Centre for Internet and Society

June 2018 Newsletter

praskrishna — 2018-08-11T02:52:10Z

CIS newsletter for the month of June 2018.

Dear readers,

Previous issues of the newsletters can be accessed here.

Highlights

Balbharati – the Maharashtra state bureau of textbook production and curriculum research – has issued a copyright policy that forces all publishers, digital educational-content creators, and coaching classes to obtain expensive licenses for developing material directly or indirectly relating to Balbharati’s content. This is an alarming development for Indian students reported Anubha Sinha in an article in the Asian Times on June 20, 2018.
CIS-A2K has started dialogue with the publishers for the last 6 months regarding FOSS, Open knowledge and content donation to Wikimedia Projects. As a result Akhil Bharatiya Marathi Prakashak Sangh, an apex body of publishers at all India level invited us for a orientation session at their annual gathering in Pune.
Submitted comments on the Draft Digital Communications Policy which was released to the public by the Department of Telecommunications of the Ministry of Communications on 1st May 2018 for comments and views.
Submitted comments on the Telecom Commercial Communications Customer Preference Regulations which was released to the public by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) on 29th May 2018 for comments and views.
The Task Force on Artificial Intelligence was established by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry to leverage AI for economic benefits, and provide policy recommendations on the deployment of AI for India. Elonnai Hickok, Shweta Mohandas and Swaraj Paul Barooah wrote a blog entry on the artificial intelligence task force. The blog entry was edited by Swagam Dasgupta.
The world’s oldest networked infrastructure, money, is increasingly dematerialising and fusing with the world’s latest networked infrastructure, the Internet, wrote Sunil Abraham in an article published in the Economic Times on June 10, 2018.
An essay by P.P. Sneha was published in Summer Hill, a journal published by Indian Institute of Advanced Study. In the essay, edited by Dr. Bindu Menon, Sneha draws upon excerpts from a study on the field of digital humanities and related practices in India, to outline the diverse contexts of humanities practice with the advent of the digital and explore the developing discourse around digital humanities in the Indian context.
The inaugural conference of the Digital Humanities Alliance of India (DHAI) was held at the Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Indore on June 1-2, 2018. P.P. Sneha was a keynote speaker at the event. Her talk was titled ‘New Contexts and Sites of Humanities Practice in the Digital’.

Articles

Why NPCI and Facebook need urgent regulatory attention (Sunil Abraham; Economic Times; June 10, 2018).
Digital Native: Cause an Effect (Nishant Shah; Indian Express; June 17, 2018).
Maharashtra's Copyright Policy Makes Education Unaffordable (Anubha Sinha; Asia Times; June 20, 2018).

CIS in the News

Allow admins to add users to online group chats only after permission: SFLC.in (Times of India; June 1, 2018).
EC disables easy access to electoral data across states (Akshatha M; Economic Times; June 5, 2018).
Draft bill proposes Rs 1 crore fine, 3 year jail for data privacy violation (Vidhi Choudhury; Hindustan Times; June 8, 2018).
Citizens’ Draft Privacy Bill Seeks To Revolutionise Data Collection, Storage In India (Arpan Chaturvedi; Bloomberg Quint; June 9, 2018).
Police to counter fake news on WhatsApp (Nilesh Christopher and Naveen Menezes; Times of India; June 14, 2018).
'Full belief in fake texts shows cops not trusted' (Times of India; June 18, 2018).
Anushka finds support for her anti-litter tirade (Nina C. George; Deccan Herald; June 19, 2018).
Jindal varsity's international affairs students shine in job market (Economic Times; June 19, 2018).
Data Privacy: Footprints on the Web (Sujit Bhar; IndiaLegal; June 21, 2018).
Death By WhatsApp (News18.com, June 25, 2018).
Tech transformation: how agriculture is being redefined through digital innovation and startups (Your Story; June 29, 2018).

Access to Knowledge

Access to Knowledge (A2K) 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. Our A2K program comprises 2 projects: Pervasive Technologies done under a grant from International Development Research Centre examining interplay between cost-effective pervasive technologies and intellectual property and encouraging development of such technologies for social good, and Wikipedia under a grant from Wikimedia Foundation to enable the growth of Indic language communities and cultivate new editors in different Indian languages.

Wikipedia

Event Organized

Marathi Publishers' orientation session on FOSS,Open knowledge & Wikimedia Projects (Co-organized by Akhil Bharatiya Marathi Prakashak Sangh and CIS-A2K; Maratha Chamber of Commerce, Tilak Road, Pune; June 17, 2018).

Internet Governance

The Tunis Agenda of the second World Summit on the Information Society has 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 programs that shape the evolution and use of the internet. CIS is engaged in two different projects. The first one (under a grant from Privacy International and IDRC) is on surveillance and freedom of expression (SAFEGUARDS). The second one (under a grant from MacArthur Foundation) is on restrictions that the Indian government has placed on freedom of expression online.

Privacy

Blog Entries

NITI Aayog Discussion Paper: An aspirational step towards India’s AI policy (Sunil Abraham, Elonnai Hickok, Amber Sinha, Swaraj Barooah, Shweta Mohandas, Pranav M Bidare, Swagam Dasgupta, Vishnu Ramachandran and Senthil Kumar; June 13, 2018).
The AI Task Force Report - The first steps towards India’s AI framework (Authored by Elonnai Hickok, Shweta Mohandas and Swaraj Paul Barooah and Edited by Swagam Dasgupta; June 27, 2018).

Submissions

Comments on the Draft National Policy on Official Statistics (Gurshabad Grover and Sandeep Kumar; June 7, 2018).
Comments on the Draft Digital Communications Policy (Anubha Sinha, Gurshabad Grover and Swaraj Barooah; June 14, 2018).

Participation in Event

Is Privacy Obsolete? (Organized by TERI; Bangalore; June 22, 2018). Pranesh Prakash was a panelist.

Free Speech & Expression

Blog Entry

Network Disruptions Report by Global Network Initiative (Akriti Bopanna; June 12, 2018).

Telecom

CIS is involved in promoting access and accessibility to telecommunications services and resources, and has provided inputs to ongoing policy discussions and consultation papers published by TRAI. It has prepared reports on unlicensed spectrum and accessibility of mobile phones for persons with disabilities and also works with the USOF to include funding projects for persons with disabilities in its mandate:

Submission

Comments on the Telecom Commercial Communications Customer Preference Regulations (Sandeep Kumar, Torsha Sarkar, Swaraj Barooah, and Gurshabad Grover; June 22, 2018).

Researchers at Work

The Researchers at Work (RAW) programme is an interdisciplinary research initiative driven by an emerging need to understand the reconfigurations of social practices and structures through the Internet and digital media technologies, and vice versa. It aims to produce local and contextual accounts of interactions, negotiations, and resolutions between the Internet, and socio-material and geo-political processes:

Participation in Event

Digital Humanities Alliance of India - Inagural Conference 2018 (Co-organized by IIM and IIT, Indore with support from CIS; IIM, Indore; June 1 - 2, 2018). P.P. Sneha was a speaker and gave the keynote address.

Essay

New Contexts and Sites of Humanities Practice in the Digital (Paper) (P.P. Sneha; June 25, 2018).

About CIS

The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) is a non-profit organisation that undertakes interdisciplinary research on internet and digital technologies from policy and academic perspectives. The areas of focus include digital accessibility for persons with disabilities, access to knowledge, intellectual property rights, openness (including open data, free and open source software, open standards, open access, open educational resources, and open video), internet governance, telecommunication reform, digital privacy, and cyber-security. The academic research at CIS seeks to understand the reconfigurations of social and cultural processes and structures as mediated through the internet and digital media technologies.

► Follow us elsewhere

Twitter: http://twitter.com/cis_india
Twitter - Access to Knowledge: https://twitter.com/CISA2K
Twitter - Information Policy: https://twitter.com/CIS_InfoPolicy
Facebook - Access to Knowledge: https://www.facebook.com/cisa2k
E-Mail - Access to Knowledge: a2k@cis-india.org
E-Mail - Researchers at Work: raw@cis-india.org
List - Researchers at Work: https://lists.ghserv.net/mailman/listinfo/researchers

► Support Us

Please help us defend consumer and citizen rights on the Internet! Write a cheque in favour of 'The Centre for Internet and Society' and mail it to us at No. 194, 2nd 'C' Cross, Domlur, 2nd Stage, Bengaluru - 5600 71.

► Request for Collaboration

We invite researchers, practitioners, artists, and theoreticians, both organisationally and as individuals, to engage with us on topics related internet and society, and improve our collective understanding of this field. To discuss such possibilities, please write to Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, at sunil@cis-india.org (for policy research), or Sumandro Chattapadhyay, Research Director, at sumandro@cis-india.org (for academic research), with an indication of the form and the content of the collaboration you might be interested in. To discuss collaborations on Indic language Wikipedia projects, write to Tanveer Hasan, Programme Officer, at tanveer@cis-india.org.

CIS is grateful to its primary donor the Kusuma Trust founded by Anurag Dikshit and Soma Pujari, philanthropists of Indian origin for its core funding and support for most of its projects. CIS is also grateful to its other donors, Wikimedia Foundation, Ford Foundation, Privacy International, UK, Hans Foundation, MacArthur Foundation, and IDRC for funding its various projects.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/june-2018-newsletter

June 2013 Bulletin

praskrishna — 2013-07-27T09:48:16Z

Our newsletter for the month of June 2013 can be accessed below.

The Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) welcomes you to the sixth issue of its newsletter for 2013. Hivos published a White Paper by Nishant Shah titled Whose Change is it Anyway?, which attempts to reflect critically on existing patterns of making change and its implications for the future of citizen action in information and network societies. The Access to Knowledge team carried out a quantitative analysis to identify trends and growth patterns in Indian Language Wikipedias from September 2012 to April 2013. CIS drafted the Privacy Protection Bill and amended it as per feedback gained from the New Delhi, Bangalore, and Chennai Privacy Roundtable Events. CIS made closing statement on the Treaty for the Blind at the WIPO Diplomatic Conference which was concluded with the adoption of the Marrakesh Treaty to Facilitate Access to Published Works for Persons who are Blind, Visually Impaired, or otherwise Print Disabled. In a research paper Nehaa Chaudhari gives an analysis of patent pools, Sameer Boray gives an analysis of video piracy and Pranav Menon gives an analysis of India-EU FTA and issues surrounding data protection and security. In this period we organised the Institute on Internet and Society with support from the Ford Foundation at Golden Palms, Bangalore from June 8 to 14, 2013.

Celebrating 5 Years of CIS
CIS is now 5 years old and we just celebrated this by holding an open exhibition in our offices in Bangalore and Delhi from May 20 to 23, showcasing our work and accomplishments over the period. We had about 170 visitors from the general public coming in to our office. Videos of the event are here.

Google Policy Fellowship
CIS has initiated processing of applications for the Google Policy Fellowship programme. Shortlisted candidates would be informed about their interview. However, as of now there will be a 20 days delay in announcing the list for the interview.

Jobs
CIS is inviting applications for the posts of Developer (NVDA Screen Reader Project) and Editor/Content Developer. To apply for these posts, send in your resume to Nirmita Narasimhan (nirmita@cis-india.org). CIS is also seeking applications for the post of Programme Officer (Internet Governance). To apply send your resume to Sunil Abraham (sunil@cis-india.org) and Pranesh Prakash (pranesh@cis-india.org).

Accessibility

CIS is doing two projects in partnership with the Hans Foundation. One is to create a national resource kit of state-wise laws, policies and programmes on issues relating to persons with disabilities in India and another for developing a screen reader and text-to- speech synthesizer for Indian languages:

National Resource Kit for Persons with Disabilities
CIS and the Centre for Law and Policy Research (CLPR) are working in this project. Draft chapters have been published. Feedback and comments are invited from readers for the chapter on Jharkhand:

The Jharkhand Chapter (by CLPR, June 30, 2013).

Note: All the chapters published on the website are early drafts and will be reviewed and updated.

Award

Girls in ICT Day 2013 (organized by ITU-APT Foundation of India with support from CMAI - Association of India Communication and Infrastructure, FICCI Auditorium, Tansen Marg, New Delhi, May 7, 2013). Dr. Nirmita Narasimhan got a felicitation for her contribution and achievements in the field of Information and Communication Technology. The honour was conferred during the celebration of this event.

Media Coverage

A Treat for the Blind (by Chitra Narayanan, Business World, June 26, 2013). Pranesh Prakash was quoted.

Access to Knowledge and Openness

The Wikimedia Foundation has given a grant to CIS to support and develop the growth of Indic language communities and projects by community collaborations and partnerships. This is being carried out by the Access to Knowledge team based in Delhi. CIS is also doing a project (Pervasive Technologies) on examining the relationship between production of pervasive technologies and intellectual property. CIS also promotes openness including open government data, open standards, open access, and free/libre/open source software through its Openness programme.

Access to Knowledge (Previously IP Reforms)

WIPO
Pranesh Prakash participated in the WIPO Diplomatic Conference to Conclude a Treaty to Facilitate Access to Published Works by Visually Impaired Persons and Persons with Print Disabilities in Marrakesh, Morocco, June 17 to 28, 2013. The conference concluded with the adoption of the Marrakesh Treaty to facilitate access to published works by blind persons, persons with visual impairment, and other print disabled persons, by requiring mandatory exceptions in copyright law to enable conversions of books into accessible formats, and by enabling cross-border transfer of accessible format books. Click for:

CIS's Closing Statement at Marrakesh on the Treaty for the Blind (by Pranesh Prakash, June 28, 2013).
India's Closing Statement at Marrakesh on the Treaty for the Blind (June 29, 2013).

Pervasive Technologies

Pervasive Technologies: Patent Pools (by Nehaa Chaudhari, June 27, 2013).

Other (FTA, Piracy)

The Right Way to Fight Video Piracy? (by Sameer Boray, June 6, 2013).
India-EU Proposed Free Trade Agreement: Issues Surrounding Data Protection and Security (by Pranav Menon, June 8, 2013).
India- EU FTA: A Note on the Copyright Issues (by Nehaa Chaudhari, June 18, 2013).

Event Participated

Governance in the Age of the Internet and Free Trade Agreements (organized by Thai Netizen Network and co-hosted by the Ministry of Information and Communication and the National Science and Technology Development Agency, Queen Sirikit National Convention Center, June 8, 2013). Sunil Abraham was a speaker.

Access to Knowledge (Wikipedia)

The A2K team consists of three members based in Bangalore: T. Vishnu Vardhan, Dr. U.B. Pavanaja and Subhashish Panigrahi and one team member Nitika Tandon who is working from Delhi office.

Statistical Report

Indian Language Wikipedia Statistics (by Nitika Tandon, June 30, September 2012 – April 2013).

Event Organised

A 'Kannada' Wikipedia Workshop for Bloggers (Suchitra, Bengaluru, June 23, 2013). Dr. U.B. Pavanaja conducted the workshop.

Event Co-organised

Telugu Wikipedia Training Workshop (co-organised by A2K team and Theatre Outreach Unit, University of Hyderabad, Golden Threshold, Nampally, Hyderabad, March 8, 2013). T. Vishnu Vardhan conducted the workshop.

Upcoming Event

Digital Humanities for Indian Higher Education (co-organised by HEIRA-CSCS, Tumkur University, CILHE-TISS and CCS, Indian Institute of Science, July 13, 2013).

Blog Entries

My First Wikipedia Training Workshop – Theatre Outreach Unit, University of Hyderabad (by T. Vishnu Vardhan, June 26, 2013). The workshop was conducted in March but the report was published only in June.
Wikipedia Visual Editor (by Nitika Tandon, June 27, 2013).

Press Coverage (including videos)

A Feature on Wikipedia and Telegu Wikipedians (HMTV, May 30-31, 2013). Watch the video.
Wikipedia Live Phone-in Programme (HMTV, June 1, 2013). T. Vishnu Vardhan took part in a one hour live phone-in programme on Wikipedia.
Wiki donors (by Akhila Seetharaman, TimeOut Bengaluru, June 21, 2013). T. Vishnu Vardhan and Dr. U.B. Pavanaja are quoted.
Kannada Wikipedia Workshop at Hasan (Prajavani, June 5, 2013). Dr. U.B. Pavanaja conducted the workshop on June 4, 2013.
Kannada Wikipedia Workshop at Hasan (Samyukta Karnataka, June 5, 2013). Dr. U.B.Pavanaja conducted the workshop on June 4, 2013.
Kannada Wikipedia Workshop at Hasan (Vijaya Karnataka, June 5, 2013). Dr. U.B.Pavanaja conducted the workshop on June 4, 2013.
Wiki Rahasya: Panel Discussion (Suvarna News, June 13, 2013). Dr. U.B.Pavanaja participated in a panel discussion around Wikipedia in general and about Kannada Wikipedia in specific.

Openness

Column

Big Data, People's Lives, and the Importance of Openness (by Nishant Shah, DML Central, June 24, 2013).

Event Hosted

RHoK Global Event (Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore, June 1 – 2, 2013). Yogesh Londhe shares with you a post-event report.

Internet Governance

CIS began two projects earlier this year. The first one on facilitating research and events on surveillance and freedom of expression is with Privacy International and support from the International Development Research Centre, Canada. The second one on mapping cyber security actors in South Asia and South East Asia is with the Citizen Lab, Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto and support from the International Development Research Centre, Canada:

Cyber Stewards Project
Laird Brown, a strategic planner and writer with core competencies on brand analysis, public relations and resource management and Purba Sarkar who in the past worked as a strategic advisor in the field of SAP Retail are working in this project.

Video Interview

An Interview with Ram Mohan (June 30, 2013)

Event Organized

The Geopolitics of Information Controls: A Presentation by Masashi Crete-Nishihata (TERI, Bangalore, June 19, 2013). About 20 people participated in the event.

Privacy Research

Privacy Protection Bill, 2013 (With Amendments based on Public Feedback) (by Elonnai Hickok, June 30, 2013): CIS drafted the Bill. Based on feedback received from the New Delhi, Bangalore, and Chennai Roundtables the Bill was amended.

Interviews

Interview with the Citizen Lab on Internet Filtering in India (June 24, 2013). Maria Xynou interviewed Masashi Crete-Nishihata and Jakub Dalek from the Citizen Lab on internet filtering in India.
Interview with Billy Hawkes (June 20, 2014). Maria Xynou interviewed Billy Hawkes, the Irish Data Protection Commissioner on recommendations for data protection in India.

Columns

Indian Surveillance Laws & Practices Far Worse than US (by Pranesh Prakash, Economic Times, June 13, 2013).
World Wide Rule (by Nishant Shah, Indian Express, June 14, 2013). Nishant Shah reviews Schmidt and Cohen's book “The New Digital Age”.
Way to Watch (by Chinmayi Arun, Indian Express, June 26, 2013).
The State is Snooping: Can You Escape? (by Snehashish Ghosh, India Together, June 26, 2013).

Blog Entries

India Subject to NSA Dragnet Surveillance! No Longer a Hypothesis — It is Now Officially Confirmed (by Maria Xynou, June 13, 2013).
SEBI and Communication Surveillance: New Rules, New Responsibilities? (by Kovey Coles, June 27, 2013).
Open Letter to "Not" Recognize India as Data Secure Nation till Enactment of Privacy Legislation (by Elonnai Hickok, June 19, 2013).
Open Letter to Prevent the Installation of RFID tags in Vehicles (by Maria Xynou, June 27, 2013).

Events Organised

Technology, Power, and Revolutions in the Arab Spring (CIS, July 2, 2013). Prof. Ramesh Srinivasan gave a talk.
Learn to Secure Your Online Communication! (CIS, Bangalore, June 30, 2013). A Crypto Party was organised.
Learn to Secure Your Online Communication! (IIC, Delhi University, South Campus, New Delhi, July 6, 2013). A Crypto Party was organised.

Event Co-organised

4^th Privacy Round Table Meeting (co-organised with the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry and the Data Security Council of India, Mumbai, June 15, 2013).

Upcoming / Ongoing Events

Digital Activism in Europe (The Sarai Programme, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, New Delhi, July 8, 2013). Bernadette Längle will give a talk.
Privacy Round Table, Kolkata (co-organised with the Federation for Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, and the Data Security Council of India, Lytton Hotel, Sudder Street, Kolkata, July 13, 2013).

