Centre for Internet and Society

Broadband Internet needs attention: Sunil Abraham

praskrishna — 2014-02-17T08:59:24Z

Telecom regulation is mostly a success, but wired and wireless broadband needs attention, says Centre for Internet and Society executive director.

The article by Sidin Vadukut was published in Livemint on February 3, 2014. Sunil Abraham was interviewed.

First of all from a policy perspective, how have priorities changed when it comes to technology in India from 2007 to now? Has it moved on from an issue of the infrastructure itself, to how this pipeline is used and managed?

Yes and no. Regarding carriage, telecom regulation has been mostly a success in terms of penetration and affordability, but wired and wireless broadband regulation still needs urgent attention for shared back haul, shared spectrum, unlicensed spectrum, quality of service, etc. We are making slow progress on privacy, security and cross-jurisdictional issues.

In 2014, what do you think are the key public policy issues facing technology in India? What forces do you see colliding with each other?

Privacy and data protection: Here there is conflict with transparency and innovation. Also we have to optimize privacy with security. Free speech: here traditional norms collide with potential of new technologies and energy of digital natives. Intellectual property: here the challenge is how to spread dissatisfaction equally between innovators, entrepreneurs, consumers, state and the public.

The Internet in India, and the many apps that ride on it, is pointed out as a disruptor on many accounts. From politics to social welfare to news and media. Is it too soon to see how Internet has changed Indian society? Or are we beginning to get a sense of this?

I would channel Evgeny Morozov here: there is no such thing as the Internet. Especially in India, many of the so-called data users on mobile phones are trapped within walled gardens created by Google, Facebook and Twitter. In short, specific technologies have social consequences within specific sites. We have anecdotal evidence that the availability of OERs (open educational resources), MOOCs (massive open online courses) and shadow libraries have transformed Indian classrooms in the cities. But there are very few empirical studies establishing causation between the Internet and Indian social phenomena.

When we say Internet in India, we really mean English language Internet in India. How substantial are the efforts to make the web more accessible to non-English speakers? What is holding this back?

The situation is absolutely depressing. For most languages there is a lot of work that remains to be done when it comes to input methods, fonts, rendering technology, spelling and grammar assistance, thesaurus, optical character recognition, text-to-voice, voice-to-text, machine translation, etc. We need large-scale government funding to create market incentives so that the Indian technology gap is bridged using open standards and technologies. We need government mandates to ensure that manufacturers produce some models of their products that comply with these standards.

What two-three policy changes can truly make technology an agent of social change in India?

Device level patent pool and compulsory licence for mobile devices to ensure proliferation of devices at the both ends of the pyramid. We need to move from community radio (FM only) policy to a technology neutral (terrestrial TV, Wi-Fi, mobile technologies, ADSL, fibre, etc) community media policy.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/livemint-february-3-2014-sidin-vadukut-broadband-internet-needs-attention

Broad-basing Broadband

Shyam Ponappa — 2012-05-10T10:25:06Z

Education and training through the Internet need Commonwealth Games-like crisis management, says Shyam Ponappa in an article on broadband for education and training published in the Business Standard on 7 October 2010.

The central government and the Delhi administration have shown they can engage in sheer execution to save face for the Commonwealth Games. Couldn’t our governments choose to make similar efforts to improve an aspect of infrastructure that is perhaps the most powerful means for enhancing our productive capacity and quality of life: broadband? One might ask: why broadband, and not energy, water/sanitation, or roads…? While all infrastructure is essential, broadband gives the quickest, biggest bang for the buck, because of its nature vis-à-vis energy, water or transportation and our regulatory environment and functional organisation (for instance, the complexity of addressing power supply). If we could increase mobile phone coverage to present levels by reducing costs and increasing availability, it should be possible to do so for personal computer (PC) also, to draw on the wealth of free educational and training material for our vast numbers.

Unfortunately, for such infrastructure, there is no triggering crisis like the threat of failure of the Commonwealth Games, and consequently, no face-saving or glam factors, like the arrival of foreign teams and visitors. This article makes a case for a Commonwealth Games-type crisis management for broadband through a collage of factors.

Consider these aspects of our demographics1:

Nearly 460 million people are aged between 13 and 35 today.
Of these, 333 million are literate.
In 10 years from now, the countrywide average age will be 29, compared to 37 in the US and China, 45 in Europe, and 48 in Japan.
As many as 100 million Indians — the combined labour forces of Britain, France, Italy, and Spain — are projected to be added to our workforce by 2020, which is 25 per cent of the global workforce.

This indicates our productive potential. Its realisation would require education and training, efficient functioning, i.e. the matrix of enabling infrastructure, and organisation. If these needs remain unmet, the demographic opportunity can become the liability of an unproductive population, with attendant difficulties and social hazards.

We have many formal and informal institutions providing training and education. We add nearly 300,000 engineering graduates every year to our pool of 2 million engineers. India’s vocational training capacity is estimated at 3.1 million a year, whereas about 12.8 million people enter the workforce. However, the National Sample Survey (2004) found that only 2 per cent of the 15-29 age group had formal vocational training and another 8 per cent had non-formal vocational training. In the developed economies, the proportion of skilled workers is 60-80 per cent; Korea has 96 per cent skilled workers.2

Five years ago, McKinsey reported that only a quarter of India’s engineers were employable in the IT industry. Recently, a survey showed this has reduced to 18 per cent.3

Apart from training and education in specific disciplines, the processes that make for good work practices are: systems thinking, a scientific temper, and goal-oriented work practices to meet standards of quality and time. Then there are the attributes of playing team, while engaging in a hard-charging individual effort. All these skills and practices are necessary and can be learned and renewed over time.

How will our workforce of over 500 million, adding 12.8 million every year, have access to continuing education and training, information for civic amenities and facilities and easy, efficient access to commercial and public services? What about the prerequisites of schooling, vocational training and university education? To answer these questions, consider parallel developments in domains such as distance education, e-learning and smart applications. Here are glimpses of the transformation underway in university and secondary education, especially outside India:

iTunes U has become one of the world’s largest educational catalogues for free educational material. After three years, there are over 300 million downloads. Over 800 universities have their websites at iTunes U, including many of the top universities from the US, UK, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Singapore and so on.
Khan Academy (http://khanacademy.org), a brilliant, free educational site by an ex-hedge fund analyst and manager, Salman Khan (Salman Khan of Silicon Valley, not Bollywood), covers mathematics, physics, chemistry and biology, with over 18 million page views in August (http://khanacademy.org). Started in late 2006, Khan is reportedly developing an open-ended set of material covering many subjects, and is a favourite among people like Bill Gates, and John and Ann Doerr (Fortune: http://money.cnn.com/2010/08/23/tecnology/sal_khan_academy.fortune/index.htm). Of the 200,000 students who access this site every month, only 20,000 are from India.
There are many other educational sites from school level upwards, for instance, the Open Courseware Consortium (http://www.ocwconsortium.org) by MIT, with US members like the University of California (Berkeley), Michigan and so on. Many universities and schools have their own websites. There is the Wikiversity, with portals from pre-school through primary to tertiary education, non-formal education and research (see http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Wikiversity:Browse).

India, BCG estimates that Internet usage will increase from 7 per cent of the population in 2009 to 19 per cent in 2015 (237 million). PC penetration, which was just 4 per cent in 2009, is estimated at 17 per cent by 2015 (216 million). To quote BCG: “India has among the highest PC costs and lowest PC availability of all the BRIC countries (including Indonesia).” Mobile phone penetration, however, is 10 times higher, at 41 per cent. This appalling situation needs to be redressed.

Inferences

Hundreds of millions of Indians should use these websites and the Internet for radical transformation. This will require policies and practices aimed at providing:

inexpensive access to broadband;
greater access to PCs and PC-equivalents as they evolve (e.g. Pranav Mistry’s SixthSense); and
systems and processes that encourage distance education, and discipline in all fields, with professionalism and excellence across all activities.

Regulations and tax regimes determine which activities are profitable, and to what extent. This is where the government and its policies come in. Could Internet users in India converge public opinion to rouse governments to address these needs, emulating the example of Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit?

http://indiatoday.intoday.in/site/Story/114002/India/aroon-puries-welcome-address-at-youth-summit.html
Employment Report, Ministry of Labour, July 1, 2010: http://labour.nic.in/Report_to_People.pdf
http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/engg-college-students-not-industry-ready-survey/388620/

Read the original article in the Business Standard

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/telecom/blog/broad-basing-broadband

Breakthroughs Needed For Digital India

Shyam Ponappa — 2016-05-04T02:34:19Z

It's time the government accepts that current policies are not enough to bring about Digital India.

The article originally published in the Business Standard on April 6, 2016 was also mirrored on Organizing India BlogSpot on April 7, 2016.

It helps to remind oneself of the scale of Digital India, its magnitude and sweep: to provide e-governance and other e-services everywhere, including 250,000 gram panchayats serving another 400,000 villages. That includes all the backbone and aggregation networks, and institutional processes to get there. The links indigitalindia.gov.in, such as http://www.bbnl.nic.in/, illustrate what's involved - and because many users are from households, the demand is for even more extensive networks.

The menu of services through Internet access is ambitious, and includes government services, health care, education, market information, financial services and so on. But it's the lack of basic access, of the "pipes" and "plumbing" for connectivity, that's the first, most difficult, yet essential step. Until this aspect is in place, getting results in areas such as efficient delivery of electricity, e-governance - including subsidies, education and skills, health care, manufacturing, and so on - is very much more difficult.

These services make up a robust wishlist, although their commercial underpinnings have yet to be designed and spelt out. As regards delivery, significant policy developments were reported last week. The Telecom Commission approved the operation of virtual network operators, allowing for operators who don't own networks or spectrum. They also recommended lowering spectrum usage charges from five per cent to three per cent of Adjusted Gross Revenues, while the exception of one per cent for Broadband Wireless Access spectrum continues. The bad news was in the Budget for 2016: service tax of 14.5 per cent on spectrum acquisitions, including through auctions.

But these are simply not enough. It's time the government accepts that Digital India is too distant, and they'd better formulate corrective measures. For example, even after 10 years with some success in setting up Common Services Centres (CSCs) in parts of the country, there doesn't seem to be a replicable template with sufficient momentum for ubiquitous connectivity. Worse, urban services remain constrained by too little spectrum that costs too much, with many impediments to augmenting capacity.

Consider factors affecting execution and delivery.

First, there's the telecommunications industry in its current beleaguered state. Its constituents have their backs to the wall for various reasons:

Low revenues and high costs.
Constrained access because of shortages - of networks; or of the means to build them, such as inexpensive rights-of-way, where laying fibre is feasible and viable; and where that isn't, shortage of inexpensive spectrum, and other cost-impediments such as local government charges for towers.
Below-par services for current demand.
Loads of debt, much of it incurred to pay for spectrum.
Banks with little appetite for further lending to this sector, and
Uncertain market sentiment.

For local manufacturers, the competition from global vendors is formidable if not overwhelming, given their advantages of ready access to capital, tax breaks, state sponsorship, established products and markets, and relationships. Access to spectrum will enable development and testing of devices, which is very difficult under present circumstances, but local manufacturing also needs entire ecosystems.

For the government, there's an overriding imperative for revenue collection. The motivation is an unrelenting need for (legitimate) expenditure on infrastructure, governance, and basic welfare in a developing economy. This is compounded by execution on a massive scale that also involves changes in user behaviour, for instance, village institutions like CSCs that have yet to take root. Another level of complexity is because two-thirds of users are from non-urban areas requiring extensive wireless broadband, untested for rural delivery except for satellite television.

With the public and media suspicious of government and industry, resolving these aspects is more difficult because of their skepticism and opposition. There's a disinclination to evaluate policies objectively because of recent scams. It is increasingly obvious that plugging away at legacy plans with their failure rate won't do, and more effective ways must be framed to achieve connectivity. For solutions acceptable to the government, to service providers, and the public, essential criteria are transparency and fairness. Next, the approach must be practicable, yield reasonable government revenues, and have reasonable profit potential. All these elements are required for sustainable initiatives. Every step has to be thought through, with all government departments working together (another big ask) and with industry, from the basic strands: connective links, sustainable equipment at reasonable cost, and revenue streams (whether from user payments or partly from subsidies) for services and content to more than cover those costs.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/telecom/blog/business-standard-april-6-2016-shyam-ponappa-breakthroughs-needed-for-digital-india

Breaking into the Closed Circle: Domestic High-Tech Manufacturing Needs Access To Markets

Shyam Ponappa — 2013-09-03T07:32:45Z

The deferral of India's preferential market access (PMA) policy for locally manufactured high-tech products indicates some lack of clarity and/or confusion in the government.

The article by Shyam Ponappa (originally published in the Business Standard on July 31, 2013) was cross-posted in Organizing India Blogspot on August 1, 2013.

There are compelling reasons for supporting domestic manufacturing capacity in India, and high-tech products deserve high priority. Examining the elements of the proposition for developing our high-tech manufacturing and the state of its capacity may help clarify where and how policies should be heading. If domestic electronics production does not increase significantly, India's electronics requirements will be choked by high imports in excess of even oil imports.

