December 2017 Newsletter

by Prasad Krishna — last modified Mar 17, 2018 11:12 AM

Dear readers,

Previous issues of the newsletters can be accessed here.

Highlights
Shruthi Anand wrote a report that seeks to map the development of Artificial Intelligence both generally and in specific sectors culminating in a stakeholder analysis and contributions to policy making. CIS made a submission to the Department of Industrial Planning and Promotion on December 7, 2017. CIS also offered its assistance on other matters aimed at developing a suitable policy framework for SEPs and FRAND in India, and, working towards sustained innovation, manufacture and availability of mobile technologies in India. The Office of the Controller General of Patents, Designs and Trademarks held a meeting with IP stakeholders on December 7, 2017, chaired by the Secretary, DIPP, to take suggestions on improving procedures and functioning of the Office. Anubha Sinha attended the meeting and requested the DIPP to improve compliance of uploading Form 27s by patentees and ensure proper enforcement of related provisions within the Indian Patent Act, 1970. A Kannada Wikipedia orientation workshop was held at the Entrepreneurship Centre, SID, Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru on 26 November, 2017. The day long event was aimed at adding content to Kannada Wikimedia projects on topics such as ecology, environment, wildlife and sciences of Karnataka. Shyam Ponappa wrote an article on the tragedy of commons in the Business Standard on December 6, 2017. Just like porn is not real life, all news is not real news. It’s time, therefore, to come of age in the 18th year of this century, wrote Nishant Shah in an article in the Indian Express on December 31, 2017.

Highlights

Shruthi Anand wrote a report that seeks to map the development of Artificial Intelligence both generally and in specific sectors culminating in a stakeholder analysis and contributions to policy making.
CIS made a submission to the Department of Industrial Planning and Promotion on December 7, 2017. CIS also offered its assistance on other matters aimed at developing a suitable policy framework for SEPs and FRAND in India, and, working towards sustained innovation, manufacture and availability of mobile technologies in India.
The Office of the Controller General of Patents, Designs and Trademarks held a meeting with IP stakeholders on December 7, 2017, chaired by the Secretary, DIPP, to take suggestions on improving procedures and functioning of the Office. Anubha Sinha attended the meeting and requested the DIPP to improve compliance of uploading Form 27s by patentees and ensure proper enforcement of related provisions within the Indian Patent Act, 1970.
A Kannada Wikipedia orientation workshop was held at the Entrepreneurship Centre, SID, Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru on 26 November, 2017. The day long event was aimed at adding content to Kannada Wikimedia projects on topics such as ecology, environment, wildlife and sciences of Karnataka.
Shyam Ponappa wrote an article on the tragedy of commons in the Business Standard on December 6, 2017.
Just like porn is not real life, all news is not real news. It’s time, therefore, to come of age in the 18th year of this century, wrote Nishant Shah in an article in the Indian Express on December 31, 2017.

CIS wrote the following articles:

New Recommendations to Regulate Online Hate Speech Could Pose More Problems Than Solutions (Amber Sinha; Wire; October 14, 2017). This was published in the month of December on the CIS website.
Breeding misinformation in virtual space (Amber Sinha; Asian Age; December 3, 2017).
India’s Data Protection Regime Must Be Built Through an Inclusive and Truly Co-Regulatory Approach (Amber Sinha; Wire; December 1, 2017).
Digital native: Memory card is full (Nishant Shah; Indian Express; December 3, 2017).
Should Aadhaar be mandatory? (Amber Sinha; Deccan Herald; December 9, 2017).
Digital native: The age of consent (Nishant Shah; Indian Express; December 31, 2017).

CIS in the News:

Aadhaar linking deadline approaches: Here are all the myths and facts (Business Today; December 7, 2017).
Checks and balances needed for mass surveillance of citizens, say experts (Hindu; December 9, 2017).
Masking personal data to protect privacy crucial for India, say experts (Deepti Govind; Livemint; December 11, 2017).
Paranoid about state surveillance? Here’s the FD Guide to living in the age of snoops (Sriram Sharma; Factor Daily; December 12, 2017).
Deadline For Linking Bank Accounts With Aadhaar To Be Extended To 31 March (Komal Gupta and Ramya Nair; Livemint; December 14, 2017).

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Access to Knowledge
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Our Access to Knowledge programme currently consists of two projects. The Pervasive Technologies project, conducted under a grant from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), aims to conduct research on the complex interplay between low-cost pervasive technologies and intellectual property, in order to encourage the proliferation and development of such technologies as a social good. The Wikipedia project, which is under a grant from the Wikimedia Foundation, is for the growth of Indic language communities and projects by designing community collaborations and partnerships that recruit and cultivate new editors and explore innovative approaches to building projects.