Event Participated In

Biometrics or bust? India's Identity Crisis (organized by the Oxford Internet Institute, July 2, 2013). Malavika Jayaram was a speaker.

Video

Pranesh Prakash on the US snooping into Indian cyber space (by Tehelka, June 2013).

Media Coverage

Indian student in Cornell University hacks into ICSE, ISC database (by Kim Arora, Times of India, June 6, 2013). Pranesh Prakash is quoted.
‘Hacking’ sparks row over exam evaluation (by Vasudha Venugopal and Karthik Subramanian, Hindu, June 7, 2013). Pranesh Prakash is quoted.
Internet firms deny existence of PRISM (by Javed Anwer and Ishan Srivastava, Times of India, June 8, 2013). Sunil Abraham and Pranesh Prakash are quoted.
Indian Government Quietly Brings In Its 'Central Monitoring System': Total Surveillance Of All Telecommunications (Tech Dirt, June 8, 2013). Pranesh Prakash is quoted.
Facebook, Google deny spying access (by Javed Anwer, Times of India, June 9, 2013). Pranesh Prakash is quoted.
Govt mulls advisory on privacy issues related to Google, Facebook (by Thomas K Thomas, Hindu Business Line, June 10, 2013). Sunil Abraham is quoted.
Cyber experts suggest using open source software to protect privacy (by Kim Arora, Times of India, June 22, 2013). Sunil Abraham is quoted.
Govt goes after porn, makes ISPs ban sites (by Javed Anwer, Times of India, June 26, 2013). Sunil Abraham is quoted.
Indian govt blocks 40 smut sites, forgets to give reason (by Phil Muncaster, The Register, June 27, 2013). Sunil Abraham is quoted.
Concerns over central snoop (by Aloke Tikku, Hindustan Times, June 28, 2013). Sunil Abraham is quoted.
Internet users enraged over US online spying (by Maitreyee Boruah, Times of India, June 29, 2013). Sunil Abraham is quoted.
Issue of duplication of identities of users under control: Nilekani (by Anirban Sen, Livemint, June 29, 2013). Sunil Abraham is quoted.
In India, Prism-like Surveillance Slips Under the Radar (by Anjan Trivedi, Time World, June 30, 2013). Sunil Abraham is quoted.

Knowledge Repository on Internet Access

CIS in partnership with the Ford Foundation is executing a project on Internet Access. It covers the history of the internet, technologies involved, principle and values of internet access, broadband market and universal access. It will also touch upon various policies and regulations which has an impact on internet access and bodies and mechanism which are responsible for formulation of policies related to internet access. The blog posts and modules are being published in the Internet Institute website:

Event Organised

Institute on Internet and Society (supported by Ford Foundation, Golden Palms Resort, Bangalore, June 8 – 14, 2013). Pranesh Prakash, Bernadette Längle, Vir Kamal Chopra, AK Bhargava, Ananth Guruswamy, Archana Gulati, Chakshu Roy, Elonnai Hickok, Gaurab Raj Upadhaya, Helani Galpaya, Michael Ginguld, Dr. Nadeem Akhtar, C. Nandini, Dr. Nirmita Narasimhan, Dr. Nishant Shah, Parminder Jeet Singh, Ravikiran Annaswamy, Dr. Ravina Aggarwal, Satyen Gupta, Dr. Subbiah Arunachalam, Sunil Abraham, Tulika Pandey and T. Vishnu Vardhan were speakers at the event. The presentations can be accessed here.

Telecom

CIS is involved in promoting access and accessibility to telecommunications services and resources and has provided inputs to ongoing policy discussions and consultation papers published by TRAI. It has prepared reports on unlicensed spectrum and accessibility of mobile phones for persons with disabilities and also works with the USOF to include funding projects for persons with disabilities in its mandate:

Newspaper Column

Law & Order through Traffic Systems (by Shyam Ponappa, Business Standard, June 5, 2013 and cross-posted in Organizing India Blogspot).

Digital Natives

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:

White Paper

Whose Change is it Anyway? (by Nishant Shah, Hivos, June 18, 2013).

Digital Humanities

We are building research clusters in the field of Digital Humanities. The Digital will be used as a way of unpacking the debates in humanities and social sciences and look at the new frameworks, concepts and ideas that emerge in our engagement with the digital. The clusters aim to produce and document new conversations and debates that shape the contours of Digital Humanities in Asia.

Blog Entries

Mapping the Field of Digital Humanities (by Sara Morais, June 11, 2013).
A Suggested Set of Values for the Digital Humanities (by Sara Morais, June 12, 2013).
Archive Practice and Digital Humanities (by Sara Morais, June 24, 2013).

About CIS

The Centre for Internet and Society is a non-profit research organization that works on policy issues relating to freedom of expression, privacy, accessibility for persons with disabilities, access to knowledge and IPR reform, and openness (including open government, FOSS, open standards, etc.), and engages in academic research on digital natives and digital humanities.

Follow us elsewhere

Get short, timely messages from us on Twitter
Join the CIS group on Facebook
Visit us at http://cis-india.org

Support Us
Please help us defend consumer / citizen rights on the Internet! Write a cheque in favour of ‘The Centre for Internet and Society’ and mail it to us at No. 194, 2nd ‘C’ Cross, Domlur, 2nd Stage, Bengaluru – 5600 71.

Request for Collaboration

We invite researchers, practitioners, and theoreticians, both organisationally and as individuals, to collaboratively engage with Internet and society and improve our understanding of this new field. To discuss the research collaborations, write to Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, at sunil@cis-india.org or Nishant Shah, Director – Research, at nishant@cis-india.org

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.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/june-2013-bulletin

July 2019 Newsletter

praskrishna — 2019-08-09T13:50:49Z

Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) newsletter for July 2019.

Highlights for July 2019
CIS presented its comments on the proposed rules 29,30,31 of the Draft Copyright (Amendment) Rules, 2019 to the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade, Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Govt. of India. The comments were made in response to Notification G.S.R 393(E) published in the Gazette of India on May 30, 2019. CIS submitted that in the domestic approach to modernising our copyright legislation, we must refrain from considering distribution of born-digital/ digitised works over the public Internet equivalent to the function of broadcasting works over cable/ satellite. The Indian National Trust for Art & Heritage Pune Chapter is working with various organisations to preserve the natural heritage places like rivers in Pune district of Maharashtra, India. After the presentation of 'Project Jalbodh' by CIS-A2K in River Dialogue organised by INTACH in April 2018, several organisations have shown keen interest in collaboration. Subodh Kulkarni shares some insights in his report. ICANN has Advisory Committees which help guide the policy recommendations that the ICANN community develops while its Supporting Organizations are charged with developing policy recommendations for a particular aspect of ICANN's operations. ICANN publishes a combined budget for all these bodies under the head of policy development. CIS inquired about the financial resources allocated to each of them specifically. CIS in partnership with the Internet Society organized an event on the impact of consolidation in the Internet economy. It was divided into two roundtable discussions, the first one focusing on the policies and regulation while the latter dealt with the technical evolution of the Internet. The roundtables aimed to analyze how growing forces of consolidation, including concentration, vertical and horizontal integration, and barriers to market entry and competition would influence the Internet in the next 3 to 5 years. The report by Akriti Bopanna and Gurshabad Grover provides an insight into the developments. As part of its Researchers at work programme on key thematics at the intersections of internet and society, CIS called for abstracts for essays that explore social, economic, cultural, political, infrastructural, or aesthetic dimensions of the ‘list’. Ten abstracts would be shortlisted by August 9 from the list of submissions and the selected authors would be requested to submit the full essay of their draft by September 15. Final versions of the essays are expected to be published in October. With the rise and popularity of app-based platforms such as Ola, Uber, Swiggy Zomato, and others, there is a growing public conversation about regulation of such 'gig-work' platforms and the working conditions of people who work for them. To explore this further CIS conducted a panel discussion at its Bangalore office. Researchers associated with the project presented their preliminary findings. Panelists preliminary field insights along with reflections on what it meant to do such studies, how they went about studying gig-work, and challenges that arose in their work. An excerpt from an essay by Maya Indira Ganesh, written for and published as part of the Bodies of Evidence collection of Deep Dives titled You auto-complete me: romancing the bot explains human relations with bots. The Bodies of Evidence collection, edited by Bishakha Datta and Richa Kaul Padte, is a collaboration between Point of View and the Centre for Internet and Society, undertaken as part of the Big Data for Development Network supported by International Development Research Centre, Canada.

CIS and the News

The following articles were authored by CIS secretariat during the month:

Fostering Strategic Convergence in US-India Tech Relations: 5G and Beyond (Justin Sherman and Arindrajit Basu; The Diplomat; July 3, 2019).
Fix Problems Before Complete Failure (Shyam Ponappa; Business Standard; July 4, 2019).
What is the problem with ‘Ethical AI’? An Indian Perspective (A rindrajit Basu and Pranav M.B; cyberBRICS; July 17, 2019).
Old Isn't Always Gold: FaceApp and Its Privacy Policies (Mira Swaminathan and Shweta Reddy; The Wire; July 20, 2019).
The worrying survival of moon landing conspiracy theorists (Nishant Shah; Indian Express; July 22, 2019).
India Is Falling Down the Facial Recognition Rabbit Hole (Karan Saini and Prem Sylvester; The Wire; July 23, 2019).
Why I’m not going to tell you about the dangers of apps like FaceApp (Nishant Shah; Indian Express; July 28, 2019).
The Digital Identification Parade (Aayush Rathi and Ambika Tandon; Indian Express; July 29, 2019). The authors acknowledge Sumandro Chattapadhyay, Amber Sinha and Arindrajit Basu for their edits and Karan Saini for his inputs.
In India, Privacy Policies of Fintech Companies Pay Lip Service to User Rights (Shweta Mohandas; The Wire; July 30, 2019).

CIS in the News

CIS secretariat was consulted for the following articles published during the month in various publications:

PIB plans a fact-checking unit to counter fake news (Smriti Kak Ramachandran; Hindustan Times; July 3, 2019).
How Sai Baba Was Made To Spy On Your Phone For Credit Ratings (Gopal Sathe; Huffington Post; July 4, 2019).
Mozilla is funding a way to support Julia in Firefox (Catalin Cimpanu; ZD Net; July 8, 2019).
Deepfakes: Algorithms at war, trust at stake (Rajmohan Sudhakar; Deccan Herald; July 14, 2019).
Digital public information system design: Talk to experts, find the right way (Prachatai; July 18, 2019).
Easing the US-India divergence on data localisation (Shashidhar KJ and Kashish Parpiani; Observer Research Foundation; July 22, 2019).
For sex workers, mobile phone becomes a double-edged sword (Tushar Kaushik; Economic Times; July 23, 2019).
Twitter reacts to the India's cryptocurrency drama (Rajarshi Mitra; FXStreet; July 26, 2019).

Access to Knowledge

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.

Copyright and Patent

Research on harms caused to consumers, developing countries, human rights, and creativity/innovation from excessive regimes of copyright, patents, and other such monopolistic rights over knowledge:

Submission

Comments on the Draft Copyright (Amendment) Rules, 2019 concerning Statutory Licensing (Anubha Sinha; July 11, 2019). This submission presents comments to the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (“DPIIT”), Ministry of Commerce and Industry pertaining to the notification G.S.R 393(E) containing the draft Copyright (Amendment) Rules, 2019 issued on 30th May 2019.

Wikipedia

Under a grant from Wikimedia Foundation we are doing a project for 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.

Blog Entries

Orientation programme, Wikipedia workshop & Action Plan meeting in PAH Solapur University (Subodh Kulkarni; July 19, 2019).
Wikimedia Workshop on Rivers under Project Jalbodh (Subodh Kulkarni; July 30, 2019).
Re-licensing Sessions with Authors and Organisations (Subodh Kulkarni; July 31, 2019).

Openness

Participation in Event

Learning and Understanding the Frameworks of Rights at Work (Organized by Kai Hsin Hung; IT for Change; Bangalore; July 13, 2019). Torsha and Mira attended the workshop.

Internet Governance

The Tunis Agenda of the second World Summit on the Information Society has 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. As part of internet governance work we work on policy issues relating to freedom of expression primarily focusing on the Information Technology Act and issues of liability of intermediaries for unlawful speech and simultaneously ensuring that the right to privacy is safeguarded as well.

Freedom of Speech & Expression

Under a grant from the MacArthur Foundation, CIS is doing research on the restrictions placed on freedom of expression online by the Indian government and contribute studies, reports and policy briefs to feed into the ongoing debates at the national as well as international level. As part of the project we bring you the following outputs:

Blog Entry

DIDP #34 On granular detail on ICANN's budget for policy development process (Akriti Bopanna; July 6, 2019).

Participation in Events

13th European Summer School on Internet Governance (Organized by European Summer School on Internet Governance; Meissen; July 13 - 20, 2019). Akriti Bopanna attended the school.
ICANN 65 De-briefing Meeting (Organized by Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations ; July 16, 2019). Akriti Bopanna remotely presented on the Human Rights related developments that took place at the Marrakech meeting, over the course of the 4 days.

Privacy

Under a grant from Privacy International and IDRC we are doing a project on surveillance. CIS is researching the history of privacy in India and how it shapes the contemporary debates around technology mediated identity projects like Aadhar. As part of our ongoing research, we bring you the following outputs:

Blog Entry

The Impact of Consolidation in the Internet Economy on the Evolution of the Internet (Akriti Bopanna and Gurshabad Grover; July 3, 2019). The blog post was edited by Swaraj Barooah, Elonnai Hickok and Vishnu Ramachandran. Swagam Dasgupta provided inputs.

Participation in Events

Digital ID Forum 2019 (Organized by UNDP; Chulalongkorn University, Thailand; July 3, 2019). Sunil Abraham was one of the panelists at this event.
BIS LITD 17 meeting (Organized by Bureau of Indian Standards; New Delhi; July 3, 2019). Gurshabad Grover attended the sixteenth meeting of the Information Systems Security and Biometrics Section Committee (LITD17).
Facebook Data for Good in Bangalore (Organized by Facebook; Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore; July 25, 2019).
Roundtable with the WhatsApp leadership (Organized by WhatsApp; Mountbatten, The Oberoi, New Delhi; July 26, 2019). Will Cathcart, WhatsApp's new global head, visited India and invited Sunil Abraham for a discussion.
Facebook Data for Good in New Delhi (Organized by Facebook; University of Chicago Center, New Delhi; July 29, 2019).

IT / Information Technology

A research on the usage of systems (computers and telecommunications) for storing, retrieving and sending information as well as the IT Act:

Participation in Event

Leveraging Web Application Vulnerabilities for Reconnaissance and Intelligence Gathering (Organized by Has Geek; GRD College of Science, Coimbatore; July 5, 2019). Karan Saini gave a talk at the JSFoo Conference.

Artificial Intelligence

With origins dating back to the 1950s Artificial Intelligence (AI) is not necessarily new. However, interest in AI has been rekindled over the recent years due to advancements of technology and its applications to real-world scenarios. We conduct research on the existing legal and regulatory parameters:

Participation in Events

Roundtable Discussion on “The Future of AI Policy in India” (Organized by Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations, New Delhi; July 1, 2019).
Emerging AI technology in health care in India, health equity and justice: Critical reflections and charting out way forward (Organized by HEaL (Health, Ethics, and Law Institute of Training, Research and Advocacy) of FMES (Forum for Medical Ethics Society) in collaboration with CPS (Centre for Policy Studies), Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay; July 13, 2019). Radhika Radhakrishnan, participated in a roundtable discussion on "Emerging AI technology in health care in India, health equity and justice: Critical reflections and charting out way forward."

Gender

Presentation to Amnesty International on researching the Future of Work (Organized by Amnesty Interntional, New Delhi; July 18, 2019). Aayush Rathi and Ambika Tandon made a presentation on CIS research on Future of Work.

Telecom

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.

Monthly Blog

Fix Problems Before Complete Failure (Shyam Ponappa; Organizing India Blogspot; July 4, 2019).

Researchers@Work

The researchers@work programme at CIS produces and supports pioneering and sustained trans-disciplinary research on key thematics at the intersections of internet and society; organise and incubate networks of and fora for researchers and practitioners studying and making internet in India; and contribute to development of critical digital pedagogy, research methodology, and creative practice.

Event Organized

#MappingDigitalLabour - Panel discussion on platform-work in Mumbai and New Delhi (CIS, Bangalore; July 19, 2019). Watch the session recording video here.

Blog Entries

Studying the Internet Discourse in India through the Prism of Human Rights (Deva Prasad M.; July 1, 2019).
#DigitalPedagogies (Ashutosh Potdar, Maya Dodd, Nidhi Kalra, and Ravikant Kisana; July 1, 2019).
#OpenAccessScholarlyPublishing (Abhishek Shrivastava, Dibyaduti Roy, and Nirmala Menon; July 11, 2019).
#RenarrationWeb (Anuja Mirchandaney, Deepak Prince, Dinesh and Shalini; July 23, 2019).

About CIS

CIS is a non-profit organisation that undertakes interdisciplinary research on internet and digital technologies from policy and academic perspectives. The areas of focus include digital accessibility for persons with disabilities, access to knowledge, intellectual property rights, openness (including open data, free and open source software, open standards, open access, open educational resources, and open video), internet governance, telecommunication reform, digital privacy, and cyber-security. The academic research at CIS seeks to understand the reconfigurations of social and cultural processes and structures as mediated through the internet and digital media technologies.

Follow CIS on:

Twitter: http://twitter.com/cis_india
Twitter - Access to Knowledge: https://twitter.com/CISA2K
Twitter - Information Policy: https://twitter.com/CIS_InfoPolicy
Facebook - Access to Knowledge: https://www.facebook.com/cisa2k
E-Mail - Access to Knowledge: a2k@cis-india.org
E-Mail - Researchers at Work: raw@cis-india.org
List - Researchers at Work: https://lists.ghserv.net/mailman/listinfo/researchers

Support CIS:

Collaborate with CIS:

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/july-2019-newsletter

July 2018 Newsletter

praskrishna — 2018-08-11T02:50:52Z

CIS July 2018 newsletter.

Dear readers,

Previous issues of the newsletters can be accessed here.

Highlights

Paul Kurien and Akriti Bopanna carried out an analysis of the diversity of participation at the ICANN processes by taking a close look at their mailing lists.
CIS-A2K organized 6 events: partnership discussions with Misimi Telugu monthly magazine; partnership activity in Annamayya Library, Guntur, a workshop in Tumakur University; a workshop of river activists for building Jal Bodh; a workshop of publishers and writers on unicode, open source and wikimedia projects; and a Telugu literary conference.
CIS had worked with the Research and Advisory Group (RAG) of the Global Commission on the Stability of Cyberspace (GCSC). The work looked at the negotiation processes and strategies that various players may adopt as they drive the cyber norms agenda. In continuation CIS has brought out a report which focuses more extensively on the substantive law and principles at play and looks closely at what the global state of the debate means for India.
The debate surrounding privacy has in recent times gained momentum due to the Aadhaar judgement and the growing concerns around the use of personal data by corporations and governments. In this light CIS has made comments and recommendations to the India Privacy Code, 2018.
CIS drafted a response to a Notice of Inquiry (NOI) issued by the U.S. Commerce Department's National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) on "International Internet Policy Priorities." CIS commented on the free flow of information and jurisdiction, mult-stakeholder approach to internet governance, privacy and security.
Elonnai Hickok, Shweta Mohandas and Swaraj Paul Barooah compiled the AI Task Force Report, India's first step towards an AI framework. The Task Force on Artificial Intelligence was established by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry to leverage AI for economic benefits, and provide policy recommendations on the deployment of AI for India.
Paul Kurian and Akriti Bopanna carried out an analysis of the diversity of participation at the ICANN processes by taking a close look at their mailing lists.

Articles

Digital Native: The bigger picture (Nishant Shah; Indian Express; July 1, 2018).
The Problems That Should Occupy Our Electioneers (Shyam Ponappa; Business Standard; July 6, 2018).
Digital Native: How smart cities can make criminals out of denizens (Nishant Shah; Indian Express; July 15, 2018).
Anti-trafficking Bill may lead to censorship (Swaraj Barooah and Gurshabad Grover; Livemint; July 24, 2018).
Digital Native: Hashtag Along With Me (Nishant Shah; Indian Express; July 29, 2018).
Lining up the data on the Srikrishna Privacy Draft Bill (Sunil Abraham; Economic Times; July 30, 2018).
Spreading unhappiness equally around (Business Standard; July 31, 2018).