The Bogey of Protectionism

The aim of the PMA policy is to give technically qualified domestic manufacturers access to otherwise closed domestic markets. It only provides an opening, and does not provide any protection or price preference. The notification states explicitly that technically qualified domestic manufacturers are eligible only if they match the lowest bid; if there are no qualified local manufacturers, or if qualified vendors don't match the lowest bid, entire orders may be awarded to the lowest-priced vendor/s (from abroad). Perhaps there is some confusion arising from the nomenclature, as "PMA" usually refers to international vendor access to domestic markets. The notion that the PMA is protectionist and shields domestic suppliers from competition is incorrect.

Deferring PMA to Assess Domestic Capabilities

The government's deferral of the PMA pending assessment of domestic manufacturing capabilities appears unreasonable, as there are already qualified manufacturers in India, several of them transnationals, producing high-tech products for global markets. The top 10 global fabless design companies and the top 25 semiconductor companies operate in India. In 2010, revenues were estimated at $7.5 billion, and in 2012, over $10 billion. India is reportedly among the top countries for fabless design skills, and has the critical ingredients for the growth of fabless companies as start-ups slow in the West: design service companies, design engineering expertise and innovation, returning entrepreneurs, and educational facilities. What they need for scale is local market access, equity funding, good logistics, and effective infrastructure. These are the areas where the government can facilitate matters. Deferring access to local companies at a time of rapid growth in networks will entrench foreign products, providing them with an undue advantage against local producers. Instead, we should be capitalising on our domestic strengths.

Closed Circle of Buyers & Sellers

In high-technology procurement, large international vendors, of whom there are relatively few, form long-term relationships with the relatively few large buyers in oligopolistic markets in telecommunications or electricity. This holds whether the buyers are government entities, state-owned enterprises, or private sector companies. Often, the international vendors have strong home government support. This is why domestic manufacturers need mandatory access to break into a closed circle. There is no ambiguity in this, nor is it protectionist, and there are no price preferences - in contrast to the 15 per cent allowed by the World Bank, or 10 per cent for minority-owned businesses in the United States.

Markets & Demand

Of the many reasons for developing electronics manufacturing capabilities in India, a compelling one is our level of demand for electronics. A task force comprising government and industry participants estimated in 2009 that demand in 2009-10 was around $45 billion, going up to $70 billion in 2012, and projected at $400 billion by 2020 (see chart), with government's share being 40 per cent.


Source: http://deity.gov.in/hindi/sites/upload_files/dithindi/files/Task_Force_Report-new_21211.pdf

Domestic production was at $20 billion in the financial year 2009 while imports were $25 billion, projected to rise to over $300 billion by 2020 if domestic production maintained its trend to reach $104 billion. However, with appropriate policies including the PMA for local manufacturers, in the best case, domestic electronics manufacturing was estimated to increase to over $300 billion. If this could be achieved, India's electronics imports would amount to about $100 billion. Without it, imports of $300 billion may be needed, exceeding even estimated oil imports.

Security Screening/Auditing of Imports

High-security applications in the US, Japan, Israel and China are procured from trusted domestic manufacturers. The US Congress monitors high-tech imports for strategic reasons. The UK is conducting an investigation into whether its broadband networks have been compromised by foreign suppliers, although malware is very difficult to detect, and can be downloaded after security audits. High-tech supplies need to be from trusted sources.

Domestic Producers vs Other Lobbies

In effect, it would seem that the operators and foreign vendors have railroaded the government into perpetuating the status quo of foreign-dominated electronics suppliers in India. Facilitating access to local markets for domestic manufacturers is the kind of support that many governments provide. Take the case of the "Buy American" provisions of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. Recovery Act funds used for the construction, alteration, maintenance or repair of public buildings and public works must procure all iron, steel and manufactured goods produced only in the US, with a price preference of 25 per cent. The exceptions are non-availability, prices of over 25 per cent, or where applying the provisions is against the public interest. The objectives were to save and create jobs, to give relief to those affected by the recession, and to invest in infrastructure, education, health and renewable energy. The estimated cost is $831 billion between 2009 and 2019.

Remedial Action

What's needed is for the government to take unequivocal action without delay on enabling policies for domestic high-tech producers. The sooner this is done, and the more sustained support that is provided, the better. Too many confused signals are being sent out on investments.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/telecom/blog/organizing-india-blogspot-shyam-ponappa-august-1-2013-domestic-high-tech-manufacturing-needs-access-to-markets

Bottled-Up National Assets

Shyam Ponappa — 2016-03-02T02:21:37Z

Apply electronic toll collection systems to roads, and adapt road network concepts in organizing and managing communications networks.

The article was published in the Business Standard on February 3, 2016 and also mirrored on Organizing India BlogSpot on February 4, 2016.

The productivity bottled up in assets in this country is mind boggling. The catch is that to be unleashed, the systems in which these assets are embedded must function effectively.

Take the road network. A study of Delhi-Mumbai truck traffic by Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta (IIM-C) and Transport Corporation of India in 2012 reported an average speed of just over 21 km per hour. Of 18 stops, 16 were to pay tolls manually with average delays of 10 minutes, constituting 80 per cent of total stoppage time. The study estimated that delays cost the economy Rs 27,000 crore ($5.5 billion at the time), with the additional fuel consumption estimated at Rs 60,000 crore ($12 billion at the time).

The Indian Highways Management Company Limited, set up in 2012, was tasked with implementing electronic toll collection (ETC) systems. It began with ICICI Bank, then added Axis Bank. ETC was introduced on the Delhi-Mumbai expressway in 2014. A dedicated ETC lane across the country was to have been completed by 2014, then 2015; perhaps it will be ready in some months. But, for full efficiency gains, the entire traffic flow needs ETC, not just a small segment. Also, anomalies such as the unwillingness of sections of the populace to pay tolls, or for political parties to exploit these tendencies, will need to be "sorted out". In effect, similar criteria will operate as in electricity distribution networks: Users must either pay for services - directly or with the help of subsidies, or forego infrastructure services of reasonable quality. If there is no enforcement of rules (quality service-supply and payment-collection), there will be a shoddy mess.

The underlying expressways already exist, but installing these systems require effort and investment. Imagine the productivity gains and reduced pollution if vehicles going through over 370 toll plazas in India don't have to stop, wait for 10 minutes on average to pay tolls, then accelerate back to cruising speed.

Inter-City Road Network Organisation

An important feature of the way road networks are organised and managed is the concept of common-pool resources, i.e., all public roads that do not require special tolls are part of a common pool, and are accessible to anyone who pays road taxes for the vehicle used. Another strength is that controlled-access roads with tolls connect to the rest of the road network. (There are negative aspects such as state registration, whereby states collect high fees for re-registering a vehicle on a change of domicile, but our focus here is on strengths).

Extending Similar Concepts to Communications

Now consider the infrastructure network of the communications system. Why don't we apply these beneficial aspects of operating our roads, namely, common-pool resources with access charges, to communications? There are several reasons, since transportation and communications have evolved in different ways. While they are customarily treated differently, these legacy issues can be resolved.

In communications, spectrum bands were separated into one lot for broadcasting and another for telecommunications, which began with voice and now extends to data. Concerns about anticompetitive dominance in the US led to spectrum auctions in the 1990s, initially to prevent concentration of power in the hands of press barons-cum-broadcasters. The emphasis changed, however, to embellishing government treasuries, barring exceptions as in the public-spirited Nordic countries, Japan,1 and China. In India, events following the 2G scam and a war-of-attrition death spiral in politics have resulted in a paroxysm of righteous inability to take a long-term view, which is a prerequisite for making constructive policy choices. But, as the economy stalls and dark days loom, perhaps the political and administrative leaders will muster the courage to understand our predicament and find a way to get off the beaten track leading to a morass.

We have economic uncertainty, a burgeoning working-age population that could either contribute to supply-and-demand or to disorder, high interest rates, and a heavily over-leveraged communications sector. The indebtedness is aggravated by previous spectrum auctions and constrained reach. Inadequate connectivity limits not only opportunity, but service provision and revenue potential.

The sector's urgent need is for more spectrum at less cost. More countries are pooling communications infrastructure including spectrum. Australia, Denmark, Spain, the UK, Sweden, and latterly, Brazil, Colombia and Mexico have different levels of shared infrastructure including spectrum (see chart below).2 Mexico is deploying a countrywide wholesale network using 700 MHz (megahertz). In India, restrictive regulations hinder effective spectrum sharing.

“In Latin America passive sharing has been the preferred approach, with Tower Cos. playing a key role…”

Source: Daniel Leza-TMGTelecom-12 March 2014: https://www.itu.int/en/ITU-D/Regulatory-Market/Documents/CostaRica/Presentations/Session8_Daniel%20Leza%20-%20Mobile%20Infrastructure%20Sharing%20-%2012%20March%202014.pdf

Studies by Columbia University and the Indian Institute of Science affirm that pooling infrastructure can maximise total returns as well as for individual operators, while users gain enormous benefits.3,4 The studies' apprehensions, regarding trust, willingness to cooperate, and transparency, would not arise if there were mandated pooling through consortiums of operators and the government, and charges based on metering.

A change in regulations alone could mandate that all existing spectrum and networks be freely shared for roaming, depending on capacity and efficiency. Second, unused spectrum, for example, in the 500-800 MHz band, could be made available for secondary sharing to operators paying for metered use. Shared control in consortiums, including the government, would ensure transparency. Similarly, government spectrum could be secondarily shared. Tax collections would increase with additional revenues, as they did dramatically after 2003, when reasonable revenue-sharing rates were introduced for licence fees. USO funds could subsidise rural delivery where necessary for ubiquitous access.

Instead, if we continue with auctions, the 700 MHz band where range and penetration could reduce costs by 70 per cent may remain untouched, because a countrywide five MHz block could cost Rs 55,000 crore, almost a third of industry revenues.

"Spectrum Auction Strategy - Canada vs Japan", Lars Cosh-Ishii, August 7, 2013: http://wirelesswatch.jp/2013/08/07/spectrum-auction-strategy-canada-vs-japan/; [Added later: Japan telecommunications market, February 2016
http://www.eurotechnology.com/insights/telecom/]
"Mobile Infrastructure Sharing": https://www.itu.int/en /ITU-D/Regulatory-Market/Documents/CostaRica/ Presentations/Session8_Daniel Leza - Mobile Infrastructure Sharing - 12 March 2014.pdf
"A coalitional game model for spectrum pooling in wireless data access networks", Saswati Sarkar, Chandramani Singh, Anurag Kumar, 2008: http://repository.upenn.edu/ese _papers /490
"Cooperative Profit Sharing in Coalition Based Resource Allocation in Wireless Networks", Chandramani Singh, Saswati Sarkar, Alireza Aram, Anurag Kumar, 2012: http://www.ece.iisc.ernet.in/Rs anurag/papers/anurag/singh-etal11cooperative-resource-allocation.pdf

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/telecom/blog/shyam-ponappa-business-standard-february-3-2016-bottled-up-national-assets

Big-Bang Budgets?

Shyam Ponappa — 2012-07-26T10:10:21Z

Clarity of planning and conceptualisation needs to be the hallmark of policy planning for the Budget, says Shyam Ponappa in this article published in the Business Standard on March 3, 2011.

A good holding action in the face of turbulence is a real achievement. It’s a tremendous relief, with a positive spin. That’s what the finance minister seems to have given us with this year’s Budget. So, the glass could well turn out to be half-full, if heaven plays its part, and the demons — for example, rising oil prices because of turmoil in the Arab world — are in abeyance. For now, India’s spirits are up, and we have a shot at getting on with it. And if we don’t, heaven forefend, the government could resort to something as irresponsible as another spectrum auction (2.5 GHz for 4G/LTE) to pull itself out of the morass.

Given this reprieve, how best can we capitalise on it? Some of us have this notion that it is a tradition that major projects or schemes are announced at the time of the Budget. Is this a good way for the government to proceed? Are there better ways, and if so, what might they be? Also, after the Budget, several opinions reflected disappointment with the lack of big moves. What sort of actions would deserve the “Big Move” label?

Ignoring for the time being the FM’s statements about bills for banking, insurance and pension funds that could add up to a big bang, there was in fact a Big Move, with the ground prepared well beforehand, as it should be: the proposed cash transfer of Rs 37,000 crore allocated for kerosene, LPG and fertilisers to BPL users. This move to cash transfers will be a major change that should be for the better, despite apparent misgivings from the Left. In fact, its effect should be much more than an equivalent allocation in the previous system, with its infamous leakages. The logical extension of this process would be smart-card purchases of specified products with designated limits from any retailer, with direct rebates from the government in a single transaction. No forms, no fuss, thanks to the Unique Identification Number (UID). Next could be food subsidies of over Rs 74,000 crore through smart cards.

