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Mobilizing Online Consensus: Net Neutrality and the India Subreddit
This essay by Sujeet George is part of the 'Studying Internet in India' series. The author offers a preliminary gesture towards understanding reddit’s usage and breadth in the Indian context. Through an analysis of the “India” subreddit and examining the manner and context in which information and ideas are shared, proposed, and debunked, the paper aspires to formulate a methodology for interrogating sites like reddit that offer the possibilities of social mediation, even as users maintain a limited amount of privacy. At the same time, to what extent can such news aggregator sites direct the ways in which opinions and news flows change course as a true marker of information generation responding to user inputs.
Internet Researchers' Conference 2017 (IRC17) - Call for Sessions
It gives us great pleasure to announce that the second Internet Researchers' Conference (IRC17) will take place in Bengaluru on March 03-05, 2017. It will be organised by the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) in partnership with the Centre for Information Technology and Public Policy at the International Institute of Information Technology Bangalore (IIIT-B). It is a free and open conference. Sessions must be proposed by teams of two or more members on or before Friday, October 28. All submitted session proposals will go though an open review process, followed by each team that has proposed a session being invited to select ten sessions of their choice to be included in the Conference agenda. Final sessions will be chosen through these votes, and be announced on January 09, 2017.
How Green is the Internet? The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
This essay by Aishwarya Panicker is part of the 'Studying Internet in India' series. The author draws attention to the fact that there is little data, debate, analysis, and examination of the environmental impact of the internet, which is true especially for India. She explores four central issue areas. First, as the third highest country in terms of internet use, what is the current environmental impact of internet usage in India? Second, are there any regulatory provisions that give prescriptive measures to data centres and providers? Third, do any global standards exist in this regard and finally, what future steps can be taken (by the government, civil society and individuals) to address this?
Who Owns Your Phone?
The capacity of companies to defy standards that work tells an alarming story of what we lose when we lose control of our devices.
IIIT Delhi Workshop on Center for IT and Society
A workshop on the upcoming Center for IT and Society in IIIT-Delhi was organised today, September 17, in the institute. The workshop highlights on the process of establishing a center on IT and Society, which will focus on studying relationships and impact of ICTs and Internet on society and the role that society plays in shaping them, particularly in India. The center will bring together faculty in various humanities and social sciences disciplines, and would also initiate interdisciplinary taught programme in IT and Social Sciences. Sumandro Chattapadhyay was invited to participate in this workshop.
Sequoia India’s Designathon 2016
Along with their annual hackathon, Sequoia India organised a designathon in Bangalore on September 10-11, 2016. The participants picked one of three tracks - gamification, information visualisation, and smart acceleration - and developed an interface design or clickable prototype or a demo video. Sumandro Chattapadhyay was invited to participate as a mentor for the information visualisation track.
Quarter Life Crisis: The World Wide Web turns 25 this year
With the unexplained ban on websites, the state seems to have stopped caring for the digital rights of its citizens.
IIRC: Reflections on IRC16
The first edition of the Internet Researchers' Conference (IRC) series was held on February 26-28, 2016. It was hosted by the Centre for Political Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University, and was supported by the CSCS Digitial Innovation Fund. Here we share our reflections on the Conference, albeit rather delayed, and lessons towards the next edition to be held in March 2017.
The Curious Incidents on Matrimonial Websites in India
This essay by Abhimanyu Roy is part of the 'Studying Internet in India' series. The author explores how the curious interplays between the arranged marriage market in India the rise of matrimonial sites such as Jeevansathi.com and Shaadi.com. The gravity of the impact that such web-based services have on the lives of users is substantially greater than most other everyday web-enabled transactions, such as an Uber ride or a Foodpanda order. From outright fraud to online harassment, newspaper back pages are filled with nightmare stories that begin on a matrimonial website. So much so that the Indian government has set up a panel to regulate matrimonial sites. The essay analyses the role of matrimonial websites in modern day India, and the challenges this awkward amalgamation of the internet and love gives rise to.
Do I Want to Say Happy B’day?
When it comes to greeting friends on their birthdays, social media prompts are a great reminder. So why does an online message leave us cold?
