The Centre for Internet and Society
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September 2012 Bulletin
https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/september-2012-bulletin
<b>Welcome to the newsletter of September 2012 from the Centre for Internet & Society (CIS). The present issue features a second analysis by Snehashish Ghosh on the latest list of sites blocked by the Indian government from August 18, 2012 to August 21, 2012, a research on the issues of internet governance by Smarika Kumar, publication of a report on Accessibility of Government websites in India by Nirmita Narasimhan, Mukesh Sharma and Dinesh Kaushal, the Access to Knowledge programme plan and updates from the Wikipedia community in India on Indic languages, updates from the Habits of Living workshop organised in Bengaluru, the events connected to the visits of international DNA experts, Helen Wallace and Jeremy Gruber in India, and introduce you to our Access to Knowledge team members. </b>
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<h3>Announcements</h3>
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<p style="text-align: justify; "><span class="visualHighlight"><b>Office in Delhi</b></span><br />CIS now has an office with a five-member team for the Access to Knowledge programme in Delhi at G 15, top floor, behind Hauz Khas G Block Market, Hauz Khas, New Delhi 110016, Ph: + 91 11 26536425.</p>
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<p><span class="visualHighlight"><b>New Team Members</b></span></p>
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<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/about/people/staff/cis-staff">Nitika Tandon</a>: Nitika Tandon is a Program Officer with CIS. She has an MBA from Rotterdam School of Management, Netherlands and is a recipient of Dean's Fund Scholarship Program, Erasmus University.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/about/people/staff/cis-staff">Shiju Alex</a>: Shiju Alex is a Consultant. His background is technical writing and he is interested in Indic language computing and community building for Indic language Wiki projects. Presently he works out of CIS office in Bengaluru.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/about/people/staff/cis-staff">Subhashish Panigrahi</a>: Subhashish Panigrahi is a Programme Officer to CIS's Access to Knowledge programme and works out of CIS's Delhi office. His background is Business Development in Corporate Communications. He works on designing and implementing programs to provide on-wiki and off-wiki support for new editors.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/about/people/staff/cis-staff">Noopur Raval</a>: Noopur Raval is working as Consultant - Communications for the Access to Knowledge team at CIS. Having previously worked in the media, she is currently pursuing her M.Phil in Cinema Studies from JNU, New Delhi.</li>
</ul>
<p><b> </b></p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Jobs</b><br />CIS is seeking applications from interested candidates for the posts of <a href="https://cis-india.org/jobs/research-manager">Research Manager</a>, <a href="https://cis-india.org/jobs/vacancy-for-researcher-accessibility">Researcher/Editor</a>, and <a href="https://cis-india.org/jobs/programme-officer-internet-governance">Programme Officer – Internet Governance</a>. To apply for these posts send your resume to Sunil Abraham (<a href="mailto:sunil@cis-india.org">sunil@cis-india.org</a>) with three references. Archives of our bulletins can be <a href="http://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/">found here</a>. Click to read the newsletter on our website.</p>
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<h2><a href="https://cis-india.org/accessibility">Accessibility</a></h2>
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<p>India has an estimated 70 million disabled persons who are unable to read printed materials due to some form of physical, sensory, cognitive or other disability. The disabled need accessible content, devices and interfaces facilitated via copyright law and electronic accessibility policies:<br /><b>Featured Research</b></p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/accessibility/accessibility-of-government-websites-in-india">Accessibility of Government Websites in India: A Report</a> (by Nirmita Narasimhan, Mukesh Sharma and Dinesh Kaushal, September 26, 2012): This is a report on the accessibility of government websites in India. It was published in cooperation with the Hans Foundation. The report consists of an executive summary, introduction, methodology, findings and recommendations and interpretation and recommendations. Examples of errors are given as appendices. </li>
</ul>
<p><b>Project</b></p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/accessibility/creating-a-national-resource-kit-for-persons-with-disabilities">Creating a National Resource Kit for Persons with Disabilities: An Introduction</a> (by Anandhi Viswanathan, September 28, 2012): CIS is engaged in a two-and-a-half year project starting from August 2012 to create a national resource kit of state-wise laws, policies and programmes on issues relating to persons with disabilities in India. This project is supported by the Hans Foundation. The Resource Kit will be brought out in both English and Hindi and disseminated to policy makers from panchayat to ministry levels throughout India. Anandhi gives an introduction to the project in this blog entry.</li>
</ul>
<p><b>Blog Entries</b></p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/accessibility/wipo-treaty-for-the-visually-impaired">WIPO Treaty for the Visually Impaired — Moving from a Treaty on Paper to a Treaty that is Workable on the Ground</a> (by Rahul Cherian, September 28, 2012): After many years of hard lobbying by the World Blind Union, it appears that the WIPO Treaty on limitations and exceptions for visually impaired persons/persons with print disabilities (TVI) could become a reality next year. </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/accessibility/breaking-news-on-electronic-accessibility">Breaking News on Electronic Accessibility</a> (by Rahul Cherian, September 28, 2012): The Parliamentary Standing Committee constituted to study the Electronic Delivery of Services Bill has in its report explicitly recognized the concept of electronic accessibility and reasonable accommodation. This is the first time in the country that these two concepts have been reflected at the level of a Parliamentary Standing Committee in relation to a non-disability specific law.</li>
</ul>
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<h2><a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k">Access to Knowledge</a></h2>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">The Access to Knowledge programme addresses the harms caused to consumers, developing countries, human rights, and creativity/innovation from excessive regimes of copyright, patents, and other such monopolistic rights over knowledge:</p>
<p><b>Submission</b></p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/feedback-to-draft-copyright-rules-2012">Feedback to Draft Copyright Rules, 2012</a> (by Pranesh Prakash, September 29, 2012): submitted its written comments on the Draft Copyright Rules, 2012 to Mr. G.R. Raghavender, Registrar of Copyrights & Director (BP&CR), Ministry of Human Resource Development. Pranesh does a detailed analysis and provides recommendations on Rules 8,9,10, 29(6), 34(2), 37, 71(3), 72, 74(1), 74(6), 75, and 79 (3) and (4).</li>
</ul>
<p><b>Projects</b></p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/access-to-knowledge-program-plan">Access To Knowledge/Programme Plan</a>: Pursuant to the announcement made on July 30, 2012 of a 22 months ‘grant’ (beginning from September 1, 2012 to July 31, 2014) of upto INR 26,000,000 and as reflected in the FAQ accompanying the announcement, the Wikimedia Foundation’s India Program will become a project of the Access to Knowledge (A2K) program of CIS. The prime objective is to support the growth of Indic language communities and projects by designing community collaborations and partnerships that recruit and cultivate new editors and explore innovative approaches to building projects and supporting India-focused efforts to improve the quality of India-relevant content on Indic languages and English Wikimedia projects.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/pervasive-technologies-access-to-knowledge-in-the-market-place">Pervasive Technologies: Access to Knowledge in the Marketplace</a> (by Jadine Lannon, September 25, 2012): Jadine Lannon gives an introduction to the new A2K research initiative. Pervasive technologies have flooded the Indian market and are changing the ways in which the average Indian accesses knowledge but very little is understood about these technologies, particularly when it comes to their legality. CIS hopes to do a research that aims to understand how pervasive technologies interact with Intellectual Property laws and what can be done to protect these technologies from being labelled “illegal” and eradicated from the Asian market.</li>
</ul>
<p><b>Event Participated</b></p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/info-justice-public-events-flexibility-network">Meeting of the Global Network on Flexible Limitations and Exceptions</a> (organised by American University Washington College of Law, Washington D.C., September 12 to 15, 2012).</li>
</ul>
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<h2><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance">Internet Governance</a></h2>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">The Internet Governance programme conducts research around the various social, technical, and political underpinnings of global and national Internet governance, and includes online privacy, freedom of speech, and Internet governance mechanisms and processes:</p>
<p><b> </b></p>
<p><b>Featured Research</b></p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/issues-in-internet-governance">An Introduction to the Issues in Internet Governance</a> (by Smarika Kumar, September 23, 2012): Smarika provides a detailed analysis to the issues that we face in Internet Governance today. She tries to canvass the controversies in the areas of internet governance that broadly focus around the institutional structures to govern the internet, discusses the evolution of these models against the historical background of internet governance and then proceeds to present the criticisms of each of these models with an emphasis on the interests of the regular internet user.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/analyzing-the-latest-list-of-blocked-sites-communalism-and-rioting-edition-part-ii">Analyzing the Latest List of Blocked Sites (Communalism and Rioting Edition) Part II</a> (by Snehashish Ghosh, September 25, 2012): Snehashish Ghosh does a further analysis of the leaked list of the websites blocked by the Indian Government from August 18, 2012 till August 21, 2012 (“leaked list”). This analysis was <a href="http://www.medianama.com/2012/09/223-analyzing-the-latest-list-of-blocked-sites-communalism-rioting-edition-part-ii/">re-posted</a> by Medianama on September 26, 2012.</li>
</ul>
<p><b>Columns</b></p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/www-deccan-chronicle-sep-16-2012-sunil-abraham-the-five-monkeys-and-ice-cold-water">The Five Monkeys & Ice-cold Water</a> (by Sunil Abraham, Deccan Chronicle, September 16, 2012): “The Indian government provides leadership, both domestically and internationally, when it comes to access to knowledge.”</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/www-the-hindubusinessline-op-ed-sep-1-2012-chinmayi-arun-sms-block-as-threat-to-free-speech">SMS Block as Threat to Free Speech</a> (by Chinmayi Arun, Hindu Business Line, September 1, 2012): If you could text just one or two people in a day, who would you choose? Many of us have had to make this choice thanks to the order limiting us to five texts a day. Short Message Service (SMS) is not used primarily to send staccato messages like the telegraph was.</li>
</ul>
<p><b>Media Coverage</b></p>
<ul>
<p class="callout"><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/dna-india-sep-27-2012-dilnaz-boga-censorship-makes-india-fall-two-places-on-global-internet-freedom-chart">Censorship makes India fall two places on global internet freedom chart</a> (by Dilnaz Boga, Daily News & Analysis, September 27, 2012). Pranesh Prakash’s analysis on blocked websites is quoted.</p>
<p class="callout" style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/www-livemint-september-25-2012-surabhi-agarwal-pitroda-seeks-to-put-govt-information-in-public-domain">Pitroda seeks to put govt information in public domain</a> (by Surabhi Agarwal, LiveMint, September 25, 2012): “One government bureaucrat available on Twitter for a fixed period doesn’t make up for the non-existence of the government on social media…they (government) should be available all the time.” — Sunil Abraham.</p>
<p class="callout" style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/www-livemint-com-sep-19-2012-surabhi-agarwal-govt-plans-inter-ministerial-panel-on-internet-policy">Govt plans inter-ministerial panel on Internet policy</a> (by Surabhi Agarwal, LiveMint, September 19, 2012): ““The thumb rule with governance, be it international or national, is that coordination policy formulation bodies is a good idea, but we can’t damn or praise them over the process...We have to see what coordination results out of the body.” — Sunil Abraham.</p>
<p class="callout" style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/www-times-of-india-sept-16-2012-atul-sethi-mind-of-the-millennium-teen">Mind of the millennium teen</a> (by Atul Sethi, The Times of India, September 16, 2012): “We live in accelerated times...The breathlessness of our times is evident in everything — from the kind of movies we make to the ways in which our news and information travel. At the end of the day, our younger generations are also products of our times.”— Nishant Shah.</p>
<p class="callout" style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/www-firstpost-com-sep-6-2012-china-outranks-india-in-worlds-first-ever-web-index">China outranks India in world’s first ever web index</a> (First Post, September 6, 2012): ““The Internet today doesn’t work according to the idealistic principles of openness, and democracy of information that Berners-Lee envisioned for it, and in India in particular, although the Internet has helped us rethink what the government can do, the attitude is that that Internet can only be used in ways that the government sees fit.” — Nishant Shah.</p>
<p class="callout" style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/www-livemint-com-surabhi-agarwal-sep-4-2012-need-a-strategy-to-deal-with-web-issues">Need a standard strategy to deal with Web issues: Chandrasekhar</a> (by Surabhi Agarwal, LiveMint, September 4, 2012). Pranesh Prakash’s analysis on blocked websites is quoted.</p>
<p class="callout" style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/cis-india.org/news/www-tehelka-com-kunal-majumder-tehelka-magazine-vol-9-issue-36-sep-8-2012-political-war-on-the-web">Political war on the web</a> (by Kunal Majumder, Tehelka Magazine, Vol 9, Issue 36, September 8, 2012): “The fact remains none of the blockings were politically motivated.” — Pranesh Prakash.</p>
<p class="callout" style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/www-the-hindu-com-shalini-singh-sep-4-2012-govt-to-hold-talks-with-stakeholders-on-internet-censorship">Government to hold talks with stakeholders on Internet censorship</a> (by Shalini Singh, The Hindu, September 4, 2012). Pranesh Prakash’s analysis on blocked websites is quoted.</p>
<p class="callout" style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/www-tehelka-com-vol-9-issue-36-sep-8-2012-shougat-dasgupta-the-state-and-the-rage-of-the-cyber-demon">The state. And the rage of the cyber demon</a> (by Shougat Dasgupta, Tehelka, Vol 9, Issue 36, September 8, 2012): “While some people may see Twitter as akin to friends talking in the pub, others use the service as a bulletin board.” — Pranesh Prakash.</p>
<p class="callout" style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/www-business-standard-rohit-pradhan-sep-1-2012-watch-out-for-fettered-speech">Watch out for fettered speech</a> (by Rohit Pradhan, Business Standard, September 1, 2012). Pranesh Prakash is quoted.</p>
</ul>
<p><b>Events Organised</b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span class="visualHighlight">DNA Profiling Bill</span><br />International DNA experts Helen Wallace from GeneWatch UK, and Jeremy Gruber from the Council for Responsible Genetics from the United States visited Bengaluru and Delhi and shared their experience in DNA sampling and gave feedback to the DNA Profiling Bill. Meetings were conducted with lawyers and the plaintiff in the Pascal Mazurier's rape case and with VR Sudarshan and Hormis Tharakan. There was a coverage of the event in <a href="https://cis-india.org/news/cadcbecb0ca4caf-ca1cbfc8eca8ccdc8e-caaccdcb0cabcb2cbfc82c97ccd-caecb8cc2ca6cc6caf-cb8cb3cc1ca8c9f">Kannada media</a>. Public lectures were organised in Bengaluru and Delhi:</p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/uk-dna-database-and-european-court-of-human-rights-lessons-that-india-can-learn-from-mistakes">UK DNA Database and the European Court of Human Rights: Lessons that India can Learn from Its Mistakes</a> (organised by CIS and Alternative Law Forum, September 24, 2012): Helen Wallace from GeneWatch, UK and Jeremy Gruber from the Council for Responsible Genetics in the United States gave a public lecture.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/the-dna-profiling-bill-developing-best-practices">The DNA Profiling Bill: Developing Best Practices</a> (India International Centre, New Delhi, September 27, 2012): International experts Helen Wallace from GeneWatch UK, and Jeremy Gruber from the Council for Responsible Genetics from the United States gave a public lecture. Elonnai Hickok participated in the event.</li>
</ul>
<p><b>Blog Entry</b></p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/public-meeting-on-dna-profiling-bill">A Public Meeting on DNA Profiling Bill in Delhi</a> (by Elonnai Hickok, September 29, 2012): Elonnai has blogged about the public lecture delivered by Dr. Helen Wallace, Jeremy Gruber and Dr. Anupuma Raina.</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Upcoming IGF Events</b><br />At the seventh annual IGF meeting to be held in Baku, Azerbaijan in November 2012, CIS is organising one workshop:</p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/national-ig-mechanisms">National IG Mechanisms – Looking at Some Key Design Issues</a> (co-organising with Brazilian Internet Steering Committee, Institute for System Analysis, Russian Academy of Sciences, et.al., November 8, 2012 from 2.30 p.m. to 4.00 p.m.</li>
</ul>
<p>Sunil Abraham will be a panelist in the following workshop:</p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/new-trends-in-industry-self-governance">New Trends in Industry Self-Governance</a> (organised by Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford, UK and Media Change & Innovation Division, IPMZ, University of Zurich, Switzerland and Nominet, UK, November 7, 2012 from 4.30 p.m. to 6.00 p.m).</li>
</ul>
<p>CIS fellow Malavika Jayaram is a panelist for these workshops:</p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/intgovforum-cms-w2012-proposals">Civil rights in the digital age, about the impact the Internet has on civil rights</a> (organised by ECP on behalf of the IGF-NL, November 7, 2012, 4.30 p.m. to 6.00 p.m.).</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/intgovforum-cms-w2012-proposals-governing-identity-on-the-internet">Governing Identity on the Internet</a> (organised by Brenden Kuerbis, Citizen Lab and Christine Runnegar, Internet Society, November 8, 2012, 11.00 a.m. to 12.30 p.m.).</li>
</ul>
<p><b>Events Participated</b></p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/second-freedom-online-conference-in-nairobi">Second Freedom Online Conference</a> (organised by the Ministry of Information and Communications, Republic of Kenya in partnership with the government of Netherlands at UN complex in Gigiri, Nairobi, September 6 and 7, 2012). Pranesh Prakash was a panelist in the session on Access to Internet: Challenges and Opportunities. </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/multi-stakeholder-discussion-on-indias-position-in-the-un-for-un-cirp">Multi-stakeholder Discussion on India’s Position in UN for Internet Governance UN Committee for Internet Related Policies</a> (Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry, New Delhi, September 19, 2012): Sunil Abraham was a panelist.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/seventh-meeting-of-group-of-experts-sept-18-2012-under-chairmanship-of-justice-shah">Seventh Meeting of the Group of Experts on Privacy Issues under the Chairmanship of Justice AP Shah</a> (Committee Room No. 228, Yojana Bhawan, Sansad Marg, New Delhi): Sunil Abraham participated in this meeting. This was the final meeting of the series.</li>
</ul>
<p><b>Talk</b></p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Talk at Yale University (New Haven, September 19, 2012): Pranesh Prakash gave a talk on censorship, intermediary liability, and the way forward. </li>
</ul>
<p><b>Video</b></p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/conference-apnic-net-aug-28-2012-internet-governance-plenary">Internet Governance Plenary</a> (August 28, Tokyo, Japan): Sunil Abraham was a panelist along with Ang Peng Hwa, Paul Wilson, Duangthip Chomprang and Raul Echeberria at this event organised by APNIC on August 28, 2012. Kuo Wei Wu, CEO, National Information Infrastructure Enterprise Promotion Association (NIIEPA) was the moderator. </li>
</ul>
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<h2><a href="https://cis-india.org/about/openness">Openness</a></h2>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">The 'Openness' programme critically examines alternatives to existing regimes of intellectual property rights, and transparency and accountability. Under this programme, we study Open Government Data, Open Access to Scholarly Literature, Open Access to Law, Open Content, Open Standards, and Free/Libre/Open Source Software:<b><br />Featured Research</b></p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/openness/indic-language-wikipedias-statistical-report-jan-june-2012">Indic Language Wikipedias – Statistical Report</a> (January – June 2012) (by Shiju Alex, September 25, 2012): Shiju Alex provides a compilation of the statistical update of the Indic language Wikipedias from January to June 2012. He provides perspectives on the health of various Indic language communities as well as the state of various Indic language Wikipedias during the period.</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Workshop Reports</b><br />Although most of the following workshops were conducted prior to the grant period, the report for all of these was written in the month of September, and hence, we are featuring these.</p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/openness/first-punjabi-wikipedia-workshop">The First Punjabi Wikipedia Workshop</a> (by Shiju Alex and Subhashish Panigrahi, September 27, 2012): This post is about the first Punjabi Wikipedia workshop held in Ludhiana, Punjab on July 28, 2012. Surinder Wadhawan, a Mumbai based Wikipedian played an important role in designing this workshop and introducing Punjabi Wikipedia to the Punjabi speakers. Long-term Punjabi wikipedian G.S.Guglani also joined this workshop. The event was covered in the <a href="http://bit.ly/UMrDvs">Tribune</a>, <a href="http://bit.ly/UMrNTn">Hindustan Times</a>, <a href="http://bit.ly/UZhoT8">Punjab Infoline</a>, and <a href="http://bit.ly/OcMANc">YesPunjab.com</a>. </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/openness/blog/punjabi-wikipedia-workshop-at-punjabi-university-patiala">Punjabi Wikipedia Workshop at Punjabi University, Patiala</a> (by Shiju Alex and Subhashish Panigrahi, September 28, 2012): A Wikipedia workshop was organized at the Punjabi University's Punjabi Department on August 16, 2012. Veteran Punjabi wikipedian G.S. Guglani came forward to spread the message of Punjabi Wikipedia among Punjabi speakers.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/openness/blog/punjabi-wikipedia-workshop-at-amritsar">Punjabi Wikipedia Workshop at Amritsar</a> (by Shiju Alex and Subhashish Panigrahi, September 30, 2012): The workshop was held at the Spring Dale Senior School, Amritsar on August 17, 2012. Nearly 50 participants including students and teachers from eight different schools apart from the students and teachers of Spring Dale School attended the workshop. One of the active and long-time Punjabi Wikipedian Guglani Gurdip Singh led the workshop with the active support from Shiju and Subhasish.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/openness/report-of-the-wikipedia-workshop-in-british-library">Wikipedia Workshop in British Library, Chandigarh</a> (by Subhashish Panigrahi, September 27, 2012): A Wikipedia workshop was organized in Chandigarh by the British Library over two days on August 24 and 25, 2012. Bipin Kumar, Head of British Library and Christina, Deputy Manager had pivotal roles in designing this workshop with support from Piyush, a wikipedian. The session on Day 1 was conducted by Subhashish Panigrahi and the session on Day 2 was conducted by Subhashish and Piyush.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/openness/kannada-wiki-workshop-tumkur-university">Kannada Wiki Workshop at Tumkur University</a> (Tumkur, Karnataka, September 15, 2012): This was the first Kannada Wikipedia workshop at Tumkur. Prof. Ashwin Kumar from the Department of English, Tumkur University and Kannada wikipedians, Om Shiva Prakash, Hareesh, Tejus and Pavithra played vital roles in organising this workshop. Shiju Alex participated in this workshop. About 30 participants including students and teachers participated in this workshop.</li>
