The Centre for Internet and Society
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December 2012 Bulletin
https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/december-2012-bulletin
<b>We at the Centre for Internet & Society wish you all a great year ahead. In the December 2012 newsletter, we bring you the draft early chapters of our “National Resource Kit” project for persons with disabilities (covering four southern states); and accessibility-related comments on the Twelfth Five Year Plan; the draft research on pervasive technologies and access to knowledge that we presented at the Global Congress on Intellectual Property and the Public Interest in Brazil; our comments on the privacy implications of including RFID tags in the proposed Rule 138A of the Motor Vehicle Rules, a report on the open access lectures delivered by Prof. Leslie Chan during his tour of India, reports of Wikipedia-related workshops conducted across three cities, and news and media coverage.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Jobs</b></p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">CIS is seeking applications for the posts of <a href="https://cis-india.org/jobs/programme-officer-indian-initiatives">Programme Officer</a> (Access to Knowledge — Indic Language Initiatives), <a href="https://cis-india.org/jobs/vacancy-for-developer">Developer</a> (NVDA Project), <a href="https://cis-india.org/about/jobs/research-manager">Research Manager</a> (Digital Humanities project), and <a href="https://cis-india.org/jobs/programme-officer-access-to-knowledge-and-openness">Policy</a> Associate (Access to Knowledge and Openness) and Policy Associate (Internet Governance). To apply send your resume to <a href="mailto:sunil@cis-india.org">sunil@cis-india.org</a> and <a href="mailto:pranesh@cis-india.org">pranesh@cis-india.org</a>.</p>
<h2><a href="https://cis-india.org/accessibility">Accessibility</a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">India has an estimated 70 million disabled persons who are unable to read printed materials due to some form of physical, sensory, cognitive or other disability. The disabled need accessible content, devices and interfaces facilitated via copyright law and electronic accessibility policies:</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>National Resource Kit for Persons with Disabilities</b><br />CIS received a grant of INR 54,83,200 from the Hans Foundation for Creating a National Kit of Laws, Policies and Programs for Persons with Disabilities on August 16, 2012. Anandhi Vishwanathan from CIS and Shruti Ramakrishnan from the Centre for Law and Policy Research are the researchers presently working for this project. Early draft chapters have been published. Feedback and comments are invited from the readers:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/national-resource-kit-tamil-nadu-chapter-call-for-comments">The Tamil Nadu Chapter</a> (by Shruti Ramakrishnan, December 30, 2012).</li>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/national-resource-kit-karnataka-chapter">The Karnataka Chapter</a> (by Shruti Ramakrishnan, December 30, 2012).</li>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/national-resource-kerala-chapter-call-for-comments">The Kerala Chapter</a> (by Anandi Vishwanathan, December 31, 2012).</li>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/national-resource-kit-andhra-pradesh-call-for-comments">The Andhra Chapter</a> (by Anandi Vishwanathan, December 31, 2012).</li>
</ul>
<h3>Feedback</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/feedback-on-draft-twelfth-five-year-plan">Comments and Feedback on the Draft Twelfth Five Year Plan with respect to Persons with Disabilities</a> (by Rahul Cherian, December 28, 2012).</li>
</ul>
<h3>Media Coverage</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/ip-watch-catherine-saez-december-18-2012-wipo-to-negotiate-treaty-for-the-blind-in-june">WIPO To Negotiate Treaty For The Blind In June; ‘Still Some Distance To Travel’</a> (by Catherine Saez, Intellectual Property Watch, December 18, 2012).</li>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/times-of-india-city-mumbai-madhavi-rajadhyaksha-december-20-2012-disability-groups-in-india-welcome-progress-on-treaty-for-blind-persons">Disability groups in India welcome progress on treaty for blind persons</a> (by Madhavi Rajadhyaksha, December 20, 2012).</li>
</ul>
<h3>Blog Entry</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/wipo-to-convene-conference-to-finalise-tvi-next-year">WIPO to Convene a Diplomatic Conference in Morocco to Finalise TVI</a> (by Rahul Cherian, December 24, 2012).</li>
</ul>
<h2 style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/about/a2k">Access to Knowledge</a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The Access to Knowledge programme addresses the harms caused to consumers, developing countries, human rights, and creativity/innovation from excessive regimes of copyright, patents, and other such monopolistic rights over knowledge:</p>
<h3>Event Organised</h3>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/global-congress-on-ip">2012 Global Congress on Intellectual Property and the Public Interest</a> (FGV Law School, Rio de Janeiro, December 15 – 17, 2012). The Second Global Congress on Intellectual Property and the Public Interest was organized by Fundação Getulio Vargas, American University Washington College of Law, Columbia University, Open AIR, and ICSTD. Sunil Abraham and Pranesh Prakash participated in the event. Pranesh was one of the moderators in the Roundtable Discussion on Priority Policy Forums, Research and Analysis Needs and Commitments.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Research for the Global Congress</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">For the 2012 Global Congress on Intellectual Property and Public Interest event, CIS conducted research. Jadine Lannon (based on research by Annapoornima and Rohan George and with help from Yogesh Kumar did research on documentation of phones and their patent, Amba Kak did research on copyright and mobile licensing, Vikrant Vasudev conducted research on patent pools and valuation methods, Hans Varghese Mathews did research on mathematical models of patent pools and Nehaa Chaudhuri did research on analysis of 3Gand 4G patent pools.</li>
</ul>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
</ul>
<h2 style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/openness">Openness</a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The 'Openness' programme critically examines alternatives to existing regimes of intellectual property rights, and transparency and accountability. Under this programme, we study Open Government Data, Open Access to Scholarly Literature, Open Access to Law, Open Content, Open Standards, and Free/Libre/Open Source Software:</p>
<h3>Event Report</h3>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/openness/blog/random-hacks-of-kindness-december-2012-report">Random Hacks of Kindness Global December 2012 — A Report</a> (by Yogesh Londhe, December 10, 2012). Event was hosted at CIS office in Bangalore. CIS, Amnesty International India Office, Greenpeace India Office, HasGeek, Yahoo Research & Development and SimpleTechLife sponsored the event held in CIS office in Bangalore on December 1 and 2, 2012.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Events Participated</h3>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>‘<a href="https://cis-india.org/news/i-and-n-partners-meeting-rio">Information & Networks’ Partners’ Meeting</a> (organised by International Development Research Centre, Canada in Rio de Janeiro, December 11 – 12, 2013). Sunil Abraham spoke in session on Open Business and IP.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/openness/blog/leslie-chan-gives-five-talks-in-india">Open Access Champion Leslie Chan Delivers Five Talks in India</a> (Department of Library & Information Science, University of Kerala, National Institute of Interdisciplinary Science & Technology, CSIR, Indian Institute of Information Technology and Management – Kerala, Manasa Media Centre, Mysore University Library and SDM Institute for Management Development, December 17 – 20, 2012).</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b><a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/access-to-knowledge-program-plan">Access to Knowledge</a> (Wikipedia Project)</b><br />Beginning from September 1, 2012, Wikimedia Foundation has <a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/access-to-knowledge-program-plan">awarded</a> CIS a two-year grant of INR 26,000,000 to support and develop free knowledge in India. The <a href="http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Access_To_Knowledge/Team" title="Access To Knowledge/Team">A2K team</a> consists of three members based in Delhi: <a href="https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/people/our-team">Nitika Tandon</a>, <a href="https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/people/our-team">Subhashish Panigrahi</a> and <a href="https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/people/our-team">Noopur Raval</a>.</p>
<p><span> </span></p>
<h3>Events Organised</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/openness/blog/wikipedia-workshop-at-nmait">Wikipedia Workshop at NMAIT</a> (NMAIT, Karkala Taluk, December 21, 2012, co-organised in association with Metawings Institute).</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/openness/blog/wikipedia-workshop-at-srm-chennai">Wikipedia Workshop at SRM</a> (SRM University, Chennai, December 17, 2012, co-organised in association with Metawings Institute).</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/openness/blog/marathi-wiki-workshop-at-tiss">Marathi Wiki Workshop at TISS</a> (Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, December 8, 2012).</li>
</ul>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Blog Entries</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/openness/blog/non-unicode-iscii-text-can-be-converted-to-unicode">Non Unicode ISCII Text Can be Converted to Unicode Now!</a> (by Subhashish Panigrahi, December 19, 2012).</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/openness/blog/new-avenues">New Avenues: Media Wiki Groups</a> (by Noopur Raval, December 28, 2012).</li>
</ul>
<h3>News / Media Coverage</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/report-of-odia-wikipedia-workshop-in-iit-kharagpur">A Report of Odia Wikipedia Workshop at IIT, Kharagpur</a> (Samaja, Odia daily, Kolkata edition, December 3, 2012).</li>
</ul>
<h3>Videos</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/openness/events/wikipedia-state-of-tech-talk-by-erik-moeller">Wikipedia: State of Tech — A Talk by Erik Moeller</a> (CIS, Bangalore, November 12, 2012). Erik Moeller, Vice President of Engineering and Product Development at the Wikimedia Foundation gave a talk.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/openness/events/art-in-the-open-source-age">Art in the Open Source Age — A Talk by Gene Kogan</a> (CIS, Bangalore, November 30, 2012). Gene Kogan, a programmer and digital artist gave a talk.</li>
</ul>
<p><span> </span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b><span>HasGeek</span></b><br />HasGeek creates discussion spaces for geeks and has organised conferences like the <a href="http://fifthelephant.in/2012/">Fifth Elephant</a>, <a href="http://droidcon.in/2011">Droidcon India 2011</a>, <a href="http://androidcamp.hasgeek.com/">Android Camp</a>, etc. HasGeek is supported by CIS and works out from CIS office in Bengaluru.</p>
<h3>Upcoming Event</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://metarefresh.in/2013/">Meta Refresh</a> (MLR Convention Centre, JP Nagar, Bangalore, February 22 and 23, 2013).</li>
</ul>
<h2><a href="https://cis-india.org/about/internet-governance">Internet Governance</a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The Internet Governance programme conducts research around the various social, technical, and political underpinnings of global and national Internet governance, and includes online privacy, freedom of speech, and Internet governance mechanisms and processes:</p>
<h3>Analysis of Central Motor Vehicle Rules</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/comments-on-motor-vehicle-rules">Comments on the Proposed Rule 138A of the Central Motor Vehicle Rules, 1989</a> Concerning Radio Frequency Identification Tags (by Bhairav Acharya, December 3, 2012).</li>
</ul>
<p><b> </b></p>
<h3>Columns/Op-eds</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/economic-times-december-2-2012-sunil-abraham-online-censorship">Online Censorship: How Government should Approach Regulation of Speech</a> (by Sunil Abraham, Economic Times, December 5, 2012).</li>
<li>The Worldwide Web of Concerns (by Pranesh Prakash, <a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/deccan-chronicle-pranesh-prakash-december-10-2012-the-worldwide-web-of-concerns">Deccan Chronicle</a>, and <a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/asian-age-column-december-10-2012-pranesh-prakash-the-worldwide-web-of-concerns">Asian Age</a>, December 10, 2012).</li>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/the-hindu-opinion-lead-december-15-2012-chinmayi-arun-the-trouble-with-hurried-solutions">The Trouble with Hurried Solutions</a> (by Chinmayi Arun, The Hindu, December 15, 2012).</li>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/indian-express-nishant-shah-december-29-2012-tomorrow-today">Tomorrow, Today</a> (Nishant Shah, The Indian Express, December 29, 2012).</li>
</ul>
<h3>Event Organised</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/events/meeting-of-network-of-internet-and-society-centers">Meeting of the Network of Internet & Society Centers</a> (organised by Berkman Center for Internet & Society, Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet & Society, Center for Technology & Society, KEIO University SFC, the MIT Media Lab, the MIT Center for Civic Media, NEXA Center for Internet & Society and CIS, Cambridge, Massachusetts, December 6 – 8, 2012).</li>
</ul>
<h3>Upcoming Events</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/events/dml-conference-2013">DML Conference 2013</a> (Sheraton Chicago Hotel & Towers - Chicago, Illinois, March 14 – 16, 2012).</li>
</ul>
<h3>Events Participated</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/second-international-e-governance-conference-at-baghdad">Second International e-Governance Conference</a> (organized by the National Committee for Corporate Governance Electronic Iraq and the United Nations Development Programme, Rashid Hotel, Baghdad, December 2, 2012). Sunil Abraham presented on "Review of the Legal Environment in Iraq for Effective e-Governance".</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/seminar-artist-talks-outresourcing-with-the-transmediale-collective">Seminar/Artist Talks : "Outresourcing" with the Transmediale Collective</a> (organised by the Berlin - Transmediale new media collective, December 3, 2012, Bangalore). Sharath Chandra Ram presented a White Paper. </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">World Conference on International Telecommunications (organised by ITU, December 3 – 14). Chinmayi Arun participated as a civil society representative.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/internet-driven-developments">Internet Driven Developments: Structural Changes and Tipping Points</a> (organised by Berkman Center for Internet & Society, Cambridge, Massachusetts at Harvard University, December 6 – 8, 2012).</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://www.eihr.ee/en/annualconference/conference-2012/program/">Annual Conference on Human Rights 2012</a> (organised by Estonian Institute of Human Rights and Google). Malavika Jayaram participated as a panelist.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/state-surveillance-and-human-rights-camp">State Surveillance and Human Rights Camp</a> (Sheraton Rio Hotel & Resort, Rio, Brazil, December 13 and 14, 2012). Elonnai Hickok made a presentation on MLATS and International Cooperation for Law Enforcement Purposes.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VC9G_tbxI9Y">Economic Impact of Internet in India</a> (organised by Aspen Institute India, December 21, 2012). Chinmayi Arun attended this event.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Blog Entries</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/transcripts-of-wcit-2012">Transcripts from WCIT-12</a> (by Snehashish Ghosh, December 3, 2012).</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/section-66-a-information-technology-act-2000-cases">Section 66-A, Information Technology Act, 2000: Cases</a> (by Snehashish Ghosh, December 3, 2012).</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/internet-driven-developments">Internet-driven Developments — Structural Changes and Tipping Points</a> (by Elonnai Hickok, December 28, 2012).</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/state-surveillance-human-rights-camp-summary">State Surveillance and Human Rights Camp: Summary</a> (by Elonnai Hickok, December 31, 2012).</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/mining-the-web-collective">Mining the Web Collective</a> (by Sharath Chandra Ram, December 31, 2012).</li>
</ul>
<h3>Video</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/events/technology-culture-and-events-in-south-east-asia">Technology Culture and Events in South East Asia — A Presentation by Preetam Rai</a> (CIS, Bangalore, December 18, 2012). Preetam Rai gave a lecture.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Media Coverage</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/telegraphindia-december-3-2012-gs-mudur-66a-cut-and-paste-job">66A ‘cut & paste job’</a> (by GS Mudur, Telegraph, December 3, 2012). Pranesh Prakash and Snehashish Ghosh are quoted.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/livemint-december-6-2012-surabhi-agarwal-ayodhya-trending-on-twitter-sparks-censorship-concerns">Ayodhya trending on Twitter sparks censorship concerns</a> (by Surabhi Agarwal, December 6, 2012). Sunil Abraham is quoted.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/the-hindu-sci-tech-internet-december-10-2012-vasudha-venugopal-debate-on-section-66a">Debate on Section 66A rages on</a> (Vasudha Venugopal, The Hindu, December 10, 2012). Pranesh Prakash is quoted.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/times-of-india-india-times-december-13-2012-kim-arora-hacktivists-deface-bsnl-website">Hacktivists deface BSNL website</a> (by Kim Arora, The Times of India, December 13, 2012).</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/livemint-december-16-2012-surabhi-agarwal-govt-likely-to-issue-guidelines-to-clarify-it-rules-soon">Govt likely to issue guidelines to clarify IT rules soon</a> (by Surabhi Agarwal, LiveMint, December 16, 2012).</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/india-today-rahul-jayaram-december-18-2012-the-freedom-of-expression-debate">The freedom of expression debate: The State must mend fences with The Web</a> (by Rahul Jayaram, India Today, December 18, 2012).</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/dna-bangalore-december-19-2012-the-it-act-is-fine-but-its-interpretation-is-not">‘The IT Act is fine, but its interpretation is not’</a> (DNA, December 19, 2012).</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/times-of-india-december-22-2012-kim-arora-no-fear-of-losing-internet-freedom-till-jan-15">No fear of losing internet freedom till Jan 15: Experts</a> (by Kim Arora, The Times of India, December 22, 2012). Pranesh Prakash is quoted.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/livemint-december-27-2012-surabhi-agarwal-un-agrees-to-review-agencies-governing-internet">UN agrees to review agencies governing Internet</a> (by Surabhi Agarwal, LiveMint, December 27, 2012). Pranesh Prakash is quoted.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/times-of-india-december-29-2012-delhi-gang-rape">Delhi gang rape: What Facebook, Twitter expose about govt</a> (The Times of India, December 31, 2012). Pranesh Prakash is quoted.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/the-hindu-december-31-2012-op-ed-a-note-of-dissent-on-cash-transfers-and-uid">A note of dissent on cash transfers and UID</a> (The Hindu, December 31, 2012). Sunil Abraham was one of the signatories.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/times-of-india-december-31-2012-javed-anwer-and-rukmini-shrinivasan-the-year-social-media-came-of-age-in-india">The year social media came of age in India</a> (by Javed Anwer and Rukmini Shrinivasan, The Times of India, December 31, 2012). Sunil Abraham is quoted.</li>
</ul>
<p><b> </b></p>
<h2><a href="https://cis-india.org/about/telecom">Telecom</a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">While the potential for growth and returns exist for telecommunications in India, a range of issues need to be addressed. One aspect is more extensive rural coverage and the other is a countrywide access to broadband which is low. Both require effective and efficient use of networks and resources, including spectrum:</p>
<h3>Newspaper Column</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/organizing-india-blogspot-shyam-ponappa-december-11-2012-inflation-control-through-structural-reforms">Inflation Control Through Structural Reforms</a> (by Shyam Ponappa, Business Standard, December 11, 2012).</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b><a href="https://cis-india.org/about/telecom/telecom-knowledge-repository/knowledge-and-capacity-around-telecom-policy">Building Knowledge and Capacity around Telecommunication Policy in India</a></b><br />Ford Foundation has given a grant of USD 2,00,000 to CIS to build expertise in the area of telecommunications in India. The knowledge repository deals with these modules: Introduction to Telecommunications, Telecommunications Infrastructure and Technologies, Government of India Regulatory Framework for Telecom, Telecommunication and the Market, Universal Access and Accessibility, The International Telecommunications Union and other international bodies, Broadcasting, Emerging Topics and Way Forward. Dr. Surendra Pal, Satya N Gupta, Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, Payal Malik, Dr. Rakesh Mehrotra and Dr. Nadeem Akhtar are the expert reviewers.</p>
<p>The following are the new outputs:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/telecom/telecom-knowledge-repository/licensing-framework-for-telecom">Licensing Framework for Telecom: A Historical Overview</a> (by Snehashish Ghosh, December 31, 2012).</li>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/telecom/telecom-knowledge-repository/market-structure-in-telecom-industry">Market Structure in the Telecom Industry</a> (by Snehashish Ghosh, December 31, 2012).</li>
</ul>
<h2><a href="https://cis-india.org/about/digital-natives">Digital Natives</a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Digital Natives with a Cause? examines the changing landscape of social change and political participation in light of the role that young people play through digital and Internet technologies, in emerging information societies. Consolidating knowledge from Asia, Africa and Latin America, it builds a global network of knowledge partners who critically engage with discourse on youth, technology and social change, and look at alternative practices and ideas in the Global South:</p>
<h3>Book Review</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/indian-express-december-8-2012-nishant-shah-not-just-fancy-television">Not Just Fancy Television</a> (by Nishant Shah, Indian Express, December 8, 2012): Nishant Shah reviews Ben Hammersley's book "64 Things You Need to Know for Then: How to Face the Digital Future Without Fear ", published by Hodder & Stoughton.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Media Coverage</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/cnn-december-8-2012-oliver-joy-what-does-it-mean-to-be-a-digital-native">What does it mean to be a digital native?</a> (by Oliver Joy, CNN, December 8, 2012).</li>
</ul>
<h2><a href="http://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/">About CIS</a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">CIS was registered as a society in Bangalore in 2008. As an independent, non-profit research organisation, it runs different policy research programmes such as Accessibility, Access to Knowledge, Openness, Internet Governance, and Telecom. The policy research programmes have resulted in outputs such as the <a href="https://cis-india.org/about/advocacy/accessibility/blog/e-accessibility-handbook">e-Accessibility Policy Handbook for Persons with Disabilities</a> with ITU and G3ict, and <a href="https://cis-india.org/about/digital-natives/front-page/blog/dnbook">Digital Alternatives with a Cause?</a>, <a href="https://cis-india.org/about/digital-natives/front-page/blog/position-papers">Thinkathon Position Papers</a> and the <a href="https://cis-india.org/about/digital-natives/front-page/blog/digital-natives-with-a-cause-a-report">Digital Natives with a Cause? Report</a> with Hivos, etc. We conducted policy research for the Ministry of Communications & Information Technology, Ministry of Human Resource Development, Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, etc., on <a href="https://cis-india.org/about/a2k/blog/cis-analysis-july2011-treaty-print-disabilities">WIPO Treaties</a>, <a href="https://cis-india.org/about/a2k/blog/analysis-copyright-amendment-bill-2012">Copyright Bill</a>, <a href="https://cis-india.org/about/internet-governance/front-page/blog/cis-feedback-to-nia-bill">NIA Bill</a>, etc. CIS is accredited as an observer at WIPO, and has given policy briefs to delegations from various countries, our Programme Manager, Nirmita Narasimhan won the <a href="https://cis-india.org/about/accessibility/blog/national-award">National Award for Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities</a> from the Government of India and also received the <a href="https://cis-india.org/about/news/nirmita-nivh-award">NIVH Excellence Award</a>.</p>
<p><b>Follow us elsewhere</b></p>
<ul>
<li>Get short, timely messages from us on <a href="https://twitter.com/cis_india">Twitter</a></li>
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<p><b>Support Us</b><br />Please help us defend consumer / citizen rights on the Internet! Write a cheque in favour of ‘The Centre for Internet and Society’ and mail it to us at No. 194, 2nd ‘C’ Cross, Domlur, 2nd Stage, Bengaluru – 5600 71.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Request for Collaboration</b><br />We invite researchers, practitioners, and theoreticians, both organisationally and as individuals, to collaboratively engage with Internet and society and improve our understanding of this new field. To discuss the research collaborations, write to Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, at <a href="mailto:sunil@cis-india.org">sunil@cis-india.org</a> or Nishant Shah, Director – Research, at <a href="mailto:nishant@cis-india.org">nishant@cis-india.org</a></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><i>CIS is grateful to its donors, Wikimedia Foundation, Ford Foundation, Privacy International, UK, Hans Foundation and the Kusuma Trust which was founded by Anurag Dikshit and Soma Pujari, philanthropists of Indian origin, for its core funding and support for most of its projects.</i></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/december-2012-bulletin'>https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/december-2012-bulletin</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaAccess to KnowledgeDigital NativesTelecomAccessibilityInternet GovernanceOpenness2013-01-16T05:15:27ZPageWhat does it mean to be a digital native?
