Centre for Internet and Society

Train-the-Trainer 2019 at Vishakhapatnam

pavan — 2019-05-24T02:21:19Z

Train-the-trainer 2019 (TTT 2019), residential training program to groom leadership among the Indian Wikimedia community members, is going to happen in Visakhapatnam during 31 May, 1 and 2 June 2019 at Fairfield by Marriott Hotel at Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh.

TTT 2019 is the 6th iteration in the earlier iterations happened in 2013, 2015, 2016, 2017, and 2018. Based on internal needs-assessment conducted annually by CIS-A2K tweaks and improvises the design and expected outcomes of TTT every year. This year, A2K planned to involve communities or community members in planning, and organizing the event to be more transparent. This year A2K has two major changes in organising the TTT.

Indic communities were asked to take part in the bidding process in order to express interest to host this iteration of TTT. Based on the bidding process, this year A2K is going to collaborate with VVIT Wikiconnect to host TTT 2019 in Visakhapatnam.
Wikimedians from various language and project communities showed interest to attend TTT 2019. The jury considered these applications and selected 24 participants from 13 language and project communities. A2K involved Experienced Indian Wikimedians who are not part of CIS-A2K in the jury. Apart from the details provided by applicants over application form jury members made attempts to know more about participants and reached out some of them over brief telephone calls. Based on set parameters and analysis jury made decisions. Find the selected participants’ list here.

Please find the event page for further details.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/events/train-the-trainer-2019-at-vishakhapatnam

International Accessibility Summit of Shaastra 2017

praskrishna — 2016-12-18T02:21:22Z

The Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) is partnering with IIT, Madras for a summit on international accessibility. The summit will be held at IIT in Chennai from December 31, 2016 to January 3, 2017. Nirmita Narasimhan will be the panel moderator this event.

This year’s Summit strives to bring about a change in society by addressing an issue that is taken for granted by most people: Accessibility.

Climbing stairs, listening to a lecture, reading a billboard, expressing dissent are some activities that most of us tend to perform quite effortlessly. Turning a “blind eye” to a “lame joke” is something that comes naturally to a lot of us. We crib to no end when people refuse to talk to us in a language we understand because it makes us feel like an outsider. If there is one thing that human beings hate, it is the feeling of being excluded or pitied upon, as this is a constant reminder of what one cannot do.

Accessibility is an attempt to get rid of this exclusion in various important spheres – physical environments, public spaces, the digital realm, education, employment, technology, transport. It is concerned with the removal of barriers, to set the record straight on what causes a disability: not an individual’s inability to do something but the society’s tendency to throw unnecessary obstacles. Accessibility is a spectrum - it means usability, it means removing limitations and tapping opportunities.

The International Accessibility Summit of Shaastra 2017, IIT Madras, a 4 day-long event to be held between 31st December, 2016 to 3rd January, 2017, is a platform for multiple stakeholders in the field of Accessibility and Assistive Technology to come together and share their knowledge. It is a chance for students from various fields of study to meet and ideate on how to make India truly accessible.

To know more about International Accessibility Summit, please watch the teaser.

Video

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/events/international-accessibility-summit-shaastra-2017

Internet Researchers' Conference 2017 (IRC17)

sumandro — 2018-07-02T18:29:55Z

With great pleasure we announce the second edition of the Internet Researchers' Conference (IRC), an annual conference series initiated by the Researchers at Work (RAW) programme at CIS to gather researchers, academic or otherwise, studying internet in/from India to congregate, share insights and tensions, and chart the ways forward. The Internet Researchers' Conference 2017 (IRC17) will be held at the International Institute of Information Technology Bangalore (IIIT-B) campus on March 03-05, 2017. It is being organised by the Centre for Information Technology and Public Policy (CITAPP) at IIIT-B and the CIS.

Registration is closed now.

Propose open sessions here.

Agenda (final): Download (PDF)

Programme: Download (PDF)

Poster (high resolution): Download (JPG)

IRC17: Key Provocations

Two critical questions that emerged from the conversations at the previous edition of the Conference (IRC16) were about the digital objects of research, and the digital/internet experiences in Indic languages. As we discussed various aspects and challenges of 'studying internet in India', it was noted that we have not sufficiently explored how ongoing research methods, assumptions, and analytical frames are being challenged (if at all) by the becoming-digital of the objects of research across disciplines: from various artifacts and traces of human and machinic interactions, to archival entries and sites of ethnography, to practices and necessities of collaboration.

We found that the analyses of such digital objects of research often tend to assume either an aesthetic and functional uniqueness or sameness vis-à-vis the pre-/proto-digital objects of research, while neither of these positions are discussed in detail. Further, we tend to universalise the English-speaking user's/researcher's experience of working with such digital objects, without sufficiently considering their lives and functions in other (especially, Indic) languages.

These we take as the key provocations of the 2017 edition of IRC:

How does the becoming-digital of the research objects challenge our current research practices, concerns, and assumptions?
How do we appreciate, study, and theorise the functioning of and meaning-making by digital objects in Indic languages?
What research tools and infrastructures are needed to study, document, annotate, analyse, archive, cite, and work with (in general) digital objects, especially those in Indic languages?

This conference series is specifically driven by the following interests: 1) creating discussion spaces for researchers studying internet in India and in other comparable regions, 2) foregrounding the multiplicity, hierarchies, tensions, and urgencies of the digital sites and users in India, 3) accounting for the various layers, conceptual and material, of experiences and usages of internet and networked digital media in India, and 4) exploring and practicing new modes of research and documentation necessitated by new (digital) forms of objects of power/knowledge.