</ul>
<p><b>Blog Entries</b></p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/openness/editor-growth-and-contribution-on-telegu-wikipedia">Editor Growth & Contribution Program on Telugu Wikipedia</a> (by Nitika Tandon, September 29, 2012): Nitika Tandon tells us about the Editor Growth & Contribution Program on Telegu Wikipedia, how it will run, its necessity and the future steps.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/openness/blog/wikipedia-hyderabad-report">Wikipedia comes to Hyderabad!</a> (by Noopur Raval, September 30, 2012): A series of Wikipedia meetings were organized in Hyderabad on September 29 and 30, 2012. These workshops were a part of the larger effort to help Wikipedia contributors in the same city to meet each other and strengthen the local community. There was coverage about this event in the <a href="http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-features/tp-metroplus/drumming-session/article3943855.ece">Hindu</a> on September 28, 2012.</li>
</ul>
<p><b>Event Organised</b></p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/thinking-with-data">Thinking with Data@CIS</a> (CIS, Bengaluru, September 16 – 18, 2012): The course offered at the National Institute of Advanced Studies was screened in CIS office.</li>
</ul>
<table class="vertical listing">
<tbody>
<tr>
<th>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>HasGeek</b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">HasGeek creates discussion spaces for geeks and has organised conferences like the <a href="http://fifthelephant.in/2012/">Fifth Elephant</a>, <a href="http://droidcon.in/2011">Droidcon India 2011</a>, <a href="http://androidcamp.hasgeek.com/">Android Camp</a>, etc. HasGeek is supported by CIS and works out from CIS office in Bengaluru. The following event was organised by HasGeek in the month of September:</p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/cartonama-conference">Cartonama Conference</a> (TERI Complex, Bengaluru, September 22, 2012). The event was organised by HasGeek with support from CIS.</li>
</ul>
</th>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p> </p>
<hr />
<h2><a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives">Digital Natives</a></h2>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Digital Natives with a Cause? examines the changing landscape of social change and political participation in light of the role that young people play through digital and Internet technologies, in emerging information societies. Consolidating knowledge from Asia, Africa and Latin America, it builds a global network of knowledge partners who critically engage with discourse on youth, technology and social change, and look at alternative practices and ideas in the Global South:</p>
<p><b>Newspaper Column</b></p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/www-indianexpress-com-one-zero">One. Zero.</a> (Nishant Shah, Indian Express, September 16, 2012): “The digital world is the world of twos. All our complex interactions, emotional negotiations, business transactions, social communication and political subscriptions online can be reduced to a string of 1s and 0s, as machines create the networks for the human beings to speak.”</li>
</ul>
<hr />
<h3><a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/pathways">Pathways to Higher Education</a></h3>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The Pathways Project to Higher Education is a collaboration between the Higher Education Innovation and Research Applications at the Centre for the Study of Culture and Society and CIS. The project is supported by the Ford Foundation and works with disadvantaged students in nine undergraduate colleges in Maharashtra, Karnataka and Kerala, to explore relationships between Technologies, Higher Education and the new forms of social justice in India. Training workshops were organised in the month of September at Xaviers in Mumbai on September 6, 2012 and in Newman College, Thodupuzha from September 17 to 20, 2012. Each workshop had 25-30 undergraduate students from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds. They were trained to use digital technologies in order to think through problems of social justice.</p>
<hr />
<h2><a href="https://cis-india.org/raw">Researchers at Work</a></h2>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">From 2012 to 2015, the RAW series will build research clusters in the field of Digital Humanities. The Habits of Living: Global Networks, Local Affects is a global collaborative project to renew the conceptual power of networks. It concentrates on changing the habits of living. The Department of Modern Culture and Media at Brown University is an important locus.</p>
<p>CIS organised the Habits of Living Workshop in Bangalore from September 26 to 29, 2012. Jadine Lannon and Alok Vaid-Menon live blogged about the event:</p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-humanities/blogs/habits-of-living/habits-of-living-live-blog-introduction" class="external-link">Habits of Living Thinkathon - Day 1 Live Blog: Introduction</a> (by Jadine Lannon, September 26, 2012).</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-humanities/blogs/habits-of-living/habits-of-living-day-1-pecha-kucha" class="external-link">Habits of Living Thinkathon - Day 1 Live Blog: PechaKucha</a> (by Jadine Lannon, September 27, 2012).</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-humanities/blogs/habits-of-living/habits-of-living-globalising-lady-gaga" class="external-link">Habits of Living Thinkathon - Day 1 Live Blog: Globalising Lady GaGa</a> (by Alok Vaid-Menon, September 27, 2012).</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-humanities/blogs/habits-of-living/habits-of-living-day-2-water-in-india" class="external-link">Habits of Living Thinkathon - Day 2 Live Blog: Deepak Menon on Water in India</a> (by Jadine Lannon, September 27, 2012).</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-humanities/blogs/habits-of-living/habits-of-living-day-2-technology-and-feminism" class="external-link">Habits of Living Thinkathon - Day 2 Live Blog: On Technology and Affective Indian Feminism(s)</a> (by Alok Vaid-Menon, September 27, 2012).</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-humanities/blogs/habits-of-living/habits-of-living-radhika-gajjala-lectures-on-e-philanthropy" class="external-link">Habits of Living Thinkathon - Day 2 Live Blog: Radhika Gajjala Lectures on e-Philanthropy</a> (by Jadine Lannon, September 27, 2012).</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-humanities/habits-of-living-thinkathon-day-3-live-blog-joshua-neeves-on-media-archipelagos">Habits of Living Thinkathon - Day 3 Live Blog: Joshua Neves on Media Archipelagos</a> (by Jadine Lannon, September 26, 2012).</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-humanities/blogs/habits-of-living/habits-of-living-day-4-finding-and-funding-the-masses" class="external-link">Habits of Living Thinkathon - Day 4 Live Blog: Finding and Funding the Masses</a> (by Alok Vaid-Menon, September 26, 2012).</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-humanities/blogs/habits-of-living/habits-of-living-day-3-exhibition-space" class="external-link">Habits of Living Thinkathon - Day 3 Live Blog: Akansha Rastogi's Performance on Exhibition Space</a> <br />(by Jadine Lannon, September 30, 2012).</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-humanities/blogs/habits-of-living/habits-of-living-day-4-wendy-chun-on-friends" class="external-link">Habits of Living Thinkathon - Day 4 Live Blog: Wendy Chun on Friends</a> (by Jadine Lannon, September 30, 2012).</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-humanities/blogs/habits-of-living/habits-of-living-day-4-amateur-photography" class="external-link">Habits of Living Thinkathon - Day 4 Live Blog: Namita Malhotra on Amateur Pornography</a> (by Jadine Lannon, September 30, 2012).</li>
</ul>
<hr />
<h2><a href="https://cis-india.org/telecom">Telecom</a></h2>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">While the potential for growth and returns exist for telecommunications in India, a range of issues need to be addressed. One aspect is more extensive rural coverage and the other is a countrywide access to broadband which is low. Both require effective and efficient use of networks and resources, including spectrum:</p>
<h3><a href="https://cis-india.org/telecom/telecom-knowledge-repository/knowledge-and-capacity-around-telecom-policy">Building Knowledge and Capacity around Telecommunication Policy in India</a></h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Ford Foundation has given a grant of USD 2,00,000 to CIS to build expertise in the area of telecommunications in India. The knowledge repository deals with these modules: Introduction to Telecommunications, Telecommunications Infrastructure and Technologies, Government of India Regulatory Framework for Telecom, Telecommunication and the Market, Universal Access and Accessibility, The International Telecommunications Union and other international bodies, Broadcasting, Emerging Topics and Way Forward. Dr. Surendra Pal, Satya N Gupta, Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, Payal Malik, Dr. Rakesh Mehrotra and Dr. Nadeem Akhtar are the expert reviewers.</p>
<p><span class="visualHighlight">The following are the new outputs:</span></p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/telecom/telecom-knowledge-repository/associations-regulating-broadcasting-in-india">Associations Regulating Broadcasting in India</a> (by Srividya Vaidyanathan, September 11, 2012): Broadcast regulation in India is currently an intricate web, with multiple agencies involved in formulating and implementing policy, drafting and enforcing legislation.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/home-1/telecom/telecom-knowledge-repository/optical-fibre">Optical Fibre</a> (by Srividya Vaidyanathan, September 11, 2012): This unit tells us what is optical fibre, the types of optical fibres, how does an optical fibre work, fibre-optic relay system, and why are optical fibres uses in telecommunication systems.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/home-1/telecom/telecom-knowledge-repository/direct-to-home">Direct to Home</a> (by Srividya Vaidyanathan, September 18, 2012): This unit tells us about Direct to home television, its history, how it works, the programming, its advantages and disadvantages are discussed in this module.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/home-1/telecom/telecom-knowledge-repository/cable-tv">Cable Television</a> (by Srividya Vaidyanathan, September 18, 2012): This unit brings you the history and evolution of cable television in India, talks about other cable based services, cable television digitization rule and the end consumer in India.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/home-1/telecom/telecom-knowledge-repository/private-fm">Private FMs</a> (Commercial, Campus and Community Radios) (by Srividya Vaidyanathan, September 24, 2012): This unit introduces us to AM and FM, tells us the role of private FMs including what is a community radio and what is a campus radio.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/telecom/telecom-knowledge-repository/types-of-radio-broadcasting-in-india">Types of Radio Broadcasting in India</a> (by Srividya Vaidyanathan, September 28, 2012): This unit tells us what is radio broadcasting, takes us through the history of radio broadcasting in India, explains what is AM and FM in the Indian context.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/home-1/telecom/telecom-knowledge-repository/air-and-its-operations">A History of All India Radio and Its Operations</a> (by Srividya Vaidyanathan, September 29, 2012): This module gives us a picture of the history of All India Radio and its operations. </li>
</ul>
<p><b>Newspaper Column</b></p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/telecom/organizing-india-blogspot-in-shyam-ponappa-sep-5-2012-changing-our-game">Changing Our Game</a> (by Shyam Ponappa, Business Standard, September 5, 2012): “Adopting 'co-ordination models' like the Stag Hunt could reduce contention and improve outcomes.” This was re-posted in <a href="http://organizing-india.blogspot.in/2012/09/changing-our-game.html">Organizing India blogspot</a>.</li>
</ul>
<p><b>Event Participated</b></p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://www.mach.com/en/News-Events/Events/Insights/Insights-India-2012">Insights India 2012</a> (organised by MACH, Bangalore, September 26 – 28, 2012): Snehashish Ghosh and Srividya Vaidyanathan participated in this event.</li>
</ul>
<hr />
<h2><a href="https://cis-india.org/about/">About CIS</a></h2>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">CIS was registered as a society in Bangalore in 2008. As an independent, non-profit research organisation, it runs different policy research programmes such as Accessibility, Access to Knowledge, Openness, Internet Governance, and Telecom. Over the last four years our policy research programmes have resulted in outputs such as the <a href="https://cis-india.org/advocacy/accessibility/blog/e-accessibility-handbook">e-Accessibility Policy Handbook for Persons with Disabilities</a> with ITU and G3ict, and <a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/front-page/blog/dnbook">Digital Alternatives with a Cause?</a>, <a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/front-page/blog/position-papers">Thinkathon Position Papers</a> and the <a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/front-page/blog/digital-natives-with-a-cause-a-report">Digital Natives with a Cause? Report</a> with Hivos. With the Government of India we have done policy research for Ministry of Communications & Information Technology, Ministry of Human Resource Development, Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, etc., on <a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blog/cis-analysis-july2011-treaty-print-disabilities">WIPO Treaties</a>, <a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blog/analysis-copyright-amendment-bill-2012">Copyright Bill</a>, <a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/front-page/blog/cis-feedback-to-nia-bill">NIA Bill</a>, etc.</p>
<p>CIS is an accredited NGO at WIPO and has given policy briefs to delegations from various countries, our Programme Manager, Nirmita Narasimhan won the <a href="https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/national-award">National Award for Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities</a> from the Government of India and also received the <a href="https://cis-india.org/news/nirmita-nivh-award">NIVH Excellence Award</a>.</p>
<hr />
<p><b>*Follow us elsewhere*</b></p>
<hr />
<ul>
<li>Get short, timely messages from us on Twitter</li>
<li>Join the CIS group on <a href="http://www.facebook.com/groups/28535315687/">Facebook</a></li>
<li>Visit us at <a href="https://cis-india.org/">http://cis-india.org</a></li>
</ul>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; "><i>CIS is grateful to its donors, Wikimedia Foundation, Ford Foundation, Privacy International, UK, Hans Foundation and the Kusuma Trust which was founded by Anurag Dikshit and Soma Pujari, philanthropists of Indian origin, for its core funding and support for most of its projects.</i></p>
<hr />
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/september-2012-bulletin'>https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/september-2012-bulletin</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaAccess to KnowledgeDigital NativesTelecomAccessibilityInternet GovernanceCISRAWOpenness2012-10-09T06:48:33ZPageSeptember 2011 Bulletin
https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/september-2011-bulletin
<b>Greetings from the Centre for Internet and Society! In this issue we are pleased to present you the latest updates about our research, upcoming events, and news and media coverage that happened in the month of September 2011.</b>
<h2><b>Researchers@Work</b></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">RAW is a multidisciplinary research initiative. CIS believes that in order to understand the contemporary concerns in the field of Internet and society, it is necessary to produce local and contextual accounts of the interaction between the Internet and socio-cultural and geo-political structures. To build original research base, the RAW programme has been collaborating with different organizations and individuals in order to focus on its two year thematic of Histories of the Internets in India. Five monographs were recently launched at a workshop, <a href="https://cis-india.org/research/conferences/conference-blogs/workshop">Locating Internets: Histories of the Internet(s) in India — Research Training and Curriculum</a> held in Ahmedabad from 19 to 22 August 2011.</p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/rewiring-bodies">Re:Wiring Bodies</a> by Asha Achuthan</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/last-cultural-mile">The Last Cultural Mile</a> by Ashish Rajadhyaksha</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/porn-law-video-technology">Porn: Law, Video, Technology</a> by Namita A Malhotra </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/archives-and-access">Archives and Access</a> by Aparna Balachandran and Rochelle Pinto </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/internet-society-space">Internet, Society and Space in Indian Cities</a> by Pratyush Shankar</li>
</ul>
<p><b> </b></p>
<h2><b>Digital Natives with a Cause?</b></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Digital Natives with a Cause? is a knowledge programme initiated by CIS, India and Hivos, Netherlands. It is a research inquiry that seeks to look at the changing landscape of social change and political participation and the role that young people play through digital and Internet technologies, in emerging information societies. Consolidating knowledge from Asia, Africa and Latin America, it builds a global network of knowledge partners who want to critically engage with the dominant discourse on youth, technology and social change, in order to look at the alternative practices and ideas in the Global South. It also aims at building new ecologies that amplify and augment the interventions and actions of the digitally young as they shape our futures.</p>
<h3>Featured Publication</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/dnbook">Digital AlterNatives with a Cause?</a> - This collaboratively produced collective, edited by Nishant Shah and Fieke Jansen, asks critical and pertinent questions about theory and practice around ‘digital revolutions’ in a post MENA (Middle East - North Africa) world. It works with multiple vocabularies and frameworks and produces dialogues and conversations between digital natives, academic and research scholars, practitioners, development agencies and corporate structures to examine the nature and practice of digital natives in emerging contexts from the Global South.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Book Review</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/digital-alternatives-book-review">Digital (Alter)Natives with a Cause? — Book Review by Maarten van den Berg</a> - The books come in a beautifully designed cassette and are accompanied by a funky yellow package in the shape of a floppy disk containing the booklet ‘D:coding Digital Natives’, a corresponding DVD, and a pack of postcards portraying the evolution of writing - in the sentence ‘I love you’, written with a goose feather in 1734, to the character set ‘i<3u’ entered on a mobile device in 2011, writes Maarten van den Berg. The review was published in "<a href="http://www.thebrokeronline.eu/Articles/Digital-Alter-Natives">The Broker</a>" on 19 September 2011.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Event Organised</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/events/book-launch">Digital AlterNatives book launch</a> – CIS and Hivos launched this book at the Museum for Communication, Hague on 16 September 2011.</li>
</ul>
<h2><b>Accessibility</b></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Estimates of the percentage of the world's population that is disabled vary considerably. But what is certain is that if we count functional disability, then a large proportion of the world's population is disabled in one way or another. At CIS we work to ensure that the digital technologies, which empower disabled people and provide them with independence, are allowed to do so in practice and by the law. To this end, we support web accessibility guidelines, and change in copyright laws that currently disempower the persons with disabilities.</p>
<h3>Event Participated</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/usof-meeting">Stakeholders Meeting of the USOF on Facilitating ICT Access to Persons with Disabilities in Rural Areas</a>, on 7 September 2011. Nirmita Narasimhan made a presentation.</li>
</ul>
<h2><b>Access to Knowledge</b></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Access to Knowledge is a campaign to promote the fundamental principles of justice, freedom, and economic development. It deals with issues like copyrights, patents, and trademarks, which are an important part of the digital landscape. CIS believes that access to knowledge and culture is essential, and such access promotes creativity and innovation, and helps bridge the differences between the developing and developed worlds in a positive manner. Towards this end, CIS is campaigning for an international treaty on copyright exceptions for print-challenged people, advocating against laws (such as the PUPFIP Bill) that privatize public-funded knowledge, call for the WIPO Broadcast Treaty to be restricted to broadcast, question the demonization of 'pirates', and support endeavours that explore and question the current copyright regime.</p>
<p><b> </b></p>
<h3>New Blog Entries</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blog/copyright-bill-parliament">Copyright Amendment Bill in Parliament</a> by Nirmita Narasimhan, 30 August 2011.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/photocopying-the-past">Photocopying the past</a> by Sunil Abraham in the Indian Express, 2 September 2011.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/calling-out-the-bsa-on-bs">Calling Out the BSA on Its BS</a> by Pranesh Prakash, 9 September 2011.</li>
</ul>
<p><b> </b></p>
<h2><b>Internet Governance</b></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Internet technologies have fundamentally questioned the notion of governance, not only at the level of administration but also at the level of mechanisms of control, regulation and shaping of the individual. e-Governance initiatives, in combination with other regimes of surveillance, control and censorship, are redefining what it means to be a citizen, a subject, and an individual. We look at questions of governance — at the micro level of the individual and the private (family, relationships, community structures, etc.) as well as the level of governmentality — at the macro level of nation state, citizenship, market economies, and the public (spaces of consumption, work, leisure, political engagement, etc.) under the umbrella of digital governance.</p>
<h3>New Blog Entry</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/understanding-right-to-information">Understanding the Right to Information</a> by Elonnai Hickok, 28 September 2011.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Events Organised</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/events/internet-as-a-tool-for-political-change">Using the Internet as a Tool for Political Change: Lessons Learned and Way Forward</a>, IGF, Nairobi, 27 September 2011. </li>
</ul>
<h2><b>Telecom</b></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The growth in telecommunications in India has been impressive. While the potential for growth and returns exist, a range of issues need to be addressed for this potential to be realized. One aspect is more extensive rural coverage and the second aspect is a countrywide access to broadband which is low at about eight million subscriptions. Both require effective and efficient use of networks and resources, including spectrum. It is imperative to resolve these issues in the common interest of users and service providers.</p>
<h3>Articles by Shyam Ponappa</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Shyam Ponappa is a Distinguished Fellow at CIS. He writes regularly on Telecom issues in the Business Standard and these articles are mirrored on the CIS website.</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/reviving-growth">Reviving Growth</a>, published in the Business Standard on 1 September 2011.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Event Organised</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/events/open-spectrum-for-development-in-the-context-of-the-digital-migration">Open Spectrum for Development in the Context of the Digital Migration</a>, IGF, Nairobi, 29 September 2011.</li>
</ul>
<p><b> </b></p>
<h2><b>Miscellaneous</b></h2>
<h3>Film Screening</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/events/partners-in-crime">Screening of Partners in Crime</a>, Vikalp@Smriti Nandan along with CIS screened the film and followed it with a discussion with the director of the film, Paromita Vohra, Smriti Nandan Cultural Centre, 9 September 2011.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/events/workshop-rsa-encryption">Prime Security: The Mathematics of RSA Encryption</a>, a one-day workshop with Rohit Gupta, a leading Mathematician.</li>
</ul>
<p><b> </b></p>
