The Centre for Internet and Society
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Spectrum auctions - 'Jhatka' or 'Halal'?
https://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/jhatka-or-halal
<b>The choice is between sudden death and a slow one. The article by Shyam Ponappa appeared in the Business Standard on 3 February 2011.</b>
<p>Why do people advocate spectrum and licence auctions? Is it because they think auctions work? Is it the appeal of an ideology, like capitalism or socialism? Or is it because governments often collect large sums, and auctions seem fair (in a market-driven sense) and transparent? Theorists apparently cannot find better ways to allocate spectrum or licences, despite the alternative of technical and financial short-listing followed by a lottery. Yet, while desiring high government collections, people really want reasonably-priced good infrastructure, and continue to rail against government waste. Let’s review some so-called “successful” auctions and what followed.</p>
<p><strong>1994: The US spectrum auction</strong> Prior to 1994, the US used to allocate spectrum on demonstrated capacity and merit (“beauty contests”). The spectrum auction in 1994 netted record bids. The Federal Communications Commission chairman reportedly said: “Auctions have proven once again to be a success not only by awarding licences to those that value them most, but also by decreasing the national debt.” Then disaster struck, with a number of “successful” bidders declaring bankruptcy. As BusinessWeek put it in 2010 with the benefit of hindsight, “... over time, beauty contests have delivered fewer problems and higher value to society than have airwave auctions.”1</p>
<p><strong>1994: India telecom licences</strong> In 1994, India auctioned telecom licences. Chaos followed owing to overbidding and default. Thereafter, the sector struggled from one contention to the next, with the government and operators deadlocked by 1998. The New Telecom Policy of 1999 provided a breakthrough, tossing aside the auction bids in favour of shared revenues. After the percentage share was reduced to reasonable levels, and “Calling Party Pays” halved tariffs in 2003, mobile services grew exponentially to over 725 million subscribers by 2010. Interestingly, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India estimated that auction fee foregone till March 2007 was over Rs 19,000 crore, whereas actual revenue collections were double, at Rs 40,000 crore; by March 2010, the collections were 80,000 crore.</p>
<p><strong>2000: The UK 3G auctions</strong> The 3G auction in the UK was hailed as a spectacular success, reaping bids of about $35 billion.</p>
<p><strong>2000: The France and Germany 3G auctions</strong> Germany followed, netting $67 billion, and the finance minister quipped that the auction was for unexpected revenue to pay the national debt. France demanded a flat fee of $4.5 billion per licence.</p>
<p>The dotcom bubble burst in March 2000, followed by communications and technology companies a year later, and the bidders went into a tailspin. The collapse nearly bankrupted not only British Telecom owing to the enormous debt it incurred for the bids, but the entire industry worldwide. The economic slump that followed made it impossible for firms to pay off high debts, as their interest payments increased while their ratings fell.</p>
<p>A contrarian move in France is noteworthy for its prescience and insight. CEO Martin Bouygues (pronounced “Bweeg”) of the third mobile operator, Bouygues Telecom, refused the government’s demand of $4.5 billion as the fee for a 3G licence, making it the only mobile communications company in Europe with no investment in 3G. Mr Bouygues’ letter in May 2000 appeared on the front page of Le Monde, asking: “What should I tell my employees? … That we have a choice between a sudden death and a slow one?” While his opposition was ignored, by 2002, the French government dropped its asking price by more than 85 per cent to induce Bouygues to accept a 3G licence.</p>
<p>In terms of results, the auction “failures” – the Netherlands, Switzerland, Sweden, and “non-auction” countries like South Korea, Japan and Finland (until 2009) – have the best broadband services. 2</p>
<p>Kapil Sibal’s appointment as India’s telecom minister has brought hope, with prospects of radical improvements in infrastructure, especially broadband, with a clean hand. Mr Sibal’s recent pronouncements on a new telecom policy, however, raise the spectre of another deadlock. Here are two examples: (a) “Adequate spectrum will be provided to all service providers.”</p>
<p>This is feasible not through slivers of spectrum for many operators, but only if there is a common carrier access, that is, all operators can access spectrum for a reasonable fee. There is no indication of what “adequate” means, nor of pooling or sharing spectrum.</p>
<p>Let’s hope the domain experts have been heard and not shouted down on “adequacy”. For instance, the Telecom Equipment Manufacturers’ Association had recommended that two blocks of 50 MHz each in the 698-806 MHz band be allocated to facilitate the development of wireless equipment and services. Large blocks of contiguous spectrum offer far more efficient capacity than many narrow bands. For local innovation, to get low costs, we have to think of adequacy in these terms, and not slivers of 4.4 MHz or 6.2 MHz.</p>
<p>(b) “Spectrum henceforth will be awarded only on a market-based mechanism.”</p>
<p>If the criterion for success is high bids and not delivered services, in effect, this means auctions, and the result is likely to be dismal. Those enamoured with auctions focus on the success of bids, ignoring the purpose of spectrum/licence allocation, which is service delivery resulting in consumer surplus (societal benefits).</p>
<p>If the operators choose to roll over and accept authoritarian decrees, the conflict will be between government and the public interest, as spelt out below.</p>
<p>The government’s choices include:</p>
<ul><li>a genuine effort at developing comprehensive and integrated policies for reasonably priced services, while carrying along stakeholders;</li><li>a cosmetic effort, letting stakeholders vent, and then issuing arbitrary decrees that leaves a mess. For example, too many operators with fragmented spectrum; or</li><li>attempting a political or populist fix, seeking to make the United Progressive Alliance look good, the Opposition look bad, bleeding all operators to avoid accusations of a sell-out, and still leave a mess</li></ul>
<div>The first alternative is in the public interest; the second and third are not. The issues that need comprehensive transformation are spectrum and network sharing for service delivery at least cost. The government and Mr Sibal have the opportunity to choose an approach resulting in excellent delivery including broadband at reasonable prices.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Read the original in the Business Standard <a class="external-link" href="http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/shyam-ponappa-spectrum-auctions-/jhatka/-or-/halal//423837/">here</a></div>
<div> </div>
<div><em>The Business Standard took an <a class="external-link" href="http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/rajapraja/423972/">editorial stand</a> in support of shared spectrum and comprehensive, systemic solutions advocated in the article</em>.</div>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/jhatka-or-halal'>https://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/jhatka-or-halal</a>
</p>
No publisherShyam PonappaTelecom2012-05-10T09:57:32ZBlog EntryJanuary 2011 Bulletin
https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/january-2011-bulletin
<b>Greetings from the Centre for Internet and Society! It gives us immense pleasure to present regular updates on the progress of our research on the mainstream Internet media. In this issue of we bring our latest project updates, news and media coverage:</b>
<h2><b>Researchers@Work</b></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">RAW is a multidisciplinary research initiative. CIS believes that in order to understand the contemporary concerns in the field of Internet and society, it is necessary to produce local and contextual accounts of the interaction between the Internet and socio-cultural and geo-political structures. To build original research knowledge base, the RAW programme has been collaborating with different organisations and individuals to focus on its three year thematic of Histories of the Internets in India. Monographs finalised from these projects have been published on the CIS website for public review:</p>
<p><b> </b></p>
<h2><b>Digital Natives</b></h2>
<p>CIS has interest in developing Digital Identities as a core research area and looks at practices, policies and scholarships in the field to explore relationships between Internet, technology and identity.</p>
<h3>Column on Digital Natives</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">A fortnightly column on ‘Digital Natives’ authored by Nishant Shah is featured in the Sunday Eye, the national edition of Indian Express, Delhi, from 19 September 2010 onwards. The following article was published in the Indian Express recently:</p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://bit.ly/h2E3Jd">Is That a Friend on Your Wall?</a> [published in the Indian Express on 9 January 2010]</li>
</ul>
<h3>Workshop</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The third and final workshop in the Digital Natives with a Cause? research project will take place in Santiago, Chile, from the 8 to 10 February. Open Call and FAQs for the workshop are online:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://bit.ly/emKslL">Digital Natives with a Cause? Workshop in Santiago – An Open Call</a></li>
<li><a href="http://bit.ly/eCu2it">Digital Natives with a Cause? Workshop in Santiago – Some FAQs</a></li>
</ul>
<h3>Blog Entry by Maesey Angelina</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Maesy Angelina is a MA candidate on International Development, specializing in Children and Youth Studies at the International Institute of Social Studies, Erasmus University of Rotterdam. She is working on her research on the activism of digital natives under the Hivos-CIS Digital Natives Knowledge Programme. She spent a month at CIS, working on her dissertation, exploring the Blank Noise Project under the Digital Natives with a Cause framework. She writes a series of blog entries. The latest is:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://bit.ly/hjbzB0">The Digital Tipping Point</a></li>
</ul>
<h3>Announcement</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://bit.ly/h92qtI">Rising Voices Seeks Micro-Grant Proposals for Citizen Media Outreach</a></li>
</ul>
<h2><b>Accessibility</b></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Estimates of the percentage of the world's population that is disabled vary considerably. But what is certain is that if we count functional disability, then a large proportion of the world's population is disabled in one way or another. At CIS we work to ensure that the digital technologies, which empower disabled people and provide them with independence, are allowed to do so in practice and by the law. To this end, we support web accessibility guidelines, and change in copyright laws that currently disempower the persons with disabilities.</p>
<h3>New Blog Entry</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://bit.ly/fgOaHa">Accessibility in Telecommunications</a> </li>
</ul>
<h2><b>Intellectual Property</b></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Copyright, patents and trademarks are the most important components on the Internet. CIS believes that access to knowledge and culture is essential as it promotes creativity and innovation and bridges the gaps between the developed and developing world positively. Hence, the campaigns for an international treaty on copyright exceptions for print-impaired, advocating against PUPFIP Bill, calls for the WIPO Broadcast Treaty to be restricted to broadcast, questioning the demonization of 'pirates', and supporting endeavours that explore and question the current copyright regime. Our latest endeavour has resulted into these:</p>
<h3>New Blog Entry</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://bit.ly/igNQMW">New Release of IPR Chapter of India-EU Free Trade Agreement</a> </li>
</ul>
<h2><b>Internet Governance</b></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Although there may not be one centralised authority that rules the Internet, the Internet does not just run by its own volition: for it to operate in a stable and reliable manner, there needs to be in place infrastructure, a functional domain name system, ways to curtail cybercrime across borders, etc. The Tunis Agenda of the second World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), paragraph 34 defined Internet governance as “the development and application by governments, the private sector and civil society, in their respective roles, of shared principles, norms, rules, decision-making procedures, and programmes that shape the evolution and use of the Internet.” Within the larger field of Internet governance, the Internet Governance Forum (IGF), a multi-stakeholder policy dialogue forum that was instituted by the WSIS processes and that is their only formal outcome, has fast emerged as one of the key institutions. As the definition quoted above indicates, a unique feature of the field of Internet governance is that, unlike many other governance spheres, it does not only involve governments. Historically, not only governments but also the technical community and private players have played a crucial role in the development of the Internet. In the context of the IGF, that role is not only explicitly acknowledged but also institutionalised as the IGF formally brings together governments, private players and civil society actors from all areas of and organisations involved in Internet governance. Moreover, now that the open and egalitarian potential of the Internet is increasingly under attack, this unique nature of the IGF, in addition to its WSIS roots, has made it a prime venue to remind stakeholders in all areas of Internet governance of the commitment they have made earlier to building a “people-centred, inclusive and development-oriented Information Society” (WSIS Geneva Principles, Para 1). CIS involvement in the field of Internet governance has the following shape:</p>
<h3>New Blog Entry</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://bit.ly/fOB4sL">Jurisdictional Issues in Cyberspace</a><b> </b></li>
</ul>
<h3><b>Privacy</b></h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">CIS has undertaken many new and exciting projects. One of these, "Privacy in Asia", is funded by Privacy International (PI), UK and is being completed in collaboration with Society and Action Group. "Privacy in Asia" is a two-year project that commenced on 24 March 2010 and will complete within two years from the commencement date, unless otherwise agreed to by the parties. The project was set up with the objective of raising awareness, sparking civil action and promoting democratic dialogue around privacy challenges and violations in India. In furtherance of these goals it aims to draft and promote an over-arching privacy legislation in India by drawing upon legal and academic resources and consultations with the public.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Apart from "Privacy in Asia" CIS is also participating in the " Privacy and Identity" project, which is funded by the Ford Foundation and managed by the Centre for Study of Culture and Society. The project is a research inquiry into the history of Privacy in India and how it shapes the contemporary debates around technology mediated identity projects like <i>Aadhaar</i>. The "Privacy and Identity" project started in August 2010.</p>
<h3>New Blog Entries</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://bit.ly/eWxry1">Privacy Matters — Conference Report</a></li>
<li><a href="http://bit.ly/gocDqf">An Open Letter to the Finance Committee</a></li>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/advocacy/igov/privacy-india/privacy-UIDdec17">Does the UID Reflect India?</a></li>
</ul>
<h3>Staff Update</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Prashant Iyengar is a lawyer and legal scholar who has worked extensively on intellectual property issues particularly focusing on copyright reform and open access. He is a past recipient of an Open Society Institute fellowship for research into Open Information Policy, and has been affiliated with the Alternative Law Forum – a collective of lawyers in Bangalore engaged in human rights practice.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Prashant joined the Centre for Internet and Society as a lead researcher in the Privacy India project recently.</p>
<h2><b>Telecom</b></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The growth in telecommunications in India has been impressive. While the potential for growth and returns exist, a range of issues need to be addressed for this potential to be realized. One aspect is more extensive rural coverage and the second aspect is a countrywide access to broadband which is low at about eight million subscriptions. Both require effective and efficient use of networks and resources, including spectrum. It is imperative to resolve these issues in the common interest of users and service providers. CIS campaigns to facilitate this.</p>