CIS in the News

Smartphone rumours spark series of mob killings in India (Samanth Subramanian; The National; July 2, 2018).
Government Gives Nod To Bill For Building DNA Databases In India, For 'Criminal Investigation And Justice Delivery' (Huffington Post; July 5, 2018).
'Hope for such swift crackdowns for everyone' (Times of India; July 6, 2018).
Child-lifting rumours caused 69 mob attacks, 33 deaths in last 18 months (Business Standard; July 9, 2018).
Death by Social Media (Pretika Khanna, Abhiram Ghadyalpatil and Shaswati Das; Livemint; July 9, 2018).
India's Latest Data Leak: People's Aadhaar Number And Bank Account Are Just One Google Search Away (Gopal Sathe; Huffington Post; July 12, 2018).
People Should Have Right To Their Data, Not Companies, Says TRAI (Bloomberg Quint; July 16, 2018).
After Securing Net Neutrality In India, TRAI Goes To Bat For Data Privacy (Gopal Sathe; Huffington Post; July 16, 2018).
TRAI recommendations on data privacy raises eyebrows (Surabhi Agarwal and Gulveen Aulakh; Economic Times; July 18, 2018).
Srikrishna panel upset at timing of Trai suggestions (Megha Mandavia; Economic Times; July 19, 2018).
Firms find wealth in your data (Rajitha Menon; Deccan Herald; July 20, 2018).
WhatsApp races against time to fix fake news mess ahead of 2019 general elections (Venkat Ananth; Economic Times; July 24, 2018).
The crown of thorns that awaits Facebook’s India MD hire (Sunny Sen and Jayadevan PK; Factory Daily; July 25, 2018).
Bit by byte protecting her privacy (Mihir Dalal and Anirban Sen; Livemint; July 26, 2018).
Govt asks CBI to probe Cambridge Analytica in data breach case (Komal Gupta; Livemint; July 27, 2018).
Data localisation may pinch startups, payments firms (Mugdha Variyar and Pratik Bhakta; Economic Times; July 28, 2018).

Access to Knowledge

Our Access to Knowledge programme currently consists of two projects. The Pervasive Technologies project, conducted under a grant from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), aims to conduct research on the complex interplay between low-cost pervasive technologies and intellectual property, in order to encourage the proliferation and development of such technologies as a social good. The Wikipedia project, which is under a grant from the Wikimedia Foundation, is for 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.

Wikipedia

Blog Entries

ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯ ತರಬೇತಿ ೨೦೧೮ @ ರಾಂಚಿ (Vikas Hegde; July 4, 2018).
How to write differently for different Telugu digital platforms - awareness session to Indu Gnana Vedika (Pavan Santosh; July 19, 2018).
వాట్సాప్ సాహిత్య వేదిక నుంచి వికీసోర్సుకు (Pavan Santosh; July 31, 2018).

Events Organized

Partnership activity in Annamayya Library (Guntur; July 10, 2014).
Partnership discussions with Misimi Telugu Monthly Magazine (July 24, 2018).
Tumakur University Workshop (Tumkur; July 25, 2018).
Workshop of River activists for building Jal Bodh - Knowledge resource on Water (Pune; July 25, 2018).
Workshop of Publishers and Writers on Unicode, Open Source and Wikimedia Projects (Pune; July 25, 2018).

Internet Governance

As part of its research on privacy and free speech, CIS is engaged with two different projects. The first one (under a grant from Privacy International and IDRC) is on surveillance and freedom of expression (SAFEGUARDS). The second one (under a grant from MacArthur Foundation) is on restrictions that the Indian government has placed on freedom of expression online.

Privacy

Submissions

Response to a Notice of Enquiry by the US Government on International Internet Policy Priorities (Swagam Dasgupta; July 18, 2018).
The Centre for Internet and Society’s Comments and Recommendations to the: Indian Privacy Code, 2018 (Shweta Mohandas, Elonnai Hickok, Amber Sinha and Shruti Trikanand; July 20, 2018).

Blog Entry

The AI Task Force Report - The first steps towards India’s AI framework (Elonnai Hickok, Shweta Mohandas and Swaraj Paul Barooah; June 27, 2018). The blog post was edited by Swagam Dasgupta.

Participation in Events

IETF 102 Montreal (Organized by Internet Engineering Task Force; Fairmont Queen Elizabeth Montreal in Canada; July 14 - 20, 2018). Gurshabad Grover presented a review of the human rights considerations in the drafts of the Software Update for IoT Devices (SUIT) Working Group in the meeting of the HRPC research group.
Ethical Data Design Practices in the AI (Artificial Intelligence) Age (Organized by Startup Grind, Bangalore at NUMA Bangalore; July 28, 2018). Shweta Mohandas was a panelist.

Cyberspace and Cyber Security

Analysis

The Potential for the Normative Regulation of Cyberspace: Implications for India (Arindrajit Basu; July 30, 2018). The report was edited by Elonnai Hickok, Sunil Abraham and Udbhav Tiwari with research assistance from Tejas Bharadwaj.

Blog Entry

CIS contributes to the Research and Advisory Group of the Global Commission on the Stability of Cyberspace (GCSC) (Arindrajit Basu; July 5, 2018).

Participation in Event

IEEE-SA InDITA Conference 2018 (Organized by IEEE Standards Association; IIIT-Bangalore; July 10 - 11, 2018). Gurshabad Grover gave a brief presentation on how we could apply or reject 'Trust Through Technology' principles in the design of public biometric authentication.

Free Speech & Expression

Blog Entries

ICANN Diversity Analysis (Paul Kurian and Akriti Bopanna; July 16, 2018).
DIDP #31 Diversity of employees at ICANN (Akash Sriram; July 19, 2018).

Participation in Event

26th AMIC Annual Conference – India 2018 (Organized by Manipal Academy of Higher Education; Fortune Inn Valley View, Manipal, Karnataka; June 7 - 9, 2018). Swaraj Paul Barooah was a speaker. An article announcing the event by Kevin Mendonsa was published in the Times of India on June 5, 2018.

Telecom

Newspaper Column

The Problems That Should Occupy Our Electioneers (Shyam Ponappa; Business Standard; July 5, 2018 and Organizing India Blogspot; July 6, 2018).

About CIS

► Follow us elsewhere

Twitter: http://twitter.com/cis_india
Twitter - Access to Knowledge: https://twitter.com/CISA2K
Twitter - Information Policy: https://twitter.com/CIS_InfoPolicy
Facebook - Access to Knowledge: https://www.facebook.com/cisa2k
E-Mail - Access to Knowledge: a2k@cis-india.org
E-Mail - Researchers at Work: raw@cis-india.org
List - Researchers at Work: https://lists.ghserv.net/mailman/listinfo/researchers

► Support Us

► Request for Collaboration

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/july-2018-newsletter

July 2017 Newsletter

praskrishna — 2017-08-23T02:03:19Z

Dear readers,

Previous issues of the newsletters can be accessed here.

Highlights
In an article published in the Huffington Post on July 1, 2017, Nirmita Narasimhan stated that imposing taxes on assistive devices is unfair. It is unconscionable that disability aids and assistive technology are considered a luxury and taxed at a higher rate than rough semi-precious stones or cashew nuts. A research paper on patent working requirements and complex products in India authored by Prof Jorge L. Contreras, University of Utah, and Rohini Lakshané, CIS has been accepted for publication in the Jindal Global Law School Law Review 2017. Negotiators from 16 countries met in Hyderabad for discussing a free trade agreement titled Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership. Anubha Sinha along with Arul George Scaria reported this in an article published by Live Law.in. Supreme Court of India while dismissing an appeal by the Indian Reprographic Rights Organization ruled that there was no copyright infringement and no licence was required since the activities fell under the education exception in Indian copyright law. In an article published by EIFL, Anubha Sinha discusses the judgment and what it means for access to educational materials in India. Odia Wikipedians, in conjunction with Indian Athletics Federation and Sports and Youth Services collaborated to document the 2017 Asian Athletics Championships. Hundreds of photos were uploaded and new Wikipedia content added to inform the event’s fans, wrote Sailesh Patnaik and Jnanaranjan Sahu in a blog post. As recently as May 27, 2016, the General Data Protection Regulation (REGULATION (EU) 2016/679 was adopted The Data Protection Directive (1995/46/EC) will be replaced by this Regulation. It is expected that under this Regulation data privacy will be strengthened. Aditi Chaturvedi analyses the developments in a report.

CIS in the news:

UIDAI declining multiple requests by police to share Indian citizens’ biometrics (Justin Lee; Biometrics; July 4, 2017).
Act now to protect yourself against future ransomware attacks (Sanjay Kumar Singh; Business Standard; July 5, 2017).
Reliance Jio data leaked on website : report (Livemint; July 10, 2017).
Supreme Court sets up constitution bench to hear Aadhaar privacy issues (Priyanka Mittal; Livemint; July 12, 2017).
Centre to form panel to 'encrypt' MGNREGA-DBT database and prevent leaks (Sanjeeb Mukherjee; Business Standard; July 14, 2017).
Calls for law change after Indians left in dark over data leaks (Rahul Bhatia and Sankalp Phartiyal; Reuters; July 14, 2017).
Indians Call For More Stringent Data Protection Laws (PYMTNS; July 17, 2017).
Social Activist Alleges Threat By Police Officer Over Possession of Aadhaar (Gaurav Vivek Bhatnagar; Wire; July 16, 2017).

Aadhaar privacy: Key issues that all Aadhaar card holders should bear in mind (Business Today, July 19, 2017).
Data in the open makes it easy for cyber criminals (Kiran Parashar KM; New Indian Express; July 26, 2017).

CIS members wrote the following articles

Why GST Is A Step Backward For The Disabled (Nirmita Narasimhan; Huffington Post; July 1, 2017).
Course Packs for Education Ruled Legal in India (Anubha Sinha; EIFL; July 12, 2017).
Digital native: Not only words (Nishant Shah; Indian Express; July 16, 2017).
Aadhar: Privacy is not a unidimensional concept (Amber Sinha; Economic Times; July 23, 2017).
RCEP IP Chapter: A Serious Threat to Access to Knowledge/ Cultural Goods? (Arul George Scaria and Anubha Sinha; July 27, 2017).
Digital native: Ever on the go (Nishant Shah; Indian Express; July 30, 2017).

-------------------------------------
Accessibility & Inclusion
-------------------------------------
India has an estimated 70 million persons with disabilities who don't have access to read printed materials due to some form of physical, sensory, cognitive or other disability. As part of our endeavour to make available accessible content for persons with disabilities, we are developing a text-to-speech software in 15 languages with support from the Hans Foundation. The progress made so far in the project can be accessed here.

Article

Why GST Is A Step Backward For The Disabled (Nirmita Narasimhan; Huffington Post; July 1, 2017).

-----------------------------------
Access to Knowledge
-----------------------------------
Our Access to Knowledge programme currently consists of two projects. The Pervasive Technologies project, conducted under a grant from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), aims to conduct research on the complex interplay between low-cost pervasive technologies and intellectual property, in order to encourage the proliferation and development of such technologies as a social good. The Wikipedia project, which is under a grant from the Wikimedia Foundation, is for 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.

►Pervasive Technologies and Copyright

Research Paper

Patent Working Requirements and Complex Products: An Empirical Assessment of India's Form 27 Practice and Compliance (Jorge L. Contreras and Rohini Lakshané; SSRN and Jindal Global Law School Review; July 17, 2017).

Participation in Event

19th RCEP Meeting (Organized by Ministry of Commerce, Government of India; July 17 - 28, 2017; Hyderabad). Anubha Sinha participated in the meeting.

►Wikipedia

As part of the project grant from the Wikimedia Foundation we have reached out to more than 3500 people across India by organizing more than 100 outreach events and catalysed the release of encyclopaedic and other content under the Creative Commons (CC-BY-3.0) license in four Indian languages (21 books in Telugu, 13 in Odia, 4 volumes of encyclopaedia in Konkani and 6 volumes in Kannada, and 1 book on Odia language history in English).

Blog Entries

Note: The events were organized earlier but reports were published in July 2017:

Christ University Wikipedia Education Program Internship (Manasa Rao and Ananth Subray; July 5, 2017).
Christ University Wikipedia Education Program Faculty Orientation Report (Ananth Subray; July 7, 2017).
How It Came To Be: Wiki Loves Uniformed Services (Krishna Chaitanya Velaga; July 10, 2017).
Tallapaka Pada Sahityam is now on Wikisource (Pavan Santhosh; July 10, 2017).
Thematic Edit-a-thon at Yashawantrao Chavan Institute of Science, Satara (Subodh Kulkarni; July 11, 2017).
Asian Athletics Championships 2017 Edit-a-thon (Sailesh Patnaik and Jnanaranjan Sahu; July 31, 2017).

-----------------------------------

Internet Governance
-----------------------------------

►Privacy

Blog Entry

Data Protection: Understanding the General Data Protection Regulation (Aditi Chaturvedi; July 4, 2017).

Participation in Event

IViR Summer Course on Privacy Law and Policy (Organized by the University of Amsterdam; July 3 - 7, 2017; Amsterdam). Amber Sinha attended the course.

►Free Speech and Expression and Cyber Security

Participation in Events

OHD on Consultation Paper on Net Neutrality (Organized by Telecom Regulatory Authority of India; July 25, 2017). Pranesh Prakash was a speaker.
UNESCO Multistakeholder consultation at 8th Asia Pacific Regional Internet Governance Forum (APrIGF) (Organized by UNESCO; Bangkok; July 26 - 29, 2017). Sunil Abraham was a speaker. Vidhushi Marda also participated in the event.
Cybersecurity Workshop: Spotlight On GCCS 2017 (Organized by Global Partners Digital (GPD) and the Centre for Communication Governance at National Law University, Delhi, in collaboration with Digital Empowerment Foundation, Digital Asia Hub and Open Net Korea; Bangkok; July 25 - 27, 2017). Sunil Abraham was a speaker. Udbhav Tiwari and Vidushi Marda participated in the event.

-----------------------------------
Telecom
-----------------------------------
CIS is involved in promoting access and accessibility to telecommunications services and resources, and has provided inputs to ongoing policy discussions and consultation papers published by TRAI. It has prepared reports on unlicensed spectrum and accessibility of mobile phones for persons with disabilities and also works with the USOF to include funding projects for persons with disabilities in its mandate:

Participation in Event

Workshop on Public Open Wi-Fi Pilot (Organized by Telecom Regulatory Authority of India; July 25, 2017). Pranesh Prakash was a speaker.

-----------------------------------
Researchers at Work
-----------------------------------
The Researchers at Work (RAW) programme is an interdisciplinary research initiative driven by an emerging need to understand the reconfigurations of social practices and structures through the Internet and digital media technologies, and vice versa. It aims to produce local and contextual accounts of interactions, negotiations, and resolutions between the Internet, and socio-material and geo-political processes:

Event Organized

Dr. Prerna Prabhakar - Impact of Digitisation of Land Records in Rural India (CIS, New Delhi; July 7, 2017).

-----------------------------------

About CIS
-----------------------------------
The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) is a non-profit organisation that undertakes interdisciplinary research on internet and digital technologies from policy and academic perspectives. The areas of focus include digital accessibility for persons with disabilities, access to knowledge, intellectual property rights, openness (including open data, free and open source software, open standards, open access, open educational resources, and open video), internet governance, telecommunication reform, digital privacy, and cyber-security. The academic research at CIS seeks to understand the reconfigurations of social and cultural processes and structures as mediated through the internet and digital media technologies.

► Follow us elsewhere

Twitter: http://twitter.com/cis_india
Twitter - Access to Knowledge: https://twitter.com/CISA2K
Twitter - Information Policy: https://twitter.com/CIS_InfoPolicy
Facebook - Access to Knowledge: https://www.facebook.com/cisa2k
E-Mail - Access to Knowledge: a2k@cis-india.org
E-Mail - Researchers at Work: raw@cis-india.org
List - Researchers at Work: https://lists.ghserv.net/mailman/listinfo/researchers

► Support Us

► Request for Collaboration

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/july-2017-newsletter

July 2015 Bulletin

praskrishna — 2015-11-21T16:23:52Z

Our newsletter for the month of July is below:

We are happy to share with you the seventh issue of the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) newsletter (July 2015). The past editions of the newsletter can be accessed at http://cis-india.org/about/newsletters.

Highlights

NVDA team conducted a training at SIES College, Sion, Mumbai. Thirty-four delegates attended the training programme. A training workshop was held at Anne Jane Askwith Higher Secondary School for the Visually Impaired, Palayamkottai, Tirunelveli by NVDA team. Sixteen delegates participated in this. Konkani Wikipedia is the second Wikimedia project after Odia Wikisource that has gone live out of incubation. The project stayed in the incubation for nine long years and the community has gone through a long debate to have a Wikipedia of their own. Subhashish Panigrahi has blogged on this highlighting the three Konkani Wikimedians. The 30^th Session of the WIPO Standing Committee on Copyrights and Related Rights was held in Geneva from June 29 to July 3. Nehaa Chaudhari prepared a statement about the negotiations on the Proposed Treaty for Broadcasting Organisations. Sumandro Chattapadhyay wrote an article in the Hindustan Times about India’s “Digital India” initiative to develop communication infrastructure, government information systems, and general capacity to digitise public life in India. CIS published the first draft of its analysis on technology business incubators ("TBI") in India. The report prepared by Sunil Abraham, Vidushi Marda, Udbhav Tiwari and Anumeha Karnatak looks at operating procedures, success stories and lessons that can be learnt from TBIs in India. Pranesh Prakash did a brief analysis about the Department of Telecommunications Panel Report on Net Neutrality. CIS has participated in the Expert Committee for DNA Profiling constituted by the Department of Biotechnology in 2012 for the purpose of deliberating on and finalizing the draft Human DNA Profiling Bill and appreciates this opportunity. CIS has prepared a dissent note to the Expert Committee on DNA Profiling. In the last few decades, all major common law jurisdictions have decriminalised non-procreative sex – oral and anal sex (sodomy) – to allow private, consensual, and non-commercial homosexual intercourse. Bhairav Acharya brought out the developments from across the world in a blog entry. As part of its project on mapping cyber security actors in South Asia and South East Asia, CIS conducted interviews with a Tibetan security researcher and information activist and Shantanu Ghosh, Managing Director, Symantec Product Operations, India. CIS, the Observer Research Foundation, the Internet Policy Observatory, the Centre for Global Communication Studies and the Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania had organized a conference in April in New Delhi. The findings have been condensed in a report titled “Effective research, policy formulation, and the development of regulatory frameworks in South Asia”. Pranesh Prakash in a research paper titled Regulatory Perspectives on Net Neutrality gives an overview on why India needs to put in place net neutrality regulations, and the form that those regulations must take to avoid being over-regulation. Rakshanda Deka undertook an analysis on the anti-spam laws in different jurisdictions. This analysis is a part of a larger attempt at formulating a model anti-spam law for India by analysing the existing spam laws across the world. As part of the 'Studying Internets in India' series, RAW has published blog entries on WhatsApp and the Creation of a Transnational Sociality; Users and the Internet; Effective Activism: The Internet, Social Media, and Hierarchical Activism in New Delhi; Studying the Internet Discourse in India through the Prism of Human Rights; and 'Originality,' 'Authenticity,' and 'Experimentation': Understanding Tagore’s Music on YouTube. The National Optic Fibre Network, a part of the Government's Digital India Initiative, has been in the news since the recent Expert Committee Report. Aditya Garg in a blog entry examined the accountability of the funding of the project.

Accessibility and Inclusion

Under a grant from the Hans Foundation we are doing two projects. The first project is on creating a national resource kit of state-wise laws, policies and programmes on issues relating to persons with disabilities in India. CIS in partnership with CLPR (Centre for Law and Policy Research) compiled the National Compendium of Policies, Programmes and Schemes for Persons with Disabilities (29 states and 6 union territories). The publication has been finalised and is being printed. The draft chapters and the quarterly reports can be accessed on the project page. The second project is on developing text-to-speech software for 15 Indian languages. The progress made so far in the project can be accessed here.

NVDA and eSpeak

Monthly Updates

July 2015 Report (Suman Dogra; July 31, 2015).

