Centre for Internet and Society

Ranjit Singh

sumandro — 2018-09-27T09:31:48Z

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/about/people/ranjitsingh_photo.jpg

Policy on Prohibition of Sexual Harassment

sumandro — 2024-12-02T23:23:15Z

This page states CIS' policies against sexual harassment of women at its workplaces. The Policy on Prohibition and Redressal of Sexual Harassment Against Women establishes the Internal Committee (IC) and deals with the definition, prohibition, prevention, and redressal of sexual harassment at its workplace. The names and contact details of the current members of the IC are also provided. Other applicable CIS policies in this area include Workplace Fraternisation Policy and Guidelines for Interactions with Interns. All policies are published below.

For reporting complaints and information about an incident of harassment at CIS or involving CIS members, please contact any of the following Internal Committee members (IC) below. The IC recognizes that such reporting requires sharing of personal and sensitive information. The IC is an independent body at CIS and is bound by strict rules to appropriately handle such information and maintain confidentiality — as described in the policy below.

Official email: ic.cisindia[at]protonmail[dot]com

Chiara Furtado: Presiding Officer, Bengaluru, profile, and chiarafurtado.cis[at]protonmail[dot]com

Mishika Singh: External Member, New Delhi, profile, and neevlegalaid[at]gmail[dot]com

Yatharth: Member, Bengaluru, profile, and yatharthCIS[at]protonmail[dot]com

Garima Agrawal, Member, Goa, profile, and garima.icc[at]proton[dot]me

Frequently Asked Questions about the Policy on Prohibition of Sexual Harassment

Policy on Prohibition And Redressal of Sexual Harassment Against Women

1. Preliminary

1.1 This Policy on Prohibition and Redressal of Sexual Harassment Against Women ("Policy") states the internal policy of the Centre for Internet and Society ("CIS") with regard to the definition, prohibition, prevention, and redressal of sexual harassment of women at its workplaces.

1.2 CIS is committed to creating and maintaining a safe, secure and comfortable workplace, free from impropriety, indignity and fear, for all people at its workplace.

Accordingly, CIS requires all members to undergo mandatory anti-sexual harassment training at regular intervals. CIS shall also ensure that its management and staff remain attentive and responsive to the issue of sexual harassment at the workplace; and, that other people (interns, consultants, etc.) who are granted access to CIS’ workplace are made aware of this Policy.

Further, the CIS Internal Committee (IC) is empowered to investigate complaints or allegations of sexual harassment against women and address them in a timely, impartial and sensitive manner.

Further, in an extraordinary situation where the CIS management or the CIS Board reasonably believes that there may be a case of sexual harassment pertaining to any current member of CIS, including the Executive Director, and in the situation where the jurisdiction of the IC is unclear, CIS commits to undertaking an investigation either at the executive, Board level, or through an independent third-party expert(s). CIS is commited to ensuring the investigation is impartial and follows due process.

1.3 This Policy is without prejudice to the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013 that was enacted into law on April 22, 2013. Sexual harassment of women, within or outside a workplace, is further defined and criminalized under section 354A of the Indian Penal Code, 1860.

2. What is Sexual Harassment?

2.1 For the purposes of this Policy, sexual harassment, includes any one or more of the following unwelcome acts or behaviour, experienced by a woman, whether directly or by implication, committed in person/ on print or via computer/ phone/ other media:

(i) physical contact and advances involving unwelcome and explicit sexual overtures;

(ii) a demand or request for sexual favours;

(iii) making obscene/ sexually coloured remarks or remarks of a obscene/ sexual nature about a woman's clothing or body;

(iv) showing pornography, making or posting sexual pranks, sexual teasing;

(v) repeatedly asking to socialize during off-duty hours or continued expressions of sexual/ romantic interest against a woman’s wishes;

(vi) deprecatory comments, conduct or any such behaviour based on the gender identity or sexual orientation of a woman;

(vi) voyeurism; or

(vii) stalking;

(viii) any other unwelcome physical, verbal or non-verbal conduct of a sexual nature.

Further, occurrence of any of the following circumstances in relation to any sexually determined act or behavior amounts to sexual harassment:

(ix) implied or explicit promise of preferential or detrimental treatment in employment;

(x) implied or explicit threat about present or future employment status;

(xi) interference with the woman’s work or creating an intimidating or offensive or hostile work environment; or

(xii) humiliating treatment likely to affect the woman’s health or safety.

2.3 If in pursuit of a legitimate professional objective or in the ordinary course of work, it is necessary to carry out any activity, including discussion, viewing, reading or other handling of issues or material related to sex, sexuality, pornography or other activities of a sexual nature, such activity will not amount to sexual harassment provided that care is taken to ensure that such activity is carried out in a professional, respectful and dignified manner.

2.4. Finally, it should be noted that the allegation of sexual harassment depends on the experience of the aggrieved woman, and not on the intentions of the respondent.

3. Who may Complain of Sexual Harassment?

3.1 CIS shall entertain complaints of sexual harassment from any individual where either the aggrieved woman is a member of CIS or a third party, whether contractually employed at CIS or not, allege to have been subject to sexual harassment at CIS’ workplace.

For the purposes of this policy, the ‘aggrieved woman’ means the woman who alleges to have been subject to sexual harassment; , and the ‘respondent’ means a person against whom the aggrieved woman has filed a complaint under the provisions of this policy.

For the purposes of this policy, woman refers to persons self-identifying as women, including cisgender and transgender women.

3.2. Members may include any person engaged by CIS for any work, whether of regular, temporary or ad hoc basis, either directly or through an agent, including a contractor, with or without the knowledge of the principal employer, whether for remuneration or not, or working on a voluntary basis or otherwise, whether the terms of employment are express or implied and includes a co-worker, a contract worker, probationer, trainee, intern or apprentice.

Accordingly, employees, whether on probation or permanent; staff; fellows; distinguished fellows; consultants; interns; board and society members are included as members of CIS.

3.3 CIS’ workplace includes its offices in Delhi and Bengaluru as well as any place or medium of interaction, nationally, internationally, and virtually, where the members visit in the broad context of their work, during the course of employment and/or arising out of any form of engagement with CIS.

4. Internal Committee (IC)

4.1 CIS has constituted an Internal Committee ("IC"), which serves its offices in Delhi and Bengaluru.

Name	Location	Designation	E-mail
Chiara Furtado	Bengaluru	Presiding Officer	chiarafurtado.cis[at]protonmail[dot]com
Mishika Singh	New Delhi	External Member	neevlegalaid[at]gmail[dot]com
Yatharth	Bengaluru	Member	yatharthCIS[at]protonmail[dot]com
Garima Agrawal	Goa	Member	garima.icc[at]proton[dot]me

5. How to Make a Complaint Of Sexual Harassment?

5.1 An aggrieved woman who alleges to have been subject to an act of sexual harassment may submit a complaint, in writing, to any member of the IC. Alternatively, the aggrieved woman may email the complaint to the IC at ic.cisindia[at]protonmail[dot]com, preferably from a non-organisational email account (for security purposes).

(i) The complaint should be made within a period of three months from the date of incident and in case of a series of incidents, within a period of three months from the date of last incident:

Provided that where such complaint cannot be made in writing, the Presiding Officer or any member of the IC shall render all reasonable assistance to the woman for making the complaint in writing:

Provided further that the IC may, for the reasons to be recorded in writing, extend the time limit not exceeding three months, if it is satisfied that the circumstances were such which prevented the woman from filing a complaint within the said period.