<h3>Column</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Shyam Ponappa is a Distinguished Fellow at CIS. He writes regularly on Telecom issues in the Business Standard and these articles are mirrored on the CIS website as well.</p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://bit.ly/grwFzq">The policy langurs</a> [published on 6 January 2011]</li>
</ul>
<p><b> </b></p>
<h2><b>News & Media Coverage</b></h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://bit.ly/hcNWgX">Civic hackers seek to find their feet in India</a> (Livemint, 24 January 2011) and (IndiaInfoline, January 2011)</li>
<li><a href="http://bit.ly/ihsya0">A Tweet and a poke from the CEO</a> (Livemint, 24 January 2011)</li>
<li><a href="http://bit.ly/g19Yrv">Clicktivism & a brave new world order</a> (Mail Today, 2 January 2011)</li>
<li><a href="http://bit.ly/eiyWsT">Would it be a unique identity crisis</a>? (Bangalore Mirror, 2 January 2011)</li>
<li><a href="http://bit.ly/gnJNzc">Nel suk dei nativi digitali. Perché gli studenti 2.0 hanno bisogno di una bussola per orientarsi</a> (Il Sore24 ORE, 2 January 2011)</li>
<li><a href="http://bit.ly/fvn4Fw">A Refreshing Start!</a> (Verveonline, Volume 19, Issue 1, January, 2011)</li>
<li><a href="http://bit.ly/glcDk1">Getting Connected</a> (Livemint, January 2011)</li>
<li><a href="http://bit.ly/eN0Njz">Knowledge Warriors</a> (Il Sore24 ORE, January 2011)</li>
<li><a href="http://bit.ly/f5m3fg">Nishant Shah Quoted in Livemint 2011 Tweet-out</a> (Livemint, January 2011)</li>
<li><a href="http://bit.ly/eti5N2">Digital Natives with a Cause? - Workshop in Chile seeks participants</a> (Bahama islands info, 30 December 2010)</li>
<li><a href="http://bit.ly/h1YBgf">Mothers discuss kids, music, fashions, on Net</a> (The Hindu, 26 December 2010)</li>
</ul>
<h2><b>Follow us elsewhere</b></h2>
<ul>
<li>Get short, timely messages from us on <a href="http://twitter.com/cis_india">Twitter</a></li>
<li>Follow CIS on <a href="http://identi.ca/main/remote?nickname=cis">identi.ca</a></li>
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<li>Visit us at <a href="http://www.cis-india.org/">www.cis-india.org</a></li>
</ul>
<p>Looking forward to hearing from you. Please feel free to write to us for any queries or details required. If you do not wish to receive these emails, please do write to us and we will unsubscribe your mail ID from the mailing list.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/january-2011-bulletin'>https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/january-2011-bulletin</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaAccess to KnowledgeDigital NativesTelecomIntellectual Property RightsAccessibilityInternet GovernanceResearchOpenness2012-07-30T11:25:44ZPageNishant Shah Quoted in Livemint 2011 Tweet-out
https://cis-india.org/news/skinputting-mobile-computing
<b>Livemint, recently did a tweet-out which quoted people about what will be big in 2011. Nishant Shah was also quoted. </b>
<p>#LM_2011 Nishant Shah: Skinputting – Mobile computing that uses human body as interface to net; data projected on skin to go truly mobile.</p>
<p>Read the original tweet in Livemint <a class="external-link" href="http://twitter.com/#!/livemint/status/21824111298748416">here</a></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/news/skinputting-mobile-computing'>https://cis-india.org/news/skinputting-mobile-computing</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaTelecom2011-04-02T00:58:18ZNews ItemThe policy langurs
https://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/policy-langurs
<b>The comforts of civilised living for all Indians require dedicated collective effort. The article by Shyam Ponappa was published in the Business Standard on 6 January 2011. </b>
<p>At this difficult point in our hapless trajectory as we thread our way through the divine comedy, there is a sudden burst of light, cutting through the gloom of the new year: an uncharacteristic but effective bipartisan effort by a group of parliamentarians in dealing with a practical problem. This is the saga of the hapless and troublesome monkeys of Raisina Hill and its environs, booted out by the Brits to build the Rashtrapati Bhavan and the Central Secretariat, and the parliamentarians who live on Mahadev Road nearby. Press reports say that BJP Spokesman Prakash Javadekar adopted a problem-solving approach by suggesting to six of his neighbours (five Congress MPs and one Independent) that they collectively hire a langur patrol to shoo away the monkeys that have been marauding in their gardens. Five of the six responded positively, and so they have a langur patrol, as do a number of government buildings there. And the monkeys stay away.</p>
<p>Why is this important? Because of how powerfully it illustrates the obvious: that collective, goal-oriented action can be very effective in achieving results. Now, if this could be extended to bipartisan initiatives (in the sense of government and the Opposition in the context of our fragmented politics), e.g. in building national assets like infrastructure, then constructive, forward-looking policies can be framed, and we can start building on what has gone before. This will take us past the blight of being in a perpetual stall. One example is resource-sharing for countrywide broadband and communications services. Another is our approach to energy production and supply. And so on.</p>
<h3>The bipartisan imperative</h3>
<p>I have written earlier on the rationale for spectrum- and network-sharing for broadband and telecommunications.</p>
<p>The framework for this kind of resource-sharing and organisation cannot be done without bipartisan efforts at the policy formulation stage for conceptualisation and during implementation, because various state and local governments will be involved, as will many central government ministries and departments. A bipartisan approach is also essential for devising supportive tax policies, including the development and execution of uniform, inexpensive rights-of-way charges at the state level. Not least will be the question of spectrum pricing, a matter muddied by so much contention and confused thinking regarding the economics and the technology, aggravated by opportunists seeking to make a killing, together with the well-intentioned but ill-informed flailing of strident advocates urging counterproductive measures like cancelling licences without due process and/or holding more auctions, all supposedly in the national interest, oblivious of the consequences.(Click for<a class="external-link" href="http://www.business-standard.com/content/general_pdf/010611_03.pdf"> OPTIC FIBRE CABLE NETWORK</a>)</p>
<p>To appreciate the compelling logic, consider the network of an organisation like RailTel, with over 35,000 route km of optical fibre cable (OFC) network, or Gailtel with about 14,000 route km of OFC and planning close to 19,000 OFC in the next few years (interactive maps at: http://www.gailonline.com/gailnewsite/businesses/telecomnetwork.html).</p>
<p>BSNL has over 67,000 route km in the southern region alone, and other PSUs and private operators like Bharti Airtel and Reliance have their own extensive networks. Combining or integrating these will shift the focus to the tasks of last-mile access and spectrum deployment to achieve potential connectivity for most households and users.</p>
<p>Imagine the potential with some (three or four?) consortiums of wholesale service providers for the country having access to the combined networks of all or several such owners, including the collective capacity in terms of spectrum, access, aggregation and backhaul. These, in turn, could enable access to many retailers for local services to end users.</p>
<p>A second substantive aspect of such a bipartisan initiative is in structuring the national backbone facilities organisation, e.g. on the lines of Singapore’s OpenNet*. This may be an opportunity to capitalise on the BSNL and MTNL networks and revive them, perhaps as the anchor investors (possibly with other PSUs, such as RailTel, GAIL, and Powergrid). This anchor investor consortium could hold, for instance, 30 per cent of the equity in the venture. Other participants could include international companies like Axia, which design, build and operate next generation networks. Axia started out in Canada over 10 years ago and now has projects in France, Spain and Singapore, and has bid for a project in America. Other participants could be like Spectrum Bridge, a US company which runs centrally managed spectrum networks in America in the TV “white spaces”, the digital dividend from TV spectrum reallocated for telecom purposes. Their database-driven approach could be applied to the entire pooled spectrum of a large network with the participation of systems integrators like Infosys, TCS, Wipro, or IBM.</p>
<p>A third potential initiative is to encourage R&D and applications, perhaps seeking the development of local standards for wireless communications in the long term, even the Holy Grail of inexpensive “cognitive radio” (self-managing end-user equipment) with open spectrum. The size of our market offers the potential for such ambitious and potentially beneficial development. This will need policy support, especially for collaboration between defence and the private sector, with the creation of sustained support over a long period.</p>
<p>We know the apocryphal tales like that of the four bulls and the lion: the bulls are safe as long as they stay united, but when they squabble among themselves, the lion picks them off one by one. There is Aesop’s fable of the old man who shows his sons that while they can easily break one stick at a time, the same sticks bound together cannot be broken. Or the Mongolian story of the five siblings, the ancestors of the Mongolian clans, whose mother shows them that while each can easily break a single arrow, the five arrows tied together are unbreakable.</p>
<p>Despite this knowledge and evidence that the comforts of civilised living for all Indians require dedicated collective effort, we refuse to work to this truism of the need for collaborative effort. Suddenly, Mr Javadekar’s can-do Langur Initiative changes the game.</p>
<p>Even as the due process of law continues with regard to past wrongdoing, our parliamentarians should be grappling with substantive issues of nation-building such as those described above, instead of wasting time on tearing each other down.</p>
<p>Read the original in the Business Standard <a class="external-link" href="http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/shyam-ponappapolicy-langurs/420804/">here</a><br /><br /></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/policy-langurs'>https://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/policy-langurs</a>
</p>
No publisherShyam PonappaTelecom2012-05-10T10:15:17ZBlog EntryDecember 2010 Bulletin
https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/december-2010-bulletin
<b>Greetings from the Centre for Internet and Society! It gives us immense pleasure to present regular updates on the progress of our research on the mainstream Internet media. In this issue of we bring our latest project updates, news and media coverage:</b>
<h2><b>Researchers@Work</b></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">RAW is a multidisciplinary research initiative. CIS believes that in order to understand the contemporary concerns in the field of Internet and society, it is necessary to produce local and contextual accounts of the interaction between the Internet and socio-cultural and geo-political structures. To build original research knowledge base, the RAW programme has been collaborating with different organisations and individuals to focus on its three year thematic of Histories of the Internets in India. Monographs arising from these projects are now online for public review:</p>
<p><b>Pornography & the Law</b><br />This monograph attempts to unravel the relations between pornography, technology and the law in the shifting context of the contemporary. Deadline for review expires on 15 Jan 2011.<a href="http://bit.ly/f1sQsi"><br />http://bit.ly/f1sQsi</a></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Re:wiring Bodies<br /></b>Dr. Asha Achutan historicises the attitudes, imaginations and policies that have shaped the Science-Technology debates in India, to particularly address the ways in which emergence of Internet Technologies have shaped notions of gender and body in India. Deadline for review expires on 15 Jan 2011.<a href="http://bit.ly/gYCP1C"><br />http://bit.ly/gYCP1C</a></p>
<p><b>The Leap of Rhodes or, How India Dealt with the Last Mile Problem — An Inquiry into Technology and Governance</b><br />The project has fed into many different activities in teaching, in examining processes of governance and in looking at user behaviour. The deadline for peer review expires on 15 Jan 2011.<a href="http://bit.ly/iiYJp1"><br />http://bit.ly/iiYJp1</a></p>
<h3>New Blog Entries</h3>
<p><b>Internet, Society and Space in Indian Cities</b></p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://bit.ly/h3lWzS">From the Stock Market to Neighbourhood Mohalla</a></li>
<li><a href="http://bit.ly/hU6GTL">Transforming Urbanscapes: ATM in cities</a></li>
</ul>
<p><b>Queer Histories of the Internet</b></p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://bit.ly/hqrjqc">A Detour: The Internet and Forms of Narration: A Short Note</a></li>
</ul>
<p><b> </b></p>
<h2><b>Digital Natives</b></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">CIS has interest in developing Digital Identities as a core research area and looks at practices, policies and scholarships in the field to explore relationships between Internet, technology and identity.</p>
<h3>Columns on Digital Natives</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">A fortnightly column on ‘Digital Natives’ authored by Nishant Shah is featured in the Sunday Eye, the national edition of Indian Express, Delhi, from 19 September 2010 onwards. The following articles were published in the Indian Express recently:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://bit.ly/ig08Dr">Make a Wish</a> [published on 19 December 2010]</li>
<li><a href="http://bit.ly/hRHUYu">Play Station</a> [published on 5 December 2010]</li>
</ul>
<h3>Workshop</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The third and final workshop in the Digital Natives with a Cause? research project will take place in Santiago, Chile, from the 8 to 10 February. Open Call and FAQs for the workshop are online:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://bit.ly/emKslL">Digital Natives with a Cause? Workshop in Santiago – An Open Call</a></li>
<li><a href="http://bit.ly/eCu2it">Digital Natives with a Cause? Workshop in Santiago – Some FAQs</a></li>
</ul>
<h3>Publication</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Position papers from the Thinkathon conference held at Hague from 6 to 8 December have been published:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://bit.ly/eVYR2h">Digital Natives with a Cause? Thinkathon: Position Papers</a></li>
</ul>
<h2><b>Accessibility</b></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Estimates of the percentage of the world's population that is disabled vary considerably. But what is certain is that if we count functional disability, then a large proportion of the world's population is disabled in one way or another. At CIS we work to ensure that the digital technologies, which empower disabled people and provide them with independence, are allowed to do so in practice and by the law. To this end, we support web accessibility guidelines, and change in copyright laws that currently disempower the persons with disabilities.</p>
<h3><b>National Award</b></h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Nirmita Narasimhan got a National Award for Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities from the Government of India on 3 December 2010. The award was presented by Smt. Pratibha Patil, President of India under the Role Model category. The event was telecast live on Doordarshan.</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://bit.ly/fKG9MH">Nirmita Narasimhan wins National Award</a></li>
</ul>
<h3>Conference Report</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">An international conference on Enabling Access to Education through ICT was held in New Delhi from 27 to 29 October 2010. The full report of the conference is published online:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://bit.ly/eDHXyq">Enabling Access to Education through ICT - Conference Report</a></li>
</ul>
<h3>New Blog Entries</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://goo.gl/ddMBN">Accessibility at CIS – Looking back at 2010</a></li>
<li><a href="http://bit.ly/igUi8H">G3ict-GW Global Policy Forum: "ICT Accessibility: A New Frontier for Disability Rights"</a></li>
</ul>
<h2><b>Intellectual Property</b></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Copyright, patents and trademarks are the most important components on the Internet. CIS believes that access to knowledge and culture is essential as it promotes creativity and innovation and bridges the gaps between the developed and developing world positively. Hence, the campaigns for an international treaty on copyright exceptions for print-impaired, advocating against PUPFIP Bill, calls for the WIPO Broadcast Treaty to be restricted to broadcast, questioning the demonization of 'pirates', and supporting endeavours that explore and question the current copyright regime. Our latest endeavour has resulted into these:</p>
