Centre for Internet and Society

Accessible websites could become a reality

sachia — 2011-04-02T16:17:26Z

Article by L. Subramani in the Deccan Herald, 11 February 2009

Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), a Bangalore-based NGO that researches on Internet's influence on families and individuals, had reported that about 99 per cent of government websites have failed in meeting with the accessibility guidelines issued by W3C (World Wide Web Consortium).

As Kanchan Pamnani speaks about web accessibility, she relates to us an old story learnt at school. A crane called his long-time friend, a wolf, for dinner and showed a tall, narrow jar that had delicious fishes in it. Unable to put its head inside and eat, the bewildered wolf returned home hungry, as the crane enjoyed putting its long beak inside the jar and tasted its content.

“What’s the point in information being available on the Internet? The visually challenged can’t access the content all the same, since the design and presentation of websites are not friendly to the screen reader software they use to access them through PC and laptops. And they need this the most, since it saves their time and energy when they get things done online,” Ms Pamnani said.

Despite being home to the world’s largest visually impaired population, the problem of inaccessible websites has been common in India. What hurts Ms Pamnani, a visually challenged lawyer and folks like her is the irony that several website developers in India comply with accessibility norms while creating websites for their foreign clients for fear of their product getting rejected and ignore the same while making sites for home-based organisations.

Some months ago, Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), a Bangalore-based NGO that researches on Internet's influence on families and individuals, had reported that about 99 per cent of government websites have failed in meeting with the accessibility guidelines issued by W3C (World Wide Web Consortium). It had highlighted CMC Velore, RBI and IIMB as some of the institutions whose websites are either too difficult or impossible for persons with visual impairment to access with their special screen reading software.

“Someone has to take responsibility for this situation,” Pamnani mentioned. “Given that people from the IT community have created these websites, they will have to take the blame.”

Screen readers, which the blind use to get content of a computer in voice, comprises of text to speech engine (a sort of virtual larynx) and the software that allows users to interface with the system. However, graphically rich webpages or features that are primarily visual in nature become a potential minefield to the screen reader since it doesn’t know how that information can be rendered “readable” to the TTS engine.

Mindful of this bottleneck, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), which play the role of rule-makers in the way the web functions, designed a set of guidelines web developers must use while creating websites. For instance, it calls for giving heading levels which makes screen reader users to press “Shift and the number key depending on which heading level (one to five) they want to reach” and straight away go to the heading instead of going line by line.

For webpages to be fully accessible, the guidelines ask developers to use HTML tags and create alternative, verbally described pages (to the graphically rich ones) that can be read by screen readers. Probably fearing the labour it takes, developers of websites are alleged to be overlooking the guidelines and disability activists say that the negligence is proving to be too costly for them.

“These days, most of the government documents are available on the Internet,” said Javed Abidi, Chairman, National Centre for Promotion of Employment for Disabled Persons (NCPEDP). “The technology is available and there is also the necessary awareness, but web developers seem to be taking this issue too lightly.”

Abidi and Pamnani have been talking about the situation with NASSCOM and were close to hosting a Dharna in front of the venue where the industry body was hosting its leadership summit on Wednesady. However, the protest was called off since NASSCOM agreed to focus on the issue.

“As a first step, the body has agreed to make their own website accessible,” Abidi, the New Delhi-based, wheelchair-bound disability activist, said. “Then they have agreed to urge their members to follow suit. Also, despite their attempts to take up accessibility as a CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) issue, we want them to consider this as a rights issue, since the United Nations Convention for Rights of Persons With Disability (UNCRPD), which India has signed and ratified, states (in article 9) that access to information is a right.”

So Pamnani and several other visually challenged users of the Internet feel the day when they can log on to the website of an online store and purchase anything of their choice isn’t far away.

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To read the article at the Deccan Herald website, click here.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/accessible-websites-could-become-a-reality

Uploads

sachia — 2009-03-30T06:06:19Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/blogs/transparency-and-politics/uploads

Inclusive Planet

sachia — 2009-07-09T08:51:28Z

Context

There are approximately 75 million differently-abled persons in India. This community is largely excluded from civil society and persons with disability continue to have to depend on family members or others to meet their basic needs and wants. Neither the Government nor private enterprise has had significant success in including this community in mainstream society.