In this time of drift over several years, there has been an apparent lack of visible leadership until the appointment of a new telecom minister after the destabilisation of the past few months. This was followed by the prime minister’s assertive statements in both houses of Parliament. Similarly, the UID thrust and the first step with cash transfers show that the government can indeed take well planned initiatives. Here we have a set of steps taken with clear objectives (although somewhat muddled in the telling), with plans being developed and executed with what we hope will manifest as high quality, on time and within Budget. So it’s possible, although not our usual practice. If only we could get more of this assertive leadership to good ends.

Imagine if we brought the same clarity of objectives and conceptualisation to, say, addressing the supply of energy to end users. True, this is a very difficult area because of the multiple challenges across several ministries/agencies (fuel production and distribution, transportation, power generation, transmission, distribution, pricing, state electricity boards), and our habitual malpractices as users. The approach, however, would presumably be the same as for the UID. We would start with clear objectives that are coherent, ie, not disjointed or contradictory, and undertake a systematic, multidisciplinary effort — no ivory tower geniuses — to plan and execute through a process of sound project management to achieve the desired results. This would be an end-to-end effort that would have little to do with the budget except for the annual announcement of financial allocations, once the activities and resource requirements are specified. Its fundamental characteristic would be that it would have to be an integrated systems approach to get results.

Most important are well planned, convergent, goal-directed activities. Whether for food storage, anganwadis, power, roads, railways, integrated energy and transport programs, or communications and broadband, the process flow needs to be defined thoroughly, and every aspect specified for our environment in the implementation plan. This process would improve the odds of achieving the objectives. For instance, if cold stores are not meshed with production and markets, or transport linkages are deficient, chances are that they will fail.

The process could begin at any time of the year, and not necessarily announced at budget time in the annual cycle. Once the initial approach is conceptualised and the initiative launched, the programme plans would be scoped and spelt out, and the budget estimation completed. At budget time, as with the cash transfers linked to the UID, there would be an allocation of funds for the activities in the next 12-month phase.

Now to the Railway budget: the much touted Railways desperately need rehabilitation. In view of the significant multiplier effect that the Railways have on many other sectors, the government really must reassert its leadership in the next couple of months (after the West Bengal elections?), and reclaim this crucial area of transportation. The urgent need is to reverse the atrophy over recent years, as well as to begin to build for the future, as for instance China has done, with trains that take passengers over 1,000 km in three hours.*

To conclude, it is time the government took one infrastructure sector or programme at a time, including education/vocational education/continuing education, and developed clear, goal-driven plans to provide the framework for the next budget session.

* 'China Sees Growth Engine in a Web of Fast Trains', Keith Bradsher, New York Times, February 12, 2010:

Read the original article in the Business Standard here

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/telecom/blog/big-bang-budgets

BIF Workshop on V Band-New Use Cases under 802.11ad &.11ay

Admin — 2018-06-01T00:13:52Z

The workshop organized by Broadband India was held on May 31, 2018 at Taj Mansingh (Long Champ) in New Delhi. Shyam Ponappa attended the workshop.

In view of the need to extend broadband connectivity everywhere and take it to unserved and underserved areas, V band (60Ghz) has a very crucial role to play . In view of the need for more clarity on the subject of V Band allocation in India and in view of the fact that new use cases are emerging since the TRAI Recommendations were made in 2015, Broadband India organized a half day workshop.

The workshop focused on engaging the technology companies that are building different use cases (including Fixed wireless access, Mobile backhaul, Short Range Devices-SRD ) and the telecom partners/operators who will be the main deployers of this technology.

The primary objective of the workshop was to bring into perspective the TRAI Recommendations of 2015 and discuss new use cases of the “V Band – New Use Cases Under 802.11ad and 802.11ay” standards.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/telecom/news/bif-workshop-on-v-band-new-use-cases-under-802-11ad.11ay

BIF conference on “Substitutability of OTT Services with Telecom Services & Regulation of OTT Services

Admin — 2019-04-12T00:52:07Z

Anubha Sinha was a panellist at a BIF conference on “Substitutability of OTT Services with Telecom Services & Regulation of OTT Services” organized by Broadband India Forum on April 5, 2019 at Taj Mahal Hotel, Mansingh Road, New Delhi.

The event was supported by the Department of Telecommunications, Ministry of Communications, Govt. of India, Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology, Govt. of India, NITI Aayog, and Department of Science and Technology. Click to view the agenda.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/telecom/news/bif-conference-on-201csubstitutability-of-ott-services-with-telecom-services-regulation-of-ott-services

August 2015 Bulletin

praskrishna — 2015-10-27T00:25:02Z

We are happy to share with you the eighth issue of the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) newsletter (August 2015). The past editions of the newsletter can be accessed at http://cis-india.org/about/newsletters.

Highlights

Researchers at Work programme has published a book titled Digital Activism in Asia Reader exploring in detail digital activism in Asia. The Reader was edited by Nishant Shah, P.P. Sneha, and Sumandro Chattapadhyay with support from Anirudh Sridhar, Denisse Albornoz, and Verena Getahun. The pre-publication drafts of two sections written by Sumandro Chattapadhyay for the third volume (2000-2010) of the Asia Internet History series edited by Prof. Kilnam Chon have been posted for open-review process. As part of the 'Studying Internets in India' series, RAW published blog entries on Governing Speech on the Internet and Mock-Calling - Ironies of Outsourcing and the Aspirations of an Individual. NVDA team conducted a workshop at Jeevan Jyoti School for the Blind, Varanasi from August 26 to 28, 2015. Eighty five students and 13 teachers took part in the training programme. NVDA team had conducted another workshop earlier in Nashik. The workshop was conducted in June. A batch of 17 Special Educators and teachers of the blind attended the workshop. Maggie Huang, Arpita Sengupta and Paavni Anand as part of the Pervasive Technologies project co-authored a research paper that seeks to compare the publicly available information on the websites of music collective management organizations ("CMOs") operating within India, the United States, and the United Kingdom. Amulya Purushothama, Nehaa Chaudhari and Varun Baliga in a blog entry have delved into the question of what the mandate of the Sectoral Innovation Council is, what its activities are, and what vision for IPR development in India has it put forth. An RTI Application has been filed by CIS to attain information on these issues. In a blog post, Amulya Purushothama announced our new MHRD IPR Chair Series and has charted the sequence of events, starting from the establishment of MHRD IPR Chairs, to discussions surrounding their purpose and functioning, to concerns surrounding the lack of information about the IPR Chairs, the first round of RTIs that CIS had filed in regard to this and the responses it solicited. Subhashish Panigrahi interviewed Prateek Pattanaik. Prateek has not just digitized as many as 54 Odia-language poetry dating early 18th century but has also annotated, both poetic and prosaic translation in his blogs "Sri Jagannatha" and "Utkal Sangeet". He has also published a complete book "Kisora chandranana champu" on Odia Wikisource. A recent entrant into the Odia Wikimedia community, Prateek is also the youngest Odia Wikimedian. Rohan George and Elonnai Hickok in a blog post analyzed consent, big data and data protection that examines in detail why the principle of consent is providing us increasingly less of an aegis in protecting our data. Elonnai Hickok, Vipul Kharbanda and Vanya Rakesh on behalf of CIS submitted a clause-by-clause comments on the Human DNA Profiling Bill that was circulated by the Department of Biotechnology on June 9, 2015. Sunil Abraham, Elonnai Hickok and Tarun Krishnakumar co-authored an article titled Security: Privacy, Transparency and Technology. The article was published by Observer Research Foundation, Digital Debates 2015: CyFy Journal Volume 2. Elonnai Hickok in a blog post titled A Review of the Policy Debate around Big Data and Internet of Things has done an analysis as to how regulators and experts across jurisdictions are reacting to Big Data and Internet of Things. The Supreme Court of India has deemed it fit to refer the question of the very existence of a fundamental right to privacy to a Constitution Bench to finally decide the matter, and define the contours of such right if it does exist. Vipul Kharbanda analyses this in a blog entry. Experts and regulators across jurisdictions are examining the impact of Big Data practices on traditional data protection standards and principles. This will be a useful and pertinent exercise for India to undertake as the government and the private and public sectors begin to incorporate and rely on the use of Big Data in decision making processes and organizational operations. Elonnai Hickok has provided an initial evaluation of how Big Data could impact India's current data protection standards. Elonnai Hickok has provided a comparison of Human DNA Profiling Bill 2012 vs. the Human DNA Profiling Bill 2015, CIS's main recommendations vs. the 2015 Bill, Sub-Committee Recommendations vs. the 2015 Bill, and the Expert Committee Recommendations vs. the 2015 Bill. CIS submitted its comments to the non-paper on the UNGA Overall Review of the Implementation of the WSIS outcomes, evaluating the progress made and challenges ahead. In a policy brief, Vipul Kharbanda has analyzed the different laws regulating surveillance at the state and central level in India and calls out ways in which the provisions are unharmonized. The brief then provides recommendations for the harmonization of surveillance law in India. Hardnews interviewed Sunil Abraham about the future of the internet in India. The article was published in their August edition. Shyam Ponappa in an Op-ed published by Business Standard has given an analysis on the reasons of the number of dropped calls on our mobile phones.

Accessibility and Inclusion

Under a grant from the Hans Foundation we are doing a project on developing text-to-speech software for 15 Indian languages. The progress made so far in the project can be accessed here. The project on creating a national resource kit of state-wise laws, policies and programmes on issues relating to persons with disabilities in India got over and the compilation has been printed.

NVDA and eSpeak

Monthly Updates

August 2015 Report (Suman Dogra; July 31, 2015).

Event Reports

Training in eSpeak Marathi (Organized by NVDA team; National Association for the Blind; Nashik; June 22 - 23, 2015). The workshop was held in the month of June but the report got published later in August.
Training in eSpeak Hindi (Organized by NVDA team; Jeevan Jyoti School for the Blind; Varanasi; August 26 - 28, 2015).

Access to Knowledge

As part of the Access to Knowledge programme we are doing two projects. The first one (Pervasive Technologies) under a grant from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) is for research on the complex interplay between pervasive technologies and intellectual property to support intellectual property norms that encourage the proliferation and development of such technologies as a social good. The second one (Wikipedia) 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.

Pervasive Technologies

Blog Entries

Methodology: Patent Landscaping in the Indian Mobile Device Market (Rohini Lakshané; November 10, 2014). This blog post published last year has been recently updated.
Comparative Transparency Review of Collective Management Organisations in India, United Kingdom and the United States (Maggie Huang, Arpita Sengupta and Paavni Anand; August 1, 2015).

Other (Copyright and Patent)

Blog Entries

CCI Participation at the Upcoming 3rd International Conference on IPR and Competition (Amulya Purushothama; August 5, 2015). CIS wrote to the Competition Commission of India Chairman on August 5, 2015 about participation at a conference organised by Ericsson and concerns regarding conflict of interest. We also had several other NGOs sign on to the letter.
MHRD IPR Chair Series: Introduction (Amulya Purushothama; August 10, 2015). Aditya Garg assisted in research and writing.
National IPR Policy Series: What Have the Sectoral Innovation Councils Been Doing on IPR (Nehaa Chaudhari and Varun Baliga; August 13, 2015). Amulya Purushothama assisted with research and writing.

Media Coverage

Competition Commission of India chariman's participation in Assocham conference raises conflict of interests (Rema Nagarajan; The Times of India; August 6, 2015).
Assocham event sparks row over conflict of interest by CCI (Dilasha Seth and Deepak Patel; Business Standard; August 6, 2015).

Wikipedia

As part of the project grant from the Wikimedia Foundation we have reached out to more than 3500 people across India by organizing more than 100 outreach events and catalysed the release of encyclopaedic and other content under the Creative Commons (CC-BY-3.0) license in four Indian languages (21 books in Telugu, 13 in Odia, 4 volumes of encyclopaedia in Konkani and 6 volumes in Kannada, and 1 book on Odia language history in English).

Blog Entry

Odia Wikisource has a new Wikisourcer, and he is the youngest in the Odia Wikimedia community! (Subhashish Panigrahi; August 21, 2015).

Events Co-organized

Annamaya Library edit-a-thon (Organized by CIS-A2K and Telugu Wikipedia Community; August 6, 2015; Andhra Loyola College; Vijaywada).
International Workshop on Digitization and Archiving (Organized by CIS-A2K and Wikipedia Community; August 19 - 21, 2015). Rahmanuddin Shaik was one of the trainers.

FOSS

Participation in Events

Workshop on digital collaborations in Tamil-language, Tamil Virtual Chennai (Organized by Tamil Virtual University, Anna University Campus, Chennai; August 8 - 9, 2015). Dr. U.B. Pavanaja atttended this event.
Open Innovation, entrepreneurship, and our digital future (Organized by iSpirit; Bangalore; August 13, 2015). Rohini Lakshané attended the event. Rohini wrote a report on this .

