The Centre for Internet and Society
https://cis-india.org
These are the search results for the query, showing results 11 to 21.
The Mirror in the Enigma: How Germany lost World War II to a Mathematical Theorem
https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/events/mirror-in-the-enigma
<b>Today we use encryption in pretty much everything — cellphones, Internet, banking, satellites, and spaceships. How far have we come since the days of the Enigma and how does it affect our daily lives? CIS invites you to attend a short lecture by Rohit Gupta on August 12, 2011.
</b>
<h3>About the Lecture <br /></h3>
<p>During World War II, the Germans began communicating their military information using the famous Enigma encryption machine. Subsequently, we see how three Polish mathematicians led by Marian Rejewski broke the code using a fundamental theorem in 'group theory'. It has been suggested by certain generals that this breach directly led to the collapse of the Axis powers. </p>
<p>In his talk Rohit will begin with the simplest ways to secure privacy in communication throughout human history, and build up to the rise of the Enigma.</p>
<h3>About Rohit</h3>
<p></p>
<p>Rohit Gupta is a mathematician who thinks the universe is a giant hologram generated by a microscopic black hole which behaves like a rapidly blinking disco ball. He's finding ways to prove this beyond doubt.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>VIDEO</strong></p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<iframe src="http://blip.tv/play/AYLUl1kA.html" frameborder="0" height="250" width="250"></iframe><embed style="display:none" src="http://a.blip.tv/api.swf#AYLUl1kA" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"></embed>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/events/mirror-in-the-enigma'>https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/events/mirror-in-the-enigma</a>
</p>
No publisherelonnai hickokLectureInternet Governance2011-09-22T07:53:25ZEventFraming an Alternative Approach to the Jan Lokpal
https://cis-india.org/events/alternative-jan-lokpal
<b>The National Campaign for Peoples' Right to Information (NCPRI) and the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) are organizing a public talk on "Framing an Alternative Approach to the Jan Lokpal" on Friday, August 5, 2011 at CIS, Bangalore.
Shankar Singh, Nikhil Dey and Aruna Roy of MKSS and NCPRI will be speaking.</b>
<p>The drafts of both the Lokpal as well as the Jan Lokpal bill have been
criticised extensively on multiple grounds, including that of lack of
accountability and concentration of power in a singular body. This
public talk seeks to provide a framework for an alternative conception
of the Jan Lokpal that takes a multi-pronged approach to tackling
corruption by moving towards concurrent anti-corruption and grievance
redress measures.</p>
<h2>Speakers</h2>
<p>Shankar Singh, Aruna Roy and Nikhil Dey of the Mazdoor Kisan Shakti
Sangathan (MKSS) and the National Campaign for Peoples' Right to
Information (NCPRI)</p>
<h2>Date and Time</h2>
<p>Friday, August 5, 2011
<br />18:00-19:30</p>
<h2>Venue</h2>
<p>Centre for Internet and Society
<br />(next to Domlur Club and close to TERI)
<br />194, 2-C Cross,
<br />Domlur Stage II,
<br />Bangalore
<br />
<br />Map: <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://goo.gl/2UV5J">http://goo.gl/2UV5J</a></p>
<h2>Background Reading</h2>
<ul><li>Nikhil Dey & Ruchi Gupta, <a class="external-link" href="http://goo.gl/T5rxk">Putting the "Jan" in Lokpal Bill</a> </li><li>Aruna Roy & Nikhil Dey, <a class="external-link" href="http://goo.gl/IrR41">Make Sure the Cure Isn't Worse than the
Disease</a></li><li>Aruna Roy & Rakshita Swamy, <a class="external-link" href="http://goo.gl/UJiKY">Lokpal Must Lead by
Example</a></li><li>NCPRI, <a class="external-link" href="http://goo.gl/HIlGZ">Draft Concept Notes from Public Consultations on Collective
and Concurrent Lokpal Anti-Corruption and Grievance Redress Measures</a></li><li>NCPRI, <a class="external-link" href="http://goo.gl/im8rA">Background Documents on Jan Lok Pal Bill</a></li></ul>
<p>
<br />== Contact ==
<br />For more information, please contact:
<br />Rakshita Swamy <rakshitaswamy at gmail dot com>, or
<br />Pranesh Prakash <pranesh at cis-india dot org></p>
<p><strong>VIDEO</strong></p>
<iframe src="http://blip.tv/play/AYLX52EA.html" frameborder="0" height="250" width="250"></iframe><embed style="display:none" src="http://a.blip.tv/api.swf#AYLX52EA" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"></embed>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/events/alternative-jan-lokpal'>https://cis-india.org/events/alternative-jan-lokpal</a>
</p>
