Centre for Internet and Society

क्‍या आधार पर जल्दबाज़ी में है सरकार?

praskrishna — 2017-03-29T03:52:08Z

Amber Sinha took part in a discussion on Aadhaar aired by NDTV on March 27, 2017.

एक जुलाई 2017 से आयकर रिटर्न भरने और पैन नंबर के लिए आधार नंबर देना अनिवार्य हो जाएगा. बिना आधार के अब आयकर रिटर्न नहीं भरा जा सकेगा. जिस किसी के पास पैन कार्ड है उसे एक जुलाई तक आधार नंबर देना होगा. अगर ऐसा नहीं करेंगे तो पैन कार्ड अवैध हो जाएगा. माना जाएगा कि आपके पास पैन कार्ड या पैन नंबर नहीं है. आयकर फार्म और पैन नंबर में आधार को अनिवार्य किये जाने से कई सवाल फिर से उठे हैं. 2009 से लेकर 2017 के बीच आधार के इस्तमाल को लेकर, इसके लीक होने से लेकर अनिवार्य किये जाने के ख़तरे को लेकर कई बहसें सुनी, पचासों लेख पढ़े. दूसरी तरफ हमने समाज में देखा कि आधार को लेकर ग़ज़ब का उत्साह है.

Watch the Video on NDTV

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/ndtv-march-27-2017-discussion-on-aadhaar

2019 International Asia Conference

Admin — 2019-02-19T00:23:43Z

ITECHLAW organized the 2019 edition of International Asia Conference at JW Marriott hotel in Bangalore on January 31, 2019 and February 1, 2019. Sunil Abraham was a panelist in the session "Policy Making for the Emerging Tech in India".

The rush of emerging technologies of Machine Learning, Internet of Things (IoT) and Virtual Reality (VR) is revolutionising the landscape in which humans exist. Innovators of the generation are ambitious, and their contributions have significantly impacted on various fields like healthcare, media and entertainment, agriculture, and other service models. As these technology advancements are driving new business and service models, there is a need for stakeholders and governments to ensure security and stability of the market without stifling innovations, stigmatising incentives or creating obstacles. Rapid spreading technology applications are resulting in drastic changes in today’s regulatory model, posing the difficult challenges for regulators. In India, the expeditiously developing start-up ecosystem and online consumer base, has stirred the regulators.

Intermediary liability, surveillance, data and privacy, digital taxation, data governance and sovereignty are the dominating debatable topics in India. The debates are not only between regulators and stakeholders, but consumers also joining in it. As the competition between Indian and Foreign Technology intensifies in the turf, the debate on tech-policy is considerably being mentioned in run-up of political parties to the general elections as well. Over the past one year, the country has witnessed some landmark judgments and contentious government proposals related to data and privacy, implications of which have affected over-the-top (“OTT”) services, online media, social media, e-commerce platforms, IoT services etc. The Indian regulatory framework on tech-policy is becoming stricter due to a very disruptive phase last year. The tech-giants like Facebook, Google, Twitter, and Amazon are themselves realising their enormous market influence. After the episodes of lynching, hate speeches etc., they are participating in policy-making efforts related to fake news and digital malfeasance. In this process legal industry is making considerable lobbying efforts for corporations to work with government to curb the menace of digital malpractice and make the internet safer.

As the legal industry is participating in the process of creating an innovators-friendly regulatory regime, they are also striving to understand the disruptive technologies and adopt them for their own convenience. However, legal firms must understand that the technology cannot do their job for clients but can only upgrade the business model for them. The traditional law firm business model is not in sync with legal buyers. Effective deployment of technology will ameliorate the factor of its approachability to its clients.

With the growing technology-based start-ups in India, it is going to be a hub for investments by big corporations. In order to keep attracting the investors there is a need for government to remove the potential hindrances that may make investors double-think. The government should prepare a level-playing field in the market by making citizens aware of the standard tech-policies and fostering the innovators-friendly regulatory regime.

For more info see the website

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/2019-international-asia-conference

‘Willing to participate, but need more time’: Twitter on parliamentary panel hearing

Smriti Kak Ramachandran and Vidhi Choudhary — 2019-02-15T02:29:55Z

The article by Smriti Kak Ramachandran and Vidhi Choudhary was published in Hindustan Times on February 10, 2019. Sunil Abraham was quoted.

Executives from social media firm Twitter’s US headquarters will not appear before a parliamentary panel that has summoned them on Monday over perceived bias towards right-wing handles on the micro-blogging platform although a spokesperson for the firm said in a statement that this is only on account of timing and that Twitter is “willing to participate in” a hearing by the panel.

“We have indicated that we are willing to participate in such a broad hearing process. Given the short notice of the hearing, we informed the committee that it would not be possible for senior officials from Twitter to travel from the United States to appear on Monday,” the statement said. The panel’s summons were issued on February 5, with a meeting with the parliamentary panel scheduled for Monday, February 11.

A right-wing group, Youth for Social Media Democracy, recently held protests claiming the microblogging site suspends or shadow-bans accounts that appear sympathetic to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the government.

Anurag Thakur, a BJP MP who heads the parliamentary panel on information and technology, asked IT ministry officials and Twitter representatives to be present at the meeting. He said the committee takes a serious note of Twitter’s response and would take “appropriate action on February 11.”

According to an official aware of the letter sent to Twitter, the company was told “it may be noted that the Head of the Organisation has to appear before the Committee”.

Twitter added in its statement that while it will work with the Lok Sabha secretariat to find a mutually agreeable date for a meeting so that a senior Twitter official (from the US) can attend it has “also offered representatives from Twitter India to come and answer questions on Monday”. “We await feedback from the government on both matters,” the statement added.

In a previous statement, Twitter said that its India representatives do not enforce policy and that this is done “with impartiality” by a “specialized global team”.

Thakur’s intervention wasn’t prompted by protests by Youth for Social Media Democracy alone. According to the people familiar with the matter, the issue has been repeatedly flagged at meetings of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the ideological parent of the BJP.

Twitter denied these allegations. In a statement issued on Friday, the company said, “Twitter is a global platform that serves a global, public conversation. Elevating debate and open discourse is fundamental to the platform’s service, and its core values as a company. Twitter is committed to remain unbiased with the public interest in mind.”

“The public conversation around Twitter’s policies and actions may be distorted by some who have a political agenda and this may be particularly acute during election cycles when highly-charged political rhetoric becomes more common. For our part, we will endeavour to be even more transparent in how we develop and enforce our policies to dispel conspiracy theories and mistrust,” Colin Crowell, global vice president, public policy, Twitter, added in the statement.

A senior functionary of the RSS said it was soon after the January 1, 2018 clash between Maratha and Dalit groups in Maharashtra’s Bhima Koregaon that escalated into violence that functionaries of the Sangh began to notice posts on social media that were allegedly “anti-national” and had the potential to create “communal friction”.

The content of some of the posts was construed to be similar to the expressions used by so-called “urban naxals”, this person said on condition of anonymity. Urban naxals is a term coined by the right wing for left-wing intellectuals who, they say, are suspected to have links to Maoist organisations.