https://cis-india.org/news/cnn-december-8-2012-oliver-joy-what-does-it-mean-to-be-a-digital-native
<b>The war between natives and immigrants is ending. The natives have won.</b>
<hr />
<p class="cnn_storypgraph2 cnn_storypgraphtxt" style="text-align: justify; ">Oliver Joy's blog post was <a class="external-link" href="http://edition.cnn.com/2012/12/04/business/digital-native-prensky/index.html">published by CNN</a> on December 8, 2012. Nishant Shah is quoted, criticising Marc Prensky's ideas of digital nativity as borne of privilege and first-world centricity.</p>
<hr />
<p class="cnn_storypgraph2 cnn_storypgraphtxt" style="text-align: justify; ">It was a bloodless conflict fought not with bullets and spears, but with iPhones and floppy disks. Now the battle between the haves and have-nots can begin.</p>
<p class="cnn_storypgraph3 cnn_storypgraphtxt" style="text-align: justify; ">The post-millennial "digital native," a term coined by U.S. author Marc Prensky in 2001 is emerging as the globe's dominant demographic, while the "digital immigrant," becomes a relic of a previous time.</p>
<p class="cnn_storypgraph4 cnn_storypgraphtxt" style="text-align: justify; ">The digital native-immigrant concept describes the generational switchover where people are defined by the technological culture which they're familiar with.</p>
<p class="cnn_storypgraph5 cnn_storypgraphtxt" style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2012/12/04/business/digital-native-prensky/index.html">Read more: China looks to lead the Internet of Things</a></p>
<p class="cnn_storypgraph6 cnn_storypgraphtxt" style="text-align: justify; ">Prensky defines digital natives as those born into an innate "new culture" while the digital immigrants are old-world settlers, who have lived in the analogue age and immigrated to the digital world.</p>
<p class="cnn_storypgraph7 cnn_storypgraphtxt" style="text-align: justify; ">Although not Luddites, the immigrants struggle more than natives to adapt to hi-tech progress.</p>
<p class="cnn_storypgraph8 cnn_storypgraphtxt" style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2012/11/29/business/opinion-cerf-google-internet-freedom/index.html">Read more: 'Father of the internet': Fight for its freedom </a></p>
<p class="cnn_storypgraph9 cnn_storypgraphtxt" style="text-align: justify; ">The author of "Teaching Digital Natives," whose success pushed him onto the speaking circuit, says the explosion of technology over the last 10 years is just the start of a symbiotic new world. Computers and handsets are becoming an extension of body and mind, creating a Cyborg-like population.</p>
<p class="cnn_storypgraph10 cnn_storypgraphtxt" style="text-align: justify; ">Prensky cites the 100-meter runner Oscar Pistorius, an athlete with prosthetic legs, as an example of how technology is used to enhance our lives. He told CNN: "For humans, what used to be this body of flesh and bone, all that is now just the center... Being human is a moving target."</p>
<p class="cnn_storypgraph11 cnn_storypgraphtxt" style="text-align: justify; "><b>The human race and its struggle to keep up with technology</b></p>
<p class="cnn_storypgraph12 cnn_storypgraphtxt" style="text-align: justify; ">Prensky says that at no time in history has technology moved so fast. Today the latest high-tech gizmos can be passe even before hitting the shop floors.</p>
<p class="cnn_storypgraph13 cnn_storypgraphtxt" style="text-align: justify; ">In the past -- during the post-industrial revolution era, for example -- accelerating technology has plateaued. So, with the meteoric rise of new social media outlets including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Skype, history suggests the world is overdue for a slowdown.</p>
<p class="cnn_storypgraph14 cnn_storypgraphtxt" style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2012/12/04/business/digital-native-prensky/index.html">Read more: Why aren't robots doing my dishes yet?</a></p>
<p class="cnn_storypgraph15 cnn_storypgraphtxt" style="text-align: justify; ">But Prensky says this time, any slowdown in the digital age is a "myth," as innovation will only press forward "faster... And faster and faster."</p>
<p class="cnn_storypgraph16 cnn_storypgraphtxt" style="text-align: justify; ">He told CNN: "We are not going through a transition to another faze of stability, and that is the key point. People will always be behind now and that will be a stress they have to cope with."</p>
<p class="cnn_storypgraph17 cnn_storypgraphtxt" style="text-align: justify; "><b>The new norm</b></p>
<p class="cnn_storypgraph18 cnn_storypgraphtxt" style="text-align: justify; ">Connecting with one another in the modern world requires a knack for social networking and texting, which is the norm for the digital native. But for the immigrant, it can be akin to learning a whole new language.</p>
<p class="cnn_storypgraph19 cnn_storypgraphtxt" style="text-align: justify; ">Prensky illustrates his point with former director of the CIA David Petraeus. In November, he was embroiled in a scandal that revealed he had an affair with Paula Broadwell.</p>
<p class="cnn_storypgraph20 cnn_storypgraphtxt" style="text-align: justify; ">The FBI uncovered the affair while it investigated e-mails that Broadwell allegedly sent to a Petraeus family friend, Jill Kelley.</p>
<p class="cnn_storypgraph21 cnn_storypgraphtxt" style="text-align: justify; ">Prensky labels this naivety by immigrants as "digital stupidity" -- by assuming that when people decide to post online or send e-mails, they believe privacy is automatically applicable.</p>
<p class="cnn_storypgraph21 cnn_storypgraphtxt" style="text-align: justify; ">"People get frightened by change and they should be. They need courage to face the future these days, especially those who feel left behind." Prensky said. "People adapt instinctively and humans are very good at that. The young people live in the context; the older people see the changing context and struggle."</p>
<p class="cnn_storypgraph23 cnn_storypgraphtxt" style="text-align: justify; "><b>Digital poverty</b></p>
<p class="cnn_storypgraph24 cnn_storypgraphtxt" style="text-align: justify; ">As technology filters into every corner of the globe and tech cities spring up in some unlikely places from Bangalore to Tel Aviv, a new gulf is emerging to separate the digitally savvy from the disconnected: Poverty.</p>
<p class="cnn_storypgraph25 cnn_storypgraphtxt" style="text-align: justify; ">In India, over two-thirds of the population live on less than $2 a day, according to the World Bank. But a <a href="http://www.inweh.unu.edu/News/2010-04_UNU-INWEH_News-Release_Sanitation.pdf" target="_blank">United Nations report</a> still says that mobile phones are more common than toilets, with nearly half of India's 1.2 billion population armed with a handset.</p>
<p class="cnn_storypgraph26 cnn_storypgraphtxt" style="text-align: justify; ">Nishant Shah, a director at the Centre for Internet and Society in India, told CNN that defining natives and immigrants by generation is a "serious concern." According to Shah, Prensky's views were formed from the "privileged" position of living in the U.S.</p>
<p class="cnn_storypgraph27 cnn_storypgraphtxt" style="text-align: justify; ">Shah added: "[Prensky's] observations may describe a generation gap that the U.S. faced, but if you transplant the same definition to other parts of the world, natives are sometimes indistinguishable from immigrants."</p>
<p class="cnn_storypgraph28 cnn_storypgraphtxt" style="text-align: justify; ">The real fear for Shah is the new hierarchies created by digital literacy and the class systems that will be shaped by access to digital technologies.</p>
<p class="cnn_storypgraph29 cnn_storypgraphtxt" style="text-align: justify; "><b>The call of the developing world</b></p>
<p class="cnn_storypgraph30 cnn_storypgraphtxt" style="text-align: justify; ">As mobile networks extend their reach and areas become increasingly urbanized, Western tech companies are seeking to tap markets with large populations.</p>
<p class="cnn_storypgraph31 cnn_storypgraphtxt" style="text-align: justify; ">Last year, Finnish phone maker Nokia released a range of smart phones targeted at consumers in emerging markets, particularly in Asia, to compete with cheaper Android devices.</p>
<p class="cnn_storypgraph32 cnn_storypgraphtxt" style="text-align: justify; ">But Shah argues bombarding a country with technology and infrastructure is not a rounded solution to the digital poverty problem.</p>
<p class="cnn_storypgraph33 cnn_storypgraphtxt" style="text-align: justify; ">India, for example, has connectivity and access in abundance, but the country continues to suffer from a generation of "digitally poor classes." He argues that simply providing the equipment does not help young people understand how that technology can better their lives without education and training.</p>
<p class="cnn_storypgraph34 cnn_storypgraphtxt" style="text-align: justify; ">Shah told CNN: "Just because young people have tech access in India, it doesn't make them digital natives." He added, "It creates digital outcasts -- people whose supposed problem of access to the world has been resolved."</p>
<p class="cnn_storypgraph35 cnn_storypgraphtxt" style="text-align: justify; ">Prensky, however, believes a "networked planet" is a sign developing nations will soon close the digital divide. Even those who don't yet have the technology still know that it exists, and will have it before long.</p>
<p class="cnn_storypgraph36 cnn_storypgraphtxt" style="text-align: justify; "><b>The world in 2020</b></p>
<p class="cnn_storypgraph37 cnn_storypgraphtxt" style="text-align: justify; ">By 2020, Prensky predicts people across the globe will be plugged into the "AORTA," -- <a href="http://www.tapsns.com/aboutmark.php" target="_blank">Always On RealTime Access</a> -- a term coined by Mark Anderson, the chief of the Strategic News Service -- specializing in technology news. A future in which people are constantly able to access information and news from anywhere on the planet.</p>
<p class="cnn_storypgraph38 cnn_storypgraphtxt" style="text-align: justify; ">Shah says that the works of science fiction may offer the most accurate insight into our futuristic society.</p>
<p class="cnn_storypgraph39 cnn_storypgraphtxt" style="text-align: justify; ">He said: "The presents that we live in, are the futures that our pasts have imagined."</p>
<p class="cnn_storypgraph40 cnn_storypgraphtxt" style="text-align: justify; ">"Let us hope that the technologies of the future will also be designed to protect that which is sacred, and that which is important in our own understanding of being human."</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/news/cnn-december-8-2012-oliver-joy-what-does-it-mean-to-be-a-digital-native'>https://cis-india.org/news/cnn-december-8-2012-oliver-joy-what-does-it-mean-to-be-a-digital-native</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaDigital Natives2012-12-10T04:21:00ZNews ItemNot Just Fancy Television
https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/indian-express-december-8-2012-nishant-shah-not-just-fancy-television
<b>Nishant Shah reviews Ben Hammersley's book "64 Things You Need to Know for Then: How to Face the Digital Future Without Fear ", published by Hodder & Stoughton </b>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify;">The review was<a class="external-link" href="http://www.indianexpress.com/news/not-just-fancy-television/1042040/0"> published in the Indian Express</a> on December 8, 2012.</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify;">Let us begin by acknowledging that when the world was learning how to drive on the information highway, Ben Hammersley was out there, instructing us how to do it best. So it doesn’t surprise that 64 Things You Need to Know for Then: How to Face the Digital Future Without Fear, despite its untweetable title, is quite spot-on when it comes to describing our digital pasts, demystifying our interweb presents and preparing us for technosocial futures. Well-written, interspersed with illustrative anecdotes, reflective experiences and speculative ideas, the book looks at the good, the bad and the downright bizarre that the digital turn has introduced in our lives. Working through moments of nostalgia for things that have already become obsolete, and through experiences that morph even before we can comprehend them, Hammersley writes (or, as he suggests in his introduction — co-writes with hundreds of anonymous contributors) a book that is readable, for those seeking to understand how the digital world moves and those who want to remember their own role in shaping forgotten trends.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The book also attempts to answer some of the troublesome tensions in our understanding of our contemporary digital lives. Hammersley’s basic intention in writing the book is to show how technological shifts are not merely about changing usage patterns. It radically (and often dramatically) restructures our domains of life, language and labour. Older structures have become redundant and the new ones have not yet found their feet. There are many who attempt to think of the internet as a mere extension of older media practices. But as he says, “The internet is absolutely not just fancy television.” It is a technology that is reshaping everything we had understood about who we are and how we relate to the world around us.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">However, Hammersley suggests, the ways in which the internet is rapidly transforming the world leads to a clear divide around technology literacy. The “technologically literate” are shaping the digital turn, experimenting and exploring the possibilities, but unable to fall back upon older structures of assurance to know whether the choices they are making are sustainable. At the same time, the “technologically illiterate” are still responsible for shaping a world that they are quickly losing track of.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">This book clearly explains the technological, legal, cultural, social and economic shifts of the last 20 years, and how they foretell our futures, without complicating it with geeky discourses on code or theoretical bluster.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Hammersley also ensures that the book is not merely a glossary of terms. He has the most interesting anecdotes from around the world like Harry Potter fan-fiction and crowdsourced translations in Germany challenging intellectual property rights regimes, the Human Flesh Search Engines in China, which threaten to reinforce regressive mob politics while also enabling cultural vigilantes in our societies. He also goes beyond individual concerns and reflects on the larger political concerns of censorship, control and freedom, discussing with great lucidity, the complicated nuances of hacker groups like Anonymous, political effects of collectives like WikiLeaks, etc. It is an exciting mash-up of events that will make you smile at the audacity and irreverence of the players in the digital playground, but will also make you shiver as it lays bare the new authoritarian and violent regimes that emerge with digital technologies.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Instead of taking partisan positions about something as necessarily good or bad, Hammersley documents some of the practices, effects and affects of technology, to show how our world has changed. There is no explanation of why the list stops at 64 things. But it is a well curated list of social, cultural, economic and political concerns and provides a conversational account of the present and future, speculating, like an old friend on the living room couch on a Sunday afternoon.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The only criticism against Hammersley is that he is too dependent on the rules of the internet to explain the internet. The different laws that have evolved in computing and network theory, in the sociology of the Web and the economic analysis of information societies, are accepted too easily, and used as self-evident explanatory frameworks. But then, this is not a book pretending to argue for a new conceptual framework. It is a book that has set out to educate and entertain, slowly unfolding the fractured narratives of the Web from its military origins to its Arab Spring manifestations. Of the many books that are already flooding the market, trying to decode the Web, Hammersley’s list of 64 things is going to be at the top.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><em>The writer is Director (Research), Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore</em></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/indian-express-december-8-2012-nishant-shah-not-just-fancy-television'>https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/indian-express-december-8-2012-nishant-shah-not-just-fancy-television</a>
</p>
No publishernishantFeaturedResearchers at WorkBook ReviewDigital Natives2015-04-24T11:45:14ZBlog EntryWhose Change Is It Anyway? | DML2013
https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/nishant-shah-whose-change-is-it-anyway
<b>As a preparation for the DML conference, Nishant Shah had an interview with Howard Rheingold, a cyberculture pioneer, social media innovator, and author of "Smart Mobs. Nishant Shah is chair of 'Whose Change Is It Anyway? Futures, Youth, Technology And Citizen Action In The Global South (And The Rest Of The World)' track at DML2013. Here, he talks about shifts in citizen engagement in Indian politics and civics, and the underlying significance of these changes.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify;">"More and more, you have young people who are trying to come together, not merely to express discontent, but actually take action so that they can build the kinds of futures they want to occupy."</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The 2013 DML conference will be held in March 14-16, 2013 in Chicago, Illinois. The conference is supported by the MacArthur Foundation and organized by the Digital Media and Learning Research Hub located at the University of California's systemwide Humanities Research Institute at UC Irvine.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">More details about the DML2013 Conference and the Call For Workshop/Panel/Paper Proposals can be found at the conference website: <a class="external-link" href="http://dml2013.dmlhub.net">dml2013.dmlhub.net</a>.</p>
<hr />
<h3 style="text-align: justify;">Video</h3>
<p><iframe src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/Q1ueRSm1TTw" frameborder="0" height="315" width="320"></iframe></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/nishant-shah-whose-change-is-it-anyway'>https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/nishant-shah-whose-change-is-it-anyway</a>
</p>
No publishernishantVideoCyberculturesResearchers at WorkDigital Natives2015-04-24T11:47:19ZBlog EntryOctober 2012 Bulletin
https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/october-2012-bulletin
<b>Welcome to the newsletter of October 2012 from the Centre for Internet & Society (CIS). The present issue features an analysis by Ujwala Uppaluri of the Delhi High Court’s judgment in Super Cassettes v. MySpace, announcement of public call for comments for reports on “Banking and Accessibility in India” and “Making TV Accessible in India”, and updates on Indic languages.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Jobs</b><br />CIS is seeking applications the posts of <a href="https://cis-india.org/jobs/research-manager">Research Manager</a> and <a href="https://cis-india.org/jobs/programme-officer-internet-governance">Programme Officer – Internet Governance</a>. To apply send your resume to <a href="mailto:sunil@cis-india.org">sunil@cis-india.org</a>.</p>
<table class="vertical listing">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>
<h2><a href="https://cis-india.org/accessibility">Accessibility</a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">India has an estimated 70 million disabled persons who are unable to read printed materials due to some form of physical, sensory, cognitive or other disability. The disabled need accessible content, devices and interfaces facilitated via copyright law and electronic accessibility policies:</p>
<h3>Public Call for Comments</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/banking-and-accessibility-in-india">Banking and Accessibility in India: A Study on Banking Accessibility in India</a> (by Vrinda Maheshwari, October 30, 2012). </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/making-tv-accessible-in-india">Making TV Accessible in India</a> (by Srividya Vaidyanathan, October 8, 2012). </li>
</ul>
<h3>Blog Entries</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/hathitrust-judgment-and-its-impact-on-tvi-negotiations-at-wipo">The HathiTrust Judgment and its impact on TVI negotiations at WIPO</a> (by Rahul Cherian, October 30, 2012).</li>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/wipo-approves-road-map-on-tv">WIPO General Assemblies Approve Road Map on Treaty for the Visually Impaired</a> (by Rahul Cherian, October 11, 2012).</li>
</ul>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<h2><a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k">Access to Knowledge</a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The Access to Knowledge programme addresses the harms caused to consumers, developing countries, human rights, and creativity/innovation from excessive regimes of copyright, patents, and other such monopolistic rights over knowledge:</p>
<h3>Analysis</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blog/super-cassettes-v-my-space">Super Cassettes v. MySpace</a> (by Ujwala Uppaluri, October 31, 2012).</li>
</ul>
<h3>Blog Entry</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blog/icomm-2012-report">ICOMM2012: International Communications and Electronics Fair</a> (by Jadine Lannon, October 31, 2012).</li>
</ul>
<h3>Event Organised</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/events/workshop-exploring-the-internals-of-mobile-technologies-1">A Workshop on "Exploring the Internals of Mobile Technologies"</a> (TERI Southern Regional Centre 4th Main, Domlur II Stage Bangalore, October 27, 2012).</li>
</ul>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<h2><a href="https://cis-india.org/about/openness">Openness</a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The 'Openness' programme critically examines alternatives to existing regimes of intellectual property rights, and transparency and accountability. Under this programme, we study Open Government Data, Open Access to Scholarly Literature, Open Access to Law, Open Content, Open Standards, and Free/Libre/Open Source Software:</p>
<h3>Wikipedia Education Programs</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/openness/blog/launch-of-assamese-wikipedia-education-program">Launch of Assamese Wikipedia Education Program at Guwahati University</a> (by Nitika Tandon, October 22, 2012).</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/openness/blog/malayalam-wikipedia-education-program-august-october-update">Malayalam Wikipedia Education Program: August to October Updates</a> (by Shiju Alex, October 29, 2012).</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/openness/blog/gujarati-wikipedia-education-program-rajkot">Gujarat Wikipedia Education Program: Rajkot</a> (by Noopur Raval, October 31, 2012).</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/openness/blog/gujarati-wikipedia-article-competition">Gujarati Wikipedia Article Competition – 10 schools, 200 students, 20 articles on Gujarati Wikipedia</a> (by Noopur Raval, October 31, 2012).</li>
</ul>
<h3>Wikipedia Workshops</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: left; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/openness/blog/bengaluru-a-hub-for-kannada-and-sanskrit-wikipedia">Bengaluru: A Hub for Kannada and Sanskrit Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects!</a> (by Subhashish Panigrahi, October 16, 2012).</li>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/openness/blog/wikipedia-workshop-ghaziabad">Wikipedia workshop @ Inmantec College, Ghaziabad</a> (by Nitika Tandon, October 19, 2012).</li>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/openness/blog/wiki-women-day-2012-pune">Bridging Gender Gap in Pune: WikiWomenDay 2012 Celebrated with Success!</a> (by Subhashish Panigrahi, PAI International Learning Solutions, Azam Campus, Pune, October 28, 2012).</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/openness/blog/first-pune-odia-wikipedia-organized">First Pune Odia Wikipedia Organized!</a> (by Subhashish Panigrahi, October 31, 2012).</li>
</ul>
<h3>Wikipedia Event</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/openness/events/wikipedia-hackathon-bits-hyderabad">Wikipedia Hackathon at BITS</a> Hyderabad (organized by CIS - A2K team and BITS-Pilani, Hyderabad, October 26 – 27, 2012).</li>
</ul>
<h3>Wikipedia Press Coverage</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.orissadiary.com/ShowEvents.asp?id=37463">Odisha: Odia Wikipedia workshop organized in Pune to promote Odia language</a> (OdishaDiary.com, October 31, 2012).</li>
</ul>
<h3>Wikipedia Team Updates</h3>
<ul>
<li>The <a href="http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Access_To_Knowledge/Team" title="Access To Knowledge/Team">A2K team</a> consists of three members based in Delhi: <a href="https://cis-india.org/about/people/our-team">Nitika Tandon</a>, <a href="https://cis-india.org/about/people/our-team">Subhashish Panigrahi</a> and <a href="https://cis-india.org/about/people/our-team">Noopur Raval</a>.</li>
<li>We are seeking applications for the post of <a href="https://cis-india.org/jobs/vacancy-for-programme-director">Programme Director</a> (Access to Knowledge) for the New Delhi office.</li>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/about/people/our-team">Shiju Alex</a>, Program Manager, Access to Knowledge is leaving the organisation. November 16, 2012 will be his last working day. We wish him success in all his future endeavours. </li>
</ul>
<p><b> </b></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th style="text-align: left; ">
<p><b>HasGeek</b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">HasGeek creates discussion spaces for geeks and has organised conferences like the <a href="http://fifthelephant.in/2012/">Fifth Elephant</a>, <a href="http://droidcon.in/2011">Droidcon India 2011</a>, <a href="http://androidcamp.hasgeek.com/">Android Camp</a>, etc. HasGeek is supported by CIS and works out from CIS office in Bengaluru. The following event was organised by HasGeek in the month of October:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://hacknight.in/droidconin/2012">Droidcon 2012</a> (CIS, Bangalore, October 27 – 28, 2012).</li>
</ul>
</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<h2><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance">Internet Governance</a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The Internet Governance programme conducts research around the various social, technical, and political underpinnings of global and national Internet governance, and includes online privacy, freedom of speech, and Internet governance mechanisms and processes:</p>
<h3>Column</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/epw-web-exclusives-oct-27-2012-elonnai-hickok-rethinking-dna-profiling-india">Rethinking DNA Profiling in India</a> (by Elonnai Hickok, Economic & Political Weekly, Vol - XLVII No. 43, October 27, 2012).</li>
</ul>
<h3>Analysis</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/privacy-perspectives-on-the-2012-2013-goa-beach-shack-policy">Privacy Perspectives on the 2012 -2013 Goa Beach Shack Policy</a> (by Elonnai Hickok, October 25, 2012).</li>
</ul>
<h3>Upcoming IGF Events</h3>
<p>At the seventh annual IGF meeting to be held in Baku, Azerbaijan in November 2012, CIS is organising one workshop:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/national-ig-mechanisms">National IG Mechanisms – Looking at Some Key Design Issues</a> (co-organising with Brazilian Internet Steering Committee, Institute for System Analysis, Russian Academy of Sciences, et.al., November 8, 2012 from 2.30 p.m. to 4.00 p.m).</li>
</ul>
<p>Pranesh Prakash is a panelist in the following workshop:</p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/new-trends-in-industry-self-governance">New Trends in Industry Self-Governance</a> (organised by Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford, UK and Media Change & Innovation Division, IPMZ, University of Zurich, Switzerland and Nominet, UK, November 7, 2012 from 4.30 p.m. to 6.00 p.m).</li>
</ul>
<p>CIS fellow Malavika Jayaram is a panelist for these workshops:</p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/intgovforum-cms-w2012-proposals">Civil rights in the digital age, about the impact the Internet has on civil rights</a> (organised by ECP on behalf of the IGF-NL, November 7, 2012, 4.30 p.m. to 6.00 p.m.).</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/intgovforum-cms-w2012-proposals-governing-identity-on-the-internet">Governing Identity on the Internet</a> (organised by Brenden Kuerbis, Citizen Lab and Christine Runnegar, Internet Society, November 8, 2012, 11.00 a.m. to 12.30 p.m.).</li>
</ul>
<h3>Other Upcoming Event</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/events/dml-conference-2013">DML Conference 2013</a> (Sheraton Chicago Hotel & Towers - Chicago, Illinois, March 14 – 16, 2012): CIS and Digital Media & Learning Research Hub Central are jointly organizing the DML Conference 2013 in Chicago.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Event organised</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/events/privacy-rights-are-a-global-challenge">The Public Voice: Privacy Rights are a Global Challenge</a> (Punta del Este, Uruguay, October 21, 2012): Malavika Jayaram was a speaker at this event.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Events Participated</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">3rd Worldwide Cybersecurity Summit (organised by EastWest Institute in partnership with NASSCOM and FICCI, Federation House, New Delhi, October 30-31, 2012): Sunil Abraham and Elonnai Hickok participated in this event.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Fourth Annual Legal Services Conference in India (organised by US India Business Council, New Delhi, October 11, 2012): Pranesh Prakash was a panelist in the session on “Censorship and Content Restrictions: The Future of Internet Speech in India”.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Meeting on Lawful Access by Law Enforcement (Brussels, October 3 – 5, 2012): Elonnai Hickok participated in the meeting.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Video</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/ndtv-news-oct-31-2012-arrested-for-tweeting-legitimate-or-curbing-free-speech">Arrested for tweeting: Legitimate or Curbing Free Speech?</a> (NDTV, October 31, 2012): Sunil Abraham participated in this discussion aired on NDTV along with Shivam Vij, SB Mishra and Sanjay Pinto.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Media Coverage</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/hindustan-times-specials-coverage-gujarat-assembly-elections-2012-zia-haq-oct-26-2012-on-social-media-modi-goes-soft">On social media, Modi goes soft</a> (by Zia Haq, Hindustan Times, October 26, 2012): Sunil Abraham is quoted.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/daily-pioneer-columnists-oct-29-2012-apar-gupta-bolstering-right-to-remain-private">Bolstering right to remain private</a> (by Apar Gupta, The Pioneer, October 29, 2012): Pranesh Prakash is quoted.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><i>CIS was part of the expert committee even though not explicitly mentioned in these</i>: <a href="https://cis-india.org/news/newstrackindia-october-18-2012-suggests-law-to-protect-individual-privacy">Panel suggests law to protect individual privacy</a> (Newstrack India, October 18, 2012), <a href="https://cis-india.org/news/business-standard-october-18-2012-privacy-law-mooted-to-protect-people-against-misuse-of-info">Privacy law mooted to protect people against misuse of info</a> (Business Standard, October 18, 2012), <a href="https://cis-india.org/news/dna-india-october-19-2012-saikat-datta-experts-committee-moots-law-to-protect-privacy">Experts' committee moots law to protect privacy</a> (by Saikat Datta, Daily News & Analysis, October 19, 2012), <a href="https://cis-india.org/news/times-of-india-october-19-2012-govt-panel-wants-curbs-on-phone-taps">Govt panel wants curbs on phone taps</a> (The Times of India, October 19, 2012), <a href="https://cis-india.org/news/indianexpress-amitabh-sinha-october-19-2012-privacy-act-should-not-circumscribe-rti-expert-group">Privacy Act should not circumscribe RTI: expert group</a> (by Amitabh Sinha, Indian Express, October 19, 2012), <a href="https://cis-india.org/news/the-hindu-business-line-oct-18-2012-nine-point-code-set-out-to-safeguard-personal-information">Nine-point code set out to safeguard personal information</a> (Hindu Business Line, October 18, 2012), <a href="https://cis-india.org/news/zee-news-october-22-2012-privacy-law-mooted-to-protect-people-against-misuse-of-info">Privacy law mooted to protect people against misuse of info</a> (Zee News, October 18, 2012).</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/livemint-october-18-2012-surabhi-agarwal-courts-approval-needed-to-tap-phones">Court’s approval needed to tap phones: Panel</a> (by Surabhi Agarwal, LiveMint, October 18, 2012): Sunil Abraham is quoted.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/first-post-pallavi-polanki-oct-11-2012-could-better-dna-testing-facilities-in-india-have-saved-the-talwars">Could better DNA testing facilities in India have saved the Talwars?</a> (by Pallavi Polanki, October 11, 2012): CIS press statement is mentioned.</li>
</ul>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<h2><a href="https://cis-india.org/telecom">Telecom</a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">While the potential for growth and returns exist for telecommunications in India, a range of issues need to be addressed. One aspect is more extensive rural coverage and the other is a countrywide access to broadband which is low. Both require effective and efficient use of networks and resources, including spectrum:</p>
<h3><a href="https://cis-india.org/telecom/telecom-knowledge-repository/knowledge-and-capacity-around-telecom-policy">Building Knowledge and Capacity around Telecommunication Policy in India</a></h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">CIS and Ford Foundation joined hands to build expertise in the area of telecommunications in India. Dr. Surendra Pal, Satya N Gupta, Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, Payal Malik, Dr. Rakesh Mehrotra and Dr. Nadeem Akhtar are the expert reviewers. The following are the new outputs:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/telecom/telecom-knowledge-repository/spectrum-management">Spectrum Management</a> (by Snehashish Ghosh, October 31, 2012).</li>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/home-1/telecom/telecom-knowledge-repository/cable-tv">Cable Television</a> (by Srividya Vaidyanathan, October 16, 2012).</li>
</ul>
<h3>Column in Business Standard</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/organizing-india-blogspot-october-11-2012-shyam-ponappa-the-supreme-court-delivers">The Supreme Court Delivers</a> (by Shyam Ponappa in <a href="http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/shyam-ponappasupreme-court-delivers/488420/">Business Standard</a>, October 4, 2012 and <a href="http://organizing-india.blogspot.in/2012/10/the-supreme-court-delivers.html">Organizing India Blogspot</a>, October 11, 2012).</li>
</ul>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<h3><a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives">Digital Natives</a></h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Digital Natives with a Cause? examines the changing landscape of social change and political participation in light of the role that young people play through digital and Internet technologies, in emerging information societies. Consolidating knowledge from Asia, Africa and Latin America, it builds a global network of knowledge partners who critically engage with discourse on youth, technology and social change, and look at alternative practices and ideas in the Global South:</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Newspaper Column</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/india-express-news-nishant-shah-oct-29-2012-the-rules-of-engagement">The Rules of Engagement</a> (by Nishant Shah, Indian Express, October 29, 2012).</li>
</ul>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<h2><a href="https://cis-india.org/raw">Researchers at Work</a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">CIS organised the Habits of Living Workshop in Bangalore from September 26 to 29, 2012. Three columns by Nishant Shah arising from these workshops were published in the month of October:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-humanities/blogs/habits-of-living/dml-central-blog-oct-22-2012-nishant-shah-habits-living-being-human-networked-society">Habits of Living: Being Human in a Networked Society</a> (DML, Central, October 22, 2012).</li>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-humanities/blogs/habits-of-living/first-post-tech-oct-12-2012-nishant-shah-digital-habits-how-and-why-we-tweet-share-and-like">Digital Habits: How and Why We Tweet, Share and Like</a> (FirstPost, October 12, 2012).</li>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-humanities/blogs/habits-of-living/financial-express-october-23-2012-nishant-shah-who-s-that-friend">Who’s that Friend?</a> (Indian Express, October 23, 2012).</li>
</ul>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<ul>
</ul>
<h2>*<a href="https://cis-india.org/about/">About CIS</a>*</h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">CIS was registered as a society in Bangalore in 2008. As an independent, non-profit research organisation, it runs different policy research programmes such as Accessibility, Access to Knowledge, Openness, Internet Governance, and Telecom. The policy research programmes have resulted in outputs such as the <a href="https://cis-india.org/advocacy/accessibility/blog/e-accessibility-handbook">e-Accessibility Policy Handbook for Persons with Disabilities</a> with ITU and G3ict, and <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/front-page/blog/dnbook">Digital Alternatives with a Cause?</a></span>, <a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/front-page/blog/position-papers">Thinkathon Position Papers</a> and the <a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/front-page/blog/digital-natives-with-a-cause-a-report">Digital Natives with a Cause? Report</a> with Hivos, etc. We conducted policy research for the Ministry of Communications & Information Technology, Ministry of Human Resource Development, Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, etc., on <a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blog/cis-analysis-july2011-treaty-print-disabilities">WIPO Treaties</a>, <a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blog/analysis-copyright-amendment-bill-2012">Copyright Bill</a>, <a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/front-page/blog/cis-feedback-to-nia-bill">NIA Bill</a>, etc. CIS is accredited as an observer at WIPO, and has given policy briefs to delegations from various countries, our Programme Manager, Nirmita Narasimhan won the <a href="https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/national-award">National Award for Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities</a> from the Government of India and also received the <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/nirmita-nivh-award">NIVH Excellence Award</a></span>.</p>