Media Coverage

CIS gave its inputs to the following:

Telugu Wikipedia Edit-a-thon at ALC (Eenadu; August 6, 2015)
Telugu Wiki Edit-a-thon in ALC (Eenadu; August 6, 2015)
Rare Telugu religious and historical work preserved at Annamacharya library to come on Wikisource! (The Hans India; August 7, 2015).
ಗ್ರಾಮೀಣ ಪ್ರದೇಶದ ಆರ್ಥಿಕ ಪ್ರಗತಿಯಿಂದ ದೇಶದ ಆರ್ಥಿಕ ಪ್ರಗತಿ ಸಾಧ್ಯವಾಗುತ್ತದೆ. (Mangalorean.com; August 13, 2015).
ವಿಕಿಪಿಡಿಯ ಮುಕ್ತವಾಗಿ ಬಳಸಿ: ಡಾ.ಪವನಜ (Karavali Karnataka; August 14, 2015).
ಬೆಳ್ತಂಗಡಿ:ಎಲ್ಲಾ ಕಾಲಕ್ಕೂ ಲಭ್ಯ ಇರುವ ಸ್ವತಂತ್ರ ಹಾಗೂ ಮುಕ್ತ ವಿಶ್ವಕೋಶ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯಾ-ಪವನಜ (SahilOnline; August 14, 2015).
Talamaddale on August 23 (Hindu; August 16, 2015).

Internet Governance

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 International Development Research Centre (IDRC)) is on surveillance and freedom of expression (SAFEGUARDS). The second one (under a grant from MacArthur Foundation) is on studying the restrictions placed on freedom of expression online by the Indian government.

Privacy

Article

Security: Privacy, Transparency and Technology (Sunil Abraham, Elonnai Hickok and Tarun Krishnakumar; Observer Research Foundation, Digital Debates 2015: CyFy Journal Volume 2 ; August 19, 2015).

Submission

CIS Comments and Recommendations to the Human DNA Profiling Bill, June 2015 (Elonnai Hickok, Vipul Kharbanda and Vanya Rakesh; August 27, 2015).

Blog Entries

Policy Paper on Surveillance in India (Vipul Kharbanda; August 3, 2015).
Comparison of the Human DNA Profiling Bill 2012 with: CIS recommendations, Sub-Committee Recommendations, Expert Committee Recommendations, and the Human DNA Profiling Bill 2015 (Elonnai Hickok; August 10, 2015).
Right to Privacy in Peril (Vipul Kharbanda; August 13, 2015).
Responsible Data Forum: Discussion on the Risks and Mitigations of releasing Data (Vanya Rakesh; August 26, 2015).
Are we Throwing our Data Protection Regimes under the Bus? (Elonnai Hickok and Rohan George; August 29, 2015).
Supreme Court Order is a Good Start, but is Seeding Necessary? (Elonnai Hickok and Rohan George; August 29, 2015).

Big Data

Blog Entries

Big Data and the Information Technology (Reasonable Security Practices and Procedures and Sensitive Personal Data or Information) Rules 2011 (Elonnai Hickok; August 11, 2015).
A Review of the Policy Debate around Big Data and Internet of Things (Elonnai Hickok; August 17, 2015).

Participation in Event

The Changing Landscape of ICT Governance and Practice - Convergence and Big Data (Co-organized by Innovation Center for Big Data and Digital Convergence, Yuan Ze University, Taiwan; August 24 - 25, 2015). Sharat Chandra Ram was granted the Young Scholar Award 2015 to attend theYoung Scholar Workshop followed by main CPRSouth2015 conference (Communication Policy Research South) conference.

Free Speech and Expression

Submission

CIS submission to the UNGA WSIS+10 Review (Jyoti Panday; August 9, 2015),

Cyber Security

Upcoming Event

Bangalore Chapter Meet of DSCI (Co-organized by DSCI and CIS; September 26, 2015). Melissa Hathaway, Commissioner, Global Commission for Internet Governance and Sunil Abraham will be speaking at this event.

Telecom

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:

Op-ed

Those Dropped Calls (Shyam Ponappa; Business Standard; August 5, 2015 and Organizing India Blogspot; August 6, 2015).

Researchers at Work

The Researchers at Work (RAW) programme is an interdisciplinary research initiative driven by contemporary concerns to understand the reconfigurations of social practices and structures through the Internet and digital media technologies, and vice versa. It is interested in producing local and contextual accounts of interactions, negotiations, and resolutions between the Internet, and socio-material and geo-political processes:

Books

Digital Activism in Asia Reader (edited by Nishant Shah, P.P. Sneha, and Sumandro Chattapadhyay, with support from Anirudh Sridhar, Denisse Albornoz, and Verena Getahun; August 8, 2015).

Books Chapters

Civil Society Organisations and Internet Governance in Asia - Open Review (Sumandro Chattapadhyay; Asia Internet History Vol. 3, edited by Prof. Kilnam Chon). Comments are invited.
Civil Society Organisations and Internet Governance in India - Open Review (Sumandro Chattapadhyay; Asia Internet History Vol. 3, edited by Prof. Kilnam Chon). Comments are invited.

Accepted Paper Abstract

Studying the Emerging Database State in India: Notes for Critical Data Studies (Sumandro Chattapadhyay; August 2, 2015). The paper has been provisionally accepted.

Blog Entries

Mock-Calling - Ironies of Outsourcing and the Aspirations of an Individual (Sreedeep; August 6, 2015).
Governing Speech on the Internet: From the Free Marketplace Policy to a Controlled 'Public Sphere' (Smarika Kumar; August 28, 2015).

News & Media Coverage

CIS gave its inputs to the following media coverage:

Why the DNA Bill is open to misuse: Sunil Abraham (Kanika Datta; Business Standard; August 1, 2015)
Porn ban: People will soon learn to circumvent ISPs and govt orders, expert says (Karthikeyan Hemalatha; The Times of India; August 2, 2015).
Indian government orders ISPs to block 857 porn websites (John Ribeiro; IDG News and PC World; August 2, 2015)
India blocks access to 857 porn sites (BBC; August 3, 2015).
India launches crackdown on online porn (James Crabtree; Financial Times; August 3, 2015).
Proxies and VPNs: Why govt can't ban porn websites? (Siladitya Ray; August 3, 2015; Hindustan Times)
Nanny state rules porn bad for you (Anahita Mukherji; The Times of India; August 4, 2015).
Ban on pornography temporary, says government (Business Standard; August 4, 2015)
Porn block in India sparks outrage (Australian; August 5, 2015).
Indian Porn Ban is Partially Lifted But Sites Remain Blocked (Sean Mclain; Wall Street Journal; August 5, 2015)
Genetic Profiling: Is it all in the DNA? (Ullekh N.P.; The Open Magazine; August 7, 2015)
India partially lifts Porn Ban? (Nazhat Khan; DESI blitz; August 7, 2015)
Net Neutrality: India is a Key Battleground (Abeer Kapoor; Hardnews; August 10, 2015)
Stats from 2014 reveal horror of scrapped section 66A of IT Act (Aloke Tikku; Hindustan Times; August 20, 2015).
The seedy underbelly of revenge porn (Sandhya Soman; The Times of India; August 23, 2015).
The new tattler in town (P. Anima; Hindu Businessline; August 28, 2015).

About CIS

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 diverse abilities, 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 mediation and reconfiguration of social and cultural processes and structures by the internet and digital media technologies.

► Follow us elsewhere

CIS - Twitter: http://twitter.com/cis_india
Access to Knowledge - Twitter: https://twitter.com/CISA2K
Access to Knowledge - Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cisa2k
Access to Knowledge - E-Mail: a2k@cis-india.org
Researchers at Work - E-Mail: raw@cis-india.org
Researchers at Work - Mailing List: https://lists.ghserv.net/mailman/listinfo/researchers

► Support Us

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.

► 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 sunil@cis-india.org (for policy research), or Sumandro Chattapadhyay, Research Director, at sumandro@cis-india.org (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, Access to Knowledge, at tanveer@cis-india.org.

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.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/about/newsletters/august-2015-bulletin

August 2014 Bulletin

praskrishna — 2014-10-04T06:09:57Z

Eighth issue of the newsletter (August 2014) below:

We at the Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) welcome you to the eighth issue of the newsletter (August 2014). Archives of our newsletters can be accessed at: http://cis-india.org/about/newsletters

Highlights

CIS published a policy guide on Privacy in Healthcare that seeks to understand the legal regulations governing data flow in the health sector - particularly hospitals, and how these regulations are implemented.
Nehaa Chaudhari wrote two articles on the Karnataka Goondas Act in Spicy IP. The first one is an overview on the various provisions of the law and discusses the potential impact of the amendment . The second one is a note on legislative competence .

Andhra Loyola College and CIS entered into a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to steward the growth of Telugu Wikipedia and to make available free knowledge in Telugu to all Telugus across the globe.
In July 2014, the Department of Biotechnology and the Department of Science, Ministry of Science and Technology, Government of India released a draft Open Access Policy. CIS participated in discussions along with experts brought on board by the Drafting Committee to develop and review the open access policy. As a follow-up, CIS prepared comments to the draft Policy .

Anandini K. Rathore wrote a report on the second privacy and surveillance roundtable held in New Delhi at the India International Centre on July 4, 2014.
As part of its project on mapping cyber security experts in Asia with funding from Citizen's Lab, CIS interviewed Tibetan monkGyanak Tsering and Saumil Shah, security expert.

Published a white paper on content removal best practices and put it up for feedback. The draft paper has been created to frame the discussion towards the creation of a set of principles for intermediary liability in consultation with groups of Internet-focused NGOs and the academic community.
Shyam Ponappa's monthly column Transformation, or Drift? published in Business Standard and Organizing India Blogspot was mirrored on the CIS website.
P.P. Sneha blogged on the emergence of the phenomenon of the alt-academy in the West and the nuances and possibilities of such a space in the Indian context .

Accessibility and Inclusion

Under a grant from the Hans Foundation we are doing two projects. The first project is on creating a national resource kit of state-wise laws, policies and programmes on issues relating to persons with disabilities in India. CIS in partnership with CLPR (Centre for Law and Policy Research) compiled the National Compendium of Policies, Programmes and Schemes for Persons with Disabilities (29 states and 6 union territories). The updated draft is being reviewed by the Office of the Chief Commissioner for Persons with Disabilities. The draft chapters and the quarterly reports can be accessed on the project page. The second project is on developing text-to-speech software for 15 Indian languages. The progress made so far in the project can be accessed here.

NVDA and eSpeak

Monthly Update

Work Report for August (by Suman Dogra, August 31, 2014).

Blog Entry

Smartphones and the Return to Dependency (by Anandhi Viswanathan, August 30, 2014).

Participation in Event

Towards an Accessible Internet for People with Disabilities (organized by International Centre for Free and Open Source Software and ISOC Australia, Delhi, August 4, 2014). Sunil Abraham was a speaker at this workshop organized as part of APrIGF.

Access to Knowledge

Blog Entries

Preventive Detention for Copyright Violation: Karnataka Amends the 'Goondas' Act (by Nehaa Chaudhari, August 13, 2014).

Karnataka Goondas Act - A note on Legislative Competence (by Nehaa Chaudhari, August 28, 2014).

Interviews with App Developers: [dis]regard towards IPR vs. Patent Hype - Part II (by Samantha Cassar, August 14, 2014).

Openness

Submission

Comments on the Department of Biotechnology and Department of Science Open Access Policy (by Anubha Sinha, August 22, 2014).

Participation in Event

Connecting the Next Two Billion: The Role of FOSS (organized by ICFOSS, Noida, August 4, 2014). Sunil Abraham was a speaker at this workshop held as part of the APrIGF.

Wikipedia

Announcement

Andhra Loyola College and the Centre for Internet & Society sign MoU for Better Net Access (by Rahmanuddin Shaik, August 19, 2014): Ten theosophical books authored by Rev. Fr. P. Jojaiah, SJ were released under free license (CC-BY-SA-4.0); For the first time an educational institution in the state of Andhra Pradesh is signing an MoU with CIS-A2K to work collaboratively to qualitatively improve Telugu Wikipedia; ALC faculty and students will create free e-content in Telugu on Telugu Wikipedia; Digital content from the fields of Botany, Physics, Chemistry, Telugu, Statistics, Ethics and Religion, Music and Dance will be produced on Telugu Wikipedia.

News and Media Coverage

CIS-A2K team gave its inputs to the following media coverage:

Now, Christ students will contribute to Wikipedia (by H.M.Shruthi, Deccan Herald, August 5, 2014).

CIS-A2K Signs MoU with Andhra Loyola College in Vijayawada (Eenadu, August 15, 2014).

ALC signs MoU for better net access (The Hindu, August 15, 2014).

Participation in Event

Konkani Global Enclave (organized by Jagotik Konknni Songhotton, Kalaangann, Shaktinagar, August 24, 2014). T. Vishnu Vardhan participated in the event.

Internet Governance

Privacy

As part of our Surveillance and Freedom: Global Understandings and Rights Development (SAFEGUARD) project with Privacy International we are engaged in enhancing respect for the right to privacy in developing countries. We have produced the following outputs during the month:

Policy Guide

Privacy in Healthcare: Policy Guide (by Tanvi Mani, August 26, 2014).

Event Report

Second Privacy and Surveillance Roundtable (by Anandini K Rathore, August 6, 2014).

Blog Entries

Surat's Massive Surveillance Network Should Cause Concern, Not Celebration (by Joe Sheehan, August 3, 2014).