Event Reports

The training programmes were held in June and the reports were published in July:

Tamil Computing with NVDA Training Workshop (Organized by NVDA team: Anne Jane Ask with Higher Secondary School for the Visually Impaired, Palayamkottai, Tirunelveli; June 3 – 7, 2015).
Training in eSpeak Marathi (Organized by NVDA team; SIES College, Sion, Mumbai; June 28, 2015).

Access to Knowledge

As part of the Access to Knowledge programme we are doing two projects. The first one (Pervasive Technologies) under a grant from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) is for research on the complex interplay between pervasive technologies and intellectual property to support intellectual property norms that encourage the proliferation and development of such technologies as a social good. The second one (Wikipedia) under a grant from the Wikimedia Foundation is for 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.

Submission / Comment

Statement by the Centre for Internet and Society on the Broadcast Treaty at SCCR 30 (Nehaa Chaudhari; July 2, 2015).

Wikipedia

Blog Entries

Reading Devanagari Script based sites like Konkani Wikipedia in Kannada Script (Dr. U.B. Pavanaja; July 13, 2015).
Konkani Wikipedia Goes Live After 'Nine Years' of Incubation (Subhashish Panigrahi; July 18, 2015).

Events Co-organized

Christ University Undergraduate Programme (Organized by CIS-A2K; Bangalore; July 1 - 8, 2015). Students were initiated into the Wikimedia activities with hands on sessions of typing on Wikisource. Faculty of the Christ University helped the A2K team in deciding on the texts that were to be typed. These texts will provide much needed impetus for Wikisource related activities in Indian Languages. Wikipedia Education Programme at Christ University received support from Ravishankar.A of the Tamil Wikimedia community and Sayant Mahato from Sanskrit Wikimedia community.
Aloysius College (Organized by CIS-A2K; Mangalore; July 1 – 4, 2015). Tulu and Kannada Wikipedia workshops were conducted in St. Aloysis College, Mangalore. Tulu Wikipedia is in Incubator and a small community is growing in Mangalore. Pavanaja U.B. and Rahmanuddin Shaik participated in this events.
Media Wiki Train the Trainer Program (Organized by CIS-A2K; Bangalore; June 24 – 27, 2015): A four-day long train-the-trainer program aimed at building leadership among technical contributors to Indic language Wikimedians in the areas of bugs, bots--Pywikipedia and Auto Wiki Browser, various MediaWiki tools, and translations. Ravishankar A. from Wikimedia India, MediaWiki developers Pavithra H., Yogesh Omshivaprakash H.L. and Harsh Kothari, and Tamil Wikimedian Dineshkumar Ponnusamy provided support for the event.

Participation in Events

Wikimania 2015 (Organized by Wikimedia Foundation; Mexico City; July 15 - 19, 2015): A whole day was dedicated for evaluation of strategies and activities by various major stakeholders of the Wikimedia movement. Community members who lead major activities, Wikimedia chapters, affiliate organizations and Wikimedia Foundation itself took part in the discussions. There were several group activities, exchange of ideas focused on project and community level outreach and other activities, tools and techniques, and best practices. Subhashish Panigrahi participated in this event and gave a talk on How to do Guerrilla GLAM. Subhashish Panigrahi was a panelist along with Rohini Lakshané in the session “Edit-a-thons for Bridging the Gender Gap on Wikimedia: A Panel Discussion”. An Indic Meet-up was also organized. Wikimedians from India, Bangladesh and Nepal representing various language communities, Wikimedia India, Wikimedia Bangladesh, Wikimedia Nepal, and Access to Knowledge (CIS-A2K) gathered to discuss about various challenges, cross-community collaborative projects, organizing larger events, and strategies to grow the Wikimedia movement in South Asia.
Classical Languages in the Digital Era Conference (Organized by Central Institute of Indian Languages, Mysore; July 17, 2015) Tanveer Hasan participated in this conference aimed at discussing about the future of Indian classical languages in the digital era.

Media Coverage

Not many contributors for Kannada-centric Wiki page (The Times of India, July 5, 2015)
Upload More Kannada Articles on Wikipedia (Indian Express, July 5, 2015)
Kannada Wikipedia Workshop in Mangaluru (Udayavani; July 5, 2015)
Kannada Wikipedia Workshop in Mangaluru (Prajavani; July 5, 2015)

Staff Movement

Tito Dutta, Luis Gomes and Abhinav Garule have joined the CIS-A2K team as Programme Associates from March this year. Tito is working for internal documentation and resource building, and Luis and Abhinav are implementing the Konkani and Marathi work plan respectively along with community liaison.

Internet Governance

As part of its research on privacy and free speech, CIS is engaged with two different projects. The first one (under a grant from Privacy International and International Development Research Centre (IDRC)) is on surveillance and freedom of expression (SAFEGUARDS). The second one (under a grant from MacArthur Foundation) is on studying the restrictions placed on freedom of expression online by the Indian government.

Free Speech and Expression

Blog Entries

Regulatory Perspectives on Net Neutrality (Pranesh Prakash; July 8, 2015). Vidushi Marda and Tarun Krishnakumar assisted Pranesh Prakash in this.
Free Speech Policy in India: Community, Custom, Censorship, and the Future of Internet Regulation (Bhairav Acharya; July 13, 2015).
Net Neutrality and the Law of Common Carriage (Bhairav Acharya; July 14, 2015).
Freedom of Expression in a Digital Age (Geetha Hariharan and Jyoti Panday; July 14, 2015). CIS, the Observer Research Foundation, the Internet Policy Observatory, the Centre for Global Communication Studies and the Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania organized this conference on April 21, 2015 in New Delhi. Elonnai Hickok edited the report.
Clearing Misconceptions: What the DoT Panel Report on Net Neutrality Says (and Doesn't) (Pranesh Prakash; July 21, 2015).
Role of Intermediaries in Countering Online Abuse (Jyoti Panday; July 31, 2015). This got published as two blog entries in the NALSAR Law Tech Blog. Part 1 can be accessed here and Part 2 here.

Event Co-organized

A Public Discussion on Criminal Defamation in India (Organized by CIS, the Network of Women in Media, India; and Media Watch; Bangalore; July 29, 2015). The event was a public discussion about the continued criminalisation of defamation in India.

Participation in Event

Roundtable discussion on WHOIS (Organized by Department of Electronics & Information Technology (DeitY), Govt. of India; July 28, 2015; New Delhi). Sunil Abraham and Vidushi Marda participated in the discussion remotely. Aditya Garg attended in person.

Privacy

Blog Entries

Anti-Spam Laws in Different Jurisdictions: A Comparative Analysis (Rakshanda Deka; July 2, 2015).
A Dissent Note to the Expert Committee for DNA Profiling (Elonnai Hickok; July 17, 2015). Click for DNA Bill Functions, DNA List of Offences, and CIS Note on DNA Bill. A modified version was published by Citizen Matters Bangalore on July 28.
Privacy, Autonomy, and Sexual Choice: The Common Law Recognition of Homosexuality (Bhairav Acharya; July 18, 2015).
Aadhaar Number vs the Social Security Number (Elonnai Hickok; July 21, 2015).

Participation in Event

7th Best Practices Meet 2015 (Organized by Data Security Council of India; Bangalore; July 9 – 10, 2015). Sunil Abraham was a panelist in the session "Architecting Security for transformation to Digital India". Elonnai Hickok was a panelist in the session "Steering privacy in the age of extreme innovation technology & business models."

Cyber Security

Videos

Cyber Security Series Part 23 (Purba Sarkar; July 13, 2015). CIS interviews a Tibetan security researcher and information activist.
Cyber Security Series Part 24 (Purba Sarkar; July 15, 2015). CIS interviews Shantanu Ghosh, Managing Director, Symantec Product Operations, India, as part of the Cybersecurity Series.

Miscellaneous

Article

Iron out contradictions in the Digital India programme (Sumandro Chattapadhyay; Hindustan Times; July 28, 2015).

Research Paper

First draft of Technology Business Incubators: An Indian Perspective and Implementation Guidance Report (Sunil Abraham, Vidushi Marda, Udbhav Tiwari and Anumeha Karnatak; July 25, 2015).

Telecom

Op-ed

The Centrality of Cash Flows (Shyam Ponappa; Business Standard; July 1, 2015 and Organizing India Blogspot; July 2, 2015).

Blog Entry

Funding of National Optic Fibre Network (NOFN) - Who's Accountable? (Aditya Garg; July 17, 2015).

Researchers at Work

The Researchers at Work (RAW) programme is an interdisciplinary research initiative driven by contemporary concerns to understand the reconfigurations of social practices and structures through the Internet and digital media technologies, and vice versa. It is interested in producing local and contextual accounts of interactions, negotiations, and resolutions between the Internet, and socio-material and geo-political processes:

Blog Entries

WhatsApp and the Creation of a Transnational Sociality (Maitrayee Deka; July 1, 2015).
Users and the Internet (Purbasha Auddy; July 10, 2015).
Effective Activism: The Internet, Social Media, and Hierarchical Activism in New Delhi (Sarah McKeever; July 16, 2015).
Studying the Internet Discourse in India through the Prism of Human Rights (Deva Prasad M.; July 22, 2015).
'Originality,' 'Authenticity,' and 'Experimentation': Understanding Tagore’s Music on YouTube) (Ipsita Sengupta; July 27, 2015).

News & Media Coverage

CIS gave its inputs to the following media coverage:

'IRCTC’s Aadhaar play can violate SC order and derail National Security' (Shubhra Rishi; CIO.IN; July 1, 2015).
The Digital Divide: pros and cons of Modi's latest big initiative (Suhas Munshi; July 2, 2015).
Corporate push to Modi’s Rs.4.5-billion digital dream (Rakesh Kumar; The Statesman; July 13, 2015).
Criminal Defamation: The Urgent Cause That has United Rahul Gandhi, Arvind Kejriwal and Subramanian Swamy (Betwa Sharma; Huffington Post; July 15, 2015).
Five Nations, One Future? (Bjorn Ludtke, Ellen Lee, Jaideep Sen, Gwendolyn Ledger, David Nicholson, and Jesko Johannsen; Voestalpine; July 18, 2015).
The scariest bill in Parliament is getting no attention – here’s what you need to know about it (Nayantara Narayanan; Scroll.in; July 24, 2015)
Regulation, misuse concerns still dog DNA profiling bill (Nikita Mehta; Livemint; July 29, 2015)

About CIS

The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) is a non-profit organisation that undertakes interdisciplinary research on internet and digital technologies from policy and academic perspectives. The areas of focus include digital accessibility for persons with diverse abilities, access to knowledge, intellectual property rights, openness (including open data, free and open source software, open standards, open access, open educational resources, and open video), internet governance, telecommunication reform, digital privacy, and cyber-security. The academic research at CIS seeks to understand the mediation and reconfiguration of social and cultural processes and structures by the internet and digital media technologies.

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► Request for Collaboration

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/july-2015-bulletin

July 2014 Bulletin

praskrishna — 2014-08-11T05:46:53Z

Seventh issue of the newsletter (July 2014) below:

We at the Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) welcome you to the seventh issue of the newsletter (July 2014). Archives of our newsletters can be accessed at: http://cis-india.org/about/newsletters

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Highlights
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Nehaa Chaudhari participated in the 28^th session of the World Intellectual Property Organisation Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (WIPO-SCCR) held in Geneva from June 30 to July 4, 2014. The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) gave its statements on the Limitations and Exceptions for Libraries and Archives and Proposed Treaty for the Protection of Broadcasting Organizations.
India became the first country to ratify the Marrakesh Treaty and the Accessible Books Consortium was launched. Nehaa Chaudhari who participated in the 28^th session of the WIPO-SCCR reports on this in a blog entry.
Vikrant Narayan Vasudeva produced a research paper on patent valuation and license fee determination as part of the Pervasive Technologies project.
Our grant application to the Wikimedia Foundation was approved. CIS has been awarded Rs. 12,000,000 for the next one year for the Access to Knowledge (Wikipedia) project.
CIS and the University of Mysore organized the Open Knowledge day in Mysore on July 15, 2014. Six volumes of Kannada Vishwakosha was re-released under the Creative Commons (CC license).
We helped the Ministry of Science and Technology draft the Open Access Policy for the DST/DBT.
The first of the seven proposed roundtable meetings on “Privacy and Surveillance” conducted by CIS in collaboration with the Cellular Operators Association of India and the Council for Fair Business Practices was held in Mumbai on June 28, 2014. Anandini K. Rathore has blogged on this.
Bedavyasa Mohanty has produced a blog entry that analyses the nuances of interception of communications under the Indian Telegraph Act and the Indian Post Office Act.
Vinayak Mithal has written a blog entry on the Constitutionality of Indian surveillance law that analyses ICANN's reactive transparency mechanism, comparing it with freedom of information best practices. He describes the DIDP and its relevance for the Internet community.
Nishant Shah speaks on the right to freedom of speech and expression in the latest interview conducted as part of the Cybersecurity series being done with a grant from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Ottawa.
Nishant Shah’s peer reviewed article “Asia in the Edges: A Narrative Account of the Inter-Asia Cultural Studies Summer School in Bangalore” was published in Inter-Asia Cultural Studies Journal, Volume 15, Issue 2, on July 3, 2014. Nishant gives a narrative account of the experiments and ideas that shaped the second Summer School, “The Asian Edge” hosted in Bangalore, India, in 2012.
CIS recruited two new staff members in its Bangalore office. Rohini Lakshane joined as a Program Officer in the Pervasive Technologies project and K.N. Medini joined as a Senior Accounts Officer. Their profiles can be accessed at http://cis-india.org/about/people/our-team.

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Accessibility and Inclusion
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Under a grant from the Hans Foundation we are doing two projects. The first project is on creating a national resource kit of state-wise laws, policies and programmes on issues relating to persons with disabilities in India. We compiled the National Compendium of Policies, Programmes and Schemes for Persons with Disabilities (29 states and 6 union territories). We will be publishing this soon. The draft chapters along with the quarterly reports can be accessed on the project page. The second project is on developing text-to-speech software for 15 Indian languages. The progress made so far in the project can be accessed here.

►NVDA and eSpeak

Monthly Update

Work Report for July (by Suman Dogra, July 31, 2014).

Blog Entry

India's Ratification of the Marrakesh Treaty Celebrated; Accessible Books Consortium Launched (by Nehaa Chaudhari, July 1, 2014): India became the first country to ratify the Marrakesh Treaty.

Media Coverage

SpicyIP Tidbit: India ratifies the Marrakesh Treaty for the Visually Impaired (by Thomas J. Vallianeth, Spicy IP, July 1, 2014).

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Access to Knowledge
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As part of the Access to Knowledge programme we are doing two projects. The first one (Pervasive Technologies) under a grant from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) is for research on the complex interplay between pervasive technologies and intellectual property to support intellectual property norms that encourage the proliferation and development of such technologies as a social good. The second one (Wikipedia) under a grant from the Wikimedia Foundation is for 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.

►WIPO

Participation in Event and Statements
Nehaa Chaudhari participated in the 28^th session of WIPO-SCCR held in Geneva from June 30 to July 4, 2014. The following have been the outputs from the event:

Statement on the Proposed Treaty for the Protection of Broadcasting Organizations at WIPO SCCR 28 (by Nehaa Chaudhari, July 2, 2014).
Opening Comments by India on Limitations and Exceptions for Libraries and Archives at WIPO SCCR 28 (posted by Nehaa Chaudhari, July 7, 2014). This was the statement made by the Indian delegation at WIPO-SCCR 28^th session on July 2, 2014.
Statement on the Limitations and Exceptions for Libraries and Archives at WIPO SCCR 28 (by Nehaa Chaudhari, July 3, 2014).
28th Session of the WIPO SCCR: Report on the Proposed Treaty for the Protection of Broadcasting Organizations (by Nehaa Chaudhari, July 29, 2014).

► Pervasive Technologies

Research Papers

Patent Valuation and License Fee Determination in Context of Patent Pools (by Vikrant Narayan Vasudeva, July 9, 2014). Vikrant has produced research that examines patent valuation and license fee determination in detail.
Grounds for Compulsory Patent Licensing in United States, Canada, China, and India (by Maggie Huang, July 29, 2014). In her research paper Maggie tries to answer questions about the grounds of compulsory licensing in international treaties with specific examples from America and Asia.

►Wikipedia
As part of the project grant from the Wikimedia Foundation we have reached out to more than 3500 people across India by organizing more than 100 outreach events and catalysed the release of encyclopaedic and other content under the Creative Commons (CC-BY-3.0) license in four Indian languages (21 books in Telugu, 13 in Odia, 4 volumes of encyclopaedia in Konkani and 6 volumes in Kannada, and 1 book on Odia language history in English).

Announcement
Our grant application to the Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC) of the Wikimedia Foundation was approved by its board which met in Frankfurt from May 21 to 24, 2014. CIS had requested a grant of Rs. 18,406,454 and were awarded Rs. 12,000,000 for the next one year.

The following were done this month:

Articles / Blog Entries

Aircel & Wikimedia Foundation announce Wikipedia Zero (by Dr. U.B.Pavanaja, Prajavani, July 3, 2014). As per this, users of Aircel need not pay for data for accessing Wikipedia.
ଇଣ୍ଟରନେଟରେ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଅକ୍ଷରସଜ୍ଜା (by Subhashish Panigrahi, Samaja, July 4, 2014).
State of Odia Language in Computing and Future Steps (by Subhashish Panigrahi, Sovereign, July 7, 2014).
ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଭାଷା ବିକାଶର ରାସ୍ତା (by Subhashish Panigrahi, The Sambad, July 23, 2014).
University of Mysore Re-releases Kannada Vishwakosha (Encyclopaedia) under Creative Commons Free License (by Dr. U.B.Pavanaja, July 24, 2014). Leading English and Kannada dailies like Andolana Kannada, City Today, Deccan Herald, Hosa Diganta, Kannada Jana Mana, Kannada Prabha, Rajya Dharma, Samyukta Karnataka, The Hindu, The New Indian Express, Udayavani, Vijaya Karnataka, and Vijaya Vani published about this. Scanned versions of the published articles can be downloaded here.
Wiki Loves Pride 2014 and Adding Diversity to Wikipedia (by Dorothy Howard, Wikimedia Blog, July 25, 2014).
Doctors and Translators Are Working Together to Bridge Wikipedia's Medical Language Gap (by Subhashish Panigrahi, Global Voices, July 27, 2014). This was re-published on the Wikimedia Blog, July 30, 2014.
Classical Odia Language in the Digital Age (by Subhashish Panigrahi, Odisha Review, posted on July 28, 2014). The essay was published in the magazine’s June edition.

Event Organized

Open Knowledge Day (co-organized by Mysore University and CIS-A2K, Kuvempu Institute of Kannada Studies, University of Mysore, July 15, 2014). The event coincided with the Open Knowledge Festival in Berlin from July 15 to 17. Dr. U.B.Pavanaja conducted the event. On this occasion Mysore University released six volumes of Kannada Vishwakosha under the Creative Commons (CC) license.

Participation in Events

National Level Seminar on Computer Application and Odia Language (organized by Institute of Odia Studies and Research, July 6, 2014). Subhashish Panigrahi was a panelist.
Open Knowledge Festival 2014 (organized by Google, Omidyar, et.al., Berlin, July 15 – 17, 2014). Subhashish Panigrahi represented India as the India Ambassador of OpenGLAM local and made a presentation.
#NAMA: The Future of Indic Languages (organized by Medianama, The Oberoi Hotel, Bangalore, July 24, 2014). Subhashish Panigrahi participated in the event.