No publisherpraneshLecture2011-10-11T11:42:00ZEventSocio-financial Online Networks: Globalizing Micro-Credit through Micro-transactional Networked Platforms – A Public Lecture by Radhika Gajalla
https://cis-india.org/events/socio-financial-online-networks
<b>The Centre for Internet and Society invites you to a public lecture by Prof. Radhika Gajalla of Bowling Green State University. She will give a lecture on how microfinance online functions through the social networked online space and the micro-transactional abilities of the interface together work to enhance financialization of the globe. </b>
<p>In her lecture, she will focus on how this is made possible by the increased digitalization of financial practices and the role micro practices play in producing globalization. She will also lay emphasis on the fact that the increased digitalization of finance also means that "financial literacy" is also removed into the virtual space so that it is further away from subaltern daily praxis while simultaneously staging subaltern presence in cosmopolitan space through mobilizing structures of 'feeling' that <a class="external-link" href="https://researchers.anu.edu.au/researchers/black-s">Dr. Shameem Black</a> refers to as "sentimental sympathy". </p>
<p>Prof. Gajalla’s lecture will also touch upon issues like what online socially networked micro-credit websites do visually and through the use of multiple tools that are embedded in the discourse of interactivity is to make it seem as if the subaltern is indeed participating in these networks. Thus, the appearance of a subaltern presence is produced. In this production of appearance of the subaltern presence in online contexts, just as in other visual and static contexts, the complexity of socio-cultural and economic intersections are not clearly revealed or accounted for. This reproduces exotic notions of the authentic, mummified ‘other’ and offers the subaltern image up for consumption. In turn, as Web 2.0 tools are set up to actually reach the offline subaltern via non-profit or for profit representatives that connect to these online networks, the subaltern in turn is tapped as a consumer for capital.</p>
<h2>Radhika Gajjala</h2>
<p>Radhika Gajjala is a Professor of Media and Communication at Bowling Green State University and Director of the American Culture Studies program. Her book, "<a class="external-link" href="http://www.amazon.com/Cyber-Selves-Feminist-Ethnographies-South/dp/0759106924">Cyber Selves: Feminist Ethnographies of South Asian Women</a>" was published in 2004. She has co-edited collections on "<a class="external-link" href="http://books.google.com/books?id=cMZFoROURUQC&source=gbs_similarbooks_r&cad=2">South Asian Technospaces</a>", "<a class="external-link" href="http://www.taylorandfrancis.com/books/details/9780415877916/">Global Media Culture and Identity</a>" and "<a class="external-link" href="http://www.hamptonpress.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=1-57273-776-X&Category_Code=NDCC">Webbing Cyberfeminist Practice: Communities, Pedagogies, and Social Action</a>". She is presently working on a forthcoming book, "Weavings of the Real and Virtual: Cyberculture and the Subaltern" to be published in 2012 and is also working on two interrelated projects — one on "Microfinance Online and Money in Virtual Worlds and Social Media" in relation to the ITization and NGOization of global socio-economic work and play environments and the other on "Coding and Placement of Affect and Labour in Digital Diasporas". </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/events/socio-financial-online-networks'>https://cis-india.org/events/socio-financial-online-networks</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaLectureInternet Governance2011-06-24T11:37:52ZEventInternet Surveillance Policy: “…the second time as farce?” – A Public Lecture by Caspar Bowden
https://cis-india.org/events/internet-surveillance-policy-lecture
<b>The Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore, invites you to a public lecture by Caspar Bowden*, the Chief Privacy Adviser of Microsoft’s Worldwide Technology Office, on Internet Surveillance Policy: “…the second time as farce?</b>
<h3>Abstract</h3>
<p>In 2000, as Director of the independent think-tank, "<a class="external-link" href="http://www.fipr.org/">Foundation for Information Policy Research</a>", Caspar led a campaign to revise several aspects of a new comprehensive UK law governing electronic surveillance ("<a class="external-link" href="http://www.fipr.org/rip/">the RIP Act</a>"). UK legislated in this area many years before most other countries, and the approach was widely criticized although some amendments were achieved. After a hiatus of a decade, many Commonwealth countries are now copying the RIP law (evidently unaware of the original controversies over its defects). Caspar will discuss the legal-technical intricacies of such legislation, the underlying policy dilemmas, the background context of the failed 1990s policy of “key escrow”, and the subsequent privacy catastrophe of blanket retention of the “traffic data” of all of the 500m citizens of the EU.</p>