Learning to Forget the ECJ's Decision on the Right to be Forgotten and its Implications (by Divij Joshi, August 14, 2014).

Participation in Events

Learning Event - The Internet and Economic, Cultural and Social Rights (organized by the International Development Research Centre and Association for Progressive Communications, August 8 - 10, 2014). Sunil Abraham was a remote participant.

Understanding Surveillance and Privacy in India (organized by Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi, August 28, 2014). Bhairav Acharya delivered a lecture.

Free Speech

As part of our project on Freedom of Expression (funded through a grant from the MacArthur Foundation) to study the restrictions placed on freedom of expression online by the Indian government and contribute to the debates around Internet governance and freedom of expression at forums like ICANN, ITU, IGF, WSIS, etc., we bring you the following outputs:

White Paper

Zero Draft of Content Removal Best Practices White Paper (by Jyoti Panday, August 31, 2014).

News & Media Coverage

CIS gave its inputs to the following media coverage:

'I'm going to ruin you, dear' (by Prasun Chaudhuri with additional reporting by Varuna Verma in Bangalore, August 3, 2014).
We the goondas (by Shyam Prasad, Bangalore Mirror, August 4, 2014).
Sunil Abraham | The online warrior (by Anirban Sen, Livemint, August 9, 2014).
Dot Bharat domain to roll out on August 21 (originally published by IANS and mirrored in FirstPost, August 19, 2014).
The Uncertain Future of India's Plan to Biometrically Identify Everyone (by Jessica Mckenzie, TechPresident, August 28, 2014).
Will domain dot भारत spur the growth of Indian languages on the internet? (by Rohan Venkataramakrishnan, August 29, 2014).
SC seeks govt reply on PIL challenging powers of IT Act (by Shreeja Sen, Livemint, August 30, 2014).

Cyber Stewards

As part of its project on mapping cyber security actors in South Asia and South East Asia with the Citizen Lab, Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto and the International Development Research Centre, Canada, CIS conducted 2 new interviews. With this it has finished a total of 21 interviews:

Video Interviews

Saumil Shah (August 30, 2014).

Gyanak Tsering (August 31, 2014).

Telecom

Newspaper Column

Transformation, or Drift? (by Shyam Ponappa, Business Standard, August 6, 2014 and Organizing India Blogspot, August 7, 2014).

Blog Entry

"OTTs Eating Into Our Revenue": Telcos in India (by Geetha Hariharan, August 7, 2014).

Digital Humanities

CIS is building research clusters in the field of Digital Humanities. The Digital will be used as a way of unpacking the debates in humanities and social sciences and look at the new frameworks, concepts and ideas that emerge in our engagement with the digital. The clusters aim to produce and document new conversations and debates that shape the contours of Digital Humanities in Asia:

Blog Entry

Digital Humanities and the Alt-Academy (by P.P. Sneha, August 19, 2014).

About CIS

The Centre for Internet and Society is a non-profit research organization that works on policy issues relating to freedom of expression, privacy, accessibility for persons with disabilities, access to knowledge and IPR reform, and openness (including open government, FOSS, open standards, etc.), and engages in academic research on digital natives and digital humanities.

► Follow us elsewhere

Twitter: https://twitter.com/CISA2K
Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/cisa2k
Visit us at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge
E-mail: a2k@cis-india.org

► Support Us

► Request for Collaboration:

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, atsunil@cis-india.org or Nishant Shah, Director - Research, at nishant@cis-india.org. To discuss collaborations on Indic language Wikipedia, write to T. Vishnu Vardhan, Programme Director, A2K, at vishnu@cis-india.org.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/about/newsletters/august-2014-bulletin

August 2013 Bulletin

praskrishna — 2013-09-13T06:26:30Z

Our newsletter for the month of August 2013 can be accessed below.

The Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) welcomes you to the eighth issue of its newsletter for the year 2013. In this issue we are glad to bring you the final report on banking and accessibility submitted to the Ministry of Finance, Government of India, a research paper on India’s obligations under bilateral investment treaties, a report from a Wikipedia workshop held at the Konkani Department in Goa University, a report on the sixth privacy roundtable held in New Delhi, recent news coverage, and updates on our upcoming events.

Archives of our newsletters are here. Our policies on Ethical Research Guidelines, Non-Discrimination and Equal Opportunities, Privacy, Terms of Website Use and Travel can be accessed here.

Jobs
CIS is inviting applications for the posts of Developer (NVDA Screen Reader Project). To apply for this post, send in your resume to Nirmita Narasimhan (nirmita@cis-india.org). CIS is also seeking applications for the post of Policy Associate (Internet Governance). To apply send your resume to Sunil Abraham (sunil@cis-india.org) and Pranesh Prakash (pranesh@cis-india.org).

Accessibility

As part of its project on creating a national resource kit of state-wise laws, policies and programmes on issues relating to persons with disabilities in India with the Hans Foundation, we bring you three new draft chapters on Assam, Manipur and Puducherry. With this we have completed compilation of draft chapters for 21 states and 3 union territories. Feedback and comments are invited from readers for the below chapters:

The Assam Chapter (by CLPR, August 28, 2013)
The Manipur Chapter (by CLPR, August 29, 2013)
The Puducherry Chapter (by Anandhi Viswanathan, August 31, 2013)

Note: All the chapters published on the website are early drafts and will be reviewed and updated.

Reports

Banking and Accessibility in India: A Report by CIS (by Vrinda Maheshwari, August 12, 2013). This is the final report submitted to the Ministry of Finance, Government of India.
Opening New Avenues for Empowerment (by UNESCO, August 31, 2013). UNESCO has published a global report on higher education titled “Opening New Avenues for Empowerment”. Nirmita Narasimhan was the coordinating author for the Asia Pacific region.

Access to Knowledge and Openness

As part of its project on developing the growth of Indic language communities with Wikimedia Foundation, CIS-A2K held six Wikipedia workshops. CIS is also doing a project (Pervasive Technologies) on examining the relationship between production of pervasive technologies and intellectual property. CIS also promotes openness including open government data, open standards, open access, and free/libre/open source software through its Openness programme.

Access to Knowledge
Research Paper

India's Obligations under Bilateral Investment Treaties (Part A): “Bilateral Inhibiting Treaty?” — Investigating the Challenges that Bilateral Investment Treaties pose to the Compulsory Licensing of Pervasive Technology Patent Pools (by Gavin Pereira, August 31, 2013).

Column

Copyrights and Copywrongs Why the Government Should Embrace the Public Domain (by Pranesh Prakash, Yojana, Issue: August 2013).

Media Coverage

Dictionary words in software patent guidelines puzzle industry (by C.H. Unnikrishnan, Livemint, August 26, 2013). CIS work on Access to Knowledge is mentioned.

Blog Entries

Are Indian Consumer Laws Ready for the Digital Age? (by Vipul Kharbanda, August 8, 2013).
Do You Have the Right to Unlock Your Smart Phone? (by Puneeth Nagaraj, August 7, 2013).

Access to Knowledge (Wikipedia)

The A2K team consists of four members based in Bangalore: T. Vishnu Vardhan, Dr. U.B. Pavanaja, Subhashish Panigrahi and Syed Muzammiluddin, and one team member Nitika Tandon who works from Delhi.

Event Reports

A Kannada Wikipedia Workshop at Krishnarajapet (by Dr. U.B. Pavanaja, August 14, 2013). The workshop was co-organized by the CIS-A2K team along with Kannada Sahitya Parishat of KR Pet.
An Odia Wikipedia Workshop at Sambalpur (by Gorvachove Pothal, August 27, 2013). This workshop was held at Veer Surendra Sai University of Technology, Burla, Sambalpur on July 26 and 27, 2013. Odia Wikipedian Gorvachove Pothal organized this workshop with financial support from the CIS-A2K programme.

Konkani Wikipedia — Climbing up the Indian Language Ladder? (by Subhashish Panigrahi, August 31, 2013). CIS-A2K team organized this event at the Konkani Department, Goa University from August 21 to 24, 2013.
Konkani Wikipedia Advances in 4 Days — From 90 Articles to 130 Articles! (by Nitika Tandon, August 31, 2013). CIS-A2K team organized this event at the Konkani Department, Goa University from August 21 to 24, 2013. Thirty-eight students took part in the wiki editing workshop.

Events Co-organised

Digitization of Books for Indic Language WikiSource (organised by Wikimedia India and CIS-A2K, CIS, Bangalore, August 18, 2013).
A Workshop on Editing Wikipedia in Mumbai (organised by the Centre for Indian Languages in Higher Education and CIS-A2K, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, August 24, 2013). The workshop was aimed at assisting students to take part in the Indian Languages Mela at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (September 20-21, 2013) which is hosting a competition for best Indian language entries on Wikipedia.

Event Hosted

Mobile Training Workshop @ CIS (CIS, Bangalore, August 29, 2013). Rachita and Keerthana Chandrashekar gave a talk on mobile campaigns.

Events Participated

Wikimania 2013: The International Wikimedia Conference (organised by Wikimedia Foundation, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, August 7 – 11, 2013). T. Vishnu Vardhan and Subhashish Panigrahi participated in the event.
Wikimedia Asia Meeting (organised by Wikimedia community, Hong Kong, August 10, 2013). T. Vishnu Vardhan and Subhashish Panigrahi participated in the meeting. Unedited transcript of the entire conversation is posted online.
వికీపీడియా:సమావేశం/హైదరాబాద్/ఆగష్టు (Hyderabad, August 25, 2013). T.Vishnu Vardhan participated for the meeting through Skype.

Media Coverage

Wikipedia Gains Massive Traffic Thanks To Vernacular Languages (Before It’s News, August 1, 2013). T. Vishnu Vardhan is quoted.
Wikipedia boom in Marathi, Malayalam and other desi languages (by Sandhya Soman, The Times of India, August 1, 2013). T. Vishnu Vardhan is quoted.
Wikipedia boom in vernacular languages (by Divya Saboo, August 1, 2013). The Centre for Internet and Society is mentioned.
Stress on posting articles on Kannada Wikipedia (by R. Krishna Kumar, Hindu, August 2, 2013). Dr. U.B.Pavanaja is quoted.
India’s Indigenous Languages Drive Wikipedia’s Growth (by Mahesh Sharma, TechCrunch, August 6, 2013). T. Vishnu Vardhan is quoted.
Krishnarajapet Wikipedia Workshop Coverage (Prajavani, August 12, 2013).
Krishnarajapet Wikipedia Workshop Coverage (Vijaya Vani, August 12, 2013).
Krishnarajapet Wikipedia Workshop Coverage (Suvarna Times of Karnataka, August 12, 2013).
Wikipedia writes a new script (by Joyce Dias, August 24, 2013, The Goan). CIS-A2K workshop held in Goa is mentioned extensively. Nitika Tandon and Subhashish Panigrahi are quoted.
Konkani Wikipedia makes headway (by Diana Fernandes, OHeraldO, August 24, 2013). Nitika Tandon is quoted.
Konkani Wikipedians Speak (Goan Voice Daily Newsletter, September 4, 2013). Konkani Wikipedia workshop organized in Goa from August 21 – 24, 2013 is mentioned in this newsletter.

Ongoing / Upcoming Events

Wikipedia Training in Telugu for Dr. B.R. Ambedkar Open University, Hyderabad (Dr. B.R. Ambedkar Open University, Hyderabad, September 5-6, 2013). T. Vishnu Vardhan is teaching a module on "Knowledge and Openness in the Digital Era".
You too can write on Wikipedia! — Orientation Workshop (co-organised by CIS-A2K and the Centre for Contemporary Studies, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, September 15, 2013).

Train the Trainer — Four-day long Residential Training Workshop in Bangalore (organised by CIS-A2K, Bangalore, October 1 – 5, 2013). The programme will be held in the first week of October.

Blog Entries

Voices from Goa: Frania Pereira tells Why She Writes Articles on Konkani Wikipedia (by Subhashish Panigrahi, August 27, 2013).
Voices from Goa: Wikipedia Editor Rusita Paryekar (by Subhashish Panigrahi, August 27, 2013).

Openness

Event Hosted

Open Hardware Lab: Play & Invent + Bonus Film Screening (CIS, Bangalore, August 4, 2013). A hangout was done with CIS Lab Community and with members of the Computer Club of India and Arduino enthusiasts.

Event Participated

e-DIRAP Google+ Hangout on Open Government (organised by Google, July 25, 2013). Sunil Abraham was a panelist.

Media Coverage

Beyond Property Rights: Thinking About Moral Definitions of Openness (by David Eaves, Tech President, August 6, 2013). Sunil Abraham is quoted.
Extending The Spectrum Of Openness To Include The Moral Right To Share (by Glyn Moody, Techdirt, August 19, 2013). Sunil Abraham is quoted.

