Centre for Internet and Society

Internet Researchers' Conference 2019 (IRC19): #List - Call for Papers

sneha-pp — 2018-12-06T07:00:30Z

Who makes lists? How are lists made? Who can be on a list, and who is missing? What new subjectivities - indicative of different asymmetries of power/knowledge - do list-making, and being listed, engender? What makes lists legitimate information artifacts, and what makes their knowledge contentious? Much debate has emerged about specificities and implications of the list as an information artifact, especially in the case of #LoSHA and NRC - its role in creation and curation of information, in building solidarities and communities of practice, its dependencies on networked media infrastructures, its deployment by hegemonic entities and in turn for countering dominant discourses. For the fourth edition of the Internet Researchers’ Conference (IRC19), we invite papers that engage critically with the form, imagination, and politics of the *list*.

Call for Papers

For the fourth edition of the Internet Researchers’ Conference (IRC19), we invite papers that engage critically with the form, imagination, and politics of the list - to present or propose academic, applied, or creative works that explore its social, economic, cultural, material, political, affective, or aesthetic dimensions.

Paper abstracts (of not more than 500 words) are to be submitted by Sunday, December 23 via email sent to raw@cis-india.org.

Authors of selected paper abstracts will be informed by Monday, December 31, and will be expected to present the full paper (either in person, or remotely) at the IRC19 - #List, to be held in Hyderabad during Jan 31 - Feb 2, 2019.

Selected paper authors, who are unemployed or underemployed, will be offered support to cover travel expenses fully/partially.

The only eligibility criteria for submitting papers is that they must engage with the thematic of the conference - *list*.

IRC19: List

For the last several years, #MeToo and #LoSHA have set the course for rousing debates within feminist praxis and contemporary global politics. It also foregrounded the ubiquitous presence of the list in its various forms, not only on the internet but across diverse aspects of media culture. Much debate has emerged about specificities and implications of the list as an information artifact, especially in the case of #LoSHA and NRC - its role in creation and curation of information, in building solidarities and communities of practice, its dependencies on networked media infrastructures, its deployment by hegemonic entities and in turn for countering dominant discourses. Directed by the Supreme Court, the Government of India has initiated the National Register of Citizens process of creating an updated list of all Indian citizens in the state of Assam since 2015. This is a list that sets apart legal citizens from illegal immigrants, based on an extended and multi-phase process of announcement of draft lists and their revisions. NRC is producing a list with a specific question: who is a citizen and who is not? UIDAI has produced a list of unique identification number assigned to individuals: a list to connect/aggregate other lists, a meta-list.

From Mailing Lists to WhatsApp Broadcast Lists, lists have been the very basis of multi-casting capabilities of the early and the recent internets. The list - in terms of list of people receiving a message, list of machines connecting to a router or a tower, list of ‘friends’ and ‘followers’ ‘added’ to your social media persona - structures the open-ended multi-directional information flow possibilities of the internet. It simultaneously engenders networks of connected machines and bodies, topographies of media circulation, and social graphs of affective connections and consumptions. The epistemological, constitutive, and inscriptive functions of the list, as Liam Young documents, have been crucial to the creation of new infrastructures of knowledge, and to understand where the internet emerges as a challenge to these.

As a media format that is easy to create, circulate, and access (as seen in the number of rescue and relief lists that flood the web during national disasters) or one that is essential in classification and cross-referencing (such as public records and memory institutions), the list becomes an essential trope to understand new media forms today, as the skeletal frame on which much digital content and design is structured and consumed through.

Who makes lists?
How are lists made?
Who can be on a list, and who is missing?
Who gets counted on lists, and who is counting?
What new subjectivities - indicative of different asymmetries of power/knowledge - do list-making, and being listed, engender?
What modalities of creation and circulation of lists affords its authority, its simultaneous revelations and obfuscations?
What makes lists legitimate information artifacts, and what makes their knowledge contentious?
What makes lists ephemeral, and what makes their content robust?
What makes lists hegemonic, and what makes them intersectional?
What makes lists ordered, and what makes them unordered?
What do listicles do to habits of reading and creation of knowledge?
What new modes of questioning and meaning-making have manifested today in various practices of list-making?
How and when do lists became digital, and whatever happened to lists on paper?
Are there cultural economies of lists, list-making, and getting listed?
Are lists content or carriage, are they medium or message?

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/raw/irc19-list-call-papers

Internet Researchers' Conference 2018 (IRC18): Offline, February 22-24, Sambhaavnaa Institute

sumandro — 2018-07-02T18:30:52Z

We are proud to announce that the third edition of the Internet Researchers' Conference series will be held at the Sambhaavnaa Institute, Kandbari (Himachal Pradesh) during February 22-24, 2018. This annual conference series was initiated by the Researchers@Work (RAW) programme at CIS in 2016 to gather researchers, academic or otherwise, studying internet in/from India to congregate, share insights and tensions, and chart the ways forward. The *offline* is the theme of the 2018 edition of the conference (IRC18), and the conference agenda will be shaped by nine sessions selected by all the teams that submitted session proposals, and an independent paper track consisting of six presentations.

Venue: Sambhaavnaa Institute, Kandbari, Palampur, Himachal Pradesh, 176061

Travel Information: Getting to Sambhaavnaa (Sambhaavnaa Institute)

Weather in Kandbari: 10°-20°c with possibility of light shower (AccuWeather)

Registration: RSVP (Google Drive)

Agenda: Conference Programme (Google Drive)

Poster: Download (JPG)

IRC18: Offline

Does being offline necessarily mean being disconnected? Beyond anxieties such as FOMO, being offline is also seen as disengagement from a certain milieu of the digital (read: capital), an impediment to the way life is organised by and around technologies in general. However, being offline is not the exception, as examples of internet shutdown and acts on online censorship illustrate the persistence and often alarming regularity of the offline even for the ‘connected’ sections of the population.

State and commercial providers of internet and telecommunication services work in tandem to produce both the “online” and the “offline” - through content censorship, internet regulation, generalised service provision failures, and so on. Further, efforts to prioritise the use of digital technologies for financial transactions, especially since demonetisation, has led to a not-so-subtle equalisation of the ‘online economy’ with the ‘formal economy’; thus recognising the offline as the zones of informality, corruption, and piracy. This contributes to the offline becoming invisible, and in many cases, illegal, rather than being recognised as a condition that necessarily informs what it means to be digital.

Who is offline, and is it a choice? The global project of bringing people online has spurred several commendable initiatives in expanding access to digital devices, networks, and content, and often contentious ones such as Free Basics / internet.org, which illustrate the intersectionalities of scale, privilege, and rights that we need to be mindful of when we imagine the offline. Further, the experience of the internet, for a large section of people is often mediated through prior and ongoing experiences of traditional media, and through cultural metaphors and cognitive frames that transcend more practical registers such as consumption and facilitation. How do we approach, study, and represent this disembodied internet – devoid of its hypertext, platforms, devices, it's nuts and bolts, but still tangible through engagement in myriad, personal and often indiscernible ways.

For the third edition of the Internet Researchers’ Conference (IRC18), we invite participants to critically discuss the *offline*. We invite sessions that present or propose academic, applied, creative, or technical works that explore social, economic, cultural, political, infrastructural, or aesthetic dimensions of the *offline*.

Sessions

#OnlineGovernanceOfflineGovernment - Mohammad Javed Alam and Suman Mandal - Session Details

#WomenInTech - Priyanka Chaudhuri and Tripti Jain - Session Details

#Cyberflesh - Akriti Rastogi, Ishani Dey, and Sagorika Singha - Session Details

#RethinkingTheVirtualPublic - Daisy Barman and Aamir Qayoom - Session Details

#FeminismIRL - Mamatha Karollil, the SIVE Collective, and Tara Atluri - Session Details

#ILoveYou - Dhiren Borisa and Dhrubo Jyoti - Session Details

#CollectionAndIdentity - Ravi Shukla, Rajiv Mishra, and Mrutyunjay Mishra - Session Details

#FollowUsOffline - Dinesh, Farah Yameen, Afrah Shafiq, and Bhanu Prakash GS - Session Details

#OfSiegesAndShutdowns - Chinmayi S. K. and Rohini Lakshané - Session Details

Papers

Slow journalism and the temporalities of the offline - Akshata Pai - Paper Abstract

Campus campaigns: User perceptions in pre-digital and digital eras - Arjun Ghosh - Paper Abstract

The many lives of food: Blogs to books and back - Dhrupadi Chattopadhyay - Paper Abstract

Feminism in digital age - Putul Sathe - Paper Abstract

Marathi literary criticism in the era of social media - Rajashree Patil - Paper Abstract

Taking open science offline - Shreyashi Ray - Paper Abstract

About the IRC Series

The Researchers at Work (RAW) programme at the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) initiated the Internet Researchers' Conference (IRC) series to address these concerns, and to create an annual temporary space in India, for internet researchers to gather and share experiences.

The IRC series is driven by the following interests:

creating discussion spaces for researchers and practitioners studying internet in India and in other comparable regions,
foregrounding the multiplicity, hierarchies, tensions, and urgencies of the digital sites and users in India, accounting for the various layers, conceptual and material, of experiences and usages of internet and networked digital media in India, and
exploring and practicing new modes of research and documentation necessitated by new (digital) objects of power/knowledge.

The first edition of the Internet Researchers' Conference series was held in February 2016. It was hosted by the Centre for Political Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University, and was supported by the CSCS Digital Innovation Fund. The second Internet Researchers' Conference was organised in partnership with the Centre for Information Technology and Public Policy (CITAPP) at the International Institute of Information Technology Bangalore (IIIT-B) campus on March 03-05, 2017.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/raw/irc18

Internet Researchers' Conference 2017 (IRC17) - Selection of Sessions

sumandro — 2016-12-12T13:37:23Z

We have a wonderful range of session proposals for the second Internet Researchers' Conference (IRC17) to take place in Bengaluru on March 03-05, 2017. From the 23 submitted session proposals, we will now select 10 to be part of the final Conference agenda. The selection will be done through votes casted by the teams that have proposed the sessions. This will take place in December 2016. Before that, we invite the session teams and other contributors to share their comments and suggestions on the submitted sessions. Please share your comments by December 14, either on session pages directly, or via email (sent to raw at cis-india dot org).

The Internet Researchers' Conference 2017 (IRC17) will be organised by the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) in partnership with the Centre for Information Technology and Public Policy at the International Institute of Information Technology Bangalore (IIIT-B).

Proposed Sessions

01. #NotFewNotWeird (Surfatial: Malavika Rajnarayan, Prayas Abhinav, and Satya Gummuluri)

02. #VirtualFringe (Ritika Pant, Sagorika Singha, and Vibhushan Subba)

03. #StudentIndicUsageOnline (Shruti Nagpal and Sneha Verghese)

04. #SpeakMyLanguageInternet (Anubhuti Yadav, Sunetra Sen Narayan, Shalini Narayanan, Anand Pradhan, and Shashwati Goswami)

05. #ArchivesForStorytelling (V Jayant, Venkat Srinivasan, Chaluvaraju, Bhanu Prakash, and Dinesh)

06. #SelfiesFromTheField (Kavitha Narayanan, Oindrila Matilal and Onkar Hoysala)

07. #OpenAccessScholarlyPublishing (Nirmala Menon, Abhishek Shrivastava and Dibyaduti Roy)

08. #DigitalPedagogies (Nidhi Kalra, Ashutosh Potdar, and Ravikant Kisana)

09. #DigitalMusicAndDigitalReactions (Shivangi Narayan and Sarvpriya Raj)

10. #RenarrationWeb (Dinesh, Venkatesh Choppella, Srinath Srinivasa, and Deepak Prince)

11. IndicLanguagesAndInternetCoHabitation (Sreedhar Kallahalla, Ranjeet Kumar, Mohan Rao, and Anjali K. Mohan)

12. #DigitalPedagogy (Padmini Ray Murray and Dibyaduti Roy)

13. #CopyLeftRightLeft (Ravishankar Ayyakkannu and Srikanth Lakshmanan)

14. #ObjectsofDigitalGovernance (Marine Al Dahdah, Rajiv K. Mishra, Khetrimayum Monish Singh, and Sohan Prasad Sha)

15. #MaterializingWriting (Sneha Puthiya Purayil, Padmini Ray Murray, Dibyadyuti Roy, and Indrani Roy)

16. #DotBharatAdoption (V. Sridhar and Amit Prakash)

17. #DigitalDesires (Dhiren Borisa, Akhil Kang, and Dhrubo Jyoti)

18. #TheDigitalCommonplace (Ammel Sharon and Sujeet George)

19. #DigitalIdentities (Janaki Srinivasan, Savita Bailur, Emrys Schoemaker, Jonathan Donner, and Sarita Seshagiri)

20. #ToolsToAMultitextUniverse (Spandana Bhowmik and Sunanda Bose)

21. #DigitalisingKnowledge (Sneha Ragavan)

22. #ICTDEthics (Bidisha Chaudhuri, Andy Dearden, Linus Kendall, Dorothea Kleine, and Janaki Srinivasan)

23. #RepresentationAndPower (Bidisha Chaudhuri, Andy Dearden, Linus Kendall, Dorothea Kleine, and Janaki Srinivasan)

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/raw/irc17-selection

Internet Researchers' Conference 2017 (IRC17) - Selected Sessions

sumandro — 2017-01-20T13:28:24Z

With great pleasure we announce the eleven sessions selected for the Internet Researchers' Conference 2017 (IRC17) to be held at the IIIT Bangalore campus during March 03-05. The Conference is being organised by the Centre for Information Technology and Public Policy (CITAPP) at IIIT Bangalore and the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS).

Session Selection Process

A total of 23 session proposals were submitted for IRC17, which were published online. All the session teams, as well as any interested persons, were invited on November 16 to submit comments on the initial session proposals. We closed accepting comments on December 23, and the sessions teams had up to December 30 to re-submit their proposals. On January 01, we invited each team to nominate 10 sessions to be included in the final agenda of the Conference, and this nomination process ended on January 19.

We received 200 nominations from 20 teams. Two teams retracted their session proposals during the selection process - #CopyLeftRightLeft and #DigitalisingKnowledge. And one team proposed two sessions, and so it only submitted one set of nominations.

Selected Sessions

The following 11 sessions have received 10 or more nominations:

05. #ArchivesForStorytelling - 11 nominations
06. #SelfiesFromTheField - 10 nominations
07. #OpenAccessScholarlyPublishing - 11 nominations
08. #DigitalPedagogies - 10 nominations
10. #RenarrationWeb - 14 nominations
11. #IndicLanguagesAndInternetCoHabitation - 12 nominations
14. #ObjectsofDigitalGovernance - 10 nominations
15. #MaterializingWriting - 10 nominations
16. #DotBharatAdoption - 14 nominations
17. #HookingUp - 11 nominations
19. #DigitalIdentities - 13 nominations

Dates and Venue

The IRC17 will take place during March 03-05, 2017 at the International Institute of Information Technology Bangalore (IIIT-B) campus. It is being organised by the Centre for Information Technology and Public Policy (CITAPP) at IIIT-B and the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS).

Conference Programme

The IRC17 programme will be published in early February. Please join the researchers@cis-india mailing list to get updates about IRC17 and to take part in the pre-conference conversations.

Accommodation and Travel

Accommodation of all non-Bangalore-based team members of the selected sessions, during the days of the Conference, will be organised by CIS. We will write to the teams concerned directly regarding this.

Separately, CIS will offer 10 travel grants, up to Rs. 10,000 each, for within-India travel. Participants who are unemployed or semi-employed, including students, would be given priority.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/raw/irc17-selected-sessions

Internet Governance Forum

anirudh — 2013-12-03T10:29:30Z

Anirudh Sridhar provides an analysis of the creation of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF), its structure, and the importance of IGF in this unit.

Introduction

IGF can be best described as the Forum which brings "people together from various stakeholder groups as equals, in discussions on public policy issues relating to the Internet. While there is no negotiated outcome, the IGF informs and inspires those with policy-making power in both the public and private sectors. At their annual meeting delegates discuss, exchange information and share good practices with each other. The IGF facilitates a common understanding of how to maximize internet opportunities and address risks and challenges that arise.

The IGF is also a space that gives developing countries the same opportunity as wealthier nations to engage in the debate on Internet Governance and to facilitate their participation in existing institutions and arrangements. Ultimately, the involvement of all stakeholders, from developed as well as developing countries, is necessary for the future development of the Internet."[1]

Creation of IGF

As it has been mentioned, IGF was first conceived in the Tunis Agenda. Article 72 of the Tunis Agenda laid the foundation of IGF. Article 72 lays down the mandate of the IGF. It asks the UN Secretary General to put in place an open and inclusive process and to convene a new forum for multi-stakeholder policy dialogue which would be known as IGF.

