Centre for Internet and Society

Response from MSJE on fund allocation

sachia — 2009-03-25T11:27:48Z

RTI MATTER

MOST IMMEDIATE

F. No 32-6/2009 DD III

Government of India

Ministry for Social Justice & Empowerment

(Disability Division III)

Room No 630, Wing A,

Shastri Bhawan, New Delhi

Dated 23.02.2009

Ms Nirmita Narsimhan,

D2, 3^rd Floor, Sheriff Chambers,

14, Cunningham Road,

Bengaluuru-560052

Sub.:- Information sought by Ms Nirmita Narsimhan under RTI, regarding.

Sir,

I am directed to refer to your letter dated 28.01.2009 received in this Ministry on 02.02.2009 under RTI Act 2005, on the above mentioned subject and to say that the information in respect of this division is as under-

Serial No	Question	Reply
	Please provide us with complete details of the utilization of 3% funds of each department of the central government towards welfare of disabled persons from the time when the eleventh year plan came into force, ie, January 2008 – October 2008.	Information regarding utilization of funds should be available with the concerned Ministries/Departments, the Planning Commission, and the Ministry of Finance.
	What are the detailed rules and guidelines which have been formulated for each Ministry/Department after approval of the eleventh plan? Kindly provide a copy of the same.	Identification of specific activities to be taken up by various Ministries/Departments as a consequence of the directives contained in the eleventh plan is underway.
	What are the monitoring mechanisms which have been set up at various levels to monitor progress and implementation of legislations and policies relating to disability welfare? In case no such monitoring mechanisms have been set up kindly furnish reasons and explanation for the same.	As per section 2 (a) of the PWD act, 1995, all the Ministries/Departments/State Governments are appropriate governments and are responsible for monitoring the progress and implementation of these legislations and policies. Further, as per section 57 (1) of the Persons with Disabilities (Equal Opportunities, protection of Rights and Full Participation) Act, 1995, the Central Government has appointed Chief Commissioner for Persons with Disabilities (CCPD) by notification for monitoring and evaluation of the Act. The functions of the CCPD are as under— Coordinate the work of the commissioner. Monitor the utilization of funds disbursed by the central government. Take steps to safeguard the rights and facilities made available to persons with disabilities. Submit reports to the central government on the implementation of the act at such intervals as that Government may prescribe.
	Please provide me with information on any other applications under the RTI act 2005 which have been filed with the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment requesting similar/related information and the consequent replies given and action taken by the departments in those instances.	A copy of your application is being sent to all concerned Divisions in this Ministry for necessary action.

2. Appellate authority in the case is Dr Arbind Prasad, Joint Secretary, Ministry for Social Justice and Empowerment, Room No 612, A- Wing, 6^th floor, Shastri Bhawan, New Delhi, 110001.

Yours faithfully,

(Sd- Kaul)

(Vandita Kaul)

Director DD-II

Tel: 23388541

Copy to:-

Sri Col. Saran, Director (NII and DD-I), Ministry for Social Justice and Empowerment, Shastri Bhawan, New Delhi, together with its enclosures seeking information under RTI Act 2005, by Ms Nirmita Marsimhan. You are requested to please send reply directly to the applicant under intimation to this Ministry.
Sri R K Srivastva, Director (DD-IV & V), Ministry for Social Justice and Empowerment, Shastri Bhawan, New Delhi, together with its enclosures seeking information under RTI Act 2005, by Ms Nirmita Marsimhan. You are requested to please send reply directly to the applicant under intimation to this Ministry.
SMT. Vandita Kaul, Director (DD-II and DD-V), Ministry for Social Justice and Empowerment, Shastri Bhawan, New Delhi, together with its enclosures seeking information under RTI Act 2005, by Ms Nirmita Marsimhan. You are requested to please send reply directly to the applicant under intimation to this Ministry.
Ms Kamna S Dikshit, Section Officer (FC and RTI) ), Ministry for Social Justice and Empowerment, Shastri Bhawan, New Delhi, for information.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/publications/uploads/response-from-msje-on-fund-allocation

Application to MSJE on web accessibility measures

sachia — 2009-03-25T11:33:59Z

Shri K.S. Sawhney,

Director - Ministry of Social

Justice and Empowerment

Shastri Bhawan,

Dr Rajendra Prasad Road,
New Delhi - 110 001
Tel: (011) 23387690.

Dear Sir

Sub: Application for information required under the Right to Information Act, 2005 regarding the steps taken by the Government to make web sites of the government as well as public and private sector organizations accessible to persons with disabilities.

Name of the Applicant: Nirmita Narasimhan

Address: D-2, 3rd floor, Sheriff Chambers, No.14 Cunningham road, Bengaluru - 560052.

Information Sought:

1. What steps has the Government taken to fulfill its commitments under the United Nation Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disability (UNCRPD) and provision 39 of the National Policy to make web sites of government as well as public and private sector organizations accessible for persons with disabilities? If no such steps have been taken by the Government then kindly furnish reasons and explanation for the same and the time frame within which such steps will be taken.

2. What are the surveys which have been conducted by your department to check accessibility of various government web sites? If no such surveys have been conducted, kindly furnish reasons and explanation for the same. If such surveys have been conducted, kindly provide me with a copy of the same.

3. Please furnish me with details of the standards or criteria used for measuring accessibility to persons with disabilities?

4. Please provide me with the details of circulars issued to various departments for making their web site accessible to persons with disabilities. Kindly provide me with a copy of the same as well.

5. Please provide me with information about any other applications under the Right to Information Act, 2005, which have been filed with the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment requesting similar/related information and the consequent replies given and action taken by the departments in those instances.