<h2>Caspar Bowden</h2>
<p>Caspar Bowden is Microsoft's Worldwide Technology Officer for Privacy, providing advice on technology policy matters concerning privacy in over 40 countries, with particular focus on Europe and regions with horizontal privacy law. His goal is to ensure that users of Microsoft products and services are in control of their personal data and that fair information practices are respected. He is a specialist in data protection policy, privacy enhancing technology research, identity management and authentication.</p>
<p>Earlier he was the director of the Foundation for Information Policy Research and was also an expert adviser to the UK Parliament for the passage of three bills concerning privacy issues, and was co-organizer of the influential Scrambling for Safety public conferences on UK encryption and surveillance policy. His previous career over two decades ranged from investment banking (proprietary trading risk-management for option arbitrage), to software engineering (graphics engines and cryptography), including work for Goldman Sachs, Microsoft Consulting Services, Acorn, Research Machines, and IBM.</p>
<h3>Who should attend?</h3>
<p>This public talk aims to engage in a dialogue with anybody interested in questions of technology, surveillance, policy and the politics of Internet based governance. Students, research scholars, academics, practitioners, those in the business of technology development, design and study, are invited to attend the lecture that approaches the issue from different angles of technology, society and politics. </p>
<div><strong>Entry: Free; Limited Seating</strong></div>
<div><strong>Registration recommended: prasad@cis-india.org<br /><br />For additional info <a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/internet-privacy-surveillance.pdf" class="internal-link" title="Internet Privacy and Surveillance">click here [PDF, 521 kb]</a><br /></strong></div>
<div> </div>
<div>* <em>Caspar is speaking in his private capacity and his remarks do not necessarily reflect any official Microsoft position</em></div>
<div><em><br /></em></div>
<h2>Videos</h2>
<div> </div>
<embed width="250" height="250" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" wmode="transparent" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://blip.tv/play/AYLM2GsA"></embed>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/events/internet-surveillance-policy-lecture'>https://cis-india.org/events/internet-surveillance-policy-lecture</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaLectureInternet Governance2011-09-08T03:19:35ZEventThe Task of the Translator after Google
https://cis-india.org/events/lecture-by-hans
<b>Hans Verghese Mathews, a distinguished fellow with the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) will give a public lecture on April 30, 2011.</b>
<p>The talk will consider again ― proceeding upon the increasing 'searchability' of literary corpora that the Web will presumably allow ― the special task assigned the translator by Walter Benjamin: which was the 'restitution' of 'originals' through the 'afterlives' given them by their 'traducings' into other languages. A reformulation of that task will be attempted: but the exercise will be conducted in an illustrative way, in the course of examining the approved translation into English of <em>El Aleph</em>, one of the more famous among the early <em>ficciones</em> of Borges.</p>
<p><span class="Apple-style-span">
</span></p>
<h3>Hans Varghese Mathews</h3>
<p> </p>
<p><img src="https://cis-india.org/home-images/hans.jpg/image_preview" alt="Hans Verghese Mathews" class="image-inline image-inline" title="Hans Verghese Mathews" /></p>
<p><span class="Apple-style-span">Hans Varghese Mathews read philosophy as an undergraduate, at the University of Southern California, studying logic and aesthetics; and went on to obtain a doctorate in mathematics, from the University of Wisconsin, studying algebraic topology primarily, with mathematical logic and philosophy as subsidiary subjects. He has been a research associate with the Indian Statistical Institute, and has written extensively on visual art for Frontline; he currently directs mathematical modelling for an analytics firm, and is a contributing editor to the online journal Phalanx. He has an abiding interest in the formal understanding of painting and poetry; and a more recent and dominating interest in the mathematisation of the social sciences.</span></p>
