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Brindaalakshmi.K - Gendering of Development Data in India: Beyond the Binary
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/brindaalakshmi-k-gendering-development-data-india
<b>This report by Brindaalakshmi.K seeks to understand the gendering of development data in India: collection of data and issuance of government (foundational and functional) identity documents to persons identifying outside the cis/binary genders of female and male, and the data misrepresentations, barriers to accessing public and private services, and
informational exclusions that still remain. Sumandro Chattapadhyay edited the report and Puthiya Purayil Sneha offered additional editorial support. This work was undertaken as part of the Big Data for Development network supported by International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Canada.</b>
<p> </p>
<h4>Part 1 - Introduction, Research Method, and Summary of Findings: <a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/files/brindaalakshmi-k-gendering-of-development-data-in-india-beyond-the-binary-1" target="_blank">Download</a> (PDF)</h4>
<h4>Part 2 - Legal Rights and Enumeration Process: <a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/files/brindaalakshmi-k-gendering-of-development-data-in-india-beyond-the-binary-2" target="_blank">Download</a> (PDF)</h4>
<h4>Part 3 - Identity Documents and Access to Welfare: <a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/files/brindaalakshmi-k-gendering-of-development-data-in-india-beyond-the-binary-3" target="_blank">Download</a> (PDF)</h4>
<h4>Part 4 - Digital Services and Data Challenges: <a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/files/brindaalakshmi-k-gendering-of-development-data-in-india-beyond-the-binary-4" target="_blank">Download</a> (PDF)</h4>
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<p>India has been under a national lockdown due to the global outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic since late March 2020. Although transgender persons or individuals who do not identify with the gender of their assigned sex at birth, fall into the eligibility category for the relief measures announced by the State, the implementation of the relief measures has seen to be inefficient in different states [1] of the country [2]. Many transgender persons still do not have proper identification documents in their preferred name and gender that can help them with claiming any welfare that is available [3].</p>
<p>Historically, the situation of transgender persons in India has been so, even prior to the present pandemic. A qualitative research study titled <em>Gendering of Development Data in India: Beyond the Binary</em> was undertaken during October 2018 - December 2019, to understand the gendering of development data in India, collection of data and issuance of government (foundational and functional) identity documents to persons identifying outside the cis/binary genders of female and male, and the data misrepresentations, barriers to accessing public and private services, and informational exclusions that still remain.</p>
<p>The interviews for this study were conducted in late 2018 and this report was completed in the beginning of 2020, after India went through an extended national debate on and finally enactment of the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act during 2019. Three key observations from this study are presented in this blog post. Although these observations were made prior to the release of the draft rules of the new law, it is important to note that the law along with the draft rules in its present version will likely aggrevate the data and social exclusions faced by the transgender community in India.</p>
<h4>Observation 1: The need for data has sidestepped the state’s responsibility to address the human rights of its people</h4>
<p>The present global development agenda is to <em>leave no one behind</em> [4]. The effort to leave no one behind has shifted the focus of the state towards collecting data on different population groups. The design of and access to welfare programmes relies heavily on the availability of data. The impact of these programmes are again measured and understood as reflected by data. This shift in focus to data has led to further exclusion of already disenfranchised groups including the transgender community [5]. The problem with this lies in the framing of the development discourse as one that demands data as the prerequisite to access welfare benefits.</p>
<p>However, there are significant issues with the data on transgender persons that has been fed into different national and state-level databases, beginning with the census of 2011. For the first time, census of 2011 attempted to enumerate transgender persons. However, the enumeration of transgender persons for the census of 2011 has been severely criticised by the transgender community due to lack of</p>
<ul>
<li>Clear distinction between sex and gender in the census data collection process,</li>
<li>Community consultation in designing the enumeration process, and</li>
<li>Inclusion of all transgender identities, among others.</li></ul>
<p>However, this flawed data set is being used as the primary data for fund allocation across different states for transgender people’s inclusion, note respondents. Further, any person identifying outside the gender of their assigned sex at birth faces the additional burden of proving their gender identity to access any welfare benefit. However, cisgendered men or women are never asked to prove their gender identity. The need for data from a marginalised population group without addressing the structural problems has only led to further exclusion of this already invisible group of individuals, note respondents. Further, the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, 2019 was passed despite the severe criticisms from the transgender community, human rights activist groups [6] and even opposition political parties [7] in India for several reasons [8].</p>
<h4>Observation 2: Replication of existing offline challenges by digital systems in multiple data sources, continues to keep transgender persons excluded</h4>
<p>Digitisation was supposed to remove existing offline challenges and enable more people centric systems [9]. However, digital systems seem to have replicated the existing offline challenges. In several cases, digitisation has added to the complexities involved.</p>
<p>The replication of challenges begins with the assumption that digital processes are the best way to collect data on transgender persons. Both level of literacy and digital literacy are low among transgender persons in India. According to a report by the National Human Rights Commission [10], nearly 50% of transgender persons have studied less than Class X. This has a significant effect on their access to different rights.</p>
<p>Access to mobile phones is assumed to bridge this access gap to online systems and services. However, observations from different respondents suggest otherwise. Additionally, due to their gender identity, transgender individuals face different set of challenges in procuring valid identification documents required to enter data systems, note respondents. This includes but not limited to:</p>
<ul>
<li>Lack of standardised online or offline processes to aid in changing their documents and vary within each state in different documents.</li>
<li>Procuring any identification document in preferred name and gender requires existing identification documents in given name and assigned gender, in both online and offline processes. However, due to the stigma with their gender identity, transgender persons often run away from home with no identification document in their assigned name and gender.</li>
<li>With or without an existing ID document, individuals have to go through a tedious offline legal process to change their name and gender on different documents.</li>
<li>Information on such processes, digital or otherwise are usually available only to individuals who are educated or associated with a non-profit organisation working with the community. The challenges are higher for individuals with neither.</li></ul>
<h4>Observation 3: Private big data is not good enough as an alternative source of evidence for designing welfare services for transgender persons</h4>
<p>Globally, public private partnerships for big data are being pushed through different initiatives like Data Collaboratives [11] and UN Global Pulse [12], among others. These private partnerships are being seen as key to using big data for official statistics, which can then aid in making welfare decisions [13]. However, the respondents note that the different private big data sources are not good enough to make welfare decisions for various reasons including but not limited to:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Dependency on government documents:</strong> Access to any private service system like banking, healthcare, housing or education by any individual requires verification using some proof of identity. The discrimination and challenges in procuring government issued identification documents impacts the ability of transgender persons to enter private data systems. This in turn impacts their access to services.</li>
<li><strong>Misrepresentation in data:</strong> The dependency of private services on government issued documents / government recorded data, and hierarchy among such documents/data and the continued misrepresentation of transgender people, impacts the big data generated by private service providers. Due to the stigma faced, many transgender persons avoid using public healthcare systems for other medical conditions. The heavy dependency on private health care and lower usage of public health systems, results in insufficient big data on transgender persons, created by both public and private medical care and hence cannot be used to design health related welfare services.