Dates and Venue

The conference is being hosted by the International Institute of Information Technology Bangalore (IIIT-B) during March 03-05, 2017.

Address: 26/C, Electronics City, Hosur Road, Bangalore, 560100, location on Google Map.

Session Details and Notes

Day 01, Friday, March 03

#DigitalIdentities: Details and Etherpad

#IndicLanguagesAndInternetCohabitation: Details and Etherpad

#SelfiesFromTheField: Details and Etherpad

#HookingUp: Details and Etherpad

Day 02, Saturday, March 04

#DotBharatAdoption: Details and Etherpad

#DigitalPedagogies: Details and Etherpad

#MaterializingWriting: Details and Etherpad

#RenarrationWeb: Details and Etherpad

Day 03, Sunday, March 05

#ArchivesForStorytelling: Details and Etherpad

#ObjectsOfDigitalGovernance: Details and Etherpad

#OpenAccessScholarlyPublishing: Details and Etherpad

Session Selection Process

Call for sessions: http://cis-india.org/raw/irc17-call.

Selected sessions: http://cis-india.org/raw/irc17-selected-sessions.

Please join the researchers@cis-india mailing list to take part in pre- and post-conference conversations.

About the IRC Series

The Researchers at Work (RAW) programme at the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) initiated the Internet Researchers' Conference (IRC) series to address these concerns, and to create an annual temporary space in India, for internet researchers to gather and share experiences.

The IRC series is driven by the following interests:

creating discussion spaces for researchers and practitioners studying internet in India and in other comparable regions,
foregrounding the multiplicity, hierarchies, tensions, and urgencies of the digital sites and users in India, accounting for the various layers, conceptual and material, of experiences and usages of internet and networked digital media in India, and
exploring and practicing new modes of research and documentation necessitated by new (digital) objects of power/knowledge.

The first edition of the Internet Researchers' Conference series was held in February 2016. It was hosted by the Centre for Political Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University, and was supported by the CSCS Digital Innovation Fund. The Conference was constituted by eleven discussion sessions (majority of which were organised around presentation of several papers), four workshop sessions (which involved group discussions, activities, and learnings), a book sprint over three sessions to develop an outline of a (re)sourcebook for internet researchers in India, and a concluding round table. The audio recordings and notes from IRC16 are now being compiled into an online Reader. A detailed reflection note on IRC16 has been published.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/raw/irc17

Workshop on Digital Security for Journalists

praskrishna — 2015-01-15T14:07:16Z

The Foundation for Media Professionals and the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) are jointly hosting a workshop on 'Digital Security for Journalists' in New Delhi on January 16, 2015.

This workshop will be a hands-on training — so all journalists are strongly encouraged to bring their laptops and smartphones — on how to assess security threats, how to protect your sources, how to prevent your ISP from snooping on your communications, and how to harden your computer's security.

This workshop furthers CIS's work as part of the Cyber Stewards Network with aid of a grant from the International Development Research Centre, and the space for this workshop has been provided by the Times of India.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/events/workshop-on-digital-security-for-journalists

Code As Communication

praskrishna — 2015-01-23T03:12:15Z

Gene Kogan will give a talk at the Centre for Internet & Society's Bangalore office on February 2, 2015. The talk will be from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. Gene's talk will draw analogies between software, communication, creativity, and expressivity. Programming has a long history of comparison to other written media, with inevitable consequences on our legal policy over authorship and ownership.

With the emergence of free "creative coding" and "live coding" platforms like Processing, OpenFrameworks, PureData, vvvv, and SuperCollider, the boundaries between code and creative expression have further eroded, initiating inquiry as to its overlap with "traditional" creative writing. We are confronted with old questions within new contexts. As existing institutions incorporate emerging technologies into their creative programs and new ones take root and solidify, how do we make an infrastructure which most effectively and transparently fosters the development of creative technology? How do we ensure that this process is fair and democratic, and at greatest benefit and lowest cost to the public? What rights should users and developers receive? As the distinction between art and technology becomes blurry, what relevance does the FOSS movement have in cultivating cultural production?

Gene Kogan

Gene Kogan is a programmer and artist who writes free software for new and emerging technologies. He creates tools for live music, dance, theatre, and performance art. He contributes to numerous open-source software projects, and frequently gives workshops and demonstrations on topics related to code and art.

Follow Gene Kogan elsewhere:

Website: http://www.genekogan.com

Vimeo: http://www.vimeo.com/genekogan

Soundcloud: http://www.soundcloud.com/genekogan

Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/genekogan

Github: http://www.github.com/genekogan

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/genekogan

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/events/code-as-communication

Train the Trainer Program

praskrishna — 2015-02-27T02:37:10Z

The Centre for Internet and Society's Access to Knowledge team (CIS-A2K) welcomes you to attend the "Train the Trainer Program" in Bangalore.

Train the Trainer (TTT) is a residential training workshop to groom leadership skills among the Indian Wikimedia community members. CIS-A2K is organizing the Wikipedia Train the Trainer Program 2015 (TTT 2015). This is the second iteration of this program. TTT 2015 will be conducted by CIS-A2K during 26 February to 1 March 2015 in Bangalore, India.

Note: All selected participants will be expected to reach the event venue the previous night (i.e. February 25) and leave by the evening of March 1, 2015. The selected participants are requested to kindly confirm their participation by writing to tanveercis-india.org. Registration for TTT 2015 is closed. Please do not register.. Please note that registration does not confirm participation. Selection by CIS-A2K will be final. Before registering here please go through the selection criterion.