Vision

Inclusive Planet (“IncP”) aims to create India’s largest cross disability community for the 75 million differently-abled people in India and their support groups. IncP will also thereby become the largest provider of products and services to this community.

InclusivePlanet.com

The primary delivery platform for IncP will be www.inclusiveplanet.com (not yet operational), a Web 2.0 portal. Supplementary delivery platforms will be channel partner web sites, vendor websites, Inclusive Planet franchisee stores (brick and mortar), partner stores and mobile phones. The portal will be a ‘one-stop shop’ for the specific requirements of people with disabilities. The portal will also comprehensively address the daily needs of persons with disabilities, including specific requirements for information, everyday requirements of life, employment, entertainment and assistance. In short, the portal will assist persons with disabilities with obtaining access to facilities available to the public at large.

The portal will have channels that specially cater to the disabled and their support group, for the following: medical information, legal information, policy information, news, shopping, service provider listings, career listings, career guidance, medical expert panel, social networking (blogs, forums and chat), and entertainment. IncP is working with several of India’s largest NGOs to provide the back-end for several of the features of the portal.

The Entertainment Channel

This channel of the portal is aimed primarily at the visually-impaired community. Visually impaired persons cannot enjoy the same content in the same format as sighted persons and have to rely on audio content such as audio books and content in specific computer readable formats. The entertainment channel is loosely based on the YouTube model and provides for users to upload and share audio books and other content with each other. This channel will also have a feature allowing users to request any specific item of content; this content can be uploaded by other users or volunteers. This channel will be an integral part of the community building aspect of IncP.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/research/grants/inclusive-planet/inclusive-planet

Uploads

sachia — 2011-08-23T22:52:05Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/accessibility/publications/uploads

Workshop for Web Developers on Web Accessibility

sachia — 2011-08-31T10:51:35Z

Solution Exchange, an initiative of the United Nations Agencies in India, and the Centre for Internet and Society are organizing a workshop on web accessibility for web developers from organizations in the public and private sector, with the support of The National Internet Exchange of India (NIXI). The workshop will be held in Delhi from February 16^th-18^th, 2009. CIS' media partner for the event is Disability News India.

This workshop, which will feature seven trainers and about thirty participants, is the first one of its kind, bringing together practitioners from NIC and other government departments, as well as from small and medium enterprises across the country. The primary aim of this workshop is to demonstrate the importance of creating accessible web sites and to educate the developers of government and private web sites on how to incorporate accessibility features into new as well as existing web sites.

The training will comprise both theory-oriented and practical sessions. The trainers will be specialists in various aspects of web accessibility. The main focus will be on WCAG 2.0 guidelines. The participants will be persons already involved in developing web sites with good knowledge of HTML, XML, CSS, etc. The workshop will in a sense not only help in training web developers in accessibility, but will also attempt to increase capacity building by training potential accessibility trainers. There will also be a session where key persons involved in the working groups on accessibility, e-governance architecture and open standards will share the National Informatics Centre perspective.

Many of the sessions will be documented as lessons on accessibility and put up on the CIS web site. As part of the outcome of the workshop, five inaccessible government web sites will be identified and taken up for retrofitting with accessibility features within the next few months.

In its move to support web accessibility, NIXI has already undertaken the translation of the WCAG 2.0 standards into Hindi--the first translation of the WCAG into any Indian language. This is intended to aid web developers in the need for creating accessible web sites.

Please click on the links for more information about the proposed sessions to be held at the workshop and the participating trainers.

The workshop will be held in the Human Resource Development Centre Building of the CSIR in Ghaziabad (HRDC building, CSIR, Sector 19, Central Government Enclave, Kamla Nehru Nagar, Ghaziabad-201002, UP).

Map

Please refer to the map as necessary.

Participants

Click here for a complete list of participants and their organisational affiliations.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/events/workshop-for-web-developers-on-web-accessibility

Updated List of Signatories for Letter Supporting WIPO Treaty for the Reading Disabled

sachia — 2011-08-25T08:35:54Z

The list of signatories to a letter in support of the WIPO Treat for the Reading Disabled has been updated.

In November last year, CIS launched a nation wide signature campaign to support the treaty for the blind, visually impaired and other reading disabled proposed by the World Blind Union to the WIPO. The letter was, at that time, endorsed by 16 organisations in the disability sector throughout the country. The treaty is scheduled to come up again for discussion in a couple of months.