<p><b>*Follow us elsewhere*</b></p>
<ul>
<li>Get short, timely messages from us on Twitter</li>
<li>Join the CIS group on <a href="http://www.facebook.com/groups/28535315687/">Facebook</a></li>
<li>Visit us at <a href="https://cis-india.org/">http://cis-india.org</a></li>
</ul>
<p><i>CIS is grateful to its donors, Wikimedia Foundation, Ford Foundation, Privacy International, UK, Hans Foundation and the Kusuma Trust which was founded by Anurag Dikshit and Soma Pujari, philanthropists of Indian origin, for its core funding and support for most of its projects.</i></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/october-2012-bulletin'>https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/october-2012-bulletin</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaAccess to KnowledgeDigital NativesTelecomAccessibilityInternet GovernanceResearchers at Work2012-11-08T11:42:01ZPageThe Rules of Engagement
https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/india-express-news-nishant-shah-oct-29-2012-the-rules-of-engagement
<b>Why the have-nots of the digital world can sometimes be mistaken as trolls. I am not sure if you have noticed, but lately, the people populating our social networks have started to be more diverse than before.</b>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify;">Nishant Shah's column was <a class="external-link" href="http://www.indianexpress.com/news/the-rules-of-engagement/1022938/0">published in the Indian Express</a> on October 29, 2012.</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify;">Oh, sure, we are still talking about a fairly middle-class hang-out that happens largely in English and is restricted to people in urban environments who have the economic and cultural capital of access. But if you browse through your friends’ lists and compare it with, say, the network from five years ago, you will realise that the age demography has changed quite dramatically. I am not suggesting that the Web was only the realm of the young – let us face it, the people who actually created the infrastructure of the Web were not tiny tots. However, with Web 2.0 at the turn of the millennium, we have had an extraordinary focus on young people online.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">But as the networks grow to include more people, there are now a lot of people online, who might not be the 16-year-old BlackBerry-wielding digital native, nor be in the “business of internet” but are finding a space for themselves, tentatively and steadily negotiating with this new space. Some of it might be because, those of us who were new kids on the block in the Nineties, are now older by a decade and are still on the block, but replaced by newer kids around the block. Some of it might be because there is an ease of access as portable computing devices grow more personal and get more people to use their smartphones as a gateway into the online worlds. But a lot of it is actually because the fold of the Web is expanding. The digital spaces of conversation are being integrated into our everyday lives and practices, replacing older forms of media and information structures and processes of social and cultural belonging.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">And so, even though the penetration of the interwebz is not as rapid in countries like India as one would have hoped for, we do see a wide age group of people coming online, forming networks, and entering into conversations. I hadn’t really realised this, even though I was adding them to my social networks, that the digital immigrants are now here, and they are here to stay. It suddenly surfaced in my thoughts, because I recently heard a few narratives which made me dwell on the effort and the learning that one takes for granted but is a prerequisite for belonging to these new social spaces.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">One of the first complaints I heard was about a hostility that many digital immigrants face when they start engaging with the social media. They follow the manuals. They read the FAQs. They look at patterns, and learn. And yet, even when they seem to be doing what seems to be exactly what everybody else is doing, they are often told that they got it all wrong. This is bewildering for many, because they cannot really see the difference. And the reason is that the social web is governed by a whole lot of unwritten rules and codes, which clearly are the rites of passage into the online world. These are not things that can be taught. These are not written in a guideline that tells you how to behave on Facebook or how to sift through the live-streams on Twitter. It is a fiercely guarded set of dos and don’ts which clearly distinguish between the digital natives and the digital immigrants, reinforcing exclusivity and exclusion. And when the digital immigrant violates these rules, they are often faced with a sneer, a sarcastic comment, or a dismissal as “not with it”.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The second thing I have repeatedly noticed is “calling troll” to people who do not always know these rules. Trolling is not new to the world of the internet. People who disrupt conversations and discussions by posting provocative or tangential information, by voicing hateful opinions, by passing harsh judgments, or sometimes by willfully breaking the rules of the communities, in order to seek attention and interrupt the flow of conversations are called trolls. Trolls are universally frowned upon and trolling wars often take up epic proportions because people get emotionally invested in them. Trolls are often shamed publicly, their mistakes brought into an embarrassing spot-light and ridiculed in back-channels or even in public discussions.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Calling somebody a troll presumes that the user is conversant with the rules of the game and is then breaking them, working with the idea that if you are online, you are naturally a digital native. The digital immigrants often create noob mistakes that can appear troll-like but are not intended to be so, and are often on the receiving end of a community’s hostility. And it is time, now that our online networks are growing, for us to realise that our presumptions about who is online need to change. If we are looking at an inclusive Web, we need to stop imagining that the person on the other side of the interface is necessarily like us, and develop new networks of nurture, which allows the digital immigrants safe spaces to experiment, make mistakes, and learn like the best of us. The next time, before you call somebody a troll, see if it might just be somebody learning the tricks of the trade. If they are doing something wrong, just politely point it out to them. And remember, acceptance is not only for people who are like us, but about people who are markedly unlike us.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/india-express-news-nishant-shah-oct-29-2012-the-rules-of-engagement'>https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/india-express-news-nishant-shah-oct-29-2012-the-rules-of-engagement</a>
</p>
No publishernishantDigital ActivismResearchers at WorkInternet GovernanceDigital Natives2015-04-24T11:48:54ZBlog EntrySeptember 2012 Bulletin
https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/september-2012-bulletin
<b>Welcome to the newsletter of September 2012 from the Centre for Internet & Society (CIS). The present issue features a second analysis by Snehashish Ghosh on the latest list of sites blocked by the Indian government from August 18, 2012 to August 21, 2012, a research on the issues of internet governance by Smarika Kumar, publication of a report on Accessibility of Government websites in India by Nirmita Narasimhan, Mukesh Sharma and Dinesh Kaushal, the Access to Knowledge programme plan and updates from the Wikipedia community in India on Indic languages, updates from the Habits of Living workshop organised in Bengaluru, the events connected to the visits of international DNA experts, Helen Wallace and Jeremy Gruber in India, and introduce you to our Access to Knowledge team members. </b>
<hr />
<h3>Announcements</h3>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span class="visualHighlight"><b>Office in Delhi</b></span><br />CIS now has an office with a five-member team for the Access to Knowledge programme in Delhi at G 15, top floor, behind Hauz Khas G Block Market, Hauz Khas, New Delhi 110016, Ph: + 91 11 26536425.</p>
<hr />
<p><span class="visualHighlight"><b>New Team Members</b></span></p>
<hr />
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/about/people/staff/cis-staff">Nitika Tandon</a>: Nitika Tandon is a Program Officer with CIS. She has an MBA from Rotterdam School of Management, Netherlands and is a recipient of Dean's Fund Scholarship Program, Erasmus University.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/about/people/staff/cis-staff">Shiju Alex</a>: Shiju Alex is a Consultant. His background is technical writing and he is interested in Indic language computing and community building for Indic language Wiki projects. Presently he works out of CIS office in Bengaluru.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/about/people/staff/cis-staff">Subhashish Panigrahi</a>: Subhashish Panigrahi is a Programme Officer to CIS's Access to Knowledge programme and works out of CIS's Delhi office. His background is Business Development in Corporate Communications. He works on designing and implementing programs to provide on-wiki and off-wiki support for new editors.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/about/people/staff/cis-staff">Noopur Raval</a>: Noopur Raval is working as Consultant - Communications for the Access to Knowledge team at CIS. Having previously worked in the media, she is currently pursuing her M.Phil in Cinema Studies from JNU, New Delhi.</li>
</ul>
<p><b> </b></p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Jobs</b><br />CIS is seeking applications from interested candidates for the posts of <a href="https://cis-india.org/jobs/research-manager">Research Manager</a>, <a href="https://cis-india.org/jobs/vacancy-for-researcher-accessibility">Researcher/Editor</a>, and <a href="https://cis-india.org/jobs/programme-officer-internet-governance">Programme Officer – Internet Governance</a>. To apply for these posts send your resume to Sunil Abraham (<a href="mailto:sunil@cis-india.org">sunil@cis-india.org</a>) with three references. Archives of our bulletins can be <a href="http://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/">found here</a>. Click to read the newsletter on our website.</p>
<hr />
<h2><a href="https://cis-india.org/accessibility">Accessibility</a></h2>
<hr />
<p>India has an estimated 70 million disabled persons who are unable to read printed materials due to some form of physical, sensory, cognitive or other disability. The disabled need accessible content, devices and interfaces facilitated via copyright law and electronic accessibility policies:<br /><b>Featured Research</b></p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/accessibility/accessibility-of-government-websites-in-india">Accessibility of Government Websites in India: A Report</a> (by Nirmita Narasimhan, Mukesh Sharma and Dinesh Kaushal, September 26, 2012): This is a report on the accessibility of government websites in India. It was published in cooperation with the Hans Foundation. The report consists of an executive summary, introduction, methodology, findings and recommendations and interpretation and recommendations. Examples of errors are given as appendices. </li>
</ul>
<p><b>Project</b></p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/accessibility/creating-a-national-resource-kit-for-persons-with-disabilities">Creating a National Resource Kit for Persons with Disabilities: An Introduction</a> (by Anandhi Viswanathan, September 28, 2012): CIS is engaged in a two-and-a-half year project starting from August 2012 to create a national resource kit of state-wise laws, policies and programmes on issues relating to persons with disabilities in India. This project is supported by the Hans Foundation. The Resource Kit will be brought out in both English and Hindi and disseminated to policy makers from panchayat to ministry levels throughout India. Anandhi gives an introduction to the project in this blog entry.</li>
</ul>
<p><b>Blog Entries</b></p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/accessibility/wipo-treaty-for-the-visually-impaired">WIPO Treaty for the Visually Impaired — Moving from a Treaty on Paper to a Treaty that is Workable on the Ground</a> (by Rahul Cherian, September 28, 2012): After many years of hard lobbying by the World Blind Union, it appears that the WIPO Treaty on limitations and exceptions for visually impaired persons/persons with print disabilities (TVI) could become a reality next year. </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/accessibility/breaking-news-on-electronic-accessibility">Breaking News on Electronic Accessibility</a> (by Rahul Cherian, September 28, 2012): The Parliamentary Standing Committee constituted to study the Electronic Delivery of Services Bill has in its report explicitly recognized the concept of electronic accessibility and reasonable accommodation. This is the first time in the country that these two concepts have been reflected at the level of a Parliamentary Standing Committee in relation to a non-disability specific law.</li>
</ul>
<hr />
<h2><a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k">Access to Knowledge</a></h2>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The Access to Knowledge programme addresses the harms caused to consumers, developing countries, human rights, and creativity/innovation from excessive regimes of copyright, patents, and other such monopolistic rights over knowledge:</p>
<p><b>Submission</b></p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/feedback-to-draft-copyright-rules-2012">Feedback to Draft Copyright Rules, 2012</a> (by Pranesh Prakash, September 29, 2012): submitted its written comments on the Draft Copyright Rules, 2012 to Mr. G.R. Raghavender, Registrar of Copyrights & Director (BP&CR), Ministry of Human Resource Development. Pranesh does a detailed analysis and provides recommendations on Rules 8,9,10, 29(6), 34(2), 37, 71(3), 72, 74(1), 74(6), 75, and 79 (3) and (4).</li>
</ul>
<p><b>Projects</b></p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/access-to-knowledge-program-plan">Access To Knowledge/Programme Plan</a>: Pursuant to the announcement made on July 30, 2012 of a 22 months ‘grant’ (beginning from September 1, 2012 to July 31, 2014) of upto INR 26,000,000 and as reflected in the FAQ accompanying the announcement, the Wikimedia Foundation’s India Program will become a project of the Access to Knowledge (A2K) program of CIS. The prime objective is to support the growth of Indic language communities and projects by designing community collaborations and partnerships that recruit and cultivate new editors and explore innovative approaches to building projects and supporting India-focused efforts to improve the quality of India-relevant content on Indic languages and English Wikimedia projects.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/pervasive-technologies-access-to-knowledge-in-the-market-place">Pervasive Technologies: Access to Knowledge in the Marketplace</a> (by Jadine Lannon, September 25, 2012): Jadine Lannon gives an introduction to the new A2K research initiative. Pervasive technologies have flooded the Indian market and are changing the ways in which the average Indian accesses knowledge but very little is understood about these technologies, particularly when it comes to their legality. CIS hopes to do a research that aims to understand how pervasive technologies interact with Intellectual Property laws and what can be done to protect these technologies from being labelled “illegal” and eradicated from the Asian market.</li>
</ul>
<p><b>Event Participated</b></p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/info-justice-public-events-flexibility-network">Meeting of the Global Network on Flexible Limitations and Exceptions</a> (organised by American University Washington College of Law, Washington D.C., September 12 to 15, 2012).</li>
</ul>
<hr />
<h2><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance">Internet Governance</a></h2>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The Internet Governance programme conducts research around the various social, technical, and political underpinnings of global and national Internet governance, and includes online privacy, freedom of speech, and Internet governance mechanisms and processes:</p>
<p><b> </b></p>
<p><b>Featured Research</b></p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/issues-in-internet-governance">An Introduction to the Issues in Internet Governance</a> (by Smarika Kumar, September 23, 2012): Smarika provides a detailed analysis to the issues that we face in Internet Governance today. She tries to canvass the controversies in the areas of internet governance that broadly focus around the institutional structures to govern the internet, discusses the evolution of these models against the historical background of internet governance and then proceeds to present the criticisms of each of these models with an emphasis on the interests of the regular internet user.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/analyzing-the-latest-list-of-blocked-sites-communalism-and-rioting-edition-part-ii">Analyzing the Latest List of Blocked Sites (Communalism and Rioting Edition) Part II</a> (by Snehashish Ghosh, September 25, 2012): Snehashish Ghosh does a further analysis of the leaked list of the websites blocked by the Indian Government from August 18, 2012 till August 21, 2012 (“leaked list”). This analysis was <a href="http://www.medianama.com/2012/09/223-analyzing-the-latest-list-of-blocked-sites-communalism-rioting-edition-part-ii/">re-posted</a> by Medianama on September 26, 2012.</li>
</ul>
<p><b>Columns</b></p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/www-deccan-chronicle-sep-16-2012-sunil-abraham-the-five-monkeys-and-ice-cold-water">The Five Monkeys & Ice-cold Water</a> (by Sunil Abraham, Deccan Chronicle, September 16, 2012): “The Indian government provides leadership, both domestically and internationally, when it comes to access to knowledge.”</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/www-the-hindubusinessline-op-ed-sep-1-2012-chinmayi-arun-sms-block-as-threat-to-free-speech">SMS Block as Threat to Free Speech</a> (by Chinmayi Arun, Hindu Business Line, September 1, 2012): If you could text just one or two people in a day, who would you choose? Many of us have had to make this choice thanks to the order limiting us to five texts a day. Short Message Service (SMS) is not used primarily to send staccato messages like the telegraph was.</li>
</ul>
<p><b>Media Coverage</b></p>
<ul>
<p class="callout"><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/dna-india-sep-27-2012-dilnaz-boga-censorship-makes-india-fall-two-places-on-global-internet-freedom-chart">Censorship makes India fall two places on global internet freedom chart</a> (by Dilnaz Boga, Daily News & Analysis, September 27, 2012). Pranesh Prakash’s analysis on blocked websites is quoted.</p>
<p class="callout" style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/www-livemint-september-25-2012-surabhi-agarwal-pitroda-seeks-to-put-govt-information-in-public-domain">Pitroda seeks to put govt information in public domain</a> (by Surabhi Agarwal, LiveMint, September 25, 2012): “One government bureaucrat available on Twitter for a fixed period doesn’t make up for the non-existence of the government on social media…they (government) should be available all the time.” — Sunil Abraham.</p>
<p class="callout" style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/www-livemint-com-sep-19-2012-surabhi-agarwal-govt-plans-inter-ministerial-panel-on-internet-policy">Govt plans inter-ministerial panel on Internet policy</a> (by Surabhi Agarwal, LiveMint, September 19, 2012): ““The thumb rule with governance, be it international or national, is that coordination policy formulation bodies is a good idea, but we can’t damn or praise them over the process...We have to see what coordination results out of the body.” — Sunil Abraham.</p>
<p class="callout" style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/www-times-of-india-sept-16-2012-atul-sethi-mind-of-the-millennium-teen">Mind of the millennium teen</a> (by Atul Sethi, The Times of India, September 16, 2012): “We live in accelerated times...The breathlessness of our times is evident in everything — from the kind of movies we make to the ways in which our news and information travel. At the end of the day, our younger generations are also products of our times.”— Nishant Shah.</p>
<p class="callout" style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/www-firstpost-com-sep-6-2012-china-outranks-india-in-worlds-first-ever-web-index">China outranks India in world’s first ever web index</a> (First Post, September 6, 2012): ““The Internet today doesn’t work according to the idealistic principles of openness, and democracy of information that Berners-Lee envisioned for it, and in India in particular, although the Internet has helped us rethink what the government can do, the attitude is that that Internet can only be used in ways that the government sees fit.” — Nishant Shah.</p>
<p class="callout" style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/www-livemint-com-surabhi-agarwal-sep-4-2012-need-a-strategy-to-deal-with-web-issues">Need a standard strategy to deal with Web issues: Chandrasekhar</a> (by Surabhi Agarwal, LiveMint, September 4, 2012). Pranesh Prakash’s analysis on blocked websites is quoted.</p>
<p class="callout" style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/cis-india.org/news/www-tehelka-com-kunal-majumder-tehelka-magazine-vol-9-issue-36-sep-8-2012-political-war-on-the-web">Political war on the web</a> (by Kunal Majumder, Tehelka Magazine, Vol 9, Issue 36, September 8, 2012): “The fact remains none of the blockings were politically motivated.” — Pranesh Prakash.</p>
<p class="callout" style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/www-the-hindu-com-shalini-singh-sep-4-2012-govt-to-hold-talks-with-stakeholders-on-internet-censorship">Government to hold talks with stakeholders on Internet censorship</a> (by Shalini Singh, The Hindu, September 4, 2012). Pranesh Prakash’s analysis on blocked websites is quoted.</p>
<p class="callout" style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/www-tehelka-com-vol-9-issue-36-sep-8-2012-shougat-dasgupta-the-state-and-the-rage-of-the-cyber-demon">The state. And the rage of the cyber demon</a> (by Shougat Dasgupta, Tehelka, Vol 9, Issue 36, September 8, 2012): “While some people may see Twitter as akin to friends talking in the pub, others use the service as a bulletin board.” — Pranesh Prakash.</p>
<p class="callout" style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/www-business-standard-rohit-pradhan-sep-1-2012-watch-out-for-fettered-speech">Watch out for fettered speech</a> (by Rohit Pradhan, Business Standard, September 1, 2012). Pranesh Prakash is quoted.</p>
</ul>
<p><b>Events Organised</b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span class="visualHighlight">DNA Profiling Bill</span><br />International DNA experts Helen Wallace from GeneWatch UK, and Jeremy Gruber from the Council for Responsible Genetics from the United States visited Bengaluru and Delhi and shared their experience in DNA sampling and gave feedback to the DNA Profiling Bill. Meetings were conducted with lawyers and the plaintiff in the Pascal Mazurier's rape case and with VR Sudarshan and Hormis Tharakan. There was a coverage of the event in <a href="https://cis-india.org/news/cadcbecb0ca4caf-ca1cbfc8eca8ccdc8e-caaccdcb0cabcb2cbfc82c97ccd-caecb8cc2ca6cc6caf-cb8cb3cc1ca8c9f">Kannada media</a>. Public lectures were organised in Bengaluru and Delhi:</p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/uk-dna-database-and-european-court-of-human-rights-lessons-that-india-can-learn-from-mistakes">UK DNA Database and the European Court of Human Rights: Lessons that India can Learn from Its Mistakes</a> (organised by CIS and Alternative Law Forum, September 24, 2012): Helen Wallace from GeneWatch, UK and Jeremy Gruber from the Council for Responsible Genetics in the United States gave a public lecture.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/the-dna-profiling-bill-developing-best-practices">The DNA Profiling Bill: Developing Best Practices</a> (India International Centre, New Delhi, September 27, 2012): International experts Helen Wallace from GeneWatch UK, and Jeremy Gruber from the Council for Responsible Genetics from the United States gave a public lecture. Elonnai Hickok participated in the event.</li>
</ul>
<p><b>Blog Entry</b></p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/public-meeting-on-dna-profiling-bill">A Public Meeting on DNA Profiling Bill in Delhi</a> (by Elonnai Hickok, September 29, 2012): Elonnai has blogged about the public lecture delivered by Dr. Helen Wallace, Jeremy Gruber and Dr. Anupuma Raina.</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Upcoming IGF Events</b><br />At the seventh annual IGF meeting to be held in Baku, Azerbaijan in November 2012, CIS is organising one workshop:</p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/national-ig-mechanisms">National IG Mechanisms – Looking at Some Key Design Issues</a> (co-organising with Brazilian Internet Steering Committee, Institute for System Analysis, Russian Academy of Sciences, et.al., November 8, 2012 from 2.30 p.m. to 4.00 p.m.</li>
</ul>
<p>Sunil Abraham will be a panelist in the following workshop:</p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/new-trends-in-industry-self-governance">New Trends in Industry Self-Governance</a> (organised by Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford, UK and Media Change & Innovation Division, IPMZ, University of Zurich, Switzerland and Nominet, UK, November 7, 2012 from 4.30 p.m. to 6.00 p.m).</li>
</ul>
<p>CIS fellow Malavika Jayaram is a panelist for these workshops:</p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/intgovforum-cms-w2012-proposals">Civil rights in the digital age, about the impact the Internet has on civil rights</a> (organised by ECP on behalf of the IGF-NL, November 7, 2012, 4.30 p.m. to 6.00 p.m.).</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/intgovforum-cms-w2012-proposals-governing-identity-on-the-internet">Governing Identity on the Internet</a> (organised by Brenden Kuerbis, Citizen Lab and Christine Runnegar, Internet Society, November 8, 2012, 11.00 a.m. to 12.30 p.m.).</li>
</ul>
<p><b>Events Participated</b></p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/second-freedom-online-conference-in-nairobi">Second Freedom Online Conference</a> (organised by the Ministry of Information and Communications, Republic of Kenya in partnership with the government of Netherlands at UN complex in Gigiri, Nairobi, September 6 and 7, 2012). Pranesh Prakash was a panelist in the session on Access to Internet: Challenges and Opportunities. </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/multi-stakeholder-discussion-on-indias-position-in-the-un-for-un-cirp">Multi-stakeholder Discussion on India’s Position in UN for Internet Governance UN Committee for Internet Related Policies</a> (Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry, New Delhi, September 19, 2012): Sunil Abraham was a panelist.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/seventh-meeting-of-group-of-experts-sept-18-2012-under-chairmanship-of-justice-shah">Seventh Meeting of the Group of Experts on Privacy Issues under the Chairmanship of Justice AP Shah</a> (Committee Room No. 228, Yojana Bhawan, Sansad Marg, New Delhi): Sunil Abraham participated in this meeting. This was the final meeting of the series.</li>
</ul>
<p><b>Talk</b></p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Talk at Yale University (New Haven, September 19, 2012): Pranesh Prakash gave a talk on censorship, intermediary liability, and the way forward. </li>
</ul>
<p><b>Video</b></p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/conference-apnic-net-aug-28-2012-internet-governance-plenary">Internet Governance Plenary</a> (August 28, Tokyo, Japan): Sunil Abraham was a panelist along with Ang Peng Hwa, Paul Wilson, Duangthip Chomprang and Raul Echeberria at this event organised by APNIC on August 28, 2012. Kuo Wei Wu, CEO, National Information Infrastructure Enterprise Promotion Association (NIIEPA) was the moderator. </li>
</ul>
<hr />
<h2><a href="https://cis-india.org/about/openness">Openness</a></h2>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The 'Openness' programme critically examines alternatives to existing regimes of intellectual property rights, and transparency and accountability. Under this programme, we study Open Government Data, Open Access to Scholarly Literature, Open Access to Law, Open Content, Open Standards, and Free/Libre/Open Source Software:<b><br />Featured Research</b></p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/openness/indic-language-wikipedias-statistical-report-jan-june-2012">Indic Language Wikipedias – Statistical Report</a> (January – June 2012) (by Shiju Alex, September 25, 2012): Shiju Alex provides a compilation of the statistical update of the Indic language Wikipedias from January to June 2012. He provides perspectives on the health of various Indic language communities as well as the state of various Indic language Wikipedias during the period.</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Workshop Reports</b><br />Although most of the following workshops were conducted prior to the grant period, the report for all of these was written in the month of September, and hence, we are featuring these.</p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/openness/first-punjabi-wikipedia-workshop">The First Punjabi Wikipedia Workshop</a> (by Shiju Alex and Subhashish Panigrahi, September 27, 2012): This post is about the first Punjabi Wikipedia workshop held in Ludhiana, Punjab on July 28, 2012. Surinder Wadhawan, a Mumbai based Wikipedian played an important role in designing this workshop and introducing Punjabi Wikipedia to the Punjabi speakers. Long-term Punjabi wikipedian G.S.Guglani also joined this workshop. The event was covered in the <a href="http://bit.ly/UMrDvs">Tribune</a>, <a href="http://bit.ly/UMrNTn">Hindustan Times</a>, <a href="http://bit.ly/UZhoT8">Punjab Infoline</a>, and <a href="http://bit.ly/OcMANc">YesPunjab.com</a>. </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/openness/blog/punjabi-wikipedia-workshop-at-punjabi-university-patiala">Punjabi Wikipedia Workshop at Punjabi University, Patiala</a> (by Shiju Alex and Subhashish Panigrahi, September 28, 2012): A Wikipedia workshop was organized at the Punjabi University's Punjabi Department on August 16, 2012. Veteran Punjabi wikipedian G.S. Guglani came forward to spread the message of Punjabi Wikipedia among Punjabi speakers.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/openness/blog/punjabi-wikipedia-workshop-at-amritsar">Punjabi Wikipedia Workshop at Amritsar</a> (by Shiju Alex and Subhashish Panigrahi, September 30, 2012): The workshop was held at the Spring Dale Senior School, Amritsar on August 17, 2012. Nearly 50 participants including students and teachers from eight different schools apart from the students and teachers of Spring Dale School attended the workshop. One of the active and long-time Punjabi Wikipedian Guglani Gurdip Singh led the workshop with the active support from Shiju and Subhasish.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/openness/report-of-the-wikipedia-workshop-in-british-library">Wikipedia Workshop in British Library, Chandigarh</a> (by Subhashish Panigrahi, September 27, 2012): A Wikipedia workshop was organized in Chandigarh by the British Library over two days on August 24 and 25, 2012. Bipin Kumar, Head of British Library and Christina, Deputy Manager had pivotal roles in designing this workshop with support from Piyush, a wikipedian. The session on Day 1 was conducted by Subhashish Panigrahi and the session on Day 2 was conducted by Subhashish and Piyush.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/openness/kannada-wiki-workshop-tumkur-university">Kannada Wiki Workshop at Tumkur University</a> (Tumkur, Karnataka, September 15, 2012): This was the first Kannada Wikipedia workshop at Tumkur. Prof. Ashwin Kumar from the Department of English, Tumkur University and Kannada wikipedians, Om Shiva Prakash, Hareesh, Tejus and Pavithra played vital roles in organising this workshop. Shiju Alex participated in this workshop. About 30 participants including students and teachers participated in this workshop.</li>
</ul>
<p><b>Blog Entries</b></p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/openness/editor-growth-and-contribution-on-telegu-wikipedia">Editor Growth & Contribution Program on Telugu Wikipedia</a> (by Nitika Tandon, September 29, 2012): Nitika Tandon tells us about the Editor Growth & Contribution Program on Telegu Wikipedia, how it will run, its necessity and the future steps.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/openness/blog/wikipedia-hyderabad-report">Wikipedia comes to Hyderabad!</a> (by Noopur Raval, September 30, 2012): A series of Wikipedia meetings were organized in Hyderabad on September 29 and 30, 2012. These workshops were a part of the larger effort to help Wikipedia contributors in the same city to meet each other and strengthen the local community. There was coverage about this event in the <a href="http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-features/tp-metroplus/drumming-session/article3943855.ece">Hindu</a> on September 28, 2012.</li>
</ul>
<p><b>Event Organised</b></p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/thinking-with-data">Thinking with Data@CIS</a> (CIS, Bengaluru, September 16 – 18, 2012): The course offered at the National Institute of Advanced Studies was screened in CIS office.</li>
</ul>
<table class="vertical listing">
<tbody>
<tr>
<th>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>HasGeek</b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">HasGeek creates discussion spaces for geeks and has organised conferences like the <a href="http://fifthelephant.in/2012/">Fifth Elephant</a>, <a href="http://droidcon.in/2011">Droidcon India 2011</a>, <a href="http://androidcamp.hasgeek.com/">Android Camp</a>, etc. HasGeek is supported by CIS and works out from CIS office in Bengaluru. The following event was organised by HasGeek in the month of September:</p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/cartonama-conference">Cartonama Conference</a> (TERI Complex, Bengaluru, September 22, 2012). The event was organised by HasGeek with support from CIS.</li>
</ul>
</th>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p> </p>
<hr />
<h2><a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives">Digital Natives</a></h2>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Digital Natives with a Cause? examines the changing landscape of social change and political participation in light of the role that young people play through digital and Internet technologies, in emerging information societies. Consolidating knowledge from Asia, Africa and Latin America, it builds a global network of knowledge partners who critically engage with discourse on youth, technology and social change, and look at alternative practices and ideas in the Global South:</p>
<p><b>Newspaper Column</b></p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/www-indianexpress-com-one-zero">One. Zero.</a> (Nishant Shah, Indian Express, September 16, 2012): “The digital world is the world of twos. All our complex interactions, emotional negotiations, business transactions, social communication and political subscriptions online can be reduced to a string of 1s and 0s, as machines create the networks for the human beings to speak.”</li>
</ul>
<hr />
<h3><a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/pathways">Pathways to Higher Education</a></h3>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The Pathways Project to Higher Education is a collaboration between the Higher Education Innovation and Research Applications at the Centre for the Study of Culture and Society and CIS. The project is supported by the Ford Foundation and works with disadvantaged students in nine undergraduate colleges in Maharashtra, Karnataka and Kerala, to explore relationships between Technologies, Higher Education and the new forms of social justice in India. Training workshops were organised in the month of September at Xaviers in Mumbai on September 6, 2012 and in Newman College, Thodupuzha from September 17 to 20, 2012. Each workshop had 25-30 undergraduate students from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds. They were trained to use digital technologies in order to think through problems of social justice.</p>
<hr />
<h2><a href="https://cis-india.org/raw">Researchers at Work</a></h2>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">From 2012 to 2015, the RAW series will build research clusters in the field of Digital Humanities. The Habits of Living: Global Networks, Local Affects is a global collaborative project to renew the conceptual power of networks. It concentrates on changing the habits of living. The Department of Modern Culture and Media at Brown University is an important locus.</p>