“Posts that spoke of destabilising the nation, that attacked the sovereignty of the country were being put up. No action was being taken, despite complaints to Twitter,” the functionary added.

It was then that the Sangh chose to knock on Thakur’s doors.

With 34.4 million users, Twitter has emerged as a key platform for political and social conversations. Given the reach of the medium, even the Election Commission has been monitoring the posts to ensure there is no adverse impact on election processes.

Experts said Twitter and other platforms need to become more transparent. “Unless Twitter and other internet giants implement principles of natural justice, they will always be accused of bias,” said Sunil Abraham, co-founder of the think tank Centre for Internet and Society, adding that the platform does not “provide sufficient transparency regarding its decisions”.

Lawyer Apar Gupta said that the parliamentary panel on IT needs to function more robustly. “It has not invited experts, academics, and civil society voices for deliberations. Also, the outcomes from hearings such as the ones on Aadhaar, privacy. data breaches, and net neutrality, done a while back, remain outstanding. Reports or recommendations have not been made to parliament.”

In general, parliamentary panels do allow hearings to be deferred at the request of someone who has been summoned, although this is usually at the discretion of the chairman and also if the request is made immediately after the summons is issued.

Gupta added that usually, a breach of privilege complaint is made by the chairman of the committee to the Lok Sabha speaker “who will then approve it and send it to the Privileges Committee of the Lok Sabha”.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/hindustan-times-february-10-2019-smriti-kak-ramachandran-and-vidhi-choudhary-willing-to-participate-in-parliamentary-panel-hearing

‘The IT Act is fine, but its interpretation is not’

praskrishna — 2012-12-21T10:08:43Z

Several organisations such as the Alternate Law Forum and Centre for Internet and Society are campaigning to amend the IT Act 2000. However, SV Raghavan, scientific secretary, office of PSA to the government of India, stated that the law in place is fine but the stakeholders need to be educated on implementing it better.

The article was published in DNA on December 19, 2012.

Raghavan, who was at the National Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS) in the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) on Tuesday to give a lecture on cyber security, specifically singled out the controversial Section 66 that can hold a person viable for posting ‘offensive’ content online. The IT Act 2000 is constituted to keep such law breakers under check.

“The IT Act 2000 gives specific powers to some of the law agencies to take action. In cyberspace, nearly 90% of the users don’t come with any malicious intentions. Now there is a large concerted effort across the country, to teach policemen how to apply this law and interpret it. There is also an effort to teach the judiciary to interpret the law correctly, so that the right people are held accountable,” he said.

“No matter what you do, when the law is written in English, sometimes it comes across two dimensional and the original intent of the law may be lost, which is why there are agencies who are dedicated to teaching the judiciary on how to interpret it,” he added.

As for cyber security amongst civilians, vigilance is simply all it takes.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/dna-bangalore-december-19-2012-the-it-act-is-fine-but-its-interpretation-is-not

‘Techplomacy’ and the negotiation of AI standards for the Indo-Pacific

arindrajit — 2022-10-21T17:16:10Z

Researchers at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute have partnered with the Centre for Internet and Society (Bengaluru) to produce a ‘techplomacy guide’ on negotiating AI standards for stakeholders in the Indo-Pacific.

This is a modified version of the post that appeared in The Strategist

By Arindrajit Basu with inputs from and review by Amrita Sengupta and Isha Suri

Later this month, UN member states elected American candidate Doreen Bogdan-Martin "the most important election you have never heard off" to elect the next secretary-general of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU). While this technical body's work may be esoteric, the election was fiercely contested with Russian candidate (and former Huawei executive; aptly reflecting the geopolitical competition that is underway in determining the “future of the internet” through the technical standards that underpin it. The “Internet Protocol” (IP) that is the set of rules governing the communication and exchange of data over the internet itself is being subjected to political contestation between a Sino-Russian vision that would see the standard give way to greater government control and a US vision ostensibly rooted in more inclusive multi-stakeholder participation.

As critical and emerging technologies take the geopolitical centre-stage, the global tug of war over the development, utilisation, and deployment is playing out most ferociously at standard-setting organisations, an arms’ length away from the media limelight. Powerful state and non-state actors alike are already seeking to shape standards in ways that suit their economic, political, and normative priorities. It is time for emerging economies, middle powers and a wider array of private actors and members from the civil society to play a more meaningful and tangible role in the process.

What are standards and why do they matter

Simply put, standards are blueprints or protocols with requirements which ‘standardise’ products and related processes around the world, thus ensuring that they are interoperable, safe and sustainable. For example, USB, WiFi or a QWERTY keyboard can be used around the world because they are built on technical standards that enable equipment produced adopting these standards to be used around the world.Standards are negotiated both domestically-at domestic standard-setting bodies such as the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) or Standards Australia (SA) or global standard-development organisations such as the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) or the International Standardisation Organisation (ISO). While standards are not legally binding unless they are explicitly imposed as requirements in a legislation, they have immense coercive value. Not adhering to recognised standards means that certain products may not reach markets as they are not compatible with consumer requirements or cannot claim to meet health or safety expectations. The harmonisation of internationally recognised standards serves as the bedrock for global trade and commerce. Complying with a global standard is particularly critical because of its applicability across several markets. Further, international trade law proclaims that World Trade Organisation (WTO) members can impose trade restrictive domestic measures only on the basis of published or soon to be published international standards.(Article 2.4 of the Technical Barriers to Trade Agreement)

Shaping global standards is of immense geopolitical and economic value to states and the private sector alike. States that are able to ‘export’ their domestic technological standards internationally enable their companies to reap a significant economic advantage because it is cheaper for them to adopt global standards. Further, companies draw huge revenue by holding patents to technologies that are essential to comply with a certain standard popularly known as Standard Essential Patents or SEPs and licensing them to other players who want to enter the market. For context, IPlytics estimated that cumulative global royalty income from licensing SEPs was USD 20 billion in 2020, anticipated to increase significantly in the coming years due to massive technological upgradation currently underway.

