cab drivers are held accountable for bearing this risk and ensuring her sexual and physical safety. These patriarchal hierarchies of protectionism are sustained by platform workers’ affective labour which lubricate the wheels of the platform economy.</p>
<h3><strong>Endnotes</strong></h3>
<p>[1] <a href="https://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Delhi/free-rides-for-women-only-the-starting-point-say-activists/article28111938.ece" target="_blank">https://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Delhi/free-rides-for-women-only-the-starting-point-say-activists/article28111938.ece</a></p>
<p>[2] <a href="https://www.olacabs.com/media/in/press/ola-foundation-launches-drive-to-enable-sustainable-livelihoods-for-500000-women-by-2025" target="_blank">https://www.olacabs.com/media/in/press/ola-foundation-launches-drive-to-enable-sustainable-livelihoods-for-500000-women-by-2025</a></p>
<p>[3] <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/soniathomas/girl-power" target="_blank">https://www.buzzfeed.com/soniathomas/girl-power</a></p>
<p>[4] <a href="https://yourstory.com/2018/11/uber-gender-awareness-sensitisation-driver" target="_blank">https://yourstory.com/2018/11/uber-gender-awareness-sensitisation-driver</a></p>
<p>[5] <a href="https://www.livemint.com/Companies/bo4534H8mOWo0oG6VQ0xbM/As-demand-for-womenonly-cab-services-grow-challenges-loom.html" target="_blank">https://www.livemint.com/Companies/bo4534H8mOWo0oG6VQ0xbM/As-demand-for-womenonly-cab-services-grow-challenges-loom.html</a></p>
<h3><strong>References</strong></h3>
<p>Berrington, E. and Jones, H., 2002. Reality vs. myth: Constructions of women’s insecurity. Feminist Media Studies, 2(3), pp.307-323.</p>
<p>Campbell, A., 2005. Keeping the ‘lady’ safe: The regulation of femininity through crime prevention literature. Critical Criminology, 13(2), pp.119-140.</p>
<p>Chopra, R., 2006. Invisible men: Masculinity, sexuality, and male domestic Labor. Men and Masculinities, 9(2), pp.152-167.</p>
<p>Green, E. and Singleton, C., 2006. Risky bodies at leisure: Young women negotiating space and place. Sociology, 40(5), pp.853-871.</p>
<p>Nixon, D., 2009. I Can’t Put a Smiley Face On’: Working‐Class Masculinity, Emotional Labour and Service Work in the ‘New Economy. Gender, Work & Organization, 16(3), pp.300-322.</p>
<p>Park, J., Kim, J., Pang, M.S. and Lee, B., 2017. Offender or guardian? An empirical analysis of ride-sharing and sexual assault. An Empirical Analysis of Ride-Sharing and Sexual Assault (April 10, 2017). KAIST College of Business Working Paper Series, (2017-006), pp.18-010.</p>
<p>Phadke, S., 2005. ‘You Can Be Lonely in a Crowd’ The Production of Safety in Mumbai. Indian Journal of Gender Studies, 12(1), pp.41-62.</p>
<p>Phadke, S., 2007. Dangerous liaisons: Women and men: Risk and reputation in Mumbai. Economic and Political Weekly, pp.1510-1518.</p>
<p>Phadke, S., 2013. Unfriendly bodies, hostile cities: Reflections on loitering and gendered public space. Economic and Political Weekly, pp.50-59.</p>
<p>Ranade, S., 2007. The way she moves: Mapping the everyday production of gender-space. Economic and Political Weekly, pp.1519-1526.</p>
<p>Raval, N. and Dourish, P., 2016, February. Standing out from the crowd: Emotional labor, body labor, and temporal labor in ridesharing. In Proceedings of the 19th ACM Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work & Social Computing (pp. 97-107). ACM.</p>
<p>Sarriera, J.M., Álvarez, G.E., Blynn, K., Alesbury, A., Scully, T. and Zhao, J., 2017. To share or not to share: Investigating the social aspects of dynamic ridesharing. Transportation Research Record, 2605(1), pp.109-117.</p>
<p>Tuan, Y.F., 2013. Landscapes of fear. U of Minnesota Press.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/raw/anushree-gupta-ladies-log-women-safety-risk-transfer-ridehailing'>https://cis-india.org/raw/anushree-gupta-ladies-log-women-safety-risk-transfer-ridehailing</a>
</p>
No publisherAnushree GuptaDigital LabourResearchPlatform-WorkNetwork EconomiesPublicationsResearchers at WorkMapping Digital Labour in India2020-05-19T06:29:12ZBlog EntryNoopur Raval and Rajendra Jadhav - Power Chronography of Food-Delivery Work
https://cis-india.org/raw/noopur-raval-rajendra-jadhav-power-chronography-of-food-delivery-work
<b> Working in the gig-economy has been associated with economic vulnerabilities. However, there are also moral and affective vulnerabilities as workers find their worth measured everyday by their performance of—and at—work and in every interaction and movement. This essay by Noopur Raval and Rajendra Jadhav is the fourth among a series of writings by researchers associated with the 'Mapping Digital Labour in India' project at the CIS, supported by the Azim Premji University, that were published on the Platypus blog of the Committee on the Anthropology of Science, Technology, and Computing (CASTAC).</b>