<p>CIS organised the Habits of Living Workshop in Bangalore from September 26 to 29, 2012. Jadine Lannon and Alok Vaid-Menon live blogged about the event:</p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-humanities/blogs/habits-of-living/habits-of-living-live-blog-introduction" class="external-link">Habits of Living Thinkathon - Day 1 Live Blog: Introduction</a> (by Jadine Lannon, September 26, 2012).</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-humanities/blogs/habits-of-living/habits-of-living-day-1-pecha-kucha" class="external-link">Habits of Living Thinkathon - Day 1 Live Blog: PechaKucha</a> (by Jadine Lannon, September 27, 2012).</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-humanities/blogs/habits-of-living/habits-of-living-globalising-lady-gaga" class="external-link">Habits of Living Thinkathon - Day 1 Live Blog: Globalising Lady GaGa</a> (by Alok Vaid-Menon, September 27, 2012).</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-humanities/blogs/habits-of-living/habits-of-living-day-2-water-in-india" class="external-link">Habits of Living Thinkathon - Day 2 Live Blog: Deepak Menon on Water in India</a> (by Jadine Lannon, September 27, 2012).</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-humanities/blogs/habits-of-living/habits-of-living-day-2-technology-and-feminism" class="external-link">Habits of Living Thinkathon - Day 2 Live Blog: On Technology and Affective Indian Feminism(s)</a> (by Alok Vaid-Menon, September 27, 2012).</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-humanities/blogs/habits-of-living/habits-of-living-radhika-gajjala-lectures-on-e-philanthropy" class="external-link">Habits of Living Thinkathon - Day 2 Live Blog: Radhika Gajjala Lectures on e-Philanthropy</a> (by Jadine Lannon, September 27, 2012).</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-humanities/habits-of-living-thinkathon-day-3-live-blog-joshua-neeves-on-media-archipelagos">Habits of Living Thinkathon - Day 3 Live Blog: Joshua Neves on Media Archipelagos</a> (by Jadine Lannon, September 26, 2012).</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-humanities/blogs/habits-of-living/habits-of-living-day-4-finding-and-funding-the-masses" class="external-link">Habits of Living Thinkathon - Day 4 Live Blog: Finding and Funding the Masses</a> (by Alok Vaid-Menon, September 26, 2012).</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-humanities/blogs/habits-of-living/habits-of-living-day-3-exhibition-space" class="external-link">Habits of Living Thinkathon - Day 3 Live Blog: Akansha Rastogi's Performance on Exhibition Space</a> <br />(by Jadine Lannon, September 30, 2012).</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-humanities/blogs/habits-of-living/habits-of-living-day-4-wendy-chun-on-friends" class="external-link">Habits of Living Thinkathon - Day 4 Live Blog: Wendy Chun on Friends</a> (by Jadine Lannon, September 30, 2012).</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-humanities/blogs/habits-of-living/habits-of-living-day-4-amateur-photography" class="external-link">Habits of Living Thinkathon - Day 4 Live Blog: Namita Malhotra on Amateur Pornography</a> (by Jadine Lannon, September 30, 2012).</li>
</ul>
<hr />
<h2><a href="https://cis-india.org/telecom">Telecom</a></h2>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">While the potential for growth and returns exist for telecommunications in India, a range of issues need to be addressed. One aspect is more extensive rural coverage and the other is a countrywide access to broadband which is low. Both require effective and efficient use of networks and resources, including spectrum:</p>
<h3><a href="https://cis-india.org/telecom/telecom-knowledge-repository/knowledge-and-capacity-around-telecom-policy">Building Knowledge and Capacity around Telecommunication Policy in India</a></h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Ford Foundation has given a grant of USD 2,00,000 to CIS to build expertise in the area of telecommunications in India. The knowledge repository deals with these modules: Introduction to Telecommunications, Telecommunications Infrastructure and Technologies, Government of India Regulatory Framework for Telecom, Telecommunication and the Market, Universal Access and Accessibility, The International Telecommunications Union and other international bodies, Broadcasting, Emerging Topics and Way Forward. Dr. Surendra Pal, Satya N Gupta, Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, Payal Malik, Dr. Rakesh Mehrotra and Dr. Nadeem Akhtar are the expert reviewers.</p>
<p><span class="visualHighlight">The following are the new outputs:</span></p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/telecom/telecom-knowledge-repository/associations-regulating-broadcasting-in-india">Associations Regulating Broadcasting in India</a> (by Srividya Vaidyanathan, September 11, 2012): Broadcast regulation in India is currently an intricate web, with multiple agencies involved in formulating and implementing policy, drafting and enforcing legislation.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/home-1/telecom/telecom-knowledge-repository/optical-fibre">Optical Fibre</a> (by Srividya Vaidyanathan, September 11, 2012): This unit tells us what is optical fibre, the types of optical fibres, how does an optical fibre work, fibre-optic relay system, and why are optical fibres uses in telecommunication systems.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/home-1/telecom/telecom-knowledge-repository/direct-to-home">Direct to Home</a> (by Srividya Vaidyanathan, September 18, 2012): This unit tells us about Direct to home television, its history, how it works, the programming, its advantages and disadvantages are discussed in this module.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/home-1/telecom/telecom-knowledge-repository/cable-tv">Cable Television</a> (by Srividya Vaidyanathan, September 18, 2012): This unit brings you the history and evolution of cable television in India, talks about other cable based services, cable television digitization rule and the end consumer in India.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/home-1/telecom/telecom-knowledge-repository/private-fm">Private FMs</a> (Commercial, Campus and Community Radios) (by Srividya Vaidyanathan, September 24, 2012): This unit introduces us to AM and FM, tells us the role of private FMs including what is a community radio and what is a campus radio.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/telecom/telecom-knowledge-repository/types-of-radio-broadcasting-in-india">Types of Radio Broadcasting in India</a> (by Srividya Vaidyanathan, September 28, 2012): This unit tells us what is radio broadcasting, takes us through the history of radio broadcasting in India, explains what is AM and FM in the Indian context.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/home-1/telecom/telecom-knowledge-repository/air-and-its-operations">A History of All India Radio and Its Operations</a> (by Srividya Vaidyanathan, September 29, 2012): This module gives us a picture of the history of All India Radio and its operations. </li>
</ul>
<p><b>Newspaper Column</b></p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/telecom/organizing-india-blogspot-in-shyam-ponappa-sep-5-2012-changing-our-game">Changing Our Game</a> (by Shyam Ponappa, Business Standard, September 5, 2012): “Adopting 'co-ordination models' like the Stag Hunt could reduce contention and improve outcomes.” This was re-posted in <a href="http://organizing-india.blogspot.in/2012/09/changing-our-game.html">Organizing India blogspot</a>.</li>
</ul>
<p><b>Event Participated</b></p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://www.mach.com/en/News-Events/Events/Insights/Insights-India-2012">Insights India 2012</a> (organised by MACH, Bangalore, September 26 – 28, 2012): Snehashish Ghosh and Srividya Vaidyanathan participated in this event.</li>
</ul>
<hr />
<h2><a href="https://cis-india.org/about/">About CIS</a></h2>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">CIS was registered as a society in Bangalore in 2008. As an independent, non-profit research organisation, it runs different policy research programmes such as Accessibility, Access to Knowledge, Openness, Internet Governance, and Telecom. Over the last four years our policy research programmes have resulted in outputs such as the <a href="https://cis-india.org/advocacy/accessibility/blog/e-accessibility-handbook">e-Accessibility Policy Handbook for Persons with Disabilities</a> with ITU and G3ict, and <a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/front-page/blog/dnbook">Digital Alternatives with a Cause?</a>, <a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/front-page/blog/position-papers">Thinkathon Position Papers</a> and the <a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/front-page/blog/digital-natives-with-a-cause-a-report">Digital Natives with a Cause? Report</a> with Hivos. With the Government of India we have done policy research for Ministry of Communications & Information Technology, Ministry of Human Resource Development, Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, etc., on <a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blog/cis-analysis-july2011-treaty-print-disabilities">WIPO Treaties</a>, <a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blog/analysis-copyright-amendment-bill-2012">Copyright Bill</a>, <a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/front-page/blog/cis-feedback-to-nia-bill">NIA Bill</a>, etc.</p>
<p>CIS is an accredited NGO at WIPO and has given policy briefs to delegations from various countries, our Programme Manager, Nirmita Narasimhan won the <a href="https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/national-award">National Award for Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities</a> from the Government of India and also received the <a href="https://cis-india.org/news/nirmita-nivh-award">NIVH Excellence Award</a>.</p>
<hr />
<p><b>*Follow us elsewhere*</b></p>
<hr />
<ul>
<li>Get short, timely messages from us on Twitter</li>
<li>Join the CIS group on <a href="http://www.facebook.com/groups/28535315687/">Facebook</a></li>
<li>Visit us at <a href="https://cis-india.org/">http://cis-india.org</a></li>
</ul>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; "><i>CIS is grateful to its donors, Wikimedia Foundation, Ford Foundation, Privacy International, UK, Hans Foundation and the Kusuma Trust which was founded by Anurag Dikshit and Soma Pujari, philanthropists of Indian origin, for its core funding and support for most of its projects.</i></p>
<hr />
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/september-2012-bulletin'>https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/september-2012-bulletin</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaAccess to KnowledgeDigital NativesTelecomAccessibilityInternet GovernanceCISRAWOpenness2012-10-09T06:48:33ZPageHabits of Living Thinkathon — Day 2 Live Blog: Radhika Gajjala Lectures on e-Philanthropy
https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-humanities/blogs/habits-of-living/habits-of-living-radhika-gajjala-lectures-on-e-philanthropy
<b>The Habits of Living Thinkathon (Thinking Marathon) is being hosted by the Centre for Internet and Society in Bangalore, India, from September 26 to 29, 2012. The event brings together a range of multi-disciplinary scholars and practitioners. The aim of the workshop is to generate a dialogue on the notion of surrogate structures that have become visible landmarks of contemporary life, and to produce new conceptual frameworks to help us understand networks and the ways in which they inform our everyday practice and thought. </b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Today, Radhika Gajalla gave a lecture about a body of work which she called as "Emerging forms of Surrogacy, E-Philanthropy and Digital Globalization through Online Micro-transactional Platforms". It looks at online micro-transaction platforms. She ran us through some of the history of micro-finance theory, from Yunis' methods of female empowerment to micro-finance as a profit-generating activity, and the newer online micro-finance platforms like KIVA, microplace and CARE's online micro-finance portal.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Radhika also spoke about labor organization and supply chains forming for handicraft micro-enterprises in India. She identified two categories of platforms that entrepreneurs could use: sites that link buyers directly to producers, like Etsy and Ebay, and mirco-finance websites that solicit (usually Western) donors. In some cases, resources like Ebay cannot be used in India (or couldn’t in the past) because of barriers like the banning of paypal, and there is more demand for the micro-finance platforms from lenders (Westerners); these forces have worked to make the empowered entrepreneur a much more legitimate and accessible image for lenders.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Consequently, Radhika begins to identify the politics of imagery on online micro-finance platforms, and identified two aspects of the images common on these online platforms: the empowered receiver (who is being directly empowered by the loans) and the empowered giver (who is being made to feel good by being enablers for these receivers). The images being used by the MFIs are strategically used to create the sense of connection or the belonging to mutual networks with the lenders — an example of this is individuals in the West who weave seeing a picture of an Indian weaver and want to fund her not just because they interpret her as poor but also as a fellow weaver. This philanthropic model of giving also uses guilt relief as a motivation — the return on the loan is the relief of guilt.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In the participant discussions, it was pointed out that the images also spur lending through the promise of improving lives. Also, this concept of using moral responsibility to prompt giving can be paralleled with the movement in Western business spheres of social responsibility.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Another participant brought up the idea of mobilization, and asks us to think about what mobilizes individuals or groups to give in to these micro-finance organizations? Is it really hope, or is it shame? To what extent can these really motivate us?</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Further, participant interaction caused us to wonder if, on websites like KIVA, both lenders and receivers become nodes and entry-points into new networks, or even the sites of new network creation.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">As for my own thoughts, I was particularly interested in a point that one participant made on the expression of poverty in the images on KIVA: they do not showcase destitution. While they are images of poverty, they are also images of hope — the colours are bright, the subjects are smiling. Are these images much more powerful as motivators for Western donations because Westerners are desensitized to images of destitute poverty? Or are they just more accessible to Western viewers?</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">While destitution suggests a rigidity of causal structures that cannot be altered by either the subject or the viewer, the image of the smiling Indian woman standing in front of the spinning wheel expresses the concept that poverty is escapable using the inherent tools and skills possessed by the subject, to the only thing missing that is capital — an idea that is much more accessible to the Western donor. It is also possible that the movement in international aid and development media from images of destitution to images of hope impresses upon the donor that there has been progress in the Global South, possibly progress that can be attributed to actions of Western development initiatives, which legitimizes the donation by implicating that improvement is possible and currently taking place.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Continue to follow our live blog of the Thinkathon for more thought-provoking discussion!</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-humanities/blogs/habits-of-living/habits-of-living-radhika-gajjala-lectures-on-e-philanthropy'>https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-humanities/blogs/habits-of-living/habits-of-living-radhika-gajjala-lectures-on-e-philanthropy</a>
</p>
No publisherJadine LannonLive BlogThinkathonHabits of LivingDigital NativesWorkshop2012-10-09T05:40:08ZBlog EntryOne. Zero.
https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/www-indianexpress-com-one-zero
<b>The digital world is the world of twos. All our complex interactions, emotional negotiations, business transactions, social communication and political subscriptions online can be reduced to a string of 1s and 0s, as machines create the networks for the human beings to speak. So sophisticated is this network of digital infrastructure that we forget how our languages of connection are constantly being transcribed in binary code, allowing for the information to be transmitted across the web. </b>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify;">Nishant Shah's article was <a class="external-link" href="http://www.indianexpress.com/news/one.-zero./1003149/0">published</a> in the Indian Express on September 16, 2012</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify;">Indeed, we have already reached a point where we don’t even need to be familiar with code to perform intimate functions with the machines that we live with, as they respond to us in human languages. While this human-machine duality has been resolved with the presence of intuitive and interactive interfaces that allow us to seamlessly connect to the person(s) at the other end of a digital connection, there is another binary that still remains at the centre of much discussion around all things digital.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">This is the duality of the Real and the Virtual. In geekspeak, this particular separation has been coded as a divide between RL (Real Life) and VR (Virtual Reality). This separation between the two is so naturalised that it has become a part of our everyday imagination where things that happen online are ‘out there’ and ‘an escape’ whereas things that are offline, are ‘real’ and ‘believable’. However, as digital technologies become pervasive and ubiquitous, these lines between RL and VR have blurred. Especially with new technologies of augmented reality and simulated layers like Google Goggles or even location-based services on your smartphone that help you navigate through the offline world, it is becoming difficult to clearly say what is online and what is offline.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">There are two questions that help demonstrate this blurring of boundaries very clearly. The first is an existential one, something that doesn’t crop up often in conversations, but suddenly haunts you on at 2 pm on an idle Thursday: Who are you, when you are online? A famous cartoon on the web had two dogs sitting on a connected computer, their paws on the mouse, and telling each other, ‘On the internet, nobody knows you are a dog’. But in the hyper-connected world that we live in, everybody knows exactly who we are, even as we ourselves are confused about where our bodies end and where our digital extensions and avatars begin. Things that we do in RL affect and shape the ways in which our avatars evolve on social networking sites. The interactions that our avatars have with other digital objects map back on our understanding of who we are and how we dress our bodies. Even when we are not connected, our avatars interact, constantly, not only with other avatars in the system, but also machines and artificial intelligence scripts, and robots and networks, masquerading as ourselves even outside our knowledge. We might be tagged, liked, shared, transmitted and morphed; we might be photoshopped, reduced to a tweet, condensed to a status message, embodied in an avatar on our favourite role playing game, or hovering as a signature to emails. These are all parts of us, but they are not just extensions of us. These are things that not only stand in for us but also shape the ways in which we understand ourselves and how we connect to the world.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The second question crops up regularly in digitally mediated conversations. When your parents call you on the cell phone, or your friend messages you on the Blackberry, or your colleague pings you on Skype or your IRC buddies see you on a chat channel. As our modes of access have become mobile and devices of access have become portable, we can never really clearly answer the question, ‘Where are you right now?’. It is a question worth dwelling on. Where are you when you are walking down a street, using GPRS data on your cellphone, and a friend uses a Voice Over IP service like Whatsapp to ask you, ‘Where are you right now?’. Are you on the street? On your phone? On an application? Located somewhere on a server? Bits of data on a high-speed optic fibre, zooming across the ionosphere? Depending upon who is asking the question, you would be able to and in fact have to give a different answer about where you are when you are online.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">This blurred duality might be seen as confusing, taking away the assurance of our body and our geography from everyday practices. In fact, one of the reasons why the digital revolution has been so well received is because these technologies facilitate an almost seamless transfer of ideas, emotions and connections across the different realms of RL and VR, offering us new ways of thinking about being human, being social, and being connected. The strength of the digital is in this coupling together, of the hitherto irreconcilable realms of our life in messy and enchanting ways, giving us new opportunities to think about who we are and where we are in our quotidian lives.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/www-indianexpress-com-one-zero'>https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/www-indianexpress-com-one-zero</a>
</p>
No publishernishantResearchers at WorkInformation TechnologyDigital Natives2015-04-24T11:50:32ZBlog EntryAugust 2012 Bulletin
https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/august-2012-bulletin
<b>Welcome to the newsletter issue of August 2012 from the Centre for Internet & Society (CIS). The present issue features an analysis of the latest list of sites blocked by the Indian government from August 18, 2012 to August 21, 2012, the India Report for Consumers International IP Watchlist 2012, and press coverage related to the recent North East exodus.</b>
<h2><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance">Internet Governance</a></h2>
<p>The Internet Governance programme conducts research around the various social, technical, and political underpinnings of global and national Internet governance, and includes online privacy, freedom of speech, and Internet governance mechanisms and processes:</p>
<h3><b>Special Section on Freedom of Expression</b></h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">We usually cover Freedom of Expression under Internet Governance. However, in the month of August there has been much discussion regarding the North East exodus from Bangalore and the blocking of a number of websites by the Indian government from August 18 to 21, 2012. This special section covers reportage and original content from CIS:</p>
<p><b>Featured Research</b></p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/analysing-blocked-sites-riots-communalism">Analysing Latest List of Blocked Sites</a> (Communalism & Rioting Edition) (by Pranesh Prakash): Pranesh Prakash did a preliminary analysis on a leaked list of the websites blocked from August 18, 2012 till August 21, 2012 by the Indian government. There were a total of 309 specific items (those being URLs, Twitter accounts, img tags, blog posts, blogs, and a handful of websites) that were blocked. In this analysis, Pranesh examines why these have been blocked, are the blocks legitimate, are there any egregious mistakes, why the whole list hasn’t been put up, why can one access items that are supposed to be blocked, what should the government have done, etc. The analysis was quoted/cross-posted in the following places: <a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2012/08/25/opinion-indias-clumsy-twitter-gamble/">Wall Street Journal</a> (August 25, 2012), <a href="http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/article3812819.ece">The Hindu</a> (August 24, 2012), <a href="http://www.livemint.com/2012/08/23210529/How-ISPs-block-websites-and-wh.html?atype=tp">LiveMint</a> (August 24, 2012), <a href="http://globalvoicesonline.org/2012/08/24/india-strong-reactions-to-social-media-censorship/">Global Voices</a> (August 24, 2012), <a href="http://bit.ly/PZN75N">Outlook</a> (August 23, 2012), <a href="http://www.firstpost.com/tech/epic-fail-how-india-compiled-its-banned-list-of-websites-427522.html">FirstPost.India</a> (August 23, 2012), <a href="http://ibnlive.in.com/news/haphazard-censorship-leaked-list-of-blocked-sites/284592-11.html">IBN Live</a> (August 23, 2012), <a href="http://newsclick.in/india/analysing-latest-list-blocked-sites-communalism-rioting-edition">News Click</a> (August 23, 2012), <a href="http://www.medianama.com/2012/08/223-india-internet-blocks/">Medianama</a> (August 23, 2012) and <a href="http://kafila.org/2012/08/23/an-analysis-of-the-latest-round-of-internet-censorship-in-india-communalism-and-rioting-edition-pranesh-prakash/">KAFILA</a> (August 23, 2012).</li>
</ul>
<p><b>Columns</b></p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/www-deccan-herald-aug-26-2012-to-regulate-net-intermediaries-or-not-is-the-question">To regulate Net intermediaries or not is the question</a> (by Sunil Abraham, Deccan Herald, August 26, 2012): “Given the disruption to public order caused by the mass exodus of North-Eastern Indians from several cities, the government has had for the first time in many years, a legitimate case to crackdown on Internet intermediaries and their users.”</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/www-first-post-com-aug-25-2012-nishant-shah-social-media-sms-are-not-why-ne-students-left-bangalore">Social media, SMS are not why NE students left Bangalore</a> (by Nishant Shah, First Post, August 25, 2012): “I woke up one morning to find that I was living in a city of crisis. Bangalore, where the largest public preoccupations to date have been about bad roads, stray dogs, and occasionally, the lack of night-life, the city was suddenly a space that people wanted to flee and occupy simultaneously.”</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/down-to-earth-org-nishant-shah-aug-24-2012-what-lurks-beneath-the-network">What lurks beneath the Network</a> (by Nishant Shah, Down to Earth, August 24, 2012): “There is a series of buzzwords that have become a naturalised part of discussions around digital social media—participation, collaboration, peer-2-peer, mobilisation, etc. Especially in the post Arab Spring world (and our own home-grown Anna Hazare spectacles), there is this increasing belief in the innate possibilities of social media as providing ways by which the world as we know it shall change for the better. Young people are getting on to the streets and demanding their rights to the future.”</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/www-tehelka-com-sunil-abraham-august-23-2012-censoring-the-internet">Censoring the Internet: A brief manual</a> (by Sunil Abraham, Tehelka, August 23, 2012): “Blocking websites on the Internet should be proportionate to harm they intend. However, the government of India's approach is against the principles of natural justice.”</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/www-livemint-com-chinmayi-arun-aug-20-2012-perils-of-hactivism">The Perils of 'Hactivism'</a> (by Chinmayi Arun, LiveMint, August 20, 2012): “Civil disobedience includes accepting the penalty for breaking the law. Untraceable hackers are far removed from this ethic.”</li>
</ul>
<p><b>Foreign Media Coverage</b></p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/www-washington-post-rama-lakshmi-august-20-2012-india-blocks-more-than-250-web-sites-for-inciting-hate-panic">India blocks more than 250 Web sites for inciting hate, panic</a> (by Rama Lakshmi, Washington Post on August 20, 2012): “A blanket ban does not necessarily lead to a reduction in the circulation of rumors because people become more vulnerable in a communication vacuum.”— Sunil Abraham.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/www-the-globe-and-mail-stephanie-nolen-august-23-2012-indias-ethnic-clashes-intensify-within-social-media-maelstrom">India’s ethnic clashes intensify within social-media maelstrom</a> (by Stephanie Nolen, Globe Mail, August 23, 2012): “Now for a change, the government has legitimate grounds to censor speech...but they’ve cried wolf on so many occasions before.” — Sunil Abraham.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/afr-com-aug-24-2012-mark-magnier-india-limits-social-media-after-civil-unrest">India limits social media after civil unrest</a> (by Mark Magnier, Australian Financial Review, August 24, 2012): “Before, the government’s had no grounds for censorship, it was only acting on the bruised egos of bureaucrats and officials... this time, it’s got a legitimate right given the disruption of public order. But it hasn’t done so very effectively.” — Sunil Abraham.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/wsj-com-jai-krishna-and-rumman-ahmed-aug-23-2012-new-delhi-expands-curbs-on-web-content">New Delhi Expands Curbs on Web Content</a> (by R Jai Krishna and Rumman Ahmed, Wall Street Journal, August 23, 2012): “The government's move to block several Twitter handles is a clear case of administrative overreach...This action means citizens are less likely to believe that the government can use its powers responsibly.” — Sunil Abraham.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/www-livemint-com-aug-24-2012-surabhi-agarwal-govt-in-line-of-fire-over-web-censorship">Govt in line of fire over web censorship</a> (by Surabhi Agarwal, Livemint, August 24, 2012): “Both Kanchan Gupta and Swapan Dasgupta seem to be having a right wing ideology, but while the former’s account is blocked the latter’s is not...The difference is on the kind of content which has been posted.” — Pranesh Prakash.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/in-reuters-com-david-lalmalsawma-aug-24-2012-indias-social-media-crackdown-reveals-clumsy-govt-machinery">India's social media crackdown reveals clumsy govt machinery</a> (by David Lalmalsawma, Reuters, August 24, 2012): Pranesh Prakash’s analysis is quoted.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/hosted-2-ap-org-aug-24-2012-internet-expert-criticizes-indian-cyber-blockades">Internet expert criticizes Indian cyber blockades</a> (by Muneeza Naqvi, Associated Press, August 24, 2012): “The government has gone overboard and many of its efforts are legally questionable.” — Pranesh Prakash. This was also covered in <a href="http://www.businessweek.com/ap/2012-08-24/internet-expert-criticizes-indian-cyber-blockades">Bloomberg Businessweek</a> (August 24, 2012), <a href="http://www.khaleejtimes.com/kt-article-display-1.asp?xfile=data/international/2012/August/international_August802.xml&section=international">Khaleej Times</a> (August 24, 2012), <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/internet-expert-criticizes-indian-cyber-blockades-17071588#.UDr2TdbibFs">ABC News</a> (August 24, 2012), <a href="http://seattletimes.com/html/businesstechnology/2018980504_apasindiacybercensorship.html" target="_blank">Seattle Times</a> (August 24, 2012), <a href="http://www.vancouversun.com/mobile/news/world-news/Internet+expert+criticizes+India+cyber+blockades+wake+ethnic/7139293/story.html">Vancouver Sun</a> (August 24, 2012), <a href="http://www.kansascity.com/2012/08/24/3776866/internet-expert-criticizes-indian.html" target="_blank">Kansas City</a>. (August 24, 2012), <a href="http://www.timescolonist.com/technology/Internet+expert+criticizes+India+cyber+blockades+wake+ethnic/7139293/story.html" target="_blank">Times Colonist</a> (August 24, 2012), <a href="http://www.mercedsunstar.com/2012/08/24/2494805_internet-expert-criticizes-indian.html">Merced Sun-Star</a> (August 24, 2012), <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/internet-expert-criticizes-indian-cyber-123930580.html">Yahoo News</a> (August 24, 2012), <a href="http://www.sanluisobispo.com/2012/08/24/2197739_internet-expert-criticizes-indian.html">SanLuisObispo.com</a> (August 24, 2012), <a href="http://www.terrorismwatch.org/2012_08_19_archive.html">Terrorism Watch</a> (August 25, 2012), <a href="http://www.sci-tech-today.com/story.xhtml?story_id=84590">Sci-Tech Today</a> (August 26, 2012).</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/www-livemint-com-aug-24-2012-gopal-sathe-how-isps-block-websites-and-why-it-doesnt-help">How ISPs block websites and why it doesn’t help</a> (by Gopal Sathe, Livemint, August 24, 2012): “Even though many of the items on that list do deserve (in my opinion) to be removed [...] the people and companies hosting the material should have been asked to remove it, instead of ordering the ISPs to block them.” — Pranesh Prakash.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/wsj-com-aug-25-2012-rumman-ahmed-r-jai-krishna-indias-internet-curbs-under-legal-cloud">India’s Internet Curbs Under Legal Cloud</a> (by Rumman Ahmed and R Jai Krishna, Wall Street Journal, August 26, 2012):” The four orders that were sent to the ISPs don’t say under which section or under what power these orders are being sent...They were sent without invoking any statute or without invoking any law.” — Pranesh Prakash.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/www-ny-times-aug-25-2012-gardiner-harris-after-violence-in-india-a-crackdown-online">After Violence in India, a Crackdown Online</a> (by Gardiner Harris, New York Times, August 25, 2012): “I don’t see this as politically motivated censorship...I see this as gross ineptitude by the government.” — Pranesh Prakash.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/http-www-google-com-hostednews-afp-inde-la-tentative-de-controler-i-internet-est-illegale">Inde: la tentative de contrôler l'internet est "illégale</a>" (Agence France Presse, August 24, 2012): Pranesh Prakash is quoted.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/www-china-post-aug-24-2012-india-threatens-action-against-twitter-for-ethnic-violence-rumors">India threatens action against Twitter for ethnic violence 'rumors'</a> (originally posted by Ben Sheppard in AFP and published in the China Post, August 25, 2012): Pranesh Prakash’s analysis is quoted.</li>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/www-ciol-com-aug-23-2012-blocked-websites">Blocked websites: Where India flawed</a> (CIOL, August 23, 2012): Pranesh Prakash’s analysis is quoted.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/global-voices-online-org-aparna-ray-aug-24-2012india-social-media-censorship-to-contain-cyber-terrorism">India: Social Media Censorship to Contain ‘Cyber-Terrorism'?</a> (by Aparna Ray, Global Voices, August 24, 2012): Pranesh Prakash’s analysis is quoted.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/gulf-today-aug-25-2012-delhi-defends-internet-blocking">Delhi defends Internet blocking</a> (Gulf Today, August 25, 2012): “The officials who are trusted with this don’t know the law or modern technology well enough.” — Pranesh Prakash.</li>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/www-ibi-times-co-uk-gianluca-mezzofiore-aug-24-2012-india-blocks-news-website-pages-for-spreading-fear-over-assam-violence">India Blocks News Website Pages for 'Spreading Fear' over Assam Violence</a> (by Gianluca Mezzofiore, International Business Times, August 24, 2012): “The government's highest priority should have been to counter the rumours and it did a really bad job of that.” — Pranesh Prakash.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/www-gulf-daily-news-com-aug-25-2012-internet-clamp-outrage">Internet clamp outrage</a> (Gulf Daily, August 25, 2012): Pranesh Prakash is quoted.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/in-reuters-com-devidutta-tripathy-satarupa-bhattacharjya-aug-24-2012-india-faces-twitter-backlash">India faces Twitter backlash over Internet clampdown</a> (by Devidutta Tripathy and Satarupa Bhattacharjya, Reuters, August 24, 2012): “This isn't about political censorship. This is about the government not knowing how to do online regulation properly.” — Pranesh Prakash.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/afp-com-aug-23-2012-indian-govt-defends-internet-blocking">Indian government defends Internet blocking</a> (AFP, August 23, 2012): “I hope that this fiasco shows the folly of excessive censorship and encourages the government to make better use of social networks and technology to reach out to people.” — Pranesh Prakash. This was cross-posted in the following: <a href="http://www.thenational.ae/lifestyle/spectre-of-violence-justified-internet-blocking-indian-officials-say">The National</a> (August 25, 2012), <a href="http://news.ph.msn.com/sci-tech/indian-govt-defends-internet-blocking" target="_blank">MSN News</a> (August 24, 2012), <a href="http://www.starafrica.com/en/news/detail-news/view/india-warns-twitter-over-ethnic-violence-249196.html" target="_blank">StarAfrica.com</a> (August 24, 2012), <a href="http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/international/india-defends-internet-censorship/540161" target="_blank">Jakarta Globe</a> (August 24, 2012).</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/www-ft-com-aug-24-2012-james-crabtree-tim-bradshaw-criticism-mounts-over-india-censorship">Criticism mounts over India censorship</a> (by James Crabtree in Mumbai and Tim Bradshaw in San Francisco, Financial Times, August 24, 2012): “I am not questioning their original motives, but I do think this is excessive and incompetent censorship.” — Pranesh Prakash.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/www-forbes-com-mark-bergen-aug-29-2012-facebooks-delicate-dance-with-delhi-on-censorship">Facebook's Delicate Dance With Delhi On Censorship</a> (by Mark Bergen, Forbes, August 29, 2012): “Perhaps the Indian government has wasted, frittered away goodwill...It has cried ‘wolf’ so many times that this time the internet intermediaries are not taking them as seriously as they should.” — Sunil Abraham.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/www-nytimes-vikas-bajaj-aug-21-2012-internet-analysts-question-indias-efforts-to-stem-panic">Internet Analysts Question India’s Efforts to Stem Panic</a> (by Vikas Bajaj, New York Times, August 21, 2012): “The Internet intermediaries are responding slowly because now they have to trawl through their networks and identify hate speech.” — Sunil Abraham. This was cross-posted in <a href="http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/internet-analysts-question-india-s-efforts-to-stem-panic-257760">NDTV</a> on August 22, 2012. A version of this article appeared in print on August 22, 2012, on page B4 of the New York edition with the headline: Internet Moves by India to Stem Rumors and Panic Raise Questions.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/articles-latimes-com-mark-magnier-aug-23-2012-india-limits-social-media-after-civil-unrest">India limits social media after civil unrest</a> (by Mark Magnier, Los Angeles Times, August 23, 2012 and cross-posted in <a href="http://www.channel6newsonline.com/2012/08/after-civil-unrest-indian-government-places-limits-social-media/">Channel 6 News</a> on August 24, 2012): Sunil Abraham is quoted.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/www-voanews-com-aug-21-2012-anjana-pasricha-india-debates-misuse-of-social-media">India Debates Misuse of Social Media</a> (by Anjana Pasricha, Voice of America, August 21, 2012 and re-posted in <a href="http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2012/08/22/2012082200496.html">Chosunilbo</a> on September 4, 2012): “Social media websites and other Internet intermediaries should have been asked by the government to run banner advertising or some other form of messaging that revealed the lack of truth in the rumors that were circulating.” — Sunil Abraham.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/frenchtribune-com-bruce-totolos-aug-22-2012-officials-raise-questions-over-indian-governments-efforts">Officials Raise Questions over Indian Government’s Efforts</a> (by Bruce Totolos, French Tribune, August 22, 2012). “The government acted appropriately, but without sufficient sophistication.” — Sunil Abraham.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/www-upi-com-aug-24-2012-india-seeks-a-tighter-grip-on-social-media">India seeks a tighter grip on social media</a> (United Press International, August 24, 2012): Pranesh Prakash is quoted.</li>