News and Media Coverage
CIS-A2K team gave its inputs to the following media coverage:

Wikipedia edit-a-thons to add content on LGBTs (by Renuka Phadnis, The Hindu, July 7, 2014).
Font problem hits Odia (by Bibhuti Barik, The Telegraph, July 7, 2014).
Four volumes of Kannada Encyclopaedia digitised (by R. Krishna Kumar, The Hindu, July 12, 2014).
‘ಕನ್ನಡ ವಿಶ್ವಕೋಶ’ಕ್ಕೆ ಇನ್ನು ಲೈಸೆನ್ಸ್ ಹಂಗಿಲ್ಲ (Prajavani, July 14, 2014).
Soon, all 14 volumes of Kannada encyclopaedia to be online (by R. Krishna Kumar, The Hindu, July 15, 2014).
ವಿಕಿಪಿಡಿಯಾಗೆ ಕನ್ನಡ ವಿಶ್ವಕೋಶ (Kannada Prabha, July 15, 2014).
ಕನ್ನಡ ವಿಶ್ವಕೋಶದ ಆರು ಸಂಪುಟ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯಾಗೆ (Udayavani, July 15, 2014).
ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯಾದಲ್ಲಿ kannada ವಿಶ್ವಕೋಶ : ಈಗ ಆನ್ ಲೈನ್ ನಲ್ಲಿ 6 ಸಂಪುಟಗಳು ಮುಕ್ತ…ಮುಕ್ತ……( Just Kannada, July 15, 2014).
Six Kannada encyclopaedias released (Webindia 123, July 15, 2014).
150 Rare Books Get New Lease of Life Online, Courtesy Students (by Anila Backer, New Indian Express, July 15, 2014).
Open Access: Students help revive and digitize rare books for Malayalam Wiki Library (Spicy IP, July 15, 2014).
'Trolled' from US Congress, Wikipedia bans edits (by Narayan Lakshman, The Hindu, July 25, 2014).
Telugu Wikipedia struggles to stay afloat (by Renuka Phadnis, The Hindu, July 27, 2014).
The joys of being a Wikipedian (by Svetlana Lasrado, New Indian Express, July 29, 2014).
Kannada Wikipedia Presentation (Vijayavani, July 30, 2014).
Kannada Wikipedia Presentation for Kannada Science Writers (Prajavani, July 31, 2014).

►Openness

Blog Entries

Mozilla brings Indian Communities together Twice in One Month (by Subhashish Panigrahi, Mozilla Website, July 8, 2014).
Mozilla Brings Indian Communities Together (by Subhashish Panigrahi, Opensource.com, July 13, 2014).
Department of Biotechnology and Department of Science, Ministry of Science and Technology, Government of India, release Open Access Policy (by Anubha Sinha, July 18, 2014). We have also been acknowledged in the policy.

HasGeek Event

The Fifth Elephant (NIMHANS Convention Centre, July 25-26, 2014). CIS was a community outreach partner.

Media Coverage

Plan for open access to science research (by Renuka Phadnis, The Hindu, July 22, 2014).
Indian Govt looks to provide free access to publicly-funded research works (by Riddhi Mukherjee, Medianama, July 23, 2014).

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Internet Governance
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►Freedom of Expression

As part of our project on Freedom of Expression (funded through a grant from the MacArthur Foundation) to study the restrictions placed on freedom of expression online by the Indian government and contribute to the debates around Internet governance and freedom of expression at forums like ICANN, ITU, IGF, WSIS, etc., we bring you the following outputs:

Blog Entries

ICANN’s Documentary Information Disclosure Policy – I: DIDP Basics (by Vinayak Mithal, July 1, 2014).
Reading the Fine Script: Service Providers, Terms and Conditions and Consumer Rights (by Jyoti Panday, July 2, 2014).
Facebook and its Aversion to Anonymous and Pseudonymous Speech (by Jessamine Mathew, July 4, 2014).
Free Speech and Surveillance (by Gautam Bhatia, July 7, 2014).
Delhi High Court Orders Blocking of Websites after Sony Complains Infringement of 2014 FIFA World Cup Telecast Rights (by Anubha Sinha, July 8, 2014).
GNI and IAMAI Launch Interactive Slideshow Exploring Impact of India's Internet Laws (by Jyoti Panday, July 17, 2014).

FOEX Live

We are also posting a selection of news from across India implicating online freedom of expression and use of digital technology: July 7, 2014.

►Privacy

As part of our Surveillance and Freedom: Global Understandings and Rights Development (SAFEGUARD) project with Privacy International we are engaged in enhancing respect for the right to privacy in developing countries. We have produced the following outputs during the month:

Blog Entries

Models for Surveillance and Interception of Communications Worldwide (by Bedavyasa Mohanty, July 2, 2014).
The Constitutionality of Indian Surveillance Law: Public Emergency as a Condition Precedent for Intercepting Communications (by Bedavyasa Mohanty, July 4, 2014).
UK’s Interception of Communications Commissioner — A Model of Accountability (by Joe Sheehan, July 24, 2014).

Event Report

First Privacy and Surveillance Roundtable (by Anandini K Rathore, July 18, 2014).

Article

Private Censorship and the Right to Hear (by Chinmayi Arun, The Hoot, July 17, 2014). The article was also mirrored on the website of the Centre for Communication Governance.

Participation in Events

Information Influx Conference (organized by the Institute for Information Law, University of Amsterdam, July 2 – 4, 2014). Malavika Jayaram was a speaker.
Consultation to Frame Rules under the Whistle Blowers Protection Act, 2011 (organized by National Campaign for People's Right to Information and Centre for Communication Governance, National Law University, New Delhi, July 5, 2014). Bhairav Acharya participated in the event.
Best Practices Meet (organized by DSCI, Hotel Leela Palace, Bangalore, July 9, 2014). Sunil Abraham was a panelist.
Rethinking Privacy: The Link between Florida v. Jardines and the Surveillance of Nature Films (organized by Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, July 11, 2014). Bhairav Acharya gave a talk.
Region as Frame: Politics, Presence, Practice (organized by International Association for Media and Communication Research, Hyderabad, July 18, 2014). Sunil Abraham was a speaker for these panels: Governing Digital Spaces: Issues of Access, Privacy and Freedom, UNESCO panel debate, and Special Session on Research Paths In and Outside of the Academy.
ICT Awareness Program for Myanmar Parliamentarians (organized by Myanmar ICT for Development Organization, July 26 – 27, 2014, Yangon). Sunil Abraham participated in the event as a speaker and presented on Innovation Ecosystem and Thinking about Internet Regulation.

--------------------------------------
News & Media Coverage
--------------------------------------
CIS gave its inputs to the following media coverage:

Cyber-crimes shoot up 52% in India over last year (by K.V.Kurmanath, Hindu Businessline, July 2, 2014).
COAI, Centre for Internet & Society to hold pan-India meetings on privacy issues (IANS, July 4, 2014). The news was mirrored in the Times of India , NDTV, Business Standard , Economic Times , and World News.
Living in a Fish Bowl (by Shuma Raha, The Telegraph, July 16, 2014).
Terror recruiters target Indians on internet (by Sandhya Soman, July 18, 2014).
The trouble with trolls (by Vishal Mathur, Livemint, July 22, 2014).
India’s dedicated Cryptology centre gets Rs. 115 crore funding (by Harichandan Arakali, SearchSecurity.in, July 28, 2014).

►Cyber Stewards
As part of its project on mapping cyber security actors in South Asia and South East Asia with the Citizen Lab, Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto and the International Development Research Centre, Canada, CIS conducted 2 new interviews. With this it has finished a total of 19 interviews:

Video Interviews

Lobsang Gyatso Sither (July 31, 2014).

Lobsang Sangay (July 31, 2014).

--------------------------------
Digital Humanities
--------------------------------
CIS is building research clusters in the field of Digital Humanities. The Digital will be used as a way of unpacking the debates in humanities and social sciences and look at the new frameworks, concepts and ideas that emerge in our engagement with the digital. The clusters aim to produce and document new conversations and debates that shape the contours of Digital Humanities in Asia:

Peer Reviewed Article

Asia in the Edges: A Narrative Account of the Inter-Asia Cultural Studies Summer School in Bangalore (by Nishant Shah, Inter-Asia Cultural Studies Journal, Volume 15, Issue 2, July 3, 2014). This is the narrative account of the experiments and ideas that shaped the second Summer School, “The Asian Edge” which was hosted in Bangalore, India, in 2012.

Blog Entry

Reading from a Distance — Data as Text (by P.P. Sneha, July 23, 2014).

-----------------------------------------------------
About CIS
-----------------------------------------------------
The Centre for Internet and Society is a non-profit research organization that works on policy issues relating to freedom of expression, privacy, accessibility for persons with disabilities, access to knowledge and IPR reform, and openness (including open government, FOSS, open standards, etc.), and engages in academic research on digital natives and digital humanities.

► Follow us elsewhere

Twitter: https://twitter.com/CISA2K
Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/cisa2k
Visit us at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge
E-mail: a2k@cis-india.org

► Support Us
Please help us defend consumer / citizen rights on the Internet! Write a cheque in favour of ‘The Centre for Internet and Society’ and mail it to us at No. 194, 2nd ‘C’ Cross, Domlur, 2nd Stage, Bengaluru – 5600 71.

► Request for Collaboration:
We invite researchers, practitioners, and theoreticians, both organisationally and as individuals, to collaboratively engage with Internet and society and improve our understanding of this new field. To discuss the research collaborations, write to Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, atsunil@cis-india.org or Nishant Shah, Director – Research, at nishant@cis-india.org. To discuss collaborations on Indic language Wikipedia, write to T. Vishnu Vardhan, Programme Director, A2K, at vishnu@cis-india.org.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/july-2014-bulletin

Japleen Pasricha - Gendered Spaces in Digital Rights (Delhi, June 02, 5 pm)

sumandro — 2017-05-31T03:49:26Z

It is our priviledge to annouce that Japleen Pasricha will be the speaker for the June #FirstFridayAtCIS event. Japleen smashes the patriarchy for a living, and is Founder & Editor-in-chief of Feminism in India. The talk will focus on her experience of working on gender and digital rights in India, the ways in which "gender" functions as a critical lens in digital rights discourse and practice in India (or not), and the gendered nature of digital rights spaces in India. If you are joining us, please RSVP at the soonest as we have only limited space in our office.

Japleen Pasricha

Founder & Editor-in-chief, Feminism in India

Japleen smashes the patriarchy for a living. Founder & Editor-in-chief of Feminism in India, she is a feminist activist based in New Delhi, India. She is a writer, educator, campaigner and researcher. She has vast experience in digital media and online publishing. Her interest lies in women’s studies, global feminism, gender, sexuality, VAW, SRHR, feminist praxis and internet as a space. Currently she is working on online violence against women and media representation of gender and gender-based violence. She’d like to use skills to intersect gender and sexuality with digital & social media and develop safe online spaces for women and marginalized communities.

RSVP

Location

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/raw/firstfridayatcis-japleen-pasricha-gendered-spaces-in-digital-rights-delhi-june-02

January 2019 Newsletter

praskrishna — 2019-03-03T16:34:21Z

The Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) welcomes you to the first issue of its e-Newsletter for 2019.

The CIS newsletter aims to highlight developments in copyright and patent, free speech and expression, privacy, cyber security, telecom, etc. as well as Industry 4.0, big data, additive manufacturing and so on which are revolutionizing and moving the digital world forward. Through this newsletter we look to engage you with our research and build a strong bond by bringing you insightful articles and blog posts which will be beneficial for you and your business. Throughout the year we will send you stories and insights from our board, staff and community leaders. We welcome your feedback, suggestions or comments regarding our newsletter or any other aspect of our research.

Welcome to r@w blog!

CIS researchers@work programme (RAW) is delighted to announce the launch of its new blog hosted on Medium. The RAW blog will feature works by researchers and practitioners working in India and elsewhere at the intersections of internet, digital media, and society. The blog will also feature highlights and materials from ongoing research and events at the researchers@work programme.

Highlights for January 2019

Ambika Tandon and Aayush Rathi have produced a research paper that contextualises the narrative around Industry 4.0 and the future of work with reference to the female labour force in India.
Gurshabad Grover, Nikhil Srinath and Aayush Rathi (with inputs from Anubha Sinha and Sai Shakti) presented a response to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India’s Consultation Paper on Regulatory Framework for Over-The-Top (OTT) Communication Services. CIS appreciates the continual efforts of TRAI to have consultations on the regulatory framework that should be applicable to OTT services and Telecom Service Providers (TSPs).
Pranesh Prakash, Karan Saini and Elonnai Hickok authored a policy brief that recommends several changes pertaining to current legislation, policy and practice to the Government of India regarding coordinated vulnerability disclosure (“CVD”) for improving the overarching information and cyber security posture of the country.
The Global Commission on the Stability of Cyberspace, a multi-stakeholder initiative comprised of eminent individuals across the globe opened a public comment procedure to solicit comments and obtain additional feedback. Arindrajit Basu, Gurshabad Grover and Elonnai Hickok responded to the public call-offering comments on all six norms and proposing two further norms.

CIS and the News

The following news pieces were authored by CIS and published on its website in January:

How to make EVMs hack-proof, and elections more trustworthy (Pranesh Prakash; Times of India; December 9, 2018).
Registering for Aadhaar in 2019 (Sunil Abraham; Business Standard; January 2, 2019).
The DNA Bill has a sequence of problems that need to be resolved (Shweta Mohandas and Elonnai Hickok; Newslaundry; January 15, 2019).
India should reconsider its proposed regulation of online content (Gurshabad Grover; Hindustan Times; January 24, 2019). Akriti Bopanna and Aayush Rathi provided feedback for the article.
India’s proposed new internet bill is as repressive as the worst of Chinese laws (Nishant Shah; Indian Express; January 27, 2019).

CIS in the News

CIS was quoted in these news articles published elsewhere:

Creeped out by Netflix's 'You'? Here's how you can avoid online stalkers, data thieves (Sanyukta Dharmadhikari; The News Minute; January 10, 2019).
Civic activism over WhatsApp and stories of and from cab drivers are part of a new narrative in Bengaluru (Sowmya Rajaram; Bangalore Mirror; January 13, 2019).
They know where you are (Tini Sara Anien; Deccan Herald; January 17, 2019).
Oyo Hotels’ Real-Time Digital Record Database Sparks Privacy Fears (Nishant Sharma; Bloomberg Quint; January 16, 2019).
Is the viral #10YearChallenge just another sneaky way for tech firms to gather users’ personal data? (Devarsi Ghosh; Scroll.in; January 18, 2019).
Google Gives Wikimedia Millions—Plus Machine Learning Tools (Wired; January 22, 2019).
New movies lose out due to piracy (Surupasree Sarmmah; Deccan Herald; January 23, 2019).
Submitted Your Biometrics for Aadhaar? Here’s How You Can Lock/Unlock That Data (Vidya Raja; Better India; January 24, 2019).
India’s largest bank SBI leaked account data on millions of customers (Zack Whittaker; Tech Crunch; January 30, 2019).
Open standards can disrupt Facebook’s messaging monopoly (Abhimanyu Ghoshal; The Next Web; January 30, 2019).
Conmen seed fake phone numbers in Google to trap people looking for customer care details (Tushar Kaushik; Economic Times; January 30, 2019).
Amazon and Walmart are about to take a big hit in India (Q13 Fox; January 31, 2019).

Internet Governance

Cyber Security

Submission

Response to GCSC on Request for Consultation: Norm Package Singapore (Gurshabad Grover, Arindrajit Basu and Elonnai Hickok; January 22, 2019).

Policy Brief

Leveraging the Coordinated Vulnerability Disclosure Process to Improve the State of Information Security in India (Pranesh Prakash; Karan Saini and Elonnai Hickok; January 23, 2019).

Privacy

Submission

CIS Submission to UN High Level Panel on Digital Co-operation (Aayush Rathi, Ambika Tandon, Arindrajit Basu and Elonnai Hickok; January 30, 2019).

Gender

Research Paper

A Gendered Future of Work (Ambika Tandon and Aayush Rathi; December 19, 2018).

Event Organized

RFCs We Love meetup (Organized by CIS and India Internet Engineering Society; CIS, Bangalore; January 19, 2019).

Events Participated / Partnered In

Webinar on the draft Intermediary Guidelines Amendment Rules (Organized by CCAOI and the ISOC Delhi Chapter; New Delhi; January 10, 2019). Gurshabad Grover was a discussant in the panel.
MediaNama roundtables on intermediary liability rules (St. Marks Hotel, Bangalore; January 25, 2019). CIS was a community partner. Gurshabad Grover participated in the meeting.
DSCI's Bangalore chapter meet (Organized by Data Security Council of India; Bangalore; January 29, 2019). Karan Saini and Gurshabad Grover participated in the meet.

Telecom

Submission

Response to TRAI Consultation Paper on Regulatory Framework for Over-The-Top (OTT) Communication Services (Gurshabad Grover, Nikhil Srinath and Aayush Rathi with inputs from Anubha Sinha and Sai Shakti; January 10, 2019).

Researchers at Work (RAW)

Announcement

Internet Researchers' Conference 2019 (IRC19): #List, Jan 30 - Feb 1, Lamakaan (P.P. Sneha; January 9, 2019).

About CIS

► Follow us elsewhere

Twitter: http://twitter.com/cis_india
Twitter - Access to Knowledge: https://twitter.com/CISA2K
Twitter - Information Policy: https://twitter.com/CIS_InfoPolicy
Facebook - Access to Knowledge: https://www.facebook.com/cisa2k
E-Mail - Access to Knowledge: a2k@cis-india.org
E-Mail - Researchers at Work: raw@cis-india.org
List - Researchers at Work: https://lists.ghserv.net/mailman/listinfo/researchers

► Support Us

► Request for Collaboration

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/january-19-newsletter

January 2018 Newsletter

praskrishna — 2018-03-01T01:35:56Z

January 2018 Newsletter

Dear readers,

Previous issues of the newsletters can be accessed here.

Highlights
The paper titled "Patent Working Requirements and Complex Products" has been published in the latest issue of the NYU Journal of Intellectual Property and Entertainment Law. It is one of the outputs of the Pervasive Technology project and has been authored by Prof. Jorge L. Contreras, Paxton M. Lewis, and Rohini Lakshané. CIS made a submission to the Department of Industrial Planning and Promotion on mobile patents. CIS offered its assistance on matters aimed at developing a suitable policy framework for SEPs and FRAND in India, and, working towards sustained innovation, manufacture and availability of mobile technologies in India The use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in healthcare in India is increasing with new startups and large ICT companies offering AI solutions for healthcare challenges in the country. The report by by Yesha Paul, Elonnai Hickok, Amber Sinha and Udbhav Tiwari seeks to map the present state of AI in the healthcare sector in India. About 27% of India's population is still illiterate or barely literate. Most privacy policies and terms of services for web and mobile applications are in English and therefore it is only 10% of us who can actually read them before we provide our consent. The article by Sunil Abraham was published in Deccan Herald on January 20, 2018. CIS made a submission to TRAI Consultation on inputs to the National Telecom Policy. CIS in its submission also recommended what all should be the main objectives of TRAI while drafting the next edition of National Telecom Policy. Under a research grant from the Azim Premji University CIS has initiated a study of the ongoing updation process of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam and the resultant reform of citizen identification infrastructure in India. The 2G judgment of December 2017 provides a critique of how no proper evidence was presented on existence of an FCFS policy and its improper implementation, wrote Shyam Ponappa in his article in the Business Standard which was published on January 3, 2018.

Highlights

The paper titled "Patent Working Requirements and Complex Products" has been published in the latest issue of the NYU Journal of Intellectual Property and Entertainment Law. It is one of the outputs of the Pervasive Technology project and has been authored by Prof. Jorge L. Contreras, Paxton M. Lewis, and Rohini Lakshané.
CIS made a submission to the Department of Industrial Planning and Promotion on mobile patents. CIS offered its assistance on matters aimed at developing a suitable policy framework for SEPs and FRAND in India, and, working towards sustained innovation, manufacture and availability of mobile technologies in India
The use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in healthcare in India is increasing with new startups and large ICT companies offering AI solutions for healthcare challenges in the country. The report by by Yesha Paul, Elonnai Hickok, Amber Sinha and Udbhav Tiwari seeks to map the present state of AI in the healthcare sector in India.
About 27% of India's population is still illiterate or barely literate. Most privacy policies and terms of services for web and mobile applications are in English and therefore it is only 10% of us who can actually read them before we provide our consent. The article by Sunil Abraham was published in Deccan Herald on January 20, 2018.
CIS made a submission to TRAI Consultation on inputs to the National Telecom Policy. CIS in its submission also recommended what all should be the main objectives of TRAI while drafting the next edition of National Telecom Policy.
Under a research grant from the Azim Premji University CIS has initiated a study of the ongoing updation process of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam and the resultant reform of citizen identification infrastructure in India.
The 2G judgment of December 2017 provides a critique of how no proper evidence was presented on existence of an FCFS policy and its improper implementation, wrote Shyam Ponappa in his article in the Business Standard which was published on January 3, 2018.