</li><li><strong>Social media data issues:</strong> Different websites and apps also use social media login as the ID verification mechanism. Since not all transgender persons are out to their family and friends about their gender identity, they often tend to have multiple social media accounts with different names and gender to protect their identity. When open about their gender identity, harassment and bullying of transgender persons with violent threats or sexually lucid remarks are quite common on social media platforms. Online privacy therefore continues to be a serious concern for them. Disclosing their transgender status also enables the system to predict user patterns of a vulnerable group with potential for abuse, note respondents.</li></ul>
<p>In conclusion, the present global pandemic has further amplified the inherent flaws in the present data-driven welfare system in the country and its impacts on a marginalised population group like transgender persons in the country. Globally, gender in development data is seen in binary genders of male and female, leaving behind transgender individuals or those who do not identify with the gender of their assigned sex at birth. So the dominant binary gender data conversation is in fact leaving people behind. With the regressive Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act of 2019 and its rules, this inadequacy in the global development agenda related to gender equality is felt at an amplified scale.</p>
<p>Building on the work of Dr. Usha Ramanathan, a renowned human rights activist, I say that data collection and monitoring systems that tag, track, and profile transgender persons placing them under surveillance, have consequences beyond the denial of services, and enter into the arena of criminalising for being beyond the binary [14]. The vulnerabilities of their gender identity exacerbates the threat to freedom. With their freedom threatened, expecting people to be forthcoming about self-identifying themselves in their preferred name and gender, so as to ensure that they are counted in data-driven development interventions and can thus access their constitutionally guaranteed rights, goes against the very idea of sustainable development and human rights.</p>
<p> </p>
<h4>References</h4>
<p>[1] Kumar. V (2020, May 13). In Jharkhand, a Mockery of 'Right to Food' as Lockdown Relief Measures Fail to Deliver. The Wire. Retrieved from: <a href="https://thewire.in/food/lockdown-jharkhand-hunger-deaths-corruption-food" target="_blank">https://thewire.in/food/lockdown-jharkhand-hunger-deaths-corruption-food</a></p>
<p>[2] Manoj. C.K. (2020, April 24). COVID-19: Thousands pushed to starvation due to faulty biometric system in Bihar. DownToEarth. Retrieved from: <a href="https://www.downtoearth.org.in/news/food/covid-19-thousands-pushed-to-starvation-due-to-faulty-biometric-system-in-bihar-70681" target="_blank">https://www.downtoearth.org.in/news/food/covid-19-thousands-pushed-to-starvation-due-to-faulty-biometric-system-in-bihar-70681</a></p>
<p>[3] G. Ram Mohan. (2020, May 01). Eviction Fear Heightens as Lockdown Signals Loss of Livelihood for Transgender People. The Wire. Retrieved from: <a href="https://thewire.in/rights/transgender-people-lockdown-coronavirus" target="_blank">https://thewire.in/rights/transgender-people-lockdown-coronavirus </a></p>
<p>[4] UN Statistics (2016). The Sustainable Development Goals Report 2016. United Nations Statistics. Retrieved from: <a href="https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/report/2016/leaving-no-one-behind" target="_blank">https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/report/2016/leaving-no-one-behind</a></p>
<p>[5] Chakrabarti. A (2020, April 25). Visibly Invisible: The Plight Of Transgender Community Due To India's COVID-19 Lockdown. Outlook. Retrieved from: <a href="https://www.outlookindia.com/website/story/opinion-visibly-invisible-the-plight-of-transgender-community-due-to-indias-covid-19-lockdown/351468" target="_blank">https://www.outlookindia.com/website/story/opinion-visibly-invisible-the-plight-of-transgender-community-due-to-indias-covid-19-lockdown/351468</a></p>
<p>[6] Knight Kyle. (2019, December 05). India’s Transgender Rights Law Isn’t Worth Celebrating. Human Rights Watch. Retrieved from: <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2019/12/06/indias-transgender-rights-law-isnt-worth-celebrating" target="_blank">https://www.hrw.org/news/2019/12/06/indias-transgender-rights-law-isnt-worth-celebrating</a></p>
<p>[7] Dharmadhikari Sanyukta. (2019). Trans Bill 2019 passed in Lok Sabha: Why the trans community in India is rejecting it. The News Minute. August 05. Retrieved from: <a href="https://www.thenewsminute.com/article/trans-bill-2019-passed-lok-sabha-why-trans-community-india-rejecting-it-106695" target="_blank">https://www.thenewsminute.com/article/trans-bill-2019-passed-lok-sabha-why-trans-community-india-rejecting-it-106695</a></p>
<p>[8] Editorial. (2018, December 20). Rights, revised: on the Transgender Persons Bill, 2018. The Hindu. Retrieved from: <a href="https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/editorial/rights-revised/article25783926.ece" target="_blank">https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/editorial/rights-revised/article25783926.ece</a></p>
<p>[9] Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, Government of India. (2018). National e-Governance Plan. Retrieved from: <a href="https://meity.gov.in/divisions/national-e-governance-plan" target="_blank">https://meity.gov.in/divisions/national-e-governance-plan</a></p>
<p>[10] Kerala Development Society. (2017, February). <em>Study on Human Rights of Transgender as a Third Gender</em>. Retrieved from: <a href="https://nhrc.nic.in/sites/default/files/Study_HR_transgender_03082018.pdf" target="_blank">https://nhrc.nic.in/sites/default/files/Study_HR_transgender_03082018.pdf</a></p>
<p>[11] Verhulst, S. G., Young, A., Winowatan, M., & Zahuranec, A. J. (2019, October). <em>Leveraging Private Data for Public Good: A Descriptive Analysis and Typology of Existing Practices</em>. GovLab, Tandon School of Engineering, New York University. Retrieved from: <a href="https://datacollaboratives.org/static/files/existing-practices-report.pdf" target="_blank">https://datacollaboratives.org/static/files/existing-practices-report.pdf</a></p>
<p>[12] Kirkpatrick, R., & Vacarelu, F. (2018, December). A Decade of Leveraging Big Data for Sustainable Development. UN Chronicle, Vol. LV, Nos. 3 & 4. Retrieved from: <a href="https://unchronicle.un.org/article/decade-leveraging-big-data-sustainable-development" target="_blank">https://unchronicle.un.org/article/decade-leveraging-big-data-sustainable-development</a></p>
<p>[13] See [11].</p>
<p>[14] Ramanathan. U. (2014, May 02). Biometrics Use for Social Protection Programmes in India Risk Violating Human Rights of the Poor. UNRISD. Retrieved from: <a href="http://www.unrisd.org/sp-hr-ramanathan" target="_blank">http://www.unrisd.org/sp-hr-ramanathan</a></p>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/brindaalakshmi-k-gendering-development-data-india'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/brindaalakshmi-k-gendering-development-data-india</a>