<h2><b>News & Media Coverage</b></h2>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/social-media-masks-forgotten-protests">India's social media "spring" masks forgotten protests</a> [Alistair Scrutton in Reuters, 25 August 2011].</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/social-media-key-to-hazare-success">Social media holds the key to Hazare's campaign success</a> [Alistair Scrutton in NEWS.scotsman.com, 26 August 2011].</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/digital-divide">Digital divide: Why Irom Sharmila can’t do an Anna</a> [FirstPost.Ideas, 25 August 2011].</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/revolutions-viral?searchterm=When+revolutions+go+viral+">When revolutions go viral</a> [Times of India (Crescent Edition), 27 August 2011].</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/ibsa-seminar">IBSA Seminar on Global Internet Governance</a>, organised by the Brazilian Ministry of External Relations, with support from the Brazilian Internet Steering Committee (CGI.br) and the Center for Technology & Society (CTS/FGV) and governmental and non- governmental actors from India, Brazil and South Africa, 1 to 2 September 2011, Fundacao Getulio Vargas (FGV) - Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Pranesh Prakash participated in this event.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/copyright-amendment-bill-in-indian-parliament">Copyrights Amendment Bill to Be Tabled in Indian Parliament – Parallel Import provisions have Been Removed</a> [Mike Palmedo in infojustice.org, 5 September 2011]</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/power-of-information">The Power of Information: New Technologies for Philanthropy and Development</a> [Indigo Trust, 15 September 2011]. Sunil Abraham participated in this event. A video of his speech is now available on <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhpLkEhn9AY">YouTube</a>.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/using-social-media-to-understand-peoples-pulse">Planning Commission, Census 2011 and India Post using social media to understand people's pulse better</a> [Vikas Kumar in the Economic Times, 20 September 2011]</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/foss-instrument-for-accessible-development">The Impact of Regulation: FOSS and Enterprise</a>, organised by FOSSFA and ICFOSS, IGF, Nairobi, 28 September 2011. </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/privacy-security-access-to-rights">Privacy, Security, and Access to Rights: A Technical and Policy Analyses</a>, organised by Expression Technologies, IGF, Nairobi, 29 September 2011. </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/how-can-privacy-be-protected">Putting Users First: How Can Privacy be Protected in Today’s Complex Mobile Ecosystem?</a>, organised by GSM Association, 29 September 2011.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/truman-show-in-kerala">The Truman Show, in Kerala</a> [Times of India, posted on CIS website on 23 September 2011].</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/making-difference-online-offline">Making a difference, online and offline</a> [LiveMint, 27 September 2011].</li>
</ul>
<h2>Follow us elsewhere</h2>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Get short, timely messages from us on <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=456&qid=46981" target="_blank">Twitter</a></li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Follow CIS on <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=457&qid=46981" target="_blank">identi.ca</a></li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Join the CIS group on <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=458&qid=46981" target="_blank">Facebook</a></li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Visit us at <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=459&qid=46981" target="_blank">www.cis-india.org</a></li>
</ul>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; "><i>CIS is grateful to Kusuma Trust which was founded by Anurag Dikshit and Soma Pujari, philanthropists of Indian origin, for its core funding and support for most of its projects.</i></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/september-2011-bulletin'>https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/september-2011-bulletin</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaAccess to KnowledgeDigital NativesTelecomAccessibilityInternet GovernanceCISRAW2012-07-30T06:34:19ZPageSeptember 2010 Bulletin
https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/september-2010-bulletin
<b>Greetings from the Centre for Internet and Society! In this bulletin we bring you updates of our research, news and media coverage and announcement of events organised in the month of September 2010.</b>
<h2><b>News Updates</b></h2>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Conference: Internet at Liberty 2010: This conference is being held in Budapest from 20 to 22 September 2010. It is co-sponsored by Google and Central European University. Sunil Abraham and Anja Kovacs are attending the conference. <a href="http://bit.ly/afo0WY" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/afo0WY</a> </li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "> INDIA Fears of Privacy Loss Pursue Ambitious ID Project: Fears about loss of privacy are being voiced as India gears up to launch an ambitious scheme to biometrically identify and number each of its 1.2 billion inhabitants. <a href="http://bit.ly/dnJDRu" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/dnJDRu</a> </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Innovate / Activate: The event will be held on 24 and 25 September 2010 at New York Law School. <a href="http://bit.ly/cbICFq" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/cbICFq</a> </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Webinar: Closed for Business: A Global Panel Discusses International Copyright Laws and Their Impact on the Open Internet <a href="http://bit.ly/a3ZFBw" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/a3ZFBw</a> </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">The madness of software patents <br />India’s patent law excludes software per se, yet over a thousand patents have been granted, writes Lata Jishnu in an article published in Down to Earth. <a href="http://bit.ly/cpHd7R" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/cpHd7R</a> </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Why piracy is tough to rein in <br />“Video market is being treated as a poor cousin of the film industry” <a href="http://bit.ly/aDUpiY" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/aDUpiY</a> </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Transparency and MDGs: the Role of the Media and Technology <br />Key quotes from sixth panel <a href="http://bit.ly/b3a0YC" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/b3a0YC</a> </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Copyright bill restricts Net access <br />Law to curb piracy may fetter creativity <a href="http://bit.ly/cFj3rD" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/cFj3rD</a> </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">科技改變社會 數位原生代計畫 <br />The Chinese language press covered the Digital Natives workshop in Taipei. <a href="http://bit.ly/bPhEO4" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/bPhEO4</a> </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">科技改變社會數位原生代掀波 <br />The Chinese press published an article on Digital Natives. <a href="http://bit.ly/bHaQor" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/bHaQor</a> </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Information is Beautiful hacks in India with David Cameron <br />The Prime Minister took some of the UK's top hackers and data experts with him to India this week. David McCandless was with them. <a href="http://bit.ly/dr3AJ2" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/dr3AJ2</a> </li>
</ul>
<hr />
<h2><b>Events</b></h2>
<ul>
<li>International Conference on Enabling Access to Education through ICT: ICT workshop in New Delhi from 27th to 29th October, 2010...Registrations open!<a href="http://bit.ly/9flyEK" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/9flyEK</a> </li>
<li>A Talk by Philipp Schmidt: Philip Schmidt of Peer 2 Peer University will be giving a lecture at the Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore on 6 October, 2010. <a href="http://bit.ly/aVyzMq" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/aVyzMq</a> </li>
</ul>
<hr />
<h2><b>Research</b></h2>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">On Talking Back: A Report on the Taiwan Workshop: What does it mean to Talk Back? Who do we Talk Back against? Are we alone in our attempts or a part of a larger community? How do we use digital technologies to find other peers and stake-holders? What is the language and vocabulary we use to successfully articulate our problems? How do we negotiate with structures of power to fight for our rights? These were the kind of questions that the Talking Back workshop held in the Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica in Taiwan from 16 to 18 August 2010 posed. <a href="http://bit.ly/daE4dM" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/daE4dM</a> </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">The Binary: City and Nature: A continuation of the last post wherein I am looking at various other representation of the city in both classical and popular medium, today I am writing my views on the analysis of certain Miniature paintings. <a href="http://bit.ly/b5FP5D" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/b5FP5D</a> </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Of the State and the Governments - The Abstract, the Concrete and the Responsive: This post examines the concepts of state and government to lay the ground for understanding responsiveness enforced through transparency discourses and the deployment of ICTs, the Internet and e-governance programmes. It also lays the context for understanding why and how ICTs. Internet and e-governance have been deployed in India for improving government-citizen interfaces, eliminating middlemen, delivering services electronically and for introducing a range of similar reforms to institute transparency and a responsive state. <a href="http://bit.ly/cNLKcY" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/cNLKcY</a> </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">The Responsive State --- Introduction to the Series: This post is an introduction to a series of posts on the concept of the 'responsive state'. In this series, I try to explain the various meanings that the term responsiveness has come to acquire when it is used in relation with the discourses surrounding transparency and the deployment of ICTs and the Internet to enforce transparency and thereby create a responsive state. Understanding the notion of responsiveness requires us to revisit and analyze certain concepts and the relations that have been drawn between concepts such as state, government, politics, administration, transparency, effectiveness, government-citizen interface, ICTs and effectiveness, among others. <a href="http://bit.ly/agBOiq" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/agBOiq</a> </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Attentional Capital in Online Gaming: The Currency of Survival <br />This blog post by Arun Menon discusses the concepts of production, labour and race in virtual worlds and their influence on the production of attention as a currency. An attempt is made to locate attentional capital, attentional repositories and attention currencies within gaming to examine 'attention currencies and its trade and transactions in virtual worlds. A minimal collection of attention currencies are placed as central and as a pre-requisite for survival in MMOs in much the same way that real currency become a necessity for survival. The approach is to locate attentional capital through different perspectives as well as examine a few concepts around virtual worlds. <a href="http://bit.ly/aaGZj8" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/aaGZj8</a> </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">What's in a Name? Or Why Clicktivism May Not Be Ruining Left Activism in India, At Least for Now: In a recent piece in the Guardian titled “Clicktivism Is Ruining Leftist Activism”, Micah White expressed severe concern that, in drawing on tactics of advertising and marketing research, digital activism is undermining “the passionate, ideological and total critique of consumer society”. His concerns are certainly shared by some in India: White's piece has been circulating on activist email lists where people noted with concern that e-activism may be replacing “the real thing” even in this country. But is the situation in India really this dire? <a href="http://bit.ly/9a3I0G" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/9a3I0G</a> </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Sexuality, Queerness and Internet technologies in Indian context: This blog post lays out the discursive construction of sexuality and queerness as intelligible domains in the Indian context while engaging with ideas of visibility, representation, exclusion, publicness, criminality, difference, tradition, experience, and community that have come into use with the critical responses to queer identities and practices in India. <a href="http://bit.ly/byfPye" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/byfPye</a> </li>
</ul>
<hr />
<h2><b>Accessibility</b></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Enabling Access to Education through ICT - A Conference in Delhi: The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), Bangalore in cooperation with the Global Initiative for Inclusive ICT (G3ICT), a flagship advocacy organization of the UN Global Alliance on ICT and Development (UN-GAID), the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), UNESCO, Digital Empowerment Foundation, Society for Promotion of Alternative Computing and Employment and the Deafway Foundation is organizing an international conference, Enabling Access to Education through ICT in New Delhi from 27 to 29 October 2010. The event is sponsored by Hans Foundation. Registration for the conference has begun. <a href="http://bit.ly/bmrkf7" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/bmrkf7</a></p>
<hr />
<h2><b>Access to Knowledge<br /></b></h2>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Pre-grant Opposition Filed for a Software Patent Application by Blackberry Manufacturers: A pre-grant opposition was filed against a software patent application filed in the patent office by Certicom, a wholly owned subsidiary of Research in Motion (RIM), manufacturers of Blackberry. The opposition was filed on August 31, 2010 by the Software Freedom Law Centre which has recently expanded its operations to India. This exciting development was announced by Mishi Choudhary from SFLC on the lines of the seminar on “Software Patents and the Commons” organised on 1 September 2010 in Delhi jointly by SFLC, the Centre for Internet and Society, the Society for Knowledge Commons and Red Hat. Filing more such oppositions to software patents in India was in the pipeline and this is just the beginning of a movement to take on monopolisation of knowledge and ideas through patenting software, the organisers said. <a href="http://bit.ly/9wE1Xs" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/9wE1Xs</a> </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">First Post-Bilski Decision - Software Patent Rejected: In the first decision post-Bilski, the Board of Patents Appeals and Interferences (BPAI) rejected a software patent claimed by Hewlett-Packard. The ruling in this case has buttressed the fact that the Bilski decision furthered the cause of narrowing the patentability of software even though the Supreme Court of the United States totally avoided mentioning software patents or the applicability of the machine or transformation test for software patents in its decision. <a href="http://bit.ly/cnPw7E" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/cnPw7E</a></li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">The Bilski Case - Impact on Software Patents: The Supreme Court of the United States gave its decision in Bilski v Kappos on 28 June, 2010. In this case the petitioners’ patent application sought protection for a claimed invention that explains how commodities buyers and sellers in the energy market can protect, or hedge, against the risk of price changes. The Court in affirming the rejection by the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit also held that the machine- or-transformation test is not necessarily the sole test of patentability. The Court’s ruling of abstract ideas as unpatentable and its admission that patents do not necessarily promote innovation and may sometimes limit competition and stifle innovation have provided a ray of hope. In the light of the developments, the Bilski decision as far as patentability of software is concerned may not be totally insignificant, says Krithika Dutta Narayana.<a href="http://bit.ly/bjrPGh" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/bjrPGh</a> </li>
</ul>
<hr />
<h2><b>Openness</b></h2>
<ul>
<li> Free Access to Law—Is it here to Stay? An Environmental Scan Report: The following is a preliminary project report collaboratively collated by the researchers of the "Free Access to Law" research study. This report aims to highlight the trends, as well as the risks and opportunities, for the sustainability of Free Access to Law initiatives in each of the country examined. <a href="http://bit.ly/9VVzkk" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/9VVzkk</a> </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Open Access to Science and Scholarship - Why and What Should We Do?: The National Institute of Advanced Studies held the eighth NIAS-DST training programme on “Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Science, Technology and Society” from 26 July to 7 August, 2010. The theme of the project was ‘Knowledge Management’. Dr. MG Narasimhan and Dr. Sharada Srinivasan were the coordinators for the event. Professor Subbiah Arunachalam made a presentation on Open Access to Science and Scholarship. <a href="http://bit.ly/ciohYy" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/ciohYy</a> </li>
</ul>
<hr />
<h2><b>Internet Governance</b></h2>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Moldova Online: An Interview with Victor Diaconu: In this interview for Russian Cyberspace, set up with the help of Sunil Abraham (Executive Director at the Centre for Internet and Society in Bangalore, India), computer software professional Victor Diaconu explains the nature of Internet use, state control and the development of blogging and social media platforms in Moldova. Victor works at Computaris in Chisinau. He is Moldova educated, and has travelled to several western countries (including lengthy stays to US, UK) to learn about and understand what there is to be done in Moldova. Sudha Rajagopalan interviewed Victor Diaconu. <a href="http://bit.ly/cgIvXT" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/cgIvXT</a> </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Presentation of the UID project by Ashok Dalwai – A Report: On Tuesday, 7 September 2010, Ashok Dalwai, the Deputy Director General of the Unique Identification of India (UIDAI), gave a lecture at the Indian Institute for Science in Bangalore. Representing the UID Authority, his presentation explained the vision of the project and focused on the challenges involved in demographic and biometric identification, the technology adopted, and the enrolment process. Elonnai Hickok gives a report of his presentation in this blog post. <a href="http://bit.ly/aAy5DG" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/aAy5DG</a> </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Beyond Access as Inclusion: On 13 September, the day before the fifth Internet Governance Forum opens, CIS is co-organised in Vilnius a meeting on Internet governance and human rights. One of the main aims of this meeting was to call attention to the crucial, yet in Internet governance often neglected, indivisibility of rights. In this blog post, Anja Kovacs uses this lens to illustrate how it can broaden as well reinvigorate our understanding of what remains one of the most pressing issues in Internet governance in developing countries to this day: that of access to the Internet. <a href="http://bit.ly/cgS9py" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/cgS9py</a> </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Summary of UID Public Meeting, August 25 2010: A summary of the "No UID" public meeting that took place on Aug. 25th at the Constitution Club, New Dehli. <a href="http://bit.ly/9epHTz" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/9epHTz</a> </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">No UID Campaign in New Delhi - A Report: The Unique Identification (UID) Bill is not pro-citizen. The scheme is deeply undemocratic, expensive and fraught with unforseen consequences. A public meeting on UID was held at the Constitution Club, Rafi Marg in New Delhi on 25 August, 2010. The said Bill came under scrutiny at the meeting which was organised by civil society groups from Mumbai, Bangalore and Delhi campaigning under the banner of "No UID". The speakers brought to light many concerns, unanswered questions and problems of the UID scheme. <a href="http://bit.ly/97HwbS" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/97HwbS</a> </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Wherever you are, whatever you do: Facebook recently launched a location-based service called Places. Privacy advocates are resenting to this new development. Sunil Abraham identifies the three prime reasons for this outcry against Facebook. The article was published in the Indian Express on 23 August, 2010. <a href="http://bit.ly/adXVjB" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/adXVjB</a> </li>
</ul>
<hr />
<h2><b>Telecom</b></h2>
<ul>
<li>What a highway can do: Despite signs of transformational change, we need more - SOPs and quality <a href="http://bit.ly/deUbmU" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/deUbmU</a></li>
</ul>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/september-2010-bulletin'>https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/september-2010-bulletin</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaAccess to KnowledgeDigital NativesTelecomAccessibilityInternet GovernanceCISRAWOpenness2012-08-10T07:22:30ZPagePracticing Feminist Principles
https://cis-india.org/raw/practicing-feminist-principles
<b>AI can serve to challenge social inequality and dismantle structures of power.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span>Artificial intelligence systems have been heralded as a tool to purge our systems of social biases, opinions, and behaviour, and produce ‘hard objectivity’. However, on the contrary, it has become evident that AI systems can sharpen inequalities and bias by hard coding it. If left unattended, automated decision-making can be dangerous and dystopian.</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><strong>However, when appropriated by feminists, AI can serve to challenge social inequality and dismantle structures of power. There are many routes to such appropriation – resisting authoritarian uses through movement-building and creating our own alternative systems that harness the strength of AI towards achieving social change.</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><strong>Feminist principles can be a handy framework to understand and transform the impact of AI systems. Key principles include reflexivity, participation, intersectionality, and working towards structural change.</strong> When operationalised, these principles can be used to enhance the capacities of local actors and institutions working towards developmental goals. They can also be used to theoretically ground collective action against the use of AI systems by institutions of power.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><strong>Reflexivity</strong> in the design and implementation of AI would imply a check on the privilege and power, or lack thereof, of the various stakeholders involved in an ecosystem. By being reflexive, designers can take steps to account for power hierarchies in the process of design. A popular example of the impact of power differentials is in national statistics. Collected largely by male surveyors speaking to male heads of households, national statistics can often undervalue or misrepresent women’s labour and health. See Data2x. “<a class="external-link" href="https://www.data4sdgs.org/sites/default/files/2017-09/Gender%20Data%20-%20Data4SDGs%20Toolbox%20Module.pdf">Gender Data: Sources, Gaps, and Measurement Opportunities</a>,” March 2017 and Statistics Division. “Gender, Statistics and Gender Indicators Developing a Regional Core Set of Gender Statistics and Indicators in Asia and the Pacific.” <a class="external-link" href="https://www.unescap.org/sites/default/files/Framework-and-Indicator-set.pdf">United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, 2013</a>. <span>AI systems would need to be reflexive of such gaps and plan steps to mitigate them.</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><strong>Participation</strong> as a principle focuses on the process. A participatory process would account for the perspectives and lived experiences of various stakeholders, including those most impacted by its deployment. <strong>In the health ecosystem, for instance, this would include policymakers, public and private healthcare providers, frontline workers, and patients. A health information system with a bottom-up design would account for metrics of success determined by not just high-level organisations such as the World Health Organisation and national governments, but also by providers and frontline workers</strong>. Among other benefits, participation in designing AI systems also leads to buy-in and ownership of the technology right at the outset, promoting widespread adoption.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><strong>Intersectionality</strong> calls for addressing the social difference in the datasets, design, and deployment of AI. <strong>Research across fields has shown the perpetuation of inequality based on gender, income, race, and other characteristics through AI that is based on biased datasets.</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The most critical principle is to ensure that AI systems are working to challenge inequality, including inequality perpetrated by patriarchal, racist, and capitalist systems. Aligning with feminist objectives means that systems that have objectives that do not align with feminist goals – such as those that enhance state capacities to surveil and police – would immediately be excluded. Systems that are designed to exclude and oppress will not work to further feminist goals, even if they integrate other progressive elements such as intersectional datasets or dynamic consent architecture (which would allow users to opt in and out easily).</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">We must work towards decreasing social inequality and achieve egalitarian outcomes in and through its practice. Thus, while explicitly feminist projects such as those that produce better datasets or advocate for participatory mechanisms are of course practicing this principle, I would argue that it is also practiced by any project that furthers feminist goals. Take for example AI projects that aim to reduce hate speech and misinformation online. Given that women and other marginalised groups are often at the receiving end of violence, such work can be classified as feminist even if it doesn’t actively target gender-based violence.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">All technology is embedded in social relations. Practicing feminist principles in the design of AI only serves to account for these social relations and design better, more robust systems. <strong>Feminist practitioners can mobilise these to ensure a future of AI with inclusive, community-owned, participatory systems, combined with collective challenges to systems of domination.</strong></p>