(ii) Where the aggrieved woman is unable to make a complaint on account of her physical or mental incapacity or death or otherwise, her legal heir, relative, friend, co-worker, or any woman having the knowledge of the incident may make a complaint to the Presiding Officer of the IC or, subject to the following limitations:

The complaint should be made within a period of three months from the date of incident and in case of a series of incidents, within a period of three months from the date of last incident.

Provided further that the IC may, for the reasons to be recorded in writing, extend the time limit not exceeding three months, if it is satisfied that the circumstances were such which prevented the woman from filing a complaint within the said period.

(iii) Extraordinary situation: “Extraordinary situation” would include situations where the jurisdiction of the IC is unclear (for example, in cases where the limitation period has lapsed), including a potential case against the Executive Director.

In such situations, where the CIS management or the CIS Board reasonably believe that there may be a case of sexual harassment pertaining to any current member of CIS, CIS commits to undertaking an inquiry either at the executive, Board level, or through an independent third party. CIS commits to ensuring the inquiry is impartial and follows due process.
It should be noted that in case of an allegation/ complaint against the Executive Director, an alternate remedy is also available to complainants under section 6(1) of the Sexual Harassment of Women at the Workplace Act, where the Local Committee is empowered to inquiry complaints. The complainant has the option of selecting either forum.
The external entity, in receiving, conducting inquiry into, disposing of, and otherwise handling, complaints, adheres to the procedure below, in proper compliance with the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013.

5.2 Receiving the Complaint

(i) The IC shall take cognizance of the complaint at the earliest and in any case within ten working days of receiving the complaint. The Presiding Officer will constitute an Inquiry Committee of at least three IC members to conduct the inquiry and prepare the report.

(ii) A complete copy of the complaint and other supporting documents, including evidence and statements of witnesses shall be sent to the respondent within ten working days of receiving the complaint.

(iii) Upon receiving a copy of the complaint, the respondent shall submit his reply to the complaint to the Inquiry Committee, along with supporting documents within a period of ten working days.

(iv) The Inquiry Committee shall share the complete copy of the respondent’s reply and the supporting documents, including evidence and statements of witnesses with the aggrieved woman within 10 working days of receiving it.

5.2.1 Resolution through Conciliation

(i) Once the complaint and reply are received, before initiating the inquiry the IC may take steps to conciliate the complaint between the aggrieved woman and the respondent.

(ii) This shall be initiated only if requested by the aggrieved woman in writing.

(iii) It should be made clear to all parties that conciliation in itself doesn’t necessarily mean acceptance of the complaint by the respondent. It is a practical mechanism through which issues are resolved or misunderstandings cleared.

(iv) In case a settlement is arrived at, the IC will record and report the same to the Executive Director for taking appropriate action. If conciliation fails and/or no settlement is reached between the parties, the IC shall proceed to conduct a formal inquiry into the complaint.

(v) The IC shall provide copies of the settlement to the aggrieved woman and the respondent. Once the action is implemented, no further inquiry is conducted.

(vi) If the respondent and/ or Executive Director fail to implement the terms of the settlement, the aggrieved woman may request the IC to conduct a formal inquiry into the complaint.

(vii) No monetary settlement shall be made as a basis of conciliation.

5.2.2 Conducting a Formal Inquiry

(i) The IC commits to conducting a prompt, thorough, and impartial inquiry of a complaint as necessary and appropriate, in accordance with the principles of natural justice.

(ii) Upon receipt of a complaint, the Presiding Officer and two members shall at a meeting specially convened for this purpose, constitute from amongst its members a quorum of at least three members known as the Inquiry Committee to examine, conduct the inquiry, and prepare a report. The Inquiry Committee shall be notified to the parties prior to commencement of the inquiry and hearings, and will not be changed unless a situation mentioned in section 4(5) of the Act presents itself. Majority of the members of the Inquiry Committee shall be women.

The Inquiry Committee shall be subject to the following rules:

(i) Both parties shall be given the opportunity to appear before the Inquiry Committee and present their case and/or submit names of any witnesses or documentary evidence substantiating their case.

(ii) The Inquiry Committee shall have the power to call upon any such witnesses and record their statements. The proceedings shall be conducted in such language as may be familiar to the aggrieved woman and the respondent.

(iii) Absent exceptional circumstances, the aggrieved woman and respondent should inform the Inquiry Committee in writing at least 24 hours in advance of the hearing the names of any witnesses he/she wishes to testify. Any information shared during a hearing is confidential.

(iv) An aggrieved woman or respondent shall not question each other or other witnesses directly but may raise questions to be asked of that party through the Inquiry Committee, which will determine whether to ask them.

(v) The minutes of the proceedings shall be recorded in English and where the aggrieved woman or the respondent is not conversant with English, in addition, in such language as may be familiar to them.

(vI) If a party is not present for more than 3 consecutive hearings, without sufficient cause, the Inquiry Committee may, after giving that party a notice of 15 days, give an ex parte decision on the complaint or terminate the complaint.

(viI) The Inquiry Committee will make every effort to complete its inquiry within 90 days of a complaint of sexual harassment.

(viii) The Inquiry Report of the Inquiry Committee, including its decision and recommendations, and reasons for arriving at such a decision, shall be communicated to the concerned parties and the Executive Director, in writing, at the earliest and in any case within 10 working days of completion of the inquiry.

Notification of the decision and the reasons shall be individually communicated to the respondent and the aggrieved woman on the same day.

(ix) If the allegations against the respondent are proved to be true, the Inquiry Committee shall also recommend the penalties or corrective/restorative action that may be taken against him/ her to the Executive Director.

(x) The Executive Director shall act on the recommendation of the Inquiry Committee within a period of 60 days from the date of the receipt of the Inquiry Report, unless an appeal against the findings is filed within that period by either party.

5.3 Interim Relief for the Aggrieved Woman

(i) During the pendency of the inquiry, or during the pendency of the investigation by the police, on a written request made by the aggrieved woman or otherwise, the Inquiry Committee may recommend to the Executive Director to:

Transfer the aggrieved woman or the respondent to any other workplace; or
Suspend the respondent; ask them to work from home, or go on leave - for the duration of the inquiry; or
Grant leave to the aggrieved woman, for a period of three months maximum, in addition to the leave she would be otherwise entitled; or
Prevent the respondent and/ or Executive Director from assessing the aggrieved woman’s work performance; or
Grant such other relief as may be appropriate including:

Pass an order restraining all communication between respondent and various CIS members;
Pass an order restraining all communication between respondent and any CIS member which is likely to influence the inquiry;
Any other measure to inspire confidence in various members of the workplace that CIS is committed to providing a safe working environment.

Once the recommendations of interim relief are implemented, the Executive Director will inform the IC regarding the same.

(iI) The Inquiry Committee shall also suo motu examine the inherent power asymmetry and/or the vulnerability of the aggrieved woman in such cases and take steps to ensure that the aggrieved woman is not subjected to a hostile environment during the inquiry. These steps include, but are not limited to, directing the respondent to cease communication with the complainant or asking the respondent to work from home. The determination shall be done on a case-by-case basis.

A “hostile environment” is created when one’s acts or behaviours with sexual undertones at a workplace creates an environment that is uncomfortable for the complainant which in turn could affect one’s health and work performance or create an intimidating, hostile or offensive employment.