<p> </p>
<p><em>Originally published by the <a href="http://blog.castac.org/category/series/indias-gig-work-economy/" target="_blank">Platypus blog</a> of CASTAC on August 15, 2019.</em></p>
<p><em>The ethnographic research was conducted by Rajendra and this short essay was collaboratively produced by the field researcher and Noopur (co-PI). The accompanying audio recording has been produced by Noopur.</em></p>
<h4>Summary of the essay in Hindi: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPIfIvp2000" target="_blank">Audio</a> (YouTube) and <a href="http://blog.castac.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/08/Rajendra-Hindi-Transcript-.docx" target="_blank">Transcript</a> (text)</h4>
<hr />
<p>This post presents the observations around the design of temporality within app-based food-delivery platforms in India. It draws on semi-structured interviews by field-researcher Rajendra and his time spent “hanging out” with food-delivery workers who are also often referred to as “hunger saviors” and “partners” in the platform ecosystem in India. Like in the <a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/simiran-lalvani-workers-fictive-kinship-relations-app-based-food-delivery-mumbai" target="_blank">earlier post by Simiran Lalvani</a> on food-delivery workers in Mumbai, we also observed that app-based work was structured and monitored along similar lines. However, in this post, we go into a detailed description of how work-time and temporality of work are configured in order to fulfill the promises that app companies make to customers in urban India. Before such app-based services came into existence, there were some popular claims around delivery-time (“30 minutes or free pizza” by Domino’s) but the entire process of food preparation, travel and delivery had not been made as transparent and quantified in a granular way as they are now through popular apps such as Swiggy, Zomato and UberEats. While such companies exist in the other parts of the world and make the promise of “anytime work” to potential workers, as we observed during fieldwork, app-based food delivery-work is anything but flexible. People could indeed start working at any time of the day, but it had real consequences to earn a living wage. While they were free to logout or switch off their app also at their convenience, they would be constantly nudged in the form of calls by warehouse managers as well as through text messages telling them how they were missing out on earnings. It is also important to note that, in India especially, food-delivery as a standardized form of work, exists in a regulatory grey space. In that sense, there is not a lot of clarity on the maximum limit of working hours in a day and in a week. In the following sections, I provide details about how work is structured temporally in this system.</p>
<h3><strong>Shift-based Work</strong></h3>
<p>When Rajendra spoke to workers in the Delhi-NCR region, they reported that they could choose to work different kinds of shifts like part-time (8 AM – 3 PM or 7 PM – 12 AM), full-time (11 AM -11 PM) or ultra full-time (7 AM -11 PM). While workers could pick their timings or slots on weekdays, it was mandatory to work on the weekends. As mentioned earlier, while companies claimed that riders could log in and out at any time of the day, their pay depended on the number of deliveries they make and the hours they worked. But it’s not that simple. It is not just the wholly quantified units (an hour, a day) that become exigent and overbearing; it was in fact how these rules demanded high levels of alertness and care from the workers. Any kind of carelessness, not paying attention (to time, text message announcements) could be detrimental to claiming pay for the work they had done already. For instance, like a worker described, if he even logged out a minute before the end of the shift, he would lose out on his incentive. Another worker added,</p>
<blockquote>If you log off even five minutes before eleven (pm), a call comes from the company and they ask you to log back in immediately.</blockquote>
<p>In such cases, those managing the backend systems even make these calls to shield workers from the eventuality of losing pay and the hassle of resolving disputed payments later by simply urging and pushing workers to stay on-time and online. In that sense, there is not only an expectation of punctuality and always being-on as a desirable thing, but it is also imperative for the workers to meet these expectations while they interact with the app itself.</p>
<p> </p>
<img src="https://cis-india.org/CIS_APU_DigitalLabour_PlatypusEssays_NRRJ_01.jpg/image_preview" alt="CIS_APU_DigitalLabour_PlatypusEssays_NR-RJ_01" class="image-left image-inline" title="CIS_APU_DigitalLabour_PlatypusEssays_NR-RJ_01" />