6. If the required documents or information are unavailable, please furnish reasons and explanations for the same.

I request you to kindly supply the documents, wherever possible in English.

Further as provided under Section 6 (3) of the Right to Information Act, in case this application does not fall under your authority, I request you to transfer the same in the designated time (5 days) to the concerned authority and inform me of the same immediately.

To the best of my knowledge the information sought does not fall within the restrictions contained in Section 8 and 9 of the Act and it pertains to your office.

This to certify that I, Nirmita Narasimhan, d/o late Shri.B.Narasimhan, am a citizen of India.

A fee of Rs. 10 (Rupees Ten Only) has been deposited through ____________________ Dated: _________________

Place:

Date:

Sd/- Nirmita Narsimhan

(Nirmita Narasimhan)

E-mail: nirmita@cis-india.org

Mobile No: 098458 68078

Address: D2, 3rd Floor, Sheriff Chambers, No.14 Cunningham Road, Bengaluru: 560052.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/publications/uploads/application-to-msje-on-web-accessibility-measures

Response from MSJE on web accessibility measures

sachia — 2009-03-25T11:33:22Z

RTI MATTER

MOST IMMEDIATE

F. No 32-6/2009 DD III

Government of India

Ministry for Social Justice & Empowerment

(Disability Division III)

Room No 630, Wing A,

Shastri Bhawan, New Delhi

Dated 23.02.2009

Ms Nirmita Narsimhan,

D2, 3^rd Floor, Sheriff Chambers,

14, Cunningham Road,

Bengaluuru-560052

Sub.:- Information sought by Ms Nirmita Narsimhan under RTI, regarding.

Sir,

Serial No	Question	Reply
1.	What steps has the government taken to fulfil its commitments under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) and provision 39 of the national policy to make websites of government as well as private and public sector organisations accessible for persons with disabilities? If no such steps have been taken by the government then kindly furnish reasons and explanation for the same and the time frame within which such steps will be taken.	All the Ministries/Departments of the central government, including attached and subordinate offices and autonomous organisations have been advised that their offices under their administrative control should ensure expeditious implementations of the provisions of the convention in so far as it concerns them including through appropriate laws, rules, orders etc. All state governments and UT administrations have also been requested to bring the provisions of the convention and all resultant obligations to the notice of all concerned, especially government bodies, district collectors, and local bodies, for suitable action. It has been requested that NGOs and the civil society in general should be associated in the effort to empower persons with disabilities. The ministry is monitoring the progress and implementation of the UNCRPD. Copy of the national policy for persons with disabilities has been circulated by the ministry on to all the Ministries/Departments/State Governments/UT Administrations/Autonomous Bodies/Statutory Bodies/PSUs etc for implementation of the provisions of the policy. Relvant information has also been placed on the Ministry’s website. www.socialjustice.nic.in
2. .	What are the surveys which have been conducted by your department to check accessibility of various government web sites? If no such surveys have been conducted, kindly furnish reasons and explanation for the same. If such surveys have been conducted, kindly provide me with a copy of the same	No such survey has been made by this ministry. The office of chief commissioner for persons with disabilities has responsibility to check accessibility of various government websites. Except above, the Ministry has no such information about accessibility of the websites. However, a copy of your application is being sent to them for necessary action.
3.	Please furnish me with details of the standards or criteria used for measuring accessibility to persons with disabilities?
4.	Please provide me with the details of circulars issued to various departments for making their web site accessible to persons with disabilities. Kindly provide me with a copy of the same as well.
5.	Please provide me with information about any other applications under the Right to Information Act, 2005, which have been filed with the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment requesting similar/related information and the consequent replies given and action taken by the departments in those instances.	No other application under the act has been filed requesting for such information.

2. Appellate authority in the case is Dr Arbind Prasad, Joint Secretary, Ministry for Social Justice and Empowerment, Room No 612, A- Wing, 6^th floor, Shastri Bhawan, New Delhi, 110001.

Yours faithfully,

(Sd- Kaul)

(Vandita Kaul)

Director DD-II

Tel: 23388541

Copy to:-

1. Chief Commissioner for Persons with Disabilities, 6, sarojini House, Bhagwan Das Road, New Delhi, together with a copy of application by Ms Nirmita Narsimhan W. R. T. Questions 2 to 5 of the application is pertains to your department. You are requested to please send reply directly to the applicant under intimation to this Ministry.

2. Ms Kamna S Dikshit, Section Officer (FC and RTI) ), Ministry for Social Justice and Empowerment, Shastri Bhawan, New Delhi, for information.

3. Pay and Account Officer, Ministry for Social Justice and Empowerment, Shastri Bhawan, New Delhi. Please find a Demand Draft No 171033 for Rs 10/- received from Ms Nirmita Narsimhan for providing information under RTI Act 2005.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/publications/uploads/response-from-msje-on-web-accessibility-measures

Uploads

sachia — 2011-08-23T22:52:05Z

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/publications/uploads

Accessible websites could become a reality

sachia — 2011-04-02T16:17:26Z

Article by L. Subramani in the Deccan Herald, 11 February 2009

Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), a Bangalore-based NGO that researches on Internet's influence on families and individuals, had reported that about 99 per cent of government websites have failed in meeting with the accessibility guidelines issued by W3C (World Wide Web Consortium).

As Kanchan Pamnani speaks about web accessibility, she relates to us an old story learnt at school. A crane called his long-time friend, a wolf, for dinner and showed a tall, narrow jar that had delicious fishes in it. Unable to put its head inside and eat, the bewildered wolf returned home hungry, as the crane enjoyed putting its long beak inside the jar and tasted its content.