<h3>New Blog Entries</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://bit.ly/glBYTS">Problems Remain with Standing Committee's Report on Copyright Amendments</a></li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://bit.ly/hq9OZO">CIS Submission on Draft Patent Manual 2010</a></li>
</ul>
<h2><b>Openness</b></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">CIS believes that innovation and creativity should be fostered through openness and collaboration and is committed towards promotion of open standards, open access, and free/libre/open source software, its latest involvement have yielded these results:</p>
<h3>Reports</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://bit.ly/eKUKIY">Call for Comments for Report on the Online Video Environment in India</a></li>
<li><a href="http://goo.gl/wr8Td">Call for Comments for Report on Open Government Data in India</a></li>
</ul>
<h3>Event</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://bit.ly/hQAUkg">Wikipedia Meetup in Bangalore, This time in TERI</a></li>
</ul>
<h3><b>Privacy</b></h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">CIS is doing a couple of projects, one Privacy in Asia which is supported by Privacy International, UK and the other on Privacy and Identity which is funded by Ford Foundation and managed by the Centre for Study of Culture and Society. The project is a research inquiry into the history of privacy in India and how it shapes the contemporary debates around technology mediated identity projects like <i>Aadhar</i>.</p>
<h3>New Blog Entries</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://bit.ly/hYUmVK">The Privacy Rights of Whistleblowers</a></li>
<li><a href="http://bit.ly/hcP9lI">UID & Privacy - A Call for Papers</a></li>
<li><a href="http://bit.ly/esjtL7">Should Ratan Tata be Afforded the Right to Privacy?</a></li>
<li><a href="http://bit.ly/h0Vdz3">DSCI Information Security Summit 2010 – A Report</a></li>
</ul>
<h2><b>Telecom</b></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The growth in telecommunications in India has been impressive. While the potential for growth and returns exist, a range of issues need to be addressed for this potential to be realized. One aspect is more extensive rural coverage and the second aspect is a countrywide access to broadband which is low at about eight million subscriptions. Both require effective and efficient use of networks and resources, including spectrum. It is imperative to resolve these issues in the common interest of users and service providers. CIS campaigns to facilitate this.</p>
<h3>Articles by Shyam Ponappa</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Shyam Ponappa is a Distinguished Fellow at CIS. He writes regularly on Telecom issues in the Business Standard and these articles are mirrored on the CIS website as well.</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://bit.ly/fNADQo">Take 'Model T' for Telecom</a></li>
</ul>
<p><b> </b></p>
<h2><b>News & Media Coverage</b></h2>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://bit.ly/h8TJwF">An online community platform for people with different needs</a> (Sify News, 12 December 2010)</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://bit.ly/fF3Y6V">Self-regulation in media and society meet to gain legal perspectives</a> (Indiantelevision.com, 13 December 2010)</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://bit.ly/e3gZGz">This Is All India Radia</a> (Outlook, 6 December 2010)</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://bit.ly/gYrF7h">'Pakistan' hackers target India's top police agency</a> (Google News, 4 December 2010)</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://bit.ly/gBMFzY">Intellectual Property Rights as seen in a graphic novel</a> (TimeOut Bengaluru, 1 December 2010)</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://bit.ly/fa4qcy">The Niira Radia Tapes: Scrutinizing the Snoopers</a> (The Wall Street Journal, 29 November 2010)</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://bit.ly/gWEkKw">Mobile banking set to get a boost from IMPS</a> (The Hindu, 28 November 2010)</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://bit.ly/gjyNbF">UID elicits mixed response</a> (Deccan Herald, 23 November 2010)</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://bit.ly/hcrAd2">Time to bury e-mail?</a> (DNA, 21 November 2010)</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Follow us elsewhere</b></p>
<ul>
<li>Get short, timely messages from us on <a href="http://twitter.com/cis_india">Twitter</a></li>
<li>Follow CIS on <a href="http://identi.ca/main/remote?nickname=cis">identi.ca</a></li>
<li>Join the CIS group on <a href="http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=28535315687">Facebook</a></li>
<li>Visit us at <a href="http://www.cis-india.org">www.cis-india.org</a></li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Looking forward to hearing from you. Please feel free to write to us for any queries or details required. If you do not wish to receive these emails, please do write to us and we will unsubscribe your mail ID from the mailing list.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/december-2010-bulletin'>https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/december-2010-bulletin</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaAccess to KnowledgeDigital NativesTelecomAccessibilityInternet GovernanceCISRAWOpenness2012-08-07T11:28:02ZPageTake 'Model T' for Telecom
https://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/model-t-telecom
<b>We need an initiative coordinated by the PMO that optimises both services and government revenues, says Shyam Ponappa in his article published in the Business Standard on 2 December 2010.</b>
<p>The 2G spectrum troubles give India an opportunity for clear thinking and purposive action for a significant impact on people’s lives. We (all stakeholders: operators, central and state governments and agencies, the media, opposition parties, PSUs and private corporations, and citizens) need to recognise that there are two distinct aspects to the wrangle: legacy problems and the way forward. The 2G controversy has to do with the truth and consequences of legacy actions. The way forward concerns our fundamental purpose, i.e. the delivery of effective and efficient communications services. What then must we do?</p>
<p><strong>1. Past problems: Follow due process</strong><br />Many commentators and sections of the public take a shotgun approach, demanding the cancellation of licences and auctioning confiscated spectrum. This is outside the purview of the law and will destabilise the sector and the economy, as will any arbitrary government action.</p>
<p>In a democratic society, there is a proper way to address these problems: through the due process of law, not summary judgements ending in figurative lynchings. There are contracts with operators, and we have to learn to respect and enforce the law. Use harsh penalties by all means, but only after (a) going through due process in establishing the facts, (b) provided there is evidence of culpable wrongdoing, and (c) the law calls for harsh penalties. If the law calls for a slap on the wrist, we need to change our laws for serious crimes, not resort to mob violence in the guise of righteous outrage.</p>
<p><strong>2. Present and future needs: Approach needs with a sense of purpose</strong><br />A different aspect of the predicament relates to how we can achieve improved communications infrastructure and services in India. This includes broadband Internet, voice telephony, TV and radio. We need a constructive approach encompassing services, hardware and software, instead of being mired in outmoded practices based on exclusive spectrum allocation, for example. Our focus has to be on our purposes/needs: ubiquitous access at a reasonable price. We need broadband for every household. How do we get it? (<a class="external-link" href="http://www.business-standard.com/content/general_pdf/120210_01.pdf">Click for graph</a>)</p>
<p><strong>Capitalising on the low-margin model</strong><br />The growth of mobile telephony provides a workable model. The graph above shows the rise in subscriptions with declining prices after the shift to revenue sharing in NTP ’99, together with reductions in revenue share percentages for licence and spectrum fees, and in the access deficit charge.</p>
<p>This is a good instance of Henry Ford’s low-margin, high-volume strategy for the Model T. To sustain low tariffs extending to broadband, we need to reduce extraneous levies. A Trai study of 2005 showed government levies on telecommunications in India were far in excess of China, Sri Lanka and Pakistan.*</p>
<p>The study also showed that licence fees from the original auctions would have amounted to Rs 19,314 crore through 2006-07. According to the CAG report, licence and spectrum fees with reduced levies actually amounted to Rs 40,169 crore by 2006-07, i.e. double the auctions; by March 2010, the figure was nearly Rs 80,000 crore.** Over a long period, reduced revenue share for licence and spectrum fees has resulted in explosive growth as well as higher government collections than auctions and high fees.</p>
<p>The study also showed that licence fees from the original auctions would have amounted to Rs 19,314 crore through 2006-07. According to the CAG report, licence and spectrum fees with reduced levies actually amounted to Rs 40,169 crore by 2006-07, i.e. double the auctions; by March 2010, the figure was nearly Rs 80,000 crore.** Over a long period, reduced revenue share for licence and spectrum fees has resulted in explosive growth as well as higher government collections than auctions and high fees.</p>
<p><strong>Initiative by ministry or PMO?</strong><br />Why can’t the communications ministry, the DoT and Trai effect this transformation? Recall the scope of NTP ’99 and the role of the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) for these reasons:</p>
<p>First, reduced short-term government revenues. In the long term, the revenue sharing in a vibrant sector far exceeds the auction take, as shown above. Recall that the primary motivation for the licence auctions of the 1990s and the spectrum auctions was collecting government revenues. Hence, the first criterion is the stance of the finance ministry and the government on revenue collection.</p>
<p>A second criterion at the state level is also financial, for rights of way charges.</p>
<p>Third is India’s approach to spectrum management. Spectrum use can be structured like road or rail networks, or oil pipelines, instead of being treated as exclusive property or usage rights. The difference in costs and benefits to society is staggering. It’s like the right to use daylight or the air we breathe. Visible light is a part of the same electromagnetic radiation, so if there is a charge for radio frequency spectrum, why not for visible light and/or the atmosphere? Rentiers might see this as an opportunity for revenues, but democracies surely must consider it against the public interest.</p>
<p>Existing networks of various government undertakings, including PSU operators BSNL and MTNL, PowerGrid, Gail as well as private operators, could be managed as national assets, as described above for spectrum on payment for usage. This need not mean government control and administration, as there could be a consortium with government participation. There are compelling economic reasons for public access to spectrum and networks because of the drastic reductions in investment, with higher asset utilisation, environmental benefits from less redundancy, and reduced radiation from towers, as in one highway network instead of many.</p>
<p><strong>The opportunity</strong><br />Even as the law takes its course on wrongdoings, we need a new “New Telecom Policy” on the lines of NTP ’99. This is essential for transformational changes in communications services, clearing up confused policies that are at cross-purposes, and extending to boundary domains in ICT. We should aim for “Model T” pricing with access for everyone. We need an across-the-board initiative to replicate the successful aspects of mobile telephony for broadband and other forms of communication (TV, radio). The PMO could orchestrate a workout with all stakeholders that builds in the benefits of shared network resources, including spectrum, with efficient, low-frequency spectrum for rural communications with much less capital investment.</p>
<p>* Study Paper on “Indicators for Telecom Growth”, Trai, 2005: http://www.trai.gov.in/trai/upload/StudyPapers/2/ir30june.pdf</p>
<p>** “Performance Audit Report on the Department of Telecommunications, Ministry of Communications and Information Technology”, http://saiindia.gov.in/cag/union-audit/report-no-19-performance-audit-issue-licences-and-allocation-2g-spectrum-department-tele</p>
<p>Read the original in Business Standard <a class="external-link" href="http://business-standard.com/india/news/shyam-ponappa-take-%5Cmodel-t%5C-for-telecom/416770/">here</a></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/model-t-telecom'>https://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/model-t-telecom</a>
</p>
No publisherShyam PonappaTelecom2012-05-10T10:16:54ZBlog EntryMobile banking set to get a boost from IMPS
https://cis-india.org/news/mobile-banking
<b>Customers will now be able to transfer money from their accounts to any other account in the country using their cellphones, through the National Payment Corporation of India's Inter-bank Mobile Payment Service (IMPS). The facility allows transactions without the need for a computer or an Internet-enabled phone. </b>
<p>Experts say the service introduces a new form of customer-friendliness that a developing ICT nation like India requires. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India records more than 670 million registered mobile subscribers; with the penetration of Internet technologies through mobile phones being higher than the spread of the Internet through broadband connections, the service, they reckon, is expected to boost banking transactions better than Internet banking.</p>
<p>“Though the Internet banking services are user-friendly, they are actually restricted to a limited number of tech-savvy, English-speaking Internet users in the country. With the IMPS, the mobile phone, which is ubiquitous, becomes a handier device for the average user,” says Nishant Shah, director (research), Centre for Internet and Security.</p>
<p>The service provides an inter-operable infrastructure for banks to offer a real-time money transfer facility to customers through mobile phones in seven seconds, says A.P. Hota, CEO and Managing Director of the NPCI. The mobile fund transfers offered by banks and technology providers take 24 hours, and are allowed only if the sender and the receiver hold accounts in the same bank, a hiccup the IMPS seeks to overcome.</p>
<p>With mobile phone-based applications popular and more inclusive in their reach, Mr. Shah says, it might be not only more far-reaching to have banking services available through encrypted SMS systems, because it is a medium that people are familiar with, but also the application-based systems are going to benefit a lot of people, especially who live in areas with inadequate access to banking systems.</p>
<p>Citing South Africa and the Philippines where the IMPS has been successfully launched, experts say the banking and telecom sectors are equipped with the latest security measures for launching the service. With most banks now using a Java-based robust system which works on some kinds of phones and is supported by a limited number of Operating Systems, the system is said to have tried-and-tested security features with double layers of encryption. Hence, the responsibility of caution is more on the side of the user than on technology, experts say, citing cases of sharing of passwords, leaving phones unlocked and sharing of sensitive information with strangers as causes for financial crimes online.</p>
<p>Seven banks have already been offering the IMPS. Seven more are linking up through this network. Gradually, all 50 banks licensed by the RBI are expected to offer the service, which will be free of cost till March 31, 2011. </p>
<p>Read the original in the <a class="external-link" href="http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/technology/article917955.ece">Hindu</a></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/news/mobile-banking'>https://cis-india.org/news/mobile-banking</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaTelecom2011-04-02T07:38:54ZNews ItemNovember 2010 Bulletin
https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/november-2010-bulletin
<b>Greetings from the Centre for Internet and Society! </b>