Programme Schedule

Thursday, February 26, 2015

Timing	Session	Topics to be Covered	Coordinator / Resource Person

7:30am - 8:30am	Breakfast
8:30am - 9:00am	Registration
9:00am - 10.30am	Welcome & Introduction	Introductions (activity based) Creating name tags for yourself and your friends Energiser/Activity. Meet and greet Wikimedians	T. Vishnu Vardhan (VV) and Tanveer Hasan (TH)
10:30am - 11 am	Why TTT?	Design and Objectives of the TTT	VV
11 am - 11.30 am	☕ Tea/Coffee Break
☼ 11.30 am - 1 pm	Participant presentations	Individual presentation based on pre-work	TTT Participant
1 pm - 2 pm	Lunch
2 pm - 3.30 pm	Participant presentations	Individual presentation based on pre work	TTT Participant
3.30 pm - 4 pm	☕ Tea/Coffee Break
4 pm - 5 pm	Presenting with impact	Effective Communication Forceful Introduction Organizing your speech (Opening, Body Closing) Get to the point (General purpose and specific purpose) Communicate clearly, accurately and vividly Body Language (Stance, Movement, Gestures, Facial expression and eye contact) Vocal Variety (Volume, Pitch, Rate and Quality)	TH
5.30 pm - 6.30 pm	Break
6.30 pm - 8 pm	Parallel Sessions	Personal coaching on Presentation Skills using video recordings of Presentation or Multilingual Edit-a-thon (theme - Jnanpith_Award)	Sunil Abraham(SA) VV TH Rahmanuddin Shaik (RS) Subhashish Panigrahi (SP) U.B. Pavanaja (UBP)
8:00 pm - 9:00 pm	Dinner

Friday, February 26, 2015

Timing	Session	Topics to be Covered	Coordinator / Resource Person

☾ 8 pm - 9 pm	Dinner
☼ 10.30 am - 11 am	Internet research techniques (Session 2)	Information literacy and Internet research techniques for Wikipedia editors slides	LS
9.15 am - 10 am	Internet research techniques (Session 1)	Information literacy and Internet research techniques for Wikipedia editors	LS
8:30 am - 9.15 am	Copyright, CC and Wikimedia	Introduction to Copyright and Creative Commons slides Creative Commons Wikimedia Applications	L. Shyamal (LS)
7:30 am - 8:30 am	Breakfast
7 pm - 8 pm	Parallel sessions	Personal Coaching GLAM Projects Do's and Dont's FOSS Tools Support and Discussion	CIS-A2K Team RL RS
6.30 pm - 7 pm	GLAM Projects in Indic Wikipedia Context	Feasibility, Scalability and Scope	Rohini Lakshane(RL)
6 pm - 6.30 pm	☕ Tea/Coffee Break
5 pm - 6 pm	Essential Foss Tools for Wikimedians	Hands on Session	Rahamanuddin
4.30 pm - 5 pm	Essential FOSS Tools	Demonstration	RS
4 pm - 4.30 pm	☕ Tea/Coffee Break
3.30 pm - 4 pm	Panel Discussion	Importance of NPOV in Indian Languages	Participant Panel (TBD)
2.45 pm - 3.30 pm	Importance of NPOV	NPOV as an essential quality for Wikimedians with English Wikipedia as a case study	NVV Char and Tito Dutta
2 pm - 2.45 pm	Spectogram	Interactive activity to critically discuss the importance of NPOV	SA
11.45 am - 1 pm	DIY	Digitisation Techniques for Wikimedians-Hands on Session	Group Activity
11.30 am - 11.45 am	☕ Tea/Coffee Break
11 am - 11.30 am	DIY	Digitisation Techniques for Wikimedians	Viswa Prabha(VP)
10 am - 10.30 am	☕ Tea/Coffee Break
1 pm - 2 pm	Lunch

Saturday, February 28, 2015

Timing	Session	Topics to be Covered	Coordinator / Resource Person

7 am - 7.30am	Breakfast
7:30am	Departure to Janapada Loka
9 am - 9.30am	Expectations from GLAM Activity	Design,scope and expected outcomes	TH
9.30am - 1 pm	* GLAM Activity	Interviewing Janapada Loka Staff Documentation of Janapada Loka exhibits Resource Collection for Wiki Commons Material collection for GLAM Edit-a-thon	VP RL CIS-A2K
1 pm - 2 pm	Lunch
2 pm - 3.30 pm	Group Activity	GLAM Editathon in Indian Languages	VP and VV
3.30 pm - 4 pm	☕ Tea/Coffee Break
4 pm - 4.30 pm	Panel Discussion	Need and importance of GLAM Activities	TBD
4.30 pm - 5.30 pm	Focused Group Discussion	GLAM Activities to be pursued (Individual and Community)	Participant Groups
5.30 pm - 6.30 pm	Departure to CEO Centre
☾ 8 pm - 9 pm	Dinner at CEO Centre

Sunday, March 1, 2015

Timing	Session	Topics to be Covered	Coordinator / Resource Person

07:30 am - 08:30 am	Breakfast
08:30am - 9.30 am	Media and Social Media Strategies for Wikimedians	Mobilizing mainstream media to cover Wikimedia success stories Best practices of Social Media	Tinu Cherian
9.30am - 10 am	Building Communities for Wikimedia Movement	Introduction to WMIN	Ravishankar Ayyakkannu (RA)and Yohann Thomas (YT)
10am - 10.30 am	Building Communities for Wikimedia Movement	CIS-A2K Trials and Success	VV
☼ 10.30 am - 11:00 am	☕ Tea/Coffee Break
11am - 11.30 am	Group Discussion	Challenges & Opportunities in building an Indian Language Community online	Participant Groups
11.30 pm - 12.30 pm	Participant Presentation	Participant Presentations
12.30 pm - 1 pm	Lunch
1.30 pm - 2 pm	Focused Group Discussion	Road Ahead for GLAM activities in India Languages	Participant Presentations
2.30 pm - 3.30 pm	Participant Presentation	Submission of Outreach and GLAM Draft Plans
3.30 pm - 3.45 pm	Feedback Session
3.45 pm - 4 pm	Closing Remarks
4:00 pm	Departures or Visit to CIS