<p><span class="Apple-style-span"><strong>VIDEO</strong><br /></span></p>
<iframe src="http://blip.tv/play/AYLWw04A.html" frameborder="0" height="250" width="250"></iframe><embed style="display:none" src="http://a.blip.tv/api.swf#AYLWw04A" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"></embed>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/events/lecture-by-hans'>https://cis-india.org/events/lecture-by-hans</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaLectureResearch2011-10-07T05:36:43ZEventPublic Talk by Dr. Ian Brown on Privacy, Trust and Biometrics
https://cis-india.org/events/ian
<b> Trust is hard to build, but easy to lose. What factors affect individuals' trust in new technologies? How can governments create citizen trust in biometric security tools? Can biometrics be designed to be privacy-friendly? And how did these questions lead to the cancellation of the UK's national identity scheme, after a decade of development costing tens of millions of pounds?
About the speaker: Dr Ian Brown's research is focused on public policy issues around information and the Internet, particularly privacy and copyright. He also works in the more technical fields of communications security and healthcare informatics.
</b>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/events/ian'>https://cis-india.org/events/ian</a>
</p>
No publishernishantLectureInternet Governance2011-04-04T07:15:29ZEventThomas Bjelkeman-Pettersson to lecture at Development Café meet-up
https://cis-india.org/events/pettersson-talk
<b>Development Café (DC) is hosting its second meet-up at the Centre for Internet and Society on Friday, 3 December 2010. Mr. Thomas Bjelkeman-Pettersson, serial entrepreneur and founder of Akvo, a non-profit foundation with focus on water and sanitation, will give a lecture.</b>
<p>In Akvo’s newest attempt at breaking ground on transparency, and setting an innovative standard on open governance in the capital intensive field of water, Thomas and his team have harnessed the use of mobile technology – the <a class="external-link" href="http://www.akvo.org/blog/?p=1745">Akvo Phone</a> – a new, neat tool to break barriers and establish fresh standards of reporting.</p>
<h3>Thomas Bjelkeman-Pettersson</h3>
<p><img src="https://cis-india.org/home-images/thomas_240.jpg/image_preview" alt="Thomas" class="image-inline" title="Thomas" /></p>
<p>Thomas Bjelkeman-Pettersson is the founder, managing director and acting chief technical officer of Akvo which he founded with the mission to inspire a global open source knowledge and collaboration platform for the water sector. A serial entrepreneur, Thomas is a computer software and environmental scientist who began developing software ventures in the UK and California in the mid-1990s. Thomas is acting chief technology officer and steers the team to harness the maximum potential from open source methods. He refines our methodologies and tools to meet the needs of financiers, field-based NGOs and global development institutions.</p>
<p>Follow Thomas on Twitter <a class="external-link" href="http://twitter.com/bjelkeman">@bjelkeman</a>.</p>
<p><strong>VIDEOS</strong></p>
<embed height="250" width="250" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://blip.tv/play/AYKorWQA"></embed>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/events/pettersson-talk'>https://cis-india.org/events/pettersson-talk</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaLectureMeeting2011-03-07T11:11:25ZEventNetwork Culture: Archaeological and Artistic Interventions Public Seminar – Talk by Kristoffer Gansing and Linda Hilfing
https://cis-india.org/events/archaeological-and-artistic-interventions
<b>Kristoffer Gansing and Linda Hilfling will give a talk on Network Culture on 8 November 2010 in the Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore.</b>
<h2>“Transversal Media Practices”</h2>
<p> <em>by Kristoffer Gansing (SE)</em></p>
<img src="https://cis-india.org/home-images/KG.jpg/image_preview" title="KG" height="292" width="329" alt="KG" class="image-inline image-inline" />
<p>Digital network culture (and before it, multimedia) has since at least the mid-1990's often been described as a situation where, through an overarching process of integration, old and new media collide and converge in different ways (Zielinski 1999, Bolter & Grusin 1999, Manovich 2001, Jenkins 2006). This study investigates how the relation between new and old media forms and their associated practices have been critically appropriated in the field of media art, specifically dealing with alternative media and emerging media-archaeological practices. </p>