</p>
No publisherBrindaalakshmi.KWelfare GovernanceData SystemsBig Data for DevelopmentResearchGender, Welfare, and PrivacyTransgenderResearchers at Work2020-06-30T10:26:40ZBlog Entry'I feel the pain of having nowhere to go': A Manipuri Trans Woman Recounts Her Ongoing Lockdown Ordeal
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/a-manipuri-trans-woman-recounts-her-ongoing-lockdown-ordeal-covid19
<b>"My life and work in Bengaluru came to an abrupt halt with the COVID-19 outbreak and lockdown this March. We no longer had jobs and were forced to plan our departure from the city." -- As told to Santa Khurai, Manipur-based queer and Nupi Manbi activist, artist and writer. Compiled by Aayush Rathi, a cisgender, heterosexual man, and researcher with Centre for Internet and Society, India. This account is part of an ongoing CIS research project on gender, welfare and surveillance in India, and is supported by Privacy International, UK.</b>
<p> </p>
<p><em>Originally published by <a href="https://www.firstpost.com/india/i-feel-the-pain-of-having-nowhere-to-go-a-manipuri-trans-woman-recounts-her-ongoing-lockdown-ordeal-8494321.html" target="_blank">Firstpost</a>, June 20, 2020.</em></p>
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<p>In 2015, I left my home state of Manipur for Bengaluru.</p>
<p>My name is Sarik*; I prefer to be known as Siku. I am a Nupi Manbi (trans woman).</p>
<p>Other Nupi Manbi had told me that Bengaluru is tolerant of transgender individuals, and that it is easy to find decent, well-paying jobs here. I contacted friends who had already moved here and relocated with their help.</p>
<p>Immediately, I found work at a fabric dyeing factory. The salary meant I could send some money home, my family was able to invest some of the funds in a monthly marup [revolving informal credit collective], and I was able to dream of someday having enough to buy a piece of land in Manipur.</p>
<p>I wasn’t to know at the time that just five years later, the happiness and hope would both prove fleeting.</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>I grew up in a small locality of Imphal East District, the youngest of three siblings. My mother had passed away, my father is a priest and story-teller, and my older brother worked as a traditional cook. As a result, our lives were fairly hand-to-mouth.</p>
<p>The frequent shifting of homes was very difficult for me, but I had no choice in the matter. I used to earn money by assisting other transgender friends in their tailoring works. While I worked hard in order to set aside enough money to own a small piece of land, it proved impossible with my meagre earnings.</p>
<p>After years of struggle, I decided to move to a big city with the aspiration to earn more.</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>My life and work in Bengaluru came to an abrupt halt with the COVID-19 outbreak and lockdown this March.</p>
<p>We no longer had jobs and were forced to plan our departure from the city. The Manipur government had announced measures that would allow stranded citizens to return to the state, so we began the formal process for our repatriation.</p>
<p>On 14 May 2020, three of us left Bengaluru in a special train that was organised for returnees to Manipur. Four days later, we were in Manipur.</p>
<p>When we reached Imphal, all returnees were first assembled at Modern College in Porompat, Imphal East. From there, we were sent to our respective constituencies to be quarantined. In the process, I was separated from my friends.</p>
<p>I was taken to Wangkhei Girl School as my permanent address falls under this constituency. At the quarantine centre, I was allocated a room shared by six other men. All the inmates were also sharing a toilet. This made me very uncomfortable; my body was undergoing changes due to hormonal effects.</p>
<p>In my discomfort, I reached out to transgender activist Santa Khurai, highlighting the need to set up a separate quarantine centre for transgender people. She immediately created a WhatsApp group for all the transgender people housed at different quarantine centres, keeping us updated about a separate quarantine centre for us. On the evening of 20 May, we rejoiced on seeing photos of the quarantine centre set up for transgender people. That night was the end of my terrible stay at the common quarantine centre.</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>On 21 May, I was shifted to the quarantine centre for transgender people at Ideal Blind School, Takyel. There, I was reunited with two of my friends. We stayed there for 17 days, receiving support from Santa Khurai through telecounseling. Before the quarantine period concluded, we were tested for COVID-19. We did not receive the results, but were advised to go back home. We were provided an acknowledgment in the form of a medical document. The relatives and parents of the other two trans girls had come to pick them up, but since my family doesn’t own a vehicle and it was not possible to hire on, I called a transgender friend to drop me home. I could sense some animosity in the neighbourhood, and decided not to step out from the house.</p>
<p>On the morning of 4 June, local governing bodies and clubs including Meira Paibi [a women’s rights group] thronged my house. A large crowd gathered in the temple shed. The club and Meira Paibi leader called my family members out and we were made to sit in the middle of a large group of people. They asked me to produce the result of the COVID-19 test, and I showed the acknowledgement given to us at the quarantine centre. People in the crowd passed the paper to each other disapprovingly, arguing that I hadn’t been declared COVID negative. One of the local club leaders called the police and doctors. The doctor who was in charge of the facility for transgender persons responded to the call, and validated my discharge from quarantine.</p>
<p>After few hours, even the police arrived and said that I could stay at home. However, the locals pressured the cops into taking my family — including my frail father who is in his 80s — to the police station.</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>We were finally allowed to leave the police station after several rounds of interrogation. My father, my brother (along with his wife and son) were taken back home by the police, while I was separately dropped off at a hotel in Gandhi Avenue, Thangal Bazar. I was advised to check in the hotel at around 3 pm; the charge was Rs 1,000 per day. When I asked the man who would pay for the room, he said, “Let’s see. At least you will be safe to stay here as the locals didn’t accept you coming home. You stay here until the test result come out.”</p>