For any further queries please email—

tanveercis-india.org 09844439247
ajoy cis-india.org 09845492122
vishnucis-india.org 09845207308

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/events/train-the-trainer-program

RAW Lectures #01: Nishant Shah on 'Stories and Histories of Internet in India'

praskrishna — 2016-01-10T08:05:30Z

Dr. Nishant Shah will give a talk on 'Stories and Histories of Internet in India' at the Centre for Internet and Society's office in Bangalore on March 6, 2015 at 6 p.m. Please join us for tea and coffee before the lecture at 5.30 p.m.

Update: The video recording of the lecture can be accessed here.

Introducing the first research initiative at the Researchers at Work programme in the Centre for Internet and Society, Professor Nishant Shah wrote:

“Although many disciplines, organisations and interventions in various areas deal with internet technologies, there has been very little work in documenting the polymorphous growth of internet technologies and their relationship with society in India... We wanted to first propose that the Internet is not a monolithic object that exists in the same way across geographies and social borders. It is necessary to approach the Internets, as plural, available in different forms, practices and experiences to people from different locations and sections of the society... The second proposal was that while the digital and Internet technologies are new, they do not necessarily only produce new things. There is a need to map the histories and pre-histories of Internets.”

The Researchers at Work programme is initiating the RAW Lectures series to take stock, reflect, and chart courses into the studies of Internet in/from India. The lectures will address the experiences and practices of Internet in India as plural and intertwined with longer-duration processes, as foregrounded by Nishant above. The lectures will 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.

It gives us immense pleasure to invite Nishant to present the first lecture of the series on Friday, March 06, 2015. The title of the lecture is "Once There was the Internet: Of Stories and Histories of Internet in India."

Dr. Nishant Shah

Nishant 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.

In his varied roles, he has been committed to producing infrastructure, frameworks and collaborations in the global south to understand and analyse the ways in which emergence and growth of digital technologies have shaped the contemporary social, political and cultural milieu. He edited a series of monographs on “Histories of Internet(s) in India” that looks at the complicated relationship that technologies have with questions of gender, sexuality, body, city, governance, archiving and gaming in a country like India. He was also the principal researcher for a research programme that produced the four-volume anthology “Digital AlterNatives With a Cause?” that examines the ways in which young people’s relationship with digital technologies produces changes in their immediate environments.

His Ph.D. thesis titled “The Technosocial Subject: Cities, Cyborgs and Cyberspace” builds a framework to examine the technosocial identities that are produced at the intersection of law, digital technologies and everyday cultural practices in emerging information societies like India. Nishant was an Asia Research fellow looking at the cost and infrastructure of building IT Cities like Shanghai. He is the author of a recent thought-piece titled “Whose Change is it Anyway? – Towards a future of digital technologies and citizen action in emerging information societies” that seeks to revisit the debates around digital activism and change in the global context. His current interests are in critically intervening in debates around Digital Humanities and conditions of change mediated by technologies.

More: http://cdc.leuphana.com/people/#nishant-shah

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/raw/raw-lectures-01-nishant-shah

Consultation on Figures of Learning in the Digital Context

praskrishna — 2015-11-13T05:39:00Z

The Centre for Internet and Society welcomes you to a consultation on new figures of learning in the digital context at its office in Bangalore on September 22, 2014 from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m.

The increasing prevalence of the internet and digital technologies today has engendered a new kind of learning environment, which is connected and collaborative, yet also focussed on the individual, with an emphasis on practice. The pervasive influence of technology in teaching-learning practice has also resulted in new tools, processes and platforms, which have added dimensions to learning, and led to the creation of new bodies of knowledge in the digital context. These new figures, spaces, objects and processes, often challenge and inflate given notions of expertise and authority, increasingly locating them outside the familiar framework of the university and a traditional classroom-based approach to learning.

While the processes of knowledge production have been rapidly changing in the last couple of decades, some examples being data mining, distant reading, cultural mapping and design thinking as new ways of parsing, organising, curating and processing information or knowledge, traditionally the point of reference for authoritative ‘figures’ of learning remains the same. These are that of the teacher, facilitator, reader, student, participant etc. However, with the emergence of such new processes of knowledge-making which are largely located in the digital context, one can see the presence of some non-traditional figures of knowledge as well – such as the geek, hacker, blogger, story-teller, worker, designer, activist etc. There are figures which, consciously or unconsciously subvert and redefine certain conventions of knowledge-making practices, by inventing new terms or redefining old ones. More importantly, the emergence of this nomenclature is symptomatic of a change in the predominant discourse that constitutes a particular kind of ‘digital subject’ or entity that inhabits the digital in a particular way.

The present consultation is an exercise to map these concepts and changes around a set of figures of learning, old and new, to understand the discursive shifts that produce them and locate them in the contemporary moment. Participants from diverse areas of research and practice would be invited to make a short ten minute presentation on one such figure, drawn from their area of interest and work, and examine the concepts or notions behind them. This will be followed by group discussions and a 30 minute writing sprint at the end of the consultation to consolidate the discussion.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/raw/consultation-on-new-figures-of-learning-in-digital-context

Freedom of Expression in a Digital Age: Effective Research, Policy Formation & the Development of Regulatory Frameworks in South Asia

jyoti — 2015-04-12T03:53:04Z

The Centre for Internet & Society cordially invites you to a panel discussion on Freedom of Expression in a Digital Age. The event organized by Center for Global Communication Studies at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania, Observer Research Foundation and the Centre for Internet and Society will be held at Observer Research Foundation on April 21, 2015 from 11.00 a.m. to 6.00 p.m.