CIS has been carrying on its work of gathering support for the letter. The updated list of signatories is as follows.

Name of Organization	Contact Person
Akhil Bharatiya Drishtiheen Kalyan Sangh	Mr. Ajay M. Joshi
Amulya Sahara	Sh. Ashok Kumar Goyal
Andhjan Kalyan Trust	Mr. Praful N. Vyas
Arushi	Sh.Anil Mudgal
Astha	Ms Radhika M. Alkazi,
Atmajyoti Vikas Samitee	Mrs. Priti Yadav
Blind People's Association (Ahmedabad)	Mr. R.P. Soni
Blind Person's Association (Kolkata)	Mr. Amiyo Biswas
Blind Welfare Council	Sh. Yusuf Kapadiya
Centre For Internet And Society	Sunil Abraham
Devnar Foundation for the Blind	Dr. A. Saibaba Goud
Discipleship Centre	Mr. John A
Farook College	Prof. K. Kuttialikutty
Hans Raj Mahila Maha Vidyalaya	Ms. Prabha Puran Sharma
Human Development Institute	Ms. R.C. Meena
Indian Association for the Blind	Mr. S.M.A. Jinnah,
Indira Mahila Mandal Hudco New Nandeds	Sh. Nagnath Ramji Kadam
Jamia Millia Islamia	Prof. Zubair Meenal
Janta Adarsh Andh Vidyalaya	Mrs. Kalpana Sharma
Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya	Rajesh Gupta
Jyoti Sroat School	Bertha G. Dkhar
L.V. Prasad Eye Institute	Ms. Beula Christy
Lakshmi Bai College	Dr. Nalini Govind
Maulana Azad Library (Aligarh Muslim University)	Mr. Shakeel Ahmad Khan
Mitra Jyothi	Ms. Madhu Singhal
Montfort Centre For Education	Mr. Michael Mathew
National Association for the Blind, Delhi
NAB-Phiroze & Noshir Merwanji Rehabilitation Centre for the Blind (Mount Abu)	Sh. Vimal Kumar Dengla
National Association for the Blind (Uttarakhand)	Mr. Shyam Dhanak
National Association for the Blind (Chandigarh)	Sh. Vinod Chadha
National Association for the Blind (H.)	Ms. Shalini Vats Kimta
National Association for the Blind (India)	Sh. Suhas V. Karnik
National Association for the Blind (Jharkhad)	Sh. Ar. Sahay
National Association for the Blind (Junagad)	Ms. Rinaben V. Jasani
National Association for the Blind (Karnataka),	(Mrs.) Saroja Ramachandra
National Association for the Blind (Kerala)	Sh. Manoj Kurian
National Association for the Blind (Sikkim Branch)	Mr. Rajesh Verma
National Association for the Blind(WestBengal)	Sh. Arup Chakroborty
National Federation of the Blind (Guwahati)	Mohd. Imran Ali
North Ex. Blind Welfare & Educational Society	Sh. Subhash Garg
Orissa Association for the Blind	Sh. Bihari Nayak
Rajasthan Netraheen Kalyan Sangh	Sh. Jitendra Bhargava
Ramakrishna Mission Blind Boys' Academy	Sh. Sunilbaran Pattanayak
Saksham	Ms. Deepika Sood
Salwan Public School	Mrs. Vandana Puri
Samarthanam Trust for the Disabled	Sh. Ganesh
Samrita Trust	Sh. Seetarama Sastry Nori
School for the Deaf Mutes Society	Dr. Homiyar Mobedji
Score Foundation,	George Abraham
Shikshit Yuva Sewa Samiti Basti	Mr. Gopal Krishna Agarwal
Shree Andhjan Vividhlaxi Talim Kendra	Sh. Prakash Mankodi
Shri Navchetan Andhjan Mandal	Sh. Himanshu Sampura
Shri Venkateswara College	Ayesha Maliwal
Shri Vrajlal Durlabhji Parekh Andh Mahila Vikas Grah	Sh. P.J. Mankodi
Shruti Information Centre of Yashoda Charitable Trust	Ms. Sonal Sena
Shubham	Dr. Sangeeta Agarwal
Springdales School	Ms. Sonali Bose
St. Mary's School
Tagore International School	Ms. Aparna Sharma
The Blind Relief Association (Delhi)	Sh. Kailash Chandra Pande
University of Hyderabad	Dr. Madhireddy Anjaneyulu
Venu Eye Institute & Research Centre	Ms. Tanuja Joshi
Victoria Memorial School for the Blind	Mrs. Radha Subrahmanian
Welfare Centre For Visually Handicapped	Mr. Profulla Kumar Rout
Welfare Society for the Blind	Smt. Jharna Sur
Xavier's Resource Centre for the Visually Challenged (XRCVC)	Dr. Sam Taraporevala