Past IGFs

The first IGF was organized in 2006 in Athens. Since then it has been held each year in various locations. In has been held in Rio de Janerio in 2007, Hyderabad in 2008, Sharm El Sheikh in 2009, Vilinius in 2010, Nairobi in 2011 and Baku in 2012. The IGF in 2013 is to be held in Bali.

Overarching themes at IGFs so far:

2006 and 2007 – Internet for development"
2008 – Internet for All
2009 – Internet Governance and creating opportunities for all
2010 – Developing the Future together
2011 – Internet as a Catalyst for Change: Access, Development, Freedoms and Innovation 2012 – "Internet Governance for Sustainable Human, Economic and Social Development".

The 2013 IGF has found strong support for two themes, "Building Bridges" and "Enhancing Multi-stakeholder Cooperation for Growth, Development and Human Rights".

Apart from the over-arching themes, it focuses on certain themes which have been discussed across all the IGFs:

Human Rights/ Freedom of speech
Security, Cybercrimes
Spam
Data protection and privacy
Consumers Rights, Network Neutrality
Intellectual Property Rights
Development (issues related to digital divide)
Open Standards
Capacity Building
Issues related processes and principles
E-commerce and e-governance

Structure of the IGF

The Secretariat of the IGF is based in the United Nations. The main function of the IGF is to coordinate with and assist the work of the Multi-stakeholder Advisory Group (MAG). The MAG was first set up by Kofi Annan, Secretary General of UN in 2006. The main function of the MAG is to decide upon issues and themes which need to be addressed in each IGF. The MAG comprises of representation from all stakeholders and all regions.

The forum organizes and accommodates plenary sessions, workshops, open forums and best practices forums.

Dynamic Coalitions: The concept of dynamic coalitions was conceived in the first IGF in Athens, which are informal and issue-specific. It comprises of members from different stake holder groups. Currently there are ten active dynamic coalitions, for example, Dynamic Coalition on Accessibility and Disability, Internet Rights and Principles, and Child Online Safety, etc.

Importance of IGF

One of the main critiques of the IGF is that the outcomes of the IGF do not have any binding effect on the participating governments, industry, non-governmental and inter-governmental organizations. But such a process is said to discard the involvement of multi-stakeholder through use of coercive power which is the main feature of government regulation. In this regard, Jeremy Malcolm notes:

"The IGF’s output is explicitly “non-binding,” which means that the participation of states in the IGF process does not involve the use of coercive power as is a typical feature of government regulation. In fact since the process is to be “multilateral, multi-stakeholder, democratic and transparent” with “full involvement” of “all stakeholders involved in this process,” governments do not, at least in principle, enjoy any position of pre-eminence in policy formation through the IGF. Neither should they, if the IGF’s legitimacy and effectiveness are to be assured."[2]

[1]. What is Internet Governance Forun available at http://bit.ly/IIwXNu.

[2]. Jeremy Malcolm, Multi-stakeholder Governance and the Internet Governance Forum, Terminus Press, 2008 at pp. 3.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/telecom/knowledge-repository-on-internet-access/internet-governance-forum

Internet Engineering Task Force

anirudh — 2013-12-01T02:34:23Z

The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) is an open standards body with no requirements for membership and does not have a formal membership process either.

It is responsible for developing and promoting Internet Standards. Internet Standards are technological specifications which are applicable to the internet and internet access. The IETF also closely works with the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and other standard setting bodies. It mainly deals with the standards of the Internet Protocol suite (TCP/IP) which is a communication protocol used for the internet.

The mission of the IETF is to, "produce high quality, relevant technical and engineering documents that influence the way people design, use, and manage the internet in such a way as to make the internet work better."[1]

Structure

The IETF consists of working groups and informal discussion groups. The subject areas of the working group can be broadly divided into the following categories:

Applications
General Internet
Operations and Management,
Real-time Applications and Infrastructure,
Routing,
Security, and
Transport

The working groups are divided into, areas as mentioned above and they are managed by area directors.

IETF Standards Process

The process of developing Standards at the IETF looks simple but faces certain complications when put into practice.

A specification for a internet standards goes through a period of development followed by reviews by the community at large. Based upon the reviews and experiences, the specifications are revised and then the standards are adopted by an appropriate body after which it is published.

"In practice, the process is more complicated, due to (1) the difficulty of creating specifications of high technical quality; (2) the need to consider the interests of all of the affected parties; (3) the importance of establishing widespread community consensus; and (4) the difficulty of evaluating the utility of a particular specification for the internet community."[2]

The main goals of the Internet Standards Process are:

Technical Excellence;
Prior Implementation and Testing;
Clear, Concise, and Easily Understood Documentation;
Openness and Fairness; and
Timeliness[3]

World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)

W3C is a multi-stakeholder organization that involves groups from various sectors including multi nationals. W3C is also an international community dedicated to developing an open standard, "to ensure the long term growth of the web". It is led by the inventor of the web — Tim Berners-Lee.

The guiding principles of W3C"[4] are:

Web for All
The W3C recognizes the social value of the internet as it enables communication, commerce and opportunities to share knowledge. One of their main goals is to make available these benefits to all irrespective of the hardware, software, network infrastructure, native language, culture, geographical location, or physical or mental ability.
Web on Everything
The second guiding principle is to ensure that all devices are able to access the web. With the proliferation of the mobile device and smart phones; it has become more important to ensure access to the web irrespective the type of device.
Web for Rich Interaction
The W3C Standards support and recognizes that the web was created as tool to share information and it has become more significant with the increasing demand for platforms such as Wikipedia and social networking platforms.
Web of Data and Services
Web is often viewed as a giant repository or data and information but it is also seen as a set of services which includes exchange of messages. The two views complement each other and how web is perceived depends on the application.
Web of Trust
Interaction on the web has increased and people ‘meet on the web’ and carry out commercial as well as social relationships. "W3C recognizes that trust is a social phenomenon, but technology design can foster trust and confidence.""[5]

[1]. Mission Statement for the IETF available at http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3935.txt

[2]. http://www.ietf.org/about/standards-process.html

[3]. http://www.ietf.org/about/standards-process.html

[4].http://www.w3.org/Consortium/mission

[5].http://www.w3.org/Consortium/mission

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/telecom/knowledge-repository-on-internet-access/internet-engineering-task-force

Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN)

Snehashish Ghosh and Anirudh Sridhar — 2013-12-03T05:44:24Z

Snehashish Ghosh and Anirudh Sridhar introduces you to ICANN, its history, structure, and advisory mechanisms.

Introduction

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is a non-profit public-benefit corporation which is responsible at the overall level, for the coordination of the, “global internet's systems of unique identifiers, and in particular to ensure the stable and secure operation of the internet's unique identifier systems.”[1]

In other words, in order to reach or connect to another computer on the internet, one has to provide the address of the computer. Such an address must be unique so that the computers are able to locate each other. ICANN is responsible for coordinating these unique identifiers across the globe. ICANN, thus, plays a major role in internet governance.

In technical terms ICANN coordinates the domain name system (DNS), internet protocol (IP) addresses, space allocation, protocol identifier assignment, generic (gTLD), country code (ccTLD) top level domain name system management and root server system management functions. These functions were previously performed by the Internet Assigned Number Authority (IANA) under a US Government contract.

History

ICANN was established on September 18, 1998. Subsequently it was incorporated on September 30, 1988.

In June 1998 the US Department of Commerce came out with a white paper on the administration of internet name and numbers. The main purpose of the white paper was to move administration of internet domain names and IP addresses out of the control of US federal government and vest it in a non-profit, internationally representative organization.[2]

Governing Documents

Articles of Incorporation
ICANN Articles of Incorporation was finalized on November 21, 1988. According to the Article of Incorporation, the main function of the ICANN was laid down as the following:

"In furtherance of the foregoing purposes, and in recognition of the fact that the Internet is an international network of networks, owned by no single nation, individual or organization, the Corporation shall, except as limited by Article 5 hereof, pursue the charitable and public purposes of lessening the burdens of government and promoting the global public interest in the operational stability of the Internet by:

Coordinating the assignment of internet technical parameters as needed to maintain universal connectivity on the Internet;
Performing and overseeing functions related to the coordination of the internet protocol ("IP") address space;
Performing and overseeing functions related to the coordination of the internet domain name system ("DNS"), including the development of policies for determining the circumstances under which new top-level domains are added to the DNS root system;
Overseeing operation of the authoritative internet DNS root server system; and
Engaging in any other related lawful activity in furtherance of items (i) through (iv).”[3]

ICANN By-Laws

The by-laws outline the powers and responsibilities of the ICANN by laying down its mission and core values. It also establishes the offices of the Ombudsman (Article V), Board of Directors (Article VI), Nominating Committee (Article VII), Address Supporting Organization (Article VIII), Country Code Name Supporting Organization (Article IX), Generic Name Supporting Organization (Article X) and Advisory Committees (Article XI). It also lays down guidelines related to fiscal matters, membership, offices and seal and the procedure for amendment of by-laws.[4]

Structure of the ICANN


Above: Structure of the ICANN

As per the structure of the ICANN,[5] it has adopted a bottom-up, consensus driven, multi-stakeholder approach. The ICANN currently comprises of three supporting organizations and four advisory committees apart from the Board of Directors and other advisory committees.

Board of Directors
The Board of Directors comprises of 16 members ("Directors") who have voting rights. Additionally it has five non-voting liaisons. The five liaisons appointed by Governmental Advisory Committee, Root Server and Stability Advisory Committee, Technical Liaison Group and Internet Engineering Task Force. Each body appoints one liaison member. The Directors are expected to act in the best interest of ICANN rather than acting in the best interest of the entity they have been selected from. The main function of the Board of Directors is to put to vote various policy recommendation made by the Supporting Organizations and the Advisory Committees.

Supporting Organisations
The Supporting Organizations are Address Supporting Organization, Country Code Name Supporting Organization and Generic Name Supporting Organization. They are tasked with policy making on IP Addresses, country code top level domain and generic top level domain respectively.

Advisory Committee
ICANN also takes into consideration suggestions and recommendations from the Advisory Committees. This also assists the ICANN to make note of the demands and interests of the stakeholders, who do not participate in the Supporting organizations. The four Advisory Committees are:

Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) – The GAC is composed of representatives from the national governments across the world.
Security and Stability Advisory Committee (SSAC) – The SSAC comprises of cyber security experts tasked to study security issues related to ICANN’s mandate.
Root Server System Advisory Committee (RSSAC) – The RSSAC also comprises of technical experts who provides recommendation and advise on the operation of the DNS root server system.
At-Large Advisory Committee (ALAC) – The ALAC consists of representatives from the organizations of individual internet users. The main function of the ALAC is to "consider and provide advice on the activities of ICANN, in so far as they relate to the interests of individual internet users."[6]
Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF).
NRO (Number Resource Organization) – It is a body that co-ordinates the 5 regional internet registries that manage the distribution of internet number resources. These include IP addresses and the autonomous system numbers. Nominating Committee (NomCom) – This committee invites statements of interest and candidate recommendations from the internet community to fill important leadership positions to carry out ICANN’s role in technical and policy coordination.

Other Advisory Mechanisms

The other advisory mechanisms are put in place in order to seek expert advice on ICANN’s policy development and setting of technical standards. The two other advisory mechanisms are: (i) External Expert Advice and (ii) Technical Liaison Group.

Amongst its many accomplishments ICANN in collaboration with Verisign and National Telecommunication and Information Administration (US) completed the deployment of the DNS security extensions for the root zone. The ICANN has also been successful in setting up of a cost-effective uniform domain name dispute resolution policy which has been efficient in solving domain name disputes.

[1]. Article I, Bylaws for ICANN (As amended on March 16, 2012) available at https://www.icann.org/en/about/governance/bylaws/bylaws-16mar12-en.htm

[2]. Milton L Mueller, ICANN and Internet Governance| Sorting through the debris of ‘self regulation’, Vol. 1, No. 6, Dec. 1999, Camford Publishing Ltd. available at http://www.icannwatch.org/archive/muell.pdf

[3]. Articles of Incorporation, ICANN as revised on November 21, 1988 available at https://www.icann.org/en/about/governance/articles

[4]. By-Laws for ICANN as amended on December 20, 2012 available at https://www.icann.org/en/about/governance/bylaws

[5]. Can be found at http://www.icann.org/en/groups/chart

[6]. Article XI, By-Law for ICANN available at www.icann.org/en/about/governance/bylaws#XI

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/telecom/knowledge-repository-on-internet-access/icann

International Telecommunication Union

Snehashish Ghosha and Anirudh Sridhar — 2013-10-06T03:58:11Z

The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) is a specialized agency of the United Nations. It is an intergovernmental organization which coordinates between governments and private sector bodies with respect to global telecommunication and information communication technology (ICT) services.

Note: Chart would be put up soon.

Introduction

The ITU is headquartered at Geneva, Switzerland, having been established as a successor to International Telegraph Union which was set up in 1865. Subsequently in 1947 the ITU became as specialized agency of the United Nations.

This unit will deal with the ITU’s main areas of work and with special focus on review of the International Telecommunication Regulations (ITRs) during the World Conference on International Telecommunications 2012 (WCIT ’12) and its impact on the internet. It will also briefly touch upon the various functions of the ITU.

Amongst other functions[1] the ITU is mainly responsible for management of radio spectrum globally and coordination and setting of technical standards related telecommunication/ICT. The ITU also has active involvement in the sectors of broadband internet, next generation wireless technologies, data, access, television broadcasting and convergence in mobile devices.

Composition of the International Telecommunication Union

The ITU comprises of Member States, Sector Members and Associates.
Member States
Member states have the right to vote in the ITU proceedings. Each member state nominates one member to represent the State in ITU proceedings. Currently, 193 member states participate in the ITU proceedings. For example, India, the United States of America, Sudan, etc.
Sector Members
Any interested organization can become a member of any of the sectors or all the sectors (ITU-T, ITU-R and ITU-D) for a payment of a fee. Sector members can be from industry, international or regional organizations. The rights and obligations of the Sector Members are laid down in Article 3 of the Constitution of the ITU.[2] The Internet Society is an ITU-D and ITU-T sector member.
Associates and Academia
Any interested industry, international or regional organization can become Associates on a payment of a fee. University and research organizations can also become members from academia. HMR Institute of Technology Management, New Delhi and Sinhgad Technical Education Society, Pune are academia members at ITU from India. The Associates can participate in Study Groups which will be explained below. Each sector convenes study groups in order to support and carry out research and study related to the three sectors of the ITU. They are also responsible for the formulation of the draft recommendations. Companies such as Ericsson and Samsung are associate members of the ITU.

Structure of the International Telecommunication Union

The ITU has certain bodies which are convened as per the Constitution. The Plenipotentiary Conference is convened every four years which decides upon the future mandates of the ITU. Similarly the world conferences on international telecommunication are convened as decided upon in the Plenipotentiary Conference. Although these bodies are not permanent, they play a major role in functioning of the ITU.

The structure of the International Telecommunication Union is laid down under Article 7 of the Constitution of the ITU. According to Article 7, the ITU comprises of the following mechanisms/bodies:

Other Bodies

This acts as the platform for high level debate, networking and knowledge sharing for the global ICT community. It basically tries to drive industrial success and tackle socio-economic problems. The ITU telecom also hosts many annual events where these debates occur.

[1]. Article 1(2), Constitution of the ITU, “...effect allocation of bands of the radio-frequency spectrum, the allotment of radio frequencies and the registration of radiofrequency assignments and, for space services, of any associated orbital position in the geostationary-satellite orbit or of any associated characteristics of satellites in other orbits, in order to avoid harmful interference between radio stations of different countries;
b) coordinate efforts to eliminate harmful interference between radio stations of different countries and to improve the use made of the radio-frequency spectrum for radiocommunication services and of the geostationary-satellite and other satellite orbits;
c) facilitate the worldwide standardization of telecommunications, with a satisfactory quality of service;

d) foster international cooperation and solidarity in the delivery of technical assistance to the developing countries and the creation, development and improvement of telecommunication equipment and networks in developing countries by every means at its disposal, including through its participation in the relevant programmes of the United Nations and the use of its own resources, as appropriate;

e) coordinate efforts to harmonize the development of telecommunication facilities, notably those using space techniques, with a view to full advantage being taken of their possibilities;

f) foster collaboration among Member States and Sector Members with a view to the establishment of rates at levels as low as possible consistent with an efficient service and taking into account the necessity for maintaining independent financial administration of telecommunications on a sound basis;

g) promote the adoption of measures for ensuring the safety of life through the cooperation of telecommunication services;

h) undertake studies, make regulations, adopt resolutions, formulate recommendations and opinions, and collect and publish information concerning telecommunication matters;

i) promote, with international financial and development organizations, the establishment of preferential and favourable lines of credit to be used for the development of social projects aimed, inter alia, at extending telecommunication services to the most isolated areas in countries.”