“What’s the point in information being available on the Internet? The visually challenged can’t access the content all the same, since the design and presentation of websites are not friendly to the screen reader software they use to access them through PC and laptops. And they need this the most, since it saves their time and energy when they get things done online,” Ms Pamnani said.

Despite being home to the world’s largest visually impaired population, the problem of inaccessible websites has been common in India. What hurts Ms Pamnani, a visually challenged lawyer and folks like her is the irony that several website developers in India comply with accessibility norms while creating websites for their foreign clients for fear of their product getting rejected and ignore the same while making sites for home-based organisations.

Some months ago, Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), a Bangalore-based NGO that researches on Internet's influence on families and individuals, had reported that about 99 per cent of government websites have failed in meeting with the accessibility guidelines issued by W3C (World Wide Web Consortium). It had highlighted CMC Velore, RBI and IIMB as some of the institutions whose websites are either too difficult or impossible for persons with visual impairment to access with their special screen reading software.

“Someone has to take responsibility for this situation,” Pamnani mentioned. “Given that people from the IT community have created these websites, they will have to take the blame.”

Screen readers, which the blind use to get content of a computer in voice, comprises of text to speech engine (a sort of virtual larynx) and the software that allows users to interface with the system. However, graphically rich webpages or features that are primarily visual in nature become a potential minefield to the screen reader since it doesn’t know how that information can be rendered “readable” to the TTS engine.

Mindful of this bottleneck, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), which play the role of rule-makers in the way the web functions, designed a set of guidelines web developers must use while creating websites. For instance, it calls for giving heading levels which makes screen reader users to press “Shift and the number key depending on which heading level (one to five) they want to reach” and straight away go to the heading instead of going line by line.

For webpages to be fully accessible, the guidelines ask developers to use HTML tags and create alternative, verbally described pages (to the graphically rich ones) that can be read by screen readers. Probably fearing the labour it takes, developers of websites are alleged to be overlooking the guidelines and disability activists say that the negligence is proving to be too costly for them.

“These days, most of the government documents are available on the Internet,” said Javed Abidi, Chairman, National Centre for Promotion of Employment for Disabled Persons (NCPEDP). “The technology is available and there is also the necessary awareness, but web developers seem to be taking this issue too lightly.”

Abidi and Pamnani have been talking about the situation with NASSCOM and were close to hosting a Dharna in front of the venue where the industry body was hosting its leadership summit on Wednesady. However, the protest was called off since NASSCOM agreed to focus on the issue.

“As a first step, the body has agreed to make their own website accessible,” Abidi, the New Delhi-based, wheelchair-bound disability activist, said. “Then they have agreed to urge their members to follow suit. Also, despite their attempts to take up accessibility as a CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) issue, we want them to consider this as a rights issue, since the United Nations Convention for Rights of Persons With Disability (UNCRPD), which India has signed and ratified, states (in article 9) that access to information is a right.”

So Pamnani and several other visually challenged users of the Internet feel the day when they can log on to the website of an online store and purchase anything of their choice isn’t far away.

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To read the article at the Deccan Herald website, click here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/accessible-websites-could-become-a-reality

Berlin 6 Open Access Conference

sachia — 2011-04-02T16:16:16Z

The Berlin 6 Open Access conference was attended by Subbiah Arunachalam, Centre for Internet and Society Distinguished Fellow.

Subbiah Arunachalam, Centre for Internet and Society Distinguished Fellow, attended the Berlin 6 Open Access conference (www.berlin6.org), held in Dusseldorf from 11 to 13 November 2008. Berlin 6 is the fifth follow-up conference to the drafting sessions for the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities.

Subbiah Arunachalam is a member of the Programme Committee of the Berlin series of conferences, and this year chaired the session on Open Access for Development, which looked at the status of open access in developing countries and the factors inhibiting progress in this area. The speakers at this session were Dev Kumar Sahu (MedKnow, India), Eve Gray (Eve Gray & Associates/Open Society Institute, South Africa), Solange M Santos (BIREME/PAHO/SciELO, Brazil) and Subbiah Arunachalam himself. Their presentations are available on the conference website (http://www.berlin6.org/?page_id=70).

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/berlin-6-open-access-conference

Bloggers battle India's supreme court over prosecution for internet threats

sachia — 2011-04-02T16:17:48Z

Article by Randeep Ramesh in the Guardian, 26 February 2009

India's supreme court is facing the wrath of the country's bloggers over the prosecution of a student because of anonymous comments published on a social networking group he created.

The computer science student, named as Ajith D, was arrested over allegations that death threats had been posted on his "anti-Shiv Sena" group on Google's networking site, Orkut. The 20-year-old also faces charges of criminal intimidation and hurting religious sentiments.

The Shiv Sena (Army of Shiv) is a political party that made its name in the 1990s for populist policies that were anti-Muslim and favoured locals over outsiders. Its leader, Bal Thackeray, has been quoted as admiring Hitler.

Mumbai police had been monitoring the site since the Sena staged violent protests against Orkut for carrying anti-party statements, vandalising cybercafes across Mumbai. Officers contacted federal authorities in Delhi before bringing charges.

In response, the lawyer representing the student asked the supreme court to quash the case, saying his client had published nothing provocative. However India's chief justice, KG Balakrishnan, refused the application saying: "We will not do that. Anything that is posted on the internet goes to the public. The internet is open to the world."