<hr />
<h3>References</h3>
<p>Haraway, Donna. “Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective.” Feminist Studies 14, no. 3 (1988): 575–99. https://doi.org/10.2307/3178066.</p>
<p>Link to the original article <a class="external-link" href="https://feministai.pubpub.org/pub/practicing-feminist-principles/release/1?readingCollection=c218d365">here</a></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/raw/practicing-feminist-principles'>https://cis-india.org/raw/practicing-feminist-principles</a>
</p>
No publisherambikaGender, Welfare, and PrivacyCISRAWResearchers at WorkArtificial Intelligence2021-12-07T00:54:54ZBlog EntryOctober 2010 Bulletin
https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/october-2010-bulletin
<b>Greetings from the Centre for Internet and Society! </b>
<h3><b>News Updates</b></h3>
<ul>
<li>Internet, szabadon<br />A polgárjogi aktivisták konfrontálódtak és panaszkodtak, a Google és a Facebook hárított és panaszkodott az Internet at Liberty konferencián, amelyet kedden és szerdán rendezett a Google és a CEU Budapesten.<a href="http://bit.ly/dwNhRw"><br />http://bit.ly/dwNhRw</a></li>
<li>Hogyan szűrik a kormányok az internetes tartalmakat?<br />Az internet szabadságáról tartanak háromnapos konferenciát Budapesten a Google és a Közép-Európai Egyetem (CEU) szervezésében. Kedden az internetes tartalmak szűrése volt a legfontosabb téma a rendezvényen.<a href="http://bit.ly/aFApER"><br />http://bit.ly/aFApER</a></li>
<li>Konferencia az internetes szólásszabadságról Budapesten<br />Az internet és szólásszabadság viszonyát vitatják meg Budapesten, a Közép-Európai Egyetem és a Google szervezte, háromnapos konferencián<a href="http://bit.ly/9evwE4"><br />http://bit.ly/9evwE4</a></li>
<li>How the UID project can be a cause for concern<br />The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), headed by Nandan Nilekani, is the UPA government's most ambitious project, where one billion Indians are branded with a unique identity number.<a href="http://bit.ly/bl7INY"><br />http://bit.ly/bl7INY</a></li>
<li>In new Facebook features, a comeback for community<br />Nearly 750 tweets bombard the web every second. Internet traffic is growing by 40 per cent a year. People post 2.5 billion photos on Facebook every month. Every minute, 24 hours of video is uploaded on YouTube. But who owns all that data? Until now, big business was in complete control and used the data to monetise operations. But all that is set to change. With Facebook launching two new features, ‘Groups' and a ‘Download your information,' the community is making a comeback.<a href="http://bit.ly/arEi4V"><br />http://bit.ly/arEi4V</a></li>
<li>Stiff Resistance Dogs India's ID Plan <br />An article about the UID project by Indrajit Basu in Asia Times Online.<a href="http://bit.ly/bMcOSs"><br />http://bit.ly/bMcOSs</a></li>
<li>Data Activism and Grassroots Empowerment in India<br />Glover Wright of the Center for Internet and Society talks about Data Activism and Grassroots Empowerment in India at the Innovate/Activate Unconference in New York Law School on 24 September 2010.<a href="http://bit.ly/alnjsn"><br />http://bit.ly/alnjsn</a></li>
</ul>
<h3><b>Upcoming Events</b></h3>
<ul>
<li>Enabling Access to Education through ICT<br />ICT workshop in Delhi....Registrations open! <a href="http://bit.ly/9flyEK"><br />http://bit.ly/9flyEK</a></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Network Culture: Archaeological and Artistic Interventions Public Seminar – Talk by Kristoffer Gansing and Linda Hilfing<br />Kristoffer Gansing and Linda Hilfling will give a talk on Network Culture on 8 November 2010 in the Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore.<a href="http://bit.ly/cEmOZw"><br />http://bit.ly/cEmOZw</a></li>
</ul>
<h2><b>Research</b></h2>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">City in the Internet 1: Geography Imagined (Part 1) <br />“The estuaries that flirt with the land mass before they finally perish in the vast deep blue ocean beyond were perfect in their shape and grace. And you know what; from top it appears like a surreal landscape that is so restive and peaceful, almost heaven. The countryside is actually very beautiful”, says Pratyush Shankar in his latest blog post. A random conversation between two persons discovering the joys of seeing our existence through Google Earth!<a href="http://bit.ly/9klUn1"><br />http://bit.ly/9klUn1</a></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>A Digital Native coordinating Digital Natives<br />Samuel Tettner, joined CIS as a Research Coordinator for the Digital Natives project. He has written a blog entry about his experiences in the project.<a href="http://bit.ly/cpJMQq"><br />http://bit.ly/cpJMQq</a></li>
<li>You Are Here<br />Geo-tagging applications are creating new and impromptu communities of true, says Nishant Shah in his column on Digital Natives in the Indian Express.<a href="http://bit.ly/a64kj7"><br />http://bit.ly/a64kj7</a></li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">નિશાંત શાહ: ડિજિટલ પેઢીનો ઉદય<br />‘ડિજિટલ નાગરિક’ તેમને કહેવામાં આવે છે જેણે સામાન્ય જનજીવનમાં ડિજિટલ ટેક્નોલોજીના પ્રવેશ થઈ ગયા બાદ જન્મ લીધો છે. ડિજિટલ નાગરિકો દરેક જગ્યાએ છે. હવે સમય આવી ગયો છે કે આપણે એ જાણવાનો પ્રયાસ કરીએ કે આ લોકો કોણ છે, તેઓ શું કરી રહ્યા છે, તેઓ પોતાના અંગે શું વિચારે છે અને કેવી રીતે તેઓ કશું પણ જાણ્યા વગર આપણા ભવિષ્યને નવો આકાર આપવાનું કામ કરી રહ્યા છે. (A column by Nishant Shah in the Gujarati newspaper Divya Bhaskar)<a href="http://bit.ly/9HnyBa"><br />http://bit.ly/9HnyBa</a></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Digital Natives with a Cause?— Workshop in South Africa—FAQs<br />The second international Digital Natives Workshop "My Bubble, My Space, My Voice" will be held in Johannesburg from 7 to 9 November 2010. Some frequently asked questions regarding the upcoming workshop are answered in this blog entry.<a href="http://bit.ly/c1XJHO"><br />http://bit.ly/c1XJHO</a></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">The silent rise of the Digital Native<br />In late August, this year, the world shook for many when they went online (on their computers, PDAs, iPads, laptops) and realised that the comfortable zone of talking, chatting, sharing and doing just about everything else, had suddenly, without a warning, changed overnight (or afternoon, or morning, depending upon the time-zone they lived in). With a single change in its privacy and location settings, Facebook, home to billions of internet hours consisting of relationships, friendships, professional networks, social gaming, entertainment trivia, memories and exchanges, allowed its users to geo-tag themselves when on-the-move.<a href="http://bit.ly/bHY72Y"><br />http://bit.ly/bHY72Y</a></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>The geek shall inherit the earth<br />Demystifying the mysterious -agents changing the world around you...A column on Digital Natives by Nishant Shah in the Indian Express.<a href="http://bit.ly/aq2BqY"><br />http://bit.ly/aq2BqY</a></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Digital Natives Workshop in South Africa - Call for Participation<br />The African Commons Project, Hivos and the Centre for Internet and Society have joined hands for organising the second international workshop "My Bubble, My Space, My Voice" in Johannesburg from 07 to 09 November 2010. Send in your applications now!<a href="http://bit.ly/d0rl7E"><br />http://bit.ly/d0rl7E</a></li>
</ul>
<h2><b>Telecom</b></h2>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Broad-basing Broadband<br />Education and training through the Internet need Commonwealth Games-like crisis management, says Shyam Ponappa in an article on broadband for education and training published in the Business Standard on 7 October 2010.<a href="http://bit.ly/dnMtpU"><br />http://bit.ly/dnMtpU</a></li>
</ul>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/october-2010-bulletin'>https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/october-2010-bulletin</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaAccess to KnowledgeDigital NativesTelecomAccessibilityInternet GovernanceCISRAWOpenness2012-08-07T12:02:11ZBlog EntryNovember 2010 Bulletin
https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/november-2010-bulletin
<b>Greetings from the Centre for Internet and Society! </b>
<h3><b>News Updates</b></h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">The internet’s new billion: New web users — in countries like Brazil and China — are changing the culture of the internet.<a href="http://bit.ly/hKUb5n" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/hKUb5n</a></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">‘Piracy is now a mainstream political phenomenon': “Piracy has become a mainstream political phenomenon,” said Sunil Abraham, executive director of the Centre for Internet and Society in the city. The piracy that he was referring to was not the piracy of the high seas but the piracy of intellectual property.<a href="http://bit.ly/gMC1Br" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/gMC1Br</a></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Open standards policy in India: A long, but successful journey: Last week, India became another major country to join the growing, global open standards movement. After three years of intense debate and discussion, India's Department of IT in India finalized its Policy on Open Standards for e-Governance, joining the ranks of emerging economies like Brazil, South Africa and others. This is a historic moment and India's Department of Information Technology (DIT) deserves congratulations for approving a policy that will ensure the long-term preservation of India's e-government data.<a href="http://bit.ly/dGo6Qo" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/dGo6Qo</a></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Information, the world's new capital - Digital Natives: Information is the new capital and currency of the world, Nishant Shah, of the India-based Digital Natives with a Cause, told Bizcommunity.com yesterday, 10 November 2010, as the three-day workshop on digital and internet technologies that brought together young delegates from nine African countries ended in Johannesburg, South Africa. "If the 20th century was the age of the industrial revolution, the 21st century is now actually the age of the knowledge information," Shah said.<a href="http://bit.ly/dpXIKY" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/dpXIKY</a></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">What it means to be a child today: They move seamlessly between reality and virtual reality. The digital landscape they inhabit comprises generations — not of family — but of technology such as Web 2.0, 3G, PS4 and iPhone5. Their world has moved beyond their neighbourhood, school and childhood friends to encompass a 500-channel television universe, the global gaming village, the endless internet. These are the children born in the last decade and half — possibly the first generation that has never known a world without hi-tech.<a href="http://bit.ly/cz3nBJ" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/cz3nBJ</a></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Report: Digitally Open: Innovation and Open Access Forum, 23 Oct 2010, Doha, Qatar: A summary of the event "Digitally Open: Innovation and Open Access Forum" held in Doha.<a href="http://bit.ly/catHoi" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/catHoi</a></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">DOC 2.0: A Resources Sharing Mela by NGO Documentation Centres: A Resource Sharing Mela and Meet of DCM (Document Centres Meet) at the Centre for Education & Documentation in Domlur, Bangalore.<a href="http://bit.ly/dnwQMf" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/dnwQMf</a></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Wi-Fi Direct promises range, bandwidth higher than Bluetooth: Sharing, printing and connecting for Wi-Fi devices is going to be more convenient than ever with soon-to-be-launched technology Wi-Fi Direct, which enables devices to connect to each other without a conventional Wi-Fi hub. This article by Ramkumar Iyer was published in the Hindu on 31 October 2010.<a href="http://bit.ly/aUul9f" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/aUul9f</a></li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Access to Knowledge in the Age of Intellectual Property: Access to Knowledge in the Age of Intellectual Property charts the rise of the access to knowledge movement, a movement in which Open Society Foundations have played a key role. It maps the vast terrain of legal, cultural, and technical issues that activists and thinkers aligned to the movement negotiate every day.<a href="http://bit.ly/9nkQFM" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/9nkQFM</a></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Social Mashup!: Save the Date Join us to meet India’s most passionate, innovative, and curious start-up social entrepreneurs for two groundbreaking days of conversations, connections and inspiration. This event will be held on 2-3 December 2010 at the Indian School of Business in Hyderabad.<a href="http://bit.ly/bKKcar" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/bKKcar</a></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "> Digitally Open: Innovation and Open Access Forum: Promoting Openness in Today's Digital World<a href="http://bit.ly/961Ieg" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/961Ieg</a></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Crisis for identity or identity crisis?: The hurry with which the government is pushing its most ambitious project to assign a number (UID) to every citizen without any feasibility study or public debate has raised many questions. <a href="http://bit.ly/8Zt9mf" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/8Zt9mf</a></li>
</ul>
<h3><b>Upcoming Event</b></h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Identity, Identification and Media Representation in Video Game Play: An Audience Reception Study: Adrienne Shaw from the Annenberg School of communications, who is a visiting fellow at MICA is giving a public talk on research on representation in video games on 27 November 2010 at the Centre for Internet and Society in Bangalore.<a href="http://bit.ly/909xkU" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/909xkU</a></li>
</ul>
<h2><b>Research</b></h2>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">My Bubble, My Space, My Voice Workshop - Perspective and Future<br />The second workshop for the “Digital Natives with a Cause?” research project named “My Bubble, My Space, My Voice” took place at the Link Center of Wits University, in Johannesburg, South Africa from 6 November 2010 to 9 November 2010. Samuel Tettner, Digital Natives Co-cordinator shares his perspective on the workshop.<a href="http://bit.ly/bPX6Xd" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/bPX6Xd</a></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Archive and Access: Call for Review<br />The Archive and Access research project by Rochelle Pinto, Aparna Balachandran and Abhijit Bhattacharya is a part of the Researchers @ Work Programme at the Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore. The project that attempts to look at the ways in which the notion of the archive, the role of the archivist and the relationship between the state and private archives that has undergone a transition with the emergence of Internet technologies in India has been put up for public review. <a href="http://bit.ly/d4o809" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/d4o809</a></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Just Where We Like It<br />The micro space for status updates might become the new public space for discussion. Nishant Shah's column on Digital Natives was published in the Sunday Eye of the Indian Express on 21 November 2010.<a href="http://bit.ly/96cK8q" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/96cK8q</a></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Taking It to the Streets<br />The previous posts in the Beyond the Digital series have discussed the distinct ways in which young people today are thinking about their activism. The fourth post elaborates further on how this is translated into practice by sharing the experience of a Blank Noise street intervention: Y ARE U LOOKING AT ME?<a href="http://bit.ly/ciyiiR" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/ciyiiR</a></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Talking Back without "Talking Back"<br />The activism of digital natives is often considered different from previous generations because of the methods and tools they use. However, reflecting on my conversations with The Blank Noise Project and my experience in the ‘Digital Natives Talking Back’ workshop in Taipei, the difference goes beyond the method and can be spotted at the analytical level – how young people today are thinking about their activism.<a href="http://bit.ly/bHAvDE" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/bHAvDE</a></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">The 'Beyond the Digital' Directory<br />For the past few months, Maesy Angelina has been sharing the insights gained from her research with Blank Noise on the activism of digital natives. The ‘Beyond the Digital’ directory offers a list of the posts on the research based on the order of its publication.<a href="http://bit.ly/b3TK3C" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/b3TK3C</a></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">First Thing First<br />Studies often focus on how digital natives do their activism in identifying the characteristics of youth digital activism and dedicate little attention to what the activism is about. The second blog post in the Beyond the Digital series reverses this trend and explores how the Blank Noise Project articulates the issue it addresses: street sexual harassment. <a href="http://bit.ly/cM1HFf" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/cM1HFf</a></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Change has come to all of us<br />The general focus on a digital generational divide makes us believe that generations are separated by the digital axis, and that the gap is widening. There is a growing anxiety voiced by an older generation that the digital natives they encounter — in their homes, schools and universities and at workplaces — are a new breed with an entirely different set of vocabularies and lifestyles which are unintelligible and inaccessible. It is time we started pushing the boundaries of what it means to be a digital native.<a href="http://bit.ly/9J82YY" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/9J82YY</a></li>
</ul>
<h2><b>Accessibility</b></h2>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">e-Accessibility Policy Handbook for Persons with Disabilities<br />The Centre for Internet and Society is proud to announce the launch of its first publication, the “e-Accessibility Policy Handbook for Persons with Disabilities" in collaboration with the G3ict (Global Initiative for Inclusive Information Communication Technologies) and ITU (International Telecommunications Union), and sponsored by the Hans Foundation. The handbook is compiled and edited by Nirmita Narasimhan. Dr. Hamadoun I. Toure, Secretary-General, International Telecommunication Union has written the preface, Dr. Sami Al-Basheer, Director, ITU-D has written the introduction and Axel Leblois, Executive Director, G3ict has written the foreword.<a href="http://bit.ly/gfKNYO" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/gfKNYO</a></li>
</ul>
<h2><b>Intellectual Property</b></h2>
<ul>
<li>Statement of CIS on the Work of the Committee in the 21st SCCR<br />The twenty-first session of the Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights was held in Geneva from 8 to 12 November 2010. Nirmita Narasimhan attended the conference and represented the Centre for Internet and Society.<a href="http://bit.ly/fJVNPI" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/fJVNPI</a></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>We’ve All Got Some Baggage<br />America’s newest trade agreement is not going to kill only iPods. The article appeared in the Tehelka Magazine Vol 7, Issue 45, Dated November 13, 2010 <a href="http://bit.ly/cVrpWd" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/cVrpWd</a></li>
</ul>
<h2><b>Internet Governance</b></h2>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Consumer Privacy - How to Enforce an Effective Protective Regime?<br />In a typical sense, when people think of themselves as consumers, they just think about what they purchase, how they purchase and how they use their purchase. But while doing this exercise we are always exchanging personally identifiable information, and thus our privacy is always at risk. In this blog post, Elonnai Hickok and Prashant Iyengar through a series of questions look through the whole concept of consumer privacy at the national and international levels. By placing a special emphasis on Indian context, this post details the potential avenues of consumer privacy in India and states the important elements that should be kept in mind when trying to find at an effective protective regime for consumer privacy.<a href="http://bit.ly/eEs5Qx" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/eEs5Qx</a></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">CIS Responds to Privacy Approach Paper<br />A group of officers was created to develop a framework for a privacy legislation that would balance the need for privacy protection, security, sectoral interests, and respond to the domain legislation on the subject. Shri Rahul Matthan of Tri Legal Services prepared an approach paper for the legal framework for a proposed legislation on privacy. The approach paper is now being circulated for seeking opinions of the group of officers and is also being placed on the website of the Department of Personnel and Training for seeking public views on the subject. The Privacy India team at CIS responded to the approach paper and has called for the need for a more detailed study of statutory enforcement models and mechanisms in the creation of privacy legislation.<a href="http://bit.ly/eVTwVC" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/eVTwVC</a></li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Privacy and Banking: Do Indian Banking Standards Provide Enough Privacy Protection<br />Banking is one of the most risky sectors as far as privacy is concerned due to the highly sensitive and personal nature of information which is often exchanged, recorded and retained. Although India has RBI guidelines and legislations to protect data, this blog post looks at the extent of those protections, and what are the areas that still need to be addressed.<a href="http://bit.ly/flq09V" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/flq09V</a></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Privacy and Telecommunications: Do We Have the Safeguards?<br />All of you often come across unsolicited and annoying telemarketing calls/ SMS's, prank calls, pestering calls for payment, etc. Do we have any safeguards against them? This blog post takes a look at the various rules and regulations under Indian law to guard our privacy and confidentiality.<a href="http://bit.ly/hnTwKp" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/hnTwKp</a></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Privacy, Free/Open Source, and the Cloud<br />A look into the questions that arise in concern to privacy and cloud computing, and how open source plays into the picture.<a href="http://bit.ly/awpCyF" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/awpCyF</a></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Privacy Concerns in Whole Body Imaging: A Few Questions<br />Security versus Privacy...it is a question that the world is facing today when it comes to using the Whole Body Imaging technology to screen a traveller visually in airports and other places. By giving real life examples from different parts of the world Elonnai Hickok points out that even if the Government of India eventually decides to advocate the tight security measures with some restrictions then such measures need to balanced against concerns raised for personal freedom. She further argues that privacy is not just data protection but something which must be viewed holistically and contextually when assessing new policies.<a href="http://bit.ly/9rvQPt" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/9rvQPt</a></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">American Bar Association Online Privacy Conference: A Report<br />On 10 November 2010, I attended an American Bar Association online conference on 'Regulating Privacy Across Borders in the Digital Age: An Emerging Global Consensus or Vive la Difference'. The panelists addressed many important global privacy challenges and spoke about the changes the EU directive is looking to take. <a href="http://bit.ly/dy41zc" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/dy41zc</a></li>