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/signatory-list

Talk on 'Inheritance of Alphanumeric Characters'

sachia — 2011-04-05T04:40:53Z

CIS and Abhishek Hazra welcome you to a talk on 'Inheritance of Alphanumeric Characters', Abhishek's recent body of work currently on display at Gallery SKE, Bangalore. These works attempt to engage with the social history of science and the way the practice of science is deeply contextualised within the larger discourse of power and knowledge systems. It is also about negotiating with the 'inheritance' of discourses like Orientalism or Stalinism and finding ways of engaging critically with that legacy.

At one level, the title, 'Inheritance of Alphanumeric Characters' can be parsed as an allusion to the centrality of language in this entire process. It is also a reference to the phrase 'Inheritance of Acquired Characters', a popular one-liner on Lamarkism, an influential early 19th century theory of evolution that was discredited by the Darwinian-Mendelian paradigm. Abhishek uses multiple modalities - video and spoken word performance to artist's books and large-scale digital prints – to articulate his ongoing explorations.

Artist Profile:

Abhishek Hazra is a visual artist based in Bangalore. His work explores the intersections between technology and culture through the narrative device of a 'visual fable'. He is also interested in the social history of scientific practices, and his current, ongoing project attempts to explore the history of science research in colonial India. Abhishek works with animated shorts and digital slideshows that often integrate textual fragments drawn from fictional scenarios. He is also interested in the way in which the languages of science journalism and information visualisation participate in the complex dynamics of 'knowledge dissemination' and 'translation'. Recent shows include First Left, Second Right, a 3 person show at Thomas Erben Gallery, New York with Yamini Nayar and Kiran Subbaiah; Horn Please. Narratives in Contemporary Indian Art (Curated by Bernhard Fibicher and Suman Gopinath), Kunstmuseum Bern and Ghosts in the Machine and other Fables: an exhibition of video, sound and interactive works at Apeejay Media Gallery, New Delhi (Curated by Pooja Sood). A brief overview of some of his works can be found here: http://abhishekhazra.blogspot.com/

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/events/talk-on-inheritance-of-alphanumeric-characters

Fear and Gender in Public Space

sachia — 2011-04-05T04:41:10Z

A discussion of work on the body and the city and collaborative interventions on the theme of Fear and Gender in Public Space

Fear and Gender in Public Space is the theme of multiple, collaborative interventions being held during 14th to 28th January 2009 in Bangalore city. A confluence of artists, designers and practitioners will mobilize the workshop theme across select locations in various formats. The outcome of these interactions will be presented to local groups at intervals during the two weeks.

At one of these intervals, CIS-India researchers will discuss their works on the body and the city in conjunction with interim discussions on the ongoing interventions being carried out in the city.

Contact: zeenath.hasan@gmail.com

Venue:

The Centre for Internet and Society

No. D2, 3rd Floor,

Sheriff Chambers

14, Cunningham Road,

Bangalore 560052

Map: Google Maps

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/events/fear-and-gender-in-public-space

Report on the Internet Governance Forum

sachia — 2011-08-23T04:51:55Z

CIS attended the UN Internet Governance Forum in Hyderabad, December 3-7, 2008.

As an outcome of the UN Internet Governance Forum (IGF) which took place in Hyderabad from December 3-7, 2008,

(a) CIS entered into an agreement with the W3C to make translations of the WCAG 2.0 guidelines into some Indian languages; and

(b) CIS, the UN Solutions Exchange group and the Daisy Forum of India (DFI) decided to work together on the web accessibility issue and form a core group of organizations across the disability sector for this purpose.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/igf-report-1

Government websites: Access denied to special users

sachia — 2011-04-02T16:17:22Z

Article by L. Subramani in the Deccan Herald, 8 December 2008

The homepages of 23 government agencies have been identified as inaccessible to special users, the city-based Centre for Internet and Society has found.