The case highlights how India, the world's largest democracy, deals with the thorny issue of freedom of speech on the internet. A law about to arrive on the statute books places the onus for publishing material on the web, not on hosts of the material, such as Google's Orkut service, but on individuals who create blogs and websites.

"The difficulty here is that my client did not make the threats. He simply set up a community group and left it unmoderated," Jogy Scaria, Ajith's lawyer, said. "He only created the anti-Shiv Sena site."

Orkut is one of India's most popular social networking sites and many bloggers vented their fury online. "I am not able to gather how it is possible that bloggers can be hit with libel and criminal suits on the basis of anonymous postings on their websites," wrote one on Ekawaaz-One Voice.

Lawrence Liang, India's foremost authority on freedom of speech on the internet, wrote about the case on Kafila.org.

"When organisations like the Shiv Sena start using defamation laws, it smacks of chutzpah to me … What other way can we describe the bizarre situation of the violence-prone macho men, who suddenly run around screaming about the violation of their legal rights and the slurring of their reputation?"

India's constitution guarantees freedom of expression as long as this does not extend to libel, national security, contempt and a broad category of public morality – which includes "hurting religious sentiments".

Pranesh Prakash of Bangalore's Centre for Internet and Society, a thinktank specialising in web civil rights, said the internet had allowed "everyone to become a publisher but not the awareness of what responsibilities of a publisher. The way the law is dealing with it is highly problematic."

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To read the article at the Guardian website, click here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/bloggers-battle-indias-supreme-court-over-prosecution-for-internet-threats

Can you read me?

sachia — 2011-04-02T16:11:00Z

Article by Sahana Charan in the Bangalore Mirror, 11 March 2009

Over 90% of govt websites can’t be accessed by people with disabilities; A Bangalore-based social research organisation has now initiated a nation wide campaign to make the web more accessible to them.

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Would it come as a shock to you that more than 90 per cent of government websites, including those dealing with social welfare issues, can be of no use to visually or hearing impaired persons or even some senior citizens? At least, that is what the Bangalore-based Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) found out when it did a random check on 23 websites of important government organisations. Of the 23 websites that were checked, 21 failed to meet basic standards which could make them accessible to persons with disabilities including those with visual and hearing impairment and motor disabilities.

The study revealed that The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and the Indian Institute of Management-Bangalore (IIM-B) websites were the only ones that were designed to meet the needs of all persons including those with disabilities.

When Nirmitha Narasimhan, Programme Manager at CIS, who is visually-impaired herself, ran an automated tool over these websites, she found that most of them failed to meet basic standards. “We carried out accessibility testing on the homepages of 23 sites using an automated tool and of these 21 failed automated verification and only the RBI and IIM-B websites passed verification on the basis of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) Priority 1 checkpoints. But even these websites had some problems. Overall the sites that failed the fewest tests were RBI, IIM-B, RTI and CMC Vellore,” she said.

Access for All

Considering that some of the websites that failed the accessibility test were important for all citizens, including the Railways, Lok Sabha, Rajya Sabha, RTI and National Informatics Centre (NIC) websites, the research organisation decided to take this exercise forward by launching a national campaign for electronic accessibility. Their campaign has been so successful that they are now in talks with the central government to formulate a draft policy on electronic accessibility.

“Persons who have disabilities such as blindness or low vision, deafness, cognitive impairment and so on are unable to browse through websites like other persons, since they are unable to see graphics, flash presentations, hear audio clips etc. They use technologies such as screen readers (like Jaws and NVDA which read out whatever appears on the screen for a blind user) or other kinds of devices to perform the functionalities associated with using the computers. For deaf persons, it is necessary to have captioning for an audio clip to tell them what is being played,” says Nirmitha. But she adds that even for assistive technologies to be used, the websites need to have built-in features that will make them accessible to everyone.

Guidelines

“Most websites have features such as graphics which cannot be interpreted by technologies such as screen readers. In such a case, the website creator has to take care to give alternative texts which describe what the graphic is about. For instance, under a picture of a dog on a website, there should also be a line describing the picture,” adds Nirmitha, who is now working with web developers across the country to create awareness about guidelines for creating a website.

The World Wide Web Consortium (www) has come out with guidelines on how to build websites which are accessible to persons using assistive technologies. These guidelines are called the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) and address the needs of all disabilities and inabilities. “In the US, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Germany and many other countries, it is mandatory to implement these guidelines for all websites. Since ours is an internet-savvy nation, it is high time these rules were made mandatory here,” says Nirmitha.

CIS has conducted a series of workshops for web developers from organisations including NIC, JNU and many voluntary agencies so that they could incorporate WCAG. In Karnataka, all government websites are designed by NIC, so it goes without saying that none of them are disabled-friendly.

Their Own Site Too

Karnataka has over 9.4 lakh persons with disabilities of whom at least 10-15 per cent are able to use assistive technology and can access the net. In Bangalore city alone, close to one lakh persons are disabled and quite a few of them have knowledge of computers.

But it is a pity that the website of the Directorate for the Welfare of the Disabled and Senior Citizens cannot be accessed by people who need to use it the most.

Forget being disabled-friendly, the website has not been updated since 2007 and the gallery section still shows pictures of former chief minister H D Kumaraswamy.

What the guidelines say

For sites which have graphics, alternative text should be given at the bottom describing the graphic for the benefit of visually impaired persons.

For the hearing impaired, video clips should be accompanied by text running at the bottom of the clip so that they will know what is being said.
Flickering text that cannot be deciphered by a screen reader (a technology used by the visually impaired that reads out test on the computer screen aloud) should be avoided.
For those with motor impairment, options can be given to avoid the use of mouse and where only one single key could be used.