China’s push for dominance to influence the 5G standard at the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) illustrates how prioritising standards-setting both through domestic industrial policy and foreign policy could provide rich economic and geopolitical dividends. After failing to meaningfully influence the setting of the 3G and 4G standards,the Chinese government commenced a national effort that sought to harmonise domestic standards, improve government coordination of standard-setting efforts, and obtain a first movers advantage over other nations developing their own domestic 5G standards. This was combined with a diplomatic push that saw vigorous private sector participation (Huawei put in 20 5G related proposals whereas Ericsson and Nokia put in just 16 and 10 respectively);

packing key leadership positions in Working Groups with representatives from Chinese companies and institutions; and ensuring that all Chinese participants vote in unison for any proposal. It is no surprise therefore that Chinese companies now lead the way on 5G with Huawei owning the most number of 5G patents and has finalised more 5G contracts than any other company despite restrictions placed on Huawei’s gear by some countries. As detailed in its “Make in China”strategy, China will now activelyapply its winning strategy to other standard-setting avenues as well

Standards for Artificial Intelligence

A number of institutions, including private actors such as Huawei and Cloud Walk have contributed to China’s 2018 AI standardisation white paper that was revised and updated in 2021.The white paper maps the work of SDOs in the field of AI standards and outlines a number of recommendations on how Chinese actors can use global SDOs to boost industrial competitiveness and globally promote “Chinese wisdom.” While there are cursory references to the role of standards in furthering “ethics” and “privacy,” the document does not outline how China will look to promote these values at SDOs.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a general purpose technology that has various outcomes and use-cases.Top down regulation of AI by governments is emerging across jurisdictions but this may not keep pace with the rapidly evolving technology being developed by the private sector or adequately check the diversity of use-cases. On the other hand, private sector driven self-regulatory initiatives focussing on ‘ethical AI’ are very broad and provide too much leeway to technology companies to evade the law. Technical standards offer a middle ground where multiple stakeholders can come together to devise uniform requirements on various stages of the AI development lifecycle. Of course, technical standards must co-exist with government driven regulation as well as self regulatory codes to holistically govern the deployment of AI globally. However, while the first two modes of regulation has received plenty of attention from policy-makers and scholars alike, AI standard-setting is an emerging field that has yet to be concretely evaluated from a strategic and diplomatic perspective.

Introducing a new CIS-ASPI project

This is why researchers at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute have partnered with the Centre for Internet and Society (Bengaluru) to produce a ‘techplomacy guide’ on negotiating AI standards for stakeholders in the Indo-Pacific. Given the immense economic value of shaping global technical standards, it is imperative that SDOs not be dominated only by the likes of the US, Europe or China. The standards likely to impact a majority of nations, devised only from the purview of a few countries may be context agnostic to the needs of emerging economies. Further, there are values at stake here. An excessive focus on security, accuracy or quality of AI-driven products may make some technology palatable across the world even if the technology undermines core democratic values such as privacy, and anti-discrimination. China’s efforts at shaping Facial Recognition Technology (FRT) standards at the ITU have been criticised for moving beyond mere technical specifications into the domain of policy recommendations despite there being a lack of representation of experts on human rights, consumer protection or data protection at the ITU. Accordingly, diversity of representation in terms of expertise, gender, and nationality at SDOs, including in leadership positions, are aspects our project will explore with an eye towards creating more inclusive participation.

Through this project ,we hope to identify how key stakeholders drive these initiatives and how technological standards can be devised in line both with core democratic values and strategic priorities. Through extensive consultations with several stakeholder groups, we plan to offer learning products to policy makers and technical delegates alike to enable Australian and Indian delegates to serve as ambassadors for our respective nations.

For more information on this new and exciting project funded by the Australian Departmentfor Foreign Affairs and Trade as part of the Australia India Cyber and Critical Technology Partnership grants, visit www.aspi.org.au/techdiplomacy and https://www.internationalcybertech.gov.au/AICCTP-grant-round-two

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/techplomacy-and-negotiation-of-ai-standards-for-indo-pacific

‘Smack’ the Trolls!

praskrishna — 2015-04-04T06:38:10Z

A car was put up for sale on a Facebook (FB) page by a woman. The first few comments were genuine questions asking about the price and the woman was asked to check her inbox, where price negotiations were carried out.

The article by Marianne De Nazareth published in the Citizen on March 31, 2015 quotes Rohini Lakshané.

All in a very cordial fashion. Suddenly in a matter of seconds a nasty gender remark was made, as the car was being sold by a lady, which was taken up by a flurry of similar trolls making snide remarks on her gender and therefore the quality of the car for sale. The woman felt harassed and violated.

These faceless nasty internet beings are called trolls and we need to fight them. " Most people shy away from confronting harassment because either they are mostly unaware of how to handle it or they are scared of the harassment shifting to their daily lives in real world. The scare is not unfounded because there have been several instances of that happening around the world," says Chinmayi SK from the Bachchao project .

" A certain type of troll reacts strongly and negatively to high profile women out of a desire to correct those who have been 'taken in' by them," says Pamela Srinivasan, who uses social media frequently to buy and sell." It's an attack on the idea that the women can be powerful and can be experts. The attack is designed to remove the woman's authority."

Chinmayi advises," But, one needs to talk about online harassment because it exists. Because not talking about will not make it go away. Online harassers are like bullies enabled by the anonymity online personas provide. They are unafraid of consequences in the virtual world, which they would otherwise fear in real world. Hence changes will not happen unless you stand up to them. They will continue to harass and their harassment will only grow with time if ignored."

FB sites where people with common interests like gardening or birding or even Cuckoo clock lovers are happily free of trolls. But sites on which commercial selling of used goods happens, or discussions on touchy political topics, that's where people are viciously attacked if the administrator is not vigilant.

" It is best to have a code of conduct laid down and strictly enforced by the moderators of online communities," says Rohini Lakshané, a researcher at the Centre for Internet and Society. " Large online forums can have many, active administrators to whom users can report abuse. It also helps to report abuse to the website/ platform. However, on platforms such as Facebook, where the volume of posts is high, the review process takes time and sometimes reviewers don't understand the nuances of culture or language or other contexts. An effective, easy-to-implement, and less time-consuming measure then is for the community to police itself and smack those who walk out of line."

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/the-citizen-march-31-2015-marianne-de-nazareth-smack-the-trolls

‘Mobile’ voters may sway polls

praskrishna — 2014-03-05T11:55:24Z

BABALAL Patel’s tiny tea stall in Mumbai is a long way from Silicon Valley. It is not even that close to Bangalore, the Indian equivalent.

The article by Avantika Chilkoti was published in BDlive on March 5, 2014. Sunil Abraham is quoted.

But one night this month, this ramshackle shop became the venue for a social media experiment that highlights the hi-tech face of electioneering in India, the world’s largest democracy. A crowd gathered outside to watch two television screens showing a live broadcast with politician Narendra Modi as he answered questions the audience submitted by text message.

Similar "tea parties" were held across India, designed to ram home Modi’s humble background as a tea seller and his technological credentials. The nationwide event, organised by using mobile technology more commonly seen in US presidential campaigns, signals a shift in Indian politics.

For decades, political campaigns in India have centred around colossal rallies and billboard advertising. But a growing population of young people, rising internet use and the ubiquity of cellphones mean this year’s battle is playing out equally fiercely online.

"We are moving far ahead of saying that we are building ‘likes’ on social media," says Arvind Gupta, head of information technology and social media for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

"Organisation is being done using digital. So if I’m going to tell everybody there’s an event tomorrow, it can be posted on Facebook, websites, on SMS, on WhatsApp, though the real meeting is happening on the ground."

These techniques, which became familiar during the Arab uprisings of North Africa, are an increasingly important part of communication strategy ahead of a national election that must be held in the next three months, and of which the outcome many believe will be close.

Gupta believes parties are fighting what he calls a "postmodern election" for up to 160 — largely urban — seats out of a total of 543. More than half the 50-strong team working on communications for the BJP are dedicated to digital campaigning.