The following articles were written by CIS members:

Digital native: Memory card is full (Nishant Shah; Indian Express; January 3, 2018).
The 2G Judgment of December 2017: What Was It About? (Shyam Ponappa; Business Standard; January 3, 2018).
Fixing Aadhaar: Security developers' task is to trim chances of data breach (Sunil Abraham; Business Standard; January 10, 2018).
Another Step towards Privacy Law (Elonnai Hickok; Governance Now; January 15, 2018).

Data Protection: We can innovate, leapfrog (Sunil Abraham; Deccan Herald; January 20, 2018).

CIS in the News:

From net neutrality to IBC & Aadhaar, how Vidhi is framing key government legislation (Surabhi Agarwal and Samanwaya Rautray; Economic Times; January 4, 2018).
UIDAI denies any breach of Aadhaar database (Komal Gupta; Livemint; January 7, 2018).
Token security or tokenized security? (Manasa Venkataraman and Ajay Patri; Livemint; January 9, 2018).
UIDAI introduces new two-layer security system to improve Aadhaar privacy (Economic Times; January 11, 2018).
Hammered government offers Virtual ID firewall to protect your Aadhaar (New Indian Express; January 11, 2018).
Virtual Aadhaar ID: too little, too late? (Yuthika Bhargava; Hindu; January 11, 2018).
India To Introduce Virtual ID For Aadhaar To Strengthen Privacy (Bloomberg Quint; January 11, 2018).
UIDAI's Virtual ID, limited KYC does little to protect Aadhaar data already collected, say critics (Business Today; January 12, 2018).
Aadhaar Body Talked About Virtual ID 7 Years Ago, Put It Off: UIDAI Chief (Sukriti Dwivedi; NDTV; January 13, 2018).
Bengaluru gives data safety tips to panel (Deccan Herald; January 14, 2018).
Is your personal information under lock and key? (Sravanthi Challapalli; Hindu Businessline; January 16, 2018).
Aadhaar-privacy debate: How the 12-digit number went from personal identifier to all pervasive transaction tool (First Post; January 18, 2018).
Paytm Payments Bank woos corporates with digital incentives (Komal Gupta and Remya Nair; Livemint; January 24, 2018).
Aadhaar's new security measures are good, it is still work in progress (Alnoor Peermohamed; Business Standard; January 25, 2018).

►Wikipedia

Blog Entries

Government of Odisha adopting Creative Commons License to Promote Transparency and Access to Knowledge (Sailesh Patnaik; January 17, 2018).
Experience and Learning outcome from Wikipedia Education Program (Lakshmi Karlekar; January 30, 2018).

Events Organized

Marathi Wikipedia Workshop at Dept. of Mass Communication, Solapur University (Organized by CIS-A2K and Dept of Mass Communication, Solapur University; Solapur; January 2, 2018).
Marathi Wikipedia Workshop at Dayanand College, Solapur (Organized by CIS-A2K and Dayanand College, Solapur; Solapur; January 3, 2018).
Marathi Wikipedia Workshop at Willingdon College, Sangli (Organized by CIS-A2K and Willingdon College; Sangli; January 5, 2018).
Marathi Wikipedia Workshop at Govt.Science & Arts College, Aurangabad (Organized by CIS-A2K and Govt.Science & Arts College; Aurangabad; January 9, 2018).
Marathi Wikipedia Workshop at Dr.Babasaheb Ambedkar Marathwada Vidyapeeth (Organized by CIS-A2K and Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Marathwada University; Aurangabad; January 10, 2018).
Marathi Wikipedia Workshop at Shivaji University, Kolhapur (Organized by CIS-A2K and Shivaji University; Kolhapur; January 15, 2018).
Wikidata Workshop (Organized by CIS-A2K and Andhra Loyola College; Vijaywada; January 20 - 21, 2018).
Train the Trainer 2018 (Organized by CIS-A2K; Mysore; January 26 - 28, 2018).

►Pervasive Technologies

Research Paper

Patent Working Requirements and Complex Products (Jorge L. Contreras, Rohini Lakshané and Paxton M. Lewis; JIPEL NYU Journal of Intellectual Property & Entertainment Law, Vol. 7 - No.1 on January 16, 2018).

Submission

Submission to DIPP at Meeting with IP Stakeholders (Anubha Sinha; January 1, 2018). The submission was made in December 2017 but it was published on the website in January 2018.

►Openness

Our work in the Openness programme focuses on open data, especially open government data, open access, open education resources, open knowledge in Indic languages, open media, and open technologies and standards - hardware and software. We approach openness as a cross-cutting principle for knowledge production and distribution, and not as a thing-in-itself.

-----------------------------------

Internet Governance
-----------------------------------

►Privacy

Blog Entry

Artificial Intelligence and the Healthcare Industry in India (Yesha Paul, Elonnai Hickok, Amber Sinha and Udbhav Tiwari (Ecosystem mapping by Shweta Mohandas, Sidharth Ray and Elonnai Hickok. Designed by Saumyaa Naidu under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License; January 26, 2018).

Events Organized

Roundtable on A.I. and Manufacturing and Services (TERI, Bengaluru; January 19, 2018).

null Bangalore Meet: Special Session on Digital Identity and Privacy (CIS, Bengaluru; January 19, 2018). Sunil Abraham gave a talk.

►Free Speech and Expression

Blog Entries

Internet Governance Forum Report 2017 (Shweta Mohandas; January 11, 2018).

Mobile net ban during peaceful protest leaves farmers confused (Shruti Jain; January 19, 2018).

‘Hurt sentiments’ cost Udaipur internet access for four days (Shruti Jain; January 19, 2018).

-----------------------------------

Telecom
-----------------------------------
CIS is involved in promoting access and accessibility to telecommunications services and resources, and has provided inputs to ongoing policy discussions and consultation papers published by TRAI. It has prepared reports on unlicensed spectrum and accessibility of mobile phones for persons with disabilities and also works with the USOF to include funding projects for persons with disabilities in its mandate:

Article

Submission to TRAI Consultation on "Inputs for Formulation of National Telecom Policy - 2018" (Pranesh Prakash; January 25, 2018).

Blog Entry

Life of a Tuple: National Register of Citizens (NRC) and the Reform of Citizen Identification Infrastructure in Assam (Sumandro Chattapadhyay; January 22, 2018). All posts related to the study can be found here.

-----------------------------------
About CIS
-----------------------------------

► Follow us elsewhere

Twitter: http://twitter.com/cis_india
Twitter - Access to Knowledge: https://twitter.com/CISA2K
Twitter - Information Policy: https://twitter.com/CIS_InfoPolicy
Facebook - Access to Knowledge: https://www.facebook.com/cisa2k
E-Mail - Access to Knowledge: a2k@cis-india.org
E-Mail - Researchers at Work: raw@cis-india.org
List - Researchers at Work: https://lists.ghserv.net/mailman/listinfo/researchers

► Support Us

► Request for Collaboration

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/Qjanuary-2018-newsletter

January 2017 Newsletter

praskrishna — 2017-03-01T06:00:37Z

Welcome to the January 2017 newsletter of the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS).

Dear readers,

We are pleased to bring you the Centre for Internet & Society's January newsletter. Previous issues of the newsletters can be accessed here.

Highlights
The Rights of Persons with Disabilities (RPD) Act, which was passed in December 2016, seeks to give effect to the rights and obligations enshrined in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with disabilities, which India signed and ratified nearly a decade ago. Nirmita Narasimhan in a blog entry has summarized the key provisions of the Act relating to digital accessibility. The latest judgment in the matter of Super Cassettes v. MySpace is a landmark and progressive ruling, which strengthens the safe harbor immunity enjoyed by Internet intermediaries in India. CIS was one of the intervenors in the case, and has been duly acknowledged in the judgment. Meena Gayathri became the first South Indian Wikiwoman to complete 100 Wikidays challenge. The challenge required Wikipedians to create one new article per day for one hundred days in a row. Gayathri's contribution and passion towards Telugu language and culture have transcended into a "knowledge revolution". The Committee on Digital Payments constituted by the Ministry of Finance and chaired by Ratan P. Watal, Principal Advisor, NITI Aayog, submitted its report on the "Medium Term Recommendations to Strengthen Digital Payments Ecosystem" on December 09, 2016. The report was made public on December 27, and comments were sought from the general public. CIS submitted its comments. The comments were authored by Sumandro Chattopadhyay. ICANN sought community input on the Proposed ICANN Community Anti-Harassment Policy on 7 November 2016. In response to this CIS submitted its comments. The comments were authored by Padma Venkataraman, Rohini Lakshané, Sampada Nayak and Vidushi Marda. The eleven sessions selected for the Internet Researchers' Conference 2017 (IRC17) to be held at the IIIT Bangalore campus during March 3-5, 2017 has been announced. The conference is being organised by the Centre for Information Technology and Public Policy (CITAPP) at IIIT Bangalore and CIS.

CIS in the news

India’s Digital ID Rollout Collides With Rickety Reality (Gabriele Parussini; Wall Street Journal; January 13, 2017).
Millions of Indians move from cash to digital payments. But some ask whether it’s safe (Rama Lakshmi; Washington Post; January 14, 2017).
Sunil Abraham on Aadhaar's misuse during demonetisation (Economic Times; January 14, 2017)
The soon-to-be launched Aadhaar Pay will let you make purchases using your fingerprint (Indulekha Aravind; January 15, 2017).
Lost your phone? Here's how you can make your mobile theft-proof (Sanjay Kumar Singh; Business Standard; January 16, 2017).
The Dangers Of Aadhaar-Based Payments That No One Is Talking About (Mayank Jain; Bloomberg; January 17, 2017).
Supreme Court issues notice to WhatsApp, Centre on data privacy (MJ Antony, Ayan Pramanik and Apurva Venkat; Business Standard; January 17, 2017).
Demonetisation: Cost Vs Benefit (NDTV; December 24, 2016). Sunil Abraham took part in the Big Fight programme aired by NDTV. The video was published on January 17, 2017.
For India’s complaints department, visit Facebook Live (Amy Kazmin; Financial Times; January 23, 2017).

CIS members wrote the following articles:

Cashlessness Needs Connectivity (Shyam Ponappa; Business Standard; January 4, 2017).
Digital Native: The Dream of the Cyborg (Nishant Shah; Indian Express; January 8, 2017).
Digital transitions in the newsroom: How are Indian language papers adapting differently? (Zeenab Aneez; London School of Economics and Political Science; January 16, 2017).
Digital native: Back at it Again (Nishant Shah; Indian Express; January 22, 2017).

Jobs

Policy Officer (Cyber Security)
Senior Policy Officer (Cyber Security)
Internship - Application accepted throughout the year
Survey Participants for Research on Musician Livelihood

Blog Entry

Digital accessibility in the Rights of Persons With Disabilities Act 2016 (Nirmita Narasimhan; January 23, 2017).

Participation in Event

Workplace Solutions Champions Consultative Workshop (Organized by Enable India, January 21 - 22, 2017; Ecumenical Christian Centre, Bangalore). Nirmita Narasimhan attended the workshop.

►Copyright and Patent

Blog Entry

Super Cassettes v. MySpace (Redux) (Anubha Sinha; January 16, 2017).

Event Organized

Seminar on Rethinking Copyright and Licensing for Digital Publishing Today (Organized by Pro Helvetia - Swiss Arts Council, Goethe-Institut Max Mueller Bhavan New Delhi, and CIS; New Delhi; January 23, 2017). Anubha Sinha attended the event.

►Wikipedia

Blog Entries

WikiSangamotsavam 2016 (Manasa Rao; January 18, 2017).
Telugu Wikipedia Stall at Hyderabad Book Fair (Manasa Rao; January 18, 2017).
Telugu Wikipedia Stall at Rajahmundry Book Fair (Manasa Rao; January 18, 2017).
Mini Workshop on Tools: Wikipedia Monthly Meetup, Hyderabad (Manasa Rao and Pavan Santhosh; January 18, 2017).
Meet Telugu Wikipedian Surampudi Meena Gayathri – the first South Indian Wikiwoman completing 100 Wikidays Challenge (Ting-Yi Chang; January 23, 2017).

Event Organized

Odia Wikipedia and Orientation Training Programme (Organized by CIS-A2K team; Indian Institute of Mass Communication, Dhenkanal; January 31, 2017).

►Openness

Participation in Event

CBGA - Consultation on Opening Up Access to Budget Data in India (Organized by CBGA; January 27, 2017; New Delhi). Sumandro Chattapadhyay was a speaker.

-----------------------------------
Internet Governance
-----------------------------------

►Privacy

Submission

Comments on the Report of the Committee on Digital Payments (Sumandro Chattapadhyay and Amber Sinha; January 12, 2017).

Blog Entries

The Design & Technology behind India’s Surveillance Programmes (Udbhav Tiwari; January 20, 2017)
Workshop on ‘Privacy after Big Data’ (Amber Sinha; January 27, 2017).

Events Organized

Discussion on Ranking Digital Rights in India (India Islamic Cultural Centre, New Delhi; January 7, 2017).
Rankathon on Digital Rights (CIS office, New Delhi; January 8, 2017).

Participation in Events

Global Governance Futures 2027 - Session 3 (Organized by Global Public Policy Institute and supported by Robert Bosch Stiftung; New Delhi; January 17, 2017). Sumandro Chattapadhyay joined Ankhi Das (Facebook) and Arun Mohan Sukumar (Observer Research Foundation) to discuss the "data governance" scenarios developed by the GGF 2027 Fellows.
CPDP (Computers, Privacy and Data Protection) 2017 (Organized by Privacy International; Brussels, January 26, 2017). Amber Sinha participated as a panelist.

►Big Data

Blog Entry

New Media, personalisation and the role of algorithms (Amber Sinha; January 2, 2017).

Participation in Events

Training programme for Chairs, Convenor and Experts for International Standardization Work (Organized by National Institute of Training for Standardization, under the Bureau of India Standards; January 19 - 20, 2017; NOIDA). Udbhav Tiwari attended the training programme.
Seminar on Understanding Financial Technology, Cashless India, and Forced Digitalisation (Centre for Financial Accountability; New Delhi; January 24, 2017). Sumandro Chattapadhyay spoke on the emerging architecture of FinTech in India.

►Free Speech & Expression

Submission

Comments on the Proposed ICANN Community Anti-Harassment Policy (Padma Venkataraman, Rohini Lakshané, Sampada Nayak and Vidushi Marda; January 13, 2017).

Blog Entry

Social Media Monitoring (Amber Sinha; January 13, 2017).

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Telecom
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CIS is involved in promoting access and accessibility to telecommunications services and resources, and has provided inputs to ongoing policy discussions and consultation papers published by TRAI. It has prepared reports on unlicensed spectrum and accessibility of mobile phones for persons with disabilities and also works with the USOF to include funding projects for persons with disabilities in its mandate:

Article

Cashlessness Needs Connectivity (Shyam Ponappa; Business Standard; January 4, 2017 and Organizing India Blogspot; January 5, 2017).

Event

Internet Researchers' Conference 2017 (IRC17) - Selected Sessions (Organized by Centre for Information Technology and Public Policy and CIS; IIIT, Bangalore; March 3 - 5, 2017). Eleven sessions have received 10 or more nominations.

-----------------------------------
About CIS
-----------------------------------
The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) is a non-profit organisation that undertakes interdisciplinary research on internet and digital technologies from policy and academic perspectives. The areas of focus include digital accessibility for persons with disabilities, access to knowledge, intellectual property rights, openness (including open data, free and open source software, open standards, open access, open educational resources, and open video), internet governance, telecommunication reform, digital privacy, and cyber-security. The academic research at CIS seeks to understand the reconfigurations of social and cultural processes and structures as mediated through the internet and digital media technologies.

► Follow us elsewhere

Twitter: http://twitter.com/cis_india
Twitter - Access to Knowledge: https://twitter.com/CISA2K
Twitter - Information Policy: https://twitter.com/CIS_InfoPolicy
Facebook - Access to Knowledge: https://www.facebook.com/cisa2k
E-Mail - Access to Knowledge: a2k@cis-india.org
E-Mail - Researchers at Work: raw@cis-india.org
List - Researchers at Work: https://lists.ghserv.net/mailman/listinfo/researchers

► Support Us

► Request for Collaboration

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/january-2017-newsletter

January 2015 Bulletin

praskrishna — 2015-02-26T17:02:23Z

Our newsletter for the month of January can be accessed below.

The Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) welcomes you to the first issue of the newsletter (January 2015). Archives of our newsletters can be accessed at: http://cis-india.org/about/newsletters.

Highlights

Forbes India in an article titled “Minds that (should) matter” names Sunil Abraham as one of the Thinkers who best explain a rapidly-changing India to the world (and the world to India).

Subhashish Panigrahi won the 2015 Opensource.com Community Awards under the category 'People's Choice Awards'.
Sumandro Chattapadhyay has joined CIS team as Research Director. Sumandro has replaces Nishant Shah who stepped down from the position.
Rishika on behalf of CIS prepared an analysis of the disability exceptions in Copyright Legislations . The blog post provides in detail the country-wise exceptions in copyright legislations.
NVDA team conducted a training programme on Malayalam eSpeak with NVDA in Thiruvananthapuram on January 24 and 25, 2015. Chakshumathi's main trainer Akhil M. took eSpeak Malayalam classes and Dr. Homiyar took classes on NVDA and accessible equipment.
The Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion, Government of India invited comments on the First Draft of India's National IPR Policy. CIS made its submission.
As part of the Pervasive Technologies project, Nehaa Chaudhari has produced a research methodology document which maps the existing literature around questions of competition law intersecting with intellectual property law on the specific issue of enabling access to sub hundred dollar mobile devices .
Maggie Huang, an intern at CIS as part of the Pervasive Technologies project has written a blog entry which documents, synthesizes, and analyses learnings from attending various music industry trade conferences.

CIS-A2K team on December 28, 2014 organized a MediaWiki hackathon event for Telugu Wikimedia community members to enhance their skills and understanding of technical matters related to MediaWiki usage. The theme of the workshop was “Mediawiki, its extensions and tools to work around” and it aimed at allowing Wikipedians to use MediaWiki tools more effectively.

Subhashish Panigrahi authored an op-ed that highlights the need for taking Odia language to the international fora instead of keeping it confined in the books. The op-ed was published in the Samaja on January 30, 2015.

A journal article by Subbiah Arunachalam, Perumal Ramamoorthi and Subbiah Gunasekaran the steps taken by scientists and librarians in the West to reclaim ease of access to research findings with what is happening in India along with a few suggestions was published by the Indian National Science Academy Journals.
The Supreme Court, in Sabu George v. Union of India and Ors. (WP (C) 341/2008), is looking into the presence of material regarding pre-natal sex determination on search engines such as Google, Bing, and Yahoo that has been falling foul of section 22 of the Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act, 1994 as amended in 2002. Geeta Hariharan and Balaji Subramanian analyse this in their blog post.
As part of its Making Methods for Digital Humanities project, CIS-RAW organized two consultations on new figures of learning in the digital context. For a proposed journal issue on the theme of 'bodies of knowledge' which draws upon these conversations, participants were invited to write short sketches on these figures of learning. Tejas Pande wrote an abstract which examines the figure of the visual designer, and emerging practices of mapmaking.

Accessibility and Inclusion

NVDA and eSpeak

Monthly Update

January 2015 Report (Suman Dogra; January 31, 2015).

Event Organized

Training of Malayalam eSpeak with NVDA (Co-organized by CIS, DAISY Forum of India and Chakshumathi Assistive Technology Centre; Thiruvananthapuram; January 24-25, 2015).

Other

Blog Entries

Response to RTI Applications from Different States on Accessibility (Anandhi Viswanathan; January 31, 2015).

Access to Knowledge

Pervasive Technologies

As part of the Pervasive Technologies project, Maggie Huang conducted interviews with fabless semiconductor industry professionals in Taiwan. The findings from the samples are highlighted in four part series. The third and fourth parts have been published:

Blog Entries

Pervasive Technologies Project Working Document Series: Document 2 Literature Review on Competition Law + IPR + Access to < $100 Mobile Devices (Nehaa Chaudhari; January 1, 2015).
Relationship between App Developers and App Platforms: An Intellectual Property Perspective (Anubha Sinha; January 7, 2015).
Beyond Alcohol and Angel Investors: Building Business Models in an Age of Mobile Music Streaming (Conference Learnings) (Maggie Huang; January 20, 2015).
National IPR Policy Series: The Development of the National IPR Policy (Nehaa Chaudhari; January 22, 2015).
RTI Responses - MHRD IP Chairs: Details of Funding & Expenditure (Nehaa Chaudhari; January 31, 2015).
National IPR Policy Series: CIS Comments to the First Draft of the National IP Policy (Nehaa Chaudhari; January 31, 2015).

Participation in Events

Global Intellectual Property Convention (Organized by ITAG Solutions; Mumbai; January 15 - 17, 2015). Rohini Lakshané attended the event.
Library and Information Professionals Summit (LIPS) 2015 (Organized by Society for Library Professionals, National Law University Delhi with UN Information Centre for India & Bhutan and Special Library Association (USA), Asian Chapter; January 23 - 24, 2015; New Delhi). Nehaa Chaudhari was on a panel discussing Internet Technology and Challenges for Libraries in IPR Regime. She made a presentation on Technology (Internet?), Libraries and the Law (?).

Upcoming Event

Announcing the Institutional Partner for the Global Congress on Intellectual Property and the Public Interest 2015 (Organized by the National Law School of India University; New Delhi; December 2015).

Wikipedia

Op-ed

ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଭାଷା ପାଇଁ ଅନ୍ତର୍ଜାତୀୟ ପ୍ରକଳ୍ପ (Subhashish Panigrahi; The Samaja, January 31, 2015).

Blog Entries

Telugu Wikimedia Hackathon 2014 (Rahmanuddin Shaik; January 31, 2015).

Telugu Wikimedia Hackathon 2014 (Rahmanuddin Shaik; January 31, 2015). The event was conducted on December 28, 2014. However, the blog post was published in January 2015.

News and Media Coverage

CIS-A2K team gave its inputs to the following media coverage:

Works of Veerasalingam Pantulu on web (Hans India; January 1, 2015).
Centre should partner local communities in 'Digital India': Expert (IANS and mirrored in Zee News; January 9, 2015).
Musician donates Gwalior Gharana songs to free e-library (Times of India; January 20, 2015).

Announcement

2015 Opensource.com Community Awards : Every year, Opensource.com awards people from our community who have excelled in contributing and sharing stories about open source. Subhashish Panigrahi from the CIS-A2K team won the award under the category 'People's Choice Awards'.
CIS-A2K team also published the Telugu Wikipedia Stats tables. Most metrics have been collected from a partial dump (aka stub dump), which contains all revisions of every article, meta data, but no page content.

Participation in Event

Citizen Media Summit 2015 (Organized by Global Voices; January 24 - 25, 2015). Subhashish Panigrahi was a speaker.

Openness

Journal Article

Heads I Win, Tails You Lose: The Intransigenc of STM Publishers (Subbiah Arunachalam, Perumal Ramamoorthi and Subbiah Gunasekaran; Indian National Science Academy Journals, Proc Indian Natn SciAcad 80 No. 5 December 2014 pp. 919-929).

Internet Governance

Articles and Blog Entries

Indians Plead for #NetNeutrality as Airtel Raises Data Charges (Subhashish Panigrahi; Global Voices; December 30, 2014). The article was published in the month of December but mirrored on CIS website in January.
Indian Netizens Criticize Online Censorship of 'Jihadi' Content (Subhashish Panigrahi; Global Voices; January 6, 2015).
Security and Surveillance - Optimizing Security while Safeguarding Human Rights (Elonnai Hickok; January 19, 2015).
Search Engine and Prenatal Sex Determination: Walking the Tight Rope of the Law (Geetha Hariharan and Balaji Subramanian; January 29, 2015).

Event Co-organized

Security, Governments, and Data: Technology and Policy (Organized by CIS and Observer Research Foundation; January 8, 2015, New Delhi). Sunil Abraham, Pranesh Prakash, Elonnai Hickok, Bhairav Acharya and Nehaa Chaudhari participated in this event.

Participation in Events

Symposium on Human Rights and the Internet in India (Organized by the Center for Communication Governance at National Law University, Delhi in collaboration with the UNESCO Chair on Freedom of Communication and Information at the University of Hamburg; New Delhi; January 17, 2015). Bhairav Acharya was a panelist.
Winter School on Privacy, Surveillance and Data Protection (Organized by the Centre for Communication Governance (CCG) in collaboration with the UNESCO Chair on Freedom of Communication and Information at the University of Hamburg and the Hans Bredow; Delhi; January 19 - 23, 2015). Bhairav Acharya was a facilitator.
ASSOCHAM National Council on IT / ITes (Organized by ASSOCHAM; New Delhi; January 30, 2015). Geetha Hariharan participated in the event.

Blog Entries

Overview of the Constitutional Challenges to the IT Act (Pranesh Prakash; December 15, 2014).
Reply to RTI filed with BSNL regarding Network Neutrality and Throttling (Tarun Krishnakumar; December 22, 2014).

News & Media Coverage

CIS gave its inputs to the following media coverage:

Government blocks 32 websites to check ISIS propaganda (Kim Arora; The Times of India; January 1, 2015).
Internet users fume as govt blocks 32 sites (Jaison Lewis; Mumbai Mirror; January 1, 2015).
India 'jihadi' web blocking causes anger (BBC; January 2, 2015). This was also mirrored in Puffington Post.
Govt cracks down on cyber jehad network, blocks access to 32 websites (India Today, January 1, 2015).
Indian Government still blocks 20+ websites - Indian Censorship on Internet (Times of Assam; January 2, 2015).
350% surge in Cyber crimes in last 3 years (Devanik Saha & Indiaspend.org; Hindustan Times; January 20, 2015).
TOI literary festival kicks off today (The Times of India; January 31, 2015).

Digital Humanities

CIS is building research clusters in the field of Digital Humanities. The Digital will be used as a way of unpacking the debates in humanities and social sciences and look at the new frameworks, concepts and ideas that emerge in our engagement with the digital. The clusters aim to produce and document new conversations and debates that shape the contours of Digital Humanities in Asia:

Staff Movement

Sumandro Chattapadhyay has joined CIS as Research Director. His academic interests span over topics of history and politics of informatics in India, new media and technology studies, and data infrastructures and economies. He is also keenly interested in questions and techniques of digital humanities. Recently, Sumandro has completed a study on policy and practices of open data in India as part of the Open Data Research Network managed by the World Wide Web Foundation. He is an involved member of DataMeet, a leading community of open data and data science enthusiasts from India. Sumandro studied economics in Visva-Bharati, Shantiniketan, and in Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He has variously worked on topics of urban development, information technology in governance, data visualisation, and early electronic governance in India with MOD Institute, Azim Premji University and the Sarai Programme at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies.

Blog Entry

Figures of Learning: The Visual Designer (Tejas Pande; January 30, 2015).

About CIS

► Follow us elsewhere

Twitter: https://twitter.com/CISA2K
Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/cisa2k
Visit us at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge
E-mail: a2k@cis-india.org

► Support Us

Please help us defend consumer / citizen rights on the Internet! Write a cheque in favour of 'The Centre for Internet and Society' and mail it to us at No. 194, 2nd 'C' Cross, Domlur, 2nd Stage, Bengaluru - 5600 71.

► Request for Collaboration:

We invite researchers, practitioners, and theoreticians, both organisationally and as individuals, to collaboratively engage with Internet and society and improve our understanding of this new field. To discuss the research collaborations, write to Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, at sunil@cis-india.org. To discuss collaborations on Indic language Wikipedia, write to T. Vishnu Vardhan, Programme Director, A2K, at vishnu@cis-india.org.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/january-2015-bulletin

January 2013 Bulletin

praskrishna — 2013-06-11T11:56:35Z

We at the Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) wish you all a great year ahead and welcome you to the first issue of our newsletter for the year 2013. This issue brings you an overview of our research programs, events organised and participated, news and media coverage, and videos of recent events.

Jobs

CIS is seeking applications for the posts of Programme Officer (Access to Knowledge — Indic Language Initiatives), Developer (NVDA Project), Programme Officer (Access to Knowledge and Openness), and Programme Officer (Internet Governance). To apply send your resume to sunil@cis-india.org and pranesh@cis-india.org. For our Privacy project, we are seeking applications for the post of Researcher, Technology/Security Expert, Graphic Designer as well as for internships. To apply for these posts, please send in your resume to Elonnai Hickok (elonnai@cis-india.org).

Accessibility

CIS is carrying out two projects in partnership with the Hans Foundation. The first one is to create a national resource kit of state-wise laws, policies and programmes on issues relating to persons with disabilities in India and the second one is for developing a screen reader and text to speech synthesizer for Indian languages. We are also working with the World Blind Union to develop the Treaty for Improved Access for Blind, Visually Impaired and other Reading Disabled Persons, and assisting in the negotiations at WIPO:

National Resource Kit for Persons with Disabilities

Anandhi Viswanathan from CIS and Manojna Yeluri from the Centre for Law and Policy Research are working in this project. Shruti Ramakrishnan has left the project. Draft chapters have been published. Feedback and comments are invited from readers for the chapter on Haryana:

The Haryana Chapter (by Anandi Viswanathan, January 31, 2012): The state implements the provisions under the central laws, particularly the Persons with Disabilities (Equal Opportunities, Protection of Rights and Full Participation) Act 1995 and the National Trust for Welfare of Persons with Autism, Cerebral Palsy, Mental Retardation and Multiple Disabilities Act 1999.

Submission / Notification

Making Public Libraries Accessible to People with Disabilities (by Rahul Cherian, January 23, 2013): CIS was one of the 20 disability rights groups that wrote to the Ministry of Culture.
Government of Madhya Pradesh initiates ICT Accessibility in Public Communication (by Nirmita Narasimhan, January 31, 2013): CIS with Daisy Forum of India member Arushi in Bhopal submitted a request for a notification mandating that all communication by the Government of Madhya Pradesh should be accessible to persons with disabilities.

Report

Accessible Broadcasting in India (by Srividya Vaidyanathan, January 11, 2013): The abridged version of ITU’s report "Making Television Accessible" which was initially put up for comments last year has been updated once again.

Blog Entry

Linking Commercial Availability and Exceptions in the Treaty for Visually Impaired/Persons with Disabilities (by Rahul Cherian, January 23, 2013).

Access to Knowledge

In partnership with the International Development Research Centre we are doing a project on Pervasive Technologies examining the relationship between production of pervasive technologies and intellectual property. The Wikimedia Foundation’s India Program to support and develop free knowledge in India is now being executed by us. We are also supporting the Iraq government in developing an eGovernment Interoperability Framework:

Wikipedia

Beginning from September 1, 2012, Wikimedia Foundation has awarded CIS a two-year grant of INR 26,000,000 to support and develop free knowledge in India. The A2K team consists of four members based in Delhi: T. Vishnu Vardhan, Nitika Tandon, Subhashish Panigrahi and Noopur Raval.

New Project Director

T. Vishnu Vardhan is the new Programme Director-Access to Knowledge at CIS. Vishnu has over the last 11 years worked in various capacities as researcher, grant manager, teacher, project consultant, information architect and translator. Vishnu managed the Art, Crafts and Culture portfolio of Sir Ratan Tata Trust and also worked as Research Coordinator at the Centre for the Study of Culture and Society.

New Distinguished Fellow at CIS

Tejaswini Niranjana, a Senior Fellow at the Centre for the Study of Culture and Society (CSCS), Bangalore, and Visiting Professor at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai is joining our team as an Adviser to the 'Access to Knowledge' project. She will guide the A2K team in expanding the Indian language Wikipedias and in increasing the number of active editors through strategic partnerships with Higher Education institutions across India.

Reports

Access to Knowledge Report — September to December 2012 (by Noopur Raval, January 31, 2013): The report covers an overview of the activities done by the Access to Knowledge team under the grant provided by the Wikimedia Foundation from September 2012 to December 2012.
Indic Language Wikipedias — Statistical Report — 2012 (by Shiju Alex, January 21, 2013): A statistical update of the Indic language Wikipedias for the year 2012 providing perspectives on the health of various Indic language communities as well as the state of various Indic language wikipedias.

Wiki Event Reports
CIS organised a series of Wiki workshops in Goa in the month of December 2012, we bring you the reports from those events.

Note: The workshops were held in the month of December 2012 but the reports were published only in the month of January.

Two-day Wiki Workshop in Goa University: An Introduction (by Nitika Tandon, January 15, 2013).
Wikipedia in St. Xavier's College, Mapusa, Goa (by Nitika Tandon, January 19, 2013).
Bringing Konkani Encyclopedia in Public Domain (by Nitika Tandon, January 22, 2013).
Promoting GLAM in Goa (by Nitika Tandon, January 24, 2013).
Konkani in Wikipedia Incubator — Taking it to the Next Level (by Nitika Tandon, January 25, 2013).

CIS also organised a Wiki workshop in Ghaziabad:

A Wiki Workshop at Raj Kumar Goel Institute of Technology, Ghaziabad (RKGIT, Ghaziabad, January 17, 2013).

Wiki Event Participated

Celebrating the success of Wikipedia in Wikipedia Summit Pune 2013 (organized by Wikipedia Club, Pune, January 12 – 13, 2013). Subhashish Panigrahi participated in the event.

Wikipedia News Coverage

First Odia Wikipedia Education Program concludes at IIMC, Dhenkanal (Odisha Diary Bureau, Dhenkanal, January 27, 2013).
Odia Wikipedia's 9th Anniversary and Workshop on Application of Odia in Media (Sambad, January 30, 2013).

Wiki Events Organised

Odia Education Program (Indian Institute of Mass Communication, Dhenkanal, Orissa, January 26, 2013).
Odia Wikipedia 9th Anniversary Celebration (Academy of Media Learning, Samantha Vihar, Bhubaneswar, Orissa, January 29, 2013).

Pervasive Technologies

The Pervasive Technologies project carries out research on the intellectual property implicated in the hardware, software and content available in low-cost mobile devices.The long-term outcome of this project is to create a legitimate, legal space for these technologies to exist on the Indian market.

Events Participated

Pervasive Technologies: Access to Knowledge in the Market Place — A Presentation by Sunil Abraham (FGV Law School, Rio de Janeiro, December 15, 2012).
Fifth International IPR Conference (GIPC 2013) (organised by ITAG Business Solutions, Hotel Lalit Ashok, Bangalore, January 30, 2013): Snehashish Ghosh made a presentation on the Pervasive Technologies Project.

Other Openness Updates

Blog Posts / Columns

The Violence of Knowledge Cartels (by Nishant Shah, Hybrid Publishing Lab, January 17, 2013).
Remembering Aaron Swartz, Taking Up the Fight (by Nishant Shah, DML Central, January 24, 2013).

Interview

Aaron Swartz: The First Martyr of the Free Information Movement: Prabir Purkayastha interviewed Lawrence Liang on Newsclick, January 19, 2013. The video is published.

Media Coverage

Bangalore hackers write code as tribute to Aaron Swartz (by Deepa Kurup, Hindu, January 21, 2013. Sunil Abraham is quoted.

HasGeek
HasGeek creates discussion spaces for geeks and has organised conferences like the Fifth Elephant, Droidcon India 2011, Android Camp, etc. HasGeek is supported by CIS and works out from CIS office in Bengaluru.
Event Organized Aaron Swartz Memorial Hacknight (CIS, Bangalore, January 19 – 20, 2013): Aaron’s collaborators such as Anand Chitipothu and A S L Devi participated in the event.

Internet Governance

With Privacy International, London we signed an agreement to facilitate the implementation of activities related to surveillance and freedom of speech and expression. In this month we have blog posts on data retention, international principles of surveillance and human rights and comparitive analysis of Indian legislation vis-à-vis draft of the International Principles on Surveillance of Communications by Ellonai Hickok, and columns by Sunil Abraham and Nishant Shah:

Privacy Research

Data Retention in India (by Elonnai Hickok, January 30, 2013): The post provides an insight into the data retention mandates from the Government of India and data retention practices by service providers.
Draft International Principles on Communications Surveillance and Human Rights (by Elonnai Hickok, January 16, 2013): These principles were developed by Privacy International and the Electronic Frontier Foundation and seek to define an international standard for the surveillance of communications.
A Comparison of Indian Legislation to Draft International Principles on Surveillance of Communications (by Elonnai Hickok, January 31, 2013): The principles, first drafted in October 2012 and developed subsequently seek to establish an international standard for surveillance of communications in the context of human rights. CIS is contributing feedback to the drafting of the principles.

Columns/Op-eds

Web of Sameness (by Nishant Shah, Indian Express, January 18, 2013).
TV versus Social Media: The Rights and Wrongs (by Sunil Abraham, The Tribune, January 20, 2013).

Statement

Statement of Solidarity on Freedom of Expression and Safety of Internet Users in Bangladesh (by Pranesh Prakash, January 15, 2013): This is a statement on the violent attack on blogger Asif Mohiuddin by the participants to the Third South Asian Meeting on the Internet and Freedom of Expression.

Blog Entries

No Civil Society Members in the Cyber Regulations Advisory Committee (by Pranesh Prakash, January 10, 2013).
Five Frequently Asked Questions about the Amended ITRs (by Chinmayi Arun, January 28, 2013): The author discusses the five major questions that have been the subject of debate after the World Conference on International Telecommunications 2012 (WCIT).

Upcoming Event

DML Conference 2013 (co-organised by CIS and Digital Media & Learning Research Hub Central, Sheraton Chicago Hotel & Towers - Chicago, Illinois, March 14 – 16, 2013).

Event Organized

An Introduction to Bitfilm and Bitcoin – A Discussion by Aaron Koenig (CIS, Bangalore, January 23, 2013): Aaron Koenig, Managing Director, Bitfilm Networks of Hamburg, Germany gave a talk.

Events Participated

Panel Discussion on E-Commerce at NLSIU (organised by National Law School of India University, Bangalore, January 7, 2013). Pranesh Prakash was a panelist.
Mobile Broadband: Leveraging for Business Transformation (Chancery Pavilion, Bangalore, January 9, 2013): Sunil Abraham was a panelist in this event.
Third South Asian Meeting on the Internet and Freedom of Expression (organized by Internet Democracy Project, Voices for Interactive Choice & Empowerment and Global Partners & Associates, Dhaka, January 14 – 15, 2013): Pranesh Prakash moderated the session on "Understanding cyber security and surveillance in South Asia”.
Is Freedom of Expression under Threat in the Digital Age? (organized by Editors Guild of India, Index on Censorship and Sage, India International Centre, New Delhi, January 15, 2013): Sunil Abraham was a panelist at this event.
7th India Digital Summit 2013 (organised by Internet and Mobile Association of India, Lalit Hotel, New Delhi, January 16 – 17, 2013): Sunil Abraham was the moderator for Plenary Session 3: Discussion on Social Media – Freedom, Moderation or Regulation.

Upcoming Event

9th International Asian Conference (organised by ITechLaw, February 14 – 15, 2013): Sunil Abraham will be participating as a panelist in the session on “Censorship of Online Content”.

Media Coverage

2012 in Review: Biometric ID Systems Grew Internationally...and So Did Concerns about Privacy (by Rebecca Bowe, Right Side News, January 1, 2013)
Cool Jobs | Parmesh Shahani, Head, Godrej India Culture Lab (LiveMint, January 4, 2013).
Clash of the cyberworlds (by Latha Jishnu, Dinsa Sachan and Moyna, Down to Earth, January 15, 2013 issue). Pranesh Prakash is quoted.
Is freedom of expression under threat in digital age? (originally published by Indo Asian News Service, January 16, 2013 and also covered in the Business Standard, Vancouver Desi, DNA, and Tech2). Sunil Abraham is quoted.
Is freedom of expression under threat in the digital age? (by Mahima Kaul, Index on Censorship, January 18, 2013).
Internet Freedom in India – Open to Debate (by Kirsty Hughes, Index on Censorship, January 22, 2013). CIS research on censorship is quoted.
Cyber security, surveillance and the right to privacy: country perspectives (by Richa Kaul Padte, Internet Democracy Project).
Surveillance Camp: Privatized State Surveillance (by Katitza Rodriguez, Electronic Frontier Foundation, January 28, 2013). Elonnai Hickok is quoted.
An innovative concept comes to the fore (Deccan Herald, January 29, 2013).