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To read the article at the Bangalore Mirror website, click here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/can-you-read-me

Cluster in collaboration with the Architects Association of Turin (FOAT) participates at the Democracy Biennial

sachia — 2009-03-27T11:09:02Z

Sunil Abraham to speak at the conference 'Housing the Democratic City' in Turin, Italy

The first edition of the Biennale Democrazia, will take place in Turin the 22 – 26 April 2009, it is an international cultural event entirely dedicated to the ethical and political project of democracy a political system which, by definition, is in constant evolution and development, continually facing new challenges to be overcome. The Democracy Biennial is organized by the City of Turin, the Italia Committee and the Piedmont Regional government. It forms part of a series of programmes and public events called Esperienza Italia organized to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Unification of Italy in 1861. The Democracy Biennial takes its inspiration from the profound studies on democracy carried out by Norberto Bobbio and it is intended to function as a tool for spreading a culture of Democracy that can also be put into practice in everyday life. It aims to create a permanent, ongoing workshop, open to the public, that explores and debates, from both a local and international point of view, the fundamental values of democracy, the forms it has adopted and the challenges it faces today. The event will consist of different preparatory activities (workshops, debates, readings, international forums, in-depth seminars and events actively involving citizens (as well as films, theatre and music events).

In partnership with the Biennale Democrazia the Architects Association of Turin (FOAT), has curated a section, within the event program, entitled “Housing the Democratic City”. The section offers a series of sessions: a workshop, conferences and a call for paper that aim to stimulate reflections on issues related to housing the city, for a future of urban democracy.

In occasion of this important event Cluster, in collaboration with the Architects Association (FOAT), has invited a collaborator from Bangalore, India, Sunil Abraham to speak at the conference “Housing the Democratic City” at Teatro Gobetti on Sunday 26th April. Other participating speakers are Bill Dunster (UK), Cino Zucchi (Italy).

Sunil Abraham is an industrial and production engineer from Bangalore in India. In 1998 he founded Mahiti, an association dedicated to reducing the cost and complexity of information and communication technology for the voluntary sector. In August 2008 he co-founded The Centre for Internet and Society, that brings together a team of practitioners, theoreticians, researchers and artists to work on the emerging field of Internet and Society to critically engage with concerns of digital pluralism, public accountability and pedagogic practices, with particular emphasis on South-South dialogues and exchange. Sunil contributed to the last issue of Cluster, Transmitting Architecture in a dual interview and discussion entitled “Design in Urban democracy:a question of survival?” PDF downloadable here.

Sunil Abraham will also be speaking in two other sections of the Biennial on April 25 ‘Democracy and India’ with Prof. Federico Squarcini, professor of History of Indian Religions, University of Florence and ‘Democracy and Technology’ with the Politecnico of Turin. More details on the programme coming soon.

For info. please visit: Biennale Democrazia Order of the Architects of Turin (FOAT)

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/cluster-in-collaboration-with-the-architects-association-of-turin-foat-participates-at-the-democracy-biennial

Cluster in collaboration with the Architects Association of Turin (FOAT) participates at the Democracy Biennial

sachia — 2011-04-02T16:09:12Z

Sunil Abraham to speak at the conference 'Housing the Democratic City' in Turin, Italy

For info. please visit: Biennale Democrazia Order of the Architects of Turin (FOAT)

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/cluster-in-collaboration-with-the-architects-association-of-turin-foat-participates-at-the-democracy-biennial-1

Digital Empowerment Foundation--Internet Governance Forum Workshop, 5 December 2008, Hyderabad

sachia — 2011-04-02T16:16:28Z

CIS Director (Policy) Sunil Abraham will be a panelist at a workshop on Low Cost Sustainability Access to be held at the Internet Governance Forum 2008.

CIS Director (Policy) Sunil Abraham will be a panelist at a workshop on Low Cost Sustainability Access to be held at the Internet Governance Forum 2008. The workshop is organised by the Digital Empowerment Foundation and the Internet and Mobile Association of India, in association with Internet Society and Intel. It will be held on December 5, 2008, from 14:30 – 16:00.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/digital-empowerment-foundation-internet-governance-forum-workshop-5-december-2008-hyderabad

Does India need its own Bayh-Dole?

sachia — 2011-04-02T15:58:46Z

Article by Pranesh Prakash, Programme Manager at Centre for Internet and Society in the Indian Express, 24 April 2009

Across the world battlelines are being drawn in the normally quiet areas of academia and research. The opposing sides: those in favour of open and collaborative research and development as a means to promote innovation, and those in favour of perpetuating the profits of big pharma companies and academic publishers. Currently before a Select Parliamentary Committee is a controversial law that will deny basic healthcare to millions by making medicines much more expensive, lock up academic knowledge, and help privatise publicly-funded research. The law titled the Protection and Utilisation of Public Funded Intellectual Property Bill 2008 (“PUPFIP Bill”, http://bit.ly/pupfip-bill) was tabled last December in the Rajya Sabha by the Minister for Science and Technology. It was created in utmost secrecy by the Department of Science and Technology, without so much as a draft version having been shared with the public for comments.

The PUPFIP Bill is an Indian version of a 1980 US legislation, the Bayh-Dole Act, and as per its statement of objects and reasons, it seeks to promote creativity and innovation to enable India “to compete globally and for the public good”. It aims to do so by ensuring the protection of all intellectual property (meaning copyright, patent, trade mark, design, plant variety, etc.) that is the outcome of government-funded research. The IP rights will be held by the grant recipient, or by the government if the recipient does not choose to protect the IP. This might seem like a good way to enable technology transfer from research institutes to the industry, but that would be a very myopic view, disregarding all evidence related to the failure of the Bayh-Dole Act. Last year Prof. Anthony So of Duke University co-authored an extensive analysis of the Bayh-Dole Act, and warned of the consequences of such legislation in developing countries.