India’s internet user base reached a point of inflection last year, exceeded 200-million. While that is a fraction of the 1.3-billion population, prompting many to question the power of social media, use is far greater among urban and young voters, millions of whom will be eligible to vote for the first time.

"Social media is suddenly becoming important, not for all constituencies, but for urban constituencies, because for the first time the urban youth and the educated class are very much glued into the election and showing interest," says Rajeeva Karandikar, a statistician and election analyst.

Modi, chief minister of Gujarat, has adapted particularly quickly to the changing environment. He captured the public imagination by using holograms to address rallies and Google Hangouts to interact with the diaspora. He has 3.4-million Twitter followers and more than 10.6-million "likes" on his Facebook page, thanks in part to a slick social media team led by high-profile technology entrepreneurs.

By contrast, Rahul Gandhi, the reticent, undeclared candidate for the incumbent Congress party, does not even have a verified Twitter account.

Some were disappointed by low attendance at the national "tea parties", but the events were lauded for being interactive and, perhaps most important in a country where newspaper readership remains high, grabbed column inches in the press. The audience could speak directly to Modi at venues with a two-way video link and the footage was immediately available on YouTube.

"While answering each question, Modi has a point of view," says Pratik Patel, 28, a chartered accountant who organised the event at his grandfather’s tea shop. "He doesn’t have two ways of looking at the same thing — this helps him to be more decisive and forward thinking."

Social media provide swathes of information to India’s political parties, as they copy the sophisticated data analysis used by US President Barack Obama’s campaigns.

From its offices in suburban Mumbai, digital marketing group Pinstorm tracks social media discussions at constituency level and identifies significant supporters or critics. It describes the service as an early warning system or "social radar", which allows parties to mobilise workers rapidly to oppose or support a point of view.

Sceptics argue, however, that social media have insufficient traction in India to affect results of the coming poll. But the size of the user base does not reflect its full power. Educated, influential Indians use these digital networks and the online debate shapes views in traditional media that reach a wider audience.

"The theory is that since the elites are connected and have more time to spare on social media, let us use social media and the internet more generally to influence discourse through these elites," says Sunil Abraham, executive director for the Bangalore-based Centre for Internet and Society. "It’s an indirect route to the vote."

However, an adviser to the Obama campaign warns that, given differences in funding and the environment, India’s politicians should be wary of using the US presidential race as a model. This year, a simpler technology may prove the best tool for campaigns in India: the cellphone.

"Folks look to the Obama campaign for this sort of stuff," says Ethan Roeder, who worked on data for the 2008 and 2012 US presidential campaigns. "But a lot of these international campaigns would do best looking elsewhere for a model.… No campaign in the history of the world has ever spent that much money to elect a single individual to a single office."

India’s version is markedly cheaper, thanks to the roadside chai wallahs and armies of volunteers, pulling in the new breed of voters.

"I have never attended a political rally in my entire life," says Patel, who helped to organise Modi’s nationwide "tea party". "If people want to connect with me they need to connect with me on social media or via e-mail."

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/bd-live-avantika-chilkoti-march-5-2014-mobile-voters-may-sway-polls

‘IT hub’ K’taka ranks No 12 in e-deals

praskrishna — 2016-12-28T01:54:33Z

Karnataka may be dubbed the ‘IT hub’ of the country but when it comes to e-governance transactions, the state clearly has a long way to go. Statistics from Union government web portal Electronic Transaction Aggregation and Analysis Layer (etaal), which manages e-transactions undertaken by e-governance projects, suggests that Karnataka ranks 12th in the country with just 5.66 crore e-transactions this year as of Monday.

The article by Christin Mathew Philip was published in the New Indian Express on December 27, 2016. Sunil Abraham was quoted.

Among the states with maximum number of e-transactions this year so far are Andhra Pradesh, topping the list with 101 crore e-transactions followed by Telangana (80.35 crore e- transactions) and Kerala (75.30 crore e-transactions).

Karnataka’s poor standing on the e-governance transactions front can largely be attributed to a low number of e-services - 86 - in sharp contrast to Andhra Pradesh’s 250. The e-services include registration of births and deaths, land record registration, utility, bill payments and other government related services.

This clearly underlines the fact that Karnataka needs to include more government services online and also create more awareness among the people about the existing e-governance projects to achieve ‘digital India’ and cashless payment system.

When contacted, Karnataka’s IT minister Priyank Kharge said: “Karnataka is a pioneer in e-governance projects, which includes Bhoomi, Khajane and Mobile-One. Mobile-One is offering nearly 4,500 services, both government and private services at the finger tip. All these initiatives have become the model for other states.”

Statistics from Union government web portal Electronic Transaction Aggregation and Analysis Layer (etaal), which manages e-transactions undertaken by e-governance projects, suggests that Karnataka ranks 12th in the country.

Commenting on this, IT Minister Priyank Kharge said, “The Centre has also recently ranked Karnataka at No.13 in ease of doing business in the country. I don’t know how they are coming up with such rankings without considering the merit.”

Sunil Abraham, executive director of the Centre for Internet Society, a Bengaluru based-research organisation, said: “The government should make e-services friendly to the citizens and also make it more transparent.” He said implementation of proposed Electronic Service Delivery Bill, which will make it mandatory for every government organisation to deliver public services online at a stipulated period, will bring more accountability and attract more people to use government e-services.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/new-indian-express-december-27-2016-christin-philip-mathew-it-hub-karnataka-ranks-12-in-e-deals

‘Internet is an absolute human right’

praskrishna — 2015-02-05T15:10:58Z

The right to the internet is an absolute human right, Bengaluru-based lawyer Lawrence Liang said.

The article was published in the Times of India on February 1, 2015. Pranesh Prakash was quoted.

Pranesh Prakash, policy director, Centre for Internet and Society, said people should fight for this right "as we fight for the right to food".

There was vigorous espousal of the concept of net neutrality at the session on 'Is free internet a fantasy?' Net neutrality is the notion of keeping the internet free and open. It implies preventing broadband companies from blocking or deliberately slowing down legal content; and preventing them from collecting a higher fee from content providers to enable them to reach consumers faster.

Session moderator and writer Vivek Kaul noted that broadband companies had been arguing for the right to price internet services differentially on the grounds that they had made huge investments on their infrastructure. Prakash challenged that argument saying the companies were already highly profitable and their consumers were anyway paying for the internet. "Even the argument that large content providers like Google and Facebook are having a free ride on their networks is not true because they pay intermediaries who carry their traffic," he said.

Last November, US president Barack Obama upheld net neutrality, saying that for almost a century, "our law has recognized that companies who connect you to the world have special obligations not to exploit the monopoly they enjoy over access into and out of your home or business." He went on to say: "It is common sense that the same philosophy should guide any service that is based on the transmission of information — whether a phone call or a packet of data."