Internet Access – Knowledge Repository
In partnership with Ford Foundation, CIS was tasked to produce and disseminate modules on various aspects of telecommunications including policy, regulations, infrastructure and market. However, as on November 9, 2012 there was a change in the mandate of the project. Currently, we are working on building a knowledge repository on “Internet Access”. This new repository will cover the history of the internet, technologies involved, principle and values of internet access, broadband market and universal access. It will also touch upon various polices and regulations which has an impact on internet access and bodies and mechanism which are responsible for such policy formulation. For this purpose we will be hosting a new website: www.internet-institute.in.
We are also organizing an “Institute on Internet and Society” in collaboration with the Ford Foundation India, which is to be held from June 8, 2013 to June 14, 2013. Call for registrations and relevant details will be soon announced on our website.

Telecom

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.:

Column by Shyam Ponappa

What's Needed Is User-Centric Design, Not Good Intentions (by Shyam Ponappa, Business Standard, January 3, 2013 and Organizing India Blogpost, January 6, 2013).

Event(s) Participated

21^st Convergence Conference Conference India 2013 (organized by Exhibitions India Group, January 16 – 17, 2013, Pragati Maidan, New Delhi). Snehashish Ghosh participated in the event.

Digital Humanities

From 2012 to 2015, the Researchers At Work series is focusing on building research clusters in the field of Digital Humanities. We organised the first Habits of Living workshops in Bangalore last year. The next workshop is being held in Brown University:

Habits of Living Workshop

Habits of Living: Networked Affects, Glocal Effects (organised by CIS and Brown University, March 21 – 23, 2013, Brown University, Rhode Island). Nishant Shah will be speaking at this event.

About CIS
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. The policy research programmes have resulted in outputs such as the e-Accessibility Policy Handbook for Persons with Disabilities with ITU and G3ict, and Digital Alternatives with a Cause?, Thinkathon Position Papers and the Digital Natives with a Cause? Report with Hivos, etc. We have conducted policy research for the 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 WIPO Treaties, Copyright Bill, NIA Bill, etc.
CIS is accredited as an observer at WIPO. CIS staff participates in the Standing Committee for Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR) meetings regularly held in Geneva, and participate in the discussions and comments on them from a public interest perspective. Our Policy Director, Nirmita Narasimhan won the National Award for Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities from the Government of India and also received the NIVH Excellence Award.

Follow us elsewhere

Get short, timely messages from us on Twitter
Join the CIS group on Facebook
Visit us at http://cis-india.org

Support Us

Request for Collaboration

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/january-2013-bulletin

It’s Common Practice

nishant — 2015-04-24T11:41:47Z

Technologies are no longer abstract. They're habits. What constitutes a habit? The gestures that you make as you read this, the way your eyes flick when you encounter somebody you like, the way you stroke your chin in a moment of reflection, or the split second decisions that you make in times of crises — these are all habits. They are pre-thought, visceral, depending upon biological, social and collective memories that do not need rational thinking. Habits are the customised programming of human life.

Nishant Shah's column was published in the Indian Express on May 12, 2013.

However, habits are not natural. They are, in fact, man-made nature. They appear as natural, matter-of-fact, instinctive and intuitive, but they are built over years of shared experiences, learning and empathy. And more often than we realise, habits are formed because of the different technologies that surround us.

If you are reading this column on paper, look at the way you are holding the magazine, folding the paper and note how you can read this easily because the text has been arranged from left to right, top to bottom. If you are browsing through this piece on a digital device, look at how your fingers move on your scroll button, or on your touchscreen, helping you make sense of complex devices without a second thought.

Habits that are formed through technologies work so seamlessly because they make technologies transparent. They make us forget that there is a complex network of machines, devices, grids and information that shape our lives. Do you remember the time when you came across something online and didn't look for the 'Like' button that is now a part of everyday internet practice? Do you remember the last time you struggled to manage the cursor on your screen using a mouse? Do you realise how the mouse has already become obsolete and is now being replaced by other touch-and-flick devices for a new generation?

I recently encountered this habit when my three-going-on-90-year-old Kindle — the Amazon device I use to read books — fell in the hands of a six-year-old. Like many digital natives of her time, she is unfazed by technology and, as her parents confess, is much better at operating most things digital in the house than them. She thinks nothing of streaming her favourite cartoon show from a website. She is adept at customising the many screens on her father's smartphone and has accepted that specific movements of her fingers will produce information on brightly-lit touchscreens.

However, when she used my non-backlit, non-touch Kindle that requires buttons to be pushed, she faced acute frustration. After trying to scroll, flick, activate, zoom and pinch on the screen she flung it at me, bewildered and angry that her habits were suddenly redundant and challenged. I want to use this moment of reflection to understand how technologies are integral to our ways of living. Technologies are habits. You don't need to be online 24x7, constantly upgrading yourself to the latest version of Android to interact with technology. Instead, we need to think about technologies as outlets that allow us to think about who we are and how we relate to the world around us.

One way of looking at technology as habits is to see how we have started thinking of ourselves through metaphors of the machines that we use. For example, it's quite common to hear people complain about "lack of bandwidth" to describe busy schedules. We now think of ourselves as systems that need upgrading. Life has long been lived on windows through which we recycle ourselves.

If technologies are such an inseparable part of ourselves, maybe it is time to stop making a distinction between the human and the technological. It is time to stop thinking about technologies only in terms of gadgets that can be removed from our biological assemblage. And indeed, if we are ready to recognise these technologies as a part of being human, then we need to think of technology politics in a new way. The questions around piracy, privacy, intellectual property, proprietary technologies, openness, etc. which are relegated to the digital world are also questions of us. They are not external problems but are centrally shaping how we construct ourselves as humans. Through habits.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/indian-express-may-12-2013-nishant-shah-its-common-practice

Is India's Digital Health System Foolproof?

aayush — 2019-12-30T17:58:00Z

This contribution by Aayush Rathi builds on "Data Infrastructures and Inequities: Why Does Reproductive Health Surveillance in India Need Our Urgent Attention?" (by Aayush Rathi and Ambika Tandon, EPW Engage, Vol. 54, Issue No. 6, 09 Feb, 2019) and seeks to understand the role that state-run reproductive health portals such as the Mother and Child Tracking System (MCTS) and the Reproductive and Child Health will play going forward. The article critically outlines the overall digitised health information ecosystem being envisioned by the Indian state.

This article was first published in EPW Engage, Vol. 54, Issue No. 47, on November 30, 2019

Introduced in 2013 and subsequently updated in 2016, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MHFW) published a document laying out the standards for electronic health records (EHRs). While there exist varying interpretations of what constitutes as EHRs, some of its characteristics include electronic medical records (EMRs) of individual patients, arrangement of these records in a time series, and inter-operable linkages of the EMRs across various healthcare settings (Häyrinen et al 2008; OECD 2013).

To work effectively, EHRs are required to be highly interoperable so that they can facilitate exchange among health information systems (HIS) across participating hospitals. For this, the Integrated Health Information Platform (IHIP) is being developed so as to assimilate data from various registries across India and provide real-time information on health surveillance (Krishnamurthy 2018).

EHR Implementation: Unpacking the (Dis)incentive Structure

As the implementation of EHR standards is voluntary, anecdotal evidence indicates that their uptake in the Indian healthcare sector has been very slow. Here, the opposition of the Indian Medical Association to the Clinical Establishments (Registration and Regulation) Act, 2010, resulting in nationwide protests and subsequent legal challenges to the act, is instructive. To start with, the act prescribes the minimum standards that have to be maintained by clinical establishments which are registered or seeking registration (itself mandatory to run a clinic under the act) [1]. Further, Rule 9(ii) of the Clinical Establishments (Registration and Regulation) Rules, 2012, drafted under the act, requires clinical establishments to maintain EMRs or EHRs for every patient. However, with health being a state subject in India, the act has only been enforced in 11 states and all union territories except the National Capital Territory of Delhi (Jyoti 2018). The resistance to the act is largely due to protests by stakeholders from within the medical fraternity regarding its adverse impact on small- and medium-sized hospitals (Jyoti 2018).

Contextualising Clinicians' Inertia

Another major impediment to the adoption of EHRs by health service providers is reluctance on the part of individual physicians to transition to an EHR system. This is because compliance with EHR standards requires physicians to input clinical notes themselves.

Comparing the greater patient load faced by doctors in India vis-à-vis the United States (US), the chief medical officer of an EHR vendor in India estimates that the average Indian doctor sees about 40–60 patients a day, whereas in the US it may be around 18–20 patients (Kandhari 2017). This is suggestive of the wide disparity in the number of physicians per 1,000 citizens in both countries (World Bank nd). Given this, doctors in India tend to be more problem-oriented, time-strapped, and pay less attention to clinical notes (Kandhari 2017). Thus, clinicians will consider a system to be efficient only if the system reduces their documentation time, even if the time savings do not translate into better patient care (Allan and Englebright 2000). The inability of EHRs to help reduce documentation time deters clinicians from supporting their implementation (Poon et al 2004). Additionally, research done in the United States indicates that there is no evidence to suggest that an information system helps save time expended by clinicians on documentation (Daly et al 2002). Moreover, the use of an information system is stated to have had no impact on patient care, but doctors have acknowledged its use for research purposes (Holzemer and Henry 1992).

Prohibitive Costs of Implementation

While national-level EHRs have been adopted globally, their distribution across countries is telling. In a survey published in 2016 by the World Health Organization, wealthier countries were over-represented, with two-thirds from the upper-middle-income group and roughly half from the high-income countries having introduced EHR systems. On the other hand, only a third of lower-middle-income countries and 15% of low-income countries reported having implemented EHRs (World Health Organization 2016). A major reason for the slow uptake of EHRs in poorer countries is likely to be funding as EHR implementation requires considerable investment, with most projects averaging several million dollars (US) (Kuperman and Gibson 2003). Although various funding models for EHR implementation are being utilised globally, it is unclear what model will be adopted in India to bring in private healthcare service providers within its ambit (Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society 2007). This absence of funding direction for private actors poses to be a significant impediment in the integration of private databases with other public ones.

In general, poorer countries are also more likely to have less developed infrastructure and health Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to support EHR systems. Besides this, they not only lack the capacity and human resources required to develop and maintain such complex systems (Tierney et al 2010; McGinn et al 2011), but training periods have also been found to be long and more costly than expected (Kovener et al 1997).

Socio-economic Exclusions and Cross-cultural Barriers

There exists scant research investigating the existing use of EHRs in India, though preliminary work is being undertaken to assess EHR implementation in other developing countries (Tierney et al 2010; Fraser et al 2005). Even in the context of developed countries, where widespread adoption of EHRs has been gaining traction for some time now, very little data exists around implementation and efficacy in underserved regions and communities. This is further problematised as clinical information systems and user populations also vary in their characteristics and, for this reason, individual studies are unable to identify common trends that would predict EHR implementation success.

Underserved settings may lack the infrastructure needed to support EHRs. The risk of exclusion already exists in parts such as difficulties inherent in delivering care to remote locations, barriers related to cross-cultural communication, and the pervasive problem of providing care in the setting of severe resource constraints. Equally important is the fact that health workers who already report significant existing impediments in their delivery of routine care in these settings do not necessarily see EHRs as being useful in catering to the specific needs of their patient population (Bach et al 2004). Moreover, experience with EHRs also reveals that there are cultural barriers to capturing accurate data (Miklin et al 2019). What this could mean is that stigma associated with the diagnosis of conditions such as HIV/AIDS or induced abortions will result in their under-reporting even within EHR systems.

Stick or Twist?

Other modalities have been devised to nudge healthcare providers into adopting EHR standards voluntarily. The National Accreditation Board for Hospitals and Healthcare Providers (NABH), India, a constituent board of the Quality Council of India (a public–private initiative), has been reported to have incorporated the EHR standards within its accreditation matrix. NABH accreditation, considered an indicator of high quality patient care, is highly sought–after by hospitals in India in order to attract medical tourists as well as insurance companies: two prominent sources of income for hospitals (Kandhari 2017). Additionally, NABH accreditation is valid for a term of three years, thus requiring hospitals seeking to renew their accreditation to adopt EHR standards as well.

Another commercial use of EHR has been in health insurance. The Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) and the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDAI) have both voiced their support for expediting the implementation of the EHR standards (EMR Standards Committee 2013). Both, the FICCI and IRDAI have placed emphasis on adopting EHRs, seeing it as a necessary move for formalising the health insurance industry (FICCI 2015). They have also had representation on the committee that sent recommendations to the MHFW on the first version of the EHR standards in 2013 (FICCI 2015). FICCI had additionally played a coordination role in having the recommendations framed for the 2013 EHR standards.

Fluid Data Objectives

The push for EHR implementation is emblematic of a larger shift in the healthcare approach of the Indian state, that of an indirect targeting of demand-side financing by plugging data inefficiencies in health insurance.

The draft National Health Policy (NHP), published in 2015, reflected the mandate of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare to strengthen the public health system by creating a right to healthcare legislation and reaching a public spend of 2.5% of the gross domestic product by 2018. The final version of the NHP, published in 2017, however, codified a shift in healthcare policy by focusing on strategic purchasing of secondary and tertiary care services from the private sector and a publicly funded health insurance model.

In line with the vision of the NHP 2017, in February 2018, the Union Minister for Finance and Corporate Affairs, Arun Jaitley, announced two major initiatives as a part of the government’s Ayushman Bharat programme (Ministry of Finance 2018). Administered under the aegis of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, these initiatives are intended to improve access to primary healthcare through the creation of 150,000 health and wellness centres as envisioned under the NHP 2017, and improve access to secondary and tertiary healthcare for over 100 million vulnerable families by providing insurance cover of up to ₹ 500,000 per family per year under the Pradhan Mantri–Rashtriya Swasthya Suraksha Mission/National Health Protection Scheme (PM–RSSM/NHPS) (Ministry of Health and Family Welfare 2018). The NHPS, modelled along the lines of the Affordable Care Act in the US, was later rebranded as the Pradhan Mantri–Jan Arogya Yojana (PM-JAY) at the time of its launch in September 2018. It is claimed to be the world’s largest government-funded healthcare programme and is intentioned to provide health insurance coverage for vulnerable sections in lieu of the Sustainable Development Goal-3 (National Health Authority nd).

To enable the implementation of the Ayushman Bharat programme, the NITI Aayog then proposed the creation of a supply-side digital infrastructure called National Health Stack (NHS) (NITI Aayog 2018). As outlined in the consultation and strategy paper, the NHS is “built for NHPS, but beyond NHPS.” The NHS seeks to leverage the digitisation push through IndiaStack, which seeks to digitalise “any large-scale health insurance program, in particular, any government-funded health care programs.” The synergy is clear, with the NHPS scheme also aiming to be “cashless and paperless at public hospitals and empanelled private hospitals" (National Health Authority nd) [2].

The NHS is also closely aligned with the NHP 2017, which draws attention to leveraging technologies such as big data analytics on data stored in universal registries. The Vision document for the NHS emphasises the fragmented nature of health data as an impediment to reducing inequities in healthcare provision. The NHS, then, also seeks to be the master repository of health data akin to the IHIP. By creating a base layer of registries containing information about various actors involved in the healthcare supply chain (providers such as hospitals, beneficiaries, doctors, insurers and Accredited Social Health Activists), it potentially allows for recording of data from both public and private sector entities, plugging a significant gap in the coverage of the HIS currently implemented in India. With the provision of open, pullable APIs, the NHS also shares the motivations of the IndiaStack to monetise health data.

A key component of the proposed NHS is the Coverage and Claims platform, which the vision document describes as “provid[ing] the building blocks required to implement any large-scale health insurance program, in particular, any government-funded healthcare programs. This platform has the transformative vision of enabling both public and private actors to implement insurance schemes in an automated, data-driven manner through open APIs " (NITI Aayog2018). A post on the iSPIRT website further explains the centrality of this Coverage and Claims platform in enabling a highly personalised medical insurance market in India: “This component will not only bring down the cost of processing a claim but ... increased access to information about an individual’s health and claims history ... will also enable the creation of personalised, sachet-sized insurance policies." These data-driven customised insurance policies are expected to generate “care policies that are not only personalized in nature but that also incentivize good healthcare practices amongst consumers and providers … [and] use of techniques from microeconomics to manage incentives for care providers, and those from behavioural economics to incentivise consumers" (Productnation Network 2019). The Coverage and Claims platform, and especially the Policy (generation) Engine that it will contain, is aimed at intensive financialisation of personal healthcare expenses, and extensive experiments with designing personalised nudges to shape the demand behaviour of consumers.

The imagination of healthcare the NHS demonstrates is one where broadening health insurance coverage is equated to providing equitable healthcare and as a panacea for the public healthcare sector. The first phase of this push towards better healthcare provision is to focus on contextualising the historical socio-economic divide. The next phase is characterised by digitalisation: the introduction of ICT to bridge the socio-economic divide in healthcare provision. In this process, the resulting data divide has been invisibilised in reframing better healthcare as an insurance problem for which data needs to be generated. Each policy innovation is then characterised by further marginalisation of those that were originally identified as underserved. This is a result of increasing repercussions of the data-divide, with access to benefits increasingly being mediated by technology.

Concluding Remarks

The idea that any person in India can go to any health service provider/ practitioner, any diagnostic center or any pharmacy and yet be able to access and have fully integrated and always available health records in an electronic format is not only empowering but also the vision for efficient 21st century healthcare delivery.
— Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Electronic Health Record Standards For India (2013)

The objective of health data collection has evolved over the course of the institution of the HIS in 2011, to the development of the NHPS and National Health Policy in 2017. What began as a solution to measure and address gaps in access and quality in healthcare provisioning through data analysis has morphed into data centralisation and insurance coverage. Shifting goalposts can also be found in the objectives behind introducing digital systems to collect data.

In recent iterations of the healthcare imaginary, such as the IHIP and the NHS, data ownership by the beneficiaries is stressed upon. In the absence of a rights-based framework dictating the use of data, the role of ownership should be interrogated, especially in the context of a prevalent data divide (Tisne 2019). The legitimisation of data capture can be seen in the emergence of opt-in models of consent, data fiduciaries managing consent on the data subject’s behalf, etc. (Zuboff 2019).

This framing forecloses a discussion about the quality and kind of data being used. The push towards datafication needs to be questioned for its re-indexing of categorical meaning away from the complexities of narrative, context and history (Cheney-Lippold 2018). Instead, the proposed solution is one that stores datafied elements within a closed set (reproductive health= [abortion, aids, contraceptive,...vaccination, womb]). While this set may be editable, so new interpretations can be codified, it inherently remains stable, assuming a static relationship between words and meaning. Health is then treated as having an empirically definable meaning, thus losing the dynamism of what the health and wellness discourse could entail.

It has been historically demonstrated in the Indian context that multiple tools and databases for health data management are a barrier to an efficient HIS. However, generating centralised or federated databases without addressing concerns in data flows, quality, uses in existing data structures, and the digital divide across health workers and beneficiaries alike will lead to the amplification of existing exclusions in data and, consequently, service provisioning.

Acknowledgements

The author would like to express his gratitude to Sumandro Chattapadhyay and Ambika Tandon for their inputs and editorial work on this contribution. This work was supported by the Big Data for Development Network established by International Development Research Centre (Canada).

Notes

[1] Section 2 (a) of the Clinical Establishments (Registration and Regulation) Act, 2010: A hospital, maternity home, nursing home, dispensary, clinic, sanatorium or institution by whatever name called that offers services, facilities requiring diagnosis, treatment or care for illness, injury, deformity, abnormality or pregnancy in any recognised system of medicine established and administered or maintained by any person or body of persons, whether incorporated or not.

[2] The National Health Stack, then, is the latest manifestation of the Indian government’s push for a “Digital India.” A key component of Digital India has been e-governance, financial inclusion, and digitisation of transaction services. The nudge towards cashless modes of transaction and delivery, also accelerated by India’s demonetisation drive in November 2016, has led to rapid uptake of digital payment services in particular, and that of the IndiaStack initiative in general. Developed by iSPIRT, IndiaStack (https://indiastack.org/) aspires to transform service delivery by public and private actors alike through its “presence-less, paperless, and cashless” mandate.

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Is India's Digital Health System Foolproof?

This article was first published in EPW Engage, Vol. 54, Issue No. 47, on November 30, 2019

EHR Implementation: Unpacking the (Dis)incentive Structure