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Internet Histories

by Sumandro Chattapadhyay — last modified Oct 25, 2015 03:59 AM
The RAW programme has been interested in the histories of computing and Internet in India from its very inception. This cluster addresses the making of Internet in India – from questions of communication infrastructures, regulatory practices and formation of expertise, labour and industries of connecting India to the Internet, integration of Internet and computers into the functioning of the public and private sector agencies in India, coming of Internet-based solutions into the human development topics and practices, to early net cultures and netizens in India, roles of Internet in media and device cultures in India, spaces and geographies of Internet in India; and the making of the Indian cyberspace in terms of contents, users, and real/virtual practices. It is also interested in excavating the longer history(ies) of electronic communication in its various forms in India, and locating its implications and remnants in the contemporary experiences of Internet in India.

 

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Blog Entry Buying into the Aakash Dream - A Tablet’s Tale of Mass Education — by Sumandro Chattapadhyay — last modified Apr 25, 2016 08:04 AM
The low-cost Aakash tablet and its previous iterations in India have gone through several phases of technological changes and ideological experiments. Did the government prioritise familiarity and literacy about personal technological devices over the promise of quality mass education generated by low-cost devices? This article by Sumandro Chattapadhyay and Jahnavi Phalkey (India Institute, King's College London) was published by EPW in the Web Exclusive section. Here is the unabridged version of the article.
Blog Entry The Aakash Tablet and Technological Imaginaries of Mass Education in Contemporary India (Excerpt) — by Sumandro Chattapadhyay — last modified Feb 14, 2016 10:11 AM
In a recently published paper, Jahnavi Phalkey and Sumandro Chattapadhyay explore public initiatives in technological solutions for educating the poor and the disadvantaged in independent India. Here is an edited excerpt from the paper that traces the recent history of technological solutions for mass education and unpacking the narrative of ‘failure’ that is associated with the Aakash experiment.
Blog Entry RAW Lectures #01: Nishant Shah on 'Stories and Histories of Internet in India' - Video — by Puthiya Purayil Sneha — last modified Feb 09, 2016 08:45 AM
Dr. Nishant Shah spoke on the 'Stories and Histories of Internet in India' at the first event of the RAW Lectures series in Bangalore on March 6, 2015. Here is the video recording of the talk and the discussion that followed.
Blog Entry Civil Society Organisations and Internet Governance in India - Open Review — by Sumandro Chattapadhyay — last modified Nov 13, 2015 05:51 AM
This is a book section written for the third volume (2000-2010) of the Asia Internet History series edited by Prof. Kilnam Chon. The pre-publication text of the section is being shared here to invite suggestions for addition and modification. Please share your comments via email sent to raw[at]cis-india[dot]org with 'Civil Society Organisations and Internet Governance in India - Comments' as the subject line. This text is published under Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International license.
Blog Entry Civil Society Organisations and Internet Governance in Asia - Open Review — by Sumandro Chattapadhyay — last modified Nov 13, 2015 05:54 AM
This is a book section written for the third volume (2000-2010) of the Asia Internet History series edited by Prof. Kilnam Chon. The pre-publication text of the section is being shared here to invite suggestions for addition and modification. Please share your comments via email sent to raw[at]cis-india[dot]org with 'Civil Society Organisations and Internet Governance in Asia - Comments' as the subject line. This text is published under Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International license.
Blog Entry Civil Society Organisations and Internet Governance in Asia and India – Section Outlines — by Sumandro Chattapadhyay — last modified Nov 13, 2015 05:40 AM
The Centre for Internet and Society has been invited to contribute two sections to the Asia Internet History - Third Decade (2001-2010) book edited by Dr. Kilnam Chon. The sections will discuss the activities and experiences of civil society organisations in Asia and India, respectively, in national, regional, and global Internet governance processes. The draft outlines of the sections are shared here. Comments and suggestions are invited.
The Last Cultural Mile — by kaeru — last modified Apr 03, 2015 10:59 AM
Ashish’s monograph follows the career of a priori contradiction, one that only mandates a state mechanism to perform an act of delivery, and then disqualifies the state from performing that very act effectively. This contradiction which he names as the Last Mile problem is a conceptual hurdle, not a physical one and when put one way, the Last Mile is unbridgeable, when put another, it is being bridged all the time.
Blog Entry Re:Wiring Bodies — by Asha Achuthan — last modified Apr 14, 2015 12:49 PM
Asha Achuthan initiates a historical research inquiry to understand the ways in which gendered bodies are shaped by the Internet imaginaries in contemporary India. Tracing the history from nationalist debates between Gandhi and Tagore to the neo-liberal perspective based knowledge produced by feminists like Martha Nussbaum; Asha’s research offers a unique entry point into cyberculture studies through a feminist epistemology of science and technology. The monograph establishes that there is a certain pre-history to the Internet that needs to be unpacked in order to understand the digital interventions on the body in a range of fields from social sciences theory to medical health practices to technology and science policy in the country.
Blog Entry Archives and Access — by Prasad Krishna — last modified Apr 17, 2015 11:06 AM
The monograph by Aparna Balachandran and Rochelle Pinto, is a material history of the Internet archives. It examines the role of the archivist and the changing relationship between the state and private archives for looking at the politics of subversion, preservation and value of archiving. By examining the Tamil Nadu and Goa state archives, along with the larger public and state archives in the country, the monograph looks at the materiality of archiving, the ambitions and aspirations of an archive, and why it is necessary to preserve archives, not as historical artefacts but as living interactive spaces of memory and remembrance. The findings have direct implications on various government and market impulses to digitise archives and show a clear link between opening up archives and other knowledge sources for breathing life into local and alternative histories.
Blog Entry We, the Cyborgs: Challenges for the Future of being Human — by kaeru — last modified Apr 06, 2015 03:48 PM
The Cyborg - a cybernetique organism which is a combination of the biological and the technological – has been at the centre of discourse around digital technologies. Especially with wearable computing and ubiquitous access to the digital world, there has been an increased concern that very ways in which we understand questions of life, human body and the presence and role of technologies in our worlds, are changing. In just the last few years, we have seen extraordinary measures – the successful production of synthetic bacteria, artificial intelligence that can be programmed to simulate human conditions like empathy and temperament, and massive mobilisation of people around the world, to fight against the injustices and inequities of their immediate environments.
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