The organisation carried out an automated test using software tools, on websites of agencies like the National Informatics Centre, Lok Sabha, Rajya Sabha, Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, Ministry of HRD etc, the majority of which have failed to meet even the basic access criteria laid down in the guidelines of Worldwide Web Consortium (W3C).

“Except for the Reserve Bank of India and CMC Vellore, all the sites don't even meet priority 1 of WCAG (W3C Access Guidelines), which would ensure availability of text for non-text elements (images) and other graphical contents that can't be read out by screen reader software,” said Nirmita Narasimhan, who carried out the tests at CIS. She mentioned that all of the websites failed in priority 2 and 3 of the guidelines.

“Despite being one of the most important sites for persons with disability, the homepage of the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment - which contains documents and important government schemes for persons with disability - has completely failed to meet the accessibility criteria.

This is not only against the spirit of laws that guarantee freedom of information, but also contradicts the government's own policy of making websites accessible to persons with disability,” she added.

Handbook

Nirmita pointed out that the Right To Information handbook - an important reference for persons with disability, demanding information from government and private organisations - has been provided in an inaccessible document format.

She echoed the common contention that persons with disability are deprived of one of the most important aspects of modern technology, despite being empowered by technologies like screen readers and speech recognition software.

The information, coming soon after the International Day for Persons with Disabilities was observed, raises question marks over the government's commitment to break barriers, and its genuineness in creating an accessible society as per the Persons with Disability act (1995) and the United Nations Convention for the Rights of Persons with Disability, to which it has been one of the early signatories.

Ganesh Prasad, Director (Systems and Process) at Samarthanam Trust for the Disabled described the test results as ‘not surprising, but certainly disappointing.’

“Given the urban conditions, visiting a place in person has become one of the most difficult things for persons with disability,” Prasad said.

Priority 1 of the guidelines calls for text descriptions of images or alternative pages with text contents, while priority 2 asks for the turning off of auto refresh and other deprecated features of W3C technologies, and recommends semantic information of the page for persons with disability to instantly know the contents.

-----

Read the article on the Deccan Herald website here.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/government-websites-access-denied-to-special-users

Digital Empowerment Foundation--Internet Governance Forum Workshop, 5 December 2008, Hyderabad

sachia — 2011-04-02T16:16:28Z

CIS Director (Policy) Sunil Abraham will be a panelist at a workshop on Low Cost Sustainability Access to be held at the Internet Governance Forum 2008.

CIS Director (Policy) Sunil Abraham will be a panelist at a workshop on Low Cost Sustainability Access to be held at the Internet Governance Forum 2008. The workshop is organised by the Digital Empowerment Foundation and the Internet and Mobile Association of India, in association with Internet Society and Intel. It will be held on December 5, 2008, from 14:30 – 16:00.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/digital-empowerment-foundation-internet-governance-forum-workshop-5-december-2008-hyderabad

An Open Letter on Internet Governance to the UN Internet Governance Forum

sachia — 2011-08-02T07:40:02Z

This open letter brings up concerns of democratic deficit in internet governance worldwide, and is addressed to the UN Internet Governance Forum (IGF). It is to be delivered at the IGF's 3rd Annual Meeting at Hyderabad, India, from 3rd to 6th December, 2008. The signatories are Alternative Law Forum, Bangalore, Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore, Delhi Science Forum, New Delhi, Free Software Foundation - India, IT for Change, Bangalore, and Knowledge Commons, New Delhi.

This open letter brings up concerns of democratic deficit in internet governance worldwide, and is addressed to the UN Internet Governance Forum (IGF). It will be delivered at the IGF's 3rd Annual Meeting at Hyderabad, India, from 3rd to 6th December, 2008.

The letter includes an information sheet exemplifying some of the problems of democratic deficit in internet governance.

The text of the letter is as follows:
-------------------------------------------------------------

The IGF must ACT NOW against the threat to the public-ness and the egalitarian nature of the Internet

The undersigned wish to express their deep concern that the UN Internet Governance Forum (IGF), created by the World Summit on the Information Society in 2005 as an Internet ‘policy dialogue’ forum, is largely failing to address key public interest and policy issues in global Internet governance – including that of democratic deficit.

Who shapes the Internet, as the Internet shapes our new social context?