Internet Governance

CIS began two projects earlier this year. The first one on facilitating research and events on surveillance and freedom of expression is with Privacy International and support from the International Development Research Centre, Canada. The second one on mapping cyber security actors in South Asia and South East Asia is with the Citizen Lab, Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto and support from the International Development Research Centre, Canada:

SAFEGUARDS Project

Event Report

Sixth Privacy Roundtable (co-organised by CIS, FICCI and DSCI, New Delhi, August 24, 2013). Bhairav Acharya and Prachi Arya participated in this event. The discussions and recommendations from the six round table meetings will be presented at the Internet Governance meeting in October 2013.

Newspaper / Magazine Columns

Freedom from Monitoring: India Inc Should Push For Privacy Laws (by Sunil Abraham, Forbes India Magazine, August 21, 2013).
Out of the Bedroom (by Nishant Shah, Indian Express, August 25, 2013).

Blog Entries

'Ethical Hacker' Saket Modi Calls for Stronger Cyber Security Discussions (by Kovey Coles, August 5, 2013).
Ethical Issues in Open Data (by Kovey Coles, August 7, 2013).
FinFisher in India and the Myth of Harmless Metadata (by Maria Xynou, August 13, 2013).

Events Organised

The Hackers Way of Reshaping Policies (CIS, Bangalore, August 2, 2013). Bernadette Langle gave a talk on different ways to reshape policies.
Chennai: Learn to Protect your Online Activities! (Asian College of Journalism, Taramani, Chennai, August 7, 2013). A Crypto Party was organised.
The Phishing Society: Why 'Facebook' is more dangerous than the Government Spying on You - A Talk by Maria Xynou (CIS, Bangalore, August 7, 2013). Maria Xynou gave a talk on phishing society.
Learn to Protect your Online Activities! (ACJ - Asian College of Journalism, Second Main Road (Behind M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation), Taramani, Chennai, August 7, 2013).
Privacy Meeting: Brussels – Bangalore (CIS, Bangalore, August 14, 2013). Gertjan Boulet and Dariusz Kloza gave a talk on privacy.
Learn to Protect your Online Activities! (CIS, Bangalore, August 17, 2013). A Crypto Party was held at CIS.

Events Participated In

Summer School 2013 (organized by the Research Center of Media and Communication at the University of Hamburg, Germany, July 29 – August 2, 2013). Dr. Nishant Shah was a panelist in the session on "Guilty until Proven Innocent: Pirates, Pornographers, Terrorists and the IT Act in India".
Meeting of a Sub-committee on DNA Profiling Bill (Hyderabad, August 6, 2013). Sunil Abraham participated in this meeting for discussing the draft bill.
Surveillance: Privacy Vs Security (organized by the Foundation for Media Professionals, India International Centre, New Delhi, August 17, 2013). Pranesh Prakash was a panelist.

Media Coverage

Crypto Night (by Rahul M., Caravan, August 1, 2013). Pranesh Prakash and Bernadette Langle are quoted.
Facebook: Limiting access to social media can restrict freedom of speech (by Kim Arora, The Times of India, August 1, 2013). Sunil Abraham is quoted.
Token disclosures? (by Deepa Kurup, The Hindu, August 4, 2013). Sunil Abraham is quoted.
Memeâ€™s the word now (by Padmaparna Ghosh, The Times of India, August 4, 2013). Nishant Shah is quoted.
Chinese hackers baiting Indian govt, corporate employees: report (by Moulishree Srivastava and Anirban Sen, Livemint, August 9, 2013). Sunil Abraham is quoted.
Mixed signals? Supreme Court notices to states on Facebook arrests (NDTV, August 16, 2013). Pranesh Prakash, Shreya Singhal and Faizal Farooqui discussed the grey areas of the IT Act.
Balancing vigilance and privacy (by Prashant Jha, The Hindu, August 18, 2013). Pranesh Prakash is quoted.
How Next-Gen Smartphone Users are Being Bought and Sold (by Rohin Dharmakumar, Forbes India Magazine, August 13, 2013, and IBN Live, August 19, 2013). Sunil Abraham is quoted.
Dear Milind Deora, Prakash Javadekar Deserved The Truth (by Rohin Dharmakumar, Forbes India, August 22, 2013). Sunil Abraham is quoted.
Election campaign: parties draw battle lines on media platforms (by Venkatesh Upadhyay, Livemint, August 26, 2013). Sunil Abraham is quoted.
India's Internet Privacy Woes (by Rohin Dharmakumar, Forbes India Magazine, August 26, 2013). Pranesh Prakash is quoted.
Cyberspying: Government may ban Gmail for official communication (The Times of India, August 30, 2013). Sunil Abraham is quoted.
Indian government to bar politicians from using Gmail for official business (by Neil McAllister, The Register, August 30, 2013). Sunil Abraham is quoted.

Cyber Stewards Project
Laird Brown, a strategic planner and writer with core competencies on brand analysis, public relations and resource management and Purba Sarkar who in the past worked as a strategic advisor in the field of SAP Retail are working in this project.

Video Interview

Part 9: Interview with Saikat Datta (August 5, 2013).

Telecom

CIS has published one newspaper column in the Business Standard and also made a submission to TRAI:

Newspaper Column

Breaking into the Closed Circle: Domestic High-Tech Manufacturing Needs Access To Markets (by Shyam Ponappa, originally published in the Business Standard, July 31, 2013 and also mirrored in Organizing India Blogspot, August 1, 2013).

Submission

TRAI Consultation Paper on Spectrum (by Shyam Ponappa and A.B. Beliappa, August 31, 2013). The submission was made to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India on August 21, 2013.

Digital Humanities

We are building research clusters in the field of Digital Humanities. The Digital will be used as a way of unpacking the debates in humanities and social sciences and look at the new frameworks, concepts and ideas that emerge in our engagement with the digital. The clusters aim to produce and document new conversations and debates that shape the contours of Digital Humanities in Asia.

Blog Entries

Digital Humanities Talk (by Sara Morais, August 1, 2013). Sara wrote about her talk in this blog entry.
Theorizing the Digital Subaltern (by Sara Morais, August 2, 2013).

Event Organised

Digital Humanities for Indian Higher Education (co-organised by CIS-A2K, HEIRA, CSCS, Tumkur University, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai and CCS-Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, July 13, 2013). Errata: We had got the name of one of the co-organisers wrong in our previous newsletter. We have corrected this now.

Event Participated In

South Asia Conference on Higher Education (organised by the Centre for Study of Culture and Society, Ford Foundation Office, New Delhi, August 5 – 7, 2013). Sunil Abraham participated in this conference.

About CIS

Get short, timely messages from us on Twitter
Join the CIS group on Facebook
Visit us at http://cis-india.org

*Support Us*

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.

Request for Collaboration
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 sunil@cis-india.org or Nishant Shah, Director – Research, at nishant@cis-india.org

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.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/about/newsletters/august-2013-bulletin

August 2012 Bulletin

praskrishna — 2012-09-11T14:53:44Z

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.

Internet Governance

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:

Special Section on Freedom of Expression

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:

Featured Research

Analysing Latest List of Blocked Sites (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: Wall Street Journal (August 25, 2012), The Hindu (August 24, 2012), LiveMint (August 24, 2012), Global Voices (August 24, 2012), Outlook (August 23, 2012), FirstPost.India (August 23, 2012), IBN Live (August 23, 2012), News Click (August 23, 2012), Medianama (August 23, 2012) and KAFILA (August 23, 2012).

Columns

To regulate Net intermediaries or not is the question (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.”

Social media, SMS are not why NE students left Bangalore (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.”
What lurks beneath the Network (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.”
Censoring the Internet: A brief manual (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.”
The Perils of 'Hactivism' (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.”

Foreign Media Coverage

India blocks more than 250 Web sites for inciting hate, panic (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.
India’s ethnic clashes intensify within social-media maelstrom (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.
India limits social media after civil unrest (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.
New Delhi Expands Curbs on Web Content (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.
Govt in line of fire over web censorship (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.
India's social media crackdown reveals clumsy govt machinery (by David Lalmalsawma, Reuters, August 24, 2012): Pranesh Prakash’s analysis is quoted.
Internet expert criticizes Indian cyber blockades (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 Bloomberg Businessweek (August 24, 2012), Khaleej Times (August 24, 2012), ABC News (August 24, 2012), Seattle Times (August 24, 2012), Vancouver Sun (August 24, 2012), Kansas City. (August 24, 2012), Times Colonist (August 24, 2012), Merced Sun-Star (August 24, 2012), Yahoo News (August 24, 2012), SanLuisObispo.com (August 24, 2012), Terrorism Watch (August 25, 2012), Sci-Tech Today (August 26, 2012).
How ISPs block websites and why it doesn’t help (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.
India’s Internet Curbs Under Legal Cloud (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.
After Violence in India, a Crackdown Online (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.
Inde: la tentative de contrôler l'internet est "illégale" (Agence France Presse, August 24, 2012): Pranesh Prakash is quoted.
India threatens action against Twitter for ethnic violence 'rumors' (originally posted by Ben Sheppard in AFP and published in the China Post, August 25, 2012): Pranesh Prakash’s analysis is quoted.
Blocked websites: Where India flawed (CIOL, August 23, 2012): Pranesh Prakash’s analysis is quoted.
India: Social Media Censorship to Contain ‘Cyber-Terrorism'? (by Aparna Ray, Global Voices, August 24, 2012): Pranesh Prakash’s analysis is quoted.
Delhi defends Internet blocking (Gulf Today, August 25, 2012): “The officials who are trusted with this don’t know the law or modern technology well enough.” — Pranesh Prakash.
India Blocks News Website Pages for 'Spreading Fear' over Assam Violence (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.
Internet clamp outrage (Gulf Daily, August 25, 2012): Pranesh Prakash is quoted.
India faces Twitter backlash over Internet clampdown (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.
Indian government defends Internet blocking (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: The National (August 25, 2012), MSN News (August 24, 2012), StarAfrica.com (August 24, 2012), Jakarta Globe (August 24, 2012).
Criticism mounts over India censorship (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.
Facebook's Delicate Dance With Delhi On Censorship (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.
Internet Analysts Question India’s Efforts to Stem Panic (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 NDTV 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.
India limits social media after civil unrest (by Mark Magnier, Los Angeles Times, August 23, 2012 and cross-posted in Channel 6 News on August 24, 2012): Sunil Abraham is quoted.
India Debates Misuse of Social Media (by Anjana Pasricha, Voice of America, August 21, 2012 and re-posted in Chosunilbo 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.
Officials Raise Questions over Indian Government’s Efforts (by Bruce Totolos, French Tribune, August 22, 2012). “The government acted appropriately, but without sufficient sophistication.” — Sunil Abraham.
India seeks a tighter grip on social media (United Press International, August 24, 2012): Pranesh Prakash is quoted.

National Media Coverage

Internet expert Pranesh Prakash criticizes Indian cyber blockades (Economic Times, August 24, 2012): Pranesh Prakash is quoted.
Govt orders blocking of 300 specific URLs including 16 Twitter accounts (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.
NE exodus: List containing 309 blocked URLs leaks online (tech 2, August 23, 2012): Pranesh Prakash's analysis is quoted.
Govt cracks down on Twitter (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.
Twitter users hit back at government ban (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.
When #GOIBlocks, twitterati fly off their ‘handles’ (Hindustan Times, August 26, 2012). Pranesh Prakash’s tweet is quoted.
Regulating the Internet by fiat (by V Sridhar, Hindu, August 26, 2012): Pranesh Prakash’s analysis is quoted.
Twitter handles: How and why govt erred and what it can do to be smarter & more effective (by TV Mahalingam and Shantanu Nandan Sharma, Economic Times, August 26, 2012): “Perhaps, for the first time, the Indian government had legitimate reasons to censor speech.” — Sunil Abraham.
Some ISPs block Wordpress domain across India (tech 2, August 25, 2012): Pranesh Prakash’s analysis is quoted.
Details emerge on government blockade of websites (Hindu, August 24, 2012): Pranesh Prakash’s analysis is quoted.
India faces Twitter backlash over Internet clampdown (INDOLink, August 25, 2012): Pranesh Prakash is quoted.
India Blocks Facebook, Twitter, Mass Texts in Response to Unrest (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.
Tata Photon unblocks Wordpress.com (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 chastised ISPs 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.
Northeast exodus: Is there a mechanism to pre-screen social media content? (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.
Haphazard censorship? Leaked list of blocked websites in India (IBN Live, August 23, 2012): Pranesh Prakash’s analysis is quoted.
Government asks Twitter to block fake 'PMO India' accounts; site fails to respond (Economic Times, August 23, 2012): Sunil Abraham is quoted.

Videos

FTN: Is it time to regulate social media? (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 full video on IBN Live.
Govt vs Tweeple: Has clampdown hit free speech? (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 full video on NDTV.
Is the govt caught in the 'censorship' web? (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 full debate on NDTV.

Events Organised

Role of the US Tech Companies in Government Surveillance: A Lecture by Christopher Soghoian (CIS, Bangalore, August 27, 2012): Christopher Soghoian gave a lecture on the role companies play in assisting government surveillance.
The Asian Edge: 2012 Inter-Asia Cultural Studies Society Summer School: 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.
Biometric Identification: Specified Error, Accuracy and Efficiency, Considered for the Operations of the UIDAI — A Talk by Hans Varghese Mathews (CIS, Bangalore, August 17, 2012): Hans Varghese Mathews gave a public lecture on biometric identification.