First, such a law will shift the focus of research. Researchers will be inclined to to concentrate their efforts on issues of interest to industry, and which can have immediate benefit. This would force vital fundamental research into neglect since it cannot be commercialised with ease. Research by Saul Lach and Mark Schankerman shows that scientists are influenced by royalty rates, and will thus tend to work on industrial research rather than fundamental research. This creates, or at least exacerbates, what is popularly known as the “90/10 gap”: the fact that ninety per cent of medical research money goes into problems affecting ten per cent of the world’s population, since that ten per cent is richer.

Secondly, this law will have chilling effects on scholarly communications and promote secrecy. The Bill has requirements of non-disclosure by the grantee and the researcher to enable the commercialisation of the research, and requires researchers and institutions to inform the government before all publication of research. Such bureaucratisation of research publications will stultify intellectual pursuits. Such secrecy and permission-raj culture is anathema to intellectual and academic pursuits, where knowledge is sought to be freely disseminated, to be criticised and further revised by others. In South Africa, academics affected by the recent passage of a PUPFIP-type legislation there are questioning its constitutionality as it restrains freedom of speech.

Thirdly, this will lead to our pillars of learning and research becoming like businesses. US universities like Columbia and Duke have found themselves at the receiving end of criticism for their brazen commercialism, encouraged by the Bayh-Dole Act. Instead of promoting greater access to health for the poor, and spending money on research, the universities were spending money on patent litigation in court. The outcome of one of these cases was the rejection of Duke University’s research exemption defence (universities are generally not bound to observe patents when they wished to conduct research). The court held that the university had “business interests” which the research unmistakably furthered. This points at a fundamental divide between universities as places of learning and as places of profiteering. The Open Source Drug Discovery (OSSD) project that the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) is currently pursuing is a good attempt at promoting a culture of openness and transparency and collaboration, and thus ensuring cheaper and more efficient drug discovery. Even the US government is currently seeking to clear the way for generic versions of biotech drugs. In such an environment, it is counter-intuitive to bring in a regressive law, and goes against innovative efforts such as the OSSD, and will harm the generics industry.

Fourthly, the Bill assumes — erroneously, as an ever-growing amount of research demonstrates (Boldrin & Levine, Bessen & Meurer, etc.) — that intellectual property is the best and only way to promote creativity and innovation. All forms of intellectual property are state-granted monopolistic rights. At a basic level, competition promotes innovations while monopoly retards it. Much of modern science developed without the privilege of patents. Surely, Darwin and Newton were not encouraged by patents. And even whole industries — like the software industry — flourish without patent protection in most of the world.

The commendable aim of ensuring knowledge transfer can be accomplished much better if we refrain from giving away to private corporations (whether pharmaceutical manufacturers or publishers) exclusive rights to the product of publicly-funded research. Scientists and researchers can be encouraged to be consultants to various industrial projects, thereby ensuring that their expertise is tapped. Importantly, open access publishing which helps to ensure wide distribution and dissemination of knowledge is surely more desirable. That is the trend being followed the world over currently. The US president recently signed into law the Consolidated Appropriations Bill which makes permanent the National Institutes of Health’s open access policy. By doing so, he symbolically rejected calls (such as the much-criticised Conyers Bill) to privatise publicly funded research outputs. Thus, there are many ways by which the government can encourage innovation and creativity, and further public interest. The PUPFIP Bill, which will have deleterious unintended consequences if it is passed, is not one of them.

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To read the article at the Indian Express website, click here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/does-india-need-its-own-bayh-dole

Getting the net out of its web

sachia — 2011-04-02T16:11:22Z

Article by Malvika Tegta in Daily News and Analysis (DNA), 8 March 2009

Artists, academicians, tech heads and lawyers have come together to give the country a voice in technology, study, polity and discourse, says Malvika Tegta

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The Internet has changed lives in ways we haven't stopped to grasp — the real feeding into the virtual and the other way round. Also, how the Internet interacts with individuals varies across cultures and societies. Narratives on the medium originating in the West cannot size up the complexities of the developing world. In the absence of a voice from the "global south" in affecting the direction of the Internet, technologies continue to be designed for a certain kind of end user, with underlying assumptions. "That apart, as the Internet grows, it doesn't necessarily always grow for the better, with things like cyber terrorism, cyber bullying, pornography, identity theft, gambling, internet addiction, being the by-products of the information revolution," says Nishant Shah, director-research and one of the brains behind the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), initiated in August 2008, set up to take note of what we passively allow to direct our lives.

These are the issues that led Gibraltar-based Anurag Dikshit, co-founder of PartyGaming, parent company of online poker site PartyPoker.com, to think that "the time had come for India to have a voice in technology study, polity and discourse, as we quickly find ourselves becoming an Information Society". He, along with Alternative Law Forum's legal theorist Lawrence Liang, Shah and Sunil Abraham, brought CIS into being, pooling in the finest minds from the field of arts, academia, law and technology. CIS, since, has set out to produce local and contextual histories of the Internet to make voices "emerging out of Asia more visible in international dialogues around technology".

Their approach: research, awareness and advocacy. Their goal: to make sense of how the Internet is changing the world around us, with India at the heart.