The Internet represents the single most important technical advance of our society in a long time, so much so that it defines a new emerging social paradigm. The basic characteristics of the Internet determine the contours of the emerging social order in many important ways. The Internet was conceived as, and still largely is, an extensive communication system which is democratizing, and has little respect for established social hierarchies. Interactions and associations built over this new ‘techno-social’ system have, therefore, held the promise of a more egalitarian society.

The era of innocence of the Internet however appears to be fast approaching its end. Today, the Internet of the future – the very near future – is being shaped insidiously by dominant forces to further their interests. (See the fact-sheet on the following page for some illustrations of this.) Unfortunately, global policy forums have largely failed to articulate, much less act on, crucial Internet policy issues, which concern the democratic possibilities for our societies.

The IGF needs to act now!

As the Internet Governance Forum convenes for its third annual meeting, between 3rd and 6th December, 2008, in Hyderabad, India, it must take immediate steps to anchor and discuss important global public interest and policy issues involved in Internet governance. If it does not act now, it may get seen as a space that only provides an illusion of a public policy dialogue, and, consequently, as being co-opted in furthering the agenda of dominant forces that are shaping the Internet as per their narrow interests. We therefore strongly urge the IGF to directly address the following key global public interest and policy issues:

Increasing corporatisation of the Internet
Increasing proprietisation of standards and code that go into building the Internet
Increasing points of control being embedded into the Internet in the name of security and intellectual property violations
Huge democratic deficit in global Internet governance

We exhort the IGF to adopt clear directions for engaging with these crucial public policy issues. The IGF should come out with a clear work plan at its forthcoming meeting in Hyderabad to address the four key areas listed above.

The global community – comprising not only people who currently have access to the Internet, but also the un-connected billions who are being impacted by it nevertheless – will judge the meaningfulness and legitimacy of the IGF in terms of what progress it is able to make on these issues.

Alternative Law Forum, Bangalore
Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore
Delhi Science Forum, New Delhi
Free Software Foundation - India
IT for Change, Bangalore
Knowledge Commons, New Delhi

Information Sheet
How the Public-ness and Egalitarian Nature of the Internet is Threatened
– Some Examples

Corporatisation of the Internet
Largely unsuspected by most of its users, the Internet is rapidly changing from being a vast ‘public sphere’, with a fully public ownership and a non-proprietary nature, to a set of corporatised privately-owned networks.

On the one hand, telecom companies are carving out the Internet into privately-owned networks – controlling the nature of transactions over these networks. They seek to differentially charge content providers, while also building wholly private networks offering exclusive content relay services. Developments like video/TV over Internet Protocol and the provision of controlled and selective Internet services over mobiles are contributing to increasing network-operators’ control over the Internet, with a corresponding erosion of its public-ness.

On the other hand, the commons of the Internet is also being overwhelmed and squeezed out by a complete domination of a few privately owned mega-applications such as Google, Facebook, Youtube etc.

Proprietarisation of standards and code that build the Internet

One of the main ways of appropriating the commons of the Internet is through the increasing use of proprietary and closed standards and code in building the Internet system. Such appropriation allows the extortion of illegitimate rent out of the many new forms of commons-based activities that are being made possible through the Internet.

Embedding control points in the Internet

A growing confluence of corporatist and statist interests has led to the embedding of more and more means of control into the Internet in a manner that greatly compromises citizens’ rights and freedoms. Whether it is the pressure on Internet
Service Providers to examine Internet traffic for ‘intellectual property’ violations; or imposition of cultural and political controls on the Internet by states within their boundaries; or ITU’s work on IP trace-back mechanisms; or the tightening of US
control over the global Internet infrastructure in the name of securing the root zone file and the domain name system, these new forms of controlling the Internet are being negotiated among dominant interests away from public scrutiny and wider public interest-based engagements.

Democratic deficit in global Internet governance
The current global Internet governance regime – a new-age privatized governance system professing allegiance mostly to a single country, the US – has proven to be an active instrument of perpetuation of dominant commercial and geo-political interests. Lately, OECD countries have begun some work on developing public policy principles that, due to the inherently global nature of the Internet, can be expected to become globally applicable. It is quite unacceptable that OECD countries shirk from discussing the same public policy issues at global public policy forums like the IGF that they discuss among themselves at OECD meetings. Apparently, developing countries are expected to focus on finding ways to reach connectivity to their people, and not burden themselves with higher-level Internet governance issues!