<h3><b>News Updates</b></h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">The internet’s new billion: New web users — in countries like Brazil and China — are changing the culture of the internet.<a href="http://bit.ly/hKUb5n" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/hKUb5n</a></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">‘Piracy is now a mainstream political phenomenon': “Piracy has become a mainstream political phenomenon,” said Sunil Abraham, executive director of the Centre for Internet and Society in the city. The piracy that he was referring to was not the piracy of the high seas but the piracy of intellectual property.<a href="http://bit.ly/gMC1Br" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/gMC1Br</a></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Open standards policy in India: A long, but successful journey: Last week, India became another major country to join the growing, global open standards movement. After three years of intense debate and discussion, India's Department of IT in India finalized its Policy on Open Standards for e-Governance, joining the ranks of emerging economies like Brazil, South Africa and others. This is a historic moment and India's Department of Information Technology (DIT) deserves congratulations for approving a policy that will ensure the long-term preservation of India's e-government data.<a href="http://bit.ly/dGo6Qo" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/dGo6Qo</a></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Information, the world's new capital - Digital Natives: Information is the new capital and currency of the world, Nishant Shah, of the India-based Digital Natives with a Cause, told Bizcommunity.com yesterday, 10 November 2010, as the three-day workshop on digital and internet technologies that brought together young delegates from nine African countries ended in Johannesburg, South Africa. "If the 20th century was the age of the industrial revolution, the 21st century is now actually the age of the knowledge information," Shah said.<a href="http://bit.ly/dpXIKY" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/dpXIKY</a></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">What it means to be a child today: They move seamlessly between reality and virtual reality. The digital landscape they inhabit comprises generations — not of family — but of technology such as Web 2.0, 3G, PS4 and iPhone5. Their world has moved beyond their neighbourhood, school and childhood friends to encompass a 500-channel television universe, the global gaming village, the endless internet. These are the children born in the last decade and half — possibly the first generation that has never known a world without hi-tech.<a href="http://bit.ly/cz3nBJ" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/cz3nBJ</a></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Report: Digitally Open: Innovation and Open Access Forum, 23 Oct 2010, Doha, Qatar: A summary of the event "Digitally Open: Innovation and Open Access Forum" held in Doha.<a href="http://bit.ly/catHoi" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/catHoi</a></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">DOC 2.0: A Resources Sharing Mela by NGO Documentation Centres: A Resource Sharing Mela and Meet of DCM (Document Centres Meet) at the Centre for Education & Documentation in Domlur, Bangalore.<a href="http://bit.ly/dnwQMf" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/dnwQMf</a></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Wi-Fi Direct promises range, bandwidth higher than Bluetooth: Sharing, printing and connecting for Wi-Fi devices is going to be more convenient than ever with soon-to-be-launched technology Wi-Fi Direct, which enables devices to connect to each other without a conventional Wi-Fi hub. This article by Ramkumar Iyer was published in the Hindu on 31 October 2010.<a href="http://bit.ly/aUul9f" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/aUul9f</a></li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Access to Knowledge in the Age of Intellectual Property: Access to Knowledge in the Age of Intellectual Property charts the rise of the access to knowledge movement, a movement in which Open Society Foundations have played a key role. It maps the vast terrain of legal, cultural, and technical issues that activists and thinkers aligned to the movement negotiate every day.<a href="http://bit.ly/9nkQFM" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/9nkQFM</a></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Social Mashup!: Save the Date Join us to meet India’s most passionate, innovative, and curious start-up social entrepreneurs for two groundbreaking days of conversations, connections and inspiration. This event will be held on 2-3 December 2010 at the Indian School of Business in Hyderabad.<a href="http://bit.ly/bKKcar" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/bKKcar</a></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "> Digitally Open: Innovation and Open Access Forum: Promoting Openness in Today's Digital World<a href="http://bit.ly/961Ieg" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/961Ieg</a></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Crisis for identity or identity crisis?: The hurry with which the government is pushing its most ambitious project to assign a number (UID) to every citizen without any feasibility study or public debate has raised many questions. <a href="http://bit.ly/8Zt9mf" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/8Zt9mf</a></li>
</ul>
<h3><b>Upcoming Event</b></h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Identity, Identification and Media Representation in Video Game Play: An Audience Reception Study: Adrienne Shaw from the Annenberg School of communications, who is a visiting fellow at MICA is giving a public talk on research on representation in video games on 27 November 2010 at the Centre for Internet and Society in Bangalore.<a href="http://bit.ly/909xkU" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/909xkU</a></li>
</ul>
<h2><b>Research</b></h2>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">My Bubble, My Space, My Voice Workshop - Perspective and Future<br />The second workshop for the “Digital Natives with a Cause?” research project named “My Bubble, My Space, My Voice” took place at the Link Center of Wits University, in Johannesburg, South Africa from 6 November 2010 to 9 November 2010. Samuel Tettner, Digital Natives Co-cordinator shares his perspective on the workshop.<a href="http://bit.ly/bPX6Xd" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/bPX6Xd</a></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Archive and Access: Call for Review<br />The Archive and Access research project by Rochelle Pinto, Aparna Balachandran and Abhijit Bhattacharya is a part of the Researchers @ Work Programme at the Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore. The project that attempts to look at the ways in which the notion of the archive, the role of the archivist and the relationship between the state and private archives that has undergone a transition with the emergence of Internet technologies in India has been put up for public review. <a href="http://bit.ly/d4o809" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/d4o809</a></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Just Where We Like It<br />The micro space for status updates might become the new public space for discussion. Nishant Shah's column on Digital Natives was published in the Sunday Eye of the Indian Express on 21 November 2010.<a href="http://bit.ly/96cK8q" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/96cK8q</a></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Taking It to the Streets<br />The previous posts in the Beyond the Digital series have discussed the distinct ways in which young people today are thinking about their activism. The fourth post elaborates further on how this is translated into practice by sharing the experience of a Blank Noise street intervention: Y ARE U LOOKING AT ME?<a href="http://bit.ly/ciyiiR" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/ciyiiR</a></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Talking Back without "Talking Back"<br />The activism of digital natives is often considered different from previous generations because of the methods and tools they use. However, reflecting on my conversations with The Blank Noise Project and my experience in the ‘Digital Natives Talking Back’ workshop in Taipei, the difference goes beyond the method and can be spotted at the analytical level – how young people today are thinking about their activism.<a href="http://bit.ly/bHAvDE" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/bHAvDE</a></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">The 'Beyond the Digital' Directory<br />For the past few months, Maesy Angelina has been sharing the insights gained from her research with Blank Noise on the activism of digital natives. The ‘Beyond the Digital’ directory offers a list of the posts on the research based on the order of its publication.<a href="http://bit.ly/b3TK3C" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/b3TK3C</a></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">First Thing First<br />Studies often focus on how digital natives do their activism in identifying the characteristics of youth digital activism and dedicate little attention to what the activism is about. The second blog post in the Beyond the Digital series reverses this trend and explores how the Blank Noise Project articulates the issue it addresses: street sexual harassment. <a href="http://bit.ly/cM1HFf" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/cM1HFf</a></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Change has come to all of us<br />The general focus on a digital generational divide makes us believe that generations are separated by the digital axis, and that the gap is widening. There is a growing anxiety voiced by an older generation that the digital natives they encounter — in their homes, schools and universities and at workplaces — are a new breed with an entirely different set of vocabularies and lifestyles which are unintelligible and inaccessible. It is time we started pushing the boundaries of what it means to be a digital native.<a href="http://bit.ly/9J82YY" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/9J82YY</a></li>
</ul>
<h2><b>Accessibility</b></h2>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">e-Accessibility Policy Handbook for Persons with Disabilities<br />The Centre for Internet and Society is proud to announce the launch of its first publication, the “e-Accessibility Policy Handbook for Persons with Disabilities" in collaboration with the G3ict (Global Initiative for Inclusive Information Communication Technologies) and ITU (International Telecommunications Union), and sponsored by the Hans Foundation. The handbook is compiled and edited by Nirmita Narasimhan. Dr. Hamadoun I. Toure, Secretary-General, International Telecommunication Union has written the preface, Dr. Sami Al-Basheer, Director, ITU-D has written the introduction and Axel Leblois, Executive Director, G3ict has written the foreword.<a href="http://bit.ly/gfKNYO" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/gfKNYO</a></li>
</ul>
<h2><b>Intellectual Property</b></h2>
<ul>
<li>Statement of CIS on the Work of the Committee in the 21st SCCR<br />The twenty-first session of the Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights was held in Geneva from 8 to 12 November 2010. Nirmita Narasimhan attended the conference and represented the Centre for Internet and Society.<a href="http://bit.ly/fJVNPI" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/fJVNPI</a></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>We’ve All Got Some Baggage<br />America’s newest trade agreement is not going to kill only iPods. The article appeared in the Tehelka Magazine Vol 7, Issue 45, Dated November 13, 2010 <a href="http://bit.ly/cVrpWd" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/cVrpWd</a></li>
</ul>
<h2><b>Internet Governance</b></h2>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Consumer Privacy - How to Enforce an Effective Protective Regime?<br />In a typical sense, when people think of themselves as consumers, they just think about what they purchase, how they purchase and how they use their purchase. But while doing this exercise we are always exchanging personally identifiable information, and thus our privacy is always at risk. In this blog post, Elonnai Hickok and Prashant Iyengar through a series of questions look through the whole concept of consumer privacy at the national and international levels. By placing a special emphasis on Indian context, this post details the potential avenues of consumer privacy in India and states the important elements that should be kept in mind when trying to find at an effective protective regime for consumer privacy.<a href="http://bit.ly/eEs5Qx" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/eEs5Qx</a></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">CIS Responds to Privacy Approach Paper<br />A group of officers was created to develop a framework for a privacy legislation that would balance the need for privacy protection, security, sectoral interests, and respond to the domain legislation on the subject. Shri Rahul Matthan of Tri Legal Services prepared an approach paper for the legal framework for a proposed legislation on privacy. The approach paper is now being circulated for seeking opinions of the group of officers and is also being placed on the website of the Department of Personnel and Training for seeking public views on the subject. The Privacy India team at CIS responded to the approach paper and has called for the need for a more detailed study of statutory enforcement models and mechanisms in the creation of privacy legislation.<a href="http://bit.ly/eVTwVC" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/eVTwVC</a></li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Privacy and Banking: Do Indian Banking Standards Provide Enough Privacy Protection<br />Banking is one of the most risky sectors as far as privacy is concerned due to the highly sensitive and personal nature of information which is often exchanged, recorded and retained. Although India has RBI guidelines and legislations to protect data, this blog post looks at the extent of those protections, and what are the areas that still need to be addressed.<a href="http://bit.ly/flq09V" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/flq09V</a></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Privacy and Telecommunications: Do We Have the Safeguards?<br />All of you often come across unsolicited and annoying telemarketing calls/ SMS's, prank calls, pestering calls for payment, etc. Do we have any safeguards against them? This blog post takes a look at the various rules and regulations under Indian law to guard our privacy and confidentiality.<a href="http://bit.ly/hnTwKp" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/hnTwKp</a></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Privacy, Free/Open Source, and the Cloud<br />A look into the questions that arise in concern to privacy and cloud computing, and how open source plays into the picture.<a href="http://bit.ly/awpCyF" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/awpCyF</a></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Privacy Concerns in Whole Body Imaging: A Few Questions<br />Security versus Privacy...it is a question that the world is facing today when it comes to using the Whole Body Imaging technology to screen a traveller visually in airports and other places. By giving real life examples from different parts of the world Elonnai Hickok points out that even if the Government of India eventually decides to advocate the tight security measures with some restrictions then such measures need to balanced against concerns raised for personal freedom. She further argues that privacy is not just data protection but something which must be viewed holistically and contextually when assessing new policies.<a href="http://bit.ly/9rvQPt" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/9rvQPt</a></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">American Bar Association Online Privacy Conference: A Report<br />On 10 November 2010, I attended an American Bar Association online conference on 'Regulating Privacy Across Borders in the Digital Age: An Emerging Global Consensus or Vive la Difference'. The panelists addressed many important global privacy challenges and spoke about the changes the EU directive is looking to take. <a href="http://bit.ly/dy41zc" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/dy41zc</a></li>
</ul>
<h2><b>Telecom</b></h2>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">3G Life<br />You can video chat, stream music and watch TV on your phone. Offering high-speed internet access, 3G would change the world of mobile computing. Nishant Shah's article was published in the Indian Express on 14 November 2010.<a href="http://bit.ly/gyxaW2" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/gyxaW2</a></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Ideology and ICT Policies<br />For better policies, decision-makers need to know their own and others’ biases, and consider what others are doing, writes Shyam Ponappa in an article published in the Business Standard on 4 November 2010. <a href="http://bit.ly/dbl3Ai" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/dbl3Ai</a></li>
</ul>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Looking forward to your feedback. Please feel free to write to us for any queries or details required. If you do not wish to receive these emails, please do write to us and we will unsubscribe your mail ID from the mailing list.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/november-2010-bulletin'>https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/november-2010-bulletin</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaAccess to KnowledgeDigital NativesTelecomAccessibilityInternet GovernanceCISRAW2012-08-07T11:46:10ZPageIdeology and ICT Policies