5.4 Malicious Allegations

(i) Where the Inquiry Committee arrives at the conclusion that the allegation against the respondent is malicious, or the aggrieved woman or any other person making the complaint has made the complaint knowing it to be false, or the aggrieved woman or any other person making the complaint has produced any forged or misleading document, it may recommend to the Executive Director to take action against the aggrieved woman or the person making the complaint. This includes remedial and restorative steps of undertaking training or counselling, and coupled with proportionate actions including warning, suspension and disciplinary action, depending on the seriousness of the case.

While deciding malicious intent, the Inquiry Committee will consider that mere inability to substantiate a complaint need not mean malicious intent. Malicious intent must be clearly established through a separate inquiry.

5.5 Confidentiality

The identity of the aggrieved woman, respondent, witnesses, statements and other evidence obtained in the course of the inquiry process, recommendations of the IC, and action taken by the Executive Director are considered as confidential material, and will not be published or made known to the public or media.

Any woman contravening the confidentiality clause is subject to disciplinary action as prescribed in the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace Act (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013, wherever applicable.

5.6 Appeal

Any party not satisfied or further aggrieved by the decision of the IC, recommendations made by the IC or the implementation or non-implementation of such recommendations, may appeal to the appellate authority in accordance with the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace Act (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013, within 90 days of the recommendations being communicated, wherever applicable.

5.7 Prohibition of Retaliation

CIS Members, including the Society and Board members, directors and management will not intimidate or take any retaliatory action (direct or indirect) against a woman who files a complaint or provides testimony/ evidence regarding a complaint in good faith.

Types of retaliation that are prohibited include but are not limited to:

(i) Intimidation;

(ii) Interference with the woman’s work or creating an intimidating or offensive or hostile work environment;

(iii) Termination of employment;

(iv) Failing to hire or consider for hire or promotion; and

(iv) Adversely impacting working conditions or otherwise denying any employment benefit to an employee

Note that an adverse disciplinary action against a CIS member whose conduct or performance warrants such action for reasons unrelated to the reporting of a complaint will not be deemed a violation of this clause.

Individuals who are concerned about retaliation should approach the Presiding Officer of the IC at chiarafurtado.cis[at]protonmail[dot]com or the External member of the IC at neevlegalaid[at]gmail[dot]com. Such concerns will be addressed on priority.

A conclusion of malicious allegation made by the aggrieved woman shall be investigated by the Inquiry Committee as per clause 5.4 of this policy.

Workplace Fraternisation Policy

This policy applies to CIS members, including permanent and temporary staff, consultants, Board and Society members, Fellows, individuals sharing the workplace, interns and any other person in a professional role in the organization.
‘Fraternization’ for the purposes of this policy refers to consensual romantic or sexual relationships and interactions.
CIS members in a supervisory or managerial position are expected to be strictly professional in their interactions with colleagues in junior positions owing to their capacity to affect decisions and conditions of employment of junior colleagues.
Romantic or sexual relationships and interactions that may develop between CIS members across levels of hierarchy should be immediately disclosed by the senior CIS member either to their immediate supervisor, or the programme Director, or a member of the senior staff team, with a request to be relieved from any direct or indirect supervisory role with respect to the junior CIS member. This is to address concerns of favoritism, nepotism, misuse of authority, exploitation and sexual harassment that may potentially arise.
This policy also applies to interns. For further information, please see the separate policy on ‘Guidelines on Interaction with Interns’, below.
Failure to comply with this policy, including failure to disclose romantic or sexual relationships and interactions, especially in cases which lead to potential conflict of interest, or cause misuse of authority and harassment, will be treated as a serious violation of professional standards and will invite disciplinary action by the organisation.
CIS recognizes that such disclosure entails sharing of information that is personal and sensitive in nature. Accordingly, the senior staff team is obligated to keep such information confidential and restrict it to the immediate chain of command, except in the instance of a disciplinary action or an IC inquiry. The team must ensure that such disclosures do not have any adverse effects on conditions of employment of both parties involved, either.
This policy is also in accordance with CIS’ policy on Prohibition and Redressal of Sexual Harassment Against Women. Any instance of non-consensual romantic or sexual relationship or interactions between CIS members, including those that result from misuse of authority amount to sexual harassment and will be subject to an IC inquiry and attract severe action up to and including suspension and termination of association or employment with CIS.
CIS is committed to creating a safe and harmonious working environment, and all members are encouraged to maintain professional standards of conduct at the workplace. This also includes being cognizant of personal interactions to ensure that it does not negatively impact work productivity, culture of teamwork, and comfort and safety of the working environment. Personal discussions or disputes in romantic or sexual relationships must be kept outside the workplace.
CIS members must be respectful of privacy of colleagues in romantic relationships and refrain from monitoring any colleagues’ behaviour or share personal information. Gossip, rumors, inappropriate jokes and comments are prohibited; and instances of such behaviour, if noticed, may be reported to any member of the senoir staff and may invite disciplinary action.

Guidelines for Interactions with Interns

CIS interns are professionals occupying the CIS workplace for a brief period, who do not enjoy full benefits and protections available to other CIS members. Therefore, CIS places a positive duty of care on all CIS members to treat interns with utmost respect and professional support.

CIS members, including permanent/temporary staff, consultants, board and society members, fellows, individuals sharing our workplace, and any other person in a potential supervisory role should be scrupulously professional and respectful in their interactions with interns, both at the workplace and outside it.

Any instance of unprofessional or disrespectful behaviour with interns will invite strict disciplinary action against CIS members. CIS' Workplace Fraternisation policy also applies to interns — any romantic or intimate relationships that may develop between a CIS member and an intern should be immediately disclosed by the CIS member to the senior staff, with a request to be relieved from any direct or indirect supervisory role.

All interns are covered by CIS’ policy on Prevention of Sexual Harassment at the workplace. Any instance of non-consensual romantic/intimate relationships or interactions between a CIS member and an intern, including those that result from misuse of authority may amount to misconduct and/or sexual harassment and be subject to inquiry and disciplinary action by senior staff

Failure to disclose a personal relationship with an intern will be treated as a serious violation of professional standards and will invite disciplinary action.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/about/policy-on-prohibition-of-sexual-harassment

Frequently Asked Questions about the Policy on Prohibition of Sexual Harassment

sumandro — 2023-09-05T10:11:10Z

Here are the answers to some of the frequently asked questions about the Policy on Prohibition of Sexual Harassment at the CIS. Please write to ic.cisindia[at]protonmail[dot]com for any further clarification, including other questions, as well as to submit a complaint.

Policy on Prohibition of Sexual Harassment

1. What constitutes sexual harassment?

Illustratively, physical harassment includes touching, hugging, kissing, pinching, blocking path, brushing against someone, invading someone’s personal space in a bid to attempt body contact.

Verbal harassment includes using obscenities, making suggestive comments or jokes, inappropriate humour, making threats, repeatedly making romantic propositions against a woman’s wishes, making sexual propositions, remarks on clothing or physical attributes.

Non-verbal harassment includes staring, obscene gestures, displaying/ sending sexual content on print/ computer/ phone/ other media, sexually suggestive glances.

However, if in pursuit of a legitimate professional objective or in the ordinary course of work it is necessary to carry out any activity, including discussion, viewing, reading or other handling of issues or material related to sex, sexuality, pornography or other activities of a sexual nature, such activity will not amount to sexual harassment provided that care is taken to ensure that such activity is carried out in a professional, respectful and dignified manner.

Finally, it should be noted that sexual harassment is made out from the experience of the aggrieved woman, and not by the intentions of the accused.