<h5>Sticker provided by a food-delivery platform to promote its brand. <em>Source: Noopur Raval, author</em>.</h5>
<p> </p>
<h3><strong>Time of Eating, Time of Sleeping</strong></h3>
<p>Typically, restaurants and food businesses in Indian cities are heavily regulated, especially in terms of closing times. While these rules differ for each city, in and around Delhi, restaurants are expected to close down by 10 pm, and those that seek to remain open for longer need special permissions. With the arrival of app-based delivery companies, the time of food production and consumption has stretched. Also, with the right kinds of permits, cloud kitchens and home-based producers are also allowed to operate through these platforms, thus making multiple food choices and cuisines available until as late as 4 am in the morning. Whose consumption needs are being serviced at these late hours is a question beyond the scope of this post, but it also means that there is opportunity/compulsion for workers to stay up late at night, making deliveries. Not surprisingly, it is also often these late-night shifts that are better incentivized, not just money-wise but also because there is less traffic at night (a constant source of stress in day-time shifts). As other studies have also noted, platform companies, especially food-delivery services that mostly engage bike and scooter riders (Lee et al. 2016) globally, enforce this cruel temporal inversion where being a service-worker in this economy also means working on others’ (customers’) time of leisure and/or comfort. Especially in Delhi, where the winters get brutally cold, ironically, the profitability of delivering hot food increases. However, it is not that straightforward. One worker Rajendra spoke to in March (springtime) explained,</p>
<blockquote>I am not going to work with any of the food delivery company from April onwards because of the hot summer in Delhi, it is very difficult to ride in a day time of summer.</blockquote>
<h3><strong>Temporary Work</strong></h3>
<p>Temporariness is the dominant temporal fate of gig-work at-large—workers in our study (food-delivery as well as ride-hailing) often insisted how gig-work was only temporary until they could become business-owners, find a better job, or fund their education and so on. However, as we observed in food-delivery work, there was also a lot of seasonal movement of workers, a reminder of the contextual, ecological and urban migration continuities that inform, support and shape who comes to the reserve force/waiting zone of gig-work. In classic labour terms, the push and pull factors that move people out of agricultural labour or other kinds of work must be studied with an eye to new forms of easy-entry jobs such as gig-work. On the other hand, there were also other considerations on time such as responsibilities and social obligations to family that made food-delivery work (fast paced, inhering a certain amount of recklessness and the willingness to put oneself at risk) less attractive to some (older men and women with a family) and more to some others (younger single men). This made us think of the way in which Sarah Sharma (2011) emphasizes temporal power over speed discourses (she offers the term ‘power-chronography’) where, the ways in which food-delivery work is temporally arranged, distributed and rewarded, privileges certain actors (the customers but also some kinds of workers) over others in the city’s labour market.</p>
<h3><strong>References</strong></h3>
<p>Lee, Do J., et al. “Delivering (in) justice: Food delivery cyclists in New York City.” <em>Bicycle Justice and Urban Transformation</em>. Routledge, 2016. 114-129.</p>
<p>Sharma, Sarah. “It changes space and time: introducing power-chronography.” <em>Communication Matters: Materialist Approaches to Media, Mobility and Networks</em> (2011): 66-77.</p>
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<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/raw/noopur-raval-rajendra-jadhav-power-chronography-of-food-delivery-work'>https://cis-india.org/raw/noopur-raval-rajendra-jadhav-power-chronography-of-food-delivery-work</a>
</p>
No publisherNoopur Raval and Rajendra JadhavDigital LabourResearchPlatform-WorkNetwork EconomiesPublicationsResearchers at WorkMapping Digital Labour in India2020-05-19T06:33:39ZBlog EntryFrom Health and Harassment to Income Security and Loans, India's Gig Workers Need Support
https://cis-india.org/raw/gig-workers-need-support