People’s and communities’ right to self-determination and participation in governance of issues that impact their lives should underpin global Internet governance.

---------------------------------------------

You can download the letter here (.pdf format).

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/an-open-letter-on-internet-governance-to-the-un-internet-governance-forum

Wikipedia and Free Culture

sachia — 2011-10-21T08:31:01Z

Bangalore International Centre, in collaboration with the Centre for Internet and Society, hosts a discussion focusing on Wikipedia and free culture, with Jimmy Wales (Founder, Wikipedia) and Sue Gardner (Wikimedia Foundation)

Bangalore International Centre, in collaboration with the Centre for Internet and Society,

cordially invites you to an interactive discussion

Wikipedia and Free Culture

with

Jimmy "Jimbo" Wales

Founder, Wikipedia

and

Sue Gardner

Executive Director, Wikimedia Foundation

Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, will deliver a presentation about the history, growth, and prominence of Wikipedia on the internet today. Since its inception in 2001, Wikipedia has risen quickly to become the largest information resource and free knowledge repository in history, now with over 11 million articles in over 250 unique language editions.

Sue Gardner, Executive Director of the Wikimedia Foundation, will speak on the origins of the Wikimedia Foundation, the San Francisco based non profit organisation that operates Wikimedia and other free knowledge projects.

Lawrence Liang, member, Alternative Law Forum, and author of A Guide to Open Content Licences, will steer the discussions.

Date and Time: Saturday, 13 December 2008, 6.00 pm-8.00 pm

Venue:

Bangalore International Centre Auditorium

TERI Complex,

4th Main, 2nd Cross,

Domlur II Stage,

Bangalore 560 071

Registration:

Please register for the event with the Bangalore International Centre (phone: +91 80 2535 9680).

Videos

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/events/wikipedia-and-free-culture

Berlin 6 Open Access Conference

sachia — 2011-04-02T16:16:16Z

The Berlin 6 Open Access conference was attended by Subbiah Arunachalam, Centre for Internet and Society Distinguished Fellow.

Subbiah Arunachalam, Centre for Internet and Society Distinguished Fellow, attended the Berlin 6 Open Access conference (www.berlin6.org), held in Dusseldorf from 11 to 13 November 2008. Berlin 6 is the fifth follow-up conference to the drafting sessions for the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities.

Subbiah Arunachalam is a member of the Programme Committee of the Berlin series of conferences, and this year chaired the session on Open Access for Development, which looked at the status of open access in developing countries and the factors inhibiting progress in this area. The speakers at this session were Dev Kumar Sahu (MedKnow, India), Eve Gray (Eve Gray & Associates/Open Society Institute, South Africa), Solange M Santos (BIREME/PAHO/SciELO, Brazil) and Subbiah Arunachalam himself. Their presentations are available on the conference website (http://www.berlin6.org/?page_id=70).

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/berlin-6-open-access-conference

Talk on Justice and Difference

sachia — 2011-04-05T04:44:07Z

Centre for Internet & Society

& monster album OF feminist stories

invite you to

a public talk by

Dr. Shefali Moitra

Justice and Difference

Traditionally justice and impartiality are thought to be inseparable. In a pluralistic context there is a demand for making justice difference-sensitive. This may appear an attempt at squaring the circle. Many feminists think difference can be accommodated without compromising justice. The speaker will critically examine this thesis.

Day, Date & Time: Friday, 14^th November, 2008, 4:00 pm
Venue: Centre for Internet and Society

No. D2, 3rd Floor, Sheriff Chambers
14, Cunningham Road, Bangalore,
Karnataka 560052,
Phone: (+91)-080-4092-6283‎

About the Speaker: Dr. Shefali Moitra received her Ph.D. in Philosophy from Visva-Bharati, Santiniketan, and joined the Department of Philosophy at Jadavpur University in 1979. She has occupied various positions in the university during her time there, as Director of the School of Women's Studies, as Co-ordinator of the Centre for Psychological Counselling and Studies in Self-Development, and as involved teacher to many generations of students. Her research interests lie in the areas of Feminist Philosophy, Ethics and the Philosophy of Language. Her key publications have included Feminist Thought: Androcentrism, Communication and Objectivity (2002), Women, Heritage and Violence, (Ed.1996), and Communication, Identity and Self-Expression, (Ed. 1984).

Map: Google Maps

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/events/talk-on-justice-and-difference