[2]. Art. 3, Constitution of the ITU, “In respect of their participation in activities of the Union, Sector Members shall be entitled to participate fully in the activities of the Sector of which they are members, subject to relevant provisions of this Constitution and the Convention:

a) they may provide chairmen and vice-chairmen of Sector assemblies and meetings and world telecommunication development conferences;

b) they shall be entitled, subject to the relevant provisions of the Convention and relevant decisions adopted in this regard by the Plenipotentiary Conference, to take part in the adoption of Questions and Recommendations and in decisions relating to the working methods and procedures of the Sector concerned.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/telecom/knowledge-repository-on-internet-access/intnl-telecom-union

Institute on Internet and Society

praskrishna — 2013-11-20T05:52:02Z

The Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore is pleased to announce the Institute for Internet and Society to be held in Bangalore from June 8 to June 14, 2013 at the Golden Palms Resort, Bangalore.

With financial support and visionary guidance from the Ford Foundation, this initiative represents an important opportunity to bring together various stakeholders in a neutral forum and share ideas. The week-long residential institute will cover topics surrounding the internet and society.

Course Content

History of the Internet (This session will cover brief history of the Internet, its early stages and growth. It will also cover origins of internet in India and its impact on the Indian GDP. It will also focus on hot topics/debates surrounding the Internet).
Internet Technologies and Infrastructure (The session infrastructure, purpose and function of an ISP, advantages and disadvantages of different modes of Internet access).
E-Governance (This session will cover the various e-governance initiatives).
Principles and Values of the Internet (This session will cover various principles that underpinned the creation of the Internet, the threats they face and the need for a truly “open internet”).
Ownership and Management (This session will cover ownership and market distribution).
Internet Activism (This session will deal with various initiatives which have successfully used the Internet to build movements and campaigns).

Institute Highlights

Guest Lectures by Experts & CIS Staff
Interactive Panel Discussions
Case Studies
Surveys
Breakout Sessions
Demonstrations
Product Walkthroughs
Networking Opportunities and much more…

At the end of the week long residential course, attendees will have:

Acquisition of knowledge on Internet in the Indian society.
Appreciation of the role of community and other stakeholders in issues surrounding the Internet.
Creation of a starting point for improved communication of research findings, innovations, information and new technologies in Internet to evolve a community comprising academicians and policy makers.
Appreciation of the need to bridge the gap between policy and implementation.

Agenda

Saturday, June 8, 2013

Timings	Topics for Discussion
09:30 11:00	INTRODUCTION Dr. Ravina Aggarwal & Dr. Nirmita Narasimhan
11:00 11:30	Tea / Coffee Break
11:30 13:00	HISTORY AND GROWTH OF INTERNET IN INDIA Madan Mohan Rao (This session will deal with the advent of the internet and its growth in India).
13:00 14:00	Lunch Break
14:00 15:30	DOMESTIC BODIES AND MECHANISMS Pranesh Prakash (This session will give an overview of the roles, which different government bodies play in regulating the Internet).
15:30 16:00	Tea / Coffee Break
16:00 17:30	EMERGING TRENDS IN INTERNET USAGE IN INDIA Nandini C and Vir Kamal Chopra (This session will cover key trends and issues with regard to internet usage in India).
20:00 22:00	Dinner

Sunday, June 9, 2013

Timings	Topics for Discussion
09:30 11:00	WIRED TECHNOLOGIES Dr. Nadeem Akhtar (This session will deal with the various technologies involved in establishing a wired connection to the internet).
11:00 11:30	Tea / Coffee Break
11:30 13:00	WIRELESS TECHNOLOGIES Michael Ginguld (This session will deal with the various technologies involved in establishing a wireless connection to the internet).
13:00 14:00	Lunch Break
14:00 15:30	BUILDING KNOWLEDGE BASES AND PLATFORMS VIA MASS COLLABORATION ON THE INTERNET Vishnu Vardhan T (This session will deal with the various online knowledge bases and platforms with special emphasis on Wikipedia).
15:30 16:00	Tea / Coffee Break
16:00 17:30	AFFORDABLE DEVICES AND INTERNET ACCESS IN INDIA Ravikiran Annaswamy (This session will deal with affordable devices and their role in increasing internet access in India).
20:00 22:00	Dinner

Monday, June 10, 2013

Timings	Topics for Discussion
09:30 11:00	HOW INTERNET WORKS? Dr. Nadeem Akhtar (This session will deal with various technologies related to the backbone of the internet).
11:00 11:30	Tea/Coffee Break
11:30 13:00	ASSIGNMENT
13.00 14.00	Lunch Break
14:00 18:00	OFFSITE / FIELD VISIT
20:00 22:00	Dinner

Tuesday, June 11, 2013

Timings	Topics for Discussion
09:30 11:00	UNIVERSAL ACCESS Archana Gulati (This session will cover an overview of universal access and universal service).
11:00 11:30	Tea/Coffee Break
11:30 13:00	FREE AND OPEN INTERNET Pranesh Prakash (This session will cover fundamental rights to freedom of speech and expression, reasonable restrictions on freedom of speech in context of internet access in India).
13.00 14.00	Lunch Break
14:00 15:30	OPENNESS Pranesh Prakash and Sunil Abraham (This session will cover issues related to openness and access to the internet).
15:30 16:00	Tea / Coffee Break
16:00 17:30	OPEN CONTENT Professor Subbiah Arunahalam (This session will discuss open access to content and its implications on internet access).
17:30 18:30	QUICK TALK: COPYRIGHT LAW AND ACCESS Pranesh Prakash (This short session will deal with implications of copyright law on internet access).
20.00 22.00	Dinner

Wednesday, June 12, 2013

Timings	Topics for Discussion
09:30 11:00	PRIVACY ON THE INTERNET IN INDIA Elonnai Hickok and Sunil Abraham (This session will discuss online privacy, data protection, use of encryption, value of anonymity online, UID, etc).
11:00 11:30	Tea/Coffee Break
11:30 13:00	E-ACCESSIBILITY BASICS Dr. Nirmita Narasimhan (This session will deal with key requirements for making internet accessible for persons with disabilities).
13.00 14.00	Lunch Break
14:00 15:30	INTERNATIONAL BODIES AND MECHANISM Tulika Pandey and Gaurab Raj Upadhyay (This session will deal with various international bodies and multi-stakeholder processes involved in formulation of internet related policies).
15:30 16:00	Tea / Coffee Break
16:00 17:00	E-GOVERNANCE Sunil Abraham (This session will deal with e-Governance strategies and relevant initiatives).
20.00 22.00	Dinner

Thursday, June 13, 2013

Timings	Topics for Discussion
09:30 11:00	GLOBAL HISTORY OF THE INTERNET Dr. Nishant Shah (Inception of internet and the main events which led to the growth of the internet).
11:00 11:30	Tea/Coffee Break
11:30 13:00	STRATEGIES FOR POLICY INTERVENTION Chakshu Roy (This session will look at various ways in which policy intervention can be made and the various factors necessary to successfully engage in policy forums).
13.00 14.00	Lunch Break
14:00 15:30	PROFILE OF INTERNET SERVICE PROVIDERS Satyen Gupta (This session will discuss profiles of various ISPs and their share in the market).
15:30 16:00	Tea / Coffee Break
16:00 17:30	COMPETITION IN THE MARKET Helani Galpaya (This session will discuss structure and competition in the broadband market, wireless market, etc).
20.00 22.00	Dinner

Friday, June 14, 2013

Timings	Topics for Discussion
09:30 11:00	LEVERAGING INTERNET FOR ACTIVISM Ananth Guruswamy (This session will look at various initiatives which have used the internet to build successful movements and campaigns).
11:00 11:30	Tea/Coffee Break
11:30 13:00	“INTERNET ACCESS” ACTIVISM Parminder Jeet Singh (This session will discuss how people can contribute to initiatives for improving internet access).
13.00 14.00	Lunch Break
14:00 15:30	ENSURING ACCESS TO THE INTERNET A K Bharghava (This session will discuss strategies to enhance access to the internet in India with special focus on National Optical Fibre Network).
15:30 16:00	Tea / Coffee Break
16:00 17:30	Winding Up

Speakers

A.K Bhargava
A. K. Bhargava is a Telecom Engineer with more than 35 yrs of experience in various fields of Telecommunication, Installation, Operation, Maintenance, Software and Management. Prior to joining BBNL as Director (Operations), he was working as Executive Director (Wireless Services) with Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL) Delhi.
Ananth Guruswamy
Ananth Guruswamy is the director of Amnesty International India. Previouly, he was the Programme Director at Green Peace. Ananth joined Greenpeace India in 2001 at its very beginning and played a key role in moulding Greenpeace India into one of the leading stakeholders in the NGO sector in India.
Archana Gulati
An Indian Civil Service Officer, she has worked as a Universal Service Policy Expert with respect to Access to ICTs for Persons with Disabilities for the International Telecommunications Union. She also successfully pioneered the e-government system in her previous posting as Joint Controller Communication Accounts, Department of Telecommunications (DoT). At present she is posted as the Financial Advisor with the National Disaster Management Authority of India.
Chakshu Roy
Chakshu Roy heads technology initiatives at PRS Legislative Research (PRS), New Delhi. PRS is a unique initiative that provides non-partisan analysis to all Members of Parliament in India. Chakshu is developing a comprehensive technology strategy to engage large sections of the population in the policy process. He has conceptualised and developed India’s only online database of all state laws. Chakshu has conducted capacity-building workshops for over 1000 journalists on tracking the work of legislators.
Elonnai Hickok
Elonnai Hickok works as a Programme Manager at the Centre for Internet and Society. Her main areas of work are Privacy and Data Security.
Gaurab Raj Upadhaya
Gaurab has a long record of volunteerism and commitment to the Asia Pacific Internet Community. Gaurab is one of the 14 global Trusted Community Representatives who cryptographically sign the root of the domain name system in ICANN Root DNSSEC Key ceremonies. In 2001, he was the founder of the Nepal Internet Exchange (NPIX), the first IX in the South-Asian region.
Helani Galpaya
Helani Galpaya is the Chief Executive Officer at LIRNEasia. She holds a Masters in Technology and Policy from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a Bachelor’s in Computer Science from Mount Holyoke College, USA.
Dr. Madan Mohan Rao
Dr. Madan Mohan Rao is the research director at the Asian Media Information and Communication Centre. He is the editor of a three book series: “The Asia Pacific Internet Handbook”, “The Knowledge Management Chronicles” and “AfroDotEdu”.
Michael Ginguld
Michael Ginguld is the Chief Executive Officer at AirJaldi. He has more than 15 years of experience working with ICT, community and rural development projects in India, Indonesia, Cambodia, Nepal, and Israel.
Dr. Nadeem Akhtar
Dr. Nadeem Akhtar is currently working as Principal Research Engineer at the Centre of Excellence in Wireless Technology (CEWiT). He leads the network layer research team at CEWiT and also represents CEWiT at 3GPP Radio Access Networks Working Group meetings. His research interests lie in the field of mobile and broadband wireless access technologies. Dr. Akhtar is a member of IEEE Standards Association and ITU-APT Foundation of India.
Nandini. C
Nandini. C is a Research Associate with IT for Change (www.itforchange.net), and is part of a team that is engaged in research studies in the area of gender and ICTs, democratic governance and ICTs, and the political economy of the information society. She holds a Masters in Urban and Rural Community Development from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai.
Dr. Nirmita Narasimhan
Dr. Nirmita Narasimhan is a Policy Director at Centre for Internet and Society and works on policy research and advocacy related to IP reform and technology access for persons with disabilities.
Dr. Nishant Shah
Dr. Nishant Shah is the Director-Research at CIS. He is a recipient of the Asia Scholarship Foundation's fellowship for comparative research at the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies, Shanghai University, Shanghai, China. Nishant is a regular columnist with the Sunday Eye, the national edition of Indian Express, Delhi, GQ India and DML Central. He has authored/co-authored many peer-reviewed articles in several journals.
Parminder Jeet Singh
Parminder Jeet Singh is Executive Director of IT for Change. He was recently appointed as a member of Task Force set up by the Indian government on implementation of proactive disclosures provisions of the Right to Information Act. He was also associated with Department of IT's Sub-group on e-governance for the 12^th Five Year Plan. He recently authored a report on 'Community Knowledge Centers' for the Karnataka Knowledge Commission.
Pranesh Prakash
Pranesh Prakash is a Policy Director at CIS and works on policy research and advocacy around intersections of technology and law focusing on access to knowledge (primarily copyright reforms), promoting 'openness' (including open government data, open standards, open access, and free/libre/open source software), freedom of expression, privacy, and internet governance.
Ravikiran Annaswamy
Ravikiran Annaswamy is an entrepreneur learning to create the next big business. He is very excited about the opportunities at the cusp of social media, mobile Internet and Big Data. Currently, He is nurturing a unique concept called Teritree, which brings social shopping into mainstream business.He has vast experience of making successful telecom solutions for global markets, mainly in the area of Online Billing and Charging, OSS, Innovative 3G/4G applications, Media and Security Solutions.
Dr. Ravina Aggarwal
Dr. Ravina Aggarwal works on media issues in India from the Ford Foundation's New Delhi office. Her grant making advances issues of democratic expression and media access among marginalized communities. She holds the position of Programme Officer in Ford Foundation, India
Satyen Gupta
Satyen Gupta is a veteran in the field of telecommunications, drawing from his vast experience in telecom regulation as well as industry. Among other accomplishments, he was a member of the NGN Regulation review group of ITU and also worked as advisor with Telecom Regulatory Authority of India at the level of Additional Secretary and is heading the Converged Network Division dealing with regulatory, technical and economic aspects of Data Networks and Services.
Dr. Subbiah Arunachalam
Dr. Subbiah Arunachalam is a distinguished fellow at the Centre for Internet and Society. Improving information access both for scientists and for the rural poor; scientometrics, ICT-enabled development and open access are among his current research interests.
Sunil Abraham
Sunil Abraham is the Executive Director of the Centre for Internet and Society. He is also a social entrepreneur and Free Software advocate.
Tulika Pandey
Tulika Pandey is an Electronics and Telecommunications Engineer. She has been with the Government of India since 1992 and is currently Director with the Department of Information Technology, Ministry of Communications & Information Technology, Government of India. She is involved in implementation strategy and action plan formulations for wider reach of ICT facilitated benefits; Integration of appropriate technology interfaces between human and cyber world; Steering of Research and Development projects for development of contextual ICT technology, tool, applications and content.
Vir Kamal Chopra
Vir Kamal Chopra is currently the Sr. General Manager (QA) with BSNL at New Delhi. He started his career in teaching. He has played a vital role in providing telecommunication facilities and shaping BSNL and is also responsible for finalization of high value products which are purchased at the central level of BSNL. He is credited with introducing e-tendering for the first time at BSNL.
Vishnu Vardhan
Vishnu Vardhan is the Programme Director of the CIS-A2K Team which works with Wikipedians and also conducts workshops and meetups in order to build Wikipedia community for Indic languages.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/telecom/knowledge-repository-on-internet-access/institute-on-internet-and-society

Institute on Internet and Society

praskrishna — 2014-02-16T03:00:17Z

The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), Bangalore is pleased to announce the second "Institute on Internet and Society" to be held in Yashada, Pune from February 11 to 17, 2014.

With financial support from the Ford Foundation, this initiative represents an important opportunity to bring together various stakeholders in a neutral forum and share ideas.

This is a week-long residential institute which will cover topics surrounding and exploring the gamut of internet and society. Various topics that explore the ambit and the intersection between Internet and Society will be explored with guest speakers and experts in these fields anchoring the sessions. The lectures will be insightful and few, with interesting case studies and interactive modes of teaching. There will be breakout sessions where participants will get the chance to partake in interactive technology sessions and instructive demonstrations.

There will be off-site experiences where the participants can go on field trips and view the actual spaces that will be discussed.

The institute will feature:

Guest lectures by experts and CIS staff.
Interactive panel discussions.
Case studies.
Breakout sessions.
Interactive demonstrations.
Networking opportunities, field trips/off-site experience and much more...

At the end of the course, attendees will have:

Acquisition of knowledge on internet in the Indian society.
Appreciation of the role of community and other stakeholders in issues surrounding the internet.
Creation of a starting point for improved communication of research findings, innovations, information and new technologies in internet to evolve a community comprising academicians and policy makers.
Appreciation of the need to bridge the gap between policy and implementation.

Who can apply?

Any members from the civil society (students, research scholars, academicians, scientists, legal professionals, etc.) who engage in issues concerning Internet and Society.

How to apply?

The application form available at http://internet-institute.in/form needs to completed in all respects and uploaded along with a brief bio and a 250-300 word abstract on why the applicant feels he/she must attend the Institute on Internet and Society.

Selection criteria

Originality of application.
Evidence of interest and/or prior engagement in Internet and Society related research and policies.
Gender, regional and stakeholder representation.