<p>I called Santa in desperation, who consoled and reassured me. In the meantime, I had also called my sister to ask if some clothes could be brought for me. Her response alarmed and frightened me: My sister told me that my family were not being allowed to enter the house. The gate had been locked and they were instructed to stay at a quarantine centre as they were exposed to me. The news shocked me and made me desperate in wanting the test result to come out expeditiously, so that it would at least prevent any further hardships for my family.</p>
<p>Now I’m staying at the hotel. I fear going back to the house, the hostility of the locals, my family being attacked, my old father being forced to stay at a quarantine centre. I feel the pain of having nowhere to go. It is also infuriating to think that this could have been completely avoided had the officials not been in a haste to make us leave the quarantine centre, and had let us stay till the actual test results were received.</p>
<p><em>* Name changed to protect identity</em>.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/a-manipuri-trans-woman-recounts-her-ongoing-lockdown-ordeal-covid19'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/a-manipuri-trans-woman-recounts-her-ongoing-lockdown-ordeal-covid19</a>
</p>
No publisherSanta KhuraiGenderCovid19ResearchGender, Welfare, and PrivacyResearchers at Work2020-06-22T11:42:39ZBlog EntryDWRU, BBGS & MKU - The Covid-19 Pandemic and the Invisible Workers of the Household Economy
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/dwru-bbgs-mku-covid19-invisible-household-workers
<b>Domestic Workers Rights Union (DWRU), Bruhat Bangalore Gruhakarmika Sangha (BBGS), and Manegelasa Kaarmikara Union (MKU) have prepared a report on the invisibilisation of domestic workers under the Covid-19 pandemic and a set of demands directed at the government and resident welfare associations (RWAs) for better, dignified and just treatment of domestic workers in Karnataka. We at CIS are proud to contribute to and publish this work as part of the ongoing 'Feminist Internet Research Network' project supported by the Association for Progressive Communications (APC).</b>
<p> </p>
<h4>Report: <a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/files/dwru-bbgs-mku-covid19-invisible-household-workers-report" target="_blank">Download</a> (PDF)</h4>
<p><em>This report is authored by Geeta Menon, and edited by Aayush Rathi (CIS) and Ambika Tandon (CIS).</em></p>
<hr />
<h3><strong>Introduction</strong></h3>
<p>Up until the first phase of the imposition of lockdown in India, while restrictions were enforced, domestic workers went to work as usual. Domestic workers were aware of the announcements of precautions, but the
employers insisted they come for work disregarding any concerns for workers' safety.</p>
<p>During the phase of strict imposition of the first lockdown, covering the time from March 24, 2020 to the first week of May, several corporate employees “worked from home”. While pictures of employers’ families spending family time, and learning to clean and cook, circulated widely on social media and in press, domestic workers lived in cramped conditions with the fear of rations running out.</p>
<p>In the first 2 weeks of May, a survey of nearly 2400 domestic workers in Bengaluru was conducted by Domestic Workers Rights Union (DWRU), Bruhat Bangalore Gruhakarmika Sangha (BBGS), and Manegelasa Kaarmikara Union. Some of the findings from the survey are below:</p>
<ul><li>2084 (about 87%) of the workers were told not to come for work since the lockdown in March and were not sure if and when they would be called to work again.</li>
<li>341 workers in the areas surveyed by BBGS (87%) and 150 workers in the areas surveyed by Manegelasa Kaarmikara Union lost their jobs entirely during the lockdown.</li>
<li>91% of workers lost their salaries for the month of April.</li>
<li>50% of all workers above the age of 50 lost their jobs during the lockdown.</li></ul>
<p>The report also showcases the tyranny and hypocrisy of resident welfare associations (RWAs) and employers. The period of relaxation of the lockdown has again seen RWAs issuing directives that are demeaning to domestic workers and pose insurmountable barriers to domestic workers’ ability to work. For example, several RWAs issued emails advising residents to ask domestic workers to minimise or avoid usage of the lift and take the stairs instead. They also discouraged domestic workers from waiting in the common areas in between shifts. RWAs also invaded domestic workers’ privacy by mandating the disclosure of personal information without any protocols in place to keep this information secure.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/dwru-bbgs-mku-covid19-invisible-household-workers'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/dwru-bbgs-mku-covid19-invisible-household-workers</a>
</p>
No publisherGeeta MenonCovid19ResearchNetwork EconomiesResearchers at WorkDigital Domestic Work2020-06-19T12:34:22ZBlog EntryEthics and Human Rights Guidelines for Big Data for Development Research
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/bd4d-ethics-human-rights-guidelines
<b>This is a four-part review of guideline documents for ethics and human rights in big data for development research. This research was produced as part of the Big Data for Development network supported by International Development Research Centre, Canada</b>
<p> </p>
<h4>Part #1 - Review of Principles of Ethics in Biomedical Science: <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/bd4d-guideline-documents/biomedicalscience" class="internal-link" title="CIS_BD4D_Guideline01_MS+AS_BiomedicalScience PDF">Download</a> (PDF)</h4>
<h4>Part #2 - Review of Principles of Ethics in Computer Science: <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/bd4d-guideline-documents/computerscience" class="internal-link" title="CIS_BD4D_Guideline02_RS+AS_ComputerScience PDF">Download</a> (PDF)</h4>
<h4>Part #3 - Summary of Review of Codes of Ethics for Big Data and AI: <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/bd4d-guideline-documents/AIEthicsReview" class="internal-link" title="CIS_BD4D_Guideline03_AS+PT_BigDataAIEthicsReview_SummaryNotes PDF">Download</a> (PDF)</h4>
<h4>Part #4 - Extended Review of Codes of Ethics for Big Data and AI: <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/bd4d-guideline-documents/ExtendedNotes" class="internal-link" title="CIS_BD4D_Guideline04_PT+PB_BigDataAIEthicsReview_ExtendedNotes PDF">Download</a> (PDF)</h4>