Under CIS’ policy, any woman can make a complaint against any such non-consensual acts or behavior. CIS has zero-tolerance for any kind of harassment.

For the purposes of this policy, woman refers to persons self-identifying as women, including cisgender and transgender women.

2. What is consent?

Legally, consent means an unequivocal voluntary agreement when a woman by words, gestures or any form of verbal or non-verbal communication, communicates willingness to participate in any sexually determined behaviour or pattern of conduct.

Consent must be ongoing and applies only to the specific sexually determined behaviour or pattern of conduct the initiator seeks to engage in.

Consent can be revoked at any point. Silence or lack of resistance cannot be construed as consent.

3. Who can make a complaint against sexual harassment? Can a third party file a complaint?

The policy applies to everyone at CIS’ workplace, and protects all women, whether employed contractually or not. CIS members and third-parties (women) can submit a complaint under this policy, against any CIS member or third-party to report an incident that occurred at the CIS workplace or committed via any other mode of communication. For the purposes of this policy, woman refers to persons self-identifying as women, including cisgender and transgender women.

Members include anyone engaged by CIS for any work, whether whether of regular, temporary or ad hoc basis, either directly or through an agent, including a contractor, with or without the knowledge of the Executive Director, whether for remuneration or not, or working on a voluntary basis or otherwise, whether the terms of employment are express or implied and includes a co-worker, a contract worker, probationer, trainee, intern or apprentice.

CIS’ workplace includes its offices in Delhi and Bengaluru as well as any place or medium of interaction, nationally, internationally and virtually, where the members visit in the broad context of their work, during the course of employment and/or arising out of any form of engagement with CIS. The policy will also apply to all attendees for events organised by CIS.

4. What is the limitation period for making a complaint? In other words, how soon should the aggrieved woman make the complaint?

A complaint should be made within three months from the date of incident and in case of a series of incidents, within a period of three months from the date of last incident. A complaint may be considered if it falls in the scope of the Extraordinary Situations clause of the Policy.

We urge aggrieved women to make a complaint at the earliest.

5. How can an aggrieved woman make a complaint? Can another person file a complaint on behalf of the aggrieved woman?

An aggrieved woman may prefer a complaint, in writing, to the IC at ic.cisindia[at]protonmail[dot]com, or any member of the current IC (details given below).

Where the aggrieved woman is unable to make a complaint on account of her physical or mental incapacity or death or otherwise, her legal heir, relative, friend, co-worker, or any woman having the knowledge of the incident may make a complaint to the IC, any member of the IC.

Name	Location	Designation	E-mail
Yesha Paul	Bengaluru	Presiding Officer	yeshapaul[at]protonmail[dot]com
Laxmi Murthy	Bengaluru	External Member	murthy.laxmi[at]gmail[dot]com
Chiara Furtado	Bengaluru	Member	chiarafurtado.cis[at]protonmail[dot]com
Yatharth	Bengaluru	Member	yatharthCIS[at]protonmail[dot]com

6. Can CIS investigate incidents of sexual harassment in the absence of a complaint?

Yes, in the absence of a complaint, the IC shall have discretionary powers to conduct an inquiry into incidents that may amount to sexual harassment after obtaining due consent from the aggrieved woman, in writing.

7. Once a complaint is made, how will the inquiry proceed?

Once a complaint is properly received, the IC shall take cognizance of the complaint at the earliest and in any case within 10 working days of receiving the complaint. Once the complaint and reply (from the accused) are received, before initiating the inquiry the IC may take steps to conciliate the complaint between the aggrieved woman and the respondent. Conciliation shall be initiated only if requested by the aggrieved woman.

If the aggrieved woman wishes to proceed with the inquiry of the complaint, the IC shall conduct a prompt, thorough and impartial inquiry. Both parties shall be given the opportunity to appear before the IC and present their case and/or submit the name of any witnesses or documentary evidence substantiating their case. The IC shall have the power to call upon any such witnesses and record their statements. The proceedings shall be conducted in such language as may be familiar to the complainant and the respondent.

The quorum for Inquiry Committee will comprise at least 3 members, including a woman member. The quorum will not be changed throughout the process, except where a reasonable case is made regarding a member’s conflict of interest.

The Inquiry Report of the IC, including its decision and recommendations, and reasons for arriving at such a decision, shall be communicated to the concerned parties and the Executive Director, in writing, at the earliest and in any case within 7 days of completion of the inquiry.

The IC will make every effort to complete its inquiry within ninety working days of a report of sexual harassment.

If the allegations against the respondent are proved to be true, the IC shall also recommend the penalties or corrective action that may be taken against him to the Executive Director.

The Executive Director shall act on the recommendation of the IC within a period of 60 days from the date of the receipt of the Inquiry Report, unless an appeal against the findings is filed within that time by either party.

8. What protection and interim relief is the aggrieved woman entitled to during the course of inquiring into a complaint?

The identities of the parties, witnesses, statements and other evidence obtained in the course of the inquiry process, recommendations of the IC, and action taken by the Executive Director will be protected as confidential material, and never published or made known to the public or the media.

The IC shall also take note of the inherent power asymmetry and/or the vulnerability of the complainant in such cases and take steps to ensure that the complainant is not subjected to a hostile environment during the inquiry.

9. Does making a complaint bar the aggrieved woman from obtaining relief under criminal law, or resorting to another legal recourse?

No.

The aggrieved woman can alternatively choose to file a criminal case under sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), the Indecent Representation of Women (Prohibition) Act and/or file a civil suit. Depending on the facts of the incident, sections 294, 354A, or 509 of the IPC may be invoked. Further a suit claiming damages on grounds of mental anguish and harassment can be filed under tort law.

CIS is legally obligated to provide assistance to the aggrieved woman in filing such complaints, should they choose to do so. The aggrieved woman shall need to approach the police, if they wish to file a criminal case.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/about/policy-on-prohibition-of-sexual-harassment-faq

IRC19 - Proposed Session - #ListInterface

sumandro — 2018-11-26T13:19:12Z

Details of a session proposed by Bharath Sivakumar, Rakshita Siva, and Deepak Prince for the Internet Researchers' Conference 2019 - #List.

Internet Researchers' Conference 2019 - #List - Call for Sessions

Session Plan

We would, as a starting point like to consider the conditions of possibility for the ‘list’ to emerge as the core thematic for this year’s Internet Researchers’ Conference. The proposal call provides several motivating questions and anchoring reasons foregrounding the list as an object for analysis and discussion. Broadly these may be divided along two lines - one pertaining to the qualities of the list (who makes it, why are they ephemeral, what makes lists this or that) and the other pointing to certain critical questions that emerge on our political landscape, with the list or practices of listing central to this politics.

Segment 1 [15 minutes]

In our session, the first item on the agenda (this also is a list!) is an outline of the way lists are thought of in 2 contexts:

Bureaucratic processing/management (lists and their relationship to documents, files in offices, and also, everyday lists such as shopping lists).
List as a technological object in networked technological systems ie the list-interface.

The late media theorist Cornelia Vismann is our guide among others, including Umberto Eco and Foucault’s notion of the ‘statement’.