If broadband companies are allowed to charge content providers higher for faster internet services, it would discriminate against those who can't afford to pay such rates. This would mean lopsided availability of information - a fundamental resource for a democratic world.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/times-of-india-february-1-2015-internet-is-an-absolute-human-right

‘If an Indian party acted like Cambridge Analytica, it will not be guilty under current laws’

Admin — 2018-04-05T16:24:18Z

Sunil Abraham, Executive Director of Centre for Internet and Society, says Indians are vulnerable in the absence of a data protection law.

The interview was published by Newslaundry on March 24, 2018.

What exactly is the nature of the Facebook data breach? What went wrong?

Technically, this is not a data breach. There is an internet standard called O-auth (open-authorisation). Through it, different applications on the internet that don’t want to build their own authorisation infrastructure can use the authorisation infrastructure provided by internet giants such as Facebook, Google, Twitter, etc. There was a personality quiz application, which used the Facebook O-auth service. In this protocol, the authorisation server can also give some data to the application which is using its services.

Does that mean that when we ‘sign up with Facebook’, we also authorise such transfer of data?

Previously, Facebook’s authorisation service allowed the third-party application to harvest data on your profile as well as that on your friends’ list. Facebook is designed to allow this kind of data harvesting.

How is the data harvesting being done by the third-party application dangerous for users of Facebook?

It is you who has given consent for data harvesting, and not your friends. But the application was abusing the consent given by you to harvest the data of people who have not given consent. Facebook had, however, discontinued this API in 2014 as mentioned by Mark Zuckerberg in his statement.

How can Cambridge Analytica (CA) - the British data consultant which also provides services to political parties - influence the choice of these Facebook users?

The CA has experts that focus on psychological manipulation. Thus, the more personal information they have about you, the more they can do what is called “micro-targeting of advertisements”. Suppose they know you are an undecided Republican (now governing party in the US) voter, so they can target you with information and propaganda - including misinformation - in order to push you over the fence. For example, it could discourage an African-American voter, who is going to vote for the Democrats, from going out to vote that day by showing him depressing content. They can also encourage a Republican voter to go out and vote by scaring them that if they don’t vote, the Democrats will win.

How do you take Zuckerberg’s statement? Can it even be considered a valid apology?

Whether he has apologised or not is irrelevant to our situation. What we Indians need is a regulatory response. For the past eight years, my centre has been working towards getting a data protection law. As the situation stands today, what Cambridge Analytica did in the US can be repeated in India. And that won’t be illegal under the present set of laws in India.

Union IT minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said Indian laws are stringent and they can also summon Mr Zuckerberg. How strong is the law that Mr Prasad could be referring to?

Section 43 of the Information Technology Act has been commonly misunderstood as the data protection law. In reality, it only has data security provisions, i.e. under Indian law if you lose property or money as the result of a breach of your personal information, you can approach the court. While in case of data harvesting it amounts to infringement of the right to privacy.

Ever since this scandal surfaced, both the BJP and Congress have been distancing themselves from the CA and are also accusing each other of using the CA or its Indian wing’s services. Why are these accusations making these political parties so nervous?

Unfortunately, I am only a policy researcher and I don’t follow a political party. It is better to ask a political analyst that kind of question.

Hypothetically, even if these parties – the BJP and the Congress - have used the CA’s service, have they been on the wrong side by doing so?

As I said previously, there is no law in our country. Suppose a political party did exactly what Cambridge Analytica did, it will still not be guilty under any law in India.

A commoner’s argument could be - even if my personal data is with these companies, how is it going to affect my voting choice?

What has been clear from the CA episode is that personal data can be used to manipulate you. They can make you depressed, they can make you feel suicidal, they can make you buy products that you don’t want, they can even make you vote for parties you don’t like. The most important aspect of the story is that it is undermining free will.

Since the 2014 general elections, India has been witnessing the rise of troll culture where dissenting voices are crushed. A narrative is being created in favour of one party or against any party standing against this party. Do you think services of such agencies could have been used to do so?

No, trolling is a separate thing, while manipulation is more subtle. Unlike manipulation, where you are unaware of the influences, in trolling you know when you are being targeted. The trolls are trying to silence and intimidate you – that is not done through the use of personal information.

There were media reports which said that 70 per cent of the applications used in India do not explicitly take user consent at the time of installation. Also, many of these apps do not even delete the personal information of users once they have been uninstalled from mobile phones. How dangerous is this situation?

It is not just that these applications don’t take your consent, or that they retain data after you’ve stopped using their services, what is scarier is that many of these applications take extensive permissions on your phone. For example, the torch application sometimes asks for permission to read your messages. What they can do using this is harvest your one-time passwords (OTPs) from your SMS folder in order to conduct fraudulent financial transactions.

They can also collect your personal photographs, and maybe later that can be used to blackmail you. A lot of horrible things can happen because we have, what is called, a regulatory battle.

According to media reports, the CA’s Indian subsidiary - Ovleno Business Intelligence, whose Indian operations are headed by the son of JDU leader KC Tyagi - was hired for elections in India - Bihar polls in 2010 and 2015, and in state polls. Could it be possible that data harvested by this company was used to influence voters?

Again, I don’t know the specifics connected to the behaviour of Cambridge Analytica and its subsidiary in India. I don’t think anybody has done any research on this question.

There is already the conundrum over Aadhaar in India and pressure to link it with our bank accounts and phone numbers. Do you think the Facebook data breach or data harvesting will press the question of privacy here?

It's a very different type of privacy concern. With Aadhaar, the primary concern is of biometrics and the storage of biometrics in a centralised database. Here, it’s a concern of unauthorised third-party applications being able to harvest our personal data. Though different, they are two excellent case studies for us to test the effectiveness of our draft Data Protection Bill, which will come out in April or May.

The Facebook CEO didn’t mention that Facebook will stop collecting our data. Do you feel Facebook too is on the wrong side when speaking of attempts to harvest personal data?

You cannot accuse Facebook of doing wrong. Being wrong or right is an ethical question and subjective. For instance, I might think that Facebook is doing something wrong, however, Facebook, which is trying to maximise its shareholding value, might think it is doing right.

Also, at the end, it’s all about the legal framework. In US jurisdiction, what Facebook did is completely legal. Under the European data protection law, what they did is illegal.

(Transcribed by Newslaundry interns Priyali Dhingra and Maitri Dwivedi.)

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/newslaundry-amit-bhardwaj-march-24-2018-facebook-data-breach-cambridge-analytica-privacy-law-sunil-abraham

‘If an Indian party acted like Cambridge Analytica, it will not be guilty under current laws’

Admin — 2018-03-25T02:01:18Z

Sunil Abraham, Executive Director of Centre for Internet and Society, says Indians are vulnerable in the absence of a data protection law.

The blog post by Amit Bhardwaj was published by Newslaundry on March 24, 2018.

What exactly is the nature of the Facebook data breach? What went wrong?

Does that mean that when we ‘sign up with Facebook’, we also authorise such transfer of data?