https://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/ideology-and-ict
<b>For better policies, decision-makers need to know their own and others’ biases, and consider what others are doing, writes Shyam Ponappa in an article published in the Business Standard on 4 November 2010.</b>
<p>Why do the same facts regarding people’s needs for ICT infrastructure give rise to different policies? Apart from problematic motivation such as malicious intent and opportunism, even well-intentioned policy-makers may prescribe entirely divergent solutions for a given situation. This is evident if one compares India’s broadband policies with those of most countries. There are at least two reasons for this: differing perceptions of the facts, and differences in underlying beliefs and assumptions, i.e. ideology, as distinct from objective data.</p>
<p>Consider the facts of India’s ICT space. In one sense, there has been spectacular success in the communications sector. One statistic cited as evidence is the phenomenal increase in mobile phone subscriptions (over 12 million in September 2010). Equally, to those who focus on aspects like the shortfall in services outside the big cities and towns, or the meagre broadband coverage and its inaccessibility in rural areas (i.e. in much of the country), the communications sector falls tragically short of its potential, and requires policy change.</p>
<p>In this time of India Rising interrupted by the Great Recession, there is a stark contrast between the orientation of our ICT policies and that of most other countries. One area is the extent of government intervention and spending on broadband development. Governments of most advanced economies have stepped in to dramatically improve their broadband networks and policies for user access. This is not only in the EU where, historically, the approach is that government acts to extend consumer welfare, but also in America, the UK and Australia, which are considered much more free-market-oriented in their approach, and in many countries in Asia, including China. Unlike in America since Reagan, regulatory intervention in Europe is part of more supportive policies at the national and local levels. But this time around, even America has embarked on a comprehensive Broadband Technology Opportunities Program, with the goals of providing access to users in unserved areas, improving access in underserved areas, supporting public interest schemes for broadband access, improving broadband use by public safety agencies, and stimulating demand for broadband, economic growth and jobs; there is also a separate Rural Utilities Service.*(Click for <a class="external-link" href="http://www.business-standard.com/content/general_pdf/110410_02.pdf">graph</a>)</p>
<p>With regard to underlying assumptions and beliefs, an analysis on how economic doctrines affect policies by Robert D Atkinson of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation offers a way to think through alternatives for better decisions.** His analysis is on ICT, although it can be applied to all sectors. To quote from his conclusion, for advocates and policy-makers, “differences over doctrine cause partisans to view facts differently and to focus on small segments of complex debates, leading to a breakdown of constructive dialog and much ‘talking past each other’.”</p>
<p>He summarises four ideologies or economic doctrines:</p>
<ul><li>Conservative Neoclassical (CNC)</li><li>Liberal Neoclassical (LNC) </li><li>Neo-Keynesian (NK) <br /></li></ul>
<p>Innovation Economics, also called structuralist-evolutionary, neo-Schumpeterian, or evolutionary economics (IE)</p>
<p>While he describes differences in nuanced detail, the simplified abstractions rendered as a logic tree in the accompanying diagram (above) show how economic beliefs affect network policies.</p>
<p>CNCs are characterised as being less concerned with fairness, and less likely to expect market failures. Therefore, network and broadband markets in which governments do not intervene are considered to be competitive, and require no unbundling or price prescriptions. Their bias is for pure competition.</p>
<p>LNCs are more concerned with fairness, as are NKs and IEs. They accept that telecommunication markets are not competitive, and that there may be market failures. LNCs and NKs would use policy to increase competition in different ways. LNCs expect more competition to lead to increased consumer surpluses. LNCs favour regulated competition, viewing more competition as better. NKs want more competition through directed government subsidies, e.g. for municipal broadband or to small companies (which they consider less rapacious than large corporations).</p>
<p>IEs believe broadband markets have economies of scale, and that increased competition could result in excessive and redundant investments. They consider duplication of existing, expensive infrastructure as inefficient investment. IEs view communications infrastructure as a “general purpose technology” that drives economic activity, innovation and productivity. Therefore, they advocate policies that invest in higher-speed broadband, and in extending network services to more people, favouring a national broadband policy. The US National Broadband Plan defines broadband as a “Transformative General Purpose Technology”, and most countries practise IE. Irrespective of their economic philosophies, most countries have embarked on an aggressive broadband plan.</p>
<p>In comparison, India’s approach does not fit any of these categories. There are no policy incentives for broadband, and actions like the spectrum auctions this year indicate a focus on collecting government revenues rather than on facilitating communication services. Whereas the OECD countries and other Asian economies are working on network resource-sharing schemes, India seems to have previous-generation preoccupations: revenue-collection-for-the-government, increasing competition per se, or abstruse technology considerations, such as loading the most traffic on every unit of commercially available spectrum, instead of maximising the economic benefits from it. Costs and benefits in the public interest are apparently ignored.</p>
<p>BSNL, MTNL and DD have networks that, if they could be channelled with the right mix of policies and private enterprise, could be part of the overall backbone infrastructure for open network operations, as is being done by a consortium in Singapore. If our policy-makers understand their biases as well as those of others, they could adapt beneficial policies from other countries, as demonstrated by many countries with different philosophies converging on improving broadband.</p>
<p class="discreet">* “Broadband Stimulus Policy in Europe and the US: A Comparative Review”, Dariusz Adamski, Berkman Center for Internet and Society, Harvard Law School: <a class="external-link" href="http://www.nyls.edu/user_files/1/3/4/30/84/187/245/Adamski,%20SPRING%202009,%2018%20MEDIA%20L.%20&%20POL%E2%80%99Y.pdf">http://www.nyls.edu/user_files/1/3/4/30/84/187/245/Adamski,%20SPRING%202009,%2018%20MEDIA%20L.%20&%20POL%E2%80%99Y.pdf</a></p>
<p class="discreet">** “Network Policy & Economic Doctrines”, Robert D Atkinson, The Information Technology & Innovation Foundation, October 2010: <a class="external-link" href="http://www.itif.org/files/2010-network-policy.pdf">http://www.itif.org/files/2010-network-policy.pdf</a></p>
<p>Read the original in <a class="external-link" href="http://business-standard.com/india/news/shyam-ponappa-ideologyict-policies/413676/">Business Standard</a></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/ideology-and-ict'>https://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/ideology-and-ict</a>
</p>
No publisherShyam PonappaTelecom2012-05-10T10:21:49ZBlog EntryWi-Fi Direct promises range, bandwidth higher than Bluetooth
https://cis-india.org/news/wi-fi-direct
<b>Sharing, printing and connecting for Wi-Fi devices is going to be more convenient than ever with soon-to-be-launched technology Wi-Fi Direct, which enables devices to connect to each other without a conventional Wi-Fi hub. This article by Ramkumar Iyer was published in the Hindu on 31 October 2010.</b>
<p>Previously known as Peer-to-Peer Wi-Fi, this new technology will allow the Wi-Fi Direct enabled devices to connect directly to each other anytime, anywhere.</p>
<p>It's much like Bluetooth except that it promises typical Wi-Fi range (up to 200 metres) and bandwidth (up to 250 mbps) much higher than what Bluetooth technology offers.</p>
<p>Moreover, the devices have a quick set-up mechanism, follow the latest security protocols and can easily connect to existing Wi-Fi networks.</p>
<h3>Seamless usage</h3>
<p>It means that the huge variety of existing Wi-Fi applications can be used with the new technology seamlessly.</p>
<p>The Wi-Fi Alliance — a coalition of technology industry giants that does the research and standardisation in Wi-Fi — announced on October 25 that it had begun certifying devices as being compatible with the new technology protocol. </p>
<p>According to the Wi-Fi Alliance Website, the technology can be implemented in any device such as cameras, mobiles, laptops and human interface devices.</p>
<h3>Single-tech solution</h3>
<p>“The Wi-Fi users worldwide will benefit from a single-technology solution to transfer content and share applications quickly and easily among devices, even when a Wi-Fi access point isn't available,” said Wi-Fi Alliance Executive Director Edgar Figueroa in a press release. </p>
<p>The technology is aimed at both consumer and enterprise applications and has a vast range of applications which aim at making gaming, sharing, printing and remote operations simpler and convenient.</p>
<p>While the Wi-Fi Direct's entry into the market may present new opportunities for application developers, it may be argued that such kind of range and speed can be easily misused.</p>
<h3>Security consciousness</h3>
<p>Bhaskar Ramamurthi, Professor at the Department of Electrical Engineering, IIT-Madras, agrees: “This technology poses a security risk because if just one device in a group is compromised, almost all the devices in the group are at risk too. And this is especially true of organisations, because unlike in the past, wireless data transfers can now take place without the organisation being able to monitor them and particularly over a larger area. </p>
<p>“People will now have to be more security conscious than ever. Especially, the ones with a previous case of security breach.”</p>
<h3>End of Bluetooth?</h3>
<p>Wi-Fi Direct not only has all the features of Bluetooth, but boasts superior transfer speeds and range. Does this mean the demise of Bluetooth? </p>
<p>Experts speculate that Bluetooth will not be affected much.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“In an existing market where there are millions of Bluetooth-enabled devices, it is unlikely that any manufacturer will retire the technology just because of a new one.</p>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>“Bluetooth will not be affected much; at least in the next couple of years,” said Sunil Abraham, Executive Director of Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Read the original in the <a class="external-link" href="http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/technology/article859680.ece">Hindu</a></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/news/wi-fi-direct'>https://cis-india.org/news/wi-fi-direct</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaTelecom2011-04-02T08:13:27ZNews ItemOctober 2010 Bulletin
https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/october-2010-bulletin
<b>Greetings from the Centre for Internet and Society! </b>
<h3><b>News Updates</b></h3>
<ul>
<li>Internet, szabadon<br />A polgárjogi aktivisták konfrontálódtak és panaszkodtak, a Google és a Facebook hárított és panaszkodott az Internet at Liberty konferencián, amelyet kedden és szerdán rendezett a Google és a CEU Budapesten.<a href="http://bit.ly/dwNhRw"><br />http://bit.ly/dwNhRw</a></li>
<li>Hogyan szűrik a kormányok az internetes tartalmakat?<br />Az internet szabadságáról tartanak háromnapos konferenciát Budapesten a Google és a Közép-Európai Egyetem (CEU) szervezésében. Kedden az internetes tartalmak szűrése volt a legfontosabb téma a rendezvényen.<a href="http://bit.ly/aFApER"><br />http://bit.ly/aFApER</a></li>
<li>Konferencia az internetes szólásszabadságról Budapesten<br />Az internet és szólásszabadság viszonyát vitatják meg Budapesten, a Közép-Európai Egyetem és a Google szervezte, háromnapos konferencián<a href="http://bit.ly/9evwE4"><br />http://bit.ly/9evwE4</a></li>
<li>How the UID project can be a cause for concern<br />The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), headed by Nandan Nilekani, is the UPA government's most ambitious project, where one billion Indians are branded with a unique identity number.<a href="http://bit.ly/bl7INY"><br />http://bit.ly/bl7INY</a></li>
<li>In new Facebook features, a comeback for community<br />Nearly 750 tweets bombard the web every second. Internet traffic is growing by 40 per cent a year. People post 2.5 billion photos on Facebook every month. Every minute, 24 hours of video is uploaded on YouTube. But who owns all that data? Until now, big business was in complete control and used the data to monetise operations. But all that is set to change. With Facebook launching two new features, ‘Groups' and a ‘Download your information,' the community is making a comeback.<a href="http://bit.ly/arEi4V"><br />http://bit.ly/arEi4V</a></li>
<li>Stiff Resistance Dogs India's ID Plan <br />An article about the UID project by Indrajit Basu in Asia Times Online.<a href="http://bit.ly/bMcOSs"><br />http://bit.ly/bMcOSs</a></li>
<li>Data Activism and Grassroots Empowerment in India<br />Glover Wright of the Center for Internet and Society talks about Data Activism and Grassroots Empowerment in India at the Innovate/Activate Unconference in New York Law School on 24 September 2010.<a href="http://bit.ly/alnjsn"><br />http://bit.ly/alnjsn</a></li>
</ul>
<h3><b>Upcoming Events</b></h3>
<ul>
<li>Enabling Access to Education through ICT<br />ICT workshop in Delhi....Registrations open! <a href="http://bit.ly/9flyEK"><br />http://bit.ly/9flyEK</a></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Network Culture: Archaeological and Artistic Interventions Public Seminar – Talk by Kristoffer Gansing and Linda Hilfing<br />Kristoffer Gansing and Linda Hilfling will give a talk on Network Culture on 8 November 2010 in the Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore.<a href="http://bit.ly/cEmOZw"><br />http://bit.ly/cEmOZw</a></li>
</ul>
<h2><b>Research</b></h2>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">City in the Internet 1: Geography Imagined (Part 1) <br />“The estuaries that flirt with the land mass before they finally perish in the vast deep blue ocean beyond were perfect in their shape and grace. And you know what; from top it appears like a surreal landscape that is so restive and peaceful, almost heaven. The countryside is actually very beautiful”, says Pratyush Shankar in his latest blog post. A random conversation between two persons discovering the joys of seeing our existence through Google Earth!<a href="http://bit.ly/9klUn1"><br />http://bit.ly/9klUn1</a></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>A Digital Native coordinating Digital Natives<br />Samuel Tettner, joined CIS as a Research Coordinator for the Digital Natives project. He has written a blog entry about his experiences in the project.<a href="http://bit.ly/cpJMQq"><br />http://bit.ly/cpJMQq</a></li>
<li>You Are Here<br />Geo-tagging applications are creating new and impromptu communities of true, says Nishant Shah in his column on Digital Natives in the Indian Express.<a href="http://bit.ly/a64kj7"><br />http://bit.ly/a64kj7</a></li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">નિશાંત શાહ: ડિજિટલ પેઢીનો ઉદય<br />‘ડિજિટલ નાગરિક’ તેમને કહેવામાં આવે છે જેણે સામાન્ય જનજીવનમાં ડિજિટલ ટેક્નોલોજીના પ્રવેશ થઈ ગયા બાદ જન્મ લીધો છે. ડિજિટલ નાગરિકો દરેક જગ્યાએ છે. હવે સમય આવી ગયો છે કે આપણે એ જાણવાનો પ્રયાસ કરીએ કે આ લોકો કોણ છે, તેઓ શું કરી રહ્યા છે, તેઓ પોતાના અંગે શું વિચારે છે અને કેવી રીતે તેઓ કશું પણ જાણ્યા વગર આપણા ભવિષ્યને નવો આકાર આપવાનું કામ કરી રહ્યા છે. (A column by Nishant Shah in the Gujarati newspaper Divya Bhaskar)<a href="http://bit.ly/9HnyBa"><br />http://bit.ly/9HnyBa</a></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Digital Natives with a Cause?— Workshop in South Africa—FAQs<br />The second international Digital Natives Workshop "My Bubble, My Space, My Voice" will be held in Johannesburg from 7 to 9 November 2010. Some frequently asked questions regarding the upcoming workshop are answered in this blog entry.<a href="http://bit.ly/c1XJHO"><br />http://bit.ly/c1XJHO</a></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">The silent rise of the Digital Native<br />In late August, this year, the world shook for many when they went online (on their computers, PDAs, iPads, laptops) and realised that the comfortable zone of talking, chatting, sharing and doing just about everything else, had suddenly, without a warning, changed overnight (or afternoon, or morning, depending upon the time-zone they lived in). With a single change in its privacy and location settings, Facebook, home to billions of internet hours consisting of relationships, friendships, professional networks, social gaming, entertainment trivia, memories and exchanges, allowed its users to geo-tag themselves when on-the-move.<a href="http://bit.ly/bHY72Y"><br />http://bit.ly/bHY72Y</a></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>The geek shall inherit the earth<br />Demystifying the mysterious -agents changing the world around you...A column on Digital Natives by Nishant Shah in the Indian Express.<a href="http://bit.ly/aq2BqY"><br />http://bit.ly/aq2BqY</a></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Digital Natives Workshop in South Africa - Call for Participation<br />The African Commons Project, Hivos and the Centre for Internet and Society have joined hands for organising the second international workshop "My Bubble, My Space, My Voice" in Johannesburg from 07 to 09 November 2010. Send in your applications now!<a href="http://bit.ly/d0rl7E"><br />http://bit.ly/d0rl7E</a></li>