</ul>
<p><b>National Media Coverage</b></p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/economic-times-aug-24-2012-internet-expert-pranesh-prakash-criticizes-indian-cyber-blockades">Internet expert Pranesh Prakash criticizes Indian cyber blockades</a> (Economic Times, August 24, 2012): Pranesh Prakash is quoted.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/times-of-india-aug-24-2012-govt-orders-blocking-of-300-specific-urls-including-16-twitter-accounts">Govt orders blocking of 300 specific URLs including 16 Twitter accounts</a> (Times of India, August 23, 2012): “The blocking of many of the items on the list are legally questionable and morally indefensible, even while a large number of the items ought to be removed.” — Pranesh Prakash.</li>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/tech-2-in-com-ne-exodus">NE exodus: List containing 309 blocked URLs leaks online</a> (tech 2, August 23, 2012): Pranesh Prakash's analysis is quoted.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/www-hindustantimes-com-aug-24-2012-govt-cracks-down-on-twitter">Govt cracks down on Twitter</a> (Hindustan Times, August 24, 2012): “The blocking was done without due process of law...the government should have engaged with the social media platforms since a majority — 217 out of 310 — of the block orders were aimed at Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter.” — Pranesh Prakash.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/www-hindustantimes-com-aug-24-2012-twitter-users-hit-back-at-govt-ban">Twitter users hit back at government ban</a> (originally posted in Reuters and carried in the Hindustan Times, August 24, 2012): “This isn't about political censorship. This is about the government not knowing how to do online regulation properly.” — Pranesh Prakash.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/www-hindustan-times-aug-26-2012-when-goi-blocks-twitterati-fly-off-their-handles">When #GOIBlocks, twitterati fly off their ‘handles’</a> (Hindustan Times, August 26, 2012). Pranesh Prakash’s tweet is quoted.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/www-the-hindu-aug-26-v-sridhar-regulating-the-internet-by-fiat">Regulating the Internet by fiat</a> (by V Sridhar, Hindu, August 26, 2012): Pranesh Prakash’s analysis is quoted.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/economic-times-aug-26-2012-twitter-handles">Twitter handles: How and why govt erred and what it can do to be smarter & more effective</a> (by TV Mahalingam and Shantanu Nandan Sharma, Economic Times, August 26, 2012): “Perhaps, for the first time, the <a href="http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/topic/Indian-government">Indian government</a> had legitimate reasons to censor speech.” — Sunil Abraham.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/tech2-in-com-som-isps-block-wordpress-domain-across-india">Some ISPs block Wordpress domain across India</a> (tech 2, August 25, 2012): Pranesh Prakash’s analysis is quoted.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/www-the-hindu-com-aug-24-2012-details-emerge-on-govt-blockade-of-websites">Details emerge on government blockade of websites</a> (Hindu, August 24, 2012): Pranesh Prakash’s analysis is quoted.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/www-indolink-com-india-faces-twitter-backlash">India faces Twitter backlash over Internet clampdown</a> (INDOLink, August 25, 2012): Pranesh Prakash is quoted.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/www-pbs-org-aug-28-2012-simon-roughneen-india-blocks-facebook-twitter-mass-texts-in-response-to-unrest">India Blocks Facebook, Twitter, Mass Texts in Response to Unrest</a> (by Simon Roughneen, Media Shift, August 28, 2012): “In the older forms of governance, which were imagined through a broadcast model, the government was at the center of the information wheel, managing and mediating what information reached different parts of the country. In the [peer-to-peer] world, where the government no longer has that control, it is now trying different ways by which it can reinforce its authority and centrality to the information ecosystem. Which means that there is going to be a series of failures and models that don't work.” — Nishant Shah.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/tech-2-in-com-aug-30-2012-tata-photon-unblocks-wordpress">Tata Photon unblocks Wordpress.com</a> (by Rohini Lakshane, tech 2, August 30, 2012): “This is not the first time an ISP has gone overboard in implementing censorship, be it copyright issues, piracy or inflammatory content. In 2006, the government had <a href="http://pib.nic.in/newsite/erelease.aspx?relid=18954">chastised ISPs</a> for over-censoring content and blocking unintended websites and pages...ISPs have numerous grouses against the government. They do not possess the technical capabilities to implement the government's orders, at times, whether about surveillance or censorship.” — Pranesh Prakash.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/www-merinews-com-wahid-bukhari-august-23-2012-northeast-exodus">Northeast exodus: Is there a mechanism to pre-screen social media content?</a> (by Wahid Bukhari, Merinews.com, August 23, 2012): “Given the amount of content uploaded on the larger social networks, pre-screening content is just not possible, while removal upon complaint is. They don't have editors like newspapers do; importantly, they shouldn't.” — Pranesh Prakash.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/www-ibnlive-in-com-haphazard-censorship-leaked-list-of-blocked-sites">Haphazard censorship? Leaked list of blocked websites in India</a> (IBN Live, August 23, 2012): Pranesh Prakash’s analysis is quoted.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/articles-economictimes-indiatimes-com-govt-asks-twitter-to-block-fake-pmo-india-accounts-site-fails-to-respond">Government asks Twitter to block fake 'PMO India' accounts; site fails to respond</a> (Economic Times, August 23, 2012): Sunil Abraham is quoted.</li>
</ul>
<p><b>Videos</b></p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/ibn-live-com-shows-ftn-aug-21-2012-is-it-time-to-regulate-social-media">FTN: Is it time to regulate social media?</a> (IBN Live, August 21, 2012): Sunil Abraham, Pavan Duggal, A Mukherji and Nikhil Pahwa spoke to CNN-IBN Deputy Editor Sagarika Ghose in Face the Nation episode that was telecasted in IBNLive on August 21, 2012. Sunil said “if one looks at the initial orders that the government sent these intermediaries those were very broad instructions. The order was addressed to all intermediaries under the IT Act.” Watch the <a href="http://ibnlive.in.com/shows/Face+the+Nation/284279.html">full video</a> on IBN Live.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/www-ndtv-com-aug-23-2012-govt-vs-tweeple-has-clampdown-hit-free-speech">Govt vs Tweeple: Has clampdown hit free speech?</a> (NDTV, August 23, 2012): Has the Government crossed the line by ordering the blocking of several Twitter accounts, many belonging to prominent journalists? The debate was featured in NDTV on August 23, 2012. Sunil Abraham spoke to Sonia Singh of NDTV. Sunil said that “we should focus on designing of the censorship regime in the country and the lack of compliance with the principles of natural justice.” Watch the <a href="http://www.ndtv.com/video/player/india-decides-9/govt-vs-tweeple-has-clampdown-hit-free-speech/243830?vod-mostpopular">full video</a> on NDTV.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/www-ndtv-com-we-the-people-aug-26-2012-is-the-govt-caught-in-the-censorship-web">Is the govt caught in the 'censorship' web?</a> (NDTV, August 26, 2012): In “We the People” Pranesh Prakash responded to Barkha Dutt’s question on what does a government do in a time of social unrest. See the <a href="http://www.ndtv.com/video/player/we-the-people/is-the-govt-caught-in-the-censorship-web/244248">full debate</a> on NDTV.</li>
</ul>
<p><b>Events Organised</b></p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/role-of-us-tech-companies-in-govt-surveillance">Role of the US Tech Companies in Government Surveillance: A Lecture by Christopher Soghoian</a> (CIS, Bangalore, August 27, 2012): Christopher Soghoian gave a lecture on the role companies play in assisting government surveillance.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/iacs-summer-school-2012">The Asian Edge: 2012 Inter-Asia Cultural Studies Society Summer School</a>: The 2nd Biannual Inter Asia Cultural Studies (IACS) Summer School was hosted in Bangalore by CIS and the Centre for the Study of Culture and Society.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/biometric-identification">Biometric Identification: Specified Error, Accuracy and Efficiency, Considered for the Operations of the UIDAI — A Talk by Hans Varghese Mathews</a> (CIS, Bangalore, August 17, 2012): Hans Varghese Mathews gave a public lecture on biometric identification.</li>
</ul>
<p><b>Events Participated</b></p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/sixth-meeting-of-sub-groups-on-privacy-issues">Sixth Meeting of the two Sub-Groups on Privacy Issues under the Chairmanship of Justice AP Shah</a> (Committee Room No. 228, Yojana Bhawan, Sansad Marg, New Delhi, August 31, 2012): Sunil Abraham participated in the meeting.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://conference.apnic.net/34/program/inet-gov-plenary">APNIC 34 Conference</a> (Phnompenh, Cambodia, August 23 – 31, 2012): Sunil Abraham was a panelist along with Ang Peng Hwa, Paul Wilson, Duangthip Chomprang and Raul Echeberria in the session on Internet Governance Plenary. The event was organised by APNIC.</li>
</ul>
<p><b>Events Hosted</b></p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://www.meetup.com/Bangalore-Designers/events/70796372/">Meetup for Bangalore's designers</a> (CIS, Bangalore, August 11, 2012): CIS hosted the meet-up in Bangalore.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Visit by students from Hindustan University, Chennai (CIS, Bangalore, August 16, 2012): Sunil Abraham and Elonnai Hickok gave a lecture to students from the Hindustan University.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Interface Intimacies (TERI Complex, Bangalore, August 18 – 20, 2012): CIS conducted a research workshop with Audrey Yue and Namita Malhotra.</li>
</ul>
<p><b>Upcoming Events</b></p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/thinking-with-data">Thinking with Data@CIS</a> (CIS, Bangalore, September 16 – 18, 2012): The Thinking with Data course offered at the National Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS) will be screened at CIS, Bangalore. The screening will be followed by online discussions with the faculty through Skype or Google+ Hangouts. Screening starts from September 12.</li>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/cartonama-conference">Cartonama Conference</a> (MLR Convention Centre, JP Nagar, Bangalore, September 22, 2012): The Cartonama Conference is centred around geospatial data, mapping and location based services. HasGeek supported by CIS is organising this event.</li>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/uk-dna-database-and-european-court-of-human-rights-lessons-that-india-can-learn-from-mistakes">UK DNA Database and the European Court of Human Rights</a>: Lessons that India can Learn from Its Mistakes (Alternative Law Forum, Infantry Road, Shivaji Nagar, Bangalore, September 24, 2012): CIS in collaboration with Alternative Law Forum invites the public to a talk with international experts, Helen Wallace from GeneWatch, UK and Jeremy Gruber from the Council for Responsible Genetics in the United States.</li>
</ul>
<hr />
<h2><a href="https://cis-india.org/telecom">Telecom</a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">While the potential for growth and returns exist for telecommunications in India, a range of issues need to be addressed. One aspect is more extensive rural coverage and the other is a countrywide access to broadband which is low. Both require effective and efficient use of networks and resources, including spectrum:</p>
<p><a href="https://cis-india.org/telecom/telecom-knowledge-repository/knowledge-and-capacity-around-telecom-policy" class="external-link"><b>Building Knowledge and Capacity around Telecommunication Policy in India</b></a></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Ford Foundation has given a grant of USD 2,00,000 to CIS to build expertise in the area of telecommunications in India. The knowledge repository deals with these modules: Introduction to Telecommunications, Telecommunications Infrastructure and Technologies, Government of India Regulatory Framework for Telecom, Telecommunication and the Market, Universal Access and Accessibility, The International Telecommunications Union and other international bodies, Broadcasting, Emerging Topics and Way Forward. Dr. Surendra Pal, Satya N Gupta, Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, Payal Malik, Dr. Rakesh Mehrotra and Dr. Nadeem Akhtar are the expert reviewers.</p>
<p><span class="visualHighlight">The following are the new outputs:</span></p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/telecom/telecom-knowledge-repository/auctioning-and-allocation-of-spectrum">Auctioning and Allocation of Spectrum</a> (by Snehashish Ghosh): Auction of spectrums was introduced in the telecommunication market after the failure of the administrative process of allocating spectrum. Auctions use a price mechanism to allocate spectrum. Auction of spectrum can be used to increase efficiency and earn maximum revenue.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/telecom/telecom-knowledge-repository/trai-act-1997">The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India Act, 1997</a> (by Snehashish Ghosh): The main objective of the TRAI Act was to establish the TRAI and the Telecom Dispute Settlement Appellate Tribunal. Snehashish also touches upon the amendment to the TRAI Act, government control over TRAI, scheme of the TRAI Act, constitution of TRAI, its powers and functions, grounds and procedures for appeal to the tribunal, etc.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/telecom/telecom-knowledge-repository/broadband-wireless-access">Broadband Wireless Access – Standards</a> (by Jürgen Kock): Jürgen tells us about the broadband wireless access standards, why we need technical standards, who define BWA standards, WiMAX standards and long term evolution.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/telecom/telecom-knowledge-repository/mesh-networks">Mesh Networks</a> (by Ravikiran Annaswamy): Ravikiran tells us the definition of Mesh Networks, its importance, applications and the things to explore in future.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/telecom/telecom-knowledge-repository/national-telecom-policy">National Telecom Policy, 2012</a> (by Snehashish Ghosh): The National Telecom Policy, 2012 was approved by the Union Cabinet on May 31, 2012. Snehashish tells us about the vision of the National Telecom Policy, 2012, its background, the strategies (broadband rural telephony and universal service obligation fund), licensing, convergence and value-added services, spectrum management, etc.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/telecom/telecom-knowledge-repository/new-telecom-policy-1999">New Telecom Policy, 1999</a> (by Snehashish Ghosh): The New Telecom Policy, 1999 was formulated on the basis of the report of Group on Telecommunication. In this unit, Snehashish talks about the objectives of the Policy, its targets, the new category of service providers, role of the regulator, other mandates to the Policy, amendment to the New Telecom Policy, 1999, etc.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/telecom/telecom-knowledge-repository/national-telecom-policy-1994">National Telecom Policy, 1994</a> (by Snehashish Ghosh): The National Telecom Policy, 1994 was formulated for the purpose of opening up the Indian markets for foreign direct investment as well as domestic investment in the telecom sector. Snehashish throws light on the objectives of the National Telecom Policy, 1994, the status of telecom services prior to the implementation of the aforesaid Policy; value added services, hardware and technological aspects, basic services, and outcomes of the National Telecom Policy.</li>
</ul>
<p><b>Column in Business Standard</b></p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/telecom/http-organizing-india-blogspot-in-aug-2-2012-shyam-ponappa-decision-analysis-for-interest-rates">Decision Analysis for Interest Rates - II</a> (Shyam Ponappa, Business Standard, August 2, 2012): “India needs to make practical choices that prioritise growth. This is the second column. The previous column was published in the Business Standard on July 5, 2012. It explained how lower interest rates could improve growth by increasing net profits.”</li>
</ul>
<hr />
<h2 style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k">Access to Knowledge</a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The Access to Knowledge programme addresses the harms caused to consumers, developing countries, human rights, and creativity/innovation from excessive regimes of copyright, patents, and other such monopolistic rights over knowledge:</p>
<p><b>Key Research</b></p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/consumers-international-ip-watchlist-report-2012">Consumers International IP Watchlist 2012 — India Report</a> (by Pranesh Prakash): The India Report for Consumers International IP Watchlist 2012 was published on the A2K Network website. According to the report, India's Copyright Act is a relatively balanced instrument that recognises the interests of consumers through its broad private use exception, and by facilitating the compulsory licensing of works that would otherwise be unavailable. However, the compulsory licensing provision have not been utilized so far, because of both a lack of knowledge and more importantly because of the stringent conditions attached to them.</li>
</ul>
<p><b>Press Coverage</b></p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/www-businessworld-in-jaya-bhattacharji-rose-august-9-copyright-law">Copyright Law: More Than a Moral Obligation</a> (by Jaya Bhattacharji Rose, Businessworld, August 9, 2012): “So far, things have worked well because sepia-tinted photographs have generally become part of the public domain. But now, only photographs by photographers who died before 1951 are part of the public domain. This has shrivelled up the public domain in photographs since it is even more difficult to trace the photographer...than to estimate the age of a photograph, determining whether a photograph is in the public domain is laden with uncertainty. The use of historical photos in books (and Wikipedia) will be badly affected.”— Pranesh Prakash.</li>
</ul>
<hr />
<h2><a href="https://cis-india.org/accessibility">Accessibility</a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">India has an estimated 70 million disabled persons who are unable to read printed materials due to some form of physical, sensory, cognitive or other disability. The disabled need accessible content, devices and interfaces facilitated via copyright law and electronic accessibility policies:</p>
<p><b>Blog Entry</b></p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/accessibility/ring-side-view">Ring Side View: Update on WIPO Negotiations on the Treaty for the Visually Impaired</a> (by Rahul Cherian): As the negotiations between Member States progressed it became clear that the United States and the European Union were blocking the Treaty while everybody else was pushing hard for the Treaty. The United States and the European Union were pushing for some form of non-binding instrument that would be more in the nature of a recommendation. Further coverage of this is at <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/26/blind-treaty-2012_n_1706543.html">Huffington Post</a> and in the <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/2012/jul/30/us-eu-blocking-treaty-blind-books">Guardian</a>.</li>
</ul>
<hr />
<h2><a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives">Digital Natives</a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Digital Natives with a Cause? examines the changing landscape of social change and political participation in light of the role that young people play through digital and Internet technologies, in emerging information societies. Consolidating knowledge from Asia, Africa and Latin America, it builds a global network of knowledge partners who critically engage with discourse on youth, technology and social change, and look at alternative practices and ideas in the Global South:</p>
<p><b>Public Talk</b></p>
<ul>
<li>Decoding Digital Natives (Mudra Institute of Communications, Ahmedabad, August 31, 2012): Nishant Shah gave a public lecture.</li>
</ul>
<hr />
<h2><a href="https://cis-india.org/about/openness">Openness</a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The 'Openness' programme critically examines alternatives to existing regimes of intellectual property rights, and transparency and accountability. Under this programme, we study Open Government Data, Open Access to Scholarly Literature, Open Access to Law, Open Content, Open Standards, and Free/Libre/Open Source Software:</p>
<p><b>Event Hosted</b></p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/openness/bangalore-force-com-cloud-apps-developer-meetup-event">Bangalore Force.com August Meetup</a> (CIS, Bangalore, August 19, 2012): John Barnes, CTO Model Metrics gave a lecture at the event organised by Bangalore Force.com.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/openness/technology-evangelists-religious-evangelists">Technology Evangelists and Religious Evangelists — A Talk by Katherine Sydenham</a> (CIS, Bangalore, August 10, 2012): Katherine Sydenham from the University of Michigan School gave a lecture.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/openness/data-driven-journalism-data-literacy-and-open-govt">Data-Driven Journalism, Data Literacy & Open Government — Talk at CIS</a> (CIS, Bangalore, August 1, 2012): The event was co-organised by Open Knowledge Foundation and CIS. Lucy Chambers and Laura Newman gave an informal talk on ‘Data-Driven Journalism, Data Literacy, and Open Government'.</li>
</ul>
<p><b>CIS is hiring</b><br /> *<a href="https://cis-india.org/jobs">Jobs</a>*<br /> CIS is seeking applications from interested candidates for the following posts:</p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/jobs/research-manager">Research Manager</a>: CIS is seeking an individual, full-time, for a period of 12 months, beginning from October 2012. The Research Manager is expected to contribute to conceptualising, managing and executing research projects in the field of Internet and Society, build knowledge networks of researchers towards collaborative and open knowledge production and dissemination, developing and executing the monitoring and evaluation processes for humanities and social sciences based research, supporting and managing academic, popular and hybrid publishing projects from existing and new research and initiate innovative and creative areas and methodologies of studying the Internet and its practices in India and the larger Global South, to develop key research clusters and networks. Send in your applications to <a href="mailto:admin@cis-india.org">admin@cis-india.org</a>.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/jobs/vacancy-for-researcher-accessibility">Researcher/Editor</a> (Accessibility): CIS is hiring for the full-time position of a researcher for its accessibility programme. The job will entail working on researching on national and international policies and best practices in the field of accessibility of information and technology for persons with disabilities. To apply, please send your CV and three examples of writing to <a href="mailto:nirmita@cis-india.org">nirmita@cis-india.org</a></li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/jobs/vacancy-for-programme-director">Programme Director – Access to Knowledge</a>: CIS is seeking a Programme Director for its New Delhi office. The Programme Director will manage CIS’s Access to Knowledge programme which is funded by the Wikimedia Foundation, to support the growth of Wikipedia and its sister projects and to advance access to free knowledge in India. The Programme Director will partner with the large Wikimedia community in India to focus on Indic and English languages and will manage a team of four staff members.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/jobs/programme-officer-internet-governance">Programme Officer – Internet Governance</a>: CIS is seeking an individual with a strong background in legal research and policy work to be part of its internet governance (IG) programme. The candidates must have good knowledge of Indian and international law on freedom of expression and privacy, demonstrable research skills, have strong communication skills and be media savvy with the ability to convey complex legal issues clearly to a general audience, open to travel and work independently.</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">To apply for the posts of Programme Director and Programme Officers, please send your resume to Sunil Abraham (<a href="mailto:sunil@cis-india.org">sunil@cis-india.org</a>) or Pranesh Prakash (<a href="mailto:pranesh@cis-india.org">pranesh@cis-india.org</a>) with three references.</p>
<hr />
<h2><a href="https://cis-india.org/about/">About CIS</a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">CIS was registered as a society in Bangalore in 2008. As an independent, non-profit research organisation, it runs different policy research programmes such as Accessibility, Access to Knowledge, Openness, Internet Governance, and Telecom. Over the last four years our policy research programmes have resulted in outputs such as the <a href="https://cis-india.org/advocacy/accessibility/blog/e-accessibility-handbook">e-Accessibility Policy Handbook for Persons with Disabilities</a> with ITU and G3ict, and <a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/front-page/blog/dnbook">Digital Alternatives with a Cause?</a>, <a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/front-page/blog/position-papers">Thinkathon Position Papers</a> and the <a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/front-page/blog/digital-natives-with-a-cause-a-report">Digital Natives with a Cause? Report</a> with Hivos. With the Government of India we have done policy research for Ministry of Communications & Information Technology, Ministry of Human Resource Development, Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, etc., on <a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blog/cis-analysis-july2011-treaty-print-disabilities">WIPO Treaties</a>, <a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blog/analysis-copyright-amendment-bill-2012">Copyright Bill</a>, <a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/front-page/blog/cis-feedback-to-nia-bill">NIA Bill</a>, etc.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">CIS is an accredited NGO at WIPO and has given policy briefs to delegations from various countries, our Programme Manager, Nirmita Narasimhan won the <a href="https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/national-award">National Award for Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities</a> from the Government of India and also received the <a href="https://cis-india.org/news/nirmita-nivh-award">NIVH Excellence Award</a>.</p>
<hr />
<h3><b>Follow us elsewhere</b></h3>
<ul>
<li>Get short, timely messages from us on Twitter</li>
<li>Join the CIS group on <a href="http://www.facebook.com/groups/28535315687/">Facebook</a></li>
<li>Visit us at <a href="https://cis-india.org/">http://cis-india.org</a></li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><i>CIS is grateful to its donors, Ford Foundation, Privacy International, UK, Hans Foundation and the Kusuma Trust which was founded by Anurag Dikshit and Soma Pujari, philanthropists of Indian origin, for its core funding and support for most of its projects.</i></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/august-2012-bulletin'>https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/august-2012-bulletin</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaAccess to KnowledgeDigital NativesTelecomAccessibilityInternet GovernanceCISRAWOpenness2012-09-11T14:53:44ZPageJuly 2012 Bulletin
https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/july-2012-bulletin
<b>Welcome to the newsletter issue of July 2012 from the Centre for Internet & Society (CIS). The present issue features a constitutional analysis of the Information Technology (Intermediaries' Guidelines) Rules notified in April 2011, an analysis of the Indian Draft DNA Profiling Act and CIS statement on Exceptions and Limitations for Libraries and Archives made at WIPO.</b>
<h3><a href="https://cis-india.org/jobs">Jobs</a></h3>
<p>CIS is seeking applications from interested candidates for the following posts:</p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/jobs/research-manager">Research Manager</a>: CIS is seeking an individual, full-time, for a period of 12 months, beginning from October 2012. The Research Manager is expected to contribute to conceptualising, managing and executing research projects in the field of Internet and Society, build knowledge networks of researchers towards collaborative and open knowledge production and dissemination, developing and executing the monitoring and evaluation processes for humanities and social sciences based research, supporting and managing academic, popular and hybrid publishing projects from existing and new research and initiate innovative and creative areas and methodologies of studying the Internet and its practices in India and the larger Global South, to develop key research clusters and networks. Send in your applications by September 5, 2012 to <a href="mailto:admin@cis-india.org">admin@cis-india.org</a>.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/jobs/vacancy-for-programme-director">Programme Director – Access to Knowledge</a>: CIS is seeking a Programme Director for its New Delhi office. The Programme Director will manage CIS’s Access to Knowledge programme which is funded by the Wikimedia Foundation, to support the growth of Wikipedia and its sister projects and to advance access to free knowledge in India. The Programme Director will partner with the large Wikimedia community in India to focus on Indic and English languages and will manage a team of four staff members. </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/jobs/programme-officer-access-to-knowledge-and-openness">Programme Officer – Access to Knowledge and Openness</a>: CIS is seeking an individual with a strong background in policy research and advocacy to be part of its Openness and Access to Knowledge programmes. The candidates must have knowledge of Indian and international law on copyright, demonstrable research skills, public-speaking skills, open to travel and work independently. </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/jobs/programme-officer-internet-governance">Programme Officer – Internet Governance</a>: CIS is seeking an individual with a strong background in legal research and policy work to be part of its internet governance (IG) programme. The candidates must have good knowledge of Indian and international law on freedom of expression and privacy, demonstrable research skills, have strong communication skills and be media savvy with the ability to convey complex legal issues clearly to a general audience, open to travel and work independently. </li>
</ul>
<p>To apply for the posts of Programme Director and Programme Officers, please send your resume to Sunil Abraham (<a href="mailto:sunil@cis-india.org">sunil@cis-india.org</a>) or Pranesh Prakash (<a href="mailto:pranesh@cis-india.org">pranesh@cis-india.org</a>) with three references.</p>
<h2><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance">Internet Governance</a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The Internet Governance programme conducts research around the various social, technical, and political underpinnings of global and national Internet governance, and includes online privacy, freedom of speech, and Internet governance mechanisms and processes:</p>
<h3>Featured Research</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/constitutional-analysis-of-intermediaries-guidelines-rules">Constitutional Analysis of the Information Technology (Intermediaries' Guidelines) Rules, 2011</a> (by Ujwala Uppaluri): Ujwala Uppaluri provides a constitutional analysis of the Information Technology (Intermediaries' Guidelines) Rules notified in April 2011, and examines its compatibility with Articles 14, 19, 21 of the Constitution of India.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/indian-draft-dna-profiling-act">Overview and Concerns Regarding the Indian Draft DNA Profiling Act</a> (by GeneWatch UK & the Council for Responsible Genetics, US): The 2007 DNA Profiling Bill pending before the Parliament attempts to create an ambitious centralized DNA bank that would store DNA records of virtually anyone who comes within any proximity to the criminal justice system. The Bill contains provisions limiting access to and use of information contained in the database, and provides for the deletion of a person’s DNA profile upon their acquittal.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Columns</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/internet-censorship">Internet Censorship: Anonymous Can’t be Just Harmful Hackers</a> (Nishant Shah, FirstPost, July 13, 2012): If there was ever an interesting time for people concerned with freedom of speech and expression to live in, it is now, and it is definitely in India. It has been a series of battles the last couple of years, where a slightly out-dated government machinery has been trying to control and contain the burgeoning online spaces, only to be put in their place by the new-age tech-ninjas that have risen as the new heroes in our digital times.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/open-letter-to-hillary-clinton">Open letter to Hillary Clinton on Internet Freedom</a> (Sunil Abraham, Thinking Aloud, July 17, 2012): Sunil Abraham’s open letter to Hillary Clinton was based on a presentation made during a panel discussion at a Google sponsored conference titled Internet at Liberty 2012 in Washington DC on May 24, 2012. <i>The present article published in Thinking Aloud is an updated version of the blog entry published by CIS earlier this year</i>.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Event Report</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/medical-privacy-conference-report">Privacy Matters — Medical Privacy</a> (Yashwantrao Chavan Academy of Development Administration, Pune, June 30, 2012): Privacy India in partnership with the Indian Network for People living with HIV/AIDS, CIS, IDRC, and Society in Action Group with support from London-based Privacy International, held a public discussion on "Medical Privacy". Elonnai Hickok introduced the draft book Privacy in India: A Policy Guide that Privacy India had been compiling. The participants discussed medical privacy in India, the legal aspects of medical privacy, Supreme Court views on medical negligence, confidentiality and privacy, best practices on medical privacy in various health settings, etc.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Ongoing Event</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/iacs-summer-school-2012">The Asian Edge: 2012 Inter-Asia Cultural Studies Society Summer School</a>: The 2nd Biannual Inter Asia Cultural Studies (IACS) Summer School is being hosted in Bangalore, India by CIS and the Centre for the Study of Culture and Society. The IACS Summer School brings together South and East Asian experts from different disciplines as faculty for graduate and advanced research students to engage with key issues of larger social, cultural and political concerns in cultural studies in Asia. </li>
</ul>
<h3>Upcoming Event</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/role-of-us-tech-companies-in-govt-surveillance">Role of the US Tech Companies in Government Surveillance: A Lecture by Christopher Soghoian</a> (Centre for Internet and Society, 194, 2-C Cross, Domlur Stage II, Bangalore (Near Domlur Club and the TERI Complex)): Your internet, phone and web application providers are all, for the most part, in bed with US and other foreign government agencies. They all routinely disclose their customers' communications and other private data to law enforcement and intelligence agencies. Worse, firms like Google and Microsoft specifically log data in order to assist the government — How? — Find out — Christopher Soghoian will give a lecture on the role companies play in assisting government surveillance.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Events Organised</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/consumer-privacy-delhi">Privacy Matters — Consumer Privacy</a> (India International Centre, New Delhi, July 7, 2012): Privacy India, in partnership with the Centre for Internet & Society, International Development Research Centre, Society in Action Group and Privacy International, invite you to a public conference focused on discussing the challenges and concerns to consumer privacy in India.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/has-geek-presents-the-fifth-elephant">The Fifth Elephant</a> (NIMHANS Convention Centre, Bangalore, July 27 and 28, 2012): The event was organised by HasGeek and supported by CIS. The first day covered the technology track and talks from business and industry were held on the following day.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Events Participated</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/speak-easy">Speak Easy: Citizenship, Freedom of Expression and Online Governance</a> (American Centre, Kasturba Gandhi Marg, Connaught Place, New Delhi, July 31, 2012): Chinmayi Arun, a Fellow at CIS spoke at this event organised by the YP Foundation, Youth Ki Awaaz, Change.Org and RTI Anonymous.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/session-m4-international-public-policy-and-internet-governance-issues-pertaining-to-the-internet">Asia Pacific Regional Internet Governance Forum 2012</a> (Aoyama Campus, Aoyama Gakuin University, Tokyo, July 20, 2012). Sunil Abraham was a speaker in the session on international public policy and internet governance issues pertaining to the internet. The event was organised by APrIGF.Asia. </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/fifth-meeting-of-two-sub-groups-on-privacy">Fifth Meeting of the two Sub-Groups on Privacy Issues under the Chairmanship of Justice AP Shah</a> (New Delhi, July 22, 2012): Sunil Abraham participated in this meeting held under the Chairmanship of Justice A.P. Shah, former Chief Justice of Delhi High Court.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/fourth-meeting-of-sub-groups-on-privacy-issues">Fourth Meeting of the two Sub-Groups on Privacy Issues under the Chairmanship of Justice AP Shah</a> (Committee Room No. 228, Yojana Bhawan, Planning Commission, New Delhi, July 9, 2012): Sunil Abraham participated in the fourth meeting on privacy issues under the Chairmanship of Justice A.P. Shah, former Chief Justice of Delhi High Court.</li>
</ul>
<h3>News & Media Coverage</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/a-net-of-hatred">A Net of Hatred</a> (Samar Khurshid, Hindustan Times, July 14, 2012): “The problem is...that internet conversations become extreme. Liberals don’t get embroiled in heated arguments while fundamentalists, dedicated to extreme ideologies, tend to win out." Web censorship...is in vain as the net is too vast to control.”— Pranesh Prakash.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/post-website-attack">Post-website attack, cops hot on pursuit of Anonymous hackers</a> (The Times of India, July 11, 2012): “Anonymous consists of a large bunch of activists who gained some credibility in India after they organised offline protests. But this operation doesn't serve any purpose and brings down their credibility as details of those who filed complaints have been revealed.” — Pranesh Prakash.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/kids-on-facebook">The kids are all on Facebook</a> (Shikha Kumar, Daily News & Analysis, July 8, 2012): “Children’s interaction online should always be under parental supervision. Censorship and control is not the responsibility of the government, but of parents.” — Sunil Abraham.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/freedom-debate-takes-a-new-course">Freedom debate takes a new course</a> (Deepa Kurup, The Hindu, July 1, 2012): “Under Indian copyright law, ISPs cannot be liable for copyright infringement committed by their users. So while it is good that the court clarified that its order was limited in its scope, it is possible to read even this as going far beyond that which is allowed under the law.” — Pranesh Prakash.</li>
</ul>
<h2><a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k">Access to Knowledge</a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The Access to Knowledge programme addresses the harms caused to consumers, developing countries, human rights, and creativity/innovation from excessive regimes of copyright, patents, and other such monopolistic rights over knowledge:</p>
<h3>WIPO</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">CIS participated at the 24<sup>th</sup> session of the WIPO Standing Committee on Copyrights and Related Rights held in Geneva from July 16 to 25, 2012. The outcomes are listed below:</p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/india-opening-statement-sccr24-tvi">India's Opening Statement on the Treaty for the Visually Impaired at SCCR 24</a>: The opening statement of the Indian delegation was delivered by G.R. Raghavender on July 19, 2012. The statement called upon all countries to conclude textual work on the treaty and call for a Diplomatic Conference to finalize it.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blog/cis-statement-sccr24-treaty-visually-impaired">CIS's Statement on the Treaty for the Visually Impaired</a>: Pranesh Prakash read out CIS statement on July 20, 2012.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blog/cis-statement-sccr24-broadcast-treaty">CIS's Statement on the WIPO Broadcast Treaty</a>: Pranesh Prakash read out CIS statement specifically on the Chair's Non Paper on the Protection of Broadcasters which was released on July 23, 2012.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blog/cis-statement-sccr24-libraries-archives">CIS's Statement on Exceptions & Limitations for Libraries and Archives</a>: Pranesh Prakash delivered the statement on the issue of exceptions and limitations for libraries and archives on July 25, 2012.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/wipo-sccr24-discussions-transcripts">Transcripts of Discussions at WIPO</a>: The proceedings were live streamed. Copies of the unedited transcripts are hosted for archival purposes.</li>
</ul>
<h3>International Press Coverage</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/us-support-sought-for-treaty-to-allow-blind-people-access-to-copyrighted">U.S. support sought for treaty to allow blind people access to copyrighted works</a> (Rama Lakshmi, Washington Post, July 24, 2012): “The vast majority of visually disabled people live in poor, developing countries where very little money is spent on converting books into accessible formats, while they are much more readily available elsewhere...The treaty would end the book famine that they currently face.” — Pranesh Prakash.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/us-and-eu-blocking-treaty">US and EU blocking treaty to give blind people access to books</a> (Paige McClanahan, The Guardian, July 30, 2012): “We in developing countries have found our voice and we are not going to back down. When people are demanding their basic rights, no power in the world is strong enough to stop them getting what they want.”— Rahul Cherian.</li>
</ul>
<h3>National Press Coverage</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/eu-stalls-treaty-talks-to-allow-copyright-waiver-for-print-disabilities">EU stalls treaty talks to allow copyright waiver for print disabilities</a> (The Hindu, Priscilla Jebaraj, July 25, 2012): “[The treaty] would allow organisations working for the blind to import and export accessible works without seeking the copyright holder's permission, since very little money is spent in developing countries on converting books into accessible formats, while they are much more readily available elsewhere.” — Pranesh Prakash.</li>
</ul>
<h2><a href="https://cis-india.org/accessibility">Accessibility</a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">India has an estimated 70 million disabled persons who are unable to read printed materials due to some form of physical, sensory, cognitive or other disability. The disabled need accessible content, devices and interfaces facilitated via copyright law and electronic accessibility policies:</p>
<p><b>Blog Entry</b></p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/accessibility/accessibility-audit-of-govt-websites">Accessibility of Government Websites in India — Test Results</a> </li>
</ul>
<h2><a href="https://cis-india.org/openness">Openness</a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The 'Openness' programme critically examines alternatives to existing regimes of intellectual property rights, and transparency and accountability. Under this programme, we study Open Government Data, Open Access to Scholarly Literature, Open Access to Law, Open Content, Open Standards, and Free/Libre/Open Source Software:</p>
<p><b>Blog Entries</b></p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/openness/unpacking-openness">Unpacking Openness: From Seemingly Transparent to Definitely Opaque</a>: Nishant Shah was in Netherlands recently and as part of his trip had given a public lecture to an audience at Kennisland. One of the respondents wrote a small write-up of the talk. This was originally <a href="http://www.kennisland.nl/filter/opinies/unpacking-openness-from-seemingly-transparent-to-definitely-opaqu">published</a> on the Kennisland website on July 25, 2012.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/openness/blog/2012-conference-on-trends-in-knowledge-information-dynamics">2012 Conference on Trends in Knowledge Information Dynamics</a> (by Rebecca Schild): The 2012 Conference on Trends in Knowledge Information Dynamics convened a panel on Open Access. There was consensus amongst the panelist that the “big question” facing the open access movement no longer remains "if" or "why" open access, but rather "how" open access. The panel proved instructive for shifting the discussion away from ideology towards concrete questions facing the open access agenda and its implementation.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/openness/open-government-data-commitments-best-practices">Open Government Data</a> (by Pranesh Prakash): Pranesh Prakash provides an analysis of the chapter that CIS published in this report with Transparency & Accountability Initiative.</li>
</ul>
<hr />
<h3 style="text-align: left; ">Grant Award</h3>
<hr />
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/wikimedia-foundation-awards-grant-to-cis">Wikimedia Foundation awards grant to Centre for Internet and Society to expand Access to Knowledge in India</a>: Wikimedia Foundation has approved a grant to the Centre for Internet and Society to expand their Access to Knowledge program in India. This information was <a href="http://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/08/01/wikimedia-foundation-awards-grant-to-centre-for-internet-and-society-to-expand-access-to-knowledge-in-india/">published</a> by Barry Newstead, Chief Global Development Officer on the Wikimedia Foundation website on August 1, 2012.</li>
</ul>
<h2><a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives">Digital Natives</a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Digital Natives with a Cause? examines the changing landscape of social change and political participation in light of the role that young people play through digital and Internet technologies, in emerging information societies. Consolidating knowledge from Asia, Africa and Latin America, it builds a global network of knowledge partners who critically engage with discourse on youth, technology and social change, and look at alternative practices and ideas in the Global South:</p>
<h3>Book Review</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/young-people-technology-new-literacies">Deconstructing Digital Natives: Young People, Technology and the New Literacies</a>: Nishant Shah was invited to do a book review of a new anthology 'Deconstructing Digital Natives', edited by Michael Thomas. The review was published in Routledge's Journal of Children and Media on July 18, 2012.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Digital Natives Newsletter</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/citizen-activism-the-past-decade">Citizen Activism the Past Decade</a>: The deadline for contribution to the Digital Natives newsletter expires on August 15. Nilofar Ansher gives a list of topics that contributors can explore in this blog entry.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Columns</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/across-borders">Across Borders</a> (Nishant Shah, Indian Express, July 5, 2012): “Digital Natives are not only a mobile-wielding generation, but also a mobile generation. They are fluid, not necessarily tied to the geographies of their origin, and often imagine themselves, as travelling across different networks and systems, like the information traffic on the internet. This dislocation of the fixity of where we are from and who we are is one of the most exciting results of the digital turn.”</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/revisiting-techno-euphoria">Revisiting Techno-euphoria</a> (Nishant Shah, DML Central, July 5, 2012): “The gadgets and tools we use are, actually, only material manifestations of the digital — which operates at the level of a paradigm or a context, through which we are slowly reshaping the material, social, and cultural notions of who we are and how we connect to the world around us.”</li>
</ul>
<h3>Event Participated</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/istr-conference">10th International ISTR Conference</a> (Universita Degli Studi Di Siena, Italy, July 10 – 13, 2012): Nishant Shah was a panelist in the session, "Theoretical Grounding of Civic Driven Change". He gave a public lecture on Beyond Normative Citizenships: Exploring the ‘New’ in Digital Activism.</li>
</ul>
<h2><a href="https://cis-india.org/telecom">Telecom</a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">While the potential for growth and returns exist for telecommunications in India, a range of issues need to be addressed. One aspect is more extensive rural coverage and the other is a countrywide access to broadband which is low. Both require effective and efficient use of networks and resources, including spectrum:</p>
<h3>Building Knowledge and Capacity around Telecommunication Policy in India</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Ford Foundation has given a grant of USD 200,000 to CIS to build expertise in the area of telecommunications in India. The following are the latest outputs:</p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/telecom/telecom-knowledge-repository/fixed-line-telephones" class="external-link">Fixed Line Telephones</a> (by Jürgen Kock): This module discusses the features and the various stages of the development of fixed line telephones, its early history, the basic principle of a fixed line telephone system, plain old telephone service, digital telephones, cordless phones to today's features of fixed line telephones.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/telecom/telecom-knowledge-repository/video-communication" class="external-link">Different Forms of Video Communication</a> (by Tina Mani): In this module, Tina Mani takes us through some of the common forms of video communication such as video calling, video conferencing, telepresence and video sharing.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/telecom/telecom-knowledge-repository/broadband-policy-2004" class="external-link">Broadband Policy, 2004</a> (by Snehashish Ghosh): In this module, Snehashish Ghosh tells us that the Policy was laid down by the Government of India in order to realize the potential of broadband services. It aimed at enhancing the quality of life by implementation of tele-education, tele-medicine, e-governance, entertainment, etc. </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/telecom/telecom-knowledge-repository/cable-television-networks-regulation-act" class="external-link">Cable Television Networks Regulation Act, 1955</a> (by Snehashish Ghosh): In this module, Snehashish examines the purpose of the legislation, the persons affected by it, the administrative bodies which come under the Act, the penalties (including the consequences in case of non-compliance), appeal process and the debates surrounding the legislation.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/telecom/telecom-knowledge-repository/indian-wireless-telegraphy-act" class="external-link">The Indian Wireless Telegraphy Act, 1933</a> (by Snehashish Ghosh): In this module, Snehashish Ghosh throws light on the main objective of the Act — that of regulating the possession of wireless telegraphy apparatus.</li>
</ul>
<h3>RTI Application</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/telecom/dot-response-to-rti-on-use-of-dpi-technology-by-isps">Use of DPI Technology by ISPs — Response by the Department of Telecommunications</a> : Smiti Mujumdar on behalf of CIS filed requests under the Right to Information with the Department of Telecommunications, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, BSNL and MTNL, asking a number of questions related to the use of Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) technology by Internet Service Providers (ISP) in India and corresponding regulations. A scanned version of the response from the Department of Telecommunications is <a href="https://cis-india.org/telecom/use-of-dpi-technology-by-isps.pdf">hosted online</a>.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Column in Business Standard</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/telecom/decision-analysis">Decision Analysis for Interest Rates</a> (Shyam Ponappa, Business Standard, July 5, 2012): The discipline of systematic evaluation through applying process-flow and decision analysis — in this example, of financial logic — can help make reasoned, practical decisions, whether for interest rates, or for resolving issues in power supply, or in telecommunications, spectrum and broadband. </li>
</ul>
<hr />
<h2 style="text-align: justify; ">About CIS</h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">CIS was registered as a society in Bangalore in 2008. As an independent, non-profit research organisation, it runs different policy research programmes such as Accessibility, Access to Knowledge, Openness, Internet Governance, and Telecom. Over the last four years our policy research programmes have resulted in outputs such as the <a href="https://cis-india.org/advocacy/accessibility/blog/e-accessibility-handbook">e-Accessibility Policy Handbook for Persons with Disabilities</a> with ITU and G3ict, and <span><a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/front-page/blog/dnbook">Digital Alternatives with a Cause?</a></span>, <a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/front-page/blog/position-papers">Thinkathon Position Papers</a> and the <a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/front-page/blog/digital-natives-with-a-cause-a-report">Digital Natives with a Cause? Report</a> with Hivos. With the Government of India we have done policy research for Ministry of Communications & Information Technology, Ministry of Human Resource Development, Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, etc., on <a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blog/cis-analysis-july2011-treaty-print-disabilities">WIPO Treaties</a>, <a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blog/analysis-copyright-amendment-bill-2012">Copyright Bill</a>, <a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/front-page/blog/cis-feedback-to-nia-bill">NIA Bill</a>, etc.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">CIS is an accredited NGO at WIPO and has given policy briefs to delegations from various countries, our Programme Manager, Nirmita Narasimhan won the <a href="https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/national-award">National Award for Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities</a> from the Government of India and also received the <span><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/nirmita-nivh-award">NIVH Excellence Award</a></span>.</p>
<p><b>Follow us elsewhere</b></p>
<ul>
<li>Get short, timely messages from us on Twitter</li>
<li>Join the CIS group on <a href="http://www.facebook.com/groups/28535315687/">Facebook</a></li>
<li>Visit us at <a href="https://cis-india.org/">http://cis-india.org</a></li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><i>CIS is grateful to its donors, Ford Foundation, Privacy International, UK, Hans Foundation and the Kusuma Trust which was founded by Anurag Dikshit and Soma Pujari, philanthropists of Indian origin, for its core funding and support for most of its projects.</i></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/july-2012-bulletin'>https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/july-2012-bulletin</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaAccess to KnowledgeDigital NativesTelecomAccessibilityInternet GovernanceOpenness2012-10-09T11:46:15ZPageOctober 2011 Bulletin
https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/october-2011-bulletin
<b>Welcome to the Centre for Internet and Society newsletter! In this issue we bring you the updates of our research, events, media coverage and videos of some past events organized by us during October 2011.</b>
<h2><a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives">Digital Natives</a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Digital Natives with a Cause? examines the changing landscape of social change and political participation in light of the role that young people play through digital and Internet technologies, in emerging information societies. Consolidating knowledge from Asia, Africa and Latin America, it builds a global network of knowledge partners who critically engage with discourse on youth, technology and social change, and look at alternative practices and ideas in the Global South:</p>
<h3 align="LEFT">Key Research</h3>
<ul>
<li>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://www.cis-india.org/digital-natives/front-page/blog/digital-natives-and-politics-in-asia">On Fooling Around: Digital Natives and Politics in Asia</a><br />by Nishant Shah, Director-Research<br />Youths are not only actively participating in the politics of its times but also changing the way in which we understand the political processes of mobilisation, participation and transformation, writes Nishant. The paper was presented at the Digital Cultures in Asia conference at the Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<h3 align="LEFT">Links in the Chain</h3>
<ul>
<li>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://www.cis-india.org/digital-natives/volume-8-issue-4.pdf">Analog Relics in the Digital Age</a>, volume 8, issue 4<br />Guest Editor: Nilofar Ansher<br />“The scale of inventions has not really leaped, so much as mutated. We had Twitter and Facebook ... (remember notice boards, community centers and pamphlets); they just weren’t so instant, hyperlinked and global in scale. We still use the medium of a mouthpiece and speaker to talk to each other long distance, the difference is in the changed aesthetics of the 21st century – it’s all squarish curves and scratch-proof glass that are more appealing today. Blackboards, writing material, listening devices and memory aids have undergone unprecedented transformations of function and usage, but it’s still about having a blank canvas to write upon with a chalk, pen, paper or iClick”, writes Nilofar in this issue of the Digital Natives newsletter.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<h3 align="LEFT">Articles/Columns</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://www.cis-india.org/digital-natives/in-search-of-the-other-decoding-digital-natives">In Search of the Other: Decoding Digital Natives</a>: Nishant Shah charts the trajectories of our research at the Centre for Internet and Society (Bangalore, India) and Hivos (The Hague, The Netherlands) to see how alternative models of understanding these relationships can be built. This blog post by Nishant Shah was published in DML central on 24 October 2011. </li>
</ul>
<ol> </ol>
<h3>Staff Quoted in the Media<a href="http://www.cis-india.org/news/write-stuff"></a></h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.cis-india.org/news/write-stuff">The Write Stuff</a><a href="http://www.cis-india.org/news/write-stuff"> </a>, Deccan Chronicle, 14 November 2011. Nishant Shah has been quoted in this article.</li>
</ul>
<h2><a href="https://cis-india.org/accessibility" class="external-link">Accessibility</a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">India has an estimated 70 million disabled persons who are unable to read printed materials due to some form of physical, sensory, cognitive or other disability. The disabled need accessible content, devices and interfaces facilitated via copyright law and electronic accessibility policies:</p>
<h3>Publication</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://www.cis-india.org/accessibility/e-accessibility-handbook-in-russian">e-Accessibility Policy Handbook for Persons with Disabilities</a> (Russian Version)<br />Edited by Nirmita Narasimhan<br />The e-Accessibility Policy Handbook for Persons with Disabilities is now available in Russian. The handbook is a joint publication of ITU, G3ict and the Centre for Internet and Society, in cooperation with the Hans Foundation. Dr. Hamadoun I. Toure, Secretary-General, International Telecommunication Union wrote the preface, Dr. Sami Al-Basheer, Director, ITU-D wrote the introduction and Axel Leblois, Executive Director, G3ict wrote the foreword.</li>
</ul>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Blog Entry</h3>
<ul>
<li>
<p><a href="http://www.cis-india.org/accessibility/accessible-banking">The case for Accessible Banking</a> by Dinesh Kaushal.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<h2><a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k" class="external-link">Access to Knowledge</a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The Access to Knowledge programme addresses the harms caused to consumers, developing countries, human rights, and creativity/innovation from excessive regimes of copyright, patents, and other such monopolistic rights over knowledge:</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Key Research</h3>
<ul>
<li>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://www.cis-india.org/a2k/jesters-clowns-pranksters">Of Jesters, Clowns and Pranksters: YouTube and the Condition of Collaborative Authorship</a><a href="http://www.cis-india.org/a2k/jesters-clowns-pranksters"> </a><br />by Nishant Shah, Director-Research, Centre for Internet and Society<br />The idea of a single author creating cinematic objects in a well-controlled scheme of support system and production/distribution infrastructure has been fundamentally challenged by the emergence of digital video sharing sites like YouTube, writes Nishant in this essay published in the Journal of Moving Images.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<h2><a href="https://cis-india.org/openness" class="external-link">Openness</a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The 'Openness' programme critically examines alternatives to existing regimes of intellectual property rights, and transparency and accountability. Under this programme, we study Open Government Data, Open Access to Scholarly Literature, Open Access to Law, Open Content, Open Standards, and Free/Libre/Open Source Software:</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Featured Research</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://www.cis-india.org/openness/blog/know-your-users">Know Your Users, Match their Needs!</a><br />As Free Access to Law initiatives in the Global South enter into a new stage of maturity, they must be certain not to lose sight of their users’ needs. This blog post gives a summary of the “Good Practices Handbook”, a research output of the collaborative project Free Access to Law — Is it Here to Stay? undertaken by LexUM (Canada) and the South African Legal Institute in partnership with the Centre for Internet and Society. Rebecca Schild and Prashant Iyengar from CIS were part of the research team.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Event Organised</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.cis-india.org/openness/events/open-access-to-academic-knowledge-at-the-iisc">Open Access to Academic Knowledge</a><span>, organised by the Indian Institute of Science and CIS</span><span> at National Centre for Science Information, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore on 2 November 2011. Tom Dane participated in this event.</span></li>
</ul>
<h3>Event Participated</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://www.cis-india.org/news/canadian-science-policy-conference">3rd Canadian Science Policy Conference</a>, organised by Canadian Science Policy Conference from16 to 18 November 2011 at the Ottawa Convention Centre. Sunil Abraham spoke in the session on Global Implications of Open and Inclusive Innovation.</li>
</ul>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Announcement</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://www.cis-india.org/news/announcement-of-wikimedia-india-program-trust">The Wikimedia India Program Trust</a>. A new entity, the “Wikimedia India Program Trust”, has been registered in Delhi. Sunil is a trustee.</li>
</ul>
<h2><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance">Internet Governance</a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The Internet Governance programme conducts research around the various social, technical, and political underpinnings of global and national Internet governance, and includes online privacy, freedom of speech, and Internet governance mechanisms and processes:</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Comments / Submissions</h3>
<ul>
<li>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://www.cis-india.org/internet-governance/comments-on-finance-committee-statements">CIS Comments on Finance Committee Statements to Open Letters on Unique Identity</a>: The Parliamentary Finance Committee responded to the six open letters sent by CIS through an email on 12 October 2011. CIS has commented on the points raised by the Committee.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://www.cis-india.org/internet-governance/comments-national-policy-information-technology">Comments on the National Policy of Information Technology</a>: The NPIT 2011 has the laudable goal of making India a ‘knowledge economy with a global role’ by developing and deploying ICT solutions in all sectors to foster development within India and at a global level. CIS appreciates this initiative of the Department of Information Technology and offers brief comments to strengthen the draft.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://www.cis-india.org/internet-governance/comments-draft-national-policy-on-electronics">CIS Comments on the Draft National Policy on Electronics</a>: CIS submitted its comments to the request for comments put out by the Department of Information Technology on its draft 'National Policy on Electronics'.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<h3>Statement</h3>
<ul>
<li>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://www.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/india-statement-un-cirp">India's Statement Proposing UN Committee for Internet-Related Policy</a>: India made its statement at the 66th session of the United Nations General Assembly, its proposal for the UN Committee for Internet-Related Policy was presented.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<h3>Podcast</h3>
<ul>
<li>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://www.cis-india.org/openness/professor-balaram-talks-open-access">Professor Balaram talks Open Access</a> : Tom Dane spoke with Professor P Balaram, Director of the Indian Institute of Science about the Open Access movement. A podcast of the interview is available for download.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<h3>Event Report</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://www.cis-india.org/internet-governance/ijlt-cis-lecture-series-report">The 2nd IJLT-CIS Lecture Series — A Post-event Report</a> : The 2nd IJLT-CIS Lecture Series was organised by the Indian Journal of Law and Technology and CIS on the 21st and 22nd of May 2011 at the National Law School of India University, Nagarbhavi, Bangalore. The main theme for this year was Emerging Issues in Privacy Law: Law, Policy and Practice.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Peer Review</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://www.cis-india.org/internet-governance/material-cyborgs-asserted-boundaries">Material Cyborgs; Asserted Boundaries</a><br />by Nishant Shah, Director-Research <br />Nishant explores the possibility of formulating the cyborg as an author or translator who is able to navigate between the different binaries of ‘meat–machine’, ‘digital–physical’, and ‘body–self’, using the abilities and the capabilities learnt in one system in an efficient and effective understanding of the other. The essay was published in the European Journal of English Studies, Volume 12, Issue 2.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Articles / Columns</h3>
<ul>
<li>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://www.cis-india.org/internet-governance/what-is-dilligaf">What is Dilligaf?</a> On the web, time moves at the speed of thought: Groups emerge, proliferate and are abandoned as new trends and fads take precedence. Nowhere else is this dramatic flux as apparent as in the language that evolves online. While SMS lingo – like TTYL (Talk To You Later) and LOL (Laughing Out Loud)– has endured and become a part of everyday language, new forms of speech are taking over. This article by Nishant Shah was published in GQ India.</p>
</li>
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<p style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://www.cis-india.org/news/book-of-jobs">The Book of Jobs</a> The man who made the computer personal, who changed the face of the digital media industry, who was inspired by Zen philosophy to create an eight-billion-dollar empire, Steve Jobs, died last month. Just a few weeks before his death, in the midst of his painful illness, he told Walter Isaacson, the man chosen to write his authorised biography, “I really want to believe that something survives”. And Isaacson wrote him a fairy tale which will make sure that Jobs will be remembered beyond the gizmos and gimmicks, writes Nishant Shah in this article published in the Indian Express on 12 November 2011.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<h3 align="LEFT">Staff Quoted in the Media<a href="http://www.cis-india.org/news/facebook-tracking-footprints"></a></h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://www.cis-india.org/news/facebook-tracking-footprints">Is Facebook tracking your virtual footprints?</a> by Sheetal Sukhija in MidDay, 22 November 2011. Sunil Abraham was quoted in this article.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://www.cis-india.org/news/m-governance">M-governance gains momentum</a> by Vasudha Venugopal in the Hindu, 20 November 2011.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://www.cis-india.org/internet-governance/learn-it-yourself">Learn it Yourself</a>: The peer-to-peer world of online learning encourages conversations and reciprocal learning, writes Nishant Shah. The article was published by the Indian Express on 30 October 2011. Nishant Shah is quoted in this article.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://www.cis-india.org/news/bill-could-kill-internet">SOPA: The bill that could kill the Internet</a> by Suw Charman-Anderson in Firstpost.Technology, 16 November 2011.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://www.cis-india.org/news/broadband-long-way-to-go">Broadband user base still has a long way to go</a>, by Leslie D’Monte & Deepti Chaudhary in Livemint, 15 November 2011. Sunil Abraham has been quoted in this article.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://www.cis-india.org/news/maids-guards-get-fingerprinted">Not mandatory’ but maids, guards get fingerprinted</a> by Hemanth Kashyap in Bangalore Mirror, 9 November 2011. Sunil Abraham has been quoted in this article.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://www.cis-india.org/news/netizen-report">Netizen Report: Transparency Edition</a> by Rebecca MacKinnon in Global Voices Online, 7 November 2011.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://www.cis-india.org/news/blocking-content-google-gets-more-requests">Blocking online content: Google gets more requests than govt</a> by Pallavi Polanki in Firstpost.com, 2 November 2011. Pranesh Prakash has been quoted in this article.</li>
</ul>
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</ul>
<h3 align="LEFT">Blog Entries<a href="http://www.cis-india.org/internet-governance/sources-cis-funding"></a></h3>
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<li><a href="http://www.cis-india.org/internet-governance/sources-cis-funding">Sources of CIS Funding</a> by Pranesh Prakash on 9 November 2011.</li>
</ul>
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<li>
<p align="LEFT"><a href="http://www.cis-india.org/internet-governance/p2p-throttling-and-dns-hijacking">TRAI urged to take action against P2P throttling and DNS hijacking</a> by Anand on 9 November 2011.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<h3>Events Organised</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://www.cis-india.org/internet-governance/art-activism"><span>Exposing Data: Art Slash Activism</span></a><span> organised by Tactical Tech and CIS at CIS office in Bangalore on 28 November 2011. Ward Smith and Stephanie Hankey (Co-founders of TTC), Ayisha Abraham (Filmmaker, Srishti School of Art Design) and Zainab Bawa (Research Fellow, CIS) gave a lecture.</span><a href="http://www.cis-india.org/internet-governance/events/droidcon-india"><span></span></a></li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://www.cis-india.org/internet-governance/events/droidcon-india"><span>Droidcon India, first Android Conference in Bangalore</span></a><span>, organised by CIS in collaboration with Droidcon.com, Bangalore Android User Group, MobileMonday Bangalore and Android Advices on 18 and 19 November 2011 at the MLR Convention Centre, Bangalore.</span></li>
</ul>
<h3 align="LEFT">Events Participated<a href="http://www.cis-india.org/news/bio-diversity-informatics-workshop"></a></h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://www.cis-india.org/news/bio-diversity-informatics-workshop">Western Ghats Portal: Workshop on Biodiversity Informatics</a> organised by the Western Ghats Portal team at the Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and Environment, 25 November 2011. Sunil Abraham spoke in the session on Scientific Commons and Policy.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://www.cis-india.org/news/names-not-numbers">Names Not Numbers Mumbai</a>, 26 November 2011. Nishant Shah spoke in a panel on “The New Digital Individual: Is New Technology Liberating or Enslaving?”. The event was organised by Editorial Intelligence and partners which included the British Council and Financial Times, BBC World News, Mumbai first, Vodafone, Trident and Godrej India Cultural Lab.</li>
</ul>
<h3 align="LEFT">Video<a href="http://www.cis-india.org/events/facebook-resistance"></a></h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://www.cis-india.org/events/facebook-resistance">Facebook Resistance Workshop at CIS</a><span>. This was a workshop for people to learn on how to think beyond the rules and limitations of Facebook, to tweak and play around the features and design to generate useful, creative, and funny concepts and explore how this creative intervention can be turned into a real software developed by the Facebook Resistance.</span></li>