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<p>The rapid expansion in the volume, velocity, and variety of data available, together with the development of innovative forms of statistical analytics, is generally referred to as “big data”; though there is no single agreed upon definition of the term. Big data promises to provide new insights and solutions across a wide range of sectors. Despite enormous optimism about the scope and variety of big data’s potential applications, many remain concerned about its widespread adoption, with some scholars suggesting it could generate as many harms as benefits. The predecessor disciplines of data science such as computer sciences, applied mathematics, and statistics have traditionally managed to stay out of the scope of ethical frameworks, based on the assumption that they do not involve humans as subject of their research. While critical study into big data is still in its infancy, there is a growing belief that there are significant discontinuities between the rapid growth in big data and the ethical framework that exists to govern its use. In this set of documents, we look at them in detail.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/bd4d-ethics-human-rights-guidelines'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/bd4d-ethics-human-rights-guidelines</a>
</p>
No publisherAmber Sinha, Manjri Singh, Rajashri Seal, Pranav Bhaskar Tiwari, Pranav M BidareResearchers at WorkBD4DRAW ResearchBig Data for DevelopmentArtificial Intelligence2020-05-20T07:56:48ZBlog Entry A Compilation of Research on the Gig Economy
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/a-compilation-of-research-on-the-gig-economy
<b>Over the past year, researchers at CIS have been studying gig economies and gig workers in India. Their work has involved consultative discussions with domestic workers, food delivery workers, taxi drivers, trade union leaders, and government representatives to document the state of gig work in India, and highlight the concerns of gig workers.
The imposition of a severe lockdown in India in response to the outbreak of COVID-19 has left gig workers in precarious positions. Without the privilege of social distancing, these workers are having to contend with a drastic reduction in income, while also placing themselves at heightened health risks. </b>
<p> </p>
<h3 dir="ltr">On gig economy during the COVID-19 pandemic</h3>
<p dir="ltr">Supported by <a href="https://www.apc.org/en/project/firn-feminist-internet-research-network">Feminist Internet Research Network</a> led by the Association for Progressive Communications (APC) and funded by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC)</p>
<ul><li style="list-style-type: disc;" dir="ltr">
<p dir="ltr">Along with Tandem Research, we spoke to leaders of four unions that represent gig workers across the country about the risks and vulnerabilities that they are having to contend with in the face of the COVID-19 crisis. <strong>Zothan Mawii</strong> (Tandem Research), <strong>Ambika Tandon</strong>, and <strong>Aayush Rathi</strong> share key reflections in this essay published on The Wire. (<a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/gig-workers-need-support">link</a>).</p>
</li><li style="list-style-type: disc;" dir="ltr">
<p dir="ltr">Based on the discussion, a charter of recommendations was prepared with contributions from participants, and was shared with public and private stakeholders. (<a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/covid-19-charter-of-recommendations">link</a>)</p>
</li></ul>
<div> </div>
<h3 dir="ltr">On domestic workers in the platform economy </h3>
<p dir="ltr">Supported by <a href="https://www.apc.org/en/project/firn-feminist-internet-research-network">Feminist Internet Research Network</a> led by the Association for Progressive Communications (APC) and funded by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC)</p>
<ul><li style="list-style-type: disc;" dir="ltr">
<p dir="ltr">We discussed our ongoing research on the platformisation of domestic work in India with domestic workers, union members, and representatives from the Karnataka Labour Department in November 2019. <strong>Tasneem Mewa</strong> documented the rich discussion from this consultation. (<a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/platformisation-of-domestic-work-in-india-report-from-a-multistakeholder-consultation">link</a>)</p>
</li></ul>
<p dir="ltr">CIS worked with members of the Domestic Workers Rights Union to conduct field research on the lives and challenges of domestic workers in the platform economy. The following essays published on GenderIT capture their experiences of doing this research:</p>
<ul><li style="list-style-type: disc;" dir="ltr">
<p dir="ltr"><strong>Parijatha G.P.</strong> writes about a “gated society management app,” MyGate, and the experiences of surveillance of migrant workers in Bengaluru. (<a href="https://www.genderit.org/articles/domestic-work-platform-economy-reflections-awareness-workers-rights">link</a>) </p>
</li><li style="list-style-type: disc;" dir="ltr">
<p dir="ltr"><strong>Radha Keerthna</strong> writes about the similarity in the conditions of domestic workers in the traditional and platform economy, particularly the precarity and invisibility of labour. (<a href="https://www.genderit.org/articles/domestic-work-platform-economy-reflections-conducting-interviews-sensitive-issues">link</a>)</p>
</li><li style="list-style-type: disc;" dir="ltr">
<p dir="ltr"><strong>Sumathi</strong>, a union leader, reflects on and her experience as an activist-researcher interacting with domestic gig workers through the course of our study. (<a href="https://www.genderit.org/articles/domestic-work-platform-economy-reflections-difficulty-set-interviews">link</a>)</p>
</li><li style="list-style-type: disc;" dir="ltr">
<p dir="ltr"><strong>Zeenathunissa</strong> shares the difficulty of speaking to domestic workers in the gig economy, especially when workers undergo constant surveillance by employers and companies. (<a href="https://www.genderit.org/articles/domestic-work-platform-economy-reflections-research-and-social-work">link</a>)</p>
</li></ul>
<p dir="ltr"> </p>
<h3 dir="ltr">On economic, algorithmic, and affective vulnerabilities of gig workers</h3>
<p dir="ltr">Supported by <a href="https://azimpremjiuniversity.edu.in/SitePages/research-grant-overview.aspx">Azim Premji University</a></p>
<p dir="ltr">CIS commissioned a set of four field studies of platform workers delivering food and driving taxis for platform companies in Mumbai and New Delhi. The researchers involved wrote a series of essays that were published by Platypus blog of CASTAC:</p>
<ul><li style="list-style-type: disc;" dir="ltr">
<p dir="ltr"><strong>Anushree Gupta</strong> explores women’s presence as workers as well as passengers/customers in the ride hailing platform economy in Mumbai and related concerns of safety and risk mitigation. (<a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/anushree-gupta-ladies-log-women-safety-risk-transfer-ridehailing">link</a>)</p>
</li><li style="list-style-type: disc;" dir="ltr">
<p dir="ltr"><strong>Sarah Zia</strong> highlights how algorithmic management of work and revenue targets of gig workers impact their everyday lives and plans for the future. (<a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/sarah-zia-not-knowing-as-pedagogy-ride-hailing-drivers-in-delhi">link</a>)</p>
</li><li style="list-style-type: disc;" dir="ltr">