</ul>
<h2><b>Telecom</b></h2>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Broad-basing Broadband<br />Education and training through the Internet need Commonwealth Games-like crisis management, says Shyam Ponappa in an article on broadband for education and training published in the Business Standard on 7 October 2010.<a href="http://bit.ly/dnMtpU"><br />http://bit.ly/dnMtpU</a></li>
</ul>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/october-2010-bulletin'>https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/october-2010-bulletin</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaAccess to KnowledgeDigital NativesTelecomAccessibilityInternet GovernanceCISRAWOpenness2012-08-07T12:02:11ZBlog EntryBroad-basing Broadband
https://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/broad-basing-broadband
<b>Education and training through the Internet need Commonwealth Games-like crisis management, says Shyam Ponappa in an article on broadband for education and training published in the Business Standard on 7 October 2010.</b>
<p>The central government and the Delhi administration have shown they can engage in sheer execution to save face for the Commonwealth Games. Couldn’t our governments choose to make similar efforts to improve an aspect of infrastructure that is perhaps the most powerful means for enhancing our productive capacity and quality of life: broadband? One might ask: why broadband, and not energy, water/sanitation, or roads…? While all infrastructure is essential, broadband gives the quickest, biggest bang for the buck, because of its nature vis-à-vis energy, water or transportation and our regulatory environment and functional organisation (for instance, the complexity of addressing power supply). If we could increase mobile phone coverage to present levels by reducing costs and increasing availability, it should be possible to do so for personal computer (PC) also, to draw on the wealth of free educational and training material for our vast numbers.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, for such infrastructure, there is no triggering crisis like the threat of failure of the Commonwealth Games, and consequently, no face-saving or glam factors, like the arrival of foreign teams and visitors. This article makes a case for a Commonwealth Games-type crisis management for broadband through a collage of factors.</p>
<p>Consider these aspects of our demographics<strong>1</strong>:</p>
<ul><li>Nearly 460 million people are aged between 13 and 35 today.</li><li>Of these, 333 million are literate.</li><li>In 10 years from now, the countrywide average age will be 29, compared to 37 in the US and China, 45 in Europe, and 48 in Japan.</li><li>As many as 100 million Indians — the combined labour forces of Britain, France, Italy, and Spain — are projected to be added to our workforce by 2020, which is 25 per cent of the global workforce.<br /></li></ul>
<p>This indicates our productive potential. Its realisation would require education and training, efficient functioning, i.e. the matrix of enabling infrastructure, and organisation. If these needs remain unmet, the demographic opportunity can become the liability of an unproductive population, with attendant difficulties and social hazards.</p>
<p>We have many formal and informal institutions providing training and education. We add nearly 300,000 engineering graduates every year to our pool of 2 million engineers. India’s vocational training capacity is estimated at 3.1 million a year, whereas about 12.8 million people enter the workforce. However, the National Sample Survey (2004) found that only 2 per cent of the 15-29 age group had formal vocational training and another 8 per cent had non-formal vocational training. In the developed economies, the proportion of skilled workers is 60-80 per cent; Korea has 96 per cent skilled workers.<strong>2</strong></p>
<p>Five years ago, McKinsey reported that only a quarter of India’s engineers were employable in the IT industry. Recently, a survey showed this has reduced to 18 per cent.<strong>3</strong></p>
<p>Apart from training and education in specific disciplines, the processes that make for good work practices are: systems thinking, a scientific temper, and goal-oriented work practices to meet standards of quality and time. Then there are the attributes of playing team, while engaging in a hard-charging individual effort. All these skills and practices are necessary and can be learned and renewed over time.</p>
<p>How will our workforce of over 500 million, adding 12.8 million every year, have access to continuing education and training, information for civic amenities and facilities and easy, efficient access to commercial and public services? What about the prerequisites of schooling, vocational training and university education? To answer these questions, consider parallel developments in domains such as distance education, e-learning and smart applications. Here are glimpses of the transformation underway in university and secondary education, especially outside India:</p>
<ul><li>iTunes U has become one of the world’s largest educational catalogues for free educational material. After three years, there are over 300 million downloads. Over 800 universities have their websites at iTunes U, including many of the top universities from the US, UK, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Singapore and so on.</li><li>Khan Academy (<a class="external-link" href="http://www.khanacademy.org/">http://khanacademy.org</a>), a brilliant, free educational site by an ex-hedge fund analyst and manager, Salman Khan (Salman Khan of Silicon Valley, not Bollywood), covers mathematics, physics, chemistry and biology, with over 18 million page views in August (<a class="external-link" href="http://www.khanacademy.org/">http://khanacademy.org</a>). Started in late 2006, Khan is reportedly developing an open-ended set of material covering many subjects, and is a favourite among people like Bill Gates, and John and Ann Doerr (Fortune: <a class="external-link" href="http://money.cnn.com/2010/08/23/tecnology/sal_khan_academy.fortune/index.htm">http://money.cnn.com/2010/08/23/tecnology/sal_khan_academy.fortune/index.htm</a>). Of the 200,000 students who access this site every month, only 20,000 are from India.</li><li>There are many other educational sites from school level upwards, for instance, the Open Courseware Consortium (<a class="external-link" href="http://www.ocwconsortium.org/">http://www.ocwconsortium.org</a>) by MIT, with US members like the University of California (Berkeley), Michigan and so on. Many universities and schools have their own websites. There is the Wikiversity, with portals from pre-school through primary to tertiary education, non-formal education and research (see <a class="external-link" href="http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Wikiversity:Browse">http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Wikiversity:Browse</a>).</li></ul>
<p>India, BCG estimates that Internet usage will increase from 7 per cent of the population in 2009 to 19 per cent in 2015 (237 million). PC penetration, which was just 4 per cent in 2009, is estimated at 17 per cent by 2015 (216 million). To quote BCG: “India has among the highest PC costs and lowest PC availability of all the BRIC countries (including Indonesia).” Mobile phone penetration, however, is 10 times higher, at 41 per cent. This appalling situation needs to be redressed.</p>
<h3>Inferences</h3>
<p>Hundreds of millions of Indians should use these websites and the Internet for radical transformation. This will require policies and practices aimed at providing:</p>
<ul><li>inexpensive access to broadband;</li><li>greater access to PCs and PC-equivalents as they evolve (e.g. Pranav Mistry’s SixthSense); and</li><li>systems and processes that encourage distance education, and discipline in all fields, with professionalism and excellence across all activities.<br /></li></ul>
<p>Regulations and tax regimes determine which activities are profitable, and to what extent. This is where the government and its policies come in. Could Internet users in India converge public opinion to rouse governments to address these needs, emulating the example of Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit?</p>
<ol><li>
<p class="discreet">http://indiatoday.intoday.in/site/Story/114002/India/aroon-puries-welcome-address-at-youth-summit.html</p>
</li><li>
<p class="discreet">Employment Report, Ministry of Labour, July 1, 2010: <a class="external-link" href="http://labour.nic.in/Report_to_People.pdf">http://labour.nic.in/Report_to_People.pdf </a></p>
</li><li>
<p class="discreet">http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/engg-college-students-not-industry-ready-survey/388620/</p>
</li></ol>
Read the original article in the <a class="external-link" href="http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:V3cjHBmzlnYJ:www.business-standard.com/india/news/shyam-ponappa-broad-basing-broadband/410402/+broadband+for+education+and+training,+business+standard&hl=en&gl=in&strip=0">Business Standard</a>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/broad-basing-broadband'>https://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/broad-basing-broadband</a>
</p>
No publisherShyam PonappaTelecom2012-05-10T10:25:06ZBlog EntrySeptember 2010 Bulletin
https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/september-2010-bulletin
<b>Greetings from the Centre for Internet and Society! In this bulletin we bring you updates of our research, news and media coverage and announcement of events organised in the month of September 2010.</b>
<h2><b>News Updates</b></h2>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Conference: Internet at Liberty 2010: This conference is being held in Budapest from 20 to 22 September 2010. It is co-sponsored by Google and Central European University. Sunil Abraham and Anja Kovacs are attending the conference. <a href="http://bit.ly/afo0WY" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/afo0WY</a> </li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "> INDIA Fears of Privacy Loss Pursue Ambitious ID Project: Fears about loss of privacy are being voiced as India gears up to launch an ambitious scheme to biometrically identify and number each of its 1.2 billion inhabitants. <a href="http://bit.ly/dnJDRu" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/dnJDRu</a> </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Innovate / Activate: The event will be held on 24 and 25 September 2010 at New York Law School. <a href="http://bit.ly/cbICFq" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/cbICFq</a> </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Webinar: Closed for Business: A Global Panel Discusses International Copyright Laws and Their Impact on the Open Internet <a href="http://bit.ly/a3ZFBw" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/a3ZFBw</a> </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">The madness of software patents <br />India’s patent law excludes software per se, yet over a thousand patents have been granted, writes Lata Jishnu in an article published in Down to Earth. <a href="http://bit.ly/cpHd7R" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/cpHd7R</a> </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Why piracy is tough to rein in <br />“Video market is being treated as a poor cousin of the film industry” <a href="http://bit.ly/aDUpiY" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/aDUpiY</a> </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Transparency and MDGs: the Role of the Media and Technology <br />Key quotes from sixth panel <a href="http://bit.ly/b3a0YC" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/b3a0YC</a> </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Copyright bill restricts Net access <br />Law to curb piracy may fetter creativity <a href="http://bit.ly/cFj3rD" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/cFj3rD</a> </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">科技改變社會 數位原生代計畫 <br />The Chinese language press covered the Digital Natives workshop in Taipei. <a href="http://bit.ly/bPhEO4" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/bPhEO4</a> </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">科技改變社會數位原生代掀波 <br />The Chinese press published an article on Digital Natives. <a href="http://bit.ly/bHaQor" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/bHaQor</a> </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Information is Beautiful hacks in India with David Cameron <br />The Prime Minister took some of the UK's top hackers and data experts with him to India this week. David McCandless was with them. <a href="http://bit.ly/dr3AJ2" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/dr3AJ2</a> </li>
</ul>
<hr />
<h2><b>Events</b></h2>
<ul>
<li>International Conference on Enabling Access to Education through ICT: ICT workshop in New Delhi from 27th to 29th October, 2010...Registrations open!<a href="http://bit.ly/9flyEK" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/9flyEK</a> </li>
<li>A Talk by Philipp Schmidt: Philip Schmidt of Peer 2 Peer University will be giving a lecture at the Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore on 6 October, 2010. <a href="http://bit.ly/aVyzMq" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/aVyzMq</a> </li>
</ul>
<hr />
<h2><b>Research</b></h2>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">On Talking Back: A Report on the Taiwan Workshop: What does it mean to Talk Back? Who do we Talk Back against? Are we alone in our attempts or a part of a larger community? How do we use digital technologies to find other peers and stake-holders? What is the language and vocabulary we use to successfully articulate our problems? How do we negotiate with structures of power to fight for our rights? These were the kind of questions that the Talking Back workshop held in the Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica in Taiwan from 16 to 18 August 2010 posed. <a href="http://bit.ly/daE4dM" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/daE4dM</a> </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">The Binary: City and Nature: A continuation of the last post wherein I am looking at various other representation of the city in both classical and popular medium, today I am writing my views on the analysis of certain Miniature paintings. <a href="http://bit.ly/b5FP5D" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/b5FP5D</a> </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Of the State and the Governments - The Abstract, the Concrete and the Responsive: This post examines the concepts of state and government to lay the ground for understanding responsiveness enforced through transparency discourses and the deployment of ICTs, the Internet and e-governance programmes. It also lays the context for understanding why and how ICTs. Internet and e-governance have been deployed in India for improving government-citizen interfaces, eliminating middlemen, delivering services electronically and for introducing a range of similar reforms to institute transparency and a responsive state. <a href="http://bit.ly/cNLKcY" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/cNLKcY</a> </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">The Responsive State --- Introduction to the Series: This post is an introduction to a series of posts on the concept of the 'responsive state'. In this series, I try to explain the various meanings that the term responsiveness has come to acquire when it is used in relation with the discourses surrounding transparency and the deployment of ICTs and the Internet to enforce transparency and thereby create a responsive state. Understanding the notion of responsiveness requires us to revisit and analyze certain concepts and the relations that have been drawn between concepts such as state, government, politics, administration, transparency, effectiveness, government-citizen interface, ICTs and effectiveness, among others. <a href="http://bit.ly/agBOiq" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/agBOiq</a> </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Attentional Capital in Online Gaming: The Currency of Survival <br />This blog post by Arun Menon discusses the concepts of production, labour and race in virtual worlds and their influence on the production of attention as a currency. An attempt is made to locate attentional capital, attentional repositories and attention currencies within gaming to examine 'attention currencies and its trade and transactions in virtual worlds. A minimal collection of attention currencies are placed as central and as a pre-requisite for survival in MMOs in much the same way that real currency become a necessity for survival. The approach is to locate attentional capital through different perspectives as well as examine a few concepts around virtual worlds. <a href="http://bit.ly/aaGZj8" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/aaGZj8</a> </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">What's in a Name? Or Why Clicktivism May Not Be Ruining Left Activism in India, At Least for Now: In a recent piece in the Guardian titled “Clicktivism Is Ruining Leftist Activism”, Micah White expressed severe concern that, in drawing on tactics of advertising and marketing research, digital activism is undermining “the passionate, ideological and total critique of consumer society”. His concerns are certainly shared by some in India: White's piece has been circulating on activist email lists where people noted with concern that e-activism may be replacing “the real thing” even in this country. But is the situation in India really this dire? <a href="http://bit.ly/9a3I0G" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/9a3I0G</a> </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Sexuality, Queerness and Internet technologies in Indian context: This blog post lays out the discursive construction of sexuality and queerness as intelligible domains in the Indian context while engaging with ideas of visibility, representation, exclusion, publicness, criminality, difference, tradition, experience, and community that have come into use with the critical responses to queer identities and practices in India. <a href="http://bit.ly/byfPye" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/byfPye</a> </li>