</ul>
<h2><a href="https://cis-india.org/telecom">Telecom</a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">While the potential for growth and returns exist for telecommunications in India, a range of issues need to be addressed. One aspect is more extensive rural coverage and the other is a countrywide access to broadband which is low. Both require effective and efficient use of networks and resources, including spectrum:</p>
<h3 align="LEFT">Article / Column<a href="http://www.cis-india.org/telecom/telecom-path-breaker"></a></h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://www.cis-india.org/telecom/telecom-path-breaker">Telecom Path-Breaker?</a><br />Does the draft National Telecom Policy-2011 reflect true brilliance or smoke-and-mirrors? It will be a game-changer if a shared network is implemented effectively, writes Shyam Ponappa in this article published in the Business Standard on 3 November 2011.</li>
</ul>
<hr />
<h3><b>Follow us elsewhere</b></h3>
<ul>
<li>Get short, timely messages from us on <a href="https://cis-india.org/">Twitter</a></li>
<li>Join the CIS group on <a href="http://www.facebook.com/groups/28535315687/">Facebook</a></li>
<li>Visit our website <a href="https://cis-india.org/">here</a></li>
</ul>
<p align="LEFT"><i>CIS is grateful to Kusuma Trust which was founded by Anurag Dikshit and Soma Pujari, philanthropists of Indian origin, for its core funding and support for most of its projects.</i></p>
<ul>
</ul>
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</ul>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/october-2011-bulletin'>https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/october-2011-bulletin</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaAccess to KnowledgeDigital NativesTelecomAccessibilityInternet GovernanceOpenness2012-07-25T04:53:06ZPageDeconstructing Digital Natives: Young People, Technology and the New Literacies
https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/young-people-technology-new-literacies
<b>Nishant Shah was invited to do a book review of a new anthology 'Deconstructing Digital Natives', edited by Michael Thomas. The review was published in Routledge's Journal of Children and Media on July 18, 2012. </b>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><em>Deconstructing Digital Natives: Young People, Technology and the New Literacies</em> is an anthology that revisits the debates and scholarship that have arisen around youth and technology in the last decade or so. It is a timely intervention that invites some of the most influential scholars who have contributed to and shaped the discourse around “digital natives” to come and revisit their original ideas from the last decade. The term “digital native” probably bears witness to the strident discourses that, more often than not, fall into the trap of exotically glorifying or despairingly vilifying young peoples’ engagement with digital technologies. As Buckingham points out in his foreword to the book, these conversations either take up the language of a “generation gap [that] entails a narrative of transformation and even of rupture, in which fundamental continuities between the past and the future have been destroyed” or they guise themselves in an “almost utopian view of technology—a fabulous story about technology liberating and empowering young people, enabling them to become global citizens, and to learn and communicate and create in free and unfettered ways” (p. ix). The essays seek a point of departure from these tried and tested arguments in order to provide a “balanced view” on the topic. And so we have a distinguished author list from the world of digital natives scholarship, coming together not only to ponder on their own contributions to the field and how those ideas need to be upgraded, but also to provide new contexts, concepts, and frameworks to understand who, or indeed, what, is a “digital native,” often in tension with their earlier work.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">In its ambition of revisiting existing debates and providing a “research-based approach by presenting empirical evidence and argument from international researchers in the field,” the book succeeds unevenly (p. xi). Despite its efforts to chart a point of departure, some of the essays end up falling into some usual traps. For example, despite the fact that the oldest digital natives are probably in their thirties, they are thought of as being young. They are defined only as “students” within formal learning institutions without looking at the radical potential of learning outside organized education, embedded in their everyday practices. The digital natives remain an object of research and the peer-to-peer structures that are supposed to shape them, but do not feature in the methodologies of researching them. This notwithstanding, the essays still offer a historical and social perspective on the debates around digital natives in certain developed pockets of the world.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">In the first section, “Reflecting on the Myth,” Thomas’ essay “Technology, Education and the Discourse of the Digital Native” introduces a tension between the techno-euphorists and the “digital luddites,” which replays itself through the rest of the contributions. While Thomas places himself between “technoevangelism” and “technoskepticism,” Prensky, who coined the term “Digital Natives” in 2001, then introduces to us a new binary of “digitally wise” and “digitally dumb” (p. 4). Prensky reviews the responses that his opposition of “digital natives” and “digital immigrants” have produced over the last decade and emphasizes that his coinage was at the level of a metaphor, and was not to be taken seriously. Prensky agrees that the earlier opposition might be discarded because it evokes too many simple responses based on skills with technology. Digital wisdom, for Prensky, is in the ways in which digital technologies enhance the human brain “to anticipate second- and third-order effects to which the unaided mind may be blind” as the world becomes too complex for the “unenhanced human brain” to cope with it (p. 23). Typically, Prensky’s argument creates a dichotomy of those who can (and will) and those who will be outside of this web of digital enhancements. His analysis tries to complicate the idea of human wisdom by looking at questions of ethics and agency, but the final formulations appear cliche´d, merely re-creating the older tensions rather than thinking through them. Jones’ following essay on the “Net Generation” is more persuasive, where he argues for dismissing the idea that “nature of certain technologies . . . <em>has affected the outlook of an entire age cohort</em> in advanced economies” and instead should unpack how “new technologies emerging with this generation have particular characteristics that <em>afford certain types of social engagement</em>” (p.42).</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">In the second section, titled “Perspectives,” the essays take up two different tones.The first is about looking at digital literacy, skill, and fluency in everyday practices of digital natives, and how they shape our contemporary and future sociopolitical and cultural landscapes. Banaji, in exploring the EU Civic Web Project, echoes Jones’ ideas. The presumptions within education about an entire generation as “born with technologies” has consequences in the field of civic action, where programs for citizen action are designed with expectations that the young people will have core digital competencies and literacy. She does not push that argument further, but in her study of the two Scottish e-initiatives, one can see the promise of a radical reconstruction of civic engagement movements, where the young participants are not going to be satisfied as mere participators, and will demand a space for their voice to be heard.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Takahashi’s essay on the <em>oyaubibunka</em> (“thumb culture”) mobile generations in Japan stands alone in its analysis of an Asian context—though many might argue that Japan, with its developed economy, can hardly be counted as a typically “Asian” perspective. Takahashi is rooted, both in practice and discourse, in youth and technology in Japan, where the youth often experience close-knit community experiences through mobile interfaces, in their otherwise alienated modern habitats. Almost as a response to Turkle’s Alone Together (2011), Takahashi shows how collaborative and cocreation cultures ranging from the mobile novels on Mixi to everyday interaction on Social Networking Systems is bringing in new kinds of social spaces of belonging. The essay, however, resists simply celebrating this space and works in complex ideas of freedom, control, risks, and the tensions between traditionalization and modernity in Japan.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Zimic and Dalin, writing from a similar heavily connected Nordic region, pose a different set of questions in their essay, “Actual and Perceived Online Participation Among Young People in Sweden.” For Zimic and Dalin, in a space where connectivity can be taken for granted, the further question to ask is not whether digital natives participate online or not, but whether they participate in ways that are expected of “a digital citizen in the information age” (p. 137). Through empirical data and case studies, the essay shows the different kinds of activities that youth engage with and also concludes that though engaging in civic issues is important to the young people’s sense of belonging to participatory cultures, using the Internet does not provide an “automatic guarantee” toward participation, and “assistance is required in order to engage them in relevant activities” (p. 148).</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The second set of essays in this section all cluster around the digital native as a student. Locating the digital native within educational institutions, they look at the ways in which the ideas of learning, pedagogy and engagement with the text are changing with the rise of digital technologies. Levy and Michael look at two case studies involving students in Australian high schools, to “facilitate a deeper understanding of products and processes in multimodal text construction,” which they think is core to interactive communication technology literacy skills (p. 85). The data is rigorous and rich, but the conclusions are a bit of a disappointment: digital natives need to better manage their time and resources and they need to learn traditional skills in order to cope with their educational environment.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The trend of an exciting hypothesis and conclusion, which do not necessarily leave you with anything more than what you already knew, continues in this section. Erstad sets out on a journey to see how digital literacy posits challenges to educating the digital generation and ends by suggesting that the digital divide should address questions of “how to navigate in the information jungle on the Internet, to create, to communicate, and so forth” (p. 114). Similarly, Kennedy and Judd want to unravel the mystery of why “students, who are so clearly familiar and apparently adept with Internet tools, are at times so poor at using the Internet academically” (p. 119). Through empirical research and interaction with students, they end up making an argument against the Googlization of everything (Vaidhyanathan, 2011), suggesting that “satisficing strategies” of information search, defined by a need for instant gratification and not looking beyond the first information sets, has produced “a generation of students that has grown up with Google [who] may over-value expediency when locating and selecting appropriate scholarly information” (p. 132). On similar trends, Levy proposes to question the assumption of whether all “young children are inherently ‘native’ users of digital technology” for implications on our future pedagogy within the new textual landscape (p. 152). The case studies and the frameworks built are interesting, but they reveal nothing more than the claim that the essay begins with by Marsh et al. (2005) and Bearne et al. (2007) that “young children are immersed in ‘digital practices’ from an early age and that they often develop skills in handling screen texts even when they are not exposed directly to computers at their own homes” (Levy, 2011, p. 163). The implication is clear: change our schools to accommodate for these new textual practices and help children capitalize on their digital competence and develop “digital wisdom.” But it is a recommendation that has been around for at least a decade, if not more.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The third and concluding section of the book, “Beyond Digital Natives,” is possibly the most promising part of the book. Bennett and Maton seek to look beyond “nuanced versions of the idea” and move the debate on to firmer grounds of how the rise of the digital natives is going to affect the policies around educational technology” (p. 169). They engage with a body of work that is specifically oriented toward building empirical evidence-based frameworks for understanding the potential role of technology in education. With a fine conceptual tool that makes distinctions between access and usage, they systemically dismiss the “academic moral panic” that characterizes conversations around youth-technology-change.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">For Bennett and Maton, the object of inquiry is not the digital native but the body of discourse that surrounds this particular entity—and they make a plea for research rather than imaginings, showing how the influential work in the area has been plagued by unsupported claims, unevidenced observations, and futuristic imaginations, which paint a poetic picture of digital natives but offer very little in terms of furthering the argument. It is also noteworthy that they do not flinch from critiquing the colleagues who also feature in the same book, as an idealizing and homogenizing group that has shown “diversity rather than conformity” (p. 181).</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Palfrey and Gasser, whose <em>Born Digital</em> (2008) has been the guide for lay readers to understand the nuances and complexities of the area, in their essay, begin by acknowledging that “digital natives” is an awkward term. However, they argue, it is still a term that resonates deeply with parents and educators, and that this resonance should not be taken lightly by researchers. Their decision was to use this term, albeit with caution and discretion, strategically to refer to a small subset of young people and the gamut of relationships and engagements they have with digital technologies. The suggestion is to use the term and in every usage, look at the unevennesses and awkwardness it creates, thus actually unpacking an otherwise opaque relationship which is reduced to “usage” or “access.” Their concerns are more about the quality of information and access, infrastructure for critical literacy and digital fluency, and making legible these everyday practices to larger implications for a future that they posit is bright and hopeful.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><em>Deconstructing Digital Natives</em> is an interesting revisit of a term that has grown in different ways through the first decade of the new millennium. However, the book still remains located in the same geopolitics in which the early discourse of digital natives were grounded—developed, privileged locations where connectivity, affordability, and ubiquitous digital literacy are taken for granted—reminiscent of the frantic cries one hears in piracy markets in Bangkok, “same, same, but different.” The revisiting does not seem to feel the need to explore other contexts. A few essays talk about factoring in local and contextual information in understanding digital natives, but the scholarship reinforces the idea of how technologies shape and are shaped by identities in some parts of the world, and that these identities can be heralded as universally viable, with a little nuancing.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The questions that have emerged in this discourse in the recent years, remain ignored. What does a digital native look like in the Global South? Can we have new concepts and frameworks which emerge from these contexts? Is it possible to produce accounts in languages and ideas that are embedded in everyday practices rather than forcing them to become legible in existing vocabularies? One would hope that the next book that deconstructs digital natives would also deconstruct the prejudices, presumptions, and methodological processes that are embedded in this field.</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>References</strong></p>
<ol>
<li>Bearne, E., Clark, C., Johnson, A., Manford, P., Motteram, M., & Wolsencroft, H. (2007). Reading on screen. Leicester: UKLA.</li>
<li>Marsh, J., Brookes, G., Hughes, J., Ritchie, L, Roberts, S., & Wright, K. (2005). <em>Digital beginnings: Young children’s use of popular culture, media and new technologies</em>. Sheffield: Literacy Research Centre, University of Sheffield.</li>
<li>Palfrey, J., & Gasser, U. (2008). <em>Born digital</em>. New York, NY: Basic Books.</li>
<li>Turkle, S. (2011). <em>Alone together: Why we expect more from technology and less from each other</em>, NY. New York: Basic Books.</li>
<li>Vaidhyanthan, S. (2011). <em>The Googlization of everything: (And why we should worry)</em>. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.</li>
<hr /></ol>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><span class="visualHighlight">Nishant Shah is the Director-Research at the Bangalore-based Centre for Internet and Society. He is the principal researcher for a Global South inquiry into digital natives and sociopolitical change, and recently edited four-volume book, Digital AlterNatives with a Cause?, which is available as a free download at <a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/dnbook" class="external-link">http://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/dnbook</a>. Correspondence to: Nishant Shah, Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore, India. E-mail: nishant@cis-india.org</span></p>
<ul>
<li><span class="visualHighlight">Download the file (originally published by Taylor & Francis) <a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/deconstructing-digital-natives" class="internal-link">here</a> [PDF, 66 Kb]</span></li></ul>
<ul>
<li><span class="visualHighlight">Read the original published by Taylor & Francis <a class="external-link" href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17482798.2012.697661">here</a></span></li></ul>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/young-people-technology-new-literacies'>https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/young-people-technology-new-literacies</a>
</p>
No publishernishantFeaturedResearchers at WorkBook ReviewDigital Natives2015-04-24T11:51:06ZBlog EntryNovember 2011 Bulletin
https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/november-2011-bulletin
<b>Welcome to the Centre for Internet and Society newsletter! In this issue we bring you the updates of our research, events, media coverage and videos of some past events organized by us during the month of November 2011.</b>
<h2><a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives" class="external-link"><b>Digital Natives with a Cause?</b></a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Digital Natives with a Cause? examines the changing landscape of social change and political participation in light of the role that young people play through digital and Internet technologies, in emerging information societies. Consolidating knowledge from Asia, Africa and Latin America, it builds a global network of knowledge partners who critically engage with discourse on youth, technology and social change, and look at alternative practices and ideas in the Global South:</p>
<h3>Key Research</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://www.cis-india.org/digital-natives/front-page/blog/digital-natives-and-politics-in-asia" target="_blank">On Fooling Around: Digital Natives and Politics in Asia</a><br /> by Nishant Shah, Director-Research<br /> Youths are not only actively participating in the politics of its times but also changing the way in which we understand the political processes of mobilisation, participation and transformation, writes Nishant. The paper was presented at the Digital Cultures in Asia conference at the Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Links in the Chain</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://www.cis-india.org/digital-natives/volume-8-issue-4.pdf" target="_blank">Analog Relics in the Digital Age</a>, volume 8, issue 4<br /> Guest Editor: Nilofar Ansher<br /> “The scale of inventions has not really leaped, so much as mutated. We had Twitter and Facebook ... (remember notice boards, community centers and pamphlets); they just weren’t so instant, hyperlinked and global in scale. We still use the medium of a mouthpiece and speaker to talk to each other long distance, the difference is in the changed aesthetics of the 21st century – it’s all squarish curves and scratch-proof glass that are more appealing today. Blackboards, writing material, listening devices and memory aids have undergone unprecedented transformations of function and usage, but it’s still about having a blank canvas to write upon with a chalk, pen, paper or iClick”, writes Nilofar in this issue of the Digital Natives newsletter.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Articles/Columns <a href="http://www.cis-india.org/digital-natives/in-search-of-the-other-decoding-digital-natives" target="_blank"></a></h3>
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</ul>
<ol> </ol>
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<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://www.cis-india.org/digital-natives/in-search-of-the-other-decoding-digital-natives" target="_blank">In Search of the Other: Decoding Digital Natives</a>: Nishant Shah charts the trajectories of our research at the Centre for Internet and Society (Bangalore, India) and Hivos (The Hague, The Netherlands) to see how alternative models of understanding these relationships can be built. This blog post by Nishant Shah was published in DML central on 24 October 2011.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Staff Quoted in the Media <a href="http://www.cis-india.org/news/write-stuff" target="_blank"></a></h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.cis-india.org/news/write-stuff" target="_blank">The Write Stuff</a>, Deccan Chronicle, 14 November 2011. Nishant Shah has been quoted in this article.</li>
</ul>
<ol> </ol>
<h2><b>Pathways for Learning in Higher Education</b></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The Pathways Project for Learning in Higher Education is a collaboration between the Higher Education Innovation and Research Applications (HEIRA) at the Centre for the Study of Culture and Society (CSCS) and the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS). The project is supported by the Ford Foundation and works with disadvantaged students in 9 undergraduate colleges in Maharashtra, Karnataka and Kerala, to explore relationships between Technologies, Higher Education and the new forms of social justice in India.</p>
<h3>Article Published by the Media</h3>
<ul>
</ul>
<ol> </ol>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://www.cis-india.org/digital-natives/pathways/learn-it" target="_blank">Learn it Yourself</a>: The peer-to-peer world of online learning encourages conversations and reciprocal learning, writes Nishant Shah. The article was published by the Indian Express on 30 October 2011.</p>
<h3>Video of Event Participated</h3>
<ul>
</ul>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://www.cis-india.org/digital-natives/pathways/mobility-shifts-2011" target="_blank">Mobility Shifts 2011 — An International Future of Learning Summit</a>: The summit was organised by the New School and sponsored by MacArthur Foundation and Mozilla. It was held from October 10 to October 16, 2011 at the New School, New York City. Nishant Shah participated in the summit and spoke on Digital Outcasts: Social Justice, Technology and Learning in India. The video of the event is online.</li>
</ul>
<ol> </ol>
<h2><a href="https://cis-india.org/accessibility" class="external-link"><b>Accessibility</b></a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Estimates of the percentage of the world's population that is disabled vary considerably. But what is certain is that if we count functional disability, then a large proportion of the world's population is disabled in one way or another. At CIS we work to ensure that the digital technologies, which empower disabled people and provide them with independence, are allowed to do so in practice and by the law. To this end, we support web accessibility guidelines, and change in copyright laws that currently disempower the persons with disabilities.</p>
<h3>Publication</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://www.cis-india.org/accessibility/e-accessibility-handbook-in-russian" target="_blank">e-Accessibility Policy Handbook for Persons with Disabilities</a> (Russian Version) <br /> Edited by Nirmita Narasimhan<br /> The e-Accessibility Policy Handbook for Persons with Disabilities is now available in Russian. The handbook is a joint publication of ITU, G3ict and the Centre for Internet and Society, in cooperation with the Hans Foundation. Dr. Hamadoun I. Toure, Secretary-General, International Telecommunication Union wrote the preface. Dr. Sami Al-Basheer, Director, ITU-D wrote the introduction and Axel Leblois, Executive Director, G3ict wrote the foreword.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Blog Post</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.cis-india.org/accessibility/accessible-banking" target="_blank">The case for Accessible Banking</a> by Dinesh Kaushal.</li>
</ul>
<h2><a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k" class="external-link"><b>Access to Knowledge</b></a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The Access to Knowledge programme addresses the harms caused to consumers, developing countries, human rights, and creativity/innovation from excessive regimes of copyright, patents, and other such monopolistic rights over knowledge:</p>
<h3>Key Research</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://www.cis-india.org/a2k/jesters-clowns-pranksters" target="_blank">Of Jesters, Clowns and Pranksters: YouTube and the Condition of Collaborative Authorship</a><br /> by Nishant Shah, Director-Research, Centre for Internet and Society<br /> The idea of a single author creating cinematic objects in a well-controlled scheme of support system and production/distribution infrastructure has been fundamentally challenged by the emergence of digital video sharing sites like YouTube, writes Nishant Shah in this essay published in the Journal of Moving Images.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Blog Posts</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.cis-india.org/a2k/books-vs-cigarettes" target="_blank">CIS Hosts Scanned Version of George Orwell’s Books vs. Cigarettes</a></li>
</ul>
<h3>Comments / Statement</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://www.cis-india.org/a2k/blog/ace-7-future-work-cis-intervention" target="_blank">CIS Intervention on Future Work of the WIPO Advisory Committee on Enforcement</a>: The seventh session of the World Intellectual Property Organization's Advisory Committee on Enforcement (ACE) is being held in Geneva on November 30 and December 1, 2011. Pranesh Prakash intervened during the discussion of future work of the ACE with this comment.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://www.cis-india.org/a2k/blog/ace-7-french-charter-cis-comment" target="_blank">Comment by CIS at ACE on Presentation on French Charter on the Fight against Cyber-Counterfeiting</a>: The seventh session of the World Intellectual Property Organization's Advisory Committee on Enforcement is being held in Geneva on November 30 and December 1, 2011. Pranesh Prakash responded to a presentation by Prof. Pierre Sirinelli of the École de droit de la Sorbonne, Université Paris 1 on 'The French Charter on the Fight against Cyber-Counterfeiting of December 16, 2009' with this comment.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://www.cis-india.org/a2k/blog/sccr-23-broadcast-cis-statement" target="_blank">Statement of CIS on the WIPO Broadcast Treaty at the 23rd SCCR</a>: The twenty-third session of the Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights is being held in Geneva from November 22, 2011 to December 2, 2011. Pranesh Prakash delivered this statement on a new proposal made by South Africa and Mexico (SCCR/23/6) on a treaty for broadcasters.</li>
</ul>
<h2><a href="https://cis-india.org/openness" class="external-link"><b>Openness</b></a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The 'Openness' programme critically examines alternatives to existing regimes of intellectual property rights, and transparency and accountability. Under this programme, we study Open Government Data, Open Access to Scholarly Literature, Open Content, Open Standards, Open Access to Law, and Free/Libre/Open Source Software:</p>
<h3>Featured Research</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://www.cis-india.org/openness/blog/know-your-users" target="_blank">Know Your Users, Match their Needs!</a><br /> As Free Access to Law initiatives in the Global South enter into a new stage of maturity, they must be certain not to lose sight of their users’ needs. This blog post gives a summary of the “Good Practices Handbook”, a research output of the collaborative project Free Access to Law — Is it Here to Stay? undertaken by LexUM (Canada) and the South African Legal Institute in partnership with the Centre for Internet and Society. Rebecca Schild and Prashant Iyengar from CIS were part of the research team.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Event Organised</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://www.cis-india.org/openness/events/open-access-to-academic-knowledge-at-the-iisc" target="_blank">Open Access to Academic Knowledge</a>, organised by the Indian Institute of Science and CIS at National Centre for Science Information, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore on 2 November 2011. Tom Dane participated in this event.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Event Participated</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://www.cis-india.org/news/canadian-science-policy-conference" target="_blank">3rd Canadian Science Policy Conference</a>, organised by Canadian Science Policy Conference from16 to 18 November 2011 at the Ottawa Convention Centre. Sunil Abraham spoke in the session on Global Implications of Open and Inclusive Innovation. </li>
</ul>
<h3>Announcement</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://www.cis-india.org/news/announcement-of-wikimedia-india-program-trust" target="_blank">The Wikimedia India Program Trust</a>. A new entity, the “Wikimedia India Program Trust”, has been registered in Delhi. Sunil Abraham is one of the trustees. </li>
</ul>
<h2><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance" class="external-link"><b>Internet Governance</b></a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The Internet Governance programme conducts research around the various social, technical, and political underpinnings of global and national Internet governance, and includes online privacy, freedom of speech, and Internet governance mechanisms and processes:</p>
<h3>Comments / Submissions</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://www.cis-india.org/internet-governance/comments-on-finance-committee-statements" target="_blank">CIS Comments on Finance Committee Statements to Open Letters on Unique Identity</a>: The Parliamentary Finance Committee responded to the six open letters sent by CIS through an email on 12 October 2011. CIS has commented on the points raised by the Committee. </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://www.cis-india.org/internet-governance/comments-national-policy-information-technology" target="_blank">Comments on the National Policy of Information Technology</a>: The NPIT 2011 has the laudable goal of making India a ‘knowledge economy with a global role’ by developing and deploying ICT solutions in all sectors to foster development within India and at a global level. CIS appreciates this initiative of the Department of Information Technology and offers brief comments to strengthen the draft. </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://www.cis-india.org/internet-governance/comments-draft-national-policy-on-electronics" target="_blank">CIS Comments on the Draft National Policy on Electronics</a>: CIS submitted its comments to the request for comments put out by the Department of Information Technology on its draft 'National Policy on Electronics'.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Statement</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://www.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/india-statement-un-cirp" target="_blank">India's Statement Proposing UN Committee for Internet-Related Policy</a>: India made its statement at the 66th session of the United Nations General Assembly, its proposal for the UN Committee for Internet-Related Policy was presented.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Podcast</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://www.cis-india.org/openness/professor-balaram-talks-open-access" target="_blank">Professor Balaram talks Open Access</a> : Tom Dane spoke with Professor P Balaram, Director of the Indian Institute of Science about the Open Access movement. A podcast of the interview is online.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Event Report</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://www.cis-india.org/internet-governance/ijlt-cis-lecture-series-report" target="_blank">The 2nd IJLT-CIS Lecture Series — A Post-event Report</a> : The 2nd IJLT-CIS Lecture Series was organised by the Indian Journal of Law and Technology and CIS on the 21st and 22nd of May 2011 at the National Law School of India University, Nagarbhavi, Bangalore. The main theme for this year was Emerging Issues in Privacy Law: Law, Policy and Practice. </li>
</ul>
<h3>Essay in Peer Reviewed Journal</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://www.cis-india.org/internet-governance/material-cyborgs-asserted-boundaries" target="_blank">Material Cyborgs; Asserted Boundaries</a> <br /> by Nishant Shah, Director-Research <br /> Nishant explores the possibility of formulating the cyborg as an author or translator who is able to navigate between the different binaries of ‘meat–machine’, ‘digital–physical’, and ‘body–self’, using the abilities and the capabilities learnt in one system in an efficient and effective understanding of the other. The essay was published in the European Journal of English Studies, Volume 12, Issue 2.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Articles/Columns</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://www.cis-india.org/internet-governance/what-is-dilligaf" target="_blank">What is Dilligaf?</a> On the web, time moves at the speed of thought: Groups emerge, proliferate and are abandoned as new trends and fads take precedence. Nowhere else is this dramatic flux as apparent as in the language that evolves online. While SMS lingo – like TTYL (Talk To You Later) and LOL (Laughing Out Loud)– has endured and become a part of everyday language, new forms of speech are taking over. This article by Nishant Shah was published in GQ India.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://www.cis-india.org/news/book-of-jobs" target="_blank">The Book of Jobs</a> The man who made the computer personal, who changed the face of the digital media industry, who was inspired by Zen philosophy to create an eight-billion-dollar empire, Steve Jobs, died last month. Just a few weeks before his death, in the midst of his painful illness, he told Walter Isaacson, the man chosen to write his authorised biography, “I really want to believe that something survives”. And Isaacson wrote him a fairy tale which will make sure that Jobs will be remembered beyond the gizmos and gimmicks, writes Nishant Shah in this article published in the Indian Express on 12 November 2011.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Staff Quoted in the Media <a href="http://www.cis-india.org/news/facebook-tracking-footprints" target="_blank"></a></h3>
<ul>
</ul>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://www.cis-india.org/news/facebook-tracking-footprints" target="_blank">Is Facebook tracking your virtual footprints?</a> by Sheetal Sukhija in MidDay, 22 November 2011. Sunil Abraham was quoted in this article.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://www.cis-india.org/news/m-governance" target="_blank">M-governance gains momentum</a> by Vasudha Venugopal in the Hindu, 20 November 2011. Nishant Shah was quoted in this article.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://www.cis-india.org/news/bill-could-kill-internet" target="_blank">SOPA: The bill that could kill the Internet</a> by Suw Charman-Anderson in Firstpost.Technology, 16 November 2011.</li>
<li><a href="http://www.cis-india.org/news/broadband-long-way-to-go" target="_blank">Broadband user base still has a long way to go</a>, by Leslie D’Monte & Deepti Chaudhary in Livemint, 15 November 2011. Sunil Abraham has been quoted in this article.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://www.cis-india.org/news/maids-guards-get-fingerprinted" target="_blank">‘Not mandatory’ but maids, guards get fingerprinted</a> by Hemanth Kashyap in Bangalore Mirror, 9 November 2011. Sunil Abraham has been quoted in this article.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://www.cis-india.org/news/netizen-report" target="_blank">Netizen Report: Transparency Edition</a> by Rebecca MacKinnon in Global Voices Online, 7 November 2011.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://www.cis-india.org/news/blocking-content-google-gets-more-requests" target="_blank">Blocking online content: Google gets more requests than govt</a> by Pallavi Polanki in Firstpost.com, 2 November 2011. Pranesh Prakash has been quoted in this article.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Blog Posts <a href="http://www.cis-india.org/internet-governance/sources-cis-funding" target="_blank"></a></h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://www.cis-india.org/internet-governance/sources-cis-funding" target="_blank">Sources of CIS Funding</a> by Pranesh Prakash on 9 November 2011.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://www.cis-india.org/internet-governance/p2p-throttling-and-dns-hijacking" target="_blank">TRAI urged to take action against P2P throttling and DNS hijacking</a> by Anand on 9 November 2011.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Events Organised</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://www.cis-india.org/internet-governance/art-activism" target="_blank">Exposing Data: Art Slash Activism</a> organised by Tactical Tech and CIS at CIS office in Bangalore on 28 November 2011. Ward Smith and Stephanie Hankey (Co-founders of TTC), Ayisha Abraham (Filmmaker, Srishti School of Art Design) and Zainab Bawa (Research Fellow, CIS) gave a lecture. </li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://www.cis-india.org/internet-governance/events/droidcon-india" target="_blank">Droidcon India, first Android Conference in Bangalore</a>, organised by CIS in collaboration with Droidcon.com, Bangalore Android User Group, MobileMonday Bangalore and Android Advices on 18 and 19 November 2011 at the MLR Convention Centre, Bangalore. </li>