CIS looks at, among other things, the way copyrights, closed standards and an absence of public policy in certain areas have affected access, innovation and kept the Internet from being less democratic and vibrant. "Copyright law is kind of a monolithic thing, like a 'one size fits all' kind of solution for encouraging creativity. It doesn't really work especially when you look at an equitable system of access," says programme manager Pranesh Prakash. He adds: "Copyright proves to be a huge barrier to promotion of accessibility, and in the Indian context needs some kind of relaxation." Programme manager at CIS, Nirmita puts this in perspective, in the particular case of internet access for the visually impaired and those with cognitive disabilities. "A blind person cannot read the written word, so you record an audio cassette or you have an e-version of it and a screen reader reads it for you. That inverts the conversion of a format, which is not permitted legally under the copyright law in India. Every time you want to convert it, you need to take permission of the copyright holder. So what that is essentially doing is depriving you of your right to read," she says. "Our country should have a law that is universal. We have signed United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities that says that everything on the Internet should be in accessible formats, but it's not binding and we don't have a law on it."

In the area of science and academics, copyrights pose another challenge, that of impeding innovation by keeping from the taxpayer, results of at least the research that is funded by tax a notion CIS has been pushing for. "Scientific literature is propounded on the principles like everyone is allowed to review it and that knowledge spreads to a number of people," says Prakash. Both the scientist and the reader want that. But what we see today is that a few publishers control most of all scientific literary output, so most of it is not accessible because a month's subscription sometimes amounts to the entire library budget of an institution. That is especially a big problem for developing countries.

By the end of this year, CIS hopes that individual institutions take up open access policy. "It may not always have to be a top down approach," he says.

In the realm of governance, CIS identifies use of closed standards software as not only unwise strategy, but also socially and ethically a bad decision, and is looking at policy change in the area. Explains Sunil Abraham, director-policy, in his paper: "If I were to store data, information or knowledge in .doc, .xls or .ppt format, my ability to read my own files expires the moment the licence for my copy of Microsoft Office expires." He adds that governments have a responsibility to use open standards, especially for interactions with the public and where the data handled has a direct impact on democratic values. "In developing countries, governments have greater responsibility because most often they account for over 50% of the revenues of proprietary software vendors," he writes.

They are also exploring bridging digital divides without ignoring the "complex interplay, in the case of India for instance, of caste, language, affordability, education, literacy, and in some cases, even religion" and how the Internet is changing the landscape of higher education in India.
As Shah puts it: "Internet technologies are now becoming tools that we think with. We cannot write without the cursor blinking on an empty screen, we cannot talk in public without the aid of a digital presentation..."

It's about time, then, that we thought about the one thing that's becoming one of the bigger movers in our lives and build a discourse around it.

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To read the article in DNA's e-paper, click here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/getting-the-net-out-of-its-web

Government websites: Access denied to special users

sachia — 2011-04-02T16:17:22Z

Article by L. Subramani in the Deccan Herald, 8 December 2008

The homepages of 23 government agencies have been identified as inaccessible to special users, the city-based Centre for Internet and Society has found.

The organisation carried out an automated test using software tools, on websites of agencies like the National Informatics Centre, Lok Sabha, Rajya Sabha, Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, Ministry of HRD etc, the majority of which have failed to meet even the basic access criteria laid down in the guidelines of Worldwide Web Consortium (W3C).

“Except for the Reserve Bank of India and CMC Vellore, all the sites don't even meet priority 1 of WCAG (W3C Access Guidelines), which would ensure availability of text for non-text elements (images) and other graphical contents that can't be read out by screen reader software,” said Nirmita Narasimhan, who carried out the tests at CIS. She mentioned that all of the websites failed in priority 2 and 3 of the guidelines.

“Despite being one of the most important sites for persons with disability, the homepage of the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment - which contains documents and important government schemes for persons with disability - has completely failed to meet the accessibility criteria.

This is not only against the spirit of laws that guarantee freedom of information, but also contradicts the government's own policy of making websites accessible to persons with disability,” she added.

Handbook

Nirmita pointed out that the Right To Information handbook - an important reference for persons with disability, demanding information from government and private organisations - has been provided in an inaccessible document format.

She echoed the common contention that persons with disability are deprived of one of the most important aspects of modern technology, despite being empowered by technologies like screen readers and speech recognition software.

The information, coming soon after the International Day for Persons with Disabilities was observed, raises question marks over the government's commitment to break barriers, and its genuineness in creating an accessible society as per the Persons with Disability act (1995) and the United Nations Convention for the Rights of Persons with Disability, to which it has been one of the early signatories.

Ganesh Prasad, Director (Systems and Process) at Samarthanam Trust for the Disabled described the test results as ‘not surprising, but certainly disappointing.’

“Given the urban conditions, visiting a place in person has become one of the most difficult things for persons with disability,” Prasad said.

Priority 1 of the guidelines calls for text descriptions of images or alternative pages with text contents, while priority 2 asks for the turning off of auto refresh and other deprecated features of W3C technologies, and recommends semantic information of the page for persons with disability to instantly know the contents.

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Read the article on the Deccan Herald website here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/government-websites-access-denied-to-special-users

International Communication Association Pre-Conference on 'India and Communication Studies'

sachia — 2011-04-02T15:56:35Z

Sunil Abraham, Director-Policy, CIS, is to take part in a panel discussion on 'Media, Technology, and Governance' at the International Communication Association Pre-Conference on 'India and Communication Studies' on 21 May 2009, 1.00-2.15 pm.