The discussion will highlight the challenges in promoting and strengthening online freedom of expression and evaluating the application of existing regulatory frameworks in South Asia. Click to view the invite.

International Frameworks and Freedom of Expression

Freedom of expression-an important fundamental right in itself, is also critical for defending and upholding other freedoms and rights. We exercise this right in our day-to-day lives, through the exchange of ideas, opinions and information. Understanding the means and structures of communication, and the regulation of environments that facilitate such exchange therefore become crucial for those seeking to realize freedom of expression.

Freedom of expression is enshrined in Article 19 of both theUniversal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). The UDHR holds that " everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers" . The ICCPR holds that, " everyone shall have the right to freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of his choice".

Freedom of expression has also been enshrined in regional conventions and charters, for example the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, the American Convention on Human Rights4, and the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights ("Banjul Charter") .

The former UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, Frank La Rue, highlighted in his 2013 report report that these frameworks are applicable to actions that take place online.6 While there may be no disagreements on freedom of expression as a legal right, it is important to bear in mind that it is not a non-derogable right, and may therefore be limited subject to safeguards indicated, for example, in Article 19(3) of the ICCPR.

While there may be limitations are placed on the exercise of freedom of expression, there is limited clarity on when and how freedom of expression can be legitimately circumscribed. There have been attempts by civil society groups to articulate more clearly the specific conditions when freedom of expression may be derogated, most notably the Siracusa Principles on the Limitation and Derogation Provisions in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights ("Siracusa Principles" ), and the Johannesburg Principles on National Security, Freedom of Expression and Access to Information ("Johannesburg Principles").

Freedom of Expression and Communications

Over the years, the norms and standards required for freedom of expression in the traditional media world have received much attention. When regulating communication, some restrictions upon freedom of expression have been regarded necessary and are enforceable by national or international courts. Such restrictions have been defined in international human rights laws and cover issues such as defamation, incitement to violence and hate speech. While these restrictions are not affected by the introduction of new means of communication, the proliferation of digital communications does warrant the recognition that there are new forms of censorship, unsettled questions of jurisdiction, and the need to develop new norms and standards that can keep pace with the myriad forms of expression and information sharing.

Communication in the digital age has led to the evolution of the Internet as a medium that has revolutionised largely local capacity for communication into a worldwide phenomenon that encompasses everything from personal one-to-one emails, social networks and reaching out to large audiences globally. The proliferation of digital technologies has not only fostered unprecedented access to information; the very environment stands transformed by the introduction of new kinds of information from voice, sound, image, text and code, that are accessible on a range of devices and across several types of technologies.

These networks and services democratized communication by lowering barriers to access and creating new space for publishing and peer-to-peer collaboration. Bypassing traditional gatekeepers of other forms of media, users can take on the role of writers, broadcasters or publishers on the Internet thus creating limitless possibilities for producing, sharing and exchanging all kinds of content. From this view, the Internet has sprung up as a globally accessible means of communication that is free from traditional restraints on free speech and expression. However, there are other unintended consequences that the Internet has had on both forms of power and control in the regulation of content, as online content has become increasingly contested, enclosed in a nationalized sphere challenging the free flow of information and freedom of expression.

Freedom of Expression in South Asia

As a network of networks, the internet has no overarching jurisdiction and with no single entity governing the totality of the internet, there exists a jurisdictional vacuum over content on the web. Further, there are no means of regulating content internationally or even a broad consensus on the norms that should be applied for restricting freedom of expression either on traditional or modern media. This has led to adverse consequences such as states adopting arbitrary actions and standards or companies exercising private censorship with content online.

South Asia has an important role in global development, with its share of the world's largest working-age population, a quarter of the world's middle-class consumers, the largest number of poor and undernourished in the world, and several fragile states of global geopolitical importance. With inclusive growth, South Asia has the potential to change the global order and communications and technology continue to play a critical role in realising the region's potential. Unfortunately, the history of colonial rule, authoritarian governments and a turbulent geo-political landscape have resulted in a tendency to over-regulate speech. Governments have construed the advent of the Internet as a challenge to their authority and their anxiousness to restrict use of the medium by citizens has resulted in often regressive and sometimes draconian laws such as Myanmar's Electronic Transactions Law, India's IT Act and Pakistan's Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act.

As the Internet expands and provides greater access, it also places censorship and surveillance capacities in the hands of states and corporations. It is therefore crucial that there exist strong protections of the right to freedom of expression that balance state powers and citizen rights. While the Internet has thrown up its own set of challenges such as hate speech, the verbal online abuse of women and the use of the Internet to spread rumours of violence, the regulation of content is a question that is far from being settled and needs our urgent attention. What role can and should the law play? When is it justified for the government to intervene? What can be expected from intermediaries, such as social networks and ISPs? And what can users do to protect the right to free speech - their own and that of others?

Balancing freedom of expression with other rights is further complicated by the challenges of fast paced and changing regulatory environment. By highlighting these challenges and questioning the application of existing frameworks we aim to contribute to further promoting and strengthening the right to freedom of expression, in India and beyond.

Introduction to panel and conference:

This is the context in which the Centre for Internet and Society, the Observer Research Foundation, the University of Pennsylvania's Internet Policy Observatory, and the Programme for Comparative Media Law and Policy at Oxford University are coming together to organise an event under the title 'Freedom of Expression in a Digital Age'. The event is a discussion and deliberation on 'Effective Research, Policy Formation, & the Development of Regulatory Frameworks in South Asia', aimed at bringing together policymakers, researchers, experts and civil society in discussing some of the most crucial issues in this space. The event would seek to look at past experiences, look at current realities and look ahead to how things could be made better in the South Asian context. The program agenda includes

Freedom of Expression in a Digital Age' Effective Research, Policy Formation, & the Development of Regulatory Frameworks in South Asia
Program Agenda and Article Submission Tracks
Learnings from the past		Current Realities		Looking ahead
11:00 - 1:00	1:00 - 2:00	2:00 - 4:00	4:00- 4:15	4:15-6:00
Welcome and Introductions		Welcome and Introductions		Welcome and Introductions
Overview of existing policies and regulatory models and their impact on FoEx online including the implementation of these models across South Asia	Lunch	How FoEx is being enabled online in different jurisdications and sectors of society across South Asia	Coffee break	Challenges associated with formulating a standard, harmonized, and adaptable regulation that is applicable to multiple digital platforms, both at the national and international level and possible solutions
FoEx as defined in jurisdictions across South Asia and as compared to international standards		Ways in which FoEx is, or may be, curtailed online		Ways forward to bridge existing gaps between policy formation and policy implementation with respect to FOEX online
Emerging technologies, markets, services and platforms and how they have shaped FoEx across South Asia		Online FoEx and the present need to balance it against other digital rights in jurisdictions across South Asia		Exploration of emerging regulatory questions such as whether online speech should be regulated in the same manner as offline speech or, if there are there are particular forms of online speech that are difficult to regulate such as defamation, hate speech, if there are effective models of remedy for violation of FOEX online
Impact of challenges on FoEx online such as barriers of entry, access, accessibility, cost, liability, policies and enforcement mechanisms differing across platforms across South Asia		The impact of jurisdiction, multi-national platforms, and domestic regulation on FOEX online		Ways in which civil society can impact and influence the development and implementation of Internet regulation
Research techniques that have been applied to the issue and have been effective in different political contexts across South Asia		Role and responsibility of intermediaries in regulating online speech as per governmental standards via content policies, terms of service, and other practices across South Asia		Exploration of the future role and interplay of technology and policy in enabling FOEX online
Q&A		Q&A		Q&A

About the Organisers

The Center for Global Communication Studies at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania-has created the Internet Policy Observatory (IPO) to research the dynamic technological and political contexts in which these Internet governance debates take place. The IPO serves as a platform for informing relevant communities of activists, academics, and policy makers, and for displaying collected data and analysis. The Observatory encourages and sponsors research and studies ongoing events, key decisions and proposals, on Internet policy. The IPO seeks to deepen understanding of the evolution of mechanisms and processes that affect domestic Internet policies in key jurisdictions and the legal, political, economic, international and social factors that influence the implementation, or non-implementation, of such policies.The IPO also seeks to understand the relationship between national efforts and international policy formations and the role of civil society in domestic Internet policy processes and control.

The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS)-is a non-profit research organization working to explore, understand and affect the shape and form of the Internet and its relationship with the political, cultural, and social milieu of our times. CIS' multidisciplinary research, intervention and collaboration engages with policy issues relating to freedom of expression, privacy, accessibility for persons with disabilities, access to knowledge and IPR reform, openness (including open government data, free/open source software, open standards, open access to scholarly literature, open educational resources, and open video). CIS also engages in academic research on digital natives and digital humanities.

The Observer Research Foundation (ORF)- is India's premier independent public policy think tank and is engaged in developing and discussing policy alternatives on a wide range of issues of national and international significance. The fundamental objective of ORF is to influence the formulation of policies for building a strong and prosperous India in a globalised world. It hosts India's largest annual cyber conference - CyFy: the India Conference on Cyber Security and Internet Governance.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/events/freedom-of-expression-in-digital-age

Privacy Meeting: Brussels – Bangalore

praskrishna — 2013-09-12T07:56:53Z

The Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore welcomes you to a talk on privacy by Gertjan Boulet and Dariusz Kloza on August 14, 2013, 5.00 p.m. to 8.00 p.m.

Slides from the talk can be accessed here.

Draft Agenda

Time	Detail
17.00 17.15	Brief presentation of the Research Group on Law, Science, Technology and Society (LSTS) at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), Belgium
17.15 18.15	Session on "new tools" to protect privacy and personal data. A case-study on (European) approach to privacy impact assessment This session will provide an overview to the main findings of the projects carried out by VUB-LSTS (predominantly) with regard to privacy impact assessments (PIA), starting with the EU co-funded PIAF (“A Privacy Impact Assessment Framework for data protection and privacy rights”; 2011-2012), which reviewed existing PIA frameworks worldwide, surveyed opinions of national data protection authorities (DPAs) on an optimal PIA policy and, finally, provided a set of recommendations for PIA policy-makers and practitioners. This session will be concluded by proposing adaptation of the so-called environmental democracy to the needs and reality of privacy. The points in this session will be contrasted with the experience of India.
18.15 18.45	Session on co-operation of data protection authorities "Improving Practical and Helpful cooperation between Data Protection Authorities", 2013-15. This session will provide a preliminary analysis of the (legal) factors that pose as obstacles to and/or encourage co-operation between DPAs worldwide in enforcing privacy and data protection laws. Such an analysis aims at creating a 'wish-list', i.e. at identifying what measures could be taken to reduce barriers and to further foster co-operation. This session will be concluded by discussing what DPAs' can learn about co-operation from European and international competition law. The points in this session will be contrasted with the experience of India.
18.45 19.00	Break
19.00 19.15	Small session on big data The focus of this session will be on the challenges posed to sovereignty by cross-border law enforcement access to big data. The Belgian Yahoo-case will be discussed as it is emblematic of a reality with broad national claims to access data in a trans-border context. Indian perspectives on this topic will be taken into account.
19.15 20.00	Open discussion

Materials

Wright, David, Kush Wadhwa, Paul De Hert, and Dariusz Kloza, A Privacy Impact Assessment Framework for Data Protection and Privacy Rights, 2011. http://piafproject.eu/ref/PIAF_D1_21_Sept2011Revlogo.pdf
Hosein, Gus, and Simon Davies, Empirical Research of Contextual Factors Affecting the Introduction of Privacy Impact Assessment Frameworks in the Member States of the European Union, 2012. http://piafproject.eu/ref/PIAF_deliverable_d2_final.pdf
De Hert, Paul, Dariusz Kloza, and David Wright, Recommendations for a Privacy Impact Assessment Framework for the European Union, 2012. http://piafproject.eu/ref/PIAF_D3_final.pdf
Kloza Dariusz, Moscibroda Anna, Boulet Gertjan, “Improving Co-operation Between Data Protection Authorities: First Lessons from Competition Law.” in Jusletter IT. Die Zeitschrift für IT und Recht, published by Weblaw AG. http://jusletter-it.weblaw.ch/issues/2013/20-Februar-2013/2128.html
Kloza Dariusz, “Public voice in privacy governance: lessons from environmental democracy”, in Erich Schweighofer (ed.), KnowRight 2012 conference proceedings [forthcoming].

Other resources

PHAEDRA project: http://www.phaedra-project.eu

PIAF project: http://piafproject.eu
PIAw@tch, the PIA observatory: http://piawatch.eu

The Speakers

Gertjan Boulet

Gertjan Boulet holds a joint LL.M/MPhil (2010) from Leuven University (Belgium) and Tilburg University (the Netherlands) where he successfully completed a Research Master of Laws programme focused on legal methods and interdisciplinary research. He started to work as a doctoral researcher at the Research Group on Law, Science, Technology and Society (LSTS) at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel in January 2013 for the EU-funded research project 'Improving Practical and Helpful cooperAtion bEtween Data PRotection Authorities' (PHAEDRA). Before, he was a freelance researcher at VUB, and became a member of the programming committee of the annual conference 'Computers, Privacy & Data Protection' (CPDP). Prior to joining the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Gertjan worked for the Brussels Airport Company (2010) and the law firm DLA Piper (2011). He also completed internships at the Belgian Public Prosecutor (2007), the Constitutional Court of Belgium (2012) and the Belgian Privacy Commission (2013).

Gertjan Boulet

Dariusz Kloza

Dariusz (Darek) Kloza is a doctoral researcher at the Research Group on Law, Science, Technology, and Society (LSTS) and the Institute for European Studies (IES) at Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB). He holds both an LL.M. in Law and Technology (2010) from the Tilburg Institute for Law, Technology, and Society (TILT) at Tilburg University (with distinction) and a master degree in law from University of Białystok (2008). He was also an exchange student at University of Copenhagen (2007-2008). His research is focused on fundamental rights in the digital era (especially privacy and data protection), liability of intermediary service providers and private international law. His doctoral research focuses on positive procedural obligations for privacy and data protection from the European perspective.

He has been involved in researching privacy and data protection issues in a number of EU co-funded projects, such as PIAF (Privacy Impact Assessment Framework for data protection and privacy rights), PHAEDRA (Improving Practical and Helpful cooperAtion bEtween Data PRotection Authorities) and ADVISE (Advanced Video Surveillance archives search Engine for security applications). He has also contributed to the work of the European Commission’s Task Force for Smart Grids, aimed at ensuring high level of privacy and personal data protection in smart grids/metering.

Dariusz Kloza

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/events/privacy-meeting-brussels-bangalore

Chennai: Learn to Protect your Online Activities!

bernadette — 2013-08-01T12:16:52Z

The Centre for Internet and Society cordially invites you to a Crypto Party at Asian College of Journalism Second main Road (Behind M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation) Taramani in Chennai on August 7, 2013, 4.30 p.m. to 6.30 p.m.

"Governments around the world, are greatly increasing their surveillance of the Internet. Alongside a loss of the private sphere, this also represents a clear danger to basic civil liberties. The good news is that we already have the solution: encrypting communications makes it very hard, if not entirely impossible, for others to eavesdrop on our conversations. The bad news is that crypto is largely ignored by the general public, partly because they don't know about it, and partly because even if they do, it seems too much trouble to implement." (Source)

So lets go and have a party, and teach each other how to crypto!

Everyone is invited! Especially do not hesitate to join if you are not using any crypto at all (yet!)

Here is a Flyer / Printout for you to spread the message!

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/cryptoparty-chennai

Privacy Round Table, New Delhi

praskrishna — 2013-08-12T10:41:08Z

The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), FICCI and DSCI cordially invites you to attend the "Privacy Round Table" to be held at the FICCI, Federation House, Tansen Marg, New Delhi on Saturday, August 24, 2013, 10.30 a.m. to 5.00 p.m., to discuss the "Report of the Group of Experts on Privacy" by the Justice A.P. Shah Committee, the text of the "Citizen's Privacy (Protection) Bill, 2013, drafted by the Centre for Internet and Society, and "Strengthening Privacy Protection through Co-Regulation" by DSCI.

Featured Remote Presentation from Jamie Hine and Betsy Broder, Federal Trade Commissioner, US

The discussions and recommendations from the meeting will be published into a compilation, and presented at the Internet Governance meeting planned for October 2013.

Draft Agenda for the Roundtable Discussion

Time	Detail
10.30	Overview, explanation, and discussion: The Report of the Group of Experts on Privacy.
11.30	Overview, explanation, and discussion: Strengthening Privacy Protection through Co-regulation.
12.15	Tea
12.30	Overview, explanation, and discussion: The Citizens Privacy (Protection) Bill, 2013.
13.15	Lunch
14.15	In depth discussion and overview of discussions and feedback from previous Roundtables and subsequent amendments to the Citizens Privacy (Protection) Bill, 2013.
16.00	The US Privacy Framework: Remote Presentation from Jamie Hine and Betsy Broder, Federal Trade Commission, US.
17.00	Tea

Confirmations and RSVP:

Please send your email confirmations for attending the New Delhi Privacy Roundtable on August 24, 2013, to elonnai@cis-india.org

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/events/privacy-round-table-delhi

Multistakeholder Consultation on Encryption

praskrishna — 2016-12-17T01:22:35Z

The Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) in collaboration with ORF and Takshashila Institution is organizing a Multi-Stakeholder Consultation on Encryption on December 17, 2016 at TERI in Bengaluru.

The consultation is intended to help shape the discussions around the new draft encryption policy slated to be released sometime early next year. The consultation will be divided into two segments: an open house and a panel discussion with high-level government representatives, including Dr. Gulshan Rai, the National Cyber Security Coordinator. The sessions start at 10.30 a.m. on December 17, 2016 and will go on for until approximately 4.30 p.m.

The discussions themselves will highlight inputs from the three main constituents affected by an encryption policy: civil society and end users, the private sector and government. The range of civil liberties and constitutional rights implicated by encryption, as well as the needs of businesses to secure data flows will be discussed. Government officials too are expected to join the consultation and will provide perspectives on encryption and legitimate access to data for law enforcement purpose.

For more info reach out to Udbhav Tiwari (udbhav@cisindia.org) or Bedavyasa Mohanty (bedavyasam@orfonline.org)

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/events/multistakeholder-consultation-on-encryption

Digital Disruption or Digital Black Money?

praskrishna — 2017-01-10T15:39:36Z

Dr. Anupam Saraph, Professor and Future Designer will give a talk on digital disruption and digital black money on January 30, 2017 at the Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) office in Bangalore.

The digital disruption of payments in the economy is regarded as a magic wand to cure financial exclusion, reduce costs of cash, and end money laundering and black money. At the centre of the digital revolution are new mechanisms to on-board customers, undertake money transfers, alteration of players in the payment ecosystem and a significant change in regulatory oversight. Does this alteration of the financial ecosystem result in serving the unserved and underserved? Does going cashless and holding digital cash end black money, money laundering, and financial exclusion? Or is this actually generating digital black money through digital money laundering and actually causing financial exclusion? Is digital black money even possible? Does the digital money have no colour?

Dr. Anupam Saraph

Anupam Saraph is a Professor of Systems, Governance and Decision Sciences, Environmental Systems and Business he mentors students and teaches systems, information systems, environmental systems and sustainable development at universities in Europe, Asia and the Americas. He has worked with the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Rijksuniversitiet Groningen, RIVM, University of Edinburgh, Resource Use Institute, Systems Research Institute among others. He was also the Governance and IT Advisor to former Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar. Dr. Saraph has also served as the Vice Chairman of the Infotech Corporation of Goa, held CxO level positions and serves as an independent director on the boards of Public and Private Sector companies and NGOs including the Moneylife Foundation.

Dr. Saraph is also actively engaged in civil society where he participates in several environmental, resource and nature conservation initiatives, has authored draft legislations for river and natural resource conservation, right to good governance and has contributed to governance, election and democratic reforms. Dr. Saraph is a regular columnist in newspapers and writes on issues of governance, future design, technology and education from a systems perspective.

As a future designer and recognized as a global expert on complex systems he helps individuals and organisations understand and design the future of their worlds. Together they address the toughest challenges, accomplish missions and achieve business goals. He also supports building capacity to address the challenges of today as well as to build future designs through teams and effective leadership. Since the eighties Dr. Saraph has modeled complex systems of cities, countries, regions and even the planet. His models have been awarded internationally and even placed in 10-year permanent exhibitions.

Dr Saraph works with business and government executives, civil society leaders, politicians, generals, civil servants, police, trade unionists, community activists, United Nations and ASEAN officials, judges, writers, media, architects, designers, technologists, scientists, entrepreneurs, board members and business leaders of small, mid and large single and trans-national companies, religious leaders and artists across a dozen countries and various industry sectors to help them and their organisations succeed in their missions. He advises the World Economic Forum through its Global Agenda Council for Complex Systems and the Club of Rome, Indian National Association as a founder life member.

Dr Saraph holds a PhD in designing sustainable systems from the faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences of the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, the Netherlands.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/events/digital-disruption-or-digital-black-money

Odia Wikipedia and Orientation Training Programme

praskrishna — 2017-01-23T00:58:38Z

An Odia Wikipedia orientation and training programme is being organized by the Centre for Internet & Society's (CIS-A2K) team on 31 January 2017 at the Indian Institute of Mass Communication, Dhenkanal in Odisha.

Agenda

Bringing new editors on board.
Orientation programme for students of IIMC.
Finding possible partnership with the institute.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/events/odia-wikipedia-and-orientation-training-programme