101 Ways of Starting an ISP:* No. 53 - Conversation, Content and Weird Fiction
This essay by Surfatial is part of the 'Studying Internet in India' series. It argues that the internet has created a space for philosophical questioning among contemporary Indian participants which can develop further, despite common assertions that online spaces are largely uncivil and abusive. It actively explores how anonymous and pseudonymous content production may offer a method for exploring and expressing the internet in India, with a certain degree of freedom, and how spam-like methods may prove effective in puncturing filter bubbles.
Policy Shaping in the Indian IT Industry: Recommendations by NASSCOM on Transfer Pricing, 2014-2016
This is the final part of a series of three blog posts, authored by Pavishka Mittal, tracking the engagements by NASSCOM and iSPIRT in suggesting and shaping the IT industry policies in India during 2006-2016. This post aims to explain the law of transfer pricing in India, and the suggestions made by NASSCOM regarding the same. Transfer pricing is regarded as one of the most controversial operations of multinationals resulting in tax avoidance and arbitrage.
Digital Transition in Newspapers in India: A Pilot Study
This pilot study situates itself at the intersection of global trends in news and journalism, and emergent practises of legacy print media in India. Our aim is to explore how legacy print newspapers are transitioning to the online space. The study will address questions in two thematic clusters: 1) the work of journalism, and 2) how the emergence of the digital, both as a source of news, and the medium of distribution, is shaping the work of newspaper journalists.
RBI and Regulation of Digital Financial Services in India, 2012-2016
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) published its first guideline on mobile banking in 2008, and the conversation on integrating Aadhaar numbers with bank account numbers on one hand and mobile numbers on the other started as soon as UIDAI was established. However, it is the post-2010 period, with rapid growth of the e-commerce sector in India, that saw rise of digital financial services and intermediaries, and hence the demand for regulatory intervention in the sector. This essay by Shivalik Chandan tracks RBI policies and guidelines responding to and shaping the regulatory framework of the digital financial sector in India, including both mobile banking and online transactions.
How are Indian Newspapers Adapting to the Rise of Digital Media?
How are Indian newspapers adapting to the transition to digital news production, distribution, and consumption? How are they changing their journalistic work, their newsroom organisations, and their distribution strategies as digital media become more important? These are the questions we are pursuing in a joint pilot project with the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, University of Oxford.
Studying Internet in India (2016): Selected Abstracts
We received some great submissions and decided to select twelve abstracts, and not only ten as we planned earlier. Here are the abstracts.
Policy Shaping in the Indian IT Industry: Comparative Analysis of Recommendations by NASSCOM and iSPIRT, 2013-2016
This is the second of a series of three blog posts, authored by Pavishka Mittal, tracking the engagements by NASSCOM and iSPIRT in suggesting and shaping the IT industry policies in India during 2006-2016. This post conducts a detailed comparative analysis of NASSCOM’s and iSPIRT’s specific policy recommendations from 2013-2016. To facilitate comparison, the blog post is written thematically on the lines of major issues highlighted by market players in the IT industry.
Data for Governance, Governance of Data, and Data Anxieties
The Center for International Media Assistance (CIMA) organised a panel discussion on 'The Data Explosion – How the Internet of Things will Affect Media Freedom and Communication Systems?' at Deutsche Welle's Global Media Forum 2016, held in Bonn, Germany during June 13-15, 2016. Sumandro Chattapadhyay was invited as one of the panelists.
Policy Shaping in the Indian IT Industry: Recommendations by NASSCOM, 2006-2012
This is the first of a series of three blog posts, authored by Pavishka Mittal, tracking the engagements by NASSCOM and iSPIRT in suggesting and shaping the IT industry policies in India during 2006-2016. This posts focuses on the policy activities of NASSCOM in 2006-2012 with specific reference to Special Economic Zones, E-Commerce Industry and Transfer Pricing, along with a few other miscellaneous important recommendations.
Digital Humanities in India – Concluding Thoughts
An extended survey of digital initiatives in arts and humanities practices in India was undertaken during the last year. Provocatively called 'mapping digital humanities in India', this enquiry began with the term 'digital humanities' itself, as a 'found' name for which one needs to excavate some meaning, context, and location in India at the present moment. Instead of importing this term to describe practices taking place in this country - especially when the term itself is relatively unstable and undefined even in the Anglo-American context - what I chose to do was to take a few steps back, and outline a few questions/conflicts that the digital practitioners in arts and humanities disciplines are grappling with. The final report of this study will be published serially. This is the final section.
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