Twenty participants shall be chosen to attend the Institute on a first come, first served basis. Please ensure that your applications are submitted to CIS well before the closing date.

Attendance

Attendance for the full duration of the Institute (February 11 to February 17, 2014) is mandatory. Please provide assurance that you will be able to commit to the full duration of the institute.

What costs will be covered?

CIS has a number of scholarships that will cover the course fees, travel, accommodation and food. Please note that scholarships will be given on a first come first serve basis to deserving applicants and is available for persons based within India.

Important Dates

Registrations Open: November 15, 2013

Registrations Close: December 15, 2013

Draft Agenda

Time	Detail
Day 1 (February 11, 2014)
09.30 09.40	Introduction: Sunil Abraham, Executive Director Centre for Internet and Society / Ravina Aggarwal, Program Officer, Ford Foundation
09.30 09.40	Introduction of Participants
10.00 12.00	Internet Governance and Privacy: Sunil Abraham
12.00 12.30	Tea-break
12.30 13.00	Keynote: Bishakha Datta, Filmmaker and Activist, and Board Member, Wikimedia Foundation
13.00 14.00	Lunch
14.00 16.00	Pecha Kucha sessions
16.00 17.30	Histories, Bodies and Debates around the Internet: Nishant Shah, Director-Research, Centre for Internet and Society and International Tandem Partner at the Centre for Digital Cultures, Leuphana University, Germany
Day 2 (February 12, 2014)
Time	Detail
09.30 11.00	Wireless Technology: Ravikiran Annaswamy, CEO and Co-founder at Teritree Technologies
11.00 11.30	Tea-break
11.30 13.00	Wired Technology: Ravikiran Annaswamy
13.00 14.00	Lunch
14.00 15.00	Network, Threats and Securing Yourself: Kingsley John, Independent Consultant
15.00 15.15	Break
15.15 16.15	Practical Lab: Kingsley John
16.15 16.30	Tea-break
16.30 17.00	Wrap-up Session: Sunil Abraham
Day 3 (February 13, 2014)
Time	Detail
09.30 11.00	Free Software: Prof. G. Nagarjuna, Chairperson, Free Software Foundation
11.00 11.30	Tea-break
11.30 13.00	Open Data: Nisha Thompson, Independent Consultant
13.00 14.00	Lunch
14.00 16.00	Freedom of Expression: Bhairav Acharya, Advocate and Adviser, Centre for Internet and Society
16.00 16.30	Tea-break
16.30 17.30	Copyright: Nehaa Chaudhari, Program Officer, Centre for Internet and Society
Day 4 (February 14, 2014)
Time	Detail
09.30 11.00	E-Accessibility and Inclusion: Prashant Naik, Union Bank
11.00 11.30	Tea-break
11.30 13.00	Patents: Nehaa Chaudhari
13.00 14.00	Lunch
14.00 17.00	Field Trip
Day 5 (February 15, 2014)
Time	Detail
09.30 11.00	E-Governance: Manu Srivastav, Vice President, eGovernments Foundation
11.00 11.30	Tea-break
11.30 13.00	Market Concerns: Payal Malik, Economic Adviser, Competition Commission of India
13.00 14.00	Lunch
14.00 15.30	Domestic and International Bodies: Chinmayi Arun, Research Director, Centre for Communication Governance, National Law University, Delhi and Fellow, Centre for Internet and Society
15.30 16.00	Tea-break
16.00 17.30	Digital Natives: Nishant Shah
Day 6 (February 16, 2014)
Time	Detail
09.30 11.00	Wikipedia: Dr. Abhijeet Safai
11.00 11.30	Tea-break
11.30 13.00	Open Access: Muthu Madhan
13.00 14.00	Lunch
14.00 15.00	Activity / Mock Conference
15.00 15.30	Tea-break
15.30 17.30	Activity / Mock Conference
Day 7 (February 17, 2014)
Time	Detail
09.30 11.00	Internet Activism: Laura Stein, Associate Professor, University of Texas and Fulbright Fellow, Centre for Culture, Media & Governance, Jamia Millia Islamia
11.00 11.30	Tea-break
11.30 13.00	Digital Humanities: Nishant Shah
13.00 14.00	Lunch
14.00 15.00	Participant Presentations
15.00 15.30	Tea-break
15.30 16.30	Final Exercise: Mapping Learning Feedback

Speakers Profiles

Bishakha Datta
Bishakha is an Indian film maker and activist. She is a former journalist who also serves on the board of nonprofit organizations, such as Point of View, Creating Resources for Empowerment in Action, and (as of 2013) the Wikimedia Foundation. In 1998, Datta edited And Who Will Make the Chapatis?, an overview of the all-women political panchayats formed in Maharashtra, India. In 2003, her documentary In the Flesh: three lives in prostitution was released.

Nishant Shah
Nishant is the founder and Director of Research for the Bangalore-based Centre for Internet and Society. His doctoral work at the Centre for the Study of Culture and Society, examines the production of a Technosocial Subject at the intersections of law, Internet technologies and everyday cultural practices in India. As an Asia Scholarship Fellow (2008-2009), he also initiated a study that looks at what goes into the making of an IT City in India and China. He is the series editor for a three year collaborative project on “Histories of the Internet(s) in India” that maps nine alternative histories that promote new ways of understanding the technological revolution in the country.

Prof. G. Nagarjuna
Prof. Nagarjuna is the chairperson of the Free Software Foundation. He has been an activist for free knowledge and free softwares and has more than 20 publications on related issues. He is interested in understanding the structure and dynamics of knowledge (epistemology, knowledge organization, knowledge representation, biological roots of cognition, and education), nature of life and evolution. This interest is executed in the respective domains: Information Technology, History and Philosophy of Science, and Biology Education. The social, economic and political aspects of information technology also engages his serious attention.http://www.hbcse.tifr.res.in/people/academic/nagarjuna-g.

Sunil Abraham
Sunil is the Executive Director of Bangalore based research organisation, the Centre for Internet and Society. He founded Mahiti in 1998, a company committed to creating high impact technology and communications solutions. Sunil was elected an Ashoka fellow in 1999 to 'explore the democratic potential of the Internet' and was also granted a Sarai FLOSS fellowship in 2003. Between June 2004 and June 2007, Sunil also managed the International Open Source Network, a project of United Nations Development Programme's Asia-Pacific Development Information Programme serving 42 countries in the Asia-Pacific region.

Nisha Thompson
Nisha Thompson: Nisha Thompson has a background in online community organisation. She has worked for the Sunlight Foundation in Washington DC, with online communities to use US government data to hold elected officials accountable. She moved to Bangalore, Karnataka in October 2010. She worked on an Open Government Data report for the Centre for Internet and Society and now works full-time with the Portal, on the Data Project. The Data Project aims to collect and open up water and related data, so that citizens and practitioners can use it to improve and keep track of projects and progress in the water sector.

Payal Malik
Payal Malik: Payal Malik is currently advisor to the Competition Commission of India. She had also done considerable research in the ICT sector. http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2013727. In addition to teaching Microeconomics Theory at the University of Delhi she has several years of research experience in the areas of economic policy, competition and regulation in network/infrastructure industries and has been actively engaged in competition policy research. Her research and professional collaborations have been with National Council for Applied Economic Research (NCAER), New Delhi, Indicus Analytics, New Delhi, LIRNEasia, Sri Lanka, OECD, Orbicom, IDEI, University of Toulouse, University Of Québec at Montreal, CEPR, JRC, European Commission, IPTS Seville, ICEGEC, Hungary, Department of Information Technology, TRAI, Ministry of Power, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Planning Commission of India, Competition Commission of India, CSO, India, WSP-SA, World Bank and AFD, Paris.

Chinmayi Arun
Chinmayi Arun is the Research Director of the Centre for Communication Governance at National Law University, Delhi. She is also an Assistant Professor of law at the university and teaches specialised courses on Internet Governance, privacy and media policy. She is the research coordinator of the Oxford India Media Law Research Project, a member of the Multi-stakeholder Advisory Group formed by the Government of India for the India Internet Governance Forum, and one of the academic experts for the Internet & Jurisdiction Project's Observatory. She works with media regulation and internet governance, particularly in the context of the rights to free speech and privacy. Chinmayi interacts with industry bodies and government officials and envisages the Centre for Communication Governance as a key contributor to policy in the years to come.

Laura Stein
Laura is an assistant Professor at the University of Texas in the College of Communication. Her research focuses upon alternative and public media and she has a course on communication technology and society. She is currently working on an edited collection, titled "Making Our Media: Global Initiatives Toward a Democratic Public Sphere," about grassroots attempts to transform the policy and practice of information and communication media around the world.

Prashant Naik
Prashant is working as an Assistant Manager with the Union Bank of India, one of the largest public sector banks in India. He is placed in the Alternate Channels and New Initiative Department. In his role with Union Bank of India, he has made a major contribution in developing a Truly Accessible Talking ATM, ‘First’ of its kind in India which has set a benchmark on accessible ATM for the blind. Since 2002 he is contributing on a large scale in the area of technology access for the visually impaired persons with his inputs in accessible content creation, access technologies training, accessibility and advocacy. Through his work with NGOs he undertook many accessibility testing and development projects. He received National Award as ROLE MODEL from Honorable President of India, Shri Pranab Mukherjee on 6th February 2013. He holds a degree in computer applications and he is a Microsoft Certified Technical Specialist. He has low vision since birth due to albinism condition.

Ravikiran Annaswamy
Ravikiran is the Co-founder and CEO of Teritree Technologies - a Social commerce technology venture. He also dedicates his time to startup ecosystem as Advisor, Mentor and Angel investor. He has over 17 years of business experience at Nokia Siemens Networks and Siemens AG. He was Business Head for Indian market, led Global Product Management and was General Manager for Asia Pacific Solutions. He championed Intrapreneurship by working as Innovation head for Bangalore site of over 1000 employees. He has vast experience of making successful Technology solutions for global markets, mainly in the area of Social commerce, Online Billing and Charging, Innovative 3G/4G applications, Multimedia and Security Solutions. He is an engaged Professional volunteer, currently the Vice Chairman for IEEE Bangalore section. He was the previous Chairman for IEEE Communication Society of Karnataka.

Manu Srivastava
Manu is a Vice President at the eGovernments Foundation. He brings 14 years of experience in web native product development and database applications. He worked at Oracle and GlobeTrades Inc on various internet based products before joining eGov. He has architected, developed and rolled out many of the eGov products which are running successfully in cities such as Chennai, Bangalore and Delhi.

Muthu Madhan
Muthu Madhan is a practicing librarian in India for about 15 years and is currently the Manager for ICRISAT Library and Information Services. Before joining ICRISAT in 2010, he worked for M S Swaminathan Research Foundation and the National Institute of Technology Rourkela. Since 2004, he has been an advocate for open access movement in India. Apart from open access, his other interests are open data, open education, and open source software.

Dr. Abhijeet Safai
Dr. Abhijeet is Medical Officer–Clinical Research at Symbiosis Centre of Health Care in Pune. He has been editing Wikipedia for more than 3 years, has edited more than 3700 articles and has created 30 new articles. He is interested in editing articles related to medicine and inspiring personalities. He was a speaker at IT expo in Pune in 2012 and has conducted workshops on Wikipedia Editing in GNUnify in 2013 and 2014 at Symbiosis Institute of Computer Science and Research, Pune. He likes to edit Wikipedia because of passion, for gaining the knowledge and as a social contribution. His user profile on Wikipedia can be accessed at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Abhijeet_Safai http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Abhijeet_Safai

About CIS India and Ford Foundation

CIS critically engages with concerns of digital pluralism, public accountability and pedagogic practices, in the field of Internet and Society, with particular emphasis on South-South dialogues and exchange.

Through multidisciplinary research, intervention, and collaboration, we seek to explore, understand, and affect the shape and form of the internet, and its relationship with the political, cultural, and social milieu of our times.

The Ford Foundation supports visionary leaders and organizations on the frontlines of social change worldwide. Their goals for more than half a century have been to:

Strengthen democratic values
Reduce poverty and injustice
Promote international cooperation
Advance human achievement

The Ford Foundation believes all people should have the opportunity to reach their full potential, contribute to society, and have voice in the decisions that affect them.

Contact

Dr. Nirmita Narasimhan, Policy Director (nirmita@cis-india.org)

Ajoy Kumar, Administrator (ajoy@cis-india.org)

Anirudh Sridhar, Consultant (anirudh@cis-india.org)

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/events/institute-on-internet-and-society-2

Institute on Internet & Society: Event Report

srividya — 2013-10-15T06:48:00Z

The Institute on Internet and Society organized by the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) with grant supported by the Ford Foundation took place from June 8 to 14, 2013 at the Golden Palms Resort in Bangalore.

A total of 20 participants spent the seven days in a residential institute, learning about the fundamental technologies of the Internet and topics on which CIS has expertise on such as Accessibility, Openness, Privacy, Digital Natives and Internet Governance.

The participants belonged to various stakeholder groups and it provided a common forum (first of its kind in India) to discuss and share ideas. Twenty-four expert speakers from various domains came to share their knowledge and speak about their work, so as to encourage activity in the field and supply resources from which participants could learn to increase their accessibility, range and funding possibilities, as well as network with the speakers and amongst themselves.

The Institute has triggered a number of follow-up events — those that the participants organized themselves with the help of CIS staff, including Crypto Parties in Bangalore, Delhi and Mumbai, that taught netizens to keep their online communication private. In addition to that, the CIS Access2Knowledge (A2K) team could rope in eight new Wikipedians who will contribute to Wikipedia in Indic languages.

The day wise talks and activities that took place are listed below:

Day 1: June 8, 2013

The seven day residential Institute began on Saturday, the 8th of June with a warm welcome by Dr. Ravina Aggarwal and Dr. Nirmita Narasimhan. They outlined the purpose of the residential institute and briefly went over the topics which would get covered over the week long duration. This was followed by each of the participants introducing themselves briefly and also stating their expectations from the Institute, why they were attending the same and what they hope to get at the end.

Session 1: History of the Internet

(by Pranesh Prakash and Bernadette Längle)

Above is a picture of Pranesh Prakash speaking about the History of the Internet during the first session on Day 1.	The Institute proceedings kicked off with the first session, History of the Internet by Pranesh Prakash and Bernadette Längle. Participants learned where the Internet originally came from and how it is organized, as well as different technologies surrounding the Internet. Pranesh Prakash and Bernadette Längle set the start point of the Internet in the late 50's when the Russians send the first satellite in space (Sputnik) and the US founded the DARPA(Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency), a research agency that was tasked with creating new technologies for military use. DARPA is credited with development of many technologies which have had a major effect on the world, including computer networking, as well as NLS, which was both the first hypertext system, and an important precursor to the contemporary ubiquitous graphical user interface (GUI). A few years later the first four computers were connected to a network.

After the Network Control Protocol (NCP, later replaced by the TCP/IP) was invented in 1970, the first applications were made: email (connecting people), telnet (connecting computers) and the file transport protocol (FTP) (connecting information) — all of these are still in use today. Participants were surprised to learn that the Web, most commonly used today, known to be invented by one single person in the 90's, actually existed for a long time prior to the '90s.

VIDEO

Session 2: Domestic Bodies and Mechanisms

(by Pranesh Prakash)
After lunch, Pranesh Prakash led the second session about Domestic Bodies and Mechanisms and he started with some of the problems associated with the Domestic Regulatory Bodies:

Lack of coherence and consistency in Internet related policies
Rather than co-operating, the different agencies compete with each other.
Communication with the public is of different degrees and openness of different agencies varies.

Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DEITY), is one of the most important public agencies & the CERT-in focuses on issues like malware and content regulation. There is also the STQC (Standard Setting and Quality Setting Body).
The work of these organizations is to govern the Internet, bring about better privacy policies and ensure freedom of speech.
Other governing bodies include DOT (Department of Telecommunications) which governs the telecom and internet policies of India. In India, certain content regulation takes place under a notification as part of the IT Act, 2003.
TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) also looks into the tariff, interconnections and quality of telecom sector, spectrum regulation and so on.
The USOF (Universal Service Obligation Fund) seeks to provide funds for setting up telecom services in rural areas.
Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) has been extending copyright restrictions to online publications.

VIDEO

Session 3: Emerging trends in Internet usage in India

(by Nandini C and Vir Kamal Chopra)
Emerging Trends in Internet Usage with specific focus on BSNL offerings (by Vir Kamal Chopra)
Some of the salient points discussed were:

In 1995, the VSNL provided internet in 4 metros of India, by 1998 DOT had provided internet in 42 cities.
Some of the facilities internet provides include Tele-education, Tele-medicine, mobile banking, payment of bills via mobile internet, etc.
BSNL has got maximum broadband market share in India.
Present Scenario, there are 900 million mobiles in India, 430 million wireless connections with capability to access data.
The total broadband connections are 15 million in country, 10 million provided by BSNL.
Total internet users are 120 million with a growth rate of 30%.
Public access is not only about network intermediaries but about info-mediaries who understand internet.
BSNL lost Rs 18,000 crores from 3G license.
2G to 3G shifting is not seamless and leads to lot of packet loss, and 3G coverage is not as extensive as 2G. Thus 3G is not efficient however; the government has made a lot of money from selling 3G licenses.
Future trends include technology trends for internet access, optical fiber technologies, fiber to the curb, fibre to the home, metro Ethernet, etc.
Internet has created an online Public sphere.
In 2000 Parliament passed the Information Technology Act 2000 and the dot.com boom is seen.

Making internet access meaningful in the Indian Context (by Nandini.C)
(Click to see the presentation slides)
Some of the salient points discussed were:

Status of internet access today sees low level of overall penetration of internet, high rate of household mobile penetration and huge rural-urban divide in internet access.
Relationship b/w women and internet in India
8.4% of women in India have access to internet in India and 43% of women using internet in India perceived it as being an important part of their life.
Some area of concerns include ensuring adequate access of internet for the women, entrenched patriarchies, contextual relevance, the imaginary of ‘public access’.
The importance of an existing strong social support network, ITC itself cannot open up economic/social empowerment opportunities for women
ICT-enabled micro-enterprises may also force the burden of double work on women, who undertake both productive activities for the micro-enterprise and re/productive activities for the household.
The Internet today has created an online public sphere.
Countering the threat of online violence.
Censorship and content regulation.
Women’s rights and the spaces of internet governance.
Arbitrary censorship and self-regulation by the corporate and slide towards an illusory freedom; state is used as a bogeyman by corporate to create an online culture that is suitable to the corporate values.

VIDEO

Activity
Day 1 featured an interesting activity called the Creative Handshake. The goal of the game was to teach the participants the concept of "Handshake" in Internet terms and why it is important to make sure that integrity of data transferred is maintained.

Day 2: June 9, 2013

The focus of the second day was more on the nuts and bolts behind the working of the Internet by Dr. Nadeem Akhtar, Wireless Technologies and a case-study in Air Jaldi by Michael Ginguld, Collaborative Knowledge base building by Vishnu Vardhan and Affordable Devices on the Internet by Ravikiran Annaswamy.

The salient points of each of the talks are listed below.

Session 1: How Internet Works

(by Nadeem Akhtar)
Click to read the presentation slides

Internet structure and hierarchy:
1. Data Networks comprise of set of nodes, connected by transmission links, for exchange of data between nodes.
2. Some of the key principles which underpin data networks include digital transmission, multiplexing and data forwarding/routing.
Data networks through ownership include public and private networks.
Data networks through coverage include local area networks (small area), metro area networks (may comprise of a city) and wide area networks (wide geographic area across cities).
Protocols include:
1. Open systems interconnection (OSI) model divides a communication system into smaller parts. Each part is referred to as a layer. Similar communication functions are grouped into logical layers.
2. OSI model defines the different stages that data must go through to travel from one device to another over a network & this enables a modular approach towards developing complex system functionality i.e. functionality at layer X does not depend on how layer Y is implemented.
Above is a picture of Dr. Nadeem Akhtar speaking on the working of the internet on Day 2
Internet networks or connections.
Internet backbone refers to the principal data routes between large, strategically interconnected networks and core routers on the internet and these data routes are hosted by commercial, government, academic and other high-capacity network centers, the internet exchange points and network access points. The internet back bone is decentralized.
Transit Service - Passing information from small ISP to large ISP.
Peering Service - The passing of information between two similar ISP’s os similar size to let network traffic pass.
Three levels of network Tier1, Tier2 and Tier 3. TATA Company is the only Tier 1 Indian Company.
Backhaul- Transport Links which connects access edge networks with the ‘core’ network. The transmitters have to be mounted on a high level.


Above is a picture of Dr. Nadeem Akhtar speaking on the working of the internet on Day 2

VIDEO

Session 2: Wireless Technologies

(by Michael Ginguld)
Click to read the presentation slides

We are surrounded by electromagnetic radiation
All about transmission waves and there are both advantages and disadvantages of the same:
1. Pros: higher reach for lower price, overcomes topographic challenges, lower maintenance, less to damage/lose
2. Cons: limited resources, maintenance (energy), physical limitations to transfer rates.
Satellite/VSAT is a very small aperture tech: a small satellite dish that connects to a geo-static satellite.
Strength: globally usable, can connect from anywhere.
Weakness: signal problems, relatively high installation charge, upstream connection is lower than the downstream, transmitter on satellite is extremely expensive, hence limitation on transmission capacity of the satellite.
VSATs are not scalable. It is a dead-end tech for usages where data transmission volume is expected to grow.
2G Technology for mobile connection.
Limitation in transfer of data, due to technology and encryption limitations but great availability and reasonable price.
3G Technology has a problem in India; low uptake, leading to low investment, leading to low speed, leading to low uptake. The technology allows for high-speed data transfer but the market condition in India still does not make adequate infrastructural support feasible.
4G license auction.
A company bought the country-wide 4G license in the auction. Mukesh Ambani bought the company after some days.
The present legislation does not allow for VoIP-based Telco operation but that is expected to change soon.
Wifi technology is wireless technology. It is low cost wireless transfer of data. The Public dissemination of the ranges in which data transfer using the WiFi protocol can take place. It was made public in India in January 2005.
1. Limitations: needs line of sight, limit to data transfer.
2. Strength: cheap, de-licensed spectrum usage, easily deployable.
2G spectrum, 3G spectrum and now 4G spectrum all are part of the wireless technology.
Air Jaldi started in Dharamshala; building wifi connection spanning campuses.
Three types of consumer categories: (1) no coverage, (2) under-served, and (3) ‘deserving clients’. #2 is the most common group. #3 are people who should be served but cannot pay fully for the service, hence are cross-subsidised by group #2.
Deployed and managed by local staff, trained by AirJaldi.
Customer premise equipment: Rs. 3-4k.
User charges: Rs 975 per month for 512 kbps, Rs 1500 per month for 1 mbps.
Content: by and large, AirJaldi brings infrastructure on which content can ride on, teams with various content providers (like e-learning, rural BPOs, local e-banking etc) for the content side. The biggest drivers are local BPO, banking and retail. The next big driver coming up is entertainment.
WiMax includes 4g spectrum.

VIDEO

Session 3: Building Knowledge Bases and Platform via Mass Collaboration on the Internet

Click to read the presentation slides

The session started off with some physical activity in the form of "Kasa Kasa Warte, Chan Chan Warte" to break off the lunch induced sleep and a mental activity where the participants were divided into two groups and both the groups were asked to collect information on "Water". One group was left to itself while the other had some expert inputs from Vishnu Vardhan on how to collaborate and organize the data. After the activity, both teams presented the information that they had collected on "Water". The benefits of collaborative authoring such as "everyone's voice is heard", "various inputs leading to a multi-dimensional thinking" etc were evident as against a single dimensional thought process that was seen from the group that was un-assisted.	Given above is a picture of the participants involved in a group activity

Salient points discussed during the presentation:

The Concept of Knowledge today is not something of modern phenomena, but it is something which has been existent since print culture was developed. Print technology shapes what we consider as knowledge, and hence as knowledge platform
Techno-sociality of knowledge production
The Concept of Knowledge today is not something of modern phenomena, but it is something which has been existent since print culture was developed. Print technology shapes what we consider as knowledge, and hence as knowledge platform
Techno-sociality of knowledge production
Examples of knowledge platforms:
1. Baidu baike
2. English wikipedia
3. Hudong
4. Catawiki
5. Wikieducator
6. Open street map
7. Pad.ma
8. Sahapedia
9. Internet archive
10. Jstor
11. Dsal
12. Dli
In 1994 Cunningham developed the ‘Wiki Wiki Web’ also known as the ‘Ward Wiki’. Basically it is a knowledge platform.
Internet since then has been used for dissemination of information especially in the education sector. Digital Archived have developed over the years which provide information across various platforms like Wikipedia.
The spread of the internet has made possible the building of knowledge bases by seamless and mass collaboration.

Generic challenges for Wikipedia

Quality, relevance, consistency of knowledge
Suitable motivation of the contributors
Another issue is the scalability

Some of the problems faced by Indian Wikipedian pages:

Technical infrastructure for Indian languages
Typing in the regional language
OCR: complexity of Indian language scripts
Various other technical troubles like browser compatibility, font display, etc., which deter new users
Dearth of quality content available in digital format
Different standards/formats/generations (gov.in/DLI)
Relative lack of research/academic standards, which is transferred on to Indic wikipedias.
Lack of knowledge sharing culture.
Building a mass knowledge platform is the need of the hour.
The platform should be user friendly, easily available and adoptable; offline outreach is key to effective use of online platforms.
The programme should have feedback loop key, behavior statistics data, reinvent and replicate the programme, multi-channel awareness, ‘user connect’ programmes.
The people should communicate knowledge sharing objectives, make knowledge sharing fun, appoint ambassadors; virtual volunteer community building looks simple but its complex and leads to failure.

VIDEO

Session: 4 Affordable Devices to access the Internet

(by Ravikiran Annaswamy)
Click to read the presentation slides


Given above is a picture of the speaker Ravikiran Annaswamy giving a demo of the low cost Akash tablet.

Overview of Affordable Mobile Phones such as Lava Iris, Karbonn A1, Nokia Asha, etc.
Overview of Affordable Tablets such as Aakash, Ubislate, Karbonn Smart A34, etc.
The number of Internet users in India is expected to nearly triple from 125 million in 2011 to 330 million by 2016, says a report by Boston Consulting Group.
How Internet Penetration impacts society.
Demo of the devices.
Need for Mobile Internet
Sugata Mitra & Arvind Eye Care examples.

VIDEO

Day 3: June 10, 2013

The third day of the Institute focussed on Wired means of accessing the Internet, the technology involved followed by an assignment time where the participants were introduced to 2 topics and asked to work on an assignment. This was followed by a site visit in the afternoon to MapUnity. MapUnity develops technology to tackle social problems and development challenges. Their GIS, MIS and mobile technologies are used mostly by government departments and civil society organisations and in the R&D initiatives of commercial ventures.

Session 1: Wired Access Technology

(by Dr. Nadeem Akhtar)
Click to read the presentation slides

Some of the salient points discussed were:

Wired and Wireless

Wired:

Separate communication channel for each users
Low signal attenuation
No interference
Fixed point-of-attachment

Wireless:

Shared medium of communication
Signal is attenuated by a number of factors
Interference between adjacent channels
Points-of-attachment can be changed on-the-fly

Ethernet:

A family of computer networking technologies for LANs which was Invented in 1973 and commercially introduced in 1980. The systems communicating over ethernet divide a stream o data into individual packets called frames. Each frame contains source and destination addresses and error-checking data so that damaged data can be detected and re-transmitted.
Ethernet, by definition, is a broadcast protocol
Any signal can be received by all hosts
Switching enables individual hosts to communicate

Digital subscriber line (DSL):

DSL uses existing telephone lines to transport data to internet subscribers and the term xDSL is used to refer to a number of similar yet competing forms of DSL technologies which includes ADSL, SDSL, HDSL, HDSL-2, G.SHDL, IDSL, and VDSL. DSL service is delivered simultaneously with wired telephone service on the same telephone line and this is possible because DSL uses higher frequency bands for data.

Asymmetric DSL (ADSL):

ADSL is the most commonly installed technology and an ADSL tech can provide maximum downstream speeds of up to 8 mbps.

Modem and router:

Modem is specific to a technology
Modem is de/modulator, it takes bits coming from one protocol/technology, demodulates it (converts it into original data), and re-modulated the original data to another protocol/technology.
Router allows creation of a local area network, allowing multiple devices to connect to the network and access internet together through the router. It has very high bitrate DSL (VDSL) and goes up to 52 mbps downstream and 16 mbps upstream. The length of the physical connection is limited to 300 meters and the second generation VDSL (CDSL2) provides data rates up to 100 mbps simultaneously in both direction, but maximum available bit rate is still achieved about 300 meters.

Cable:

Cable broadband uses existing CATV infrastructure to provide high-access internet access; uses channels specifically reserved for data transfer
Support simultaneous access to broadband and TV programs
Cable access tech is built for one-way transmission; hence some congestion takes place for bi-way data transfer, leading to much lower upstream connection relative to downstream connection for data.

Fiber:

It is a generic term for any broadband network architecture using optical fiber; fiber to the neighborhood; fiber to the curb; the street cabinet is much closer to the user’s premises, typically within 300m, thus allowing ethernet or radio-based connection to the final users; fiber to the basement; fiber to the home (BSNL already providing); fiber to the desktop
Passive optical networks (PON)

Advantages of fiber:

Immunity to electromagnetic interference.
Provides very high data rates at long distances.
When network links run over several 1000s of meters (e.g., metro area networks), fiber significantly outperforms copper.
Replacing at least part of these links with fiber shortens the remaining copper segments and allows them to run much faster.
The data rate of a fiber link is typically limited by the terminal equipment rather than the fiber itself.

Assignment
Participants were given two options for an assignment to work on in the coming days and they could choose either one.

Assignment A
The Universal Service Obligation Fund of India has put out a Call for Proposals under two schemes:

Mobile Connectivity and ICT related livelihood skills for womens’ SHGs (http://www.usof.gov.in/usof-cms/pdf21may/Concept_Paper.pdf), and

Access to ICTs and ICT enabled services for persons with disabilities in rural India. (http://www.usof.gov.in/usof-cms/usofsub/Concept%20paper_USOF%20Scheme_PwDs_A.G.Gulati.pdf)

Your NGO is committed to the task of facilitating access to the Internet for women/ persons with disabilities in rural parts of Kerala and wishes to submit a proposal/ project idea in partnership with a service provider to the USOF.

Assignment B
You are a member of the ancient tribe of Meithis residing in Manipur. Over the years, there is a strong feeling in your community that although the Government has rolled out projects to connect the rural areas throughout India, these have not been successful for your tribe and there is still even a lack of basic fixed telephony, let alone mobile and broadband services. You have hence come to the conclusion that there is a need for focused efforts to target such communities as yours and have decided to submit a concept note to the USOF requesting that ‘ethnic and rural tribal communities’ be specifically included within the mandate of the USOF’s activities by defining them as an ‘underserved community’.


Given above is a picture of the participants engaged in a discussion.

Field Trip - Destination: MapUnity.
MapUnity develops technology to tackle social problems and development challenges. Their GIS, MIS and mobile technologies are used mostly by government departments and civil society organisations, and in the R&D initiatives of commercial ventures. MapUnity presented their product offerings to the participants.

VIDEO

Day 4: June 11, 2013

Session 1: Universal Access

(by Archana Gulati)
Click to read the presentation slides

Given above is a picture of Archana Gulati speaking on Universal Access.	Tuesday revolved around questions of access and openness. The day kicked off with Archana Gulati, a policy expert in access to ICTs for people with disabilities talking on Universal Access. Ms. Gulati stressed the importance of ICTs for social development. ICTs are a necessary aid in development structures including education, health and increased citizen participation in national affairs & they provide crucial knowledge inputs into productive activities. However, even with the Telecom boom, there still exists an access gap in India, which cannot be covered by commercially viable systems.

This 'actual access gap' exists because of geographic (scattered population, low income, low perceived utility of service, lack of commercial/industrial customers, lack of roads, power, difficult terrain, insurgency), economic (urban poor) and social inequality (gender, disabilities) differences. To achieve Universal Access or Universal Service, additional efforts must be made, so as to include these groups. However, Universal Access and Universal Service, while they may imply the same thing, are very different approaches to deal with the problematic access gap.

Universal service, a term coined by Theodore Vail, president of AT&T in 1906, argued that the government should enforce the usage of only one network. This approach suggests a monopolization of the market and goes against the liberal market principle.

Universal access on the other hand suggests cross-subsidizing the low and no profit service areas by high profit service areas. However, this results in the urban population to get over-charged while the rich rural areas benefit from rural subsidizing.

So how do we enable a fair and inexpensive network to be able to create access for a large number of people equally?
Ms. Archana Gulati went on to introduce the Sanchar Shakti scheme as a contribution to national access in India. It was initiated with the objective of improving rural SHG access skills, knowledge, financial services and markets through mobile connections and involved several stakeholders like NABARD, handset/modem manufacturers, DoT USOF, Mobile VAS Providers, Lead NGOs, Mobile Service Providers.

This scheme shows how important is, for the commercial, private and public sector to work together on obtaining accessibility to ITCs.

Session 2: Free and Open Internet

(by Pranesh Prakash)
The following session by Pranesh Prakash on Free and Open Internet showed how the internet can still be a restrictive place which does not allow for internet equality. His talk focussed on the concepts of free and open Internet. Prakash started by stating the Freedom of Speech and Expression Article of the Indian Constitution and in an interactive round it was discussed, how these articles are fundamental for securing other basic human rights. This was demonstrated by an example in which the distribution of food did not proceed equally, as misinformation and restrictions led to an inappropriate hoarding of goods. Therefore, it is important for everyone to have that right. In fact, the Indian constitution formulates Article 19 in a positive way, implying not only everyone should have that right, but that the government must promote the upholding of these rights.

However, in the case of Article 66a, the law actually caused a problem with freedom of speech in itself, as it penalizes sending false and offensive messages through communication services. This is a massive impediment on free speech, as outsiders decide upon what is offensive and what is false.

The other side of freedom of speech and expression is censorship. Online, the removal of websites and editing of content often happens quietly and obscures the fact that someone or something is being censored. Unlike book burnings in the past, which were always made a big political spectacle, often websites are simply removed without a trace, or one is faced with a 404 error, when trying to access it. Because of the offensive content law, journals and magazines are quick to remove supposedly offensive content, as it seems more difficult to engage in argument with the people claiming offense. The CIS proposed a counter-law to secure for this to happen less, as freedom of speech includes the freedom to receive that speech.

VIDEO

Session 3: Openness

(by Sunil Abraham)

Next to ensuring freedom of speech and access, the third session of the day focussed on Openness in terms of Open Source software. Sunil Abraham, CIS executive director, stated the importance of free software and open access of data, as they ensure what he called the four freedoms of internet usage, namely the freedom to use for any purpose, the freedom to study, to modify and to share (freely or for a fee). Proprietary software imposes on these freedoms, as it only has restrictive use and a strong copyright. However, there are alternatives that have moderate copyrights, or so-called copy centred perspectives, or even copyleft, including the above mentioned rights into the terms of the software usage.	Above is a picture of Sunil Abraham speaking on Openness

In alignment with Sunil Abraham’s talk Pranesh Prakash criticized copyright law cutting into accessibility rights, as copyright infringements include translation into other languages, audio versions and also integral parts of education. The key is not to have a "one size fits all" copyright solution, as it is impossible to treat twitter content the same as a blockbuster movie. However, the government of India is doing exactly that and needs to interlink questions of access with copyright law.

VIDEO

Session 4: Open Content

(by Prof. Subbiah Arunachalam)
Prof. Subbiah Arunachalam, who led the next session, discussed Open Content. He had seen during the course of his experience India's poor performance in Science & Technology and outlined the reasons for the same. The lack of access to information essential in scientific research and knowledge production, he said, was the major limiting cause.

VIDEO

Session 5: Quick Talk on Copyright Law and Access

This short session dealt with implications of copyright law on internet access.

Activity

The participants were divided into two groups, and they were asked build as huge a network as possible with their personal belongings and present their creations. The participants had good ideas. One group placed their mobiles and laptops into the network to have them as nodes. The other group implemented the re-routing around censorship.

VIDEO


Given above is a picture of the participants in an activity making the longest network possible with their personal belongings.

Day 5: (June 12, 2013)

Session 1: Privacy on the Internet in India

(by Sunil Abraham and Elonnai Hickok)

Click to view the presentation slides

Given above is a picture of Elonnai Hickock speaking about privacy	The following day, June 12th started off with “Privacy” as the theme. The session Privacy on the Internet in India was led by CIS privacy experts Sunil Abraham and Elonnai Hickock. In an exchange of anecdotes, it was made clear how there needs to be a certain degree of state surveillance to secure the citizens safety. This can happen through off air interception and active or passive cell phone towers that can track mobile devices. However, encryption is an important tool to secure one’s own privacy against cyber espionage.

Some of the salient points discussed were:

Off-the Air Interception
Possible to set up active or passive cell phone tower.
The signal strength will be strong and everyone looks for it.
Capacity to identify itself as a service provider.
Interception can begin with encryption Technology today used by security agencies.
NTRO- national technical Research Org and Outlook

VIDEO

Session 2: E-Accessibility

(by Nirmita Narasimhan)
Click to view the presentation slides


Given above is a picture of Dr. Nirmita Narasimhan speaking on e-accessibility

The second session was on “E-Accessibility” led by Dr. Nirmita Narasimhan. Some of the salient points discussed were:

Problems arising out of disability
Accessibility-Infrastructure and ICT
Assistive technologies for PWD’s.
Reasonable accommodation (not available or cannot be and requires extra effort and putting up an accessible copy up) and universal Design (for both for PWD’s and non-PWD’s).
Web Content Accessibility is operable and easily understandable.
Accessibility standards include; Daisy (6 types of books including audio and text books) is all about marking up the documents. Really a good way to read but is expensive and time consuming, also need Daisy tools and player to make it work.
In 1808 the first typewriter was developed to help the blind.
Considerations involved in Web Accessibility
Overlap b/w mobile accessibility and web accessibility.
Example- Raku Raku phone captured 60% of market share in Japan. It has many assistive features.
Relay Services has a middle man who passes on the message b/w different PWD’s in many countries, but it is not yet available in India.
PWD’s communicating with customer care – the issues involved.
Accessibility Policy- very few people are adopting accessible technologies. There is a need to have a strong policy. U.K. and U.S. already have strong policies related to accessible and assistive technology for PWD’s.

Video

Session 3: International Bodies and Mechanisms

(by Tulika Pandey and Gaurab Raj Upadhyay)
Activity
Gaurab incorporated an Activity into his talk to enable the students to have a clearer understanding of International Bodies and Mechanisms.


Given above is a picture of the speaker Gaurab Raj Upadhaya explaining the International Bodies and Mechanisms

Some of the salient points discussed during his talk were:

Definition: “Internet Governance is the development and application by Govt., the private sector and civil society, in their respective roles, of shared principles, norms, rules, decision-making procedures and programmes which shape the evolution and use of internet.”
It should be multilateral, transparent and democratic
Enhanced cooperation means to enable govt…

Technical issues to keep in mind while talking about internet:

Critical internet resources
Root server locations
Open Standards (CIS leads the initiative)
Interoperability
Search Engines
Internationalized Domain names (in own script & language)
Content

Virtual yet real space and most important question to be understood is that whether, the governance of internet is possible?
Public Policy- to monitor cross-border data flow, Openness vs Privacy
India’s Outlook in internet policies-Pillars of Internet which is not fully addressed by the Indian government today.
Established an Inter- Ministerial Group by including various government departments into the arena.
Layer 0-7 Names and Numbers
Layer 8 and above
Applications and Usage
Legal business, policy, etc.

Session-4: E-Governance

(by Tulika Pandey and Sunil Abraham)


Given above is a picture of the speaker Tulika Pandey speaking about e-Governance

Some of the salient points discussed were:

Making policies in India is difficult because the population is huge and implementation at rural level is difficult.
Bombarded by Techno utopians- who believe in technology’s ability to change lives.
Techno determinants- Corruption solved through technology through open government data. More technology is better, the most sophisticated ones are the best are gross misconceptions.
Bhoomi project tried to deal with corruption at village level. Important policy change made all paper work illegal and digitized the land records etc. every action and request will be logged. But this led to creation of new corruption. Bribes were taken even before data was logged!
UID Project (Cobra Post Scam) around 20 public sector and 30 private banks were involved in money laundering scams.
People who design the systems in Delhi prepare sub-contracts.

VIDEO

Day 6: (June 13, 2013)

Session 1: Critical Perspectives of the Internet

(by Dr. Nishant Shah)
Click to view the presentation slides

The sixth day of the Institute kicked off with Nishant Shah, director of research at CIS, looking into Critical Perspectives of the Internet. Nishant made a very important distinction between the internet as infrastructure and as social network constructing alternative universes. Nonetheless it was important to stress that technology should not be alienated in the process of this separation but seen as an integral part of it, as the digital is as much part of reality as any other technology and has become essential as a technology of change that it brings about not only in scientific but also in social development. Quoting Michel Foucault, Shah argued that technology becomes influential when it changes life, labour and language, which is why research in the field should involve critical ways of thinking about body, space and community.	Above is a picture of Dr. Nishant Shah speaking on Critical Perspectives of the Internet.

The body perception can be perceived through the way bodily agencies change through technology. Technology does not necessarily taint or corrupt the body, but can also be a way to escape its confines. To put it to a point, we are all born into technology and cannot free ourselves from them, as for example pregnancy already starts with nutritional supplements, regulatory diets and exercise and essentially ends with birth technologies that do not necessarily involve only the digital - we must remember, speech is one of the oldest technologies available today.

VIDEO

Session 2: Strategies for Policy Intervention

(by Chakshu Roy)
The second session on “Strategies for Policy Intervention” was led by Chakshu Roy. This session dealt with various ways in which policy intervention can be made and the various factors necessary to successfully engage in policy forums.

VIDEO

Session 3: Profile of Internet Service Providers

(by Satyen Gupta)
Click to view the presentation slides


Given above is a picture of Satyen Gupta speaking about Internet Service Providers

Satyen Gupta during his talk on “Profile of Internet Service Providers” discussed the nature, offerings and profile of various ISPs in India, their market share and dynamics.

The salient points discussed were:

National Broadband Plans
Spectrum Issues “Management”
Reality check of Indian ISPs
Broadband Definition & Penetration
Roadblocks for Broadband in India, Governments Role, Regulation
Institutional Framework for the Indian Telecom
Broadband Access in India- Technology-Neutrality
Satellite based DTH Services offer alternate for the Broadband via Receive Only Internet Service (ROIS)
Broadband using DTH for Receive-only Internet
VSAT has the potential for significant impact on Broadband Penetration in Remote Areas
Fixed Wireless Access- an important access technology
Facilitating Radio Spectrum for Broadband Access
Fiscal measures to reduce the cost of access devices, infrastructure and broadband service
Reduction in the cost of connectivity
National Internet Exchange of India (NIXI) -National Internet Exchange of India (NIXI) has been set up on recommendation of TRAI by DIT, Government of India to ensure that Internet traffic, originating and destined for India, should be routed within India.
Emerging Broadband Services
Broadband Commission for Digital Development (BCDD)-UN Targets for Universal Broadband,2015
NOFN India-Existing Fiber Infrastructure and Coverage by Various Service Providers
National Telecom Policy (NTP) 2012- Salient Features
State of Internet Services and ISPs in India:
1. India’s Ranking on Key Broadband Indicators
2. Regulator’s Report – Growth of Internet in India
3. Internet Subscribers Base & Market share of top 10 ISPs
4. Technology trends for Internet/Broadband Access
5. Internet/broadband Subscribers for top 10 states
6. Tariff Plans for USO funded Broadband
7. Contribution of Telcos in Development of Internet Services
8. Incumbent’s Role in Growth of Broadband
9. Plugging rural missing link- BBNL
Internet Subscribers Base & Market share of top 10 ISPs

VIDEO

Session 4: Competition in the Market by Helani Galpaya

Helani Galpaya during her talk on “Competition in the Market” discussed about what competition meant, Herfindahl–Hirschman Index to measure how competitive a market is, what are the dangers of monopoly markets and the landscape of the Telecom market in India.


Above is a picture of Helani Galpaya speaking about Competition in the Market

Day 7: (June 14, 2013)

The final day of the Institute focussed on how the Internet can be used to effect change on society – Activism was the theme.

Session 1: Leveraging Internet for activism

(by Ananth Guruswamy)
Click to read the presentation slides


Above is a picture of Ananth Guruswamy speaking during the session on leveraging internet for activism

Some of the salient points discussed were:

Digital Activism
Target Omar Abdullah. It is about an act called Administrative detention Act. One can be detained without act i.e. The Preventive Detention Act. He directly responded to the threat.
Twitter seems to be a place where the political leaders are actually accessible. This kind of access was not possible in day to day life earlier if one was a common man. This phenomenon is developing. Even in Corporate setup writing a mail directly to the CEO seems possible.
Strengths: Wide reach, Freedom of speech, Data collection is made easy, Issues can be tackled swiftly, Global communities, singular identities have lot of power. Eg: 190 Million people stood up against Poverty; this kind of mobilization impossible without internet.
Besides local issues even Global issues are addressed an collection of funds becomes easy. Onion.com once a struggling publication in U.S., but now with a global audience it is thriving and it has a healthy reader base today.
The Earth Hour helps people connect across space and time.
Weakness: More popularity, more attention; Traditional/Real Protest has become rare and a threat; There is no real action beyond internet, threat of movement is low, there is no real commitment involved in digital activism and just one click is enough to make one ‘feel good’.
Opportunities: Recruitment of protestors for real protests. Diff. b/w real and virtual blurred; anything that affects the mind space is real. The intersection is interesting.
Threats: Total removal of privacy, Government intervention in private issues and there could be misinterpretation of people’s thoughts by certain people.
Traditional vs Digital activism: Traditional fails to provide results whereas clicking a button is as easy as wearing a badge.
Facebook activism: ‘Like Buttons’, People moving away from reading emails, a shift towards use of facebook; creates a sense of belongingness which the traditional activism failed to achieve.
India against Corruption: used mobile phone effectively.
Social Media has changed the way protests happen globally and in India, one example is Twitter. Change.org is a website which gives freedom to anybody to start a petition without any external source; Awaaz.org another such petition website.
Green Peace launched a Green peace X which was a runaway success. YouTube is another platform for the masses. People today are more interested in watching rather than reading.
Pakistan in 2007: “Flash protests”; Free Fraizan Movement on Twitter.
Something to keep in mind regarding while launching a campaign online is to think who the audience is and what we want them to do and how will the campaign help our objectives?
How to measure success of a social media campaign?
Reach
Engagement- likes, tweets, comments, etc.
Influence
Attrition Score

VIDEO

Session 2: Internet Access Activism

(by Parminder Jeet Singh)
The next session on “INTERNET ACCESS” ACTIVISM by Parminder Jeet Singh dealt with how people can contribute to initiatives for improving internet access amongst masses.

VIDEO

Session 3: Ensuring Access to the Internet

(by A.K. Bhargava)
Click to view the presentation
The last session on “Ensuring Access to the Internet” by A.K. Bhargava discussed strategies to enhance access to the Internet in India with special focus on National Optical Fibre Network.

The salient points discussed were:

-    Role of Broadband in Nation Building
-    Policy Aspiration of Broadband - How do we meet aspiration?
-    Telecom Network Layers‐Gaps in OFC Reach
-    BBNL Interconnection
-    NOFN - Bridging The Gap
-    Digital Knowledge Centres (DKCs)
-    Architecture of BBNL
-    NOFN Impact

Societal
- Bridging the digital divide
Business
- Job creation, indigenous industry growth
Sectoral
- Improved connectivity, data growth
Technological
- Differentiators
VIDEO

Speaker Presentation Slides
All the presentation aids/slide shows barring a few have been uploaded to the website at http://internet-institute.in/repository

Presentation of Assignments
The participants presented their assignments which were given to them to work on the 3rd day. The participants were presented with Wikipedia T-Shirts as a token of appreciation.


Given above is a picture of the participants presenting their assignments

Participant Feedback
All participants were asked to fill a "Session Feedback Form" for each of the sessions and also an "Overall Feedback Form". They were also constantly encouraged to come up with suggestions and inputs on how to make the Institute more interesting.

The key findings from the Quantitative Feedback provided are:
(The figures below are averaged scores (out of 5) provided by participants in the Overall Feedback Forms)

S.No.	Parameter	Score (Out of 5)
1	Relevance of Content	3.6
2	Comprehensiveness of Content	3.44
3	Easy to Understand	3.55
4	Well Paced	3.33
5	Sufficient Breaks	3
6	Duration of Talks	3.2
7	Mix between Learning & Activities	3

The key findings from the Qualitative Feedback provided are:

S.No.	Points observed
1	Presentations – Participants felt sessions with accompanying slides/aids were most helpful. Some felt that accompanying notes could also be useful for future reference.
2	Use of Examples/Case Studies – Participants felt concepts can be better assimilated if case-studies/examples are used. Some also felt that for the technological advancements discussed, it would have been better had the social/economic impact of the same was discussed too.
3	Implementation Gaps– One participant, who is working at the field level in Kolkata had a specific thing to say about the talk about BSNL and its offerings– Although BSNL has so many options available on paper to connect to the Internet, common service centres in West Bengal are mostly run on Tata Indicom’s network even though the board outside says “BSNL” etc. She felt that the reality is far different from what exists on paper.
4	Interactive sessions were most appreciated than speaker led sessions.
5	There were many responses to the question “How will you apply this new information in the future” and it is very encouraging. People have given thought to contributing to Wikipedia in their mother tongue, take the knowledge to the field work that they are associated with, continue with their research, change their Internet connections, to help file RTIs, to adopt more open source software, sharing with students, advocacy efforts, etc
6	The responses to the question “What did you learn from the session/workshop that was new?” elicited more responses for the following sessions Domestic Bodies and Mechanisms Case-studies such as Air Jaldi Low cost devices in India USOF Free & Open Internet Copyright laws Privacy Accessibility Digital Natives ISPs
7	Field Trip – One participant said “One or two of the persons from MapUnity could have made the presentation at the institute venue itself. A visit to an underserved or un-served community with interactions with the people there could also have given a good understanding of on-ground challenges and needs.”
8	Follow-up Session –One participant had ideas about having a follow-up session “A follow-up call [webinar?] after 6 months to see if any of these concepts were useful would be an interesting exercise to take up”
9	Assignment – Participants felt that the assignments were good but they needed more time to work on the same.

Other Feedback:

The food and the facilities were enjoyed and appreciated by all.
The remote location of the Golden Palms Resort was a concern for most of the participants.

Participation Certificates
Participation Certificates (template shown below) have been mailed to all the participants in the third week of July 2013.


Given above is the certificate declaring the successful completion of the event

Institute Expenses

A total of Rs. 19, 91,889 (Rupees nineteen lakhs ninety one thousand eight hundred and eighty nine only) was spent towards organizing and conducting the Internet Institute. A breakup of the Institute Expenditures is given below:

S.No.	Type of Expense	Description	Total
1	Venue – Golden Palms Resort	Accommodation for participants, speakers and food	12,91,176
2	Travel	Cost of Air tickets	2,94,515
3	Local Travel	Airport Pickup/Drop, Local City Travel	1,41,001
4	Gifts & Printing	Gifts for speakers and ad hoc document printing charges	24,000
5	Infrastructure	Telephony, Audio, Video, Stage	1,05,000
6	Participant Bags		10,650
7	Reimbursements	Reimbursements to participants and speakers	1,25,547
Total Expenses			19,91,889

What the participants had to say

Sangh Priya Rahul – “One of my organisation's work is more or less related to empowerment of rural areas so knowledge about USOF will be useful there.” (On USOF)

Rashmi. M – “Makes me more sensitized towards the disabled people.” (On e-Accessibility)

Preethi Ayyaluswamy – “Would help me in strategically planning for an online campaign” (On digital activism).

Conclusion

The Institute was highly engaging and enabled the participants to explore the various facets of Internet & Society. As was evident from the feedback forms, participants had given thought to contributing to Wikipedia in their mother tongue, take the knowledge to the field work that they are associated with, continue with their research, change their Internet connections, help file RTIs, adopt more open source software, sharing with students, advocacy efforts etc. There was a very high level of expertise amongst speakers at the Institute which was apparent from the participatory discussions and a lot of insightful perspectives were brought forth. There was a common consensus amongst all participants that inclusive growth across all dimensions would take efforts from all stakeholders.

We hope to learn from the findings of this Institute and work towards a better second Institute.


Above is a group picture of all the participants and the organizers

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/telecom/knowledge-repository-on-internet-access/institute-on-internet-and-society-event-report

Essays on 'Offline' - Selected Abstracts

sneha-pp — 2018-09-06T14:14:47Z

In response to a recent call for essays that explore various dimensions of offline lives, we received 22 abstracts. Out of these, we have selected 10 pieces to be published as part of a series titled 'Offline' on the upcoming r@w blog. Please find below the details of the selected abstracts.

1. Chinar Mehta

2. Cole Flor

3. Elishia Vaz

4. Karandeep Mehra

5. Preeti Mudliar

6. Rianka Roy

7. Simiran Lalvani

8. Srikanth Lakshmanan

9. Titiksha Vashist

10. Dr. Yenn Lee

Chinar Mehta

In September 2017, a student of Banaras Hindu University was allegedly sexually harassed by two persons on a motorcycle while she was walking back to her hostel. Taking the discourse around this event as the starting point, the essay argues that the solutions offered for the safety of women align with the patriarchal notions of surveillance of women. The victim is twice violated; once during the act of sexual harassment, and twice when bodily privacy is exchanged for safety (exemplified by security cameras across the BHU campus). In fact, the ubiquitous presence of security cameras in order to control crime rates makes the safety of the woman’s body contingent to her adherence to social rules.

The moral panic around the safety of women encourages ways to offer a technological solution to a sociological problem. The body is granted safety insofar as the body is not ‘deviant’. There is a fusion of a ‘synoptic-panoptic’ vision, where not only a few watch the many, but the many also watch the few. Additionally, the essay then engages with the politics of mobile applications like Harassmap or Safetipin, and how offline spaces become online entities with crowdsourced data about how safe it is. Mapping events like sexual harassment on an online map is inscribed with perceptions about class and caste. The caste-patriarchal ideas of the protection of upper-caste women is maintained within these applications. The location and the people who visit or reside in them often collapse as the same; as being perpetrators of sexual crimes, while decontextualising incidents. Instead of a focus on how to make areas safer for all women, the discourse becomes about the avoidance of certain spaces, which may not be an option for the majority of women, especially those belonging to certain castes and classes. Features in mobile applications, specifically to do with location mapping, like Google Maps or Uber, become vehicles for the narratives about gendered security.

In defining the ‘offline’, the ‘online’ already exists, and the dichotomy is strangely maintained by the use of interactive maps on personal devices. The essay argues for a more nuanced understanding of internalised constructions of safety, and proposes the idea that institutional surveillance has been a way to discipline gendered bodies historically, and that it is continued with the use of technologies. This may be due to state machinery, or even cultural consent, which would then show up the way that features of mobile applications are marketed.

Cole Flor

Deactivating: An Escape From the Realities of the Online World

A friend posts travels, unboxing the latest gadget, trying out makeup products even before theyÕre out in the market, and the audience hit ÔlikeÕ but deep inside suddenly feel inadequate about their own lives and ask, "What am I doing wrong? Why am I not happy like them?"

The year was 2012 when the earliest of studies on how Social Media contributes to Anxiety went viral.

Even with the complicated nature of mental illnesses the taboo of it all that kept people tiptoeing around the topic - the news was able to crack the glossy facade of online spaces. Back then, it was ridiculous to think that online content the very representation of freedom of expression, information-sharing, open communities caused users some level of distress that affects their mental state. However, with every story that comes out these days of or relating to mental illnesses and social media, people are no longer in denial that being online has become the worldÕs default state. With that primary connection comes a full spectrum of emotions and perspectives that shifted how society views the self, their community, and their roles in being a ÔnetizenÕ. The blurring of lines of whatÕs considered appropriate content, the multiple performances of everyday life, and the imagery that constitutes "happiness", "satisfaction", "significance", "purpose", and "validation" can be described as overwhelming, disconcerting, and stressful to an extent. For borderline Millennials like myself the generation Digital Natives being offline is now an escape from the harsh realities of the online society.

These studies shed light on new narratives that recognized how curating the perfect and seamless life online not only affects the users viewing the content but even the content producers themselves, cracking under pressure and giving into the expectation of "Keeping the Image Alive", whatever it takes. Online life gave "peer pressure" a new meaning.

But users can only deal with so much pressure without sacrificing a part of themselves. During the emergence of social media in early 2000s, users felt the need to go online to escape their personal problems and live in another world where everything seemed easy and possible; where anonymity was powerful and so was virtually traveling in a borderless space where a link opens doors for personal, professional, political, and socio-economic transformation. A quick turn of events, users now wish to escape from the clamor of Twitter threads, Instagram stories, Snaps, and political rants and fake news on Facebook. More and more users deactivate and hibernate, get on board a "social media detox" to rid of the "poison" online content and their [e]nvironments has caused them, all in search for a new something to be called "real".

This narrative essay explores several dimensions why users choose to deactivate, and how that very choice is more of a symptom of a societal anomaly rather than a simple "break" from the chaotic world of social media. It is written in the perspective of a Digital Native - a person who has an inextricable affinity to digital devices but at the same time, is in touch with the analog way of life. The choice of going offline is not only to focus on what used to be real (a life away from the Internet), but it is to gather wits together, stay away from perfectly curated lives to keep sane, and ultimately, to chase life's curiosities and ambitions without having the need to validate achievements with a Like.

Elishia Vaz

Dynamics of the ‘offline’ self-diagnosis, exploration of the corporeal and the politics of information

The corpus of information on health and related topics in the online sphere has caused much concern in relation to self-diagnosis. Concepts like cyberchondria have emerged with the medicalisation of behaviour that uses online health information to explore the corporeal disabilities of the body. While literature has largely concentrated on individual susceptibilities to Cyberchondria and corresponding negative and positive results of the behaviour, there is little that explores the politics of information that characterises this trope. The behaviours of self-diagnosis and exploration of the corporeal often challenge the symptomatology of the offline allopathic physician. The physician often deals with an informed patient. Yet, the questions remain. If online information drives such offline corporeal exploration, who is left out? Are behaviours analogous to cyberchondria a privilege when viewed from a lens of digital marginalization? Are only those who have access to and can make sense of the online health discourse afforded simultaneous access to their offline corporeal bodies in ways that the digitally marginalized are not? This article uses semi-structured qualitative in-depth interviews with doctors to explore the dynamics of exploring the offline corporeal in the presence of online health information.

Karandeep Mehra

The Shadow that Social Media Casts: The Doubled Offlines of Online Sociality

In William Gibson’s cyberpunk novel Neuromancer, the protagonist ‘Case’ ‘jacks in’ and ‘jacks out’ of ‘cyberspace’. Yet when ostracized from cyberspace, when there is no more a possibility of jacking in, Case suffers a withdrawal from the ‘SimStim’ – simulated stimulations of cyberspace – and he crumbles in the hollow ache of this isolation “as the dreams came on in the Japanese night like livewire voodoo, and he'd cry for it, cry in his sleep, and wake alone in the dark, curled in his capsule in some coffin hotel, hands clawed into the bedslab, temper foam bunched between his fingers, trying to reach the console that wasn't there.”

Neuromancer has already been deemed prophetic by critics and theorists, yet in beginning with Gibson, this paper seeks to throw into relief a problem that has now begun to receive scholarly and academic attention. Namely, the legitimacy of drawing a line between the online and offline, or the virtual and the real. With Case, the real or the offline only becomes possible within the capacity to access or enter the virtual or online. To think of an offline without this capacity, but after it has become possible, is to confront a detritus, a second offline – a hapless clawing dexterity, with dreams that overrun an articulated, identificatory imagination. Anthropologists like Boellstorff, and media theorists like Yuk Hui, have resolved this problem though they have left unexplained this detritus. Instead they resolve the problem through a tight coupling of the online and offline, and rightly so, dismiss any attempts to think of the real in any way unaffected by the virtual.

The purpose of this paper, though in agreement with the work of Hui and Boellstorff, and drawing from them, is to restage the problem to incorporate the unexplained detritus. That to understand how our conceptions of the subject must be recast to apprehend the transformations that the internet has wrought, must not resolve the opposition between offline and online. We must, instead, attend to the way the two offlines emerge, and the conceptualization of the threshold that oscillates to constitute them.

The paper understands these two offlines as emerging in what are called “shitstorms”, or moments of frenzy across social media that incite a whorl of discourse, where the speaking body becomes a medium for the propagation for viral forms. The threshold that constitutes them is the relation of the technical extension that makes this propagation possible. This relation leaves the body in a perpetual state of information entropy – that is as a disordered source of data - which must be ordered to be communicated successfully. This threshold that marks out the phase shift between disorder to order to make possible propagation, makes possible also the shadow of an incommunicable that it casts behind – an incommunicable that when understood through Walter Benjamin’s idea of “the torso of a symbol” can help us recast the subject of a network society, as a subject grounded on this shadow.

Preeti Mudliar

In WiFi Exile: The Offline Subjectivities of Online Women

In telecom policy imaginations that seek to bridge India’s digital divides, public WiFi hotspots are a particular favourite to ensure last mile Internet connectivity in rural areas. As infrastructures, WiFi networks are thought to privilege democratic notions of freedom and connectivity by rendering space salient as networked areas that only require users to have a WiFi enabled device to get online. However, the kind of spaces that WiFi networks occupy are not always accessible by women even though they are ostensibly public in nature. Social norms that restrict and confine women’s mobilities to certain sanctioned areas do not allow their Internet and digital literacies to be visible in the same way as men who are more easily recognized as active Internet and technology users.

The invisibility of women thus struggles to create a presence as desirable subjects of the Internet that WiFi infrastructures should also address. In a community where WiFi networks was hosted in public spaces, women reported hearing about WiFi and seeing men using WiFi, but had never used it themselves even though they were also active users of the Internet. With its inaccessibility, the WiFi infrastructure was a contradictory presence in the community for the women who found themselves confined to using the Internet with spotty prepaid mobile data plans. Their use and experience of the Internet was thus in many ways diminished and limited and they reported experiencing a state of offlineness in contrast to the men in their community who could frequent the WiFi hotspots and avail of high speed Internet leading to more expansive repertoires of use.

This essay proposes a reflection on how the offline can be relational and constituted by the way infrastructures compose certain user subjectivities even while they exile others from being a part of their networks. It expands on Brian Larkin’s contention that in addition to their technical affordances, infrastructures are also equally semiotic and aesthetic forms that are oriented towards creating and addressing certain subjects. It thus asks, how do public WiFi deployments unwittingly create and constitute, what Bardzell and Bardzell call, as ‘subject positions’ of WiFi Internet users and non-users? How do these subject positions inform subjectivities of felt experience of the WiFi that translate to experiencing the offline even while being online?

Rianka Roy

Information Offline: Labour, Surveillance and Activism in the Indian IT&ITES Industry

In India the public availability of the internet in the nineties coincided with the beginning of liberalisation. Online connectivity brought the aura of globalization to this country. The internet was a privilege of the few. The Information Technology sector (along with the IT-enabled service industry) had an elite status. Its employees visited, and immigrated to western countries. In fact, India still remains one the major suppliers of cheap labour in the global IT sector.

Over the years the aura of the internet waned. In Digital India the State now projects the internet as a necessity. However, IT&ITES companies still identify the labour of their ‘white collar’ employees as a superior vocation. This vague claim to sophistication strips the digitally-connected workforce of various labour rights. Long hours, working from home, and surveillance on personal social media are normative practices in this industry. I conducted a case study on Indian IT&ITES employees for my doctoral research (2013-2018). It showed that protocols of online conduct influence these employees’ offline behaviour. For example, even without digital intervention, employees engage in manual self-surveillance and peer-surveillance to complement the digital surveillance of their organisations. They defend this naturalised practice as employers’ prerogative. Offline attributes like reflective glass walls in the office interior and exterior, reinforce this organisational culture.

Online connectivity is so deeply entrenched in this industry that even dissent seeks digital representation. Activist groups like the Forum for IT Employees (FITE) and the Union for IT & ITES (UNITES) run online campaigns parallel to their offline activism—adopting a hybrid method of protest. They have not abandoned the networks that ensnare them. Paradoxically they embody the same principle of exclusivity that their employers enforce on them. In their interviews, some activists have condemned militant trade unionism prevalent in other industries. For them, their online access sets them apart, and above their industrial couterparts. The “salaried bourgeoisie” (Zizek, p.12) refuse to align themselves with other labour unions.

My paper examines the impact of the near-absence of offline parameters in this industry. On the basis of company policies and interviews of IT&ITES employees, it examines if employees can stand up to digital dominance and secure their rights without conventional modes of offline protests.

Simiran Lalvani

The Offline as a Place of Work: Examining Food Discovery and Delivery by Digital Platforms

Digital platforms for food discovery and delivery are generally viewed as convenient, efficient, allowing discovery of choices beyond the familiar and as reliable sources of information regarding credibility through ratings, comments and photographs.

The digital divide after demonetisation became more stark as those with access to the online abandoned the offline service providers for their digital counterparts. The adverse impact of this digital divide on offline, informal goods and service providers like local kirana stores, autorickshaw drivers, hawkers has been highlighted and the paradox of formalising the financial system while informalising labour has been pointed out too. In a similar vein, this essay examines continuities and changes in the practices of food discovery and delivery in the context of new digital platforms. How do practices of offline food discovery and delivery respond to the introduction of digital platforms?

Recently, the Food Safety and Standards Association of India (FSSAI) found that nearly 40 percent of listings on 10 digital platforms like Swiggy and Zomato were of unlicensed food operators. The FSSAI directed these digital platforms to delist these unlicensed entities and also commented that some of the platforms themselves did not have required licenses.

This essay therefore turns attention away from the impact of digital platforms on offline, informal food operators and towards the digital platforms themselves and the large swathes of informal labour employed in the offline by such platforms. It focuses on location-based gig work4 like delivery to highlight the role of these workers in running the online. It does so in order to avoid obfuscating the role of such workers in making the online seem formal, efficient and reliable. Finally, it asks how working for the online in the offline allows a denial of their status as employees and invisibilisation of such work and workers.