<b>Deemed an 'essential service' by most state governments, and thereby exempt from temporary suspension during the COVID-19 lockdown, food, groceries and other essential commodities have continued to be delivered by e-commerce companies and on-demand services. Actions to protect workers, who are taking on significant risks, have been far less forthcoming than those for customers. Zothan Mawii (Tandem Research), Aayush Rathi (CIS) and Ambika Tandon (CIS) spoke with the leaders of four workers' unions and labour researchers to identify recommended actions that public agencies and private companies may undertake to better support the urgent needs of gig workers in India. </b>
<p> </p>
<p><em>Originally published by <a href="https://thewire.in/business/covid-19-lockdown-delivery-gig-workers" target="_blank">The Wire</a> on April 29, 2020.</em></p>
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<p>Nearly two weeks ago, news broke that a Zomato delivery worker <a href="https://indianexpress.com/article/cities/delhi/pizza-man-who-tested-covid-19-positive-also-delivered-food-for-us-zomato-6365513/" target="_blank">tested positive for COVID-19</a> in New Delhi.</p>
<p>As many as 72 families in the south Delhi neighbourhood where he made deliveries have been quarantined, along with 17 other people he worked with. With the luxury of social distancing not extended to delivery workers, the incident further fuelled the apprehensions and uncertainties that they already were contending with. This was only a matter of time.</p>
<p>Deemed an “essential service” by most state governments, and thereby exempt from temporary suspension during the lockdown, food, groceries and other essential commodities have continued to be delivered by e-commerce companies and on-demand services including Swiggy, Zomato, BigBasket, Dunzo, Housejoy and Flipkart.</p>
<p>In choosing to continue operations, these companies have then rushed to enforce measures to put customers at ease. Such measures have included no-contact deliveries, card-only payments, and displaying temperature readings of workers.</p>
<p>Uber and Ola Cabs suspended services in most areas, and announced that in places where they are <a href="https://www.livemint.com/news/india/covid-19-uber-to-offer-cabs-for-essential-services-11586077100965.html" target="_blank">providing essential services</a>, workers have been instructed to wear masks and observe hygiene standards.</p>
<p>Swiggy and Zomato announced they were communicating with workers about safety and hygiene standards. Zomato has more recently <a href="https://twitter.com/deepigoyal/status/1252844887797428230" target="_blank">announced</a> that the company is making the Aarogya Setu app mandatory for workers to receive orders.</p>
<p><a href="https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/small-biz/startups/newsbuzz/covid-19-zomato-sets-up-funds-for-income-starved-daily-wage-workers-in-india/articleshow/74823838.cms" target="_blank">Relief funds</a> have been set up— donations to these funds continue to be solicited from the public and company executives have made grandiose gestures of <a href="https://www.carandbike.com/news/ola-introduces-drive-the-driver-fund-initiative-to-fund-relief-for-driver-community-2201886" target="_blank">contributing their salaries</a> to these funds.</p>
<p><strong>Stark reality</strong></p>
<p>The situation on the ground, however, tells another story. Actions to protect workers, who are taking on significant risks, have been far less forthcoming than those for customers. Workers are also bearing the brunt of arbitrary surveillance measures, like being asked to download the Aarogya Setu app, in addition to scrutiny they are placed under regularly. No such surveillance measures have been placed on customers. The priorities of on-demand service companies are clear: protect the bottom line at the expense of vulnerable workers.</p>
<p>In the absence of any concerted support from the companies, service workers could have looked to the state for relief. None has been forthcoming. Government action has pegged the targeting of relief works and services to those currently eligible for welfare programs and registered under its various schemes. Most gig workers, if not all, are ineligible as a result of the arbitrary conditions underlying these schemes.</p>
<p>We spoke to the leaders of four unions — including the Indian Federation of App-based Transport Workers (IFAT) and the Ola and Uber Drivers and Owners’ Association (OTU)– who represent gig workers across the country about the risks and vulnerabilities that they are having to contend with.</p>
<p>The precariousness characterising gig work could not be starker. A summary of the discussions can be found <a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/zothan-mawii-covid-19-and-relief-measures-for-gig-workers-in-india" target="_blank">here</a>, while the recommendations emerging from these discussions have been shared with government officials and company representatives and can be found in full <a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/covid-19-charter-of-recommendations" target="_blank">here</a>.</p>