<h2> “Gate Peepin' or a few thoughts on delivering people ...”</h2>
<p><em>by Linda Hilfling (DK)</em></p>
<p><img src="https://cis-india.org/home-images/Linda.jpg/image_preview" title="linda" height="336" width="334" alt="linda" class="image-inline image-inline" /></p>
<p>The countless click-and-agree contracts populating the Web are veritable gate keepers of the communities making up today's net culture, such regulations are, although materially detached from the structures that they govern, powerful means of controlling content on the Net. Through an introduction to the critical design intervention, Gate Peepin' and related projects, this presentation opens up for a discussion on participation, means of regulation and the user's position within social media platforms. </p>
<p>Gansing and Hilfling have collaborated on projects since 1999. Their joint projects include experimental platforms for media production exploring local/global networks and the curating of festivals and exhibitions challenging linear assumption of technological development. They often collaborate with different communities: CUDI in Vollsmose 2000-2002, Oda Projesi in Istanbul 2003, Sarai/LNJP Colony in New Delhi 2004 and currently with the artist-run TV-station tv-tv in Copenhagen. In 2005 they initiated the media archaeological festival The Art of the Overhead, an ongoing project which pays tribute to the almost forgotten medium of the overhead projector.</p>
<h3>About Kristoffer Gansing (SE)</h3>
<p>Kristoffer Gansing (SE) is a researcher at K3, School of Arts & Communication, Malmö Univ, with a research project on Transversal Media Practices, dealing with the articulation of old and new media forms and practices across art, activism and the everyday in the cultural production of network culture. </p>
<h3>About Linda Hifling (DK)</h3>
<p>Linda Hilfling (DK) is an artist who works with the premises of participation and public spaces within media structures, with a focus on means of control (codes, organisation and law) and their cultural impact. Her artistic practice takes the form of interventions reflecting upon or revealing hidden gaps in such structures. </p>
<p>Also see [<a class="external-link" href="http://www.overheads.org/">1</a>] and [<a class="external-link" href="http://www.tv-tv.dk/soundandtelevision/">2</a>]</p>
<p>The two talks will proceed for 30 min for each speaker followed by short Q&A’s. Finally there’ll be a joint discussion. Tea and refreshments will be served.</p>
<p><strong>VIDEOS</strong></p>
<p><strong><br /></strong></p>
<p> </p>
<embed src="http://blip.tv/play/AYKNpWYA" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="250" height="250" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed>
<embed src="http://blip.tv/play/AYKNqhUA" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="250" height="250" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed>
<embed src="http://blip.tv/play/AYKN7TgA" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="250" height="250" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed>
<embed src="http://blip.tv/play/AYKN7jgA" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="250" height="250" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed>
<embed src="http://blip.tv/play/AYKN8CYA" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="250" height="250" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed>
<embed src="http://blip.tv/play/AYKO7lYA" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="250" height="250" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed>
<embed src="http://blip.tv/play/AYKPlREA" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="250" height="250" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed>
<embed src="http://blip.tv/play/AYKPlV4A" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="250" height="250" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed>
<embed src="http://blip.tv/play/AYKPlhoA" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="250" height="250" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed>
<embed src="http://blip.tv/play/AYKPlmMA" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="250" height="250" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed>
<embed src="http://blip.tv/play/AYKQpDMA" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="250" height="250" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/events/archaeological-and-artistic-interventions'>https://cis-india.org/events/archaeological-and-artistic-interventions</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaLecture2010-12-01T07:07:07ZEventPass the Packet, Please?