</ul>
<hr />
<h2><b>Accessibility</b></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Enabling Access to Education through ICT - A Conference in Delhi: The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), Bangalore in cooperation with the Global Initiative for Inclusive ICT (G3ICT), a flagship advocacy organization of the UN Global Alliance on ICT and Development (UN-GAID), the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), UNESCO, Digital Empowerment Foundation, Society for Promotion of Alternative Computing and Employment and the Deafway Foundation is organizing an international conference, Enabling Access to Education through ICT in New Delhi from 27 to 29 October 2010. The event is sponsored by Hans Foundation. Registration for the conference has begun. <a href="http://bit.ly/bmrkf7" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/bmrkf7</a></p>
<hr />
<h2><b>Access to Knowledge<br /></b></h2>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Pre-grant Opposition Filed for a Software Patent Application by Blackberry Manufacturers: A pre-grant opposition was filed against a software patent application filed in the patent office by Certicom, a wholly owned subsidiary of Research in Motion (RIM), manufacturers of Blackberry. The opposition was filed on August 31, 2010 by the Software Freedom Law Centre which has recently expanded its operations to India. This exciting development was announced by Mishi Choudhary from SFLC on the lines of the seminar on “Software Patents and the Commons” organised on 1 September 2010 in Delhi jointly by SFLC, the Centre for Internet and Society, the Society for Knowledge Commons and Red Hat. Filing more such oppositions to software patents in India was in the pipeline and this is just the beginning of a movement to take on monopolisation of knowledge and ideas through patenting software, the organisers said. <a href="http://bit.ly/9wE1Xs" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/9wE1Xs</a> </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">First Post-Bilski Decision - Software Patent Rejected: In the first decision post-Bilski, the Board of Patents Appeals and Interferences (BPAI) rejected a software patent claimed by Hewlett-Packard. The ruling in this case has buttressed the fact that the Bilski decision furthered the cause of narrowing the patentability of software even though the Supreme Court of the United States totally avoided mentioning software patents or the applicability of the machine or transformation test for software patents in its decision. <a href="http://bit.ly/cnPw7E" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/cnPw7E</a></li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">The Bilski Case - Impact on Software Patents: The Supreme Court of the United States gave its decision in Bilski v Kappos on 28 June, 2010. In this case the petitioners’ patent application sought protection for a claimed invention that explains how commodities buyers and sellers in the energy market can protect, or hedge, against the risk of price changes. The Court in affirming the rejection by the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit also held that the machine- or-transformation test is not necessarily the sole test of patentability. The Court’s ruling of abstract ideas as unpatentable and its admission that patents do not necessarily promote innovation and may sometimes limit competition and stifle innovation have provided a ray of hope. In the light of the developments, the Bilski decision as far as patentability of software is concerned may not be totally insignificant, says Krithika Dutta Narayana.<a href="http://bit.ly/bjrPGh" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/bjrPGh</a> </li>
</ul>
<hr />
<h2><b>Openness</b></h2>
<ul>
<li> Free Access to Law—Is it here to Stay? An Environmental Scan Report: The following is a preliminary project report collaboratively collated by the researchers of the "Free Access to Law" research study. This report aims to highlight the trends, as well as the risks and opportunities, for the sustainability of Free Access to Law initiatives in each of the country examined. <a href="http://bit.ly/9VVzkk" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/9VVzkk</a> </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Open Access to Science and Scholarship - Why and What Should We Do?: The National Institute of Advanced Studies held the eighth NIAS-DST training programme on “Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Science, Technology and Society” from 26 July to 7 August, 2010. The theme of the project was ‘Knowledge Management’. Dr. MG Narasimhan and Dr. Sharada Srinivasan were the coordinators for the event. Professor Subbiah Arunachalam made a presentation on Open Access to Science and Scholarship. <a href="http://bit.ly/ciohYy" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/ciohYy</a> </li>
</ul>
<hr />
<h2><b>Internet Governance</b></h2>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Moldova Online: An Interview with Victor Diaconu: In this interview for Russian Cyberspace, set up with the help of Sunil Abraham (Executive Director at the Centre for Internet and Society in Bangalore, India), computer software professional Victor Diaconu explains the nature of Internet use, state control and the development of blogging and social media platforms in Moldova. Victor works at Computaris in Chisinau. He is Moldova educated, and has travelled to several western countries (including lengthy stays to US, UK) to learn about and understand what there is to be done in Moldova. Sudha Rajagopalan interviewed Victor Diaconu. <a href="http://bit.ly/cgIvXT" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/cgIvXT</a> </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Presentation of the UID project by Ashok Dalwai – A Report: On Tuesday, 7 September 2010, Ashok Dalwai, the Deputy Director General of the Unique Identification of India (UIDAI), gave a lecture at the Indian Institute for Science in Bangalore. Representing the UID Authority, his presentation explained the vision of the project and focused on the challenges involved in demographic and biometric identification, the technology adopted, and the enrolment process. Elonnai Hickok gives a report of his presentation in this blog post. <a href="http://bit.ly/aAy5DG" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/aAy5DG</a> </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Beyond Access as Inclusion: On 13 September, the day before the fifth Internet Governance Forum opens, CIS is co-organised in Vilnius a meeting on Internet governance and human rights. One of the main aims of this meeting was to call attention to the crucial, yet in Internet governance often neglected, indivisibility of rights. In this blog post, Anja Kovacs uses this lens to illustrate how it can broaden as well reinvigorate our understanding of what remains one of the most pressing issues in Internet governance in developing countries to this day: that of access to the Internet. <a href="http://bit.ly/cgS9py" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/cgS9py</a> </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Summary of UID Public Meeting, August 25 2010: A summary of the "No UID" public meeting that took place on Aug. 25th at the Constitution Club, New Dehli. <a href="http://bit.ly/9epHTz" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/9epHTz</a> </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">No UID Campaign in New Delhi - A Report: The Unique Identification (UID) Bill is not pro-citizen. The scheme is deeply undemocratic, expensive and fraught with unforseen consequences. A public meeting on UID was held at the Constitution Club, Rafi Marg in New Delhi on 25 August, 2010. The said Bill came under scrutiny at the meeting which was organised by civil society groups from Mumbai, Bangalore and Delhi campaigning under the banner of "No UID". The speakers brought to light many concerns, unanswered questions and problems of the UID scheme. <a href="http://bit.ly/97HwbS" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/97HwbS</a> </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Wherever you are, whatever you do: Facebook recently launched a location-based service called Places. Privacy advocates are resenting to this new development. Sunil Abraham identifies the three prime reasons for this outcry against Facebook. The article was published in the Indian Express on 23 August, 2010. <a href="http://bit.ly/adXVjB" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/adXVjB</a> </li>
</ul>
<hr />
<h2><b>Telecom</b></h2>
<ul>
<li>What a highway can do: Despite signs of transformational change, we need more - SOPs and quality <a href="http://bit.ly/deUbmU" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/deUbmU</a></li>
</ul>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/september-2010-bulletin'>https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/september-2010-bulletin</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaAccess to KnowledgeDigital NativesTelecomAccessibilityInternet GovernanceCISRAWOpenness2012-08-10T07:22:30ZPageWhat a highway can do
https://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/what-a-highway
<b>Despite signs of transformational change, we need more - SOPs and quality</b>
<p>Even as the country reels from the extended rains and the imminent Commonwealth Games, there are unmistakable signs in Delhi’s environs of an unprecedented transformation. To see and feel this, try driving to the Delhi-Noida toll bridge (the “DND”), and go past Noida on the expressway to Greater Noida.</p>
<p>It isn’t perfect, and there are many details that could be handled better, from the assets built to how we use them. These include unfinished verges with construction debris near the Ashram crossing, cambers without proper drainage that get flooded in some stretches of the expressway, motorcyclists sheltering from the rain under the flyovers/overpasses spilling on to the expressway, pedestrians with no place to cross, trucks at night without even reflectors, trucks that are parked without hazard lights, tractors, and occasional cattle. Most dangerous are the undisciplined drivers who act as if they are puttering along at 30 km per hour while going at the 100 km speed limit or more, or who drive on the wrong side against oncoming traffic. And the resurfacing of the road in parts leaves much to be desired…</p>
<h2>The transformation under way</h2>
<p>Ignore this cavilling and carping, however, and it is bliss. One can cover 30 km from the DND toll plaza to Greater Noida in 20 minutes legally, although within New Delhi, it may take as long or even longer to travel just a few kilometres. I was amazed recently driving from Shantiniketan to Greater Noida in 40 minutes. It was like driving in California — quite different from the contentious driving that is customary on our roads.</p>
<p>The sheer ease and convenience apart, another, arguably greater, benefit is the gain in productivity. It is this potential for productivity that, if we can wring from ourselves, is one part of the equation in our pursuit of an improved quality of life. It is especially important because of our vast numbers, including the much-bruited potential demographic dividend, which is not new. As Babur put it in the 16th century*: “…if they fix their eyes on a place in which to settle …as the population of Hindustan is unlimited, it swarms in.” Little has changed, and much needs to be built from the ground up, starting with sanitation and water, not to mention energy, communications, and transportation systems.</p>
<p>But just consider: the limited instance of the drive on the expressway reveals a productivity gain of three to four times at 20 minutes for covering 30 km, compared with covering only 7-10 km in the same time (or taking three to four times longer for 30 km). That’s a gain of 300-400 per cent!</p>
<p>There’s another noticeable change: a willingness of everyone to work very much harder at whatever they do. All levels of people, from entrepreneur-managers to electricians, plumbers, gardeners, and day labourers, work so hard that a major change seems to be afoot. I am familiar with the hardworking farmer and rural wage earner, having grown up on a farm myself. I have also experienced the recalcitrance of some public sector employees and private sector unions, as well as the productive, hard-charging PSU, government, and private sector employees. Yet, in the work attitudes of boomtown Greater Noida, I see impressive energy and application.</p>
<h2>The failings</h2>
<p>Let me not gloss over the weaknesses. There are big failures in delivery capability, and these arise from two critical lacunae:</p>
<p>a) <strong>SOPs, systems and procedures</strong></p>
<p>A major failing appears to be the lack of Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) even for simple construction jobs, like painting metal: the ramrod, sequential steps of first scrape, then clean, apply primer, apply the first coat of paint and dry off; then apply the second coat… People simply don’t follow sound work practices — systems and procedures that, when applied, yield consistent good results. This is partly an endogenous failing, arising from lack of appropriate education/training and discipline. It is also partly attributable to the lack of organised systems and procedures.</p>
<p>b) <strong>Infrastructure</strong></p>
<p>An equally critical exogenous failing of the environment is reliable infrastructure, whether in the form of energy (power/electricity), communications, transportation excepting a one-off good stretch of highway, or water and sanitation. Take any single area, say energy. The extent of wasted manpower because of lack of adequate electricity supply is beyond imagination.</p>
<p>Add the bases for learning and functioning competently, and there’s education (including training) and health care as a support function. Proper education and training — and discipline — are absolutely essential for learning and developing sound work processes, and for applying them. There was an impression many years ago that incompetence or recalcitrance in delivery resulted from the inadequate capacity of individuals. In the last several years, it is evident that we have good people, but they have very poor training, systems and organisation, and equally poor infrastructure. You could call it a lack of leadership and discipline at all levels.</p>
<h2>What we need</h2>
<p>We need two sets of fixes. The first is for our inherent failings: the lack of SOPs and the need to learn to work to inexorable checklists and timelines. It is imperative to learn the discipline of project management at all levels — starting from the top, not the bottom! This is a sweeping change that entails shifting from feudal criteria to respect for professional competence and processes.</p>
<p>The second fix required is a supportive environment: good infrastructure and the appurtenances of good policies. Going by the figures, we will build more roads, power plants and factories in the next few years than in the last 60. But the net gain to society will depend on their quality. If they are shoddy, the gains will be much less. Assets that are not integrated into coherent systems will be less beneficial than if they are integrated to deliver results, e.g. isolated housing without a web of transportation and communication links near where people work; isolated good stretches of highway. It is imperative that we design and execute the infrastructure to support our productivity. This is an area of weakness we must address and execute more comprehensively.</p>