<p>Below are some of the key recommendations that emerged from these discussions.</p>
<p><strong>Health</strong></p>
<p>Many on-demand service companies have not provided workers with any personal protective equipment (PPE), not even to delivery workers who face heightened risks of exposure to the coronavirus at nearly every step of the delivery process.</p>
<p>Some unions had to take to distributing masks, while many other workers continue to incur repeated costs to safeguard their own health. At a later stage, Swiggy announced that workers would be reimbursed for these purchases, but the process is so tedious that workers have found it untenable.</p>
<p>In addition, health awareness campaigns regarding safety measures and risks were also launched very late into the crisis, and then were not in vernacular languages and could not be comprehended by most workers.</p>
<p>In terms of insurance, most platforms have announced financial assistance for workers who test positive for COVID-19. This is aimed at covering their hospital expenses, as well as providing a daily stipend for a limited period. However, these come short as there are no provisions for OPD consultations or even for the cost of going and getting tested (losing one day’s work and then potentially one more before the results come in).</p>
<p>Additionally, the difficulty and expenses of obtaining a test could place an additional burden on workers — as without proof of a positive test, workers will be unable to access this fund in the first place. This is far from the robust health insurance that must be provisioned to ensure workers’ health and safety. Some platforms have made telemedicine services available for workers and while this is a step in the right direction, it must be backed by more tangible protections like covering part of the costs incurred for treatment.</p>
<p>Unions demand that companies provide adequate PPE to workers free of cost —masks, gloves, hand sanitisers, and soap. If platforms continue to ask workers to log in at significant risks to themselves and their families, provision of safety equipment is the basic minimum requirement that must be met immediately. This should also include a plan to ensure workers’ access to clean and hygienic sanitation facilities, as they may not have access to these on their delivery routes.</p>
<p>In addition, platforms must provide health insurance cover in addition to accident insurance coverage and hospitalisation cover for COVID-19. This should include OPD consultations.</p>
<p><strong>Income security and social protection</strong></p>
<p>With services suspended or demand really low, gig workers have either lost their income or seen it fall drastically — delivery workers’ daily earnings are as low as Rs 150-Rs 300 for a full day’s work.</p>
<p>Almost a month into the lockdown, there is little clarity as to who is eligible for the funds that companies have raised, and in what manner and or what purposes it will be disbursed.</p>
<p>Ola Cabs has offered interest free loans to drivers for relief in the short term, while some Uber drivers have received a Rs 3,000 grant from the company. If disbursed universally this would ensure availability of some liquidity for workers, although at this stage it remains unclear if all drivers are eligible to receive the grant.</p>
<p>Workers and unions are afraid that this grant might only be accessible for workers with high ratings, or those who have logged longer hours especially through the course of the lockdown period. This would effectively penalise workers for going to their homes for the lockdown, or being otherwise unable to work. Unions have estimated that not more than 20 percent of workers continue to remain active through the lockdown period.</p>
<p>Moreover, research has shown that workers are not necessarily aware of the protections made available to them as a result of the legalese that companies couch these terms in.</p>
<p>To ensure income security, platforms must make direct cash transfers to all workers who have logged in for at least two weeks between January and April 2020. This should be fixed according to minimum wage standards for skilled work in each state or at Rs 1,000 per day of the lockdown, and will have to be enforced with retrospective effect.</p>
<p>The former should be treated as an entitlement of workers while a portion of the latter can be asked to be repaid by the workers over the course of the next year. The fiscal responsibility for the cash transfers can be shared with governments. Governments can request the data held by these companies for the transfers.</p>
<p><strong>Rent and loans</strong></p>