Segment 2 [15 minutes x 3 => 45 minutes]

In the second part of our proceedings, we would like to consider 3 problems pertaining to the list:

‘List’ as a mode of presentation in various user-interfaces, such as the whatsapp screen and its relationship to the subjective experience of time : It's winter and you've opened the Amazon app to buy one winter jacket. You open the app on your phone and begin to search for one, only to realize you've been endlessly scrolling for the last half an hour looking for jackets without buying a single one and if your friend hadn't called you to break you out of that flow, you would have most probably continued to scroll for another half an hour. I could make a similar point about how you keep scrolling through Instagram endlessly without stopping or how you similarly keep scrolling endlessly through Netflix or YouTube videos without touching to watch a single one. A common theme that connects these interfaces is their "no dead end" feature. They are arranged in the form of “lists” keep going on without a stop, structuring the user’s experience of subjective time.
The #MeToo movement is, as the proposal call says, a few years old, but it is only with the publishing of this list that it erupts into the terrain of the political, at least within the context of academic institutions. We would like to examine the conditions that make this political emergence possible. As first pass, we will note here that the #LoSHA is a list that refuses to process (Other facebook posts for example, are read, ‘liked’ or commented on and then passed over, ie processed).
Social media platforms - sites of media exchange are organized structurally as lists. There’s a list of posts, responses to ‘posts’ are also lists and even interactive features are available as lists -“Like, Share and Subscribe” at the end of a youtube video for example. On Facebook, audiences would be asked to “Like, Comment and Share” in that order of increasing activity. In the recent past, “Likes” have been expanded further to “reacts” which gives a list of “reacts” (including emotions, example-sad), a list or sequence of sentiments which people use to register their response. Similarly, there are such structures present in the forms of lists across platforms, built into the keyboard to be able to structure our immediate response or sentiment (emoticons, stickers gifs etc). These are attempts to codify emotion or more broadly, affect. The 3rd problematique in our panel will consider the process of structuring affect in online environments through the listing of signs such as the ‘like’, the ‘react’ etc.

Segment 3 [30 minutes]

Following our presentation of these problems and modes of analytically situating ‘lists’ in everyday practices in online spaces, we will open the floor for discussion.

Session Team

Bharath Sivakumar graduated with a B.Sc (Research) degree in mathematics from Shiv Nadar University and currently works for Loonycorn where he's part of the team that creates technical courses. He has eclectic tastes ranging from mathematics to philosophy to Anthropology and feels at home in the hills. He enjoys trekking, loves performing on stage and aspires to be a stand up comedian one day.

Rakshita Siva is a researcher at IIIT Bangalore in the faculty of Digital Society. She graduated with a Mechanical engineering major and a minor in Sociology from Shiv Nadar University. Her interests relate to the digital, questions of self, interiority and the psyche. Rakshita is a singer and enjoys a good jam.

Deepak Prince is a course instructor and Phd candidate in the Department of Sociology, School of Humanities and Social sciences at SNU. His thesis research seeks to grapple with the 'explosion' of smartphones and touchscreens in practices of everyday sociality through the conceptual categories of the screen and the interface. Deepak's key research interest revolves around technics, the history and philosophy of technical objects. He also takes an interest in questions of anthropological disciplinarity, the history of ideas and political anthropology.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/raw/irc19-proposed-session-listinterface

IRC19 - Proposed Session - #EnlistingPrivacy

sumandro — 2019-01-08T09:56:31Z

Details of a session proposed by Pawan Singh and Pranjal Jain for the Internet Researchers' Conference 2019 - #List.

Internet Researchers' Conference 2019 - #List - Call for Sessions

Session Plan

This session offers a provocation to advance the conversation on privacy in India. Privacy is at once a legal right, a technological/design feature and an everyday practice of managing our social and personal lives. What do we mean when we invoke privacy in our everyday conversations? Privacy conjoins opposing impulses to engage in online public sociality and expressing a desire for limits on data sharing. We trade privacy for convenience. When we skip lengthy terms and conditions of apps, websites and other online agreements we enter into an agreement without much concern for what we are agreeing to when we tick the box at the bottom of the contract. Privacy is a right we cannot not want. As much as privacy remains a subject of, and subject to impassioned speech, it becomes a cognitive burden when we are called upon to read the privacy policies before signing up for an online service.

In this session, we invite participants to tell stories on privacy based on their life experiences. The session aims to employ the concept of a list liberally to understand how privacy continues to be on a to-do list of sorts for lawmakers, technologists and users who are constantly being informed to manage their online account settings, to constantly make certain things private and to care about privacy. Even as privacy has finally joined the list of fundamental rights in India, its meaning continues to be contested. What may be the politics of privacy at play in the circulation of the #MeToo list? Privacy itself may be spoken of as a list of values and affordances: as dignity and bodily integrity of rights subjects, as confidentiality of certain information, the integrity of data flows, self-determination and individual autonomy. The list of all things privacy will evolve with new, privacy-by-design technologies in a rapidly evolving information technology global landscape.

The objective of the session is to bring the examples of potential and actual privacy violations from our daily life in the public domain. We plan to invite three to five participants to engage in a small roundtable-format discussion on privacy and the metaphor of list. Pawan Singh (New Generation Network Fellow, Deakin University) and Pranjal Jain (Masters student of Design, Srishti School of Design) will facilitate the session. We plan to invite participants from our academic and professional networks at the International Institute of Information Technology, Bangalore, NUMA co-working space and Digital Identity Research Initiative (DIRI) at the Indian School of Business (ISB).

We plan to contact interested participants through email in December 2018. In order for this roundtable-format session to be productive, we plan to invite participants from diverse backgrounds who can share their perspectives.

The intent of the session is to make a repository of examples from daily life on privacy at the intersection of online space and social life. The repository of examples can be a dynamic list that grows as participants, attendees and others add to the conversation on privacy. It may be maintained as a digital artefact or an online resource.

We are looking for participants who questions what is privacy to them and still in the process of figuring out what is privacy? We also welcome the participants who do not know what is privacy but curious to discover it.

Session Team

Pawan Singh: New Generation Network Scholar at Deakin University. Works on issues of identity, representation, privacy and the costs of social justice in India and globally. Current project on Aadhaar, data privacy and social media in India.

Pranjal Jain: Human-Centered Designer from Srishti Institute of Art, Design & Technology. Currently in the 2nd year of Master in Design and research assistant at Digital Identity Research Initiative, Indian School of Business. Believe in Ethical Data Practices. Works on designing for online privacy through speculative and critical design.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/raw/irc19-proposed-session-enlistingprivacy

IRC19 - Proposed Session - #ButItIsNotFunny

sumandro — 2018-11-26T13:12:36Z

Details of a session proposed by Madhavi Shivaprasad and Sonali Sahoo for the Internet Researchers' Conference 2019 - #List.

Internet Researchers' Conference 2019 - #List - Call for Sessions

Session Plan

Exactly a year after #LoSHA (List of sexual Harassers in the Academia) was compiled by Raya Sarkar in 2017, the second wave of #MeToo began when writer Mahima Kukreja accused comedian Utsav Chakravarty of sending her unsolicited pictures of his private parts. This sparked a barrage of tweets by her with screenshots from other women who had been in similar situations with him, and in one case, also a minor.This was the beginning of the second wave of #MeTooIndia.

In this session, we propose to look at the implications of “List” being circulated in relation to the comedy industry in particular and study the discourse surrounding it. While Raya Sarkar’s was structured as a list and circulated on social media as one too (albeit a dynamic one), the second wave of the movement was nothing of the sort. Sarkar has still refused to divulge details of the assault as shared with her in the interest of those that came forward with their stories. The second wave, involving primarily the media and entertainment industry, was about naming and shaming the perpetrators, mainly by specifying details of every case of harassment while keeping the survivors anonymous. In this case, there was no physical, tangible list, but host of people on social media sharing screenshots of the accounts and retweeting the same. Each of the panellists will be presenting papers and engaging with the interpretative idea of “list” as they understand it in relation to the comedy industry in India.