Events Participated

Sixth Meeting of the two Sub-Groups on Privacy Issues under the Chairmanship of Justice AP Shah (Committee Room No. 228, Yojana Bhawan, Sansad Marg, New Delhi, August 31, 2012): Sunil Abraham participated in the meeting.
APNIC 34 Conference (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.

Events Hosted

Meetup for Bangalore's designers (CIS, Bangalore, August 11, 2012): CIS hosted the meet-up in Bangalore.
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.
Interface Intimacies (TERI Complex, Bangalore, August 18 – 20, 2012): CIS conducted a research workshop with Audrey Yue and Namita Malhotra.

Upcoming Events

Thinking with Data@CIS (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.
Cartonama Conference (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.
UK DNA Database and the European Court of Human Rights: 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.

Telecom

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:

Building Knowledge and Capacity around Telecommunication Policy in India

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.

The following are the new outputs:

Auctioning and Allocation of Spectrum (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.
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India Act, 1997 (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.
Broadband Wireless Access – Standards (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.
Mesh Networks (by Ravikiran Annaswamy): Ravikiran tells us the definition of Mesh Networks, its importance, applications and the things to explore in future.
National Telecom Policy, 2012 (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.
New Telecom Policy, 1999 (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.
National Telecom Policy, 1994 (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.

Column in Business Standard

Decision Analysis for Interest Rates - II (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.”

Access to Knowledge

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:

Key Research

Consumers International IP Watchlist 2012 — India Report (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.

Press Coverage

Copyright Law: More Than a Moral Obligation (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.

Accessibility

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:

Blog Entry

Ring Side View: Update on WIPO Negotiations on the Treaty for the Visually Impaired (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 Huffington Post and in the Guardian.

Digital Natives

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:

Public Talk

Decoding Digital Natives (Mudra Institute of Communications, Ahmedabad, August 31, 2012): Nishant Shah gave a public lecture.

Openness

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:

Event Hosted

Bangalore Force.com August Meetup (CIS, Bangalore, August 19, 2012): John Barnes, CTO Model Metrics gave a lecture at the event organised by Bangalore Force.com.
Technology Evangelists and Religious Evangelists — A Talk by Katherine Sydenham (CIS, Bangalore, August 10, 2012): Katherine Sydenham from the University of Michigan School gave a lecture.
Data-Driven Journalism, Data Literacy & Open Government — Talk at CIS (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'.

CIS is hiring
*Jobs*
CIS is seeking applications from interested candidates for the following posts:

Research Manager: 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 admin@cis-india.org.
Researcher/Editor (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 nirmita@cis-india.org
Programme Director – Access to Knowledge: 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.
Programme Officer – Internet Governance: 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.

To apply for the posts of Programme Director and Programme Officers, please send your resume to Sunil Abraham (sunil@cis-india.org) or Pranesh Prakash (pranesh@cis-india.org) with three references.

About CIS

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 e-Accessibility Policy Handbook for Persons with Disabilities with ITU and G3ict, and Digital Alternatives with a Cause?, Thinkathon Position Papers and the Digital Natives with a Cause? Report 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 WIPO Treaties, Copyright Bill, NIA Bill, etc.

CIS is an accredited NGO at WIPO and has given policy briefs to delegations from various countries, our Programme Manager, Nirmita Narasimhan won the National Award for Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities from the Government of India and also received the NIVH Excellence Award.

Follow us elsewhere

Get short, timely messages from us on Twitter
Join the CIS group on Facebook
Visit us at http://cis-india.org

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.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/about/newsletters/august-2012-bulletin

August 2011 Bulletin

praskrishna — 2012-08-13T05:13:23Z

Greetings from the Centre for Internet and Society! In this issue we are pleased to present you the latest updates about our research, upcoming events, and news and media coverage:

Researchers@Work

RAW is a multidisciplinary research initiative. To build original research knowledge base, the RAW programme has been collaborating with different organisations and individuals to focus on its three year thematic of Histories of the Internets in India. Five monographs: Re: Wiring Bodies by Asha Achuthan, Archive and Access by Aparna Balachandran and Rochelle Pinto, Porn: Law, Video, Technology by Namita Malhotra, The Last Cultural Mile by Ashish Rajadhyaksha and Internet, Society and Space in Indian Cities by Pratyush Shankar were officially launched at the Locating Internets: Histories of the Internet(s) in India — Research Training and Curriculum Workshop in Ahmedabad.

Workshop organised in CEPT, Ahmedabad

Locating Internets: Histories of the Internet(s) in India — Research Training and Curriculum Workshop: Call for Participation [19 to 22 August 2011]

Digital Natives with a Cause?

Digital Natives with a Cause? is a knowledge programme initiated by CIS and Hivos, Netherlands. It is a research inquiry that seeks to look at the changing landscape of social change and political participation and 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 want to critically engage with the dominant discourse on youth, technology and social change, in order to look at the alternative practices and ideas in the Global South. It also aims at building new ecologies that amplify and augment the interventions and actions of the digitally young as they shape our futures.

Featured Research

Between the Stirrup and the Ground: Relocating Digital Activism (This paper by Nishant Shah and Fieke Jansen was published in Democracy & Society, a publication of the Center for Democracy and Civil Society, Volume 8, Issue 2, Summer 2011).

Accessibility

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.

Interview

An Interview with David Baines (Maureen Agena interviewed David Baines of Mada Centre for Assistive Technology in Khattar).

Access to Knowledge

New Blog Entry

Govt for Legalising Parallel Import of Copyright Works; Publishers Oppose

Openness

CIS believes that innovation and creativity should be fostered through openness and collaboration and is committed towards promotion of open standards, open access, and free/libre/open source software.

Featured Research

Call for Comments on Draft Report on Open Government Data in India (v2) (Nisha Thompson has updated the Open Government Data Report prepared by CIS last year including additional case studies and the National Data Sharing and Accessibility Policy).
Open Access to Scholarly Literature in India: A Status Report: Call for Comments (The report has been prepared by Prof. Subbiah Arunachalam and Madhan Muthu. It surveys the field of scholarly and scientific publication in India and provides a detailed history of the open access movement in India).

Internet Governance

Although there may not be one centralized authority that rules the Internet, the Internet does not just run by its own volition: for it to operate in a stable and reliable manner, there needs to be in place infrastructure, a functional domain name system, ways to curtail cyber crime across borders, etc. The Tunis Agenda of the second World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), paragraph 34 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.” Its latest endeavour has resulted into these:

New Blog Post

Bye Bye email? (Email might be the default method of communication for most of us, but could it be going the telegram way, writes Nishant Shah. The article was published in the Indian Express on August 21, 2011).

Public Lecture

The Mirror in the Enigma: How Germany lost World War II to a Mathematical Theorem (Rohit Gupta gave a lecture at CIS on August 12, 2011).

CIS is doing a project, ‘Privacy in Asia’. It is funded by Privacy International (PI), UK and the International Development Research Centre, Canada and is being administered in collaboration with the Society and Action Group, Gurgaon. The two-year project commenced on 24 March 2010 and will be completed as agreed to by the stakeholders. It was set up with the objective of raising awareness, sparking civil action and promoting democratic dialogue around challenges and violations of privacy in India. In furtherance of these goals it aims to draft and promote over-arching privacy legislation in India by drawing upon legal and academic resources and consultations with the public.

Featured Research

IP Addresses and Expeditious Disclosure of Identity in India (Prashant Iyengar reviews the statutory mechanism regulating the retention and disclosure of IP addresses by Internet companies in India and provides a compilation of anecdotes on how law enforcement authorities in India have used IP address information to trace individuals responsible for particular crimes).

New Blog Entries

Whole Body Imaging and Privacy Concerns that Follow (by Elonnai Hickok)
Financial Inclusion and the UID (by Elonnai Hickok)
CCTV in Universities (by Merlin Oommen)
Re-thinking Key Escrow (by Natasha Vaz)

Event Report

Privacy Matters, Chennai – the event was organised by IDRC, Society in Action Group, Madras Institute of Development Studies, Consumer and Civic Action Group, Privacy India and CIS on August 6, 2011.

News & Media Coverage

Net Gain [The Telegraph, 24 August 2011]
IISc students boycott UID, don’t want Big Brother to keep watch [Bangalore Mirror, 23 August 2011]
In the Right Circle [Indian Express, 24 July 2011]
The Siege of Android: How Google Lost The OS War [Business.in, 17 August 2011]
The Unsocial Network [Mail Today, 14 August 2011]
Hazare 'clicks' with city techies [India, 18 August 2011]
Govt wants to monitor Facebook, Twitter [Times of India, 8 August 2011]
Nothing unique about this identity [Deccan Chronicle, 5 August 2011]
Tired of tele-marketing calls? Act on privacy right: Experts [Times of India, 7 August 2011]
When Knowledge Isn’t Written, Does It Still Count? [New York Times, 7 August 2011]
Indian super-cops now patrol the www highway [Hindustan Times, 6 August 2011]
Better Understanding of the Idea of Privacy Sought [Hindu, 7 August 2011]
Converting Indian Slacktivists Takes (Offline) Time [Wall Street Journal, 2 August 2011]

Follow us elsewhere

Get short, timely messages from us on Twitter
Follow CIS on identi.ca
Join the CIS group on Facebook
Visit us at www.cis-india.org

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.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/about/newsletters/august-2011-bulletin

August 2010 Bulletin

praskrishna — 2012-08-10T10:40:34Z

Greetings from the Centre for Internet and Society. We bring you news and media coverage, research and event updates for the month of August 2010

News Updates

RIM Offered Security Fixes
In India Talks, BlackBerry Maker Said It Could Share Metadata, Notes Show
http://bit.ly/ahT7jD

New Project to Assess Potential of Creating Open Government Data Initiatives in Chile, Ghana and Turkey
Steve Bratt, CEO of the World Wide Web Foundation (founded in 2009 by Tim Berners-Lee) has made an announcement on moving forward with a project to assess the potential of creating open government data
initiatives in Chile, Ghana, and Turkey - the first step of what we hope to be a global initiative focusing on low- and middle-income countries.
http://bit.ly/d337Ex

Govt and BlackBerry firm wait for the other to hang up
Sunil Abraham speaks to Archna Shukla on the stand-off between the Government of India and RIM. The news was published in expressindia.com.
http://bit.ly/cGeipL

Call, text, email complaint against rogue auto driver
Harassed by an auto driver? Helplines give you no relief? Here's the people's way to help you out. Just report your issue online, call or even SMS sitting in a noisy restaurant, and be heard.
http://bit.ly/atiiGW

Call to increase awareness of intellectual property rights
We need more knowledge on IPR itself, says IT Secretary
http://bit.ly/avxY16

Civil Society groups urge State Judicial Academy to restructure agenda for Judges' Roundtable meet
Some of the Civil Society groups in the country have urged the Maharashtra State Judicial Academy to restructure the agenda for the 'Judges Roundtable on Intellectual Property Rights Adjudication' being held in Mumbai on July 24 and 25 to promote public interest and a deeper understanding of intellectual property amongst judicial officers. FICCI is the joint organiser of the event.
http://bit.ly/dCDZl0

More Debate on UID Project Needed
A press conference on UID was held at the Press Club in Bangalore on 26 July, 2010. It was co-organised by Citizen's Action Forum, Alternate Law Forum and the Centre for Internet and Society. Mathew Thomas and Vinay Baindur spoke about the UID. Proceedings from the conference was covered in the Hindu on 27 July, 2010.
http://bit.ly/cSEsaP

UID coverage in Udayavani
A press conference was held at the Press Club in Bangalore on 26 July, 2010. It was co-organised by Citizen's Action Forum, Alternate Law Forum and the Centre for Internet and Society. Mathew Thomas and Vinay Baindur were the speakers. Leading Kannada newspaper Udayavani covered this event.
http://bit.ly/c3AU5s

Open is the Future
The third Open World Forum will gather together decision-makers from the open digital world, in Paris. 1,500 participants from 40 countries will come together to analyze the technological, economic and social impact of Open Source, the invisible engine behind the digital revolution. The aim: to interpret future trends and cross-fertilize initiatives.
http://bit.ly/amY9Qc

Upcoming Events

No UID till Complete Transparency, Accountability and People's Participation: A Public Campaign
An interactive meeting on UID's lack of a feasibility study, cost involved and dangers of abuse is being held in New Delhi at the Constitution Club Auditorium, Rafi Marg on 25 August, 2010. The meeting is jointly organised by INSAF, PEACE, Citizens' Action Forum, People's Union for Civil Liberties - Karnataka, Slum Janandolana - Karnataka, Alternate Law Forum, The Centre for Internet and Society and concerned individuals.
http://bit.ly/8YsBIJ

Internet Governance and Human Rights: Strategies and Collaborations for Empowerment
Leading up to the 2010 IGF, The Association for Progressive Communications (APC), Global Partners, the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) and the Dynamic Coalition on Internet Rights and Principles are hosting, on 13 September 2010 in Vilnius, an event on 'Internet Governance and Human Rights: Strategies and Collaborations for Empowerment'.
http://bit.ly/aoOkPR