Srikanth Lakshmanan

The Cash Merchant

The paper explores the various reasons for merchants remaining offline and using cash over digital payments, both willingly and without a choice, various factors leading to it, the rationale for their choices, policy responses by the state and industry in furthering promotion of digital payments. Demonetisation not only made everyone including merchants seek alternatives to cash in order to continue the business but also provided a policy window for digital payments industry to get a faster regulatory, policy clearances, get the government to invest in incentivising digital payments. Despite these, the cash to digital shift has not taken place and the demonetisation trends in increased digital payments across modes reversed after cash was back in the system.

The paper attempts to document infrastructural, commercial, social issues preventing the adoption and the responses of merchants, industry to various policy prescription/enablement to increase adoption whose outcomes are unclear and have not been evaluated.

Infrastructural issues include technology, policy, regulatory, industry challenges in expanding the existing infrastructure. The lack of physical, regulatory, legal infrastructure prevents growth and merchants from adopting digital payments. Commercial issues include economics of direct and indirect costs to the merchant incurred in owning, accepting digital payments, commercial considerations of various ecosystem players including banks, payment processors that inhibit adoption. Social issues include awareness, literacy including digital, financial literacy, trust, behaviour shift, convenience, exercising choice towards cash.

Ever since the demonetisation, there is a heightened activity from industry and various arms of the government has been active in promoting digital payments. Industry-led by banks and fintech ecosystem has built a range of mobile-enabled digital payment platforms/products such wallets, BHIM-UPI, BHIM-Aadhaar, BharatQR to enable asset light merchant acceptance infrastructure, expanded merchant base in addition to catering to the surge in demand of card-accepting PoS machines. The government had undertaken a massive awareness program Digidhan soon after demonetisation and had also set up National Digital Payments Mission to promote, oversee the sustainable growth of digital payments. Various ministries are also adopting digital payments in their functioning. It also aided behavioural shift through cashback, incentivisation schemes, some specifically targeted at merchants, reimbursement of card processing charges for smaller merchants and even has in principle proposed a 20% discount on the GST. It has remained light touch on the regulation by not setting up the regulator even after 18 months of announcing the same.

The paper will analyse how the efforts of industry and government have been met by the merchant and look at factors which can and cannot be changed with policy interventions and real scope of digital payments in the merchant ecosystem.

Titiksha Vashist

Byung-Chul Han in his celebrated book “In the Swarm” warns us of the dangers of the mob that is increasingly replacing the ‘crowd’ or collective which constituted the mass of politics. He states that no true politics is possible in the digital era, where online communities lack a sense of spirit, a “we” that is now a swarm of individuals. Despite his theoretical brilliance, Han forgets that he cannot talk of the digital, the online without the offline. Politics has occurred, and continues to exist in the offline space, using the internet to spread its wings. It is not the online as-is, which has become the subject of philosophy, politics, art and aesthetics that characterises itself alone, sealed off as a space where events occur, identities formed and movements created. It is in fact, the offline that brings the online into being and gives it a myriad of meaning. While access, priviledge, commerce and capital are major themes while discussing internet access, we must not forget that the online is not merely a question of choice or access- but one that is often carefully disabled on purpose to control the offline. In India as well as other parts of the world, the internet has been interrupted for long durations to exercise political control and power, often crippling populations. According to a report by the Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC), an organisation that keeps a track on internet shutdowns in the country, India has seen 244 shutdowns in 2012, of which 108 have been enforced on 2018 alone. These have been concentrated in areas such as Jammu and Kashmir and the North-East, and in instances of violence and resistance as well.

An internet shutdown is the digital equivalent of a curfew, and its application raises questions regarding its cause, uses and political intent. The internet as means, as an enabler of political action is seen as threatening, given the shift in the way people today communicate with one another. Internet bans and shutdowns are not only matters of commerce, but also pose the question of politics to understand when and how power is exercised. An offline created out of a shutdown is different- it is curated on purpose and calls for alternative means by which functionalities of daily life, resistance, capital and media occur. This essay aims to explore how the political image of the “sovereign” also enters the digital space to carefully construct, cut- off and marginalized voices, all in the name of state security, and law and order. According to philosopher Carl Schmitt, the sovereign is he who decides on the exception, and the offline is increasingly becoming a space of exception where those who control the digital can influence the political in real time. In this context, how do we understand the relationship of power and digital access? This essay focuses on three broad questions: (a) Is there a community online capable of political action that is facilitated by the internet? (b) How does power function in internet shutdowns and are they threats to democratic freedom of expression? And finally, (c) How do we begin to unpack the ‘online’ and the ‘offline’ in such a context?

Dr. Yenn Lee

Online consequences of being offline: A gendered tale from South Korea

We hear numerous anecdotes of people facing the consequences of their online activity when offline. Some have lost jobs, have been disciplined in school, or have wound up in court for what they have posted online. However, in comparison, there has been somewhat limited discussion of the reverse scenario, where going about one's day-to-day life offline leads to violations of one's online self.

This essay is concerned with a new and unparalleled phenomenon in South Korea, locally termed molka. Literally meaning 'hidden camera', molka refers to the genre of women being filmed in the least expected of situations, including cubicles in public restrooms and in the midst of car accidents, and the footage being traded and consumed as entertainment. This is distinct from revenge porn or cyber-stalking where the perpetrators usually target a known or pre-determined individual with the intention of humiliating them or to exercise control. The subjects of molka are victimised for merely existing offline and are mostly unaware that their privacy has been violated until they are recognised by someone who knows them and informs them (or inflicts further harm). In response to the rising trend of molka, tens of thousands of frustrated and infuriated women have staged monthly protest rallies in central Seoul since May 2018, urging government intervention. Ironically, women gathered offline to protest against molka have been subjected to further molka crimes with unconsented photos of themselves at the rallies surfacing online and many have been the target of misogynous attacks.

Informed by the author's multi-year ethnographic study of technologically mediated and heightened tensions in contemporary South Korean society, this essay provides a succinct yet contextualised account of the molka phenomenon. With particular attention to the ways in which the phenomenon has developed while shifting between offline and online realms, the essay demonstrates the gendered nature of digital privacy and harassment, and the broader implications of this Korean phenomenon for women in other parts of the world.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/raw/essays-on-offline-selected-abstracts

Essays on #List — Selected Abstracts

sneha-pp — 2019-09-03T13:38:12Z

In response to a recent call for essays that social, economic, cultural, political, infrastructural, or aesthetic dimensions of the #List, we received 11 abstracts. Out of these, we have selected 4 pieces to be published as part of a series titled #List on the r@w blog. Please find below the details of the selected abstracts. The call for essays on #List remains open, and we are accepting and assessing the incoming abstracts on a rolling basis.

1. Manisha Chachra

2. Meghna Yadav

3. Sarita Bose

4. Shambhavi Madan

Manisha Chachra

MeToo in Indian journalism: Questioning access to internet among intersectional women and idea of rehabilitative justice in digital spaces

The advent of LoSHA and MeToo era witnessed an intriguing intersection of technology, politics and gender. The list and name-shame culture of social media has not only displayed changing power dynamics in digital space but an increasing movement towards engendering of internet spaces. The social, political and economic matrix defined by power relationships -- a patriarchy reflected in internet spaces, percolating in our interactions confronted a major challenge when women rose up to claim the same space. Internet space cannot be called a virtual reality as it is a sharp mirror into what is going in the power dynamics of society and politics. My paper broadly seeks to examine this engendering of spatial reality of digital space by looking at various conversations that took place on Twitter around MeToo in Indian journalism. MeToo has been widely understood as narration of one’s tale and how that experiential reality is connected with other women. However, a universalisation of such an experience often neglects intersectional reality attached to women’s experiences -- belonging to different caste, class, ethnicity and other kinds of differences. My paper attempts to question how far MeToo in digital space accommodated the differential aspects of woman as a heterogeneous category. The spatial realities of technological spaces function like a double edged sword-- liberating as well as mobility paralysing. I use the term mobility paralysis to denote a contradiction in digital space-- which might be equally available to all sections of women but not fairly accessible. The accessibility is often a reflection of deep rooted patriarchies and kinship relationships that bind women in same voiceless zone. MeToo in Indian journalism is a case study of how women of different backgrounds access digital spaces in questioning this mobility paralysis and inch towards a certain kind of emancipatory politics. Examining MeToo from the perspective of a social movement emerging on Twitter and Facebook, I aim to scrutinise scope of rehabilitative justice for the accused. The emergence of lists, and claiming of spaces is attached to the question of justice and being guilty or innocent of allegations. Online spaces in the recent times have also emerged as platforms of e-khaps (online khap panchayats with certain gatekeepers of the movement) where screenshot circulation, photoshop technology could be used to garner a public response against a particular person. It is interesting how after MeToo the question was not whether the person is guilty or accused rather how they should abandon their social media accounts and probably go absent virtually. In such a context, it is crucial to question the relationship between justice, one’s digital identity and who owns this identity. If rehabilitative justice is not an option, and apology-seeking is not available, what are we hoping from MeToo? The aim of any name-shame movement must be to reclaim digital space, narrate experiences and also to leave scope for others to respond, and seek justice. The question of justice is also closely linked with how women from intersectional backgrounds access internet, and emancipate themselves.

Meghna Yadav

For most people, the Internet is now synonymous with social media. Likewise, consumption of content on the Internet has shifted. We’ve moved from an earlier design of explicitly going to content-specific websites, to now, simply “logging in” and being presented with curated content spanning multiple areas. The infrastructure for consuming this content, however, remains predominantly screen based, implying a space constraint. Websites must, hence, decide what content users are to be presented with and in what order. In other words, social media must generate itself as a ranked list of content.

In the classical theory of social choice, a set of voters is called to rank a set of alternatives and a social ranking of the alternatives is generated. In this essay, I propose to look at ranking of content as a social choice problem. Ranking rules of different social media platforms can be studied as social welfare functions for how they aggregate the preferences of their voters (i.e. users). Current listings of content could be modelled as the results of previously held rounds of voting. Taking examples, Reddit is built on a structure of outward voting, visceral through ‘upvotes’ and ‘downvotes’, constantly displaying to users the choice they have to alter content ranks on the website. TikTok, on the other hand, relies on taking away most of the voting power of its users.

As the Internet tends towards centralisation, studying how different list ranking rules aggregate our choices and in turn, alter the choices presented to us, becomes important to design a more democratic Internet.

Sarita Bose

Mapping goes local: A study of how Google Maps tracks user’s footprints and creates a ‘For You’ list

The ‘Explore Nearby’ feature in Google Maps has three sections – Explore, Commute and For You. Of this, ‘For You’ section contains ‘Lists based on your local history’ as mentioned by Google itself. The Google Maps auto tracks a user’s movements and creates a digital footprint map and lists up events, programmes, restaurants, shops etc for the user. This research will focus on the ‘For You’ feature of Google Maps and its cultural and social dimensions. The work will focus on how the mapping is done and the logic behind drawing up the list. It will try to find out how the economy of Google Maps works. Why some lists shows up while some doesn’t. What kind of ‘algorithm – economy – user’ matrix is used to make up the list? The work will also try to understand cultural dimensions based on mind mapping techniques of Google. This research will follow three dimensions. The first is the mapping of user’s footprints itself and how the distance covered by a user becomes the user’s own digital existence. The Google Maps automatically asks for reviews of places the user might have visited or passed. The question is what algorithm is Google using to ask for the review? Is it pre-pointed or post-pointed? Thus, we come to the second part. Is Google only listing places that paid it or is it trying to digitally map a user’s area of geographical reach in general. If so, why? This brings us to the third dimension of the research work. What kind of cultural mapping is done of the user? The list the user gets is based on his own history and as more data is added, the more mapping is done. These three dimensions are intricately woven with each other and the work will try to establish this relationship.

Shambhavi Madan

List of lists of lists: Technologies of power, infrastructures of memory

Lists make infinities comprehensible, and thus controllable. By virtue of the ubiquity of cyberspace and the digitized information infrastructures curating reality within these infinities, we are increasingly subjected to curatorial efforts of individuals as well as codes – algorithmic and architectural.

Statistical lists are Foucauldian technologies of power in modern societies; tools for the functioning of governmentality – not just in terms of state control over population phenomena but the governmentality of groups or individuals over themselves. The framework of biopolitics identifies a bureaucracy imposed by determining social classifications through listing and categorizing, within which people must situate themselves and their actions (Foucault, 2008). Thus, the authorship of lists is often reflective of power that allows for the perpetuation of hegemonic constructions of social reality, making the lists themselves sites of struggle.

This paper seeks to contextualize (public-oriented) lists as forms of biopolitical curation that often lie at points of intersection between collective consciousness and social order, through an approach that problematizes the socio-technics of agency and the subjective objectivity of authorship. Although list-making acts such as the National Population Register, NRC, #LoSHA, the electoral roll, the census, and Vivek Agnihotri’s call for a list of “Urban Naxals” all differ in terms of content, intent, and impact, and contain different asymmetries of power, the lowest common denominator lies in their role as producers of public knowledge and consequently, infrastructures of public memory. This approach allows for a reinterpretation of the fundamental duality of lists of and within publics: the functionality of enforcing/maintaining social order, and the phenomenological practise of publicly self-presenting with a (semi-material) manifestation of a collective identity. The former sees the use of lists as tools of population management, enacting citizenship and belonging through forms of inclusion and exclusion; the latter is reflective of the workings of self-autonomy – redefining the authorship of justice and punishment – in networked societies. Thus, a secondary theme in this paper would be to question the change and significance in the role of authorship through a phenomenological comparative of lists that are institutionalised practice versus those that are open and collaborative.

Both the act of list-making and the lists themselves are framed as coalescences of material and imaginary, by juxtaposing the idea of infrastructures as primarily relationalities – i.e. they can’t be theorized in terms of the object alone (Larkin, 2013) – with Latour’s relational ontology of human and non-human actors. The list itself is a non-human object/actant that after emerging as a product of co-construction, takes on an agential role of its own (Latour, 2005). Each of these lists can be considered as a quasi-object, a complex convergence of the technological and the social. Both #LoSHA and the NRC are not mere placeholders being ‘acted upon’, but real and meaningful actors acting as cultural mediators and not intermediaries. The integration of a socio-technical, infrastructural approach with one that emphasizes upon the aesthetics of authorship and public memory allows the subject to be seen as constitutive of an embodied, relational experience as opposed to just existing as a dissociative (re)presentation.

References:

Foucault, M. 2008. The Birth of Biopolitics: Lectures at the Collège de France 1978-1979. Trans. G. Burchell. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Larkin, B. 2013. "The Politics and Poetics of Infrastructural." Annual Review of Anthropology. 42:327-343.

Latour, B. 2005. Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/raw/essays-on-list-selected-abstracts

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

sumandro — 2015-11-13T05:40:49Z

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Asian Civil Society Organisations and Internet Governance

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

Bangladesh

Cambodia

China

Indonesia

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

India

Iran

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

Japan

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

Kuwait

iJMA3 - Kuwait Information Technology Society (KITS)

Lebanon

Lebanese Center for Civic Education (LCCE)

Malaysia

Internet Society Malaysia Chapter

Myanmar

Myanmar ICT for Development Organization (MIDO)

Nepal

Internet Society Nepal Chapter

Pakistan

Philippines

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

Regional

Singapore

Internet Society Singapore Chapter

South Korea

Sri Lanka

Internet Society Sri Lanka Chapter

Thailand

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

Call for Essays: Studying Internet in India

sumandro — 2016-07-04T12:48:15Z

As Internet makes itself comfortable amidst everyday lives in India, it becomes everywhere and everyware, it comes in 40 MBPS Unlimited and in chhota recharges – though no longer in zero flavour – the Researchers at Work (RAW) programme at the Centre for Internet and Society invites abstracts for essays that explore how do we study internet in India today.

Submission deadline extended to Sunday, July 03.

Source: Leonardo Flores.

How do we move beyond a fascination with new digital things and interfaces that we engage with on the internet, which are increasingly becoming the objects and sites of our research and creative practices? How do we engage with these on their own terms, and perhaps also against the grain? What "new" is being brought in, performed, and afforded by these digital artefacts in our daily lives? How can our concerns and practices benefit from developing an awareness of their aesthetics, functions, and politics?

This call is for researchers, workers, and others interested in closely – or from a distance – commenting on these topics and questions.

Please send abstracts (200 words) to raw@cis-india.org by Sunday, July 03, 2016. The subject of the email should be 'Studying Internet in India.'

We will select up to 10 abstracts and announce them on Tuesday, July 05, 2016.

The selected authors will be asked to submit the final longform essay (3,000-4,000 words) by Sunday, July 31, 2016. The final essays will be published on the RAW Blog. The authors will be offered an honourarium of Rs. 6,000.

We understand that not all essays can be measured in words. The authors are very much welcome to work with text, images, sounds, videos, code, and other mediatic forms that the internet offers. We will not be running a Word Count on the final 'essay.' The basic requirement is that the 'essay' must offer an argument – through text, or otherwise.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/raw/call-for-essays-studying-internet-in-india-2016