Apart from such “controversial” issues being brought forth in the media, comedy, or comedians have not necessarily featured as a genre of academic study in India. Although the content performed by the stand-up comedians today has been about challenging the status quo with regard to questioning hegemonic narratives, the idea that at the end of the day “it is just a joke”, unfortunately leads to dismissal of comedy as serious business. It is with this objective as well that we want to foreground the stand-up industry and the ways in which it contributes to dominant progressive as well as regressive discourses especially with respect to gender.

The session is intended to be a panel discussion that would foreground the multivalent possibilities of what “The List” entails with respect to comedy. Both the panelists would be presenting individual papers followed by a discussion of their findings with each other as well as to be thrown open to the audiences.

Paper 1: Sexual harassment in comedy: When Twitter threads are treated as “legitimate” testimonials [Madhavi Shivaprasad]

In my paper, I will be focussing on the characteristics of “The List” circulated by Mahima Kukreja and the reasons people began to consider that the #MeToo movement had “arrived” in India.

There are two main aspects to the way in which it played out in India. At first, it was mainly about showing solidarity with other women, make people aware of the “magnitude” of the problem, the pervasiveness of it. The second was the naming and shaming in the hope of taking away the power harassers hold over the women, banking on their silence.

However, there is also a third aspect to it that needs to be considered with much seriousness: that of the details of the sexual assault itself. These accounts were circulated widely and in reading these details is where the “virality” of the posts lay. It was almost as if digital media houses were having a field day reporting one harassment case after another. Thanks to unimaginable speeds of the internet, reports would be filed within hours of posting the tweet online. New names were being added every day, new lists being made.

It is also interesting that it was the “lack” of a conventional list that ended up making the list of comedians accused of sexual harassment go viral. The list here manifests in the form of multiple Twitter threads by different people associated with the comedy industry. So much so that it became difficult to keep track of who was saying what.

In this paper, I ask questions such as what specific characteristics of the stand-up industry made it possible for it to become the first to come to the limelight. At the same time, I speculate about effect of the #MeToo movement for the men and women who are a part of the comedy industry today. What does it mean for their careers now that some have been outed as harassers? How are the women dealing with the threat, and at the same time comfort of having #MeToo as a resort to made their concerns public?

The questions I ask therefore are these: How does the “List” initiated through Twitter threads become pervasive in its absence as a conventional sequence of items? Is it just the solace afforded by what the list represents that encouraged women to make their stories public? What other structures were in place which made it effective at such a magnitude? What implications does it hold for the larger feminist movement in the wake of so many comedians being dropped off the rosters of large media conglomerates such as Amazon Prime?

Paper 1: The list on YouTube: An analysis of the comments manifested by the Indian stand-up routines on street assaults [Sonali Sahoo]

There has been a shift from the mainstream idea of the essentials of a comic woman (Tuntun, Upasana Singh, Archana Puran Singh on the celluloid and Supriya Pilgaonkar and others on television) who are portrayed from the point of view of the male (for the script has always been written by males). The essentials of the comic woman shall be elaborated upon by tracing the evolution of the idea of the female comic on various settings such a films and television, live performances posted online during the discussion. Today, the noticeable shift has been the female comedians have not remained just the face in a comedic plot but also the voice along with the face (the stand-up comedian writing and performing her own script) in a comedic setting. However, the female stand-up comedians have faced a rebuttal at this juncture. They have been called out for not aligning to the dominant ideals of the topics to be included in a stand-up routine. Their issue-based humour associated with the body, and hegemony politics has been openly reprimanded on Twitter, other social media. One tweet invited a lot of criticism in December 2017 which said “female content bra, boobs, period.” People were agreeing with it but also disagreeing and defending it by saying “so what?” In this paper, though, the scholar in not interested not in the Twitter conversational list rather, she is looking at the comments section on YouTube to understand the reactions people have to content posted by these comedians on their YouTube channel. Following is the explanation of the objective of the discussion.

The list has existed in various forms, here I intend to look at the comments section on YouTube as a list, and look at the implications of it through over a period of 2 to 3 years. (on the YouTube channels of Radhika Vaz, Vasu Primlani, Daniel Fernandes, Karunesh Talwar amongst a few others) To be particular, how are the commentators influencing the comedians or are they really?

How is the list formulated by the commentators different in concern to male and female stand-up comedians when they incorporate street assault or harassment against women in their stand-up routines? (a common ground)
How does it bring out the ideology of the commentators?
Discussion of the impact factor determined through its reach by referring to various newspaper articles that apparently are the voice of a collective group of people in the Indian society.

Hence, the whole point of the scholar is to look at the “list” of YouTube comments as deeply rooted misogyny in the society which have come to the limelight only due to the female stand-up routines on street assaults.

In the end of this session the scholar would discuss the potential of stand-up industry as an important medium to start the discourse on the sexual assault. These comedic routines can also be looked at as to be the first of the incidences discussing their personal accounts of harassment on the comedic stage.

Session Team

Madhavi Shivaprasad is currently a Ph.D scholar in the Advanced Centre for Women’s Studies at TISS, Mumbai. She also teaches full-time in the English department at Mount Carmel College Bangalore. Her areas of interest include gender and studies, humour studies, as well as disability studies.

Sonali Sahoo has an M.A. in English language and literature from St. Joseph’s College for women, Vizag. She is currently pursuing an M. Phil in English studies from Christ (Deemed to be University). Her area of interest include cultural, gender and humour studies in particular.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/raw/irc19-proposed-session-butitisnotfunny

IRC19 - Proposed Session - #PowerListing

sumandro — 2018-11-26T13:22:03Z

Details of a session proposed by Dr. Shubhda Arora, Dr. Smitana Saikia, Prof. Nidhi Kalra, and Prof. Ravikant Kisana for the Internet Researchers' Conference 2019 - #List.

Internet Researchers' Conference 2019 - #List - Call for Sessions

Session Plan

#PowerListing: Approaches towards an understanding of power dynamics of knowledge creation and agency behind ‘listing’ as exercised by the State, Individuals and Corporations

‘Lists’ come with an ontological mandate of organising information in a structured and hierarchical manner. This has a deliberate aspect with respect to the question of power. Our panel attempt to investigate the question of power in terms of who wields it and what implications, philosophically and materially, this lands on the stakeholders thereof. The questions of power have different insinuation when the agency of the ‘listing’ rests with the state, the individual or if it is folded within the operational matrix of a corporate service.

Our panel attempts to bring all these myriad conversations together to try and unpack the various nuances of this discussion on power around ‘lists’. Listed below is the detailed breakdown of this plan:

Paper 1: Digital Lists and List-making in Post-disaster Contexts [Prof. Shubhda Arora]

Looking at crowd sourcing of lists for humanitarian and relief purposes, this paper explores list making and circulation in a post-disaster context, specifically looking at aspects of public list making and its challenges of credibility and duplicity. The paper further examines the interaction between these ‘unofficial’ lists and intervention agencies namely the Government, Army and NGOs, which prepare their own ‘official’ lists for purposes of relief and rehabilitation. Lists of missing people, of people being marked safe, of relief material and centres, of monetary aid, of loss in terms of human life, land and money are the different kinds of lists prepared and circulated through media like WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram among others. The constant revision of lists based on localized information and on-ground data, the compilation of master list from various sources of lists and the problem of ‘fake lists’ need further inquiry to understand digital list making after a disaster.

Paper 2: Identity frameworks and #MeToo in India [Prof. Nidhi Kalra]

When Lawrence Grossberg argued that "Cultural studies needs to move towards a model of articulation as 'transformative practice', as a singular becoming of a community", he likely did not anticipate what became the #MeToo movement. Concerns of identity-transformation, community creation, and activism spread over social has been termed as arm-chair slactivism. Yet, we are witness and participant in a movement whose terrains and possibilities are forming as we read and write. Just a few hours before writing this piece news came of Tarana Burke, the founder of #MeToo claims that she is wary that the movement will need "to shift the narrative that it’s a gender war, that it’s anti-male, that it’s men against women, that it’s only for a certain type of person — that it’s for white, cisgender, heterosexual, famous women. That has to shift."

In the Indian context, #MeToo has been the vehicle of a movement with many identities linked to it--from scholars, politicians, celebrities, to Dalit female students, to women and men in the Media industry. Considering it is such a historic moment in internet history, it is important for us to use the lens of cultural studies to ask what this wave of activism does vis-a-vis identity production/transformation? What the sites of contestation around the concern of identity as it used in the #MeToo movement in India? This talk will hope to open dialogue about recording, transcribing and understand this moment and it's frameworks of identity.

Paper 3: “Making” the (ethnic) citizen: NRC list as State power and anxiety [Prof. Smitana Saikia]

In borderland regions of modern nation states, the ontological status of legal subjects is often fraught with competing assertions. In India’s northeastern state of Assam, this is particularly true due to a historical movement of peoples from Bangladesh (then East Bengal/Pakistan). Assam’s own nativist movement against “illegal” immigrants in 1980s (both popular and an armed resistance) catapulted the issue into national prominence thereby reiterating the anxiety that nation-states feel while defining and interpellating its citizens, in an Althusserian sense. In this context, the NRC emerges as a tool to affect order in what remains a contested terrain of citizenship. This paper thus situates the NRC in the interacting landscape of the Indian nation-state’s attempt to “identify” (and hence create) citizens on one hand, and on the other, the Assamese elite’s attempt to create the ethnic “other” to consolidate and preserve political power. The paper argues that the state’s need to create a register (list) of citizens is at once a display of its hegemonic power, as it is also reflective of an acute anxiety inherent to projects of constructing (nation-) states.

Paper 4: ‘Congratulations you got a match’-- The embedded listing within the dating app ‘Tinder’ & its implications thereof [Prof. Ravikant Kisana]

The process of ‘listing’ involves the act of segregating and organising data. This involves questions of power. Who makes the lists and to what end— the state or the subversive, with what motivations, are important points of investigation and discussion. However, such an operational understanding of a ‘list’ assumes a mechanical agency in the ‘listing’ process. This paper looks to investigate the digital apps and services which are based on automated listing and hierarchical segregation of its subscribers. Google, Facebook, Uber, etc— all contain within the folds of their operational code, an algorithmic listing of data. The researcher will seek to explore this nuance in the context of dating app ‘Tinder’, which now offers three levels possible dating matches that have been ‘listed’ and curated automatically. This paper will seek to interview users of the app and try to map the ideas and anxieties around such a digital listing of their very identity profiles.

Session Team

Dr. Shubhda Arora is currently working as assistant professor of media and communication at FLAME University, Pune after having completed her doctoral studies from MICA, Ahmedabad . Her doctoral thesis is in the area of Environmental and Disaster Risk Communication.

Dr. Smitana Saikia is an assistant professor of Politics at FLAME University, Pune. She has received her PhD from King’s College London and her thesis studied long term state and identity formation processes to explain conflict in India’s northeast. Her research interests include ethnic conflicts, borderlands, federalism, and caste and electoral politics in India.

Prof. Nidhi Kalra has been a learning facilitator since 2008. Currently, she is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Humanities at FLAME University, Pune. Prior to that, she has taught at the English Department in Savitribai Phule Pune University and Gargi College in the University of Delhi. Nidhi has received her MPhil in English Literature from the University of Delhi, for which she worked on problematizing Holocaust memoirs. Her research interests include Memory Studies, Trauma Studies, Oral History, Digital Humanities, and Children’s/Young Adult Literature.

Prof. Ravikant Kisana is currently the Co-Chair of Humanities & Languages at Flame University, Pune. He has previously completed his doctoral studies from MICA, Ahmedabad. His doctoral research focused on the oral histories of Bollywood cinema in Kashmir, and its intersections with Kashmiri nationalism and resistance. His areas of research focus on the sociology of cinema, gender & sexuality intersections with films & new media platforms, as well as investigations into the structural mores of cybercultures.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/raw/irc19-proposed-session-powerlisting

IRC19 - Proposed Session - #FOMO

sumandro — 2018-11-26T13:17:11Z

Details of a session proposed by Pritha Chakrabarti and Dr. Baidurya Chakrabarti for the Internet Researchers' Conference 2019 - #List.

Internet Researchers' Conference 2019 - #List - Call for Sessions

Session Plan

The broad basis of the discussion would be the lists that address and invoke aspirations to know, particularly what has come to be known as 'listicle'. The focus would also be on social media and other digital platforms, including blogs and fan clubs, which list out cultural objects like books, films, music, etc. that one must not miss. On one hand, many of such listicle-s are essentially advertising devices and, in that way, descendants of the bestseller list and such that one used to encounter on the pages of The Hindu and so on. On the other, we have similar lists made by fans and culture enthusiasts, and the consumers. Both of these play on a specific type of aspiration and the attendant anxiety, expressed in common parlance as FoMo, i.e. Fear of Missing Out, in this specific case the fear of missing out on knowing/knowing about something. But FoMo, as a dominant structure of feeling in contemporary society, in the context of listicle-s, begs many more questions: what is one afraid to miss out and how intense can that fear be? Who is afraid to miss out and what does missing out represent to them? Who decides what can be missed and what not? What is deemed to be the proper content of listicle-s and what is not; and what are the repercussions of the list form on the overall repository of knowledge from which the listicle-s are culled? What is the difference and continuity between lists meant as content that leads to commercial advertisement and lists made by the consumers? What happens when one begins to increasingly learn everything from the list form? Is there a 'list knowledge', the way there is a 'bookish knowledge'? What are the political repercussions of such 'list knowledge'?

The sessions will begin with two presentations/short papers (15 minutes each), mainly to provide an initial guide map for the discussion. The next 45 minutes will be devoted to discussion with the audience, so as to list out the complex factors and facets the conjugation of listicle and FoMo has produced, which will be moderated by both the presenters. The final 15 minutes will be assigned to the summarization of the points discussed by the speakers.

Session Team

Dr. Baidurya Chakrabarti is an Assistant Professor at the Symbiosis Centre for Media and Communication, Pune. Besides receiving his doctoral degree in Cultural Studies from EFL University, Hyderabad, he has also worked in the publishing industry as well as a content editor in the corporate sector. His doctoral dissertation maps the ideological terrain of contemporary Bollywood against the rise of neoliberalism in India. His areas of interests include contemporary film cultures, digital modernity, particularly digital cinephilia, comparative cultural studies, etc.

Pritha Chakrabarti is an independent researcher based out of Hyderabad. She has recently submitted her doctoral dissertation titled Politics of Screen Dance in Indian Cinema in the department of Cultural Studies at EFL University, Hyderabad. A recipient of the ICSSR-CSDS doctoral fellowship, she has worked on the ideology of on-screen choreographic construction and dissemination and reception of film dance as popular culture. Professionally a Content Manager, she has nearly a decade-long experience in marketing content generation, both offline and online.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/raw/irc19-proposed-session-fomo

Open Data Hackathons are Great, but Address Privacy and License Concerns

sumandro — 2016-02-05T20:37:18Z

This is to cross-publish a blog post from DataMeet website regarding a letter shared with the organisers of Urban Hack 2015, Bangalore, in response to a set of privacy and license concerns identified and voiced during the hackathon by DataMeet members. Sumandro Chattapadhyay co-authored and co-signed the letter. The blog post is written by Nisha Thompson.

Hackathons are a source of confusion and frustration for us. DataMeet actively does not do them unless there is a very specific outcome the community wants like freeing a whole dataset or introducing open data to a new audience. We feel that they cause burn out, are not productive, and in general don't help create a healthy community of civic tech and open data enthusiasts.

That is not to say we feel others shouldn't do them, they are very good opportunities to spark discussion and introduce new audiences to problems in the social sector. DataKind and RHOK and numerous others host hackathons or variations of them regularly to stir the pot, bring new people into civic tech and they can be successful starts to long term connections and experiments. A lot of people in the DataMeet community participate and enjoy hackathons.

However, with great data access comes great responsibility. We always want to make sure that even if no output is achieved when a dataset is opened at least no harm should be done.

Last October an open data hackathon, Urban Hack, run by Hacker Earth, NASSCOM, XEROX, IBM and World Resource Institute India wanted to bring out open data and spark innovation in the transport and crime space by making datasets from Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC) and the Bangalore City Police available to work with. A DataMeet member (Srinivas Kodali) was participating, he is a huge transport data enthusiast and wanted to take a look at what is being made available.

In the morning shortly after it started I received a call from him that there is a dataset that was made available that seems to be violating privacy and data security. We contacted the organizers and they took it down, later we realized it was quite a sensitive dataset and a few hundred people had already downloaded it. We were also distressed that they had not clarified ownership of data, license of data, and had linked to sources like Open Bangalore without specifying licensing, which violated the license.

The organizers were quite noted and had been involved with hackathons before so it was a little distressing to see these mistakes being made. We were concerned that the government partners (who had not participated in these types of events before) were also being exposed to poor practices. As smart cities initiatives take over the Indian urban space, we began to realize that this is a mistake that shouldn't happen again.

Along with Centre for Internet and Society and Random Hacks of Kindness we sent the organizers, Bangalore City Police and BMTC a letter about the breach in protocol. We wanted to make sure everyone was aware of the issues and that measures were taken to not repeat these mistakes.

You can see the letter here:

We are very proud of the DataMeet community and Srinivas for bringing this violation to the attention of the organizers. As people who participate in hackathons and other data events it is imperative that privacy and security are kept in mind at all times. In a space like India where a lot of these concepts are new to institutions, like the Government, it is essential that we are always using opportunities not only to showcase the power of open data but also good practices for protecting privacy and ensuring security.

Originally posted on DataMeet website: http://datameet.org/2016/02/02/to-hack-or-not-to-hack/.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/open-data-hackathons-are-great-but-address-privacy-and-license-concerns

Civil Society Organisations and Internet Governance in Asia and India – Section Outlines

sumandro — 2015-11-13T05:40:49Z

The Centre for Internet and Society has been invited to contribute two sections to the Asia Internet History - Third Decade (2001-2010) book edited by Dr. Kilnam Chon. The sections will discuss the activities and experiences of civil society organisations in Asia and India, respectively, in national, regional, and global Internet governance processes. The draft outlines of the sections are shared here. Comments and suggestions are invited.

In the (draft) Foreword to the Asia Internet History – Third Decade (2001-2010), Prof. David J. Farber writes:

One of the early attempts to extend the reach of the Internet to Asia was via the “Johnny Appleseed” approach. That is a set of people responded to queries by people in Asian countries asking how they could connect with the growing Internet by offering to supply tapes to key people in the requesting countries, often by physically going with the tapes, as well as providing access points to the USA Internet. The people that we, I was one of the seeders, worked, with became the leaders in their nation and founded the initial national networks that blossomed with time and often formed the basis of commercial Internets. The traditions that these network frontier pioneers established lead to the eventual spread of the benefits of Internet access to not only their nations but became models for the spread to the rest of Asia…

I am honoured to contribute to the pioneering series titled Asia Internet History, edited by Dr. Kilnam Chon, by foregrounding a range of other individuals and organisations that often worked outside but in engagement with the national governments, and technical and academic institutions that govern the connecting tapes of the Internet, to ensure mass access to and effective usages of Internet in Asia.

The two sections, to be authored me, provides an overview of ‘civil society organisations’ working across Asian countries that have played a critical role in the shaping of policy-making and discourse around Internet governance during 2000-2010, and then undertakes a closer look at the organisations working in India and their interventions at national, regional, and global levels.

Please read the draft outlines of the overview section and the section on Indian organisations, and share your comments. The comments can be posted on the GitHub page where the outlines are hosted, on this page, or over email: sumandro[at]cis-india[dot]org.

The outlines can also be directly downloaded as markdown files: the overview and the India section.

Asian Civil Society Organisations and Internet Governance

Here is a tentative list of key civil society organisations from Asia that have participated and intervened in Internet governance processes during 2001-2010. Please suggest organisations missing from the list.

Bangladesh

Cambodia

China

Indonesia

EngageMedia, Australia and Indonesia
ICT Laboratory for Social Change (iLab)
Indonesian CSOs Network for Internet Governance
Indonesian ICT Partnership Association (ICT Watch)
Internet Society Indonesia Chapter [website is under construction]

India

Iran

Iranian Civil Society Organizations Training and Research Centre (ICTRC) [URL is not working]

Japan

Centre for Global Communications (GLOCOM) [Academia?]
Internet Society Japan Chapter
Japan Computer Access for Empowerment (JCAFE) [URL is not working]
Japan Computer Access Network (JCA-NET)

Kuwait

iJMA3 - Kuwait Information Technology Society (KITS)

Lebanon

Lebanese Center for Civic Education (LCCE)

Malaysia

Internet Society Malaysia Chapter

Myanmar

Myanmar ICT for Development Organization (MIDO)

Nepal

Internet Society Nepal Chapter

Pakistan

Philippines

Democracy.Net.PH
Foundation for Media Alternatives (FMA) [URL not working
Internet Society Philippines Chapter

Regional

Singapore

Internet Society Singapore Chapter

South Korea

Sri Lanka

Internet Society Sri Lanka Chapter

Thailand

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/raw/civil-society-organisations-and-internet-governance-in-asia-and-india-outlines

Announcing Silicon Plateau #01

sumandro — 2015-10-05T15:00:59Z

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Networked Expressions

sumandro — 2015-08-28T06:21:21Z

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

Projects

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

Publications

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

Posts

sumandro — 2015-09-13T10:41:28Z

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

Featured

sumandro — 2015-04-10T10:54:23Z

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

Humanitarian OSM: Mapping Nepal

sumandro — 2015-04-27T07:46:16Z

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

Please join the efforts wherever you are.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Image credit: MapBox.

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

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Announcing Silicon Plateau #01

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Humanitarian OSM: Mapping Nepal