</ul>
<h3>Events Participated</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://www.cis-india.org/news/bio-diversity-informatics-workshop" target="_blank">Western Ghats Portal: Workshop on Biodiversity Informatics</a> organised by the Western Ghats Portal team at the Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and Environment, 25 November 2011. Sunil Abraham spoke in the session on Scientific Commons and Policy.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://www.cis-india.org/news/names-not-numbers" target="_blank">Names Not Numbers Mumbai</a>, 26 November 2011. Nishant Shah spoke in a panel on “The New Digital Individual: Is New Technology Liberating or Enslaving?”. The event was organised by Editorial Intelligence and partners which included the British Council and Financial Times, BBC World News, Mumbai first, Vodafone, Trident and Godrej India Cultural Lab.</li>
</ul>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Upcoming Events</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://www.cis-india.org/internet-governance/dialogue-cafe" target="_blank">Dialogue Cafe @ Centre for Internet and Society</a>, 2 December 2011, Centre for Internet & Society, 4 p.m. to 6 p.m.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://www.cis-india.org/internet-governance/high-level-privacy-conclave" target="_blank">The High Level Privacy Conclave</a>, 3 February 2011, Paharpur Business Centre, Nehru Place Greens New Delhi, 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. This is a closed-door meeting. For participation, get in touch with Elonnai (<a href="mailto:elonnai@cis-india.org">elonnai@cis-india.org</a>).</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://www.cis-india.org/internet-governance/privacy-symposium" target="_blank">All India Privacy Symposium</a>, 4 February 2011, India International Centre, New Delhi. This is a public meeting. For participation, get in touch with Elonnai (<a href="mailto:elonnai@cis-india.org">elonnai@cis-india.org</a>).</li>
</ul>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Video</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://www.cis-india.org/events/facebook-resistance" target="_blank">Facebook Resistance Workshop at CIS</a>. This was a workshop for people to learn on how to think beyond the rules and limitations of Facebook, to tweak and play around the features and design to generate useful, creative, and funny concepts and explore how this creative intervention can be turned into a real software developed by the Facebook Resistance. </li>
</ul>
<h2 style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/telecom" class="external-link"><b>Telecom</b></a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">While the potential for growth and returns exist for telecommunications in India, a range of issues need to be addressed. One aspect is more extensive rural coverage and the other is a countrywide access to broadband which is low. Both require effective and efficient use of networks and resources, including spectrum:</p>
<h3>Column</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://www.cis-india.org/telecom/telecom-path-breaker" target="_blank">Telecom Path-Breaker?</a> (by Shyam Ponappa): Does the draft National Telecom Policy-2011 reflect true brilliance or smoke-and-mirrors? It will be a game-changer if a shared network is implemented effectively, writes Shyam Ponappa in this article published in the Business Standard on 3 November 2011.</li>
</ul>
<ol> </ol>
<hr />
<h2 style="text-align: justify; "><b>Follow us elsewhere</b></h2>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Get short, timely messages from us on <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=456&qid=46981" target="_blank">Twitter</a></li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Follow CIS on <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=457&qid=46981" target="_blank">identi.ca</a></li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Join the CIS group on <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=458&qid=46981" target="_blank">Facebook</a>\</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Visit us at <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=459&qid=46981" target="_blank">www.cis-india.org</a></li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><i>CIS is grateful to Kusuma Trust which was founded by Anurag Dikshit and Soma Pujari, philanthropists of Indian origin, for its core funding and support for most of its projects.</i></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/november-2011-bulletin'>https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/november-2011-bulletin</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaAccess to KnowledgeDigital NativesTelecomAccessibilityInternet GovernanceResearchOpenness2012-07-24T02:37:09ZPageDecember 2011 Bulletin
https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/december-2011-bulletin
<b>Welcome to the newsletter issue of December 2011. This issue carries a special section on Freedom of Expression as there was much discussion regarding the Union Minister for Communications and Information Technology, Mr. Kapil Sibal’s proposal for pro-active censorship of social media.</b>
<h2><a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives" class="external-link"><b>Digital Natives with a Cause?</b></a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Digital Natives with a Cause? is a knowledge programme initiated by CIS, India and Hivos, Netherlands. It is a research inquiry that seeks to look at the changing landscapes of social change and political participation and the role that young people play through digital and internet technologies, in emerging information societies. The collaboration has produced <a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/front-page/blog/dnbook">a four book collective</a> around ‘digital revolutions’ in a post Arab spring world, <a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/front-page/blog/position-papers">a position paper</a>, <a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/front-page/blog/digital-natives-with-a-cause-a-report">a scouting report</a> and three international workshops in <a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/talking-back">Taipei</a>, <a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/my-bubble-my-space-my-voice-workshop-perspective-and-future">Johannesburg</a> and <a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/santiago-workshop-an-after-thought">Santiago</a>.</p>
<h3>Blog Entry</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/the-digital-other">The Digital Other</a>: Nishant Shah raises his concerns that increasingly, Digital Natives are acting as pure consumers of technology and gadgets, and seem willing to do so. The blog post was published in DML Central, 14 December 2011.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
</ul>
<h3>Events</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/video-contest/digital-natives-contest">Digital Native Video Contest</a>, jointly organised by CIS and Hivos. Submission guidelines and FAQs are online. Submit your proposal online by 26 January 2012.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/events/tweet-a-review">Digital AlterNatives Tweet-a-Review</a>, 17 – 26 December 2011: 'Digital Natives with a Cause?' Project invites readers to review essays from the 'Digital AlterNatives with a Cause', a four-book collective published by Centre for Internet & Society and Hivos.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Book Reviews</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/unpacking-from-shiny-packaging">Unpacking Digital Natives from their Shiny Packaging</a>: “The ‘Digital Natives’ concept is neither necessarily nor inherently positive, as YiPing Tsou highlights in her chapter Digital Natives in the Name of a Cause: From Flash Mob to "Human Flesh Search.” <i>—</i> <b>Argyri Panezi</b></li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/on-natives-and-norms">On Natives, Norms and Knowledge</a>:<i> </i>“It is a text I strongly recommend, especially to those interested in the reasons behind contemporary policies that try to regulate digital activism such as the US SOPA Act.” <i>— </i><b>Philip Ketzel</b></li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/twin-manifestations">Digital Native: Twin Manifestations or Co-Located Hybrids</a>: “Ben-David’s piece is a well-articulated and informed attempt to resolve two of the several conceptual fuzziness of the term Digital Native. She attempts this in a philosophical manner: trying to move away from the ontological who are Digital Natives? to an epistemological when and where are Digital Natives?”<i> </i><i>— </i><b>Samuel Tettner</b></li>
</ul>
<h2><b>Pathways for Learning in Higher Education</b></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The Pathways Project for Learning in Higher Education is a collaboration between the Higher Education Innovation and Research Applications (HEIRA) at the Centre for the Study of Culture and Society (CSCS) and the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS). The project is supported by the Ford Foundation and works with disadvantaged students in nine undergraduate colleges in Maharashtra, Karnataka and Kerala, to explore relationships between technologies, higher education and the new forms of social justice in India.</p>
<h3>Workshop Report</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/pathways/facultyworkshop">The Digital Classroom: Social Justice and Pedagogy</a>: Nishant Shah captures some of the questions that were thrown up and discussed at the 2 day Faculty Training workshop for participant from colleges included in the Pathways to Higher Education programme, supported by Ford Foundation and collaboratively executed by the Higher Education Innovation and Research Application and the Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore</li>
</ul>
<h3>Blog Post <a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/pathways/blog/higher-education"></a></h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/pathways/blog/higher-education">Technology, Social Justice and Higher Education</a> by Nishant Shah, 7 December 2011.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
</ul>
<h3><b> </b>Event Organised</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/events/pathways-third-faculty-workshop">Pathways 3rd Faculty Workshop & Regional Facilitators Meeting at CSCS</a>, 8–10 December 2011, CSCS, Bangalore, Nishant Shah participated in the workshop<i>.</i></li>
</ul>
<h2><a href="https://cis-india.org/accessibility" class="external-link"><b>Accessibility</b></a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">India has an estimated 70 million disabled persons who are unable to read printed materials due to some form of physical, sensory, cognitive or other disability. The disabled need accessible content, devices and interfaces facilitated via copyright law and electronic accessibility policies. So far we have organised Right to Read campaigns in the four metro cities of <a href="https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/right-to-read-campaign-chennai">Chennai</a>, <span>Kolkata</span>, <a href="https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/right-to-read-campaign">Delhi</a> and <a href="https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/mumbai-phase-of-right-to-read-campaign">Mumbai</a>, made a <a href="https://cis-india.org/accessibility/front-page/blog/comments-on-copyright-and-print%20impaired">submission to amend the Indian Copyright to the HRD Ministry</a>, researched on <a href="https://cis-india.org/accessibility/front-page/making-mobile-phones-accessible/making-phones-accessible.pdf">accessible mobile handsets in India</a>, analysed the <a href="https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/working-draft">Working Draft of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act</a>, and published a <a href="https://cis-india.org/accessibility/front-page/blog/e-accessibility-handbook">policy handbook on e-accessibility</a> and a book on <span><a href="https://cis-india.org/universal-service-for-persons-with-disabilities">universal service for persons with disabilities</a></span><i>.</i></p>
<h3>Publications</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/universal-service-for-persons-with-disabilities">Universal Service for Persons with Disabilities</a>: Published by G3ict and CIS in cooperation with the Hans Foundation. The book is co-authored by Axel Leblois, Executive Director, G3ict, Deepti Bharthur and Nirmita Narasimhan.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/accessibility/business-case-for-web-accessibility">The Business Case for Web Accessibility</a>: NASSCOM Foundation has published a handbook on web accessibility titled “Understanding Web Accessibility — A Guide to Create Accessible Work Environments”. Nirmita Narasimhan authored a chapter “The Business Case for Web Accessibility”<i>.</i></li>
</ul>
<h3>Submission</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/accessibility/accessibility-new-telecom-policy-2011">Accessibility in the New Telecom Policy 2011</a>: CIS was part of the 27 organisations that responded to the call for comments on NTP 2011. The submission was made to the Department of Telecommunications, Ministry of Communications & Information Technology, Government of India on 9 December 2011.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Interview</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/interview-with-nirmita">An Interview of Nirmita Narasimhan on ITU Portal</a>: ITU Girls in ICT is now online! ITU interviewed Nirmita and published her profile on their website.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Award</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/nirmita-nivh-award">Nirmita receives NIVH Award</a>: Nirmita Narasimhan received the NIVH Excellence Award from Justice AS Anand (retd), former chairman of the National Human Rights Commission, on International Day of Persons with Disabilities at the National Institute for the Visually Handicapped in Dehradun on Saturday, 3 December 2011. The Tribune covered the award ceremony and published this in their newspaper on 3 December 2011.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
</ul>
<h3>Upcoming Event</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><span><a href="https://cis-india.org/accessibility/itu-tutorial-delhi">ITU Meeting and Tutorial on Audiovisual Media Accessibility</a></span>, organized by the International Telecommunication Union, India International Centre, 13 – 15 March 2012. CIS is hosting the workshop in collaboration with the ITU-APT Foundation. More information and registration are available at the <span><a href="http://www.itu.int/cgi-bin/htsh/edrs/ITU-T/studygroup/edrs.registration.form?_eventid=3000348">ITU website</a></span>.</li>
</ul>
<h2><a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k" class="external-link"><b>Access to Knowledge</b></a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Access to Knowledge is a campaign to promote the fundamental principles of justice, freedom, and economic development. It deals with issues like copyrights, patents, and trademarks, which are an important part of the digital landscape. We prepared the <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=960&qid=124241" target="_blank">India report for the CI IP Watchlist</a>, made <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=961&qid=124241" target="_blank">submission to the HRD Ministry on WIPO Broadcast treaty</a>, questioned the demonization of pirates, and advocated against laws (such as the PUPFIP Bill) that privatize public funded knowledge.</p>
<h3>Comments</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><span><a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blog/ace-7-future-work-cis-intervention">CIS Intervention on Future Work of the WIPO Advisory Committee on Enforcement</a></span><br /> The seventh session of the World Intellectual Property Organization's Advisory Committee on Enforcement (ACE) was held in Geneva on 30 November and 1 December 2011. Pranesh Prakash participated in the event and made the intervention.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blog/ace-7-french-charter-cis-comment">Comment by CIS at ACE on Presentation on French Charter on the Fight against Cyber-Counterfeiting</a>: Pranesh Prakash responded to a presentation by Prof. Pierre Sirinelli of the École de droit de la Sorbonne, Université Paris 1 on 'The French Charter on the Fight against Cyber-Counterfeiting of 16 December 2009 during the seventh session of the World Intellectual Property Organization's Advisory Committee on Enforcement (ACE) held in Geneva<i>.</i></li>
</ul>
<h3>Blog Post</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blog/books-vs-cigarettes">CIS Hosts Scanned Version of George Orwell’s Books vs. Cigarettes</a>: Verbindingen/Jonctions (V/J), the bi-annual multidisciplinary festival organised by Constant took place on 1 December 2011. CIS hosted the scanned pages of the essay in public domain.</li>
</ul>
<p><b> </b></p>
<h2><a href="https://cis-india.org/openness" class="external-link"><b>Openness</b></a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Innovation and creativity should be fostered through openness and collaboration. The advent of<i> </i>Internet has radically defined what it means to be open and collaborative. The Internet itself is built upon open standards and free/libre/open source software. Our endeavour has resulted in a report on <a href="https://cis-india.org/openness/front-page/blog/open-government-data-study">open government data</a>, a report on <a href="https://cis-india.org/openness/front-page/online-video-environment-in-india">online video environment in India</a> and a <a href="https://cis-india.org/openness/front-page/blog/people-are-knowledge">film on oral citations on the Wikipedia</a><i>.</i></p>
<h3>Award</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><span><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/ept-award-for-open-access">Inaugural EPT Award for Open Access</a></span>: The Electronic Publishing Trust for Development is pleased to announce the winners of a new annual award to be made to individuals working in developing countries who have made a significant personal contribution to advancing the cause of open access (OA) and the free exchange of research findings. The winner of the inaugural award is Dr Francis Jayakanth of the National Centre for Science Information, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India<i>.</i> </li>
</ul>
<h2><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance" class="external-link"><b>Internet Governance</b></a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The Tunis Agenda of the second World Summit on the Information Society has defined internet governance as the development and application by governments, the private sector and civil society, in their respective roles of shared principles, norms, rules, decision-making procedures and programmes that shape the evolution and use of the internet. CIS partnered with Privacy International and Society in Action Group which has produced outputs in <a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/front-page/blog/privacy/privacy-banking" target="_blank">banking</a>, <a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/front-page/blog/privacy/privacy-telecommunications" target="_blank">telecommunications</a>, <a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/front-page/blog/privacy/consumer-privacy?searchterm=Consumer+Privacy+++How+to+Enforce+an+Effective+Protective+Regime+" target="_blank">consumer rights</a>,<a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/front-page/blog/privacy/privacy-media-law" target="_blank"> media law</a>, <a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/front-page/privacy-sexual-minorities" target="_blank">sexual minorities</a>, etc., and submitted <a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance" target="_blank">seven open letters</a> to Parliamentary Finance Committee on UID covering several aspects, feedbacks on <a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/front-page/blog/cis-feedback-to-nia-bill" target="_blank">NIA Bill</a>, and <a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance" target="_blank">IT Rules</a><i>.</i></p>
<h3>Peer Review</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/streaming-on-your-nearest-screen" target="_blank">Now Streaming on Your Nearest Screen</a> by Nishant Shah, Journal of Chinese Cinemas, Volume 3, Issue 1.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/internet-society-challenges-next-steps" target="_blank">Internet and Society in Asia: Challenges and Next Steps</a> by Nishant Shah, Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, Volume 11, Number 1.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Book Review</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/historian-wins-over-biographer" target="_blank">The Historian Wins Over the Biographer</a><i> “In Walter Isaacson's eponymous biography of Steve Jobs, the multibillion dollar man who is credited with single handedly changing the face of computing and the digital media industry, we face the dilemma of a biographer: how do you make sense of a history that is so new, it is still unfolding.” </i><br />Nishant Shah's detailed review of Steve Jobs' biography was published in the Biblio Vol. XV Nos. 11 & 12, November- December 2011</li>
</ul>
<h3>Newspaper / Magazine Articles</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/spy-in-web" target="_blank">Spy in the Web</a> The government’s proposed pre-censorship rules undermine the intelligence of an online user and endanger democracy, Nishant Shah, Indian Express, 18 December 2011.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/what-is-dilligaf" target="_blank">What is Dilligaf?</a> On the web, time moves at the speed of thought: Groups emerge, proliferate and are abandoned as new trends and fads take precedence. Nowhere else is this dramatic flux as apparent as in the language that evolves online, Nishant Shah, GQ India.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/surrogate-futures-scattered-temporalities" target="_blank">Of Surrogate Futures and Scattered Temporalities</a>: Nishant Shah responds to Michael Edwards through this blog post published in the Broker on 27 December 2011.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Interview</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/interview-with-anne-cavoukian" target="_blank">An Interview with Dr. Ann Cavoukian</a>: Elonnai Hickok interviews Dr. Ann Cavoukian, Information and Privacy Commissioner, Ontario, Canada<i>.</i></li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/when-digital-spills-into-physical" target="_blank">When the digital spills into the physical</a>: Nishant Shah tells us why flash mobs are an interesting sign of our times, and not just a passing fad. MidDay published this interview in their newspaper on 18 December 2011<i>.</i></li>
</ul>
<h3>Video</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/phishing-attacks-on-rise" target="_blank">Phishing Attacks on the Rise</a>: Sunil Abraham was on the TV Channel News 9 on 2 December 2011 speaking about two visual cues to distinguish between the fake and the real websites<i>.</i></li>
</ul>
<ul>
</ul>
<h3>Media Coverage</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/web-censorship" target="_blank">India’s dreams of web censorship</a>, Financial Time's beyondbrics, 6 December 2011, Sunil Abraham was quoted in this post<i>.</i></li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/did-he-didnt-he" target="_blank">Did He, Didn’t He</a> by Rahul Bhatia, Open Magazine (issue: 7-14 December 2011)</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/much-at-stake-for-tech-sector" target="_blank">Much at stake for tech sector in UID project</a> by Pranav Nambiar, Economic Times, 12 December 2011. Sunil Abraham was quoted in this article.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/red-herring" target="_blank">On the net, red herring</a> by Javed Anwer, The Times of India, 4 December 2011. Sunil Abraham was quoted in this article.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/twitter-facebook-lead-in-blogosphere" target="_blank">Twitter, Facebook take the lead in blogosphere as blog searches fall by half</a> by Ameya Chumbhale, Economic Times, 17 November 2011. Pranesh Prakash was quoted in this article<i>.</i></li>
</ul>
<h3>Event Report</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/art-slash-activism" target="_blank">Exposing Data: Art Slash Activism </a>organised by Tactical Tech and CIS in Bangalore on 28 November 2011. Zainab Bawa, Ayisha Abraham, Ward Smith and Marek Tuszinsky gave a talk. Videos of the event are now online<i>.</i></li>
</ul>
<h3>Upcoming Events</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/right-to-privacy-bill-conference" target="_blank">Privacy Matters — Analyzing the "Right to Privacy Bill"</a>: Privacy India in partnership with International Development Research Centre, Canada, Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, the Godrej Culture Lab, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai and the Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore is organising "Privacy Matters", a public conference at IIT, Bombay on 21 January 2012<i>.</i></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/high-level-privacy-conclave" target="_blank">The High Level Privacy Conclave</a>: Privacy India in partnership with the International Development Research Centre, Canada, Society in Action Group, Gurgaon and Privacy International, UK is organizing the High Level Privacy Conclave at the Paharpur Business Centre, Nehru Place Greens in New Delhi on Friday, 3 February 2012<i>.</i></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/privacy-symposium" target="_blank">All India Privacy Symposium</a><span>:</span> Privacy India in partnership with the International Development Research Centre, Canada, Society in Action Group, Gurgaon, Privacy International, UK and Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative is organizing the All India Privacy Symposium at the India International Centre, New Delhi on Saturday, 4 February 2012<i>.</i></li>
</ul>
<h3>Event Organised</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/dialogue-cafe" target="_blank">Dialogue Cafe @ Centre for Internet and Society</a>, 2 Dec 2011, Kavita Philip gave a talk.</li>
</ul>
<hr />
<h2><b>Special Section on Freedom of Expression</b></h2>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">We usually cover Freedom of Expression under Internet Governance. However, this month there has been much discussion regarding the Union Minister for Communications and Information Technology, Mr. Kapil Sibal’s proposal for pro-active censorship of social media. This special section covers reportage and original content from CIS<i>:</i></p>
<h3>Newspaper / Magazine Articles</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/invisible-censorship" target="_blank">Invisible Censorship: How the Government Censors Without Being Seen</a> by Pranesh Prakash: The Indian government wants to censor the Internet without being seen to be censoring the Internet. The article was translated into Marathi and featured in Lokmat, 18 December 2011.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/us-clampdown" target="_blank">US Clampdown Worse than the Great Firewall</a> by Sunil Abraham: If you thought China’s Internet censorship was evil, think again. American moves to clean up the Web could hurt global surfers. Sunil Abraham wrote this article in Tehelka, Volume 8, Issue 50, 17 December 2011.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/unkindest-cut-mr-sibal" target="_blank">That’s the Unkindest Cut, Mr. Sibal</a> by Sunil Abraham: There’s Kolaveri-di on the Internet over Kapil Sibal’s diktat to social media sites to prescreen users’ posts. That diktat goes far beyond the restrictions placed on our freedom of expression by the IT Act. But, says Sunil Abraham of the Centre for Internet and Society, India is not going to be silenced online. Deccan Chronicle, 11 December 2011<i>.</i></li>
</ul>
<h3>Blog Posts</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/online-pre-censorship-harmful-impractical" target="_blank">Online Pre-Censorship is Harmful and Impractical</a> by Pranesh Prakash: The Union Minister for Communications and Information Technology, Mr. Kapil Sibal wants Internet intermediaries to pre-censor content uploaded by their users. Pranesh Prakash takes issue with this and explains why this is a problem, even if the government's heart is in the right place.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/press-coverage-online-censorship" target="_blank">Press Coverage of Online Censorship Row</a>: We are maintaining a rolling blog with press references to the row created by the proposal by the Union Minister for Communications and Information Technology to pre-screen user-generated Internet content.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Radio Broadcast</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Social media sites refuse Indian censorship request: Sunil Abraham spoke to Radio Australia. Follow the broadcast <a href="https://cis-india.org/news/social-media-sites-refuse-indian-censorship" target="_blank">here</a></li>
</ul>
<ul>
</ul>
<h3>Live Chat</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/ibn-live-chat-with-pranesh" target="_blank">Is the govt bid to regulate content on the Internet a good thing?</a>: Pranesh Prakash answered questions freedom of expression vis-a-vis objectionable content live on CNN-IBN's chat feature, 7 December 2011<i>.</i></li>
</ul>
<h3>Media Coverage</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/caught-in-web" target="_blank">Caught in the Web</a>: <i>“As it is the status of freedom of speech in India is in a bad shape. Sibal's new rules will only make it worse.”— </i><b>Sunil Abraham in Hindu Business Line</b>, 13 December 2011.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/online-gag" target="_blank">Online gag: Existing rules give little freedom</a>: <i>“Our criticism is of the policy and not of the websites and Internet entities that are forced to err on the side of caution when faced by such notices.” — </i><b>Sunil Abraham in the Times of India</b><i>,</i> 9 December 2011.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/facebook-google-tell-india-they-won2019t-screen-for-derogatory-content" target="_blank">Facebook, Google tell India they won’t screen for derogatory content</a>: <i>“Researchers sent mock take-down notices to seven sites, complaining about their content... six sites immediately deleted content. They did not even verify the validity of our flawed complaint. They over-complied.” — </i><b>Sunil Abraham in Washington Post</b>, 6 December 2011.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/any-normal-human-being-would-be-offended" target="_blank">‘Any Normal Human Being Would Be Offended’</a>: <i>“</i><i>Indian law seems to state that it has global jurisdiction but that is not really true. An Indian court might give an order that is unenforceable in the United States or anywhere else.” — </i><b>Sunil Abraham in the New York Times</b>, 6 December 2011<i>.</i></li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/it-inc-oppose-sibals-firewall-proposal" target="_blank">IT Inc oppose Sibal’s ‘great’ firewall proposal</a>: <i>“You wouldn’t want to end up with a situation where you are denied access to, say, the website of the University of Sussex because the address contains the word ‘sex’.” — </i><b>Nishant Shah in Indian Express</b>, 7 December 2011.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/online-at-india" target="_blank">Online @ India</a>: <i>“I haven't yet heard of anybody in India going on a rampage because somebody in Pakistan started an 'India hate' page.” — </i><b>Nishant Shah in the Hindustan Times</b>, 10 December 2011.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/private-censorship-making-online-content-disappear-quietly" target="_blank">How ‘private-censorship’ is making online content disappear, quietly</a>: <i>“Google’s self-reported compliance rate of 51 per cent shows that they are probably over-stepping the law in order to appease the Indian government’s requests.” — </i><b>Pranesh Prakash in FirstPost</b>, 15 December 2011.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/chilling-it-act" target="_blank">Kapil Sibal to sterilise Net but undercover sting shows 6 of 7 websites already trigger-happy to censor under ‘chilling’ IT Act</a>, Legally India, 7 December 2011. Sunil Abraham was quoted in this blog post.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/2018chilling2019-impact-of-india2019s-april-internet-rules" target="_blank">‘Chilling’ Impact of India’s April Internet Rules</a> by Heather Simmons, New York Times, 7 December 2011.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/scrub-the-internet-clean" target="_blank">Govt wants to scrub the Internet clean</a>, Livemint, 7 December 2011. Sunil Abraham was quoted in this article.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/techies-angered-over-censorship" target="_blank">India's Techies Angered Over Internet Censorship Plan</a>, NPR, 20 December 2011. Pranesh Prakash was quoted in this blog post.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-social-media-access-should-not-be-blocked-ban" target="_blank">Internet, social media access should not be blocked: Ban</a>, Oman Tribune, 10 December 2011. Sunil Abraham was quoted in this article.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/minority-report-age" target="_blank">India entering the Minority Report age?</a>, ioL scietech. Sunil Abraham was quoted in this.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/internautas-indios-se-oponen" target="_blank">Los internautas indios se oponen a la censura a través de la Red</a>, Diario de Navarra, 7 December 2011. Sunil Abraham was quoted in the Spanish newspaper.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/technological-beasts-impossible-to-control" target="_blank">Technological beasts like Facebook, Orkut, YouTube & Google impossible to control</a> by Sunanda Poduwal & Kamya Jaiswal, Economic Times, 11 December 2011. Sunil Abraham was quoted in the article.</li>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/google-vs-kapil" target="_blank">Google V/s Kapil Sibal</a> by Sundeep Dougal in Outlook, 8 December 2011. Pranesh Prakash's work at CIS has been extensively quoted in this blog post.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/india-bid-to-censor-net-draws-flak" target="_blank">India bid to censor Internet draws flak</a> Phil Hazlewood spoke to Sunil Abraham and published this article for AFP. France 24, Khaleej Times, Physorg.com, TimesLive, Bangkok Post, Yahoo News, MSN News, Emirates 24/7, Business Live and Jakarta Globe also carried the news on their websites, 9 December 2011.</li>
</ul>
<h3><b><i> </i></b>Videos</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/internet-censorship" target="_blank">Censorship — A Death Knell for Freedom of Expression Online</a>: On 8 December 2011<i>, </i>NDTV aired an interesting discussion on internet censorship. Shashi Tharoor, Soli Sorabjee, Shekhar Kapoor, Ken Ghosh and Sunil Abraham participated in this discussion with NDTV's Sonia Singh<i>.</i></li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/censor-social-networking-sites" target="_blank">FTN: Should social networking sites be censored?</a>: Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal met the representatives of Facebook, Google and others seeking to device a screening mechanism. Sunil Abraham was on CNN-IBN from 10.00 p.m. to 10.30 p.m. speaking about freedom of expression in India<i>.</i></li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/online-content-row" target="_blank">Debate: Online content row-1</a>: Sunil Abraham was on Times Now from 9.05 p.m. to 9.45 p.m. on 6 December 2011 speaking about freedom of expression in India<i>.</i><i> </i></li>
</ul>
<h3><b> </b>Event Organised</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/free-speech-online-in-india-under-attack" target="_blank">Free Speech Online in India under Attack? A Panel Discussion</a>, 21 December 2011. Achal Prabhala, Anja Kovacs, Lawrence Liang and Sunil Abraham gave lectures<i>.</i></li>
</ul>
<h2><a href="https://cis-india.org/telecom" class="external-link"><b>Telecom</b></a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The growth in telecommunications in India has been impressive. While the potential for growth and returns exist, a range of issues need to be addressed for this potential to be realized. One aspect is more extensive rural coverage and the second aspect is a countrywide access to broadband which is low at about eight million subscriptions. Both require effective and efficient use of networks and resources, including spectrum. In this connection, Shyam Ponappa continues to write his monthly column for the Business Standard.</p>
<h3>Newspaper Article</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/telecom/healing-self-inflicted-wounds" target="_blank">Healing self-inflicted wounds</a> by Shyam Ponappa, Business Standard, 1 December 2011: A spate of dysfunctional actions and retrograde developments has led to an unimaginable mess for India. Can the damage to growth prospects be undone? Does it need to be? If so, how?</li>
</ul>
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<ul>
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<p><i>CIS is grateful to Kusuma Trust which was founded by Anurag Dikshit and Soma Pujari, philanthropists of Indian origin, for its core funding and support for most of its projects.</i><i> </i></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/december-2011-bulletin'>https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/december-2011-bulletin</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaAccess to KnowledgeDigital NativesTelecomAccessibilityInternet GovernanceResearchOpenness2012-07-23T08:35:03ZPage