<p>Read the original in <a class="external-link" href="http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/shyam-ponappa-whathighway-can-do/406622/">Business Standard</a></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/what-a-highway'>https://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/what-a-highway</a>
</p>
No publisherShyam PonappaTelecom2012-05-10T10:26:52ZBlog EntryAugust 2010 Bulletin
https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/august-2010-bulletin
<b>Greetings from the Centre for Internet and Society. We bring you news and media coverage, research and event updates for the month of August 2010</b>
<h3>News Updates</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>RIM Offered Security Fixes<br /> </b>In India Talks, BlackBerry Maker Said It Could Share Metadata, Notes Show<br /> <a href="http://bit.ly/ahT7jD" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/ahT7jD</a><br /> <br /> <b>New Project to Assess Potential of Creating Open Government Data</b> <b>Initiatives in Chile, Ghana and Turkey</b><br /> Steve Bratt, CEO of the World Wide Web Foundation (founded in 2009 by Tim Berners-Lee) has made an announcement on moving forward with a project to assess the potential of creating open government data<br /> initiatives in Chile, Ghana, and Turkey - the first step of what we hope to be a global initiative focusing on low- and middle-income countries.<br /> <a href="http://bit.ly/d337Ex" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/d337Ex</a></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Govt and BlackBerry firm wait for the other to hang up</b><br />Sunil Abraham speaks to Archna Shukla on the stand-off between the Government of India and RIM. The news was published in expressindia.com.<br /> <a href="http://bit.ly/cGeipL" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/cGeipL</a><br /> <br /><b>Call, text, email complaint against rogue auto driver</b><br /> Harassed by an auto driver? Helplines give you no relief? Here's the people's way to help you out. Just report your issue online, call or even SMS sitting in a noisy restaurant, and be heard.<br /> <a href="http://bit.ly/atiiGW" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/atiiGW</a><br /> <br /> <b>Call to increase awareness of intellectual property rights<br /> </b>We need more knowledge on IPR itself, says IT Secretary<br /> <a href="http://bit.ly/avxY16" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/avxY16</a><br /> <br /> <b>Civil Society groups urge State Judicial Academy to restructure agenda for Judges' Roundtable meet</b><br /> Some of the Civil Society groups in the country have urged the Maharashtra State Judicial Academy to restructure the agenda for the 'Judges Roundtable on Intellectual Property Rights Adjudication' being held in Mumbai on July 24 and 25 to promote public interest and a deeper understanding of intellectual property amongst judicial officers. FICCI is the joint organiser of the event.<br /> <a href="http://bit.ly/dCDZl0" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/dCDZl0</a><br /> <br /> <b>More Debate on UID Project Needed<br /> </b>A press conference on UID was held at the Press Club in Bangalore on 26 July, 2010. It was co-organised by Citizen's Action Forum, Alternate Law Forum and the Centre for Internet and Society. Mathew Thomas and Vinay Baindur spoke about the UID. Proceedings from the conference was covered in the Hindu on 27 July, 2010.<br /> <a href="http://bit.ly/cSEsaP" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/cSEsaP</a><br /> <br /> <b>UID coverage in Udayavani</b><br /> A press conference was held at the Press Club in Bangalore on 26 July, 2010. It was co-organised by Citizen's Action Forum, Alternate Law Forum and the Centre for Internet and Society. Mathew Thomas and Vinay Baindur were the speakers. Leading Kannada newspaper Udayavani covered this event.<br /> <a href="http://bit.ly/c3AU5s" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/c3AU5s</a></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Open is the Future<br /> </b>The third Open World Forum will gather together decision-makers from the open digital world, in Paris. 1,500 participants from 40 countries will come together to analyze the technological, economic and social impact of Open Source, the invisible engine behind the digital revolution. The aim: to interpret future trends and cross-fertilize initiatives.<a href="http://bit.ly/amY9Qc" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/amY9Qc</a></p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://bit.ly/amY9Qc" target="_blank">
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</a>Upcoming Events</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>No UID till Complete Transparency, Accountability and People's Participation: A Public Campaign <br /></b>An interactive meeting on UID's lack of a feasibility study, cost involved and dangers of abuse is being held in New Delhi at the Constitution Club Auditorium, Rafi Marg on 25 August, 2010. The meeting is jointly organised by INSAF, PEACE, Citizens' Action Forum, People's Union for Civil Liberties - Karnataka, Slum Janandolana - Karnataka, Alternate Law Forum, The Centre for Internet and Society and concerned individuals.<br /> <a href="http://bit.ly/8YsBIJ" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/8YsBIJ</a></p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Internet Governance and Human Rights: Strategies and Collaborations for Empowerment</b><br />Leading up to the 2010 IGF, The Association for Progressive Communications (APC), Global Partners, the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) and the Dynamic Coalition on Internet Rights and Principles are hosting, on 13 September 2010 in Vilnius, an event on 'Internet Governance and Human Rights: Strategies and Collaborations for Empowerment'.<br /> <a href="http://bit.ly/aoOkPR" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/aoOkPR</a><br /> <br /> <b>Freedom of Expression or Access to Knowledge: Are We Taking the Necessary Steps Towards an Open and Inclusive Internet?</b><br /> The Centre for Internet and Society is co-organising a workshop on Freedom of Expression or Access to Knowledge: Are We Taking the Necessary Steps towards an Open and Inclusive Internet? at the Internet<br /> Governance Forum on 14 September, 2010.<br /> <a href="http://bit.ly/dl1WRL" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/dl1WRL</a></p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Sexual Rights, Openness and Regulatory Systems</b><br />The Centre for Internet and Society is co-organising a workshop on Sexual Rights, Openness and Regulatory Systems at the Internet Governance Forum on 14 September, 2010.<br /> <a href="http://bit.ly/dl1WRL" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/dl1WRL</a><br /> <br /> <b>Data in the Cloud: Where Do Open Standards Fit In?<br /> </b>The Centre for Internet and Society is co-organising a workshop on Data in the Cloud: Where do Open Standards Fit In? on 16 September, 2010 at the Internet Governance Forum.<br /> <a href="http://bit.ly/94AF4h" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/94AF4h</a><br /> <br /> <b>International Conference on Enabling Access to Education through ICT<br /> </b>The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), Bangalore in cooperation with the Global Initiative for Inclusive ICT (G3ICT), a flagship advocacy organization of the UN Global Alliance on ICT and Development (UN-GAID), the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), UNESCO, Digital Empowerment Foundation, Society for Promotion of Alternative Computing and Employment and the Deafway Foundation is organizing an international conference, Enabling Access to Education through ICT in New Delhi from<br /> 27th to 29th October, 2010....Registrations to begin soon!<br /> <a href="http://bit.ly/9flyEK" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/9flyEK</a></p>
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<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Research</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Political is as Political does<br /> </b>The Talking Back workshop has been an extraordinary experience for me. The questions that I posed for others attending the workshop have hounded me as they went through the course of discussion, analysis and dissection. Strange nuances have emerged, certain presumptions have been questioned, new legacies have been discovered, novel ideas are still playing ping-pong in my mind, and a strange restless excitement – the kind that keeps me awake till dawning morn – has taken over me, as I try and figure out the wherefore and howfore of things. I began the research project on Digital Natives in a condition of not knowing, almost two years ago. Since then, I have taken many detours, rambled on strange paths, discovered unknown territories and reached a mile-stone where I still don’t know, but don’t know what I don’t know, and that is a good beginning.<br /> <a href="http://bit.ly/9hY9sR" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/9hY9sR</a><br /> <br /> <b>Digital Natives: Talking Back<br /> </b>One of the most significant transitions in the landscape of social and political movements, is how younger users of technology, in their interaction with new and innovative technologised platforms have taken up responsibility to respond to crises in their local and immediate environments, relying upon their digital networks, virtual communities and platforms. In the last decade or so, the digital natives, in universities as well as in work spaces, as they experimented with the potentials of internet technologies, have launched successful socio-political campaigns which have worked unexpectedly and often without precedent, in the way they mobilised local contexts and global outreach to address issues of deep political and social concern. But what do we really know about this Digital Natives revolution?<br /> <a href="http://bit.ly/bZNoSX" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/bZNoSX</a></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Beyond the Digital: Understanding Digital Natives with a Cause</b><br />Digital Natives with a cause: the future of activism or slacktivism? Maesy Angelina argues that the debate is premature given the obscured understanding on youth digital activism and contends that an effort to<br /> understand this from the contextualized perspectives of the digital natives themselves is a crucial first step to make. This is the first out of a series of posts on her journey to explore new insights to understand youth digital activism through a research with The Blank Noise Project under the Hivos-CIS Digital Natives Knowledge Programme.<br /> <a href="http://bit.ly/b1GS7F" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/b1GS7F</a></p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Accessibility</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Access to Knowledge: Barriers and Solutions for Persons with Disabilities in India</b><br /> Consumers International, Kuala Lumpur and Consumers Association of India in association with Madras Library Association organised a seminar on Access to Knowledge on 31st July, 2010 at the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Auditorium in Guindy, Chennai. The Principal Secretary to the Government of Tamil Nadu Department of Information Technology was the chief guest. Former Central Vigilance Commissioner N. Vittal gave the keynote address. Prof Subbiah Arunachalam, Nirmita Narasimhan and Pranesh Prakash participated in the seminar. Nirmita and Pranesh made presentations on access to knowledge.<br /> <a href="http://bit.ly/cJXSX8" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/cJXSX8</a></p>
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<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Intellectual Property</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Privacy and the Indian Copyright Act, 1857 as Amended in 2010 <br /></b>In this post the author examines the issue of privacy in light of the Indian Copyright Act, 1857 as amended by the Copyright Amendment Bill in 2010. Four key questions are examined in detail and the author gives<br /> suitable recommendations for each of the questions that arise.<br /> <a href="http://bit.ly/cJXSX8" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/cJXSX8</a></p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Internet Governance</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Does the Government want to enter our homes?</b><br />When rogue politicians and bureaucrats are granted unrestricted access to information then the very future of democracy and free media will be in jeopardy. In an article published in the Pune Mirror on 10 August,<br /> 2010, Sunil Abraham examines this in light of the BlackBerry-to-BlackBerry messenger service that the Government of India plans to block if its makers do not allow the monitoring of messages. He says that civil society should rather resist and insist on suitable checks and balances like governmental transparency and a fair judicial oversight instead of allowing the government to intrude into the privacy<br /> and civil liberties of its citizens.<br /> <a href="http://bit.ly/dkVHoS" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/dkVHoS</a></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>UID Project in India - Some Possible Ramifications</b><br />Having a standard for decentralized ID verification rather than a centralized database that would more often than not be misused by various authorities will solve ID problems, writes Liliyan in this blog entry. These blog posts to be published in a series will voice the expert opinions of researchers and critics on the UID project and present its unique shortcomings to the reader.<br /> <a href="http://bit.ly/bOyBS8" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/bOyBS8</a></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Civil Liberties and the amended Information Technology Act, 2000</b><br />This post examines certain limitations of the Information Technology Act, 2000 (as amended in 2008). Malavika Jayaram points out the fact that when most countries of the world are adopting plain English instead of the conventional legal terminology for better understanding, India seems to be stuck in the old-fashioned method thereby, struggling to maintain a balance between clarity and flexibility in drafting its laws. The present Act, she says, is although an improvement over the old Act and seeks to address and improve on certain areas in the right direction but still comes up short in making necessary changes when it comes to fundamental rights and personal liberties. The new Act retains elements from the previous one making it an abnormal document and this could have been averted if there had been some attention to detail.<br /> <a href="http://bit.ly/croc9T" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/croc9T</a><br /> <br /> <b>Feedback to the NIA Bill<br /></b>Malavika Jayaram and Elonnai Hickok introduce the formal submission of CIS to the proposed National Identification Authority of India (NIA) Bill, 2010, which would give every resident a unique identity. The submissions contain the detailed comments on the draft bill and the high level summary of concerns with the NIA Bill submitted to the UIDAI on 13 July, 2010.<br /> <a href="http://bit.ly/bhinUB" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/bhinUB</a></p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Openness</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Open Access to Science and Scholarship - Why and What Should We Do? The National Institute of Advanced Studies held the eighth NIAS-DST training programme on “Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Science, Technology and Society” from 26 July to 7 August, 2010. The theme of the project was ‘Knowledge Management’. Dr. MG Narasimhan and Dr. Sharada Srinivasan were the coordinators for the event. Professor Subbiah Arunachalam made a presentation on Open Access to Science and Scholarship.<br /> <a href="http://bit.ly/ciohYy" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/ciohYy</a><br /> <br /> <b>Civic Hacking Workshop<br /> </b>CIS, with the UK Government's Foreign Office and the Cabinet Office Team for Digital Engagement, and Google India, is organizing a workshop on open data (or the lack thereof) and 'civic hacking'.<br /> <a href="http://bit.ly/c3TF2t" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/c3TF2t</a></p>
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<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Telecom</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>'Containing Inflation' - A myth</b><br /> We need problem-solving, not confused rhetoric or misguided action, says Shyam Ponappa. The article was published in Business Standard on 7 August, 2008.<br /> <a href="http://bit.ly/9frC8q" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/9frC8q</a></p>
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For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/august-2010-bulletin'>https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/august-2010-bulletin</a>
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No publisherpraskrishnaAccess to KnowledgeDigital NativesTelecomAccessibilityInternet GovernanceCISRAWOpenness2012-08-10T10:40:34ZPage