https://cis-india.org/events/pass-the-packet-please
<b>Talk by Ashwin Jacob Mathew</b>
<p>If we view the Internet as built environment, rather than an abstract "cloud", then it becomes critical to consider what the politics of this artifact might be, to understand the politics of the technical systems that enable these flows.</p>
<p>In my work, I investigate one particular perspective on this problem space, the social organisation of network administrators that keep the Internet afloat. I analyse their interactions with one another in relation to the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP), which is used to maintain connections across the "borders" of the thousands of networks that make up the Internet. Although BGP was created to allow different network domains (typically separate commercial entities) to coexist and interconnect with one another, it paradoxically embeds a notion of trust. This makes the inter-domain routing system enabled by BGP an interesting area for investigation, since network administrators must coordinate amongst themselves to compensate for routing failures that result from the trusting nature of BGP.</p>
<p>The Internet has an additional property that makes it unique amongst many technical systems: those involved with the Internet, especially in the early days, were simultaneously users, researchers and developers. As such, the practice of inter-domain routing evolved BGP over a period of several years. At the same time, network administrators learned to work with BGP, and with one another, to coordinate the distributed management of the Internet. It is this co-evolution of social form and technical construct that I will focus on in this presentation.</p>
<h3>Speaker</h3>
<p>Ashwin Jacob Mathew is a Ph.D. student at the UC Berkeley School of Information. Before returning to academia, he spent a decade in the software industry in India, working in senior technical roles in companies like Aztec Software and Adobe. At Berkeley, he blends his technical background with theory and methods drawn from the social sciences to investigate the infrastructure of the Internet.</p>
<h3>Time and Date</h3>
<p>Friday, 17 July, 2009; 5.30-7.00 pm</p>
<h3>Venue<br /></h3>
<p>Centre for Internet and Society, No. D2, 3rd Floor, Sheriff Chambers (Wockhardt Hospital building),
14, Cunningham Road, Bangalore - 560052</p>
<h3>Map <br /></h3>
<p>For a map, please click <a class="external-link" href="http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=centre+for+internet+and+society+bangalore&jsv=128e&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=61.070016,113.203125&ie=UTF8&cd=1&latlng=12988395,77594450,9857706471034889432&ei=5QXRSKLrNYvAugPX4YSAAg">here</a>.</p>
<p><strong>VIDEO</strong></p>
<iframe src="http://blip.tv/play/AYLV8hgA.html" frameborder="0" height="250" width="250"></iframe><embed style="display:none" src="http://a.blip.tv/api.swf#AYLV8hgA" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"></embed>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/events/pass-the-packet-please'>https://cis-india.org/events/pass-the-packet-please</a>
</p>
No publishersachiaLecture2011-09-30T08:40:35ZEventTransparency and Politics: Talk by Barun Mitra
https://cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/blogs/transparency-and-politics/internet-politics-and-transparency
<b>A talk by Barun Mitra, Chairperson of the Liberty Institute, a Delhi-based think tank, was held at CIS recently, organised by Zainab Bawa in relation to her CIS-RAW project on 'Transparency and Politics'. In this post, the third in a series exploring questions of transparency and politics, Zainab reports on the lecture and discussion.</b>
<p><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/jace/3451003350/"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3655/3451003350_157d6c16f2_m.jpg" alt="Barun Mitra" height="160" width="240" align="right" /></a>On April 15, 2009, the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS)
hosted a talk by Barun Mitra on “Internet, Transparency and Politics”. Barun
Mitra is the Chairperson of Liberty Institute, a think tank based in Delhi.