Freedom of Expression or Access to Knowledge: Are We Taking the Necessary Steps Towards an Open and Inclusive Internet?
The Centre for Internet and Society is co-organising a workshop on Freedom of Expression or Access to Knowledge: Are We Taking the Necessary Steps towards an Open and Inclusive Internet? at the Internet
Governance Forum on 14 September, 2010.
http://bit.ly/dl1WRL

Sexual Rights, Openness and Regulatory Systems
The Centre for Internet and Society is co-organising a workshop on Sexual Rights, Openness and Regulatory Systems at the Internet Governance Forum on 14 September, 2010.
http://bit.ly/dl1WRL

Data in the Cloud: Where Do Open Standards Fit In?
The Centre for Internet and Society is co-organising a workshop on Data in the Cloud: Where do Open Standards Fit In? on 16 September, 2010 at the Internet Governance Forum.
http://bit.ly/94AF4h

International Conference on Enabling Access to Education through ICT
The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), Bangalore in cooperation with the Global Initiative for Inclusive ICT (G3ICT), a flagship advocacy organization of the UN Global Alliance on ICT and Development (UN-GAID), the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), UNESCO, Digital Empowerment Foundation, Society for Promotion of Alternative Computing and Employment and the Deafway Foundation is organizing an international conference, Enabling Access to Education through ICT in New Delhi from
27th to 29th October, 2010....Registrations to begin soon!
http://bit.ly/9flyEK

Research

Political is as Political does
The Talking Back workshop has been an extraordinary experience for me. The questions that I posed for others attending the workshop have hounded me as they went through the course of discussion, analysis and dissection. Strange nuances have emerged, certain presumptions have been questioned, new legacies have been discovered, novel ideas are still playing ping-pong in my mind, and a strange restless excitement – the kind that keeps me awake till dawning morn – has taken over me, as I try and figure out the wherefore and howfore of things. I began the research project on Digital Natives in a condition of not knowing, almost two years ago. Since then, I have taken many detours, rambled on strange paths, discovered unknown territories and reached a mile-stone where I still don’t know, but don’t know what I don’t know, and that is a good beginning.
http://bit.ly/9hY9sR

Digital Natives: Talking Back
One of the most significant transitions in the landscape of social and political movements, is how younger users of technology, in their interaction with new and innovative technologised platforms have taken up responsibility to respond to crises in their local and immediate environments, relying upon their digital networks, virtual communities and platforms. In the last decade or so, the digital natives, in universities as well as in work spaces, as they experimented with the potentials of internet technologies, have launched successful socio-political campaigns which have worked unexpectedly and often without precedent, in the way they mobilised local contexts and global outreach to address issues of deep political and social concern. But what do we really know about this Digital Natives revolution?
http://bit.ly/bZNoSX

Beyond the Digital: Understanding Digital Natives with a Cause
Digital Natives with a cause: the future of activism or slacktivism? Maesy Angelina argues that the debate is premature given the obscured understanding on youth digital activism and contends that an effort to
understand this from the contextualized perspectives of the digital natives themselves is a crucial first step to make. This is the first out of a series of posts on her journey to explore new insights to understand youth digital activism through a research with The Blank Noise Project under the Hivos-CIS Digital Natives Knowledge Programme.
http://bit.ly/b1GS7F

Accessibility

Access to Knowledge: Barriers and Solutions for Persons with Disabilities in India
Consumers International, Kuala Lumpur and Consumers Association of India in association with Madras Library Association organised a seminar on Access to Knowledge on 31st July, 2010 at the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Auditorium in Guindy, Chennai. The Principal Secretary to the Government of Tamil Nadu Department of Information Technology was the chief guest. Former Central Vigilance Commissioner N. Vittal gave the keynote address. Prof Subbiah Arunachalam, Nirmita Narasimhan and Pranesh Prakash participated in the seminar. Nirmita and Pranesh made presentations on access to knowledge.
http://bit.ly/cJXSX8

Intellectual Property

Privacy and the Indian Copyright Act, 1857 as Amended in 2010
In this post the author examines the issue of privacy in light of the Indian Copyright Act, 1857 as amended by the Copyright Amendment Bill in 2010. Four key questions are examined in detail and the author gives
suitable recommendations for each of the questions that arise.
http://bit.ly/cJXSX8

Internet Governance

Does the Government want to enter our homes?
When rogue politicians and bureaucrats are granted unrestricted access to information then the very future of democracy and free media will be in jeopardy. In an article published in the Pune Mirror on 10 August,
2010, Sunil Abraham examines this in light of the BlackBerry-to-BlackBerry messenger service that the Government of India plans to block if its makers do not allow the monitoring of messages. He says that civil society should rather resist and insist on suitable checks and balances like governmental transparency and a fair judicial oversight instead of allowing the government to intrude into the privacy
and civil liberties of its citizens.
http://bit.ly/dkVHoS

UID Project in India - Some Possible Ramifications
Having a standard for decentralized ID verification rather than a centralized database that would more often than not be misused by various authorities will solve ID problems, writes Liliyan in this blog entry. These blog posts to be published in a series will voice the expert opinions of researchers and critics on the UID project and present its unique shortcomings to the reader.
http://bit.ly/bOyBS8

Civil Liberties and the amended Information Technology Act, 2000
This post examines certain limitations of the Information Technology Act, 2000 (as amended in 2008). Malavika Jayaram points out the fact that when most countries of the world are adopting plain English instead of the conventional legal terminology for better understanding, India seems to be stuck in the old-fashioned method thereby, struggling to maintain a balance between clarity and flexibility in drafting its laws. The present Act, she says, is although an improvement over the old Act and seeks to address and improve on certain areas in the right direction but still comes up short in making necessary changes when it comes to fundamental rights and personal liberties. The new Act retains elements from the previous one making it an abnormal document and this could have been averted if there had been some attention to detail.
http://bit.ly/croc9T

Feedback to the NIA Bill
Malavika Jayaram and Elonnai Hickok introduce the formal submission of CIS to the proposed National Identification Authority of India (NIA) Bill, 2010, which would give every resident a unique identity. The submissions contain the detailed comments on the draft bill and the high level summary of concerns with the NIA Bill submitted to the UIDAI on 13 July, 2010.
http://bit.ly/bhinUB

Openness

Open Access to Science and Scholarship - Why and What Should We Do? The National Institute of Advanced Studies held the eighth NIAS-DST training programme on “Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Science, Technology and Society” from 26 July to 7 August, 2010. The theme of the project was ‘Knowledge Management’. Dr. MG Narasimhan and Dr. Sharada Srinivasan were the coordinators for the event. Professor Subbiah Arunachalam made a presentation on Open Access to Science and Scholarship.
http://bit.ly/ciohYy

Civic Hacking Workshop
CIS, with the UK Government's Foreign Office and the Cabinet Office Team for Digital Engagement, and Google India, is organizing a workshop on open data (or the lack thereof) and 'civic hacking'.
http://bit.ly/c3TF2t

Telecom

'Containing Inflation' - A myth
We need problem-solving, not confused rhetoric or misguided action, says Shyam Ponappa. The article was published in Business Standard on 7 August, 2008.
http://bit.ly/9frC8q

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Are India's Glory Days Over?

Shyam Ponappa — 2013-03-12T04:59:44Z

Unless major structural changes are effected, India will miss an economic take-off for many years, writes Shyam Ponappa.

The blog post was published in Organizing India on March 8, 2013. Originally published in the Business Standard on March 6, 2013.

Underlying the varied narratives on the Budget is the persistence of structural inflation, especially in food items. India has sunk in an inflation quagmire, moving from a ranking of around 60th until 2008 to about 120th since then, with lower rankings indicating worse relative inflation. Most analysts opine that growth will be slow, and agree that the revenue deficit needs to be reduced much more than in the Budget. The planned reduction of expenditure or increase in revenues needs to be something like five times the budgeted half a per cent of GDP to reduce the risk of the external account imbalance.

Slow growth is inevitable

This year's Budget, according to one commentary from the Heritage Foundation, "leaves India on the same, failing course it's been on of undisciplined spending and unrealistic expectations". The report goes on to mention high expenditure, inadequate revenues and very high consumer inflation, with no reforms.[1]

Another
analyst articulates a different view that in fact actually demands low growth. Focusing on the balance of payments risk because of a current account deficit, he argues that the Budget had to constrain growth, or risk triggering a crisis. This view suggests that we cannot export more until the world recovers and can buy more, and until it does, our unfavourable external balance puts us at risk.[2]

Or is it?

There's no denying the conclusion of the Heritage report, although there may be disagreement about some of the professed remedies, like opening up banking and insurance to foreign direct investment (FDI). However, the gap arising from the trade imbalance, while making India's economy more vulnerable, doesn't preclude interim strategies and limit our options to necessarily constraining growth. The current account deficit calls for convergent management of expectations that result in unrestricted foreign capital inflows, not the scattershot confusion of mixed signals. To what extent this should be at the cost of the growth that is so essential for the stability of our social fabric is debatable.

For instance, is there the possibility, as in tourism-driven economies, that there could be a consistent inflow of capital to tide over the deficit until exports recover, ie, traditional export markets recover? Or that if we shifted to an unambiguous emphasis on FDI over time instead of encouraging short-term, anonymous, even incognito, inflows through Participatory Notes, that the gap could be bridged? Or that if our enterprises could start designing and manufacturing new products for sectors such as broadband and wireless communications, we might develop new markets in more growth-oriented areas in Asia, thereby improving our trade balance?

Infrastructure : the enabler and multiplier

No matter what direction we take, unless our governments - the non-monolithic, disparate powers that operate in the states or at the Centre - start dealing with realities, our glory days are over for years together. For instance, unless radical action is taken to increase food production and distribution, the curse of inflation will stunt growth, and hamstring our ability to improve infrastructure. In all this, the centrality of infrastructure as enabler and multiplier cannot be overemphasised.

Within infrastructure, there's little doubt about the crippling of telecommunications, now reduced to a shambling wreck by misconceived policies to capture revenues for the treasury, whether by governments' greed, or by the clamour of ill-informed and irrational public opinion, or courts misinformed by self-proclaimed guardians of the public interest whose ignorance overwhelms their good intentions by far.

Meanwhile, at the Mobile World Congress at Barcelona

Around the same time, half a world away in Barcelona, there was an annual convention on mobile communications. People from companies around the world congregate for the Mobile World Congress, which ran from February 25 to 28 this year (for the first day's highlights, see: http://www.mobileworldlive.com/mwc-2013-day-1-opening-highlights-feature). This convention drew over 70,000 people, where Samsung and Nokia made their announcements about new smartphones, as did LG, Huawei, Intel and a host of others. It is also where the producers of systems for the delivery of these services, such as Qualcomm, Ericsson, and Nokia Siemens Networks, showed what they were doing to prepare for the vast anticipated increase in mobile broadband.

The Mobile World Congress has relevance to India because our Trai and the DoT representatives were there, studying developments in managing spectrum and communications. If they're allowed to formulate solutions to solve some of our problems, instead of being restricted by ignorant litigants through the courts to incur more self-inflicted harm, their actions could revolutionise India's approach. Of particular interest for India were Ericsson's "Supplemental Downlink", which uses access to a predefined spectrum band to augment existing licensed capacity, and Nokia Siemens Networks' "Authorised Shared Access", which enables access to spectrum assigned to a primary holder, government in this case, to be used commercially without compromising the existing incumbents.[3]

Need for capacity and productivity hikes

Major structural changes are required to create conditions to move India out of its growth doldrums. Take the collapse in the telecommunications sector. The first step is to give network owners the benefit of infrastructure status to lower borrowing costs. Radical changes to spectrum and network management to maximise service delivery while reducing costs, including extending the principle of revenue sharing from licences to spectrum use, can further improve outcomes with the same input. Also, sustained efforts to support the design and manufacture of products - whether through FDI in joint ventures or licensed local manufacturing, or the creation of products from scratch - could reduce the trade burden of ICT imports, which otherwise threaten to exceed our oil imports over time.

Our authorities must now develop ground rules that can lead to a potential revival, while corporations and the government work together to ensure success. Apart from this, sectors that can help with the balance of payments, like tourism, and domestic coal for power, must get focused solutions. Such developments are required in diverse sectors to break out of our tailspin.

[1]. "India Stays on Path to Economic Failure", Derek Scissors, The Heritage Foundation: http://blog.heritage.org/2013/02/28/india-stays-on-path-to-economic-failure/

[2]. "Budgeting in hard times", T C A Srinivasa-Raghavan,
The Hindu: http://www.thehindu.com/business/Economy/budgeting-in-hard-times/article4472061.ece

[3]. (a) Supplemental Downlink and (b) Authorised Shared Access:
a) http://www.qualcomm.com/media/documents/files/benefits-of-hspa-supplemental-downlink.pdf
b) http://www.nokiasiemensnetworks.com/sites/default/files/document/authorised_shared_access_apr_2012_0.pdf

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