What you are doing is that you are a user of the application (personality application). Once you try to use the service, it will give you a choice - whether you want to authenticate yourself using Facebook, Twitter etc. So basically you are authorising a third-party application to use your data. Previously, Facebook’s authorisation service allowed the third-party application to harvest data on your profile as well as that on your friends’ list. Facebook is designed to allow this kind of data harvesting.

How is the data harvesting being done by the third-party application dangerous for users of Facebook?

How can Cambridge Analytica (CA) - the British data consultant which also provides services to political parties - influence the choice of these Facebook users?

How do you take Zuckerberg’s statement? Can it even be considered a valid apology?

Union IT minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said Indian laws are stringent and they can also summon Mr Zuckerberg. How strong is the law that Mr Prasad could be referring to?

Unfortunately, I am only a policy researcher and I don’t follow a political party. It is better to ask a political analyst that kind of question.

Hypothetically, even if these parties – the BJP and the Congress - have used the CA’s service, have they been on the wrong side by doing so?

As I said previously, there is no law in our country. Suppose a political party did exactly what Cambridge Analytica did, it will still not be guilty under any law in India.

A commoner’s argument could be - even if my personal data is with these companies, how is it going to affect my voting choice?

They can also collect your personal photographs, and maybe later that can be used to blackmail you. A lot of horrible things can happen because we have, what is called, a regulatory battle.

Again, I don’t know the specifics connected to the behaviour of Cambridge Analytica and its subsidiary in India. I don’t think anybody has done any research on this question.

The Facebook CEO didn’t mention that Facebook will stop collecting our data. Do you feel Facebook too is on the wrong side when speaking of attempts to harvest personal data?

Also, at the end, it’s all about the legal framework. In US jurisdiction, what Facebook did is completely legal. Under the European data protection law, what they did is illegal.

(Transcribed by Newslaundry interns Priyali Dhingra and Maitri Dwivedi.)

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/newslaundry-march-24-2018-amit-bhardwaj-facebook-data-breach-cambridge-analytica-privacy-law-sunil-abraham

‘I’m just helpless’: Concern about Kashmir mounts as communication blackout continues

Niha Masih — 2019-08-07T14:03:43Z

For the last 36 hours, Arusha Farooq has been hooked to her phone — making frantic calls, messaging repeatedly and then checking news sites in despair.

The article by Niha Masih was published by Washington Post on August 6, 2019. Pranesh Prakash was quoted.

But none of the calls connect, and none of the messages get read. News reports also have nothing from her hometown Srinagar, the capital of the state of Jammu and Kashmir, amid an Internet shutdown imposed by the Indian government.

“Right now, I’m just helpless,” said Farooq, 26, who teaches at a private college in Delhi. “I need to know that my family is safe.”

On Monday, in an incendiary move, the Indian government stripped the state of its autonomy guaranteed under the constitution. The change is expected to anger and alienate many in Kashmir, raising the prospect of protracted violence in the restive region bordering Pakistan.

Revocation of Kashmir’s special status has been a long-standing demand of hard-line Hindu nationalists. Prime Minister Narendra Modi won a thumping victory in the national elections in May following a polarizing campaign based on muscular Hindu nationalism.

The step was taken amid a harsh clampdown in the Muslim-majority Kashmir valley. Thousands of people were forced to stay home as troops patrolled barricaded streets. The Indian government suspended phone and Internet service. Schools remained shut and two former chief ministers of the state were arrested. On the website of the largest circulating local paper, there is only a blank page under “today’s paper.”

A day later, there has been almost no word from inside Kashmir, a situation many described as a “siege.”

Internet shutdowns are not new to Kashmir. The current shutdown is the 53rd this year. In fact, Kashmir accounts for more than 70 percent of all government-imposed blackouts in the country. In one instance, mobile Internet remained suspended for 133 days in the wake of protests following the killing of popular militant Burhan Wani in 2016.

But Farooq says this is the first time even landline networks have been shut down, leaving thousands of Kashmiris across the country with no means of getting in touch with their families.

Additional troop deployment has also left people concerned about the safety of their loved ones, given frequent violent clashes between civilian protesters or militants and security forces. 2018 marked the deadliest year in a decadewith 586 deaths, including 160 civilians.

Mudasir Amin, a doctoral student in Delhi, has been wracked with worry. On Sunday, he received a panicked call from a 20-year-old neighbor who recently had a kidney transplant. The young man requested that Amin send him a three months’ supply of medicine as uncertainty spread before the government announcement. Amin is concerned that the lack of medication could endanger his friend’s life.

He has no idea if he can or will even be allowed to travel to his village if he flies to Srinagar. He has not heard from his friends who have departed for Kashmir in the last two days. “Once you land there, you disappear in a black hole,” said Amin.

Calling the suspension of mobile and Internet services an “abrogation” of the rights of the people of Kashmir and their freedom of speech, Pranesh Prakash a fellow at the Center for Internet and Society, said, “This is in essence the declaration of internal emergency without official proclamation.”

While government sources called it a “precautionary” measure to contain violence as a result of the announcement, it is unclear how long the ban will remain in place. Vasudha Gupta, a spokesperson for the Interior Ministry, said she had “no answer.”

“It’s like a pressure cooker situation,” said Iltija Javed, describing the prevailing atmosphere from Srinagar. The daughter of Mehbooba Mufti, a prominent Kashmir leader under arrest, she is one of the few people who have managed to communicate through an erratic broadband connection.

“By depriving people of their right to even protest, the government of India has just vindicated the feeling that everybody here shares — that what has happened is a violation of their right,” she said in a WhatsApp voice note sent to The Washington Post.

The constitutional provision in contention gave Kashmir, the only Muslim-majority state, certain autonomous powers and was part of the terms of its accession to the Indian union in the aftermath of the partition of India and Pakistan. It gave special privileges to residents, like the sole right to buy property or hold government jobs, both of which will be now available to people from elsewhere in India.

The state has also been bifurcated into two federal territories. That will limit the authority of the state governments, giving more control to the central Indian government.

Since 1989, India has battled with militants in Kashmir fighting for independence from the country or seeking more autonomy. While India succeeded in curbing the influx of cross-border militants from Pakistan over the years, it has struggled to restrain local youths from taking up arms. India and Pakistan control parts of the region, and the two countries have gone to war previously over Kashmir.

Radha Kumar, a former government-appointed interlocutor to the state of Kashmir, called the government’s move a “death blow,” saying this would only mean losing the people of the Kashmir valley.

“My guess is Pakistan will try to flood the valley with troops,” she said. “We may not see an immediate rise in militancy, but again I would be extremely surprised if we don’t see more youth turning to the gun.

Pakistan has condemned India’s decision as illegal. In a tweet, Pakistan’s armed forces declared support for the struggle of Kashmiris, saying they would go to “any extent to fulfill our obligations in this regard.”

Media reports say India deployed more than 40,000 additional troops to Kashmir in the past week. Kashmir is considered one of the world’s most heavily militarized zones, with human rights groups claiming the presence of 500,000 to 700,000 troops. Residents have long accused the armed forces of excesses.

Amin, the doctoral student in Delhi, is haunted by his mother’s last phone call. She told him they had no idea when they would be able to speak next. He recalled holding back tears when she said she wished he was with them: “ ‘Even we if die, at least we would be together,’ she told me.”

Tania Dutta contributed to this report.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/washington-post-august-6-2019-niha-masih-internet-mobile-blackout-shuts-down-communication-with-kashmir

‘Hurt sentiments’ cost Udaipur internet access for four days

Shruti Jain — 2018-01-19T13:51:51Z

Strap: Authorities suggest it was more than a Facebook post that led to shutdown.

Udaipur: In April 2017, a Facebook post led to 21-year-old Ibrahim* getting arrested and Rajasthan’s Udaipur city losing its mobile internet for four days (broadband banned only for first day). The authorities say the hateful content proliferating after Ibrahim’s social media post in praise of neighbouring nation Pakistan could be tackled only by curtailing internet service. Ibrahim’s family has since left the Fatehnagar locality where they were residing.

“On April 19, an FIR was filed by Fatehnagar resident Rahul Chawda” stating that Ibrahim “is a Muslim and has commented on Facebook ‘Pakistan zindabad tha, Pakistan zindabad hai aur Pakistan zindabad rahega’, which had hurt their religious sentiments. People from Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Shiv Sena had also come along with Rahul to press that a case of sedition be filed,” Subhash Chand, head constable of Fatehnagar police station, told 101reporters.

A case under section 153A (promoting enmity on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, etc.) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and section 67 of the Information Technology Act (punishment for publishing or transmitting obscene material in electronic form) was registered. “However, sedition charges were not registered as their report did not have sufficient basis for it,” Chand says.

Ibrahim, an undergraduate, lived in a slum in Fatehnagar and did odd jobs to earn money. His father works as a taxi driver to support a family of four children. “Ibrahim had no past criminal record. His family left the locality after the incident. Their house is locked since past few months. He was arrested the same day when FIR was registered, but is presently out on bail,” says Gopal Lal Sharma, station house officer, Fatehnagar police station.

In his locality though, Ibrahim’s reputation was that of a “notorious” boy. “His family was fed up with him. He used to post useless content on Facebook. The atmosphere in the city was tensed between the communities at that time. So, his post triggered the religious sentiments,” says Nadir Khan, 40, a neighbour.

Udaipur police say the content posted by Ibrahim on social media was hateful and could’ve lead to clashes between communities. “Isn’t it enough to say the post was inflammatory?” replied Anand Shrivastava, inspector general of police (IG), Udaipur, when questioned about the content of Ibrahim’s post. “Such messages get easily viral on social media. Some people use Facebook and WhatsApp to spread hatred, but there is no particular site, or content that is blocked during internet shutdown. Accessibility to the internet is completely restricted,” he added.

“Messages that could outrage the religious sentiments of the Hindu community were circulated, and we had to shut down internet in the district for four days,” Shrivastava says. When asked what happens if such inflammatory content finds its way back on internet once it is restored, the IG says, “We review the situation. If it is still in circulation, we can continue with the shutdown.”

‘More than an FB post’

Then Udaipur district magistrate Rohit Gupta, however, doesn’t attribute the shutdown to the post by Ibrahim. “It was not because of a particular kid. There were other reasons. Some incidents had happened in the city which led to a lot of improper posts being circulated on social media,” says Rohit Gupta, who is now the district magistrate for Kota.

Explaining the administrative procedure behind an internet shutdown, Gupta says, “Based on a report from the police, many agencies, including intelligence and the affected party, are consulted about the decision to implement internet shutdown. Curtailing internet doesn’t allow the situation to aggravate further. Its fallout affects the general masses, too, but that happens even in the case of a curfew when we restrict people’s movement.”

Gupta says internet shutdown is a preventive action to keep the situation from escalating into a full blown law and order problem. “People will then question why the administration didn’t act in time to prevent it.”

While the administration ensured that banking and lease-line providers were not affected during the internet ban, several other businesses dependent on internet were affected.

“Why all of us?”

“If four people post hateful content on social media, why should 20 lakh others be punished? When police are unable to control a situation, the easiest way they have is to curtail the internet. I couldn’t work for four days. Many others, who depend on internet for work like me, were affected. They should ban only the social media,” says Chhatrapati Sarupria, an online graphic designer who petitioned the sessions and district court against the arbitrary suspension of internet services in Udaipur.

Cyber experts feel there can be other ways to keep social and business activities out of the purview of ban during such law and order situation, but the competent authorities fail to make any attempts in this direction.

“Internet shutdown is not the only solution. Since, there is no procedure to stop only the hateful content on social media, the only option left is to turn off the internet completely. Facebook has a ‘report abuse’ mechanism, which allows review and removal of any post that goes against the Facebook community standards. We need to work on better alternatives to control inflammatory content on social media. Only if such alternative ways are initiated now, they can be regulated as we progress,” says Mukesh Choudhary, a cyber expert.

*Name changed to protect identity.

(Shruti Jain is a Jaipur-based journalist and a member of 101Reporters.com, a pan-India network of grassroots reporters.)

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/2018hurt-sentiments2019-cost-udaipur-internet-access-for-four-days

‘Hacking’ sparks row over exam evaluation

praskrishna — 2013-07-02T08:58:17Z

Over the past two days, Cornell University student Debarghya Das’ blog post on ‘Hacking the Indian Education System’ has kicked off a debate across the country over the security of data published online and the practice of moderation of marks obtained by school students in board examinations.

The article by Vasudha Venugopal and Karthik Subramanian was published in the Hindu on June 7, 2013. Pranesh Prakash is quoted.

The 20-year-old Cornell student extracted large amounts of class X and XII student results from a website that hosted the ICSE results using an automated program. Over 1,760 schools are affiliated to the ICSE and more than 1.2 lakh students took the board exams. Based on interpretation of the data sets, he raised allegations of large-scale “tampering” of marks by the authorities, ostensibly to maintain a healthy graph on the results.

Information Security experts said what the student did could not be viewed as a major security breach as much as it was exploiting a loophole. “Anyone with basic programming skills will be able to pull it off,” said Pranesh Prakash, policy director at the Bangalore-based Center for Internet and Society. “There are add-ons available on popular internet browers that allow users to read the embedded codes on a website and run programs to mine data.”

Government websites are most susceptible to loopholes because too many people use them, says Nitesh Betala, Chennai coordinator of Null, a community of programmers that meets regularly to explore these loopholes in public domain websites. “We inform the system administrators directly hoping that they would plug loopholes before others exploit them.”

Debarghya too explained on his blog (deedy.quora.com) on Thursday that what he did was not illegal. “I did not illegally access any database system. All I did was access information that was available to any person who entered a number into the website could access. I simply mined the data.”

The ICSE council, on its part, said it does not publish the examination results in an online manner on its website. Instead, hard copies of results are despatched to schools. But the results are disseminated to third parties such as media organisations.

Krupakar Manukonda, who runs a blog on education for the not-for-profit organisation Takshashila, said: “The online results of all the boards have serious privacy problems. I think the respective boards should issue a passcode along with a hall ticket or entering Date of Birth, First name and Last name should be made mandatory to access marks.”