Liberty Institute conducts research and advocacy on policy issues ranging from
health, environment and trade to democracy and governance. In 2004, Liberty
Institute developed <a href="http://www.empoweringindia.org/">www.EmpoweringIndia.org</a>
(henceforth to be referred to as EI) to compile information that electoral
candidates provided in the affidavits they filed before elections. These
affidavits contain details of the candidate’s assets and liabilities, education
background, PAN number, income tax records and criminal records, if any. The
purpose of compiling this information was to standardise it and make it
available for the voters in a comprehensive format. This, in turn, would enable
voters to use the information and make informed choices when casting their votes.</p>
<p>EI has undergone several rounds of iterations and is already in the
third generation of its development. The aim has been to build a robust
database that will allow citizens to extract information as per their specific
and nuanced queries and use it during the elections and afterwards, to enforce
accountability on the part of the elected representatives. Barun Mitra began
his talk by emphasising that EI was more than just a website, contrary to what he found was the initial perception of most audiences. He explained, “I was not interested in merely the information. The larger
question driving my initiative was ‘how do we look at politics’?” EI was developed
to introduce a different paradigm of understanding politics and participating
in it.</p>
<p>The interesting aspect of Barun Mitra’s talk was the question he asked--“What
makes information flow?” He decided to move beyond the passé rhetoric of “information
is power”. Two specific experiences enabled Barun to understand this question around the flow of information. “I had made a presentation to audiences in Kerala about
EI in 2008, trying to solicit their support in disseminating the information on
the site to local groups in the state. However, the audience in Kerala saw EI
only as a website and raised questions accordingly. Following this, I made a
presentation to slum dwellers in Delhi who immediately began to demand
information about the candidates who were going to contest from their
constituencies in the 2008 New Delhi state assembly elections. The slum
dwellers and some of the groups working with them even asked me to provide the
information in Hindi and local languages. I was surprised by the fact that two
vastly diverse audiences responded in such dramatically different ways to EI. That
is when I realized that those who have sustained our democracy, namely the
poor, need this kind of information. There is a demand for it among them and
therefore, we need to supply it. The second experience was from Gujarat. During
the 2007 state assembly elections, we found that a number of local media
collectives and the <em>panchayats</em> had
used the information on EI. This was because the mainstream media was covering
the major politicians and candidates in this election while the local groups
needed information on all kinds of candidates contesting from their
constituencies. I have now come to believe that demand and supply are two
aspects to information and it needs to be provided accordingly where the demand
for it is emanating from.”</p>
<p>Barun also reiterated that EI is non-judgmental, in that it leaves
it to the audiences to decide how they want to interpret the information. This has
been a significant paradigm shift in transparency initiatives that are being developed
on the belief that providing more information to people enhances engagement between
people and the state. Websites of government departments continue to provide
information which they see as important for the citizenry. For instance, see <a href="http://www.bmrc.co.in/">www.bmrc.co.in</a>, the website of the Bangalore
Metro Rail Corporation, which claims to be transparent and provides particular
kinds of information, while concealing other aspects of the project development
and implementation. On the other hand, some non-government organisations are focusing
on organising large chunks of information concerning particular aspects of
governance, and presenting it to people in a way that allows them to extract that
information which they find relevant.</p>
<p>One of Barun Mitra’s goals for the future is to develop parameters for
judging the performance of elected representatives At the launch of EI in
Bangalore on April 16, he pointed out that while he can provide
information about the attendance records of MPs (Members of Parliament) in the Lok
Sabha (House of the People) sessions, it would be inaccurate to judge the MP’s
performance on the basis of this criteria. This is because MPs often sign the
attendance register but they may not sit through the Parliament session. He
therefore feels that more robust criteria have to be developed which will
provide a somewhat holistic picture to the people about the performance of
their elected representatives.</p>
<p>Finally, Barun Mitra spoke on the issue of authenticity of the
information filed in the affidavits. “People often ask, ‘how authentic is this
information?’ The election commission does not take it on itself to verify this
information. But I would say that authenticity is a secondary issue. First, we
have to make information available to the people. People will then, of their