<p>Some states have announced moratoriums on house rent but again there is no explicit mention of gig workers being included in this — and in states where such a move hasn’t been announced, gig workers must continue to pay house rent without having a source of income to rely on.</p>
<p>On the issue of loan repayments, the RBI allowed lending institutions to grant a three-month moratorium on retail loan repayments as a part of its COVID-19 regulatory package. On the one hand, availing of the moratorium will significantly increase the loan tenure and total amount to be repaid. On the other, several gig workers have reported that the enforcement of the moratorium itself has been piecemeal outside of public sector institutions.</p>
<p>Here again they have to make a Faustian bargain. The government should enforce the RBI’s directive strictly so gig workers get some relief.</p>
<p>Further, several companies themselves have leased vehicles to workers, for which payment of EMI must be ceased through the months of March to May to allow workers some relief without requiring the return of vehicles. Currently, EMIs have only been stalled on the condition of returning vehicles.</p>
<p><strong>Harassment</strong></p>
<p>Workers have been subject to harassment and discrimination by the police and customers alike, making it difficult to continue work. Despite the categorisation of delivery as an essential service, companies are finding it difficult to get easy access to movement passes in bulk, which implies that workers are penalised by being unable to work even if they are available. Companies have come out to allege harassment despite clear directions to allow movement of delivery workers, which points to gaps in enforcement.</p>
<p>Further, frequent barricading has implied that workers are not able to complete orders without diversions despite having passes for movement. Meanwhile, companies continue to mandate door-to-door delivery so as to ensure that customers are not inconvenienced at all. In some cases, this has implied that workers have to travel on foot in barricaded areas to deliver orders.</p>
<p>We recommend that companies urgently set up a helpline for workers to address such issues that may arise in delivery. We also recommend that companies proactively work with the government to map hotspots and containment zones and cease delivery in such areas. Thus far, there is no indication of any such measures by companies.</p>
<p><strong>Post-lockdown revival</strong></p>
<p>The lockdown brings to the fore just how vulnerable gig workers are.</p>
<p>This is a direct consequence of the gig work arrangements structured as disguised employment. Deeming workers as independent contractors and self-identifying as technology providers, on-demand service companies have washed their hands of the responsibility of providing labour protections and social security measures despite exerting extensive control over the conditions of work (such as wages, incentives) and the manner of its dispensing (such as the standard of work, hours of work).</p>
<p>Governments, too, have done little to recognise gig workers although they have been added as a category of workers in the draft Social Security code. Relief measures announced by the government exclude them. However, the government needs to intervene urgently in the current situation.</p>
<p>Platforms are likely to recover once the lockdown is lifted —home delivery services like BigBasket and Grofers have already seen their businesses skyrocket.</p>
<p>However, there is an urgent need to rebuild on-demand work as one that isn’t merely in the service of capital. A first step to that would be to reduce commissions to 5% for at least 6 months so that workers can recover financially. The unencumbered spending to capture market share at the expense of workers needs to be curbed. Enforcing these recommendations will require a coordinated effort between governments and on-demand service companies. As consumers, it is also our responsibility to question companies that do not take on the moral responsibilities of extending adequate worker protections.</p>
<p>With unemployment in the country skyrocketing, it may be the case that on-demand work opens up avenues to securing work. It then becomes imperative to ensure any future of work is one that is inclusive and accounts for the systemic changes that are now impossible to ignore.</p>
<p>While social distancing is a choice truly available to a privileged few, we need to ensure that social protection isn’t.</p>
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<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/raw/gig-workers-need-support'>https://cis-india.org/raw/gig-workers-need-support</a>
</p>
No publisherZothan Mawii (Tandem Research), Aayush Rathi (CIS), and Ambika Tandon (CIS)Gig WorkDigital LabourResearchPlatform-WorkNetwork EconomiesPublicationsResearchers at Work2020-05-19T06:57:36ZBlog Entry