Das deduced after much data crunching and statistical analysis that the “marks had been tampered with”. His claim is supported by graphs purporting to show that nearly 33 scores, such as 91, 92, 86 and so on, were never awarded to any student.

However, teachers deny the allegation. “The word tampering is wrong. There is moderation that happens across education boards,” explained a teacher, who has worked with ICSE schools in Hyderabad and Chennai. “After the first round of corrections, raw data is given to officials and head examiners who analyse how students have performed. They try to ensure the bell curve of the results does not look awkward. If it does, the implication is that the checking has been either too liberal or very strict.”

After the first moderation, there is a final moderation which is often done by a different set of teachers. “There are some instructions given to us earlier, and some changes made later, depending on analysis by the board,” said a teacher. Teachers are not told about moderation methods in both CBSE and ICSE boards.

The ICSE council says that it does follow the practice of moderation. “In keeping with the practice followed by examination conducting bodies, a process of standardisation is applied to the results, so as to take into account the variations in difficulty level of questions over the years (which may occur despite applying various norms and yardsticks), as well as the marginal variations in evaluation of answer scripts by hundreds of examiners (inter-examiner variability), for each subject.”

Some teachers are however puzzled by the findings. “It is understandable that there are many 35s because a student on the verge of passing, is often pushed to the mark. But I don’t understand why there are no 85, 87, 89, 91 and 93. And, with cut throat competition for every single mark in colleges, teachers are very careful, especially with top scoring papers,” said another senior teacher.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/the-hindu-june-7-2013-vasudha-venugopal-karthik-subramanian-hacking-sparks-row-over-exam-evaluation

‘Future of Work’ in India’s IT/IT-es Sector

Aayush Rathi and Elonnai Hickok — 2020-04-28T09:52:59Z

The Centre for Internet and Society has recently undertaken research into the impact of Industry 4.0 on work in India. Industry 4.0, for the purposes of the research, is conceptualised as the technical integration of cyber physical systems (CPS) into production and logistics and the use of the ‘internet of things’ (connection between everyday objects) and services in (industrial) processes. By undertaking this research, CIS seeks to complement and contribute to the discourse and debates in India around the impact of Industry 4.0. In furtherance of the same, this report seeks to explore several key themes underpinning the impact of Industry 4.0 specifically in the IT/IT-es sector and broadly on the nature of work itself.

Read the complete case-study here: Download (PDF)

Introduction

Scholarship on 'Industry 4.0' that has emerged globally has sought to address the challenges of technological forecasting as it relates to work in varied forms. For instance, the Frey-Osborne methods examine characteristic tasks of each occupation and suggest that almost half of all jobs in the United States and other advanced countries are at risk of being substituted by computers or algorithms within the next 10 to 20 years. [1] On the other hand, scholars such as Autor and Handel as well as research produced by OECD on this subject argue that occupations as a whole are unlikely to be automated as there is great variability in the tasks within each occupation. [2] Existing literature on the impact on jobs in the IT sector in India too have arrived at mixed conclusions. Reports have raised concerns about job loss in the sector as a result of automation [3] whilst it has also been reported that employment from the IT sector reached 3.86 million in 2016-17 and an addition of around 105,000 was witnessed in FY18 itself. [4]

In this context, it is crucial to start by developing an understanding of which technologies are at the forefront of bringing in Industry 4.0. Such an understanding will further help understand which jobs, and more specifically, job functions are at the greatest risk of being replaced by automation technologies. To further contextualise the impact, it is imperative to develop a comprehensive understanding of how job functions are organised within the sector itself. This becomes especially relevant with the emphasis Industry 4.0 places on the horizontal and vertical integration of the various technologies constituting Industry 4.0. [5]

It is anticipated that to stay ahead of the curve of ‘technological unemployment’ there will be significant skilling and re-skilling challenges to enable new talent addition around emerging job roles. [6] The skilling challenge gains enhanced importance in the broader context of nurturing an inclusive digital economy. [7] This is particularly relevant in the context of female labour force participation, since it has been predicted that job creation will be concentrated in sectors where females are underrepresented and difficult to retain, while sectors with higher female participation, such as secretarial work, will undergo job loss. [8]

However, it is not clear how these trends will play out in the future, particularly because other structural changes are taking place simultaneously (such as globalisation and protectionism, demographic change, policy making, technological adoption etc.).

Objective and Scope

This research seeks to contribute to existing studies and dialogue on the impact and effect of industry 4.0 on work in the Information Technology services (IT) sector in India. Though the research focuses on the impact of technologies that comprise Industry 4.0, such technologies are frequently interchanged with the words ‘automation’ and ‘digitisation’. Thus, the desk research also examines the impact of ‘automation’ and ‘digitisation’ on the IT sector in India. The case study looks atthe IT sector broadly and where applicable, calls out information specific to sub-sectors such as IT enabled services (IT-eS) or Business Process Management (IT-BPM). The IT sector in India is uniquely placed; it is producing the technologies that are disrupting work in other industries as well as implementing them internally. This report focuses on the latter, but brings into context the former when relevant to work in the sector.

By drawing out trends and providing an analysis of contextual, quantitative and qualitative data on changes to work and labour markets in India as a result of technological uptake, it is anticipated that comparative research can be enabled by creating a framework that can be replicated in other, particularly developing, contexts.

References

[1] Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael A. Osborne, 2013. The future of employment: How susceptible are jobs to computerisation?, Oxford Martin School, September.

[2] See David H. Autor & Michael J. Handel, 2013. “Putting Tasks to the Test: Human Capital, Job Tasks, and Wages,” Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, Vol. 31(S1), pages S59 -S96. See also: Future of Work and Skills, The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, February 2017.

[3] Business Today, AI, automation will cost 7 lakh IT jobs by 2022, says report. (November 7, 2017) Retrieved https://www.businesstoday.in/sectors/it/ai-and-automation-to-cost-7-lakh-it-jobs-by-2022-says-report/story/259880.html

[4] Advantage India, India Brand Equity Foundation. Retrieved https://www.ibef.org/download/IT-ITeS-Report-Apr-2018.pdf

[5] Embracing Industry 4.0 -and Rediscovering Growth, Boston Consulting Group. Retrieved https://www.bcg.com/capabilities/operations/embracing-industry-4.0-rediscovering-growth.aspx

[6] India’s Readiness for Industry 4.0 -A Focus on Automotive Sector, Grant Thorton and Confederation of Indian Industry. Retrieved http://www.nasscom.in/sites/default/files/NASSCOM_Annual_Guidance_Final_22062017.pdf

[7] G20 Insights, Bridging the digital divide: Skills for the new age., Retrieved http://www.g20-insights.org/policy_briefs/bridging-digital-divide-skills-new-age/

[8] World Economic Forum, The Future of Jobs -Employment, Skills and Workforce Strategy for the Fourth Industrial Revolution, (January 2016).

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/future-of-work-in-india-it-it-es-sector