►Copyright & Patent

Submission

Submission to DIPP at Meeting with IP Stakeholders (Anubha Sinha; December 12, 2017).
CIS' Submission to DIPP and CGPDTM at meeting with IP Stakeholders (Anubha Sinha; December 13, 2017).

►Openness

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

►Wikipedia

Blog Entries

Christ University Wikipedia Education Program Internship (Manasa Rao; December 11, 2017).
Wikipedia Orientation Program at Rotary Club of Salem (Manasa Rao; December 11, 2017).
Nichole Saad from the Wikimedia Foundation visits Christ University (Manasa Rao; December 17, 2017).
Kannada Wikipedia Orientation Workshop at IISc, Bengaluru (A. Gopalakrishna; December 19, 2017).
Wikimedia Technical Workshop at Savitribai Phule Pune University (Manasa Rao; December 19, 2017).
Marathi Wikipedia workshop for Sandarbh Science magazine writers (Manasa Rao; December 19, 2017).
Marathi Wikipedia - Vishwakosh Workshop for Science writers in IUCAA, Pune (Manasa Rao; December 20, 2017).

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

►Free Speech & Expression

Blog Entries

It Hurts Them Too (Mir Farhat; December 19, 2017).
Internet Shutdowns: A Modern-day Siege (Ayswarya Murthy; December 19, 2017).
Days to Derail Work of Two Generations? (Mahesh Kumar Shiva; December 19, 2017).
Sorry, Business Closed until Internet is Back On (Nalanda Tambe; December 19, 2017).
Stock Brokers Don't Love an Internet Shutdown (Binita Parikh; December 19, 2017).
Was there an Unofficial Internet Shutdown in BHU & NTPC? (Saurabh Sharma; December 19, 2017).
How Media beat the Shutdown in Darjeeling (Manish Adhikary; December 19, 2017).
Internet and the Police: Tool to Some, Trash to Others (Manoj Kumar; December 19, 2017).
Business Woes from Saharanpur's Internet Ban (Mahesh Kumar Shiva; December 19, 2017).
Amid Unrest in the Valley, Students See a Dark Wall (Aakash Hassan; December 19, 2017).
The Rising Stars in Music Loath Losing their Only Platform (Umar Shah and Mir Farhat; December 19, 2017).
Internet and Banking: A Trust Broken (Roshan Gupta; December 19, 2017).
Online or Offline, Protest Goes On (Junaid Nabi Bazaz; December 19, 2017).
Digital Banking Dreams: Interrupted (Safeena Wani; December 19, 2017).
Will Darjeeling Regain the Trust of Tourists? (Roshan Gupta; December 20, 2017).
Silence on the Dera Front (Sat Singh; December 20, 2017).
ISPs in Kashmir Grappling with Mounting Losses Amid Recurrent Shutdowns (Safina Wani; December 20, 2017).
Taxes in the Time of Internet Shutdown (Avijit Sarkar; December 20, 2017).
Every Town had its Jio Dara (Ayswarya Murthy; December 20, 2017).
Education and Employment Opportunities Tossed out of the Window (Roshan Gupta; December 20, 2017).
Darjeeling’s e-commerce Crumbles after 100 days sans Internet (Avijit Sarkar; December 20, 2017).
E-administration Efforts are Lame Ducks without Internet (Amit Kumar and Sat Singh; December 20, 2017).

►Privacy

Blog Entries

Artificial Intelligence - Literature Review (Shruthi Anand; edited by Amber Sinha and Udbhav Tiwari with research assistance by Sidharth Ray; December 16, 2017).
AI and Healthcare in India: Looking Forward (Shweta Mohandas; edited by Roshni Ranganathan; December 16, 2017).

Participation in Event

FIGI Symposium 2017 (Organized by Telecommunication Standardization Bureau (TSB) of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), jointly with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the World Bank and the Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructure (CPMI) and support of the Government of India; November 29 - December 1, 2017; Bangalore). Elonnai Hickok participated in the symposium and spoke in the "Security, Infrastructure, and Trust" working group on big data and privacy in DFS.

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

Article

The tragedy of the unused commons (Shyam Ponappa; Business Standard; December 6, 2017).

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

► Follow us elsewhere

Twitter: http://twitter.com/cis_india
Twitter - Access to Knowledge: https://twitter.com/CISA2K
Twitter - Information Policy: https://twitter.com/CIS_InfoPolicy
Facebook - Access to Knowledge: https://www.facebook.com/cisa2k
E-Mail - Access to Knowledge: [email protected]
E-Mail - Researchers at Work: [email protected]
List - Researchers at Work: https://lists.ghserv.net/mailman/listinfo/researchers

► Support Us

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

► Request for Collaboration

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

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

December 2017 Newsletter

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