</ul>
<h2><b>Telecom</b></h2>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">3G Life<br />You can video chat, stream music and watch TV on your phone. Offering high-speed internet access, 3G would change the world of mobile computing. Nishant Shah's article was published in the Indian Express on 14 November 2010.<a href="http://bit.ly/gyxaW2" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/gyxaW2</a></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Ideology and ICT Policies<br />For better policies, decision-makers need to know their own and others’ biases, and consider what others are doing, writes Shyam Ponappa in an article published in the Business Standard on 4 November 2010. <a href="http://bit.ly/dbl3Ai" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/dbl3Ai</a></li>
</ul>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Looking forward to your feedback. Please feel free to write to us for any queries or details required. If you do not wish to receive these emails, please do write to us and we will unsubscribe your mail ID from the mailing list.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/november-2010-bulletin'>https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/november-2010-bulletin</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaAccess to KnowledgeDigital NativesTelecomAccessibilityInternet GovernanceCISRAW2012-08-07T11:46:10ZPageMay 2010 Bulletin
https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/may-2010-bulletin
<b>Greetings from the Centre for Internet & Society. We bring you updates of our research, news and media coverage and information on our events in this bulletin of May 2010</b>
<h3><b>News Updates</b></h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">India slowly gets to grips with ecommerce<br />Growth in computer use and Internet penetration will help e-commerce.<a href="https://cis-india.org/news/India-gets-to-grips-with-ecommerce" target="_blank"><br />http://cis-india.org/news/India-gets-to-grips-with-ecommerce</a></li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">World Wide Web Consortium for All<br />Indian web designers have long ignored needs of people with different disabilities but a new dedicated wiki aspires to change that, writes Malvika Tegta<a href="https://cis-india.org/news/www-for-all" target="_blank"><br />http://cis-india.org/news/www-for-all</a></li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Biometry Is Watching<br />In its first steps, the UID drive encounters practical problems, raises ethical questions, reports Sugata Srinivasaraju in Outlook.<a href="https://cis-india.org/news/biometry-is-watching" target="_blank"><br />http://cis-india.org/news/biometry-is-watching</a></li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">What Women Want: The ability debates<br />In this article published in the Hindu, Deepa Alexander argues that the proposed amendments to the Copyright Act (1957) are restrictive and discriminatory.<a href="https://cis-india.org/news/what-women-want" target="_blank"><br />http://cis-india.org/news/what-women-want</a></li>
<li>CIS – Internet is neither good nor bad<br />This post is also available in: French, Spanish, Portuguese (Brazil)<a href="https://cis-india.org/news/Internet-not-good-not-bad" target="_blank"><br />http://cis-india.org/news/Internet-not-good-not-bad</a></li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Right to Read event in Brussels<br />A 'Right to Read' event is being held at the European Parliament, Brussels on 4 May 2010.<a href="https://cis-india.org/news/right-to-read-brussels" target="_blank"><br />http://cis-india.org/news/right-to-read-brussels</a></li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Mapping the things that affect us<br />'Map for making change' is a project using geographical mapping techniques to support struggles for social justice in India<a href="https://cis-india.org/news/mapping-the-things" target="_blank"><br />http://cis-india.org/news/mapping-the-things</a></li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">'UID is being forced'<br />CIS feels that the UID project is forced on the citizens.<a href="https://cis-india.org/news/UID-is-forced" target="_blank"><br />http://cis-india.org/news/UID-is-forced</a></li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">ID programme faces first challenge over privacy, data<br />The government is looking to the ID programme to help ensure that various welfare programmes reach the poor<a href="https://cis-india.org/news/id-programe-faces-challenge" target="_blank"><br />http://cis-india.org/news/id-programe-faces-challenge</a></li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Their India has no borders<br />Bangalore felt far for them, they would mark it outside the country. India, for migrant labourers, is different from the India we know<a href="https://cis-india.org/news/their-india-has-no-borders" target="_blank"><br />http://cis-india.org/news/their-india-has-no-borders</a></li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Scrap UID project, say people's organisations<br />The unique identification number project is executed without any legislative or parliamentary sanction.<a href="https://cis-india.org/news/Scrap-UID-project" target="_blank"><br />http://cis-india.org/news/Scrap-UID-project</a></li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">UID info can be misused<br />Public organisations, NGOs and concerned citizens feel UID may become an easy database for anti-social elements.<a href="https://cis-india.org/news/uid-info-can-be-misused" target="_blank"><br />http://cis-india.org/news/uid-info-can-be-misused</a></li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">UID project draws flak from civil rights activists<br />The unique identification project is drawing a flak from civil rights activists.<a href="https://cis-india.org/news/UID-project-draws-flak" target="_blank"><br />http://cis-india.org/news/UID-project-draws-flak</a></li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Citizens' forums want UID project scrapped<br />Citizens' forums and groups have stepped up their attack on the Unique Identification Project calling for the complete scrapping of the project.<a href="https://cis-india.org/news/citizens-forums-want-UID-scrapped" target="_blank"><br />http://cis-india.org/news/citizens-forums-want-UID-scrapped</a></li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Disability rights groups oppose changes to Copyright Act<br />Disability rights groups are up in arms against a Bill proposing an amendment to the Copyright Act, 1952, reports Aarti Dhar in an article published in the Hindu on April 23, 2010.<a href="https://cis-india.org/news/disability-groups-oppose-copyright-amendments" target="_blank"><br />http://cis-india.org/news/disability-groups-oppose-copyright-amendments</a></li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Centre for Study of Culture and Society seeks Programme Associate<br />The Higher Education Cell, Centre for Study of Culture and Society is looking for a Programme Associate to help develop e-content and conduct training programmes for projects under its Social Justice and Networked Higher Education Initiatives.<a href="https://cis-india.org/news/position-announcement" target="_blank"><br />http://cis-india.org/news/position-announcement</a></li>
</ul>
<hr />
<h3><b>Research</b></h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Digital Natives at Republica 2010<br />Nishant Shah from the Centre for Internet and Society, made a presentation at the Re:Publica 2010, in Berlin, about its collaborative project (with Hivos, Netherlands) "Digital Natives with a Cause?" The video for the presentation, along with an extensive abstract is online.<a href="https://cis-india.org/research/dn/dnrepub" target="_blank"><br />http://cis-india.org/research/dn/dnrepub</a></li>
</ul>
<hr />
<h3><b>Accessibility</b></h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Right to Read in the European Parliament: A Report</b><br />The European Blind Union and the Transatlantic Consumer Dialogue supported an event sponsored by seven MEPs in the European Parliament to discuss the way forward for EU to support the Treaty for the Blind, Visually Impaired and Other Reading Disabled which has been proposed at the World Intellectual Property Organisation by Brazil, Mexico, Ecuador and Paraguay.<a href="https://cis-india.org/advocacy/accessibility/blog/right-to-read-europe" target="_blank"><br />http://cis-india.org/advocacy/accessibility/blog/right-to-read-europe</a></p>
<hr />
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Intellectual Property</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The 2010 Special 301 Report Is More of the Same, Slightly Less Shrill Pranesh Prakash examines the numerous flaws in the Special 301 from the Indian perspective, to come to the conclusion that the Indian government should openly refuse to acknowledge such a flawed report. He notes that the Consumers International survey, to which CIS contributed the India report, serves as an effective counter to the Special 301 report.<a href="https://cis-india.org/advocacy/ipr/blog/2010-special-301" target="_blank"><br />http://cis-india.org/advocacy/ipr/blog/2010-special-301</a></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Exceptions and Limitations in Indian Copyright Law for Education: An Assessment<br /></b>This paper examines the nature of exceptions and limitations in copyright law for the purposes of the use of copyrighted materials for education. It looks at the existing national and international regime, and argues for why there is a need for greater exceptions and limitations to address the needs of developing countries. The paper contextualizes the debate by looking at the high costs of learning materials and the impediment caused to e-learning and distance education by strong copyright regimes.<a href="https://cis-india.org/advocacy/ipr/blog/exceptions-and-limitations" target="_blank"><br />http://cis-india.org/advocacy/ipr/blog/exceptions-and-limitations</a></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Technological Protection Measures in the Copyright (Amendment) Bill, 2010<br /></b>In this post Pranesh Prakash conducts a legal exegesis of section 65A of the Copyright (Amendment) Bill, 2010, which deals with the stuff that enables 'Digital Rights/Restrictions Management', i.e., Technological Protection Measures. He notes that while the provision avoids some mistakes of the American law, it still poses grave problems to consumers, and that there are many uncertainties in it still.<a href="https://cis-india.org/advocacy/ipr/blog/tpm-copyright-amendment" target="_blank"><br />http://cis-india.org/advocacy/ipr/blog/tpm-copyright-amendment</a></p>
<hr />
<h3>Telecom</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>China Club instead of Bombay Club?<br /></b>Emulate China's coordinated policies for strategic sectors, and we'll rely less on commodity exports, says Shyam Ponappa in his article in the Business Standard on May 13, 2010.<a href="https://cis-india.org/advocacy/telecom/blog/China-club-Bombay-club" target="_blank"><br />http://cis-india.org/advocacy/telecom/blog/China-club-Bombay-club</a></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/may-2010-bulletin'>https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/may-2010-bulletin</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaAccess to KnowledgeDigital NativesTelecomAccessibilityInternet GovernanceCISRAWOpenness2012-08-10T10:00:54ZPageMarch 2010 Bulletin
https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/march-2010-bulletin
<b>Greetings from the Centre for Internet and Society! We bring you updates of our research, news, and events for the month of March 2010 in this bulletin.</b>
<h3><b>News Updates</b></h3>
<p class="ecxmsonormal" style="text-align: justify; "><b>An Open Answer to Office</b><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><br /> </span>OpenOffice with its new features is giving Microsoft Word tough competition, says Deepa Kurup in this article published in The Hindu.<br /> <a href="https://cis-india.org/news/open-office" target="_blank">http://cis-india.org/news/open-office</a></p>
<h3><b>Upcoming Events</b></h3>
<p class="ecxmsonormal" style="text-align: justify; "><b>CPOV: Wikipedia Research Initiative</b><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><br /> </span>The second WikiWars conference will be held in Amsterdam from 26 to 27 March 2010<br /> <a href="https://cis-india.org/research/conferences/conference-blogs/cpov" target="_blank">http://cis-india.org/research/conferences/conference-blogs/cpov</a></p>
<p class="ecxmsonormal" style="text-align: justify; "><b>CI Global Meeting on A2K</b><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><br /> </span>CIS is a co-sponsor of the Consumers International Meeting on A2K to be held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on April 21 and 22, 2010.<br /> <a href="https://cis-india.org/events/ci-global-meeting-a2k" target="_blank">http://cis-india.org/events/ci-global-meeting-a2k</a></p>
<h3><b>Research</b></h3>
<p class="ecxmsonormal" style="text-align: justify; "><b>India Game Developer Summit Bangalore 2010</b><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><br /> </span>The India Game Developer Conference held at Nimhans Convention Centre on the 27th of February, 2010 was attended by Arun Menon who is working on The Gaming and Gold Project at The Centre for Internet and Society. The Developer forum brought together game developers from different sectors of the Game Production Cycle, with hardware manufacturers like Nvidia demonstrating their latest 3d technology and Software developers like Crytek and Adobe demonstrating the latest in developer tools for creating and editing games on multiple platforms.<br /> <a href="https://cis-india.org/research/cis-raw/histories/gaming/india-game-developer-summit-in-bangalore-2010" target="_blank">http://cis-india.org/research/cis-raw/histories/gaming/india-game-developer-summit-in-bangalore-2010</a><br /> <br /> <b>10 Legendary Obscene Beasts</b><br /> Nishant Shah analyses a peculiar event of vandalism which has now become the core of free speech and anti-censorship debates in mainland China. Looking at the structure of user generated knowledge websites and the specific event on the Chinese language encyclopaedia, 'Baidu Baike', he shows how, in cities where spaces of political spectacle and public protest are quickly diminishing, the Internet has become a tool for producing new public spaces of demonstration and protest.<br /> <a href="https://cis-india.org/research/grants/ISShanghai/itcity4" target="_blank">http://cis-india.org/research/grants/ISShanghai/itcity4</a></p>
<p class="ecxmsonormal"><b>WikiWars - A report</b><br /> In this blog, Nishant Shah analyses about the WikiWars, the first of the three events held in Bangalore on January 12 and 13.<br /> <a href="https://cis-india.org/research/conferences/conference-blogs/wwrep" target="_blank">http://cis-india.org/research/conferences/conference-blogs/wwrep</a></p>
<h3><b>Telecom</b></h3>
<p class="ecxmsonormal"><b>Understanding Spectrum</b><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><b><br /> </b></span>What is spectrum and how do government and commercial decisions on this scientific phenomenon affect public facilities and costs? Shyam Ponappa examines this in his latest blog published in the Business Standard on March 4, 2010.<b><br /> </b><a href="https://cis-india.org/advocacy/telecom/blog/understanding-spectrum%0c" target="_blank">http://cis-india.org/advocacy/telecom/blog/understanding-spectrum</a></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/march-2010-bulletin'>https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/march-2010-bulletin</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaAccess to KnowledgeDigital NativesTelecomIntellectual Property RightsAccessibilityInternet GovernanceCISRAWOpenness2012-08-13T05:02:42ZPageLocating Internets: Histories of the Internet(s) in India — Research Training and Curriculum Workshop: Call for Participation
https://cis-india.org/research/conferences/conference-blogs/workshop
<b>Deadline for submission: 26th July 2011-06-08;
When: 19th - 22nd August, 2011;
Where: Centre for Environmental Planning and Technology (CEPT) University, Ahmedabad;
Organised by: Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore and CEPT University, Ahmedabad.
Please Note: Travel support is only available for domestic travel within India.</b>
<p>LOCATING INTERNETS is an innovative, multi-disciplinary, workshop that engages with some of the most crucial debates around Internet and Society within academic scholarship, discourse and practice in India. It explores Where, When, How and What has changed with the emergence of Internet and Digital Technologies in the country. The Internet is not a singular monolithic entity but is articulated in various forms – sometimes materially, through accessing the web; at others, through our experiences; and yet others through imaginations of policy and law. Internets have become a part of our everyday practice, from museums and archives, to school and university programmes, living rooms and public spaces, relationships and our bodily lived realities. It becomes necessary to reconfigure our existing concepts, frameworks and ideas to make sense of the rapidly digitising world around us. The Internet is no longer contained in niche disciplines or specialised everyday practices. LOCATING INTERNETS invites scholars, teachers, researchers, advanced research students and educationalists from any discipline to learn and discuss how to ask new questions and design innovative curricula in their discipline by introducing concepts and ideas from path-breaking research in India.</p>
<p>Comprised of training, public lectures, open discussion spaces, and hands-on curriculum building exercises, this workshop will introduce the participants to contemporary debates, help them articulate concerns and problems from their own research and practice, and build knowledge clusters to develop innovative and open curricula which can be implemented in interdisciplinary undergraduate spaces in the country. It showcases the research outputs produced by the Centre for Internet and Society’s Researchers @ Work Programme, and brings together nine researchers to talk about alternative histories, processes, and bodies of the Internets, and how they can be integrated into mainstream pedagogic practices and teaching environments.</p>
<h3>Knowledge Clusters for the Workshop</h3>
<p>LOCATING INTERNETS is designed innovatively to accommodate for various intellectual and practice based needs of the participants. While the aim is to introduce the participants to a wide interdisciplinary range of scholarship, we also hope to address particular disciplinary and scholarly concerns of the participants. The workshop is further divided into three knowledge clusters which help the participants to focus their energies and ideas in the course of the four days.</p>
<ul><li><strong>Bridging the Gap</strong>: This workshop seeks to break away from the utopian public discourse of the Internets as a-historical and completely dis-attached from existing technology ecologies in the country. This knowledge cluster intends to produce frameworks that help us contextualize the contemporary internet policy, discourse and practice within larger geo-political and socio-historical flows and continuities in Modern India. The first cluster chartsdifferent pre-histories of the Internets, mapping the continuities and ruptures through philosophy of techno-science, archiving practices, and electronifcation of governments,to develop new technology-society perspectives.</li><li><strong>Paradigms of Practice</strong>:One of the biggest concerns about Internet studies in India and other similar developed contexts is the object oriented approach that looks largely at specific usages, access, infrastructure, etc. However, it is necessary to understand that the Internet is not merely a tool or a gadget. The growth of Internets produces systemic changes at the level of process and thought. The technologies often get appropriated for governance both by the state and the civil society, producing new processes and dissonances which need to be charted. The second cluster looks at certain contemporary processes that the digital and Internet technologies change drastically in order to recalibrate the relationship between the state, the market and the citizen.</li><li><strong>Feet on the Ground</strong>: The third cluster looks at contemporary practices of the Internet to understand the recent histories of movements, activism and cultural practices online. It offers an innovative way of understanding the physical objects and bodies that undergo dramatic transitions as digital technologies become pervasive, persuasive and ubiquitous. It draws upon historical discourse, everyday practices and cultural performances to form new ways of formulating and articulating the shapes and forms of social and cultural structures.</li></ul>
<h3>Workshop Outcomes</h3>
<p>The participants are expected to engage with issue of Internet and it various systemic processes through their own disciplinary interests. Apart from lectures and orientation sessions, the participants will actively work on their own project ideas during the period in groups and will be guided by experts. The final outcome of the workshops would be curriculum for undergraduate and graduate teaching space of various disciplines in the country.</p>
<h3>Participation Guidelines</h3>
<p>LOCATING INTERNETS is now accepting submissions from interested participants in the following format:</p>
<ol><li>Name:</li><li>Institutional affiliation and title:</li><li>Address:</li><li>Email address:</li><li>Phone number:</li><li>A brief resume of work experience (max. 350 words)</li><li>Statement of interest (max. 350 words)</li><li>Key concerns you want to address in the Internet and Society field (max. 350 words)</li><li>Identification with one Knowledge-cluster of the workshop and a proposal for integrating it in your research/teaching practice (max. 500 words)</li><li>Current interface with technologies in your pedagogic practices (max. 350 words)</li><li>Additional information or relevant hyperlinks you might want to add (Max. 10 lines)<br /></li></ol>
<pre>Notes:</pre>
<ul><li>Submissions will be accepted only from participants in India, as attachments in .doc, .docx or .odt formats at <a class="external-link" href="mailto:locatinginternets@cis-india.org">locatingInternets@cis-india.org</a></li><li>Submissions made beyond 26th July 2011 may not be considered for participation. <br /></li><li>Submissions will be scrutinized by the organisers and selected participants will be informed by the 30th July 2011, about their participation.</li><li>Selected participants will be required to make their own travel arrangements to the workshop. A 2nd A.C. train return fare will be reimbursed to the participants. Shared accommodation and selected meals will be provided at the workshop.</li><li>A limited number of air-fare reimbursements will be available to participants in extraordinary circumstances. All travel support is only available for domestic travel in the country.<br /></li></ul>
<p><strong>Chairs</strong>: Nishant Shah, Director-Research, Centre for Internet and Society Bangalore;</p>
<p>Pratyush Shankar, Associate Professor & Head of Undergraduate Program, Faculty of Architecture, CEPT University</p>
<p><strong>Supported by</strong>: Kusuma Foundation, Hyderabad</p>
<p><strong>Experts</strong>:Anja Kovacs, Arun Menon, Asha Achuthan, Ashish Rajadhykasha, Aparna Balachandran, Namita Malhotra, Nithin Manayath, Nithya Vasudevan, Pratyush Shankar, Rochelle Pinto and Zainab Bawa</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/research/conferences/conference-blogs/workshop'>https://cis-india.org/research/conferences/conference-blogs/workshop</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaDevelopmentGamingDigital ActivismDigital GovernanceResearchCISRAWFeaturedCyberculturesarchivesNew PedagogiesWorkshopIT Cities2011-07-21T06:00:39ZBlog EntryJune 2011 Bulletin
https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/june-2011-bulletin
<b>Greetings from the Centre for Internet and Society! In this issue we are pleased to present you the latest updates about our research, upcoming events, and news and media coverage:</b>
<h2><b>Researchers@Work</b></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">RAW is a multidisciplinary research initiative. CIS believes that in order to understand the contemporary concerns in the field of Internet and society, it is necessary to produce local and contextual accounts of the interaction between the Internet and socio-cultural and geo-political structures. To build original research knowledge base, the RAW programme has been collaborating with different organisations and individuals to focus on its three year thematic of Histories of the Internets in India. Six monographs Rewiring Bodies, Archive and Access, Pornography and the Law, The Leap of Rhodes or, How India Dealt with the Last Mile Problem - An Inquiry into Technology and Governance, Transparency and Politics and Internet, Society and Space in Indian Cities are published online and will be launched later this year.</p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/research/cis-raw/histories/Internetcities/cept-centre-for-role-of-internet">CEPT to Set up Centre to Research Role of Internet in Social Development</a> [Published in the Indian Express on June 18, 2011]</li>
</ul>
<h3>Upcoming Event in CEPT, Ahmedabad</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/research/conferences/conference-blogs/workshop">Locating Internets: Histories of the Internet(s) in India — Research Training and Curriculum Workshop: Call for Participation</a> [Deadline for submission – 15 July 2011; Workshop from 19 to 22 August 2011]</li>
</ul>
<p><b> </b></p>
<h2><b>Digital Natives with a Cause?</b></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Digital Natives with a Cause? is a knowledge programme initiated by CIS and Hivos, Netherlands. It is a research inquiry that seeks to look at the changing landscape of social change and political participation and the role that young people play through digital and Internet technologies, in emerging information societies. Consolidating knowledge from Asia, Africa and Latin America, it builds a global network of knowledge partners who want to critically engage with the dominant discourse on youth, technology and social change, in order to look at the alternative practices and ideas in the Global South. It also aims at building new ecologies that amplify and augment the interventions and actions of the digitally young as they shape our futures.</p>
<h3>The Digital Natives Newsletter</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/research/dn/digital-dinosaurs/weblogentry_view">The Digital Dinosaurs</a> [Volume 5]</li>
</ul>
<h2><b> Pathways</b></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">HE Cell's initiative on social justice, in collaboration with CIS, has initiated the Pathways Project for Learning in Higher Education. It is supported by the Ford Foundation. Under this project, nine under-graduate colleges in different parts of India will be identified to provide special skills in livelihood, knowledge and technology to underprivileged students in those colleges.</p>
<h3>New Blog Entry</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/research/grants/pathways-project/pathways-proposal-info/weblogentry_view">Pathways for Learning in Higher Education</a> </li>
</ul>
<h2><b>Accessibility</b></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Estimates of the percentage of the world's population that is disabled vary considerably. But what is certain is that if we count functional disability, then a large proportion of the world's population is disabled in one way or another. At CIS we work to ensure that the digital technologies, which empower disabled people and provide them with independence, are allowed to do so in practice and by the law. To this end, we support web accessibility guidelines, and change in copyright laws that currently disempower the persons with disabilities.</p>
<h3>New Blog Entries</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/advocacy/accessibility/blog/2011/06/21/communications-and-video-accessibility">Policy Spotlight: 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act</a> [Written by Deepti Bharthur; contains an e-mail interview with Jenifer Simpson, Senior Director for Government Affairs and head of the Telecommunications & Technology Policy Initiative at the American Association of People with Disabilities ]</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/advocacy/accessibility/blog/2011/06/13/ict-sri-lanka">ICT Accessibility in Sri Lanka</a> [Written by Nirmita Narasimhan]</li>
</ul>
<h2><b>Intellectual Property</b></h2>
<p>CIS believes that access to knowledge and culture is essential as it promotes creativity and innovation and bridges the gaps between the developed and developing world positively. Hence, the campaigns for an international treaty on copyright exceptions for print-impaired, advocating against PUPFIP Bill, calls for the WIPO Broadcast Treaty to be restricted to broadcast, questioning the demonization of 'pirates', and supporting endeavours that explore and question the current copyright regime.</p>
<h3>Statement</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/advocacy/ipr/blog/sccr-22ndsession-cis-statement">Statement of CIS, India, on the WIPO Broadcast Treaty at the 22nd SCCR</a></li>
</ul>
<h3>New Blog Entry</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/advocacy/ipr/blog/lid-on-royalty-outflows">Putting a Lid on Royalty Outflows — How the RBI can Help Reduce your IP Costs</a> [Written by Sanjana Govil]</li>
</ul>
<p><b> </b></p>
<h2><b>Openness</b></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">CIS believes that innovation and creativity should be fostered through openness and collaboration and is committed towards promotion of open standards, open access, and free/libre/open source software.</p>
<h3>Submission</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/advocacy/openness/blog/2011/06/08/draft-ndsap-comments">Comments on the draft National Data Sharing and Accessibility Policy</a> [submitted to the National Spatial Data Infrastructure]</li>
</ul>
<p><b> </b></p>
<h2><b>Internet Governance</b></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Although there may not be one centralized authority that rules the Internet, the Internet does not just run by its own volition: for it to operate in a stable and reliable manner, there needs to be in place infrastructure, a functional domain name system, ways to curtail cyber crime across borders, etc. The Tunis Agenda of the second World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), paragraph 34 defined Internet governance as “the development and application by governments, the private sector and civil society, in their respective roles, of shared principles, norms, rules, decision-making procedures, and programmes that shape the evolution and use of the Internet.” Its latest endeavour has resulted into these:</p>
<h3>New Articles</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/advocacy/igov/blog/the-present-and-future-dangers-of-indias-draconian-new-internet-regulations/weblogentry_view">The Present — and Future — Dangers of India's Draconian New Internet Regulations</a> [By Anja Kovacs in the Caravan on June 1, 2011]</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/advocacy/igov/blog/big-brother-watching-you/weblogentry_view">Big Brother is Watching You</a> [By Sunil Abraham in Deccan Herald on June 1, 2011]</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/advocacy/igov/blog/2011/06/08/digital-is-political">The Digital is Political</a> [By Nishant Shah in Down to Earth, Issue of June 15, 2011]</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/advocacy/igov/blog/want-to-be-watched/weblogentry_view">Do You Want to be Watched?</a> [By Sunil Abraham in Pragati on June 8, 2011]</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/advocacy/igov/blog/2011/06/09/snooping-to-data-abuse">Snooping Can Lead to Data Abuse</a> [By Sunil Abraham in Mail Today on June 9, 2011]</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/advocacy/igov/blog/2011/06/22/privacy-and-security">Privacy and Security Can Co-exist</a> [By Sunil Abraham in Mail Today on June 21, 2011]</li>
</ul>
<h3>Column in Indian Express</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Nishant Shah, Director-Research will be writing a series of columns on Internet and Society issues:</p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/advocacy/igov/blog/2011/06/08/password-in-hindi">Say 'Password' in Hindi</a> [By Nishant Shah in the Indian Express, May 15, 2011]</li>
</ul>
<h3>Upcoming Event</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/events/socio-financial-online-networks">Socio-financial Online Networks: Globalizing Micro-Credit through Micro-transactional Networked Platforms – A Public Lecture by Radhika Gajalla</a> [at the Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore, July 8, 2011]</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">CIS is doing a project, ‘Privacy in Asia’. <i>It is funded by Privacy International (PI), UK and the International Development Research Centre, Canada and is being administered in collaboration with the Society and Action Group, Gurgaon</i>. The two-year project commenced on 24 March 2010 and will be completed as agreed to by the stakeholders. It was set up with the objective of raising awareness, sparking civil action and promoting democratic dialogue around challenges and violations of privacy in India. In furtherance of these goals it aims to draft and promote over-arching privacy legislation in India by drawing upon legal and academic resources and consultations with the public.</p>
<h3>Featured Research</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/advocacy/igov/privacy-india/2011/06/14/copyright-enforcement">Copyright Enforcement and Privacy in India</a> [Written by Prashant Iyengar]</li>
</ul>
<h3>New Articles<b> </b></h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/advocacy/igov/privacy-india/2011/06/04/street-view-of-private-and-public">A Street View of Private and the Public</a> [By Prashant Iyengar in Tehelka on June 4, 2011]</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/advocacy/igov/privacy-india/blind-man-view-of-elephunt%20/?searchterm=The%20new%20Right%20to%20Privacy%20Bill%202011%20%E2%80%94%20A%20Blind%20Man%27s%20View%20of%20the%20Elephunt">The new Right to Privacy Bill 2011 — A Blind Man's View of the Elephunt</a> [By Prashant Iyengar in Privacy India website on June 8, 2011]</li>
</ul>
<h3>New Blog Entry</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/advocacy/igov/privacy-india/2011/06/03/bloggers-rights-and-privacy">Bloggers' Rights Subordinated to Rights of Expression: Cyber Law Expert</a></li>
</ul>
<p><b> </b></p>
<h3>Event organised in Guwahati</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/advocacy/igov/privacy-guwahati-conference.pdf/view">Privacy matters</a> [Donbosco Institute, Kharguli, Guwahati, June 23, 2011]</li>
</ul>
<h3>Upcoming Events</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/events/internet-surveillance-policy-lecture">Internet Surveillance Policy: “…the second time as farce?” – A Public Lecture by Caspar Bowden</a> [TERI, Bangalore, June 27, 2011]</li>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/events/privacy-matters-hyderabad">Privacy Matters - A Public Conference in Hyderabad</a> [Osmania University Center for International Program, Hyderabad, July 9, 2011]</li>
</ul>
<h2><b>Telecom</b></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The growth in telecommunications in India has been impressive. While the potential for growth and returns exist, a range of issues need to be addressed for this potential to be realized. One aspect is more extensive rural coverage and the second aspect is a countrywide access to broadband which is low at about eight million subscriptions. Both require effective and efficient use of networks and resources, including spectrum. It is imperative to resolve these issues in the common interest of users and service providers. CIS campaigns to facilitate this:</p>
<h3>Articles by Shyam Ponappa</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Shyam Ponappa is a Distinguished Fellow at CIS. He writes regularly on Telecom issues in the Business Standard and these articles are mirrored on the CIS website as well.</p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/advocacy/telecom/blog/2011/06/08/ntp-2011-objective">NTP 2011 Objective: Broadband</a> [published in the Business Standard on June 2, 2011]</li>
</ul>
<h2><b>Miscellaneous</b></h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/notices/technology-transparency-accountability">Technology, Transparency and Accountability: A Bar-Camp in Delhi</a> [June 5, 2011, Delhi]</li>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/notices/communication-policy-advocacy-technology-and-online-freedom-of-expression-a-toolkit-for-media-development">Communication Policy Advocacy, Technology, and Online Freedom of Expression: A Toolkit for Media Development</a> [June 20 – July 1, 2011, Budapest, Hungary]</li>
</ul>
<p><b> </b></p>
<h2><b>News & Media Coverage</b></h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/cyber-space-hackers-paradise">Your cyber space is a hackers paradise</a> [Mail Today, June 6, 2011]</li>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/centaur-reveals-personal-info">Centaur website reveals guests' personal info</a> [Times of India, June 20, 2011]</li>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/seamier-side-of-texting">Mumbai Takes Note of Sexting, the Seamier Side of Texting</a> [Times of India, June 19, 2011]</li>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/state-just-did-to-you">Look what the state just did to you</a> [Mid Day, June 12, 2011]</li>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/india-e-tolerance">Tough neighbourhood tests India's e-tolerance</a> [Times of India, June 12, 2011]</li>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/looser-web-rules">India Weighing Looser Web Rules</a> [Wall Street Journal, May 30, 2011]</li>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/public-data-on-web">Public data on the Web leaves much to be desired</a> [Hindu, May 28, 2011]</li>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/aadhar-coming-to-bengaluru">What documents will you need, to get UID?</a> [CitizenMatters.in, May 28, 2011]</li>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/mobile-education-villages">Mobile education comes to villages</a> [Mail Today, May 27, 2011]</li>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/google-stalks-street">Google now stalks your street</a> [Hindu, May 27, 2011]</li>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/women-love-facebook">Women in love with Facebook</a> [Deccan Herald, May 27, 2011]</li>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/google-unveils-controversial-street-view">Google Unveils Controversial Street View Mapping in B’lore</a> [Economic Times, Mumbai, May 27, 2011]</li>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/e-g-8-report-internet-rights">NGOs say eG8 report must stress internet rights</a> [TELECOMPAPER, May 26, 2011]</li>
</ul>
<h2>Follow us elsewhere</h2>
<ul>
<li>Get short, timely messages from us on <a href="http://twitter.com/cis_india">Twitter</a></li>
<li>Follow CIS on <a href="http://identi.ca/main/remote?nickname=cis">identi.ca</a></li>
<li>Join the CIS group on <a href="http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=28535315687">Facebook</a></li>
<li>Visit us at <a href="http://www.cis-india.org/">www.cis-india.org</a></li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><i>CIS is grateful to Kusuma Trust which was founded by Anurag Dikshit and Soma Pujari, philanthropists of Indian origin, for its core funding and support for most of its projects.</i></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/june-2011-bulletin'>https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/june-2011-bulletin</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaAccess to KnowledgeDigital NativesTelecomAccessibilityInternet GovernanceCISRAWOpenness2012-07-30T07:14:57ZPageJune 2010 Bulletin
https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/june-2010-bulletin
<b>Greetings from the Centre for Internet & Society. We bring you updates of our research, news and media coverage, information on events for the month of June 2010.</b>
<h3><b>News Updates </b></h3>
<p><b>Dont hang up on this one</b><span><br /> </span>Is 3G the next twist in the mobile phone growth story?<br /> <a href="http://bit.ly/9NkaVP" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/9NkaVP</a></p>
<p><b>Peeping Toms In Your Inbox </b><span><br /> </span>Nothing’s safe any more—not your mobile number, nor your e-mail—as they’re put on offer for the benefit of telemarketers, writes Namrata Joshi and Neha Bhatt in an article published in the Outlook.<br /> <a href="http://bit.ly/ckmRRH" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/ckmRRH</a></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>I don't want my fingerprints taken</b><br /> Through this article published in Down to Earth, Nishant Shah looks at the role of the state as arbiter of our privacy.<span><br /> </span><a href="http://bit.ly/aYdMia" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/aYdMia</a></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>An artist's hunt for lost stepwells</b><span><br /> </span>As part of the Maps for Making Change project, Kakoli Sen has brought to light some facts which she stumbled upon while mapping the stepwells in Vadodara. She mapped these and also discovered 14 such architectural heritage structures. The news was covered in the Times of India.<br /> <a href="http://bit.ly/dxtwJU" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/dxtwJU</a></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Facebook, privacy and India </b><span><br /> </span>Does Facebook's decision to open out user information and data to third party websites amount to an invasion of privacy and should users' seriously consider getting out of the site? Sunil Abraham doesn't think so.<br /> <a href="http://bit.ly/a2HzhT" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/a2HzhT</a></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>APC starts research into spectrum regulation in Brazil, India, Kenya, Morocco, Nigeria and South Africa</b><span><br /> </span>Communication infrastructure is the foundation of the knowledge-based economy and while there has been a boom in the construction of undersea cables bringing potentially terabits of capacity to the African continent, the ability to deliver broadband to consumers is hampered by inefficient telecommunications markets and policies. Wireless connectivity offers tremendous potential to deliver affordable broadband to developing countries but inefficient spectrum policy and regulation means the opportunity to seize the advantages brought about by improvements in wireless broadband technologies are extremely limited.<br /> <a href="http://bit.ly/a67ut8" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/a67ut8</a></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>WIPO Proposals Would Open Cross-Border Access To Materials For Print Disabled</b><span><br /> </span>The print disabled feel that the possible UN recommendations being negotiated upon may come up short, reports Kaitlin Mara in this article.<br /> <a href="http://bit.ly/99kbS0" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/99kbS0</a></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>The Potential of Open Development for Canada and Abroad </b><span><br /> </span>IDRC held a panel discussion on 'The Potential of Open Development for Canada and Abroad' on May 5, 2010 in Ottawa.<br /> <a href="http://bit.ly/aSp8J3" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/aSp8J3</a></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>A letter to CGIAR in support of Open Access </b><span><br /> </span>Professor Subbiah Arunachalam wrote a letter to CGIAR apprising them of the need for, and advantages of making their research output Open Access. <br /> <a href="http://bit.ly/doJmAe" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/doJmAe</a></p>
<hr />
<h3><b>Upcoming Event</b></h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>The Internet, Culture, and Society - Looking at Past, Present, and Future Worldwide</b><br /> It is now well known that with 4.5 billion mobile phone owners in the world and increased Internet penetration, global cultures and communities have experienced shifts in their economic, political, and social well-being due to the digital revolution. As a scholar and consultant who works worldwide, Prof Ramesh Srinivasan will illustrate how new media technologies have been used creatively to enable political movements in Kyrgyzstan, literacy and educational reform in India, and economic development across the developing world. In addition to this, he will discuss some of digital culture's biggest challenges, including considering how the Web can start to empower different types of cultural perspectives and knowledges.<br /> <a href="http://bit.ly/c9cIvc" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/c9cIvc</a></p>
<hr />
<h3><b>Research</b></h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Survey: Digital Natives with a cause?</b><span><br /> </span>This survey seeks to consolidate information about how young people who have grown up with networked technologies use and experience online platforms and tools. It is also one of the first steps we have taken to interact with Digital Natives from around the world — especially in emerging information societies — to learn, understand and explore the possibilities of change via technology that lie before the Digital Natives. The findings from the survey will be presented at a multi-stakeholder conference later this year in The Netherlands.<br /> <a href="http://bit.ly/cUtKhV" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/cUtKhV</a></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Queer Histories of the Internet: An Introduction</b><span><br /> </span>Nitya Vasudevan and Nithin Manayath introduce the Queer Histories of the Internet through this blog post discussing broadly the relationship between queer identity and technology.<br /> <a href="http://bit.ly/9xdYRv" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/9xdYRv</a></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Separating the 'Symbiotic Twins'</b><span><br /> </span>This post tries to undo the comfortable linking that has come to exist in the ‘radical’ figure of the cyber-queer. And this is so not because of a nostalgic sense of the older ways of performing queerness, or the world of the Internet is fake or unreal in comparison to bodily experience, and ‘real’ politics lies elsewhere. This is so as it is a necessary step towards studying the relationship between technology and sexuality.<br /> <a href="http://bit.ly/9PV9YW" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/9PV9YW</a></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>The power of the next click...</b><span><br /> </span>P2P cameras and microphones hooked up to form a network of people who don't know each other, and probably don't care; a series of people in different states of undress, peering at the each other, hands poised on the 'Next' button to search for something more. Chatroulette, the next big fad on the Internet, is here in a grand way, making vouyers out of us all. This post examines the aesthetics, politics and potentials of this wonderful platform beyond the surface hype of penises and pornography that surrounds this platform.<br /> <a href="http://bit.ly/95twmz" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/95twmz</a></p>
<hr />
<h3><b>Telecom</b></h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>India's sorry spectrum story </b><span><br /> </span>In this article published in the Business Standard on June 3, 2010, Shyam Ponappa analyses the spectrum story in India. He says that the approach to spectrum management is an object lesson in how not to use information and communications technology for development. <br /> <a href="http://bit.ly/cojFFT" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/cojFFT</a></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/june-2010-bulletin'>https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/june-2010-bulletin</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaAccess to KnowledgeDigital NativesTelecomAccessibilityInternet GovernanceCISRAWOpenness2012-08-10T09:38:46ZPageJuly 2011 Bulletin
https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/july-2011-bulletin
<b>Greetings from the Centre for Internet and Society! In this issue we are pleased to present you the latest updates about our research, upcoming events, and news and media coverage:</b>
<h2><b>Researchers@Work</b></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">RAW is a multidisciplinary research initiative. To build original research knowledge base, the RAW programme has been collaborating with different organisations and individuals to focus on its three year thematic of Histories of the Internets in India. Five monographs: <a href="https://cis-india.org/research/cis-raw/histories/rewiring/rewiring-call-for-review" target="_blank">Re: Wiring Bodies</a> by Asha Achuthan, <a href="https://cis-india.org/research/cis-raw/histories/archives/the-archive-and-the-indian-historian/?searchterm=archive%20and%20access" target="_blank">Archive and Access</a> by Aparna Balachandran and Rochelle Pinto, <a href="https://cis-india.org/research/cis-raw/histories/pleasure-porno/pornography-and-law" target="_blank">Pornography and the Law</a> by Namita Malhotra, <a href="https://cis-india.org/research/cis-raw/histories/last-mile/last-mile-problem" target="_blank">The Leap of Rhodes or, How India Dealt with the Last Mile Problem – An Inquiry into Technology and Governance</a> by Ashish Rajadhyaksha and <a href="https://cis-india.org/research/cis-raw/histories/Internetcities/city-and-space" target="_blank">Internet, Society and Space in Indian Cities</a> by Pratyush Shankar were sent for peer review.</p>
<h3>Upcoming Event in CEPT, Ahmedabad</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/research/conferences/conference-blogs/workshop" target="_blank">Locating Internets: Histories of the Internet(s) in India — Research Training and Curriculum Workshop: Call for Participation</a> [Deadline for submission – 26 July 2011; Participants to be selected by 30 July 2011; Workshop from 19 to 22 August 2011]</li>
</ul>
<h2><b>Digital Natives with a Cause?</b></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Digital Natives with a Cause? is a knowledge programme initiated by CIS and Hivos, Netherlands. It is a research inquiry that seeks to look at the changing landscape of social change and political participation and the role that young people play through digital and Internet technologies, in emerging information societies. Consolidating knowledge from Asia, Africa and Latin America, it builds a global network of knowledge partners who want to critically engage with the dominant discourse on youth, technology and social change, in order to look at the alternative practices and ideas in the Global South. It also aims at building new ecologies that amplify and augment the interventions and actions of the digitally young as they shape our futures.</p>
<h3>The Digital Natives Newsletter</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">"Links in the Chain" is a bi-monthly publication which highlights the projects, ideas and news of the "Digital Natives with a Cause?" community members. It includes opinion posts by participants from the three workshops — <a href="https://cis-india.org/research/dn/talking-back/?searchterm=talking%20back" target="_blank">Talking Back</a> (Taipei, 15 – 18 August 2010), <a href="https://cis-india.org/research/dn/my-bubble-my-space-my-voice-workshop-perspective-and-future/?searchterm=my%20bubble" target="_blank">My Bubble, My Space, My Voice</a> (Johannesburg, 6 – 9 November 2010) and <a href="https://cis-india.org/research/dn/digital-natives-with-a-cause-workshop-in-santiago-open-call/?searchterm=santiago" target="_blank">From Face to the Interface</a> (Santiago, 8 – 10 February 2011) as well as the facilitators, interviews with them, comics and cartoons highlighting current issues affecting the community, as well as current news and discussions happening at the project website, <a href="http://www.digitalnatives.in" target="_blank">www.digitalnatives.in</a>.</p>
<ol>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/research/dn/2011/06/23/digital-dinosaurs" target="_blank">The Digital Dinosaurs</a> [Links in the Chain, Volume 7]</li>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/research/Mid-year%20Edition%20-%20Final.pdf" target="_blank">Special Mid Year Edition</a> [Links in the Chain, Volume 8]</li>
</ol>
<h2><b>Accessibility</b></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Estimates of the percentage of the world's population that is disabled vary considerably. But what is certain is that if we count functional disability, then a large proportion of the world's population is disabled in one way or another. At CIS we work to ensure that the digital technologies, which empower disabled people and provide them with independence, are allowed to do so in practice and by the law. To this end, we support web accessibility guidelines, and change in copyright laws that currently disempower the persons with disabilities.</p>
<h3>Featured Research</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/advocacy/accessibility/blog/accessibility-policy-international-perspective" target="_blank">Accessibility Policy Making: An International Perspective</a> (Revised Edition 2011) [A G3ict White Paper researched and edited by the Center for Internet and Society, Bangalore, India. Editor: Nirmita Narasimhan, Revised edition: May 2011]</li>
</ul>
<h2><b>Access to Knowledge (previously IPR Reform)</b></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">CIS believes that access to knowledge and culture is essential as it promotes creativity and innovation and bridges the gaps between the developed and developing world positively. Hence, the campaigns for an international treaty on copyright exceptions for print-impaired, advocating against PUPFIP Bill, calls for the WIPO Broadcast Treaty to be restricted to broadcast, questioning the demonization of 'pirates', and supporting endeavours that explore and question the current copyright regime.</p>
<h3>Featured</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/advocacy/ipr/blog/intermediary-liability-wipo-speech" target="_blank">Don't Shoot the Messenger: Speech on Intermediary Liability at 22nd SCCR of WIPO</a> (speech by Pranesh Prakash at a side-event co-organized from 15 to 24 June 2011, by WIPO and the Internet Society on intermediary liability).</li>
</ul>
<h2><b>Openness</b></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">CIS believes that innovation and creativity should be fostered through openness and collaboration and is committed towards promotion of open standards, open access, and free/libre/open source software.</p>
<h3>Documentary</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/advocacy/openness/blog/people-are-knowledge" target="_blank">People are Knowledge – Experimenting with Oral Citations on Wikipedia</a> (co-produced by CIS in association with the Wikimedia Foundation, on Oral Citations in India and South Africa)</li>
</ul>
<h3>Featured</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/advocacy/openness/blog/opening-government-best-practice-guide" target="_blank">Opening Government: A Guide to Best Practice in Transparency, Accountability and Civic Engagement across the Public Sector</a> (published by Transparency & Accountability Initiative, CIS contributed the section on Open Government Data).</li>
</ul>
<h2><b>Internet Governance</b></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Although there may not be one centralized authority that rules the Internet, the Internet does not just run by its own volition: for it to operate in a stable and reliable manner, there needs to be in place infrastructure, a functional domain name system, ways to curtail cyber crime across borders, etc. The Tunis Agenda of the second World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), paragraph 34 defined Internet governance as “the development and application by governments, the private sector and civil society, in their respective roles, of shared principles, norms, rules, decision-making procedures, and programmes that shape the evolution and use of the Internet.” Its latest endeavour has resulted into these:</p>
<h3>New Blog Post</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/advocacy/igov/blog/2011/07/12/rti-and-third-party-info" target="_blank">RTI and Third Party Information: What Constitutes the Private and Public?</a> [by Noopur Raval]</li>
</ul>
<h3>Events Organised</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/events/socio-financial-online-networks/?searchterm=Radhika%20Gajalla" target="_blank">Socio-financial Online Networks: Globalizing Micro-Credit through Micro-transactional Networked Platforms – A Public Lecture by Radhika Gajalla</a> [at CIS, Bangalore on 8 July 2011]</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/events/internet-surveillance-policy-lecture" target="_blank">Internet Surveillance Policy: “…the second time as farce?” – A Public Lecture by Caspar Bowden</a> [at TERI, Bangalore on 27 June 2011]</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">CIS is doing a project, ‘Privacy in Asia’. <i>It is funded by Privacy International (PI), UK and the International Development Research Centre, Canada and is being administered in collaboration with the Society and Action Group, Gurgaon</i>. The two-year project commenced on 24 March 2010 and will be completed as agreed to by the stakeholders. It was set up with the objective of raising awareness, sparking civil action and promoting democratic dialogue around challenges and violations of privacy in India. In furtherance of these goals it aims to draft and promote over-arching privacy legislation in India by drawing upon legal and academic resources and consultations with the public.</p>
<h3>Featured</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/advocacy/igov/privacy-india/2011/07/19/privacy-media-law" target="_blank">Privacy & Media Law</a> (by Sonal Makhija). The research examines the existing media norms governed by Press Council of India, the Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Act, 1995 and the Code of Ethics drafted by the News Broadcasting Standard Authority, the constitutional protection guaranteed to an individual’s right to privacy upheld by the courts, and the reasons the State employs to justify the invasion of privacy.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Comments<b> </b></h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/advocacy/igov/privacy-india/privacy-bill-2010/?searchterm=%EF%82%A7Right%20to%20Privacy%20Bill%202010%20%E2%80%94%20A%20Few%20Comments" target="_blank">Right to Privacy Bill 2010 — A Few Comments</a> (by Elonnai Hickok). CIS has given specific recommendations and specific comments on the Right to Privacy Bill, 2010, which was introduced in the Rajya Sabha by Rajeev Chandrashekhar.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Event Report</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/advocacy/igov/privacy-india/2011/07/21/privacy-guwahati-report" target="_blank">Privacy Matters, Guwahati</a> – the event was organised by IDRC, Society in Action Group, IDEA Chirang, an NGO initiative working with grassroots initiatives in Assam, Privacy India and CIS on 23 June 2011. </li>
</ul>
<h3>New Blog Entries</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/advocacy/igov/privacy-india/2011/07/15/scam-baiting" target="_blank">My Experiment with Scam Baiting</a> (by Sahana Sarkar)</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/advocacy/igov/privacy-india/2011/07/18/when-data-is-privacy" target="_blank">When Data Means Privacy, What Traces Are You Leaving Behind?</a> (by Noopur Raval)</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/advocacy/igov/privacy-india/2011/07/23/video-surveillance-privacy" target="_blank">Video Surveillance and Its Impact on the Right to Privacy</a> (by Elonnai Hickok)</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/advocacy/igov/privacy-india/2011/07/23/consumer-privacy-e-commerce" target="_blank">Consumer Privacy in e-Commerce</a> (by Sahana Sarkar)</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/advocacy/igov/privacy-india/2011/07/24/dna-overview" target="_blank">An Overview of DNA Labs in India</a> (by Shilpa Narani)</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/advocacy/igov/privacy-india/uid-nothing-to-hide-fear/weblogentry_view" target="_blank">UID: Nothing to Hide, Nothing to Fear?</a> (by Shilpa Narani)</li>
</ul>
<h2><b>News & Media Coverage</b></h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/failure-to-harness-power-of-net" target="_blank">Indian SMEs still fail to harness the power of Net</a> [Sunday Guardian, 19 June 2011]</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/sorry-wrong-number" target="_blank">Sorry Wrong Number</a> [Telegraph, 3 July 2011]</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/aadhaar-truth" target="_blank">Aadhaar’s moment of truth</a> [Deccan Herald, 5 July 2011]</li>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/walls-have-ears" target="_blank">The Walls Have Ears</a> [Outlook, issue, 11 July 2011]</li>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/transparent-government-india" target="_blank">Transparent Government, via Webcams in India</a> [New York Times, 17 July 2011]; news also published in other languages in <a href="http://www.wprost.pl/ar/253803/Truman-show-w-indyjskim-rzadzie/" target="_blank">wprost</a> (Polish), <a href="http://www.ictnews.vn/Home/thoi-su/An-Do-lap-camera-de-chong-tham-nhung/2011/07/2MSVC7185287/View.htm" target="_blank">ictnews</a> (Vietnamese) and <a href="http://www.arretsurimages.net/vite.php?id=11710" target="_blank">@rret sur images</a>(French)</li>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/nyt-lauds-oommen-chandy" target="_blank">NYT lauds Oommen Chandy’s 24/7 office webcast</a> [Deccan Chronicle, 19 July 2011]</li>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/uid-worlds-largest-database" target="_blank">UID: The World’s Largest Biometric Database</a> [International School on Digital Transformation, 21 July 2011]. Sunil Abraham made a <a href="https://cis-india.org/advocacy/igov/uid-largest-database" target="_blank">presentation</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/facebook-my-lousy-boyfriend" target="_blank">Facebook, my boyfriend is lousy</a> [Bangalore Mirror, 24 July 2011]</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/portugal-well-for-transparency" target="_blank">Portal augurs well for transparency</a> [The Hindu, 25 July 2011] </li>
</ul>
<h2>Follow us elsewhere</h2>
<ul>
<li>Get short, timely messages from us on <a href="http://twitter.com/cis_india" target="_blank">Twitter</a></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Follow CIS on <a href="http://identi.ca/main/remote?nickname=cis" target="_blank">identi.ca</a></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Join the CIS group on <a href="http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=28535315687" target="_blank">Facebook</a></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Visit us at <a href="http://www.cis-india.org/" target="_blank">www.cis-india.org</a></li>
</ul>
<p><i>CIS is grateful to Kusuma Trust which was founded by Anurag Dikshit and Soma Pujari, philanthropists of Indian origin, for its core funding and support for most of its projects.</i></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/july-2011-bulletin'>https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/july-2011-bulletin</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaAccess to KnowledgeDigital NativesTelecomAccessibilityInternet GovernanceCISRAWOpenness2012-07-30T07:00:26ZPageJuly 2010 Bulletin
https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/july-2010-bulletin
<b>Greetings from the Centre for Internet & Society. We bring you updates of our research, news and media coverage, information on our events and other updates for the month of July 2010.</b>
<h2><b>News Updates</b></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Call for Case Studies on ICT</b><br /> CIS invites organisations to participate in a study focusing on best practices in the use of ICTs in education for persons with disabilities.<br /> <a href="http://bit.ly/d03jS0">http://bit.ly/d03jS0</a></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Networking? Not working</b><br /> Concerns about privacy, wastage of time and trivialized communication are some reasons ‘refuseniks’ are going off sites such as Facebook and MySpace, writes Shreya Ray in Livemint.<br /> <a href="http://bit.ly/dpdKhX">http://bit.ly/dpdKhX</a></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Digital them about yourself?</b><br /> If you’re on Facebook or have a blog, you could be a digital native, says Akhila Seetharaman.<br /> <a href="http://bit.ly/ahA6Ts">http://bit.ly/ahA6Ts</a></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Next CPOV Conference in Leipzig</b><br /> Two CPOV conferences have been held so far. The first one in Bangalore and the second one in Amsterdam, the third is to be held in Leipzig.<br /> <a href="http://bit.ly/cLN8XE">http://bit.ly/cLN8XE</a></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">CIS featured in the <span class="visualHighlight">Report on Research and Funding Landscape within the Arts and Humanities in India</span><br /> Centre for Internet and Society has been listed as an area of excellence and innovative research in this report.<br /> <a href="http://bit.ly/9GJsJ7">http://bit.ly/9GJsJ7</a></p>
<p><b>UID Act may be released for debate, may be introduced in monsoon session</b><br /> An article by Karen Leigh & Surabhi Agarwal in livemint on June 30, 2010.<br /> <a href="http://bit.ly/9Hq5dg">http://bit.ly/9Hq5dg</a></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>A New Age in News</b><br /> Citizen journalism and online piracy were key topics during the opening day of the Mekong Information and Communication Technology conference. The 2010 Mekong ICT conference in Chang Mai, Thailand, has brought together an experienced crowd of experts from all over the globe. They have gathered to discuss the status, trends and the current situation of the ICT world.<br /> <a href="http://bit.ly/bdGzbQ">http://bit.ly/bdGzbQ</a></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Activists welcome privacy Bill, but point out concerns</b><br /> Experts have welcomed the government's move to bring in a law for protecting individual privacy, amid concerns about the potential misuse of personal data it is collecting to execute social welfare and security schemes.<br /> <a href="http://bit.ly/bnddaJ">http://bit.ly/bnddaJ</a></p>
<hr />
<h2><b>Upcoming Events</b></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Locating Gender Politics in the New Techno-Industrial Complex: A Lecture by Dr. Lisa McLaughlin</b><br /> The Centre for the Study of Culture and Society (CSCS), IT for Change and the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) are hosting a lecture by Dr. Lisa McLaughlin, Associate Professor in Media Studies and Women's Studies, Miami University, Ohio, USA at CIS, Bangalore on 23 July, 2010.<br /> <a href="http://bit.ly/9zy2Fa">http://bit.ly/9zy2Fa</a></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Promoting Education through ICT</b><br /> ICT workshop in New Delhi from 27th to 29th October, 2010...Registrations to begin soon!<br /> <a href="http://bit.ly/9flyEK">http://bit.ly/9flyEK</a></p>
<h2><b>Research</b></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>The Attention Economy - A Brief Introduction</b><br /> This post examines attention economy as a brief prelude to a paper and monograph to be published on it. It examines the current theses on attention economy and a few approaches to reading attention economy in gaming besides foregrounding the attention economy and its functions and influence in MMORPGs.<br /> <a href="http://bit.ly/OP7QFl">http://bit.ly/OP7QFl</a></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>The Making of an Asian City</b><br /> Nishant Shah attended the conference on 'Pluralism in Asia: Asserting Transnational Identities, Politics, and Perspectives' organised by the Asia Scholarship Foundation, in Bangkok, where he presented the final paper based on his work in Shanghai. The paper, titled 'The Making of an Asian City', consolidates the different case studies and stories collected in this blog, in order to make a larger analyses about questions of cultural production, political interventions and the invisible processes that are a part of the IT Cities.<br /> <a href="http://bit.ly/MXxyXP">http://bit.ly/MXxyXP</a></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Internet, Society and Space in Indian City: First Report</b><br /> This is the first report on the progress of the research on Internet, Society and Space in Indian City. The post is a collection of some of the initial focus of these studies. I have started simultaneously exploring and testing various arguments and have listed some key observations from the ones that are nearing completion.<br /> <a href="http://bit.ly/Ndmday">http://bit.ly/Ndmday</a></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Digital Natives Workshop in Taipei: Only a Few Seats Left!!!</b><br /> The Centre for Internet and Society in collaboration with the Frontier Foundation is holding a three day Digital Natives workshop in Taipei from 16 to 18 August, 2010. The three day workshop will serve as an ideal platform for the young users of technology to share their knowledge and experience of the digital and Internet world and help them learn from each other’s individual experiences.<br /> <a href="http://bit.ly/P4mCKv">http://bit.ly/P4mCKv</a></p>
<hr />
<h2><b>Accessibility</b></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>NMEICT Funds Book Conversion Project for the Print Disabled</b><br /> IIT, Kharagpur, Daisy Forum of India, Inclusive Planet and the Centre for Internet and Society have joined hands to undertake a project for the print disabled. The National Mission on Education through Information and Communication Technology (NMEICT) is funding this project.<br /> <a href="http://bit.ly/bWHi00">http://bit.ly/bWHi00</a></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Right to Read: Campaign Updates</b><br /> A nationwide campaign on Right to Read was co-organised by CIS along with the Daisy Forum of India and Inclusive planet to highlight the lack of content in accessible formats and accelerate change in the provisions of the Indian Copyright Act, 1957, which presently does not permit the conversion of books in accessible formats for the benefits the blind, visually impaired and other reading disabled persons. The campaign is affiliated with the global R2R campaign started by the World Blind Union in April 2008.<br /> <a href="http://bit.ly/akoaSj">http://bit.ly/akoaSj</a></p>
<hr />
<h2><b>Intellectual Property</b></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Analysis of the Copyright (Amendment) Bill, 2010</b><br /> CIS analyses the Copyright (Amendment) Bill, 2010, from a public interest perspective to sift the good from the bad, and importantly to point out what crucial amendments should be considered but have not been so far.<br /> <a href="http://bit.ly/KLBQDx">http://bit.ly/KLBQDx</a></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>A Guide to Key IPR Provisions of the Proposed India-European Union Free Trade Agreement</b><br /> The Centre for Internet and Society presents a guide for policymakers and other stakeholders to the latest draft of the India-European Union Free Trade Agreement, which likely will be concluded by the end of the year and may hold serious ramifications for Indian businesses and consumers.<br /> <a href="http://bit.ly/Rw7whN">http://bit.ly/Rw7whN</a></p>
<hr />
<h2><b>Openness</b></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Open Access to International Agricultural Research</b><br /> Open access advocates have urged the top management of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research to give open access to its research publications. A report by Subbiah Arunachalam on 3 June, 2010 was also circulated to all the signatories of the letter.<br /> <a href="http://bit.ly/cspMYY">http://bit.ly/cspMYY</a></p>
<hr />
<h2><b>Telecom</b></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Catching up on broadband</b><br /> The govt can invest some of the Rs 1,00,000 crore from the spectrum auctions to help India catch up on broadband, says Shyam Ponappa in his latest article published in the Business Standard on July 1, 2010.<br /> <a href="http://bit.ly/ag67TU">http://bit.ly/ag67TU</a></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/july-2010-bulletin'>https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/july-2010-bulletin</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaAccess to KnowledgeDigital NativesTelecomAccessibilityInternet GovernanceCISRAWOpenness2012-08-10T09:41:01ZPageDecember 2010 Bulletin
https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/december-2010-bulletin
<b>Greetings from the Centre for Internet and Society! It gives us immense pleasure to present regular updates on the progress of our research on the mainstream Internet media. In this issue of we bring our latest project updates, news and media coverage:</b>
<h2><b>Researchers@Work</b></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">RAW is a multidisciplinary research initiative. CIS believes that in order to understand the contemporary concerns in the field of Internet and society, it is necessary to produce local and contextual accounts of the interaction between the Internet and socio-cultural and geo-political structures. To build original research knowledge base, the RAW programme has been collaborating with different organisations and individuals to focus on its three year thematic of Histories of the Internets in India. Monographs arising from these projects are now online for public review:</p>
<p><b>Pornography & the Law</b><br />This monograph attempts to unravel the relations between pornography, technology and the law in the shifting context of the contemporary. Deadline for review expires on 15 Jan 2011.<a href="http://bit.ly/f1sQsi"><br />http://bit.ly/f1sQsi</a></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Re:wiring Bodies<br /></b>Dr. Asha Achutan historicises the attitudes, imaginations and policies that have shaped the Science-Technology debates in India, to particularly address the ways in which emergence of Internet Technologies have shaped notions of gender and body in India. Deadline for review expires on 15 Jan 2011.<a href="http://bit.ly/gYCP1C"><br />http://bit.ly/gYCP1C</a></p>
<p><b>The Leap of Rhodes or, How India Dealt with the Last Mile Problem — An Inquiry into Technology and Governance</b><br />The project has fed into many different activities in teaching, in examining processes of governance and in looking at user behaviour. The deadline for peer review expires on 15 Jan 2011.<a href="http://bit.ly/iiYJp1"><br />http://bit.ly/iiYJp1</a></p>
<h3>New Blog Entries</h3>
<p><b>Internet, Society and Space in Indian Cities</b></p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://bit.ly/h3lWzS">From the Stock Market to Neighbourhood Mohalla</a></li>
<li><a href="http://bit.ly/hU6GTL">Transforming Urbanscapes: ATM in cities</a></li>
</ul>
<p><b>Queer Histories of the Internet</b></p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://bit.ly/hqrjqc">A Detour: The Internet and Forms of Narration: A Short Note</a></li>
</ul>
<p><b> </b></p>
<h2><b>Digital Natives</b></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">CIS has interest in developing Digital Identities as a core research area and looks at practices, policies and scholarships in the field to explore relationships between Internet, technology and identity.</p>
<h3>Columns on Digital Natives</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">A fortnightly column on ‘Digital Natives’ authored by Nishant Shah is featured in the Sunday Eye, the national edition of Indian Express, Delhi, from 19 September 2010 onwards. The following articles were published in the Indian Express recently:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://bit.ly/ig08Dr">Make a Wish</a> [published on 19 December 2010]</li>
<li><a href="http://bit.ly/hRHUYu">Play Station</a> [published on 5 December 2010]</li>
</ul>
<h3>Workshop</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The third and final workshop in the Digital Natives with a Cause? research project will take place in Santiago, Chile, from the 8 to 10 February. Open Call and FAQs for the workshop are online:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://bit.ly/emKslL">Digital Natives with a Cause? Workshop in Santiago – An Open Call</a></li>
<li><a href="http://bit.ly/eCu2it">Digital Natives with a Cause? Workshop in Santiago – Some FAQs</a></li>
</ul>
<h3>Publication</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Position papers from the Thinkathon conference held at Hague from 6 to 8 December have been published:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://bit.ly/eVYR2h">Digital Natives with a Cause? Thinkathon: Position Papers</a></li>
</ul>
<h2><b>Accessibility</b></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Estimates of the percentage of the world's population that is disabled vary considerably. But what is certain is that if we count functional disability, then a large proportion of the world's population is disabled in one way or another. At CIS we work to ensure that the digital technologies, which empower disabled people and provide them with independence, are allowed to do so in practice and by the law. To this end, we support web accessibility guidelines, and change in copyright laws that currently disempower the persons with disabilities.</p>
<h3><b>National Award</b></h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Nirmita Narasimhan got a National Award for Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities from the Government of India on 3 December 2010. The award was presented by Smt. Pratibha Patil, President of India under the Role Model category. The event was telecast live on Doordarshan.</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://bit.ly/fKG9MH">Nirmita Narasimhan wins National Award</a></li>
</ul>
<h3>Conference Report</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">An international conference on Enabling Access to Education through ICT was held in New Delhi from 27 to 29 October 2010. The full report of the conference is published online:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://bit.ly/eDHXyq">Enabling Access to Education through ICT - Conference Report</a></li>
</ul>
<h3>New Blog Entries</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://goo.gl/ddMBN">Accessibility at CIS – Looking back at 2010</a></li>
<li><a href="http://bit.ly/igUi8H">G3ict-GW Global Policy Forum: "ICT Accessibility: A New Frontier for Disability Rights"</a></li>
</ul>
<h2><b>Intellectual Property</b></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Copyright, patents and trademarks are the most important components on the Internet. CIS believes that access to knowledge and culture is essential as it promotes creativity and innovation and bridges the gaps between the developed and developing world positively. Hence, the campaigns for an international treaty on copyright exceptions for print-impaired, advocating against PUPFIP Bill, calls for the WIPO Broadcast Treaty to be restricted to broadcast, questioning the demonization of 'pirates', and supporting endeavours that explore and question the current copyright regime. Our latest endeavour has resulted into these:</p>
<h3>New Blog Entries</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://bit.ly/glBYTS">Problems Remain with Standing Committee's Report on Copyright Amendments</a></li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://bit.ly/hq9OZO">CIS Submission on Draft Patent Manual 2010</a></li>
</ul>
<h2><b>Openness</b></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">CIS believes that innovation and creativity should be fostered through openness and collaboration and is committed towards promotion of open standards, open access, and free/libre/open source software, its latest involvement have yielded these results:</p>
<h3>Reports</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://bit.ly/eKUKIY">Call for Comments for Report on the Online Video Environment in India</a></li>
<li><a href="http://goo.gl/wr8Td">Call for Comments for Report on Open Government Data in India</a></li>
</ul>
<h3>Event</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://bit.ly/hQAUkg">Wikipedia Meetup in Bangalore, This time in TERI</a></li>
</ul>
<h3><b>Privacy</b></h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">CIS is doing a couple of projects, one Privacy in Asia which is supported by Privacy International, UK and the other on Privacy and Identity which is funded by Ford Foundation and managed by the Centre for Study of Culture and Society. The project is a research inquiry into the history of privacy in India and how it shapes the contemporary debates around technology mediated identity projects like <i>Aadhar</i>.</p>
<h3>New Blog Entries</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://bit.ly/hYUmVK">The Privacy Rights of Whistleblowers</a></li>
<li><a href="http://bit.ly/hcP9lI">UID & Privacy - A Call for Papers</a></li>
<li><a href="http://bit.ly/esjtL7">Should Ratan Tata be Afforded the Right to Privacy?</a></li>
<li><a href="http://bit.ly/h0Vdz3">DSCI Information Security Summit 2010 – A Report</a></li>
</ul>
<h2><b>Telecom</b></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The growth in telecommunications in India has been impressive. While the potential for growth and returns exist, a range of issues need to be addressed for this potential to be realized. One aspect is more extensive rural coverage and the second aspect is a countrywide access to broadband which is low at about eight million subscriptions. Both require effective and efficient use of networks and resources, including spectrum. It is imperative to resolve these issues in the common interest of users and service providers. CIS campaigns to facilitate this.</p>
<h3>Articles by Shyam Ponappa</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Shyam Ponappa is a Distinguished Fellow at CIS. He writes regularly on Telecom issues in the Business Standard and these articles are mirrored on the CIS website as well.</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://bit.ly/fNADQo">Take 'Model T' for Telecom</a></li>
</ul>
<p><b> </b></p>
<h2><b>News & Media Coverage</b></h2>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://bit.ly/h8TJwF">An online community platform for people with different needs</a> (Sify News, 12 December 2010)</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://bit.ly/fF3Y6V">Self-regulation in media and society meet to gain legal perspectives</a> (Indiantelevision.com, 13 December 2010)</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://bit.ly/e3gZGz">This Is All India Radia</a> (Outlook, 6 December 2010)</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://bit.ly/gYrF7h">'Pakistan' hackers target India's top police agency</a> (Google News, 4 December 2010)</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://bit.ly/gBMFzY">Intellectual Property Rights as seen in a graphic novel</a> (TimeOut Bengaluru, 1 December 2010)</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://bit.ly/fa4qcy">The Niira Radia Tapes: Scrutinizing the Snoopers</a> (The Wall Street Journal, 29 November 2010)</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://bit.ly/gWEkKw">Mobile banking set to get a boost from IMPS</a> (The Hindu, 28 November 2010)</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://bit.ly/gjyNbF">UID elicits mixed response</a> (Deccan Herald, 23 November 2010)</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://bit.ly/hcrAd2">Time to bury e-mail?</a> (DNA, 21 November 2010)</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Follow us elsewhere</b></p>
<ul>
<li>Get short, timely messages from us on <a href="http://twitter.com/cis_india">Twitter</a></li>
<li>Follow CIS on <a href="http://identi.ca/main/remote?nickname=cis">identi.ca</a></li>
<li>Join the CIS group on <a href="http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=28535315687">Facebook</a></li>
<li>Visit us at <a href="http://www.cis-india.org">www.cis-india.org</a></li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Looking forward to hearing from you. Please feel free to write to us for any queries or details required. If you do not wish to receive these emails, please do write to us and we will unsubscribe your mail ID from the mailing list.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/december-2010-bulletin'>https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/december-2010-bulletin</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaAccess to KnowledgeDigital NativesTelecomAccessibilityInternet GovernanceCISRAWOpenness2012-08-07T11:28:02ZPageBetween Platform and Pandemic: Migrants in India's Gig Economy
https://cis-india.org/raw/caught-between-the-platform-and-the-pandemic-locating-migrants-in-indias-gig-economy
<b>In response to the rising number of COVID-19 cases in India, the central government announced a nationwide lockdown in March 2020. </b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Initially this was organised for three weeks, but it stretched on for over three months. With a mere four hours’ notice before banning all non-‘essential’ economic activities overnight, the Indian government imposed what has been described as <a href="https://scroll.in/article/957564/not-china-not-italy-indias-coronavirus-lockdown-is-the-harshest-in-the-world">one of the most stringent lockdowns worldwide</a>. It shut down the railways, inter-state bus services, and all industrial, commercial, cultural and religious activities, bringing the economy to a standstill. In the weeks that followed this announcement, hundreds of poor migrant workers <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/india-coronavirus-lockdown-migrant-workers/2020/03/27/a62df166-6f7d-11ea-a156-0048b62cdb51_story.html">walked</a> thousands of kilometers from major cities back to their villages, as the lockdown gutted their livelihood without providing any safety nets. Images of migrant workers traveling by foot for days forced the Indian public to acknowledge the existence and struggles of migrant workers. The pandemic has exposed the frailty of their livelihoods and brought their vulnerability into sharp focus.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span>The ‘gig’ economy in particular shapes the lives and livelihoods of a large migrant workforce. Gig workers working for on-demand platform services have been adversely impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic. Cab-hailing services </span><a href="https://indianexpress.com/article/cities/chandigarh/coronavirus-india-lockdown-wheels-stuck-but-worries-are-many-for-ola-uber-drivers-6346527/">came to a standstill</a><span> in several Indian cities as the central government imposed a nationwide lockdown for over two months, restricting people’s movements. Food delivery and home-based services were </span><a href="https://www.indiatoday.in/technology/news/story/covid19-lockdown-online-delivery-of-food-items-is-essential-service-but-don-t-rely-on-it-for-your-dinner-1659490-2020-03-25">deemed ‘essential’ services</a><span> and continued to operate during the lockdown. However, migrant workers received </span><a href="https://scroll.in/article/959766/by-crowdfunding-benefits-for-embattled-workers-app-based-services-are-evading-their-own-obligations">little support</a><span> from the platform companies as well as the government. Despite the overwhelming presence of migrants in the workforce, discussions of the so-called ‘platform economy’ have rarely focused on their vulnerabilities.</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span><strong>Neither here nor there</strong></span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span>In 2000, Omer (all names are pseudonyms) migrated to Hyderabad from a village in the neighbouring Nagarkurnool district. He worked as a cab driver for a travel agency in the city. After working in the city for five years, he brought his wife and children to live with him. When Uber and Ola launched in Hyderabad in 2014, he became a ‘driver partner’ providing on-demand cab services. The nationwide lockdown since March 2020 gutted his livelihood, as movement was severely restricted. The burden of rent and living expenses in the absence of his regular income forced Omer to return to his village in Nagarkurnool district. He weighed his earning potential as a cab driver against the risk of being infected and chose to leave the city.</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">However, the choice to leave the city did not exist for all. Mani, a cab driver now based in Chennai, had moved to the city 10 years ago from a neighbouring town, Ranipet, to find employment as a driver. Before joining Ola, he worked as a night shift driver for an IT company in the city. In the wake of the pandemic and lockdown, he avoided returning to his hometown fearing the wrath of lenders he owed money to. He had taken out a loan while he could still work over 10 hours a day. Lenders in towns such as Ranipet are known to visit the homes of borrowers and harass them in the presence of family and neighbours. Fearing public humiliation, Mani decided to stay in Chennai. Similarly, Jagan, another driver in Hyderabad, also chose not to return to his village which was just 80kms from the city. He explained that only those who owned land could afford to return to the village. Without any land or house, he had nothing to go back to.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Jagan and Mani were unable to earn their livelihood during the lockdown. Fuel prices were a major concern for workers in cab-hailing services as well as food delivery. Within three months of the lockdown, the price of petrol was increased by about Rs. 14 (approx. $0.19). Far from accounting for this rise in fuel prices, on-demand platforms reduced the per kilometer rates for workers. For instance, Swiggy, a popular on-demand food delivery company, <a href="https://thewire.in/labour/swiggy-delivery-executives-strike-in-chennai-and-hyderabad-over-reduction-in-payment">brought down</a> the per-kilometer rate for its delivery executives from Rs. 35 (approx. $0.48) per delivery to Rs.15 (approx. $0.21). Since the lockdown in March, platform workers have staged <a href="https://inc42.com/infocus/year-end-review-2020/from-swiggy-to-ola-a-year-of-protests-by-indias-gig-workers/">repeated strikes</a>, protesting against the plummeting rates, suspension of incentives and demanding extension of moratorium on loan repayments.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Those who were unable to return to their hometown or village had to find alternate sources of income to continue to sustain their families’ basic needs. Both Jagan and Mani began working as contract labour in nearby construction sites.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">For Omer, who returned to his village, things were not great either. A couple of months after his return, he was still on the lookout for a job while occasionally driving a tractor or lorry. Having lived in the city for close to two decades, returning to his village had not been easy. Besides the struggle to find gainful employment, adjusting to rural life had been a challenge:</p>
<p><em>I am 40 years old – the chances of me getting a job is negative… my situation has become like ‘Dhobi ka kutta na ghar ka na ghat ka’ [I belong neither here nor there] </em>– Omer</p>
<p><strong>Migrant Workers in a Gig Economy</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Even though the above narratives of migrant workers are specific to the challenges presented by COVID-19, the labour and livelihood outcomes are a result of structural conditions long preceding the pandemic’s outbreak.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Reports suggest that a <a href="https://www.livemint.com/companies/start-ups/delhi-and-not-bengaluru-is-the-place-to-be-for-gig-economy-workers-1555013405684.html">significant proportion of platform workers in Indian cities are migrants</a> who moved there in search of employment. While the exact magnitude of migrants engaged in digital platforms is hard to discern, our interviews with trade union leaders and migrant platform workers indicated that intra-state migrants from neighboring peri-urban and rural districts constitute a large part of the platform workforce. Dharmendra, who heads Indian Delivery Lions—a union of food delivery partners in Jaipur – pointed out that as rural India remains starved of adequate livelihood opportunities, people are pushed to the city in search of greener pastures. <a href="http://labourbureau.gov.in/RLE%202K%204-5%20Chapter%202.htm">Even for those engaged in farm activities, seasonal unemployment is a recurrent phenomenon</a>. This is amplified by the deteriorating climatic conditions, which further pushes seasonal agrarian workers into the urban informal sector. Thus, <a href="https://www.academia.edu/39244178/Climate_change_Agrarian_distress_and_the_role_of_digital_labour_markets_evidence_from_Bengaluru_Karnataka">rural agrarian workers facing seasonal unemployment engage in digital labour markets as a short-term adaptive strategy.</a></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In terms of demographic profiles, recent migrants to the city, especially those hailing from a different state, and younger migrants typically opt to work in the food delivery sectorSuch financial constraints also impact migrant workers engaged with ride-hailing apps, as they are less likely to own a car. Owning a bike (for food delivery) is far less expensive than owning a car (for transportation services), which incurs more expenses and leads to a higher debt burden and longer repayment commitments. Instead, they usually <a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/files/ifat-itf-protecting-workers-in-digital-platform-economy-ola-uber-occupational-health-safety-report/">drive leased cars</a> from the on-demand service companies, or are employed at a fixed wage by car-owners who have attached themselves to Ola or Uber. In both these arrangements, migrant gig workers are under pressure to pay a fixed daily fee (for the lease) or meet the car-owners’ targets. Hence, they do not enjoy much, if any, agency over their time or work.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Migrant workers who are already in cities tend to transition to on-demand gig work. For migrant workers like Mani and Omer, on-demand work with its lucrative incentives and promise of flexibility presented an appealing alternative to their under-paying jobs that hardly met their needs. Migrant workers are economically more vulnerable; most of their earnings go into paying rent and repaying debt while barely managing their living expenses or sending remittances back home. Vinay Sarathy, the President of Food Delivery Partners Struggle Committee, pointed out that <em>“many migrant bachelors live together cramped up in a single room, to save on rent and send more remittance to cope with financial hardship back home.”</em> Such struggles, unique to migrants, often remain invisible.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><em>“Landlords are not accommodative, security is an issue. Everything is so much more expensive. Schooling, for instance, is costly. In the village, Rs. 3000 ($41 approx) is sufficient for school fees, but in the city, it is not less than Rs. 8000 ($109 approx). Rent is a major concern too. 80% of income goes on rent and school fees. Only the remaining can be for daily expenditure</em>”. – Omer, a gig worker in the transportation sector</p>
<p>The lack of social institutions to support migrant gig workers in the city and the government’s failure to provide long-due welfare measures frequently leave them on the city’s fringes.</p>
<p>Against such a backdrop, the platforms’ lucrative income stream fulfilled migrant workers’ basic desire to secure a stable livelihood. So much so that even migrant workers like Mani and Jagan, who were previously engaged in salaried driving jobs, switched to platforms, tempted by the prospect of improved earnings. The chance to be a ‘partner’ with the ‘flexibility’ to decide one’s work timings made platforms an appealing alternative to low-waged precarious work in the <a href="https://www.firstpost.com/business/covid-19-impact-informal-economy-workers-excluded-from-most-govt-measures-be-it-cash-transfers-or-tax-benefits-8354051.html">unorganised sector, where migrant workers are generally employed</a>.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">While the initial motivation to join platforms resulted from the expectation of better income, improved working conditions, and the perceived social standing of being attached to a company, these <a href="https://www.epw.in/engage/article/ola-uber-workers-platform-gig-economy-earnings">aspirations remain unfulfilled.</a> Inadvertently, migrant workers’ movement towards on-demand work ensured a steady supply of gig workers for on-demand service companies, which consolidated their presence in the service sector. After successfully capturing the market, companies started <a href="https://www.theindiaforum.in/article/confronting-precarious-work">slashing incentives</a> for all workers. Such impunity and indifference wielded by platforms, in large part, can be attributed to the guaranteed supply of migrant workers. The acute vulnerability of being unemployed compels distressed rural migrants from nearby districts and suburbs to take up any job, regardless of how exploitative it may be. This latent supply of migrant workers gives platform companies the leverage to arbitrarily depress incentives, extract larger commissions, and even dismiss workers. Migrant workers thus become the de-facto <a href="https://rupe-india.org/70/reserve.html#note29">“reserve army of labour”</a> for on-demand companies.</p>
<p><strong>Comply or quit?</strong></p>
<p>In the aftermath of the Covid-19 lockdown, migrant gig worker’s livelihoods have been reduced to a hand-to-mouth existence, foregrounding the fatal overlap between the two axes of vulnerability: migration and gig work.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Historically, migrant workers have been concentrated in occupations characterised by precarity and informal work arrangements without fixed-pay or binding contracts. Workers who transitioned to on-demand platforms were motivated by the promise of better conditions of work and pay. The initial appeal led them to view platforms as a dignified alternative to their profession. Many were also lured by the notion of independence and flexibility afforded by the platform. To be one’s boss and not be answerable to anyone was unheard of and a welcome change to the subservience that most workers had grudgingly internalized as a professional prerequisite. However, contrary to the big claims and initial promises, platforms began to replicate work arrangements in the informal sector. The result is that workers are rarely provided fair wages, social security, or paid leave. There is no meaningful choice for them to exercise, as they are effectively left with two alternatives—comply or quit.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Trapped between exploitative working conditions and being unemployed, workers lack any real negotiating power. Even as gig workers across the country continue to protest for better work conditions, platforms remain indifferent, assured of the guaranteed labour supply. As summarized by Dharmendra, <em>“the agenda of the platforms presently is to recruit new workers – they have already begun advertising for jobs even amidst the pandemic, as incidents of protests keep rising! We’re expecting that they’ll fire old workers (engaged in protests) and recruit those who are presently unemployed”</em>.</p>
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<p><strong>Kaarika Das</strong> is Research Scholar at NIEPA and <strong>Srravya C</strong> is researcher in the Humanizing Automation project at IIIT Bangalore. This work was produced as a part of their research with the Centre for Internet and Society, India.</p>
<p><em>We would like to thank Ambika Tandon, Aayush Rathi and Kaveri Medappa for their inputs and feedback at various stages of this research. We are grateful for the support from the Internet Society Foundation to the Centre for Internet and Society, India (CIS), which made this research possible. A full report on migration and the gig economy in India is forthcoming on CIS’s website. </em></p>
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For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/raw/caught-between-the-platform-and-the-pandemic-locating-migrants-in-indias-gig-economy'>https://cis-india.org/raw/caught-between-the-platform-and-the-pandemic-locating-migrants-in-indias-gig-economy</a>
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No publisherKaarika Das and Srravya CFuture of WorkRAW BlogResearchCISRAWRAW ResearchResearchers at Work2021-12-06T16:04:07ZBlog Entry