PRECONFERENCE #2

Sponsored by the Center for Global Communication Studies, Annenberg School for Communication, University for Pennsylvania, and Centre for Culture, Media & Governance, Jamia Millia Islamia University, New Delhi

Title: India and Communication Studies

Time: Wednesday, May 20, 13:00 – 19:00 and
Thursday, May 21, 8:00 – 17:00

Limit: 50 persons

Cost: $100.00USD (Includes refreshment breaks, lunch and reception)
$50.00USD Students

Organizers:

• Monroe Price, Director, Center for Global Communication Studies, Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania
• Biswajit Das, Director, Centre for Culture, Media & Governance, Jamia Millia Islamia University, New Delhi
• Aswin Punathambekar, Assistant Professor, Communication Studies, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
• Radhika Parameswaran, Associate Professor, School of Journalism, Indiana University, Bloomington

Overview:

India plays an increasingly important role in the processes of globalization, including the global production of culture and the communications technology industry. At the same time, the field of communication studies in India is expanding. Yet there is no Indian Communications Association and little in the way of considered and formal review of contributions to the field.

This pre-conference is an effort to create a new coherence and a new salience for this subject by mapping the area of communication and culture studies in India; to strengthen ties among leading and emerging scholars and institutions in India and elsewhere; to develop and cultivate a research agenda for the field; and to explore the creation of an Indian Communication Studies Association.

The pre-conference will take place over 2 days. The first day will be dedicated to paper presentations from emerging scholars on a diverse range of issues, including media and cultural representations, gender, minorities, issues of nationalism and culture, and structural questions of governance.

The second day will be centered around three panels, which will address the development of communication studies in India; issues of technology, governance and development; and a discussion of scholarship about India. The organized panels will draw from academia, business, civil society, and government/policy-making circles.
Schedule for India and Communication Studies ICA Pre-Conference:

May 20 (Day One):

13.00 – 13.15 Opening Remarks, Monroe Price and organizers
13.15 – 14.30 Paper presentations: Session 1
14.30 – 15.45 Paper presentations: Session 2
15.45 – 16.00 Break
16.00 – 17.15 Paper presentations: Session 3

Moderators for paper sessions: TBC

17.30 – 19.00 Reception for pre-conference participants and guests

May 21 (Day Two):

8.00 – 9.00: Breakfast for pre-conference participants

9.00 – 10.15 Opening Keynote Discussion -- India and Cultural Pathways: Reflections on Identity, History and Scholarship:

The opening keynote will address the history of communications/media studies in and about India, placing it in the broader context of global communication studies and globalization and international relations.

• Biswajit Das, Centre for Culture, Media & Governance, Jamia Millia Islamia University
• Radhika Gajjala, Bowling Green University
• Sevanti Ninan, Honorary Secretary, The Media Foundation (TBC)
• Arvind Singhal, University of Texas (TBC)
• Daya Thussu, University of Westminster

Moderator: Monroe Price, Center for Global Communication Studies, Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania

10.15 – 10.30 – Coffee Break

10.30 -- 11.45 Panel One: The Complex Challenge of Developing Communications Studies in India

This panel will seek to begin mapping the intellectual network of scholars that has informed communications scholarship in and about India. Panelists will discuss the history and development of "Indian" communication studies, including the approaches taken towards this subject; the competition between production and commercial goals and theoretical study; and the institutional and other pressures and challenges encountered by emerging programs..

• Biswajit Das, Centre for Culture, Media & Governance, Jamia Millia Islamia University
• Vinod Pavarala, University of Hyderabad
• Anjali Monteiro, Tata Institute of Social Sciences
• Atul Tandon, MICA
• Peng Hwa Ang, MICORE

Moderator: Noshir Contractor, Northwestern University

11.45 – 13.00 –Lunch

13.00 – 14.15 Panel Two: "Media, Technology & Governance"

This panel will be approached through cases as presented by the panelists. It seeks to (a) open the door to the growing work on the IT industry and ICT for Development; and (b) outline a tighter set of analytics to encourage a stronger connection between academic research & public policy in India.

• David Page or William Crawley (TBC), Media South Asia Project, Institute of Development Studies, Sussex University, UK
• Victoria Farmer, Department of Political Science and International Relations SUNY-Geneseo
• Steve McDowell, Department of Communication, Florida State University
• Sunil Abraham, Director (Policy), Centre for Internet & Society, Bangalore

Moderator: Vibodh Parthasarathi, Associate Professor, Centre for Culture, Media & Governance, Jamia Millia Islamia University

14.15 – 14.30 Coffee Break

14.30 – 15.45 Panel Three: Nodes of Contact: How to Map Scholarship about India

This panel aims to map the intellectual patterns and trajectories in media and communications scholarship on India. Panelists will address specific areas within communications research--gender and interdisciplinarity, new media, diaspora, television, and media production and reception--to chart and analyze the theoretical and empirical terrain that scholars have covered, and to suggest new and productive directions for future research.

• Radha Hegde, Department of Media, Culture, and Communication, New York University
• Shanti Kumar, Department of Radio-Television-Film, The University of Texas at Austin
• William Mazzarella, University of Chicago
• Ananda Mitra, Department of Communication, Wake Forest University
• Hemant Shah, School of Journalism & Mass Communication, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Moderator: Radhika Parameswaran, School of Journalism, Indiana University

15.45 – 16.15 Concluding Remarks and Wrap-up

This last part of the ICA Pre-Conference Program will feature open discussion and commentary from the organizers and audience.

For more information about this pre-conference, please contact Susan Abbott, Associate Director, Center for Global Communication Studies: sabbott@asc.upenn.edu

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Click here to read this information on the ICA website.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/ica-preconference