<p dir="ltr">Kinship networks are a critical source of safety and security for workers in the gig economy. <strong>Simiran Lalvani</strong> writes about the network among transportation workers in Mumbai, also reflecting on implications for those who are excluded. (<a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/simiran-lalvani-workers-fictive-kinship-relations-app-based-food-delivery-mumbai">link</a>)</p>
</li><li style="list-style-type: disc;" dir="ltr">
<p dir="ltr"><strong>Noopur Raval</strong> and <strong>Rajendra Jadhav</strong> describe the unregulated and exploitative temporal structures of gig work, and how work-time of gig workers get configured by customer-facing promises of platform companies. (<a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/noopur-raval-rajendra-jadhav-power-chronography-of-food-delivery-work">link</a>)</p>
</li><li style="list-style-type: disc;" dir="ltr">
<p dir="ltr">The four researchers, led by <strong>Noopur Raval</strong> (co-PI for the project, held a roundtable discussion to reflect on methods, challenges, inter-subjectivities and possible future directions for research on the gig economy and its workers. (<a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/india-gig-work-economy-roundtable">link</a>)</p>
</li></ul>
The consultants - Noopur Raval, Anushree Gupta, Rajendra Jadhav, Sarah Zia and Simiran Lalvani - involved in this project on mapping digital labour in India’s platform economies (in Mumbai and New Delhi) gathered in <a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/platform-work-india-panel-discussion-20190719">Bengaluru on July 19, 2019</a> to share their preliminary field insights along with reflections on what it meant to do such studies, how they went about studying gig-work, and challenges that arose in their work. Watch the livestream from this discussion <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1lwpb3jRMQ">here</a>.
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/a-compilation-of-research-on-the-gig-economy'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/a-compilation-of-research-on-the-gig-economy</a>
</p>
No publisherAayush Rathi, Ambika Tandon, Sumandro ChattapadhyayGenderDigital LabourCovid19ResearchPlatform-WorkRAW ResearchresearchResearchers at WorkDigital Domestic Work2020-05-19T08:20:20ZBlog EntryFrom Health and Harassment to Income Security and Loans, India's Gig Workers Need Support
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/gig-workers-need-support
<b>Deemed an 'essential service' by most state governments, and thereby exempt from temporary suspension during the COVID-19 lockdown, food, groceries and other essential commodities have continued to be delivered by e-commerce companies and on-demand services. Actions to protect workers, who are taking on significant risks, have been far less forthcoming than those for customers. Zothan Mawii (Tandem Research), Aayush Rathi (CIS) and Ambika Tandon (CIS) spoke with the leaders of four workers' unions and labour researchers to identify recommended actions that public agencies and private companies may undertake to better support the urgent needs of gig workers in India. </b>
<p> </p>
<p><em>Originally published by <a href="https://thewire.in/business/covid-19-lockdown-delivery-gig-workers" target="_blank">The Wire</a> on April 29, 2020.</em></p>
<hr />
<p>Nearly two weeks ago, news broke that a Zomato delivery worker <a href="https://indianexpress.com/article/cities/delhi/pizza-man-who-tested-covid-19-positive-also-delivered-food-for-us-zomato-6365513/" target="_blank">tested positive for COVID-19</a> in New Delhi.</p>
<p>As many as 72 families in the south Delhi neighbourhood where he made deliveries have been quarantined, along with 17 other people he worked with. With the luxury of social distancing not extended to delivery workers, the incident further fuelled the apprehensions and uncertainties that they already were contending with. This was only a matter of time.</p>
<p>Deemed an “essential service” by most state governments, and thereby exempt from temporary suspension during the lockdown, food, groceries and other essential commodities have continued to be delivered by e-commerce companies and on-demand services including Swiggy, Zomato, BigBasket, Dunzo, Housejoy and Flipkart.</p>
<p>In choosing to continue operations, these companies have then rushed to enforce measures to put customers at ease. Such measures have included no-contact deliveries, card-only payments, and displaying temperature readings of workers.</p>
<p>Uber and Ola Cabs suspended services in most areas, and announced that in places where they are <a href="https://www.livemint.com/news/india/covid-19-uber-to-offer-cabs-for-essential-services-11586077100965.html" target="_blank">providing essential services</a>, workers have been instructed to wear masks and observe hygiene standards.</p>
<p>Swiggy and Zomato announced they were communicating with workers about safety and hygiene standards. Zomato has more recently <a href="https://twitter.com/deepigoyal/status/1252844887797428230" target="_blank">announced</a> that the company is making the Aarogya Setu app mandatory for workers to receive orders.</p>
<p><a href="https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/small-biz/startups/newsbuzz/covid-19-zomato-sets-up-funds-for-income-starved-daily-wage-workers-in-india/articleshow/74823838.cms" target="_blank">Relief funds</a> have been set up— donations to these funds continue to be solicited from the public and company executives have made grandiose gestures of <a href="https://www.carandbike.com/news/ola-introduces-drive-the-driver-fund-initiative-to-fund-relief-for-driver-community-2201886" target="_blank">contributing their salaries</a> to these funds.</p>
<p><strong>Stark reality</strong></p>
<p>The situation on the ground, however, tells another story. Actions to protect workers, who are taking on significant risks, have been far less forthcoming than those for customers. Workers are also bearing the brunt of arbitrary surveillance measures, like being asked to download the Aarogya Setu app, in addition to scrutiny they are placed under regularly. No such surveillance measures have been placed on customers. The priorities of on-demand service companies are clear: protect the bottom line at the expense of vulnerable workers.</p>
<p>In the absence of any concerted support from the companies, service workers could have looked to the state for relief. None has been forthcoming. Government action has pegged the targeting of relief works and services to those currently eligible for welfare programs and registered under its various schemes. Most gig workers, if not all, are ineligible as a result of the arbitrary conditions underlying these schemes.</p>
<p>We spoke to the leaders of four unions — including the Indian Federation of App-based Transport Workers (IFAT) and the Ola and Uber Drivers and Owners’ Association (OTU)– who represent gig workers across the country about the risks and vulnerabilities that they are having to contend with.</p>