own accord, raise questions about the authenticity of the information. For instance,
the Criminal Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has filed cases in the Supreme Court
challenging the authenticity and sources of the assets declared by current
chief minister (CM) of Uttar Pradesh (UP) Mayawati and former CM Mulayam Singh
Yadav.” Specifically, Mayawati’s assets in 2003, which amounted to Rs. 1 crore, increased
to Rs. 50 crores in 2007. This information came to light through
the affidavit which Mayawati had to file before the state assembly elections in
UP in 2007. “<a class="external-link" href="http://http://news.outlookindia.com/item.aspx?651599">Filing such a case was possible </a>only because Mayawati and Mulayam
Singh were compelled to provide information about their assets to the public.”</p>
<p>Barun Mitra’s talk raises an important question for me: how effective
are initiatives like EI in fostering interaction between the state and the
citizens? I will address this question in my next blog post, where I will examine the
case of the Digital City project in Amsterdam. I will look at the concepts and practices
of cyberspace, urban space and citizenship through the Digital City Project and
other projects undertaken to foster transparency. I will then try to analyse the initiatives
undertaken during the 2009 general elections in India and make some tentative
remarks on democracy and participation.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/blogs/transparency-and-politics/internet-politics-and-transparency'>https://cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/blogs/transparency-and-politics/internet-politics-and-transparency</a>
</p>
No publisherzainabLecture2011-08-03T09:53:12ZBlog Entry'The Dark Face of Google'
https://cis-india.org/events/the-dark-face-of-google
<b>Talk by Patrice Riemens</b>
<p>The extraordinary rise of Google Inc. from a 'confidential' search site in the late nineties, the heydays of Altavista, to its present preminent status on the internet, has attracted a lot of attention. The admirers see Google as the incarnation of things to come, not only in information retrieval & management, and not even on the Internet only, but in the economy and society as a whole. The nay-sayers variously view Google as a flattening behemoth of digital information, or as a cultural war machine, bent on the Americanisation of the planet, and generally as a mendacious commercial monopoly pretending to 'do no evil' while hypocritically promoting open source, access, and life in general.</p>
<p>Outside this discussion stand an ever growing mass of millions of users who ask no questions, profess neither admiration or hatred (and if so, rather the former), but are happy to use the search engine and the many other services provided by Google. That they hereby gladly if unwittingly contribute to reinforcing the assets of Google, in the words of Yann Moulier Boutang, "the only company in the world that is able to make 14 million people work for it at any given moment, for free", is one of the many starkly under-lighted aspects of this Internet giant's operative mode.</p>
<p>'The Dark Face of Google' is the title of the book written two years ago by the Italian Ippolita Collective, which Patrice Riemens is currently translating. Ippolita's brief is neither eulogizing nor demonising Google, but to understand it, especially in its less advertised aspects. Their aim is to educate Google's users, not to wean them away from it, and to politicise the discussion about search, digital services, and the management of information and knowledge in general. Patrice Riemens will discuss a few points in this context.</p>
<p>* The ways in which Google determines, undermines, or enforces existing power and knowledge structures</p>
<p>* The Google Books Project and how it reinforces IPR tyranny</p>
<p>* Google's local policies and how they affect fundamental civil liberties</p>
<p>This talk, like Ippolita's book, is intended as a general, informed introduction to an issue that has been insufficiently discussed, due to media hype, and the apparent innocuousness of a readily available, extremely fast and effective, free, Internet service.</p>
<h3>Speaker</h3>
<p>Patrice Riemens is a social geographer by education and a private intellectual and internet activist by choice. He is a promoter of Open Knowledge and Free Software, and has been
involved as a "FLOSSopher" (a 'philosopher' of the Free/Libre and Open
Source Software movements) at the Asia Source and Africa Source camps,
held to promote FLOSS among non-governmental
organisations. He is a member of the Dutch hackers' group Hippies from hell.</p>
<p>He has formerly worked with De Waag Center for Old and New Media, an institute housed
in an old castle in Amsterdam, on the cutting edge of technology,
culture, education and industry. Patrice has also been on the staff of Multitudes, a French philosophical, political and artistic monthly journal founded in 2000 by Yann Moulier-Boutang. <br /><a title="Yann Moulier-Boutang (page does not exist)" class="new" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Yann_Moulier-Boutang&action=edit&redlink=1"></a></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/events/the-dark-face-of-google'>https://cis-india.org/events/the-dark-face-of-google</a>
</p>
No publishersachiaLecture2009-03-24T06:51:47ZEvent