<p>The precariousness characterising gig work could not be starker. A summary of the discussions can be found <a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/zothan-mawii-covid-19-and-relief-measures-for-gig-workers-in-india" target="_blank">here</a>, while the recommendations emerging from these discussions have been shared with government officials and company representatives and can be found in full <a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/covid-19-charter-of-recommendations" target="_blank">here</a>.</p>
<p>Below are some of the key recommendations that emerged from these discussions.</p>
<p><strong>Health</strong></p>
<p>Many on-demand service companies have not provided workers with any personal protective equipment (PPE), not even to delivery workers who face heightened risks of exposure to the coronavirus at nearly every step of the delivery process.</p>
<p>Some unions had to take to distributing masks, while many other workers continue to incur repeated costs to safeguard their own health. At a later stage, Swiggy announced that workers would be reimbursed for these purchases, but the process is so tedious that workers have found it untenable.</p>
<p>In addition, health awareness campaigns regarding safety measures and risks were also launched very late into the crisis, and then were not in vernacular languages and could not be comprehended by most workers.</p>
<p>In terms of insurance, most platforms have announced financial assistance for workers who test positive for COVID-19. This is aimed at covering their hospital expenses, as well as providing a daily stipend for a limited period. However, these come short as there are no provisions for OPD consultations or even for the cost of going and getting tested (losing one day’s work and then potentially one more before the results come in).</p>
<p>Additionally, the difficulty and expenses of obtaining a test could place an additional burden on workers — as without proof of a positive test, workers will be unable to access this fund in the first place. This is far from the robust health insurance that must be provisioned to ensure workers’ health and safety. Some platforms have made telemedicine services available for workers and while this is a step in the right direction, it must be backed by more tangible protections like covering part of the costs incurred for treatment.</p>
<p>Unions demand that companies provide adequate PPE to workers free of cost —masks, gloves, hand sanitisers, and soap. If platforms continue to ask workers to log in at significant risks to themselves and their families, provision of safety equipment is the basic minimum requirement that must be met immediately. This should also include a plan to ensure workers’ access to clean and hygienic sanitation facilities, as they may not have access to these on their delivery routes.</p>
<p>In addition, platforms must provide health insurance cover in addition to accident insurance coverage and hospitalisation cover for COVID-19. This should include OPD consultations.</p>
<p><strong>Income security and social protection</strong></p>
<p>With services suspended or demand really low, gig workers have either lost their income or seen it fall drastically — delivery workers’ daily earnings are as low as Rs 150-Rs 300 for a full day’s work.</p>
<p>Almost a month into the lockdown, there is little clarity as to who is eligible for the funds that companies have raised, and in what manner and or what purposes it will be disbursed.</p>
<p>Ola Cabs has offered interest free loans to drivers for relief in the short term, while some Uber drivers have received a Rs 3,000 grant from the company. If disbursed universally this would ensure availability of some liquidity for workers, although at this stage it remains unclear if all drivers are eligible to receive the grant.</p>
<p>Workers and unions are afraid that this grant might only be accessible for workers with high ratings, or those who have logged longer hours especially through the course of the lockdown period. This would effectively penalise workers for going to their homes for the lockdown, or being otherwise unable to work. Unions have estimated that not more than 20 percent of workers continue to remain active through the lockdown period.</p>
<p>Moreover, research has shown that workers are not necessarily aware of the protections made available to them as a result of the legalese that companies couch these terms in.</p>
<p>To ensure income security, platforms must make direct cash transfers to all workers who have logged in for at least two weeks between January and April 2020. This should be fixed according to minimum wage standards for skilled work in each state or at Rs 1,000 per day of the lockdown, and will have to be enforced with retrospective effect.</p>
<p>The former should be treated as an entitlement of workers while a portion of the latter can be asked to be repaid by the workers over the course of the next year. The fiscal responsibility for the cash transfers can be shared with governments. Governments can request the data held by these companies for the transfers.</p>
<p><strong>Rent and loans</strong></p>
<p>Some states have announced moratoriums on house rent but again there is no explicit mention of gig workers being included in this — and in states where such a move hasn’t been announced, gig workers must continue to pay house rent without having a source of income to rely on.</p>
<p>On the issue of loan repayments, the RBI allowed lending institutions to grant a three-month moratorium on retail loan repayments as a part of its COVID-19 regulatory package. On the one hand, availing of the moratorium will significantly increase the loan tenure and total amount to be repaid. On the other, several gig workers have reported that the enforcement of the moratorium itself has been piecemeal outside of public sector institutions.</p>
<p>Here again they have to make a Faustian bargain. The government should enforce the RBI’s directive strictly so gig workers get some relief.</p>
<p>Further, several companies themselves have leased vehicles to workers, for which payment of EMI must be ceased through the months of March to May to allow workers some relief without requiring the return of vehicles. Currently, EMIs have only been stalled on the condition of returning vehicles.</p>
<p><strong>Harassment</strong></p>
<p>Workers have been subject to harassment and discrimination by the police and customers alike, making it difficult to continue work. Despite the categorisation of delivery as an essential service, companies are finding it difficult to get easy access to movement passes in bulk, which implies that workers are penalised by being unable to work even if they are available. Companies have come out to allege harassment despite clear directions to allow movement of delivery workers, which points to gaps in enforcement.</p>
<p>Further, frequent barricading has implied that workers are not able to complete orders without diversions despite having passes for movement. Meanwhile, companies continue to mandate door-to-door delivery so as to ensure that customers are not inconvenienced at all. In some cases, this has implied that workers have to travel on foot in barricaded areas to deliver orders.</p>
<p>We recommend that companies urgently set up a helpline for workers to address such issues that may arise in delivery. We also recommend that companies proactively work with the government to map hotspots and containment zones and cease delivery in such areas. Thus far, there is no indication of any such measures by companies.</p>
<p><strong>Post-lockdown revival</strong></p>
<p>The lockdown brings to the fore just how vulnerable gig workers are.</p>
<p>This is a direct consequence of the gig work arrangements structured as disguised employment. Deeming workers as independent contractors and self-identifying as technology providers, on-demand service companies have washed their hands of the responsibility of providing labour protections and social security measures despite exerting extensive control over the conditions of work (such as wages, incentives) and the manner of its dispensing (such as the standard of work, hours of work).</p>
<p>Governments, too, have done little to recognise gig workers although they have been added as a category of workers in the draft Social Security code. Relief measures announced by the government exclude them. However, the government needs to intervene urgently in the current situation.</p>
<p>Platforms are likely to recover once the lockdown is lifted —home delivery services like BigBasket and Grofers have already seen their businesses skyrocket.</p>
<p>However, there is an urgent need to rebuild on-demand work as one that isn’t merely in the service of capital. A first step to that would be to reduce commissions to 5% for at least 6 months so that workers can recover financially. The unencumbered spending to capture market share at the expense of workers needs to be curbed. Enforcing these recommendations will require a coordinated effort between governments and on-demand service companies. As consumers, it is also our responsibility to question companies that do not take on the moral responsibilities of extending adequate worker protections.</p>
<p>With unemployment in the country skyrocketing, it may be the case that on-demand work opens up avenues to securing work. It then becomes imperative to ensure any future of work is one that is inclusive and accounts for the systemic changes that are now impossible to ignore.</p>
<p>While social distancing is a choice truly available to a privileged few, we need to ensure that social protection isn’t.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/gig-workers-need-support'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/gig-workers-need-support</a>
</p>
No publisherZothan Mawii (Tandem Research), Aayush Rathi (CIS), and Ambika Tandon (CIS)Gig WorkDigital LabourResearchPlatform-WorkNetwork EconomiesPublicationsResearchers at Work2020-05-19T06:57:36ZBlog EntryCOVID-19 Charter Of Recommendations on Gig Work
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/covid-19-charter-of-recommendations
<b>Tandem Research and the Centre for Internet and Society organised a webinar on 9 April 2020, with unions representing gig workers and researchers studying labour rights and gig work, to uncover the experiences of gig workers during the lockdown. Based on the discussion, the participants of the webinar have drafted a set of recommendations for government agencies and platform companies to safeguard workers’ well being. Here are excerpts from this charter of recommendation shared with multiple central and state government agencies and platforms companies.</b>
<p> </p>
<em><a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/zothan-mawii-covid-19-and-relief-measures-for-gig-workers-in-india" target="_blank">Summary of discussions</a> from the COVID-19 and Gig Economy webinar, authored by Zothan Mawii, Tandem Research</em>
<hr />
<h3><strong>Contributors</strong></h3>
<ol>
<li>Aayush Rathi, Ambika Tandon and Tasneem Mewa, The Centre for Internet and Society, India</li>
<li>Aditi Surie, Indian Institute for Human Settlements</li>
<li>Anita Gurumurthy and Nandini Chami, IT for Change</li>
<li>Astha Kapoor, Aapti Institute</li>
<li>Dharmendra Vaishnav, Indian Delivery Lions (IDL)</li>
<li>Janaki Srinivasan, International Institute of Information Technology, Bangalore</li>
<li>Kaveri Medappa, University of Sussex</li>
<li>Pradyumna Taduri, Fairwork Foundation</li>
<li>Rakhi Sehgal, Gurgaon Shramik Kendra</li>
<li>Sangeet Jain, Researcher</li>
<li>Shaik Salauddin, Indian Federation of App-based Transport Workers (IFAT)</li>
<li>Shohini Sengupta, Assistant Professor of Research, Jindal School of Banking and Finance</li>
<li>Simiran Lalvani, Independent researcher</li>
<li>Tanveer Pasha, Ola, Taxi 4 Sure and Uber Drivers and Owners’ Association (OTU)</li>
<li>P. Vignesh Ilavarasan, Researcher and professor, IIT Delhi</li>
<li>Vinay Sarathy, United Food Delivery Partners’ Union (UFDPU)</li>
<li>Vinay K. Sreenivasa, Advocate, Alternative Law Forum</li>
<li>Zothan Mawii, Iona Eckstein and Urvashi Aneja, Tandem Research</li></ol>
<h3><strong>Context</strong></h3>
<p>The nationwide lockdown in response to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has had a devastating impact on ‘gig workers’ working for on-demand service platforms such as those providing ride-hailing, home-based work and food delivery services and also e-commerce companies. Those driving for on-demand transportation companies have lost their source of livelihood as services remain suspended.</p>
<p>Workers for on-demand delivery and home-based services, on the other hand, have been deemed “essential” and continue to work although demand has fallen drastically. Earnings for delivery workers have fallen to as low as INR 100-300 per day for a whole day’s work. Workers face a high risk of contracting COVID-19 due to their exposure to multiple customers. Apprehensions are rising after a <a href="https://indianexpress.com/article/cities/delhi/pizza-man-who-tested-covid-19-positive-also-delivered-food-for-us-zomato-6365513/" target="_blank">delivery worker for Zomato</a> tested positive for COVID-19 in New Delhi. Demand has fallen further but delivery workers must continue to put themselves and their families’ health and safety at risk with limited or no provisions for personal protective equipment or other safety measures <a href="https://gadgets.ndtv.com/apps/news/swiggy-zomato-customer-advisory-coronavirus-outbreak-covid-19-india-2193038" target="_blank">offered by companies</a>.</p>
<p>The relief works announced by the central and state governments do not specifically provide for ‘gig workers’. At the same time, the measures announced by on-demand service companies are inadequate, ambiguous and inconsistent. The eligibility, manner and quantum of relief and the process of availing relief is unclear to workers.</p>
<p>We urge you to bolster the socio-economic and healthcare protections for ‘gig workers’ in India in light of the outbreak of COVID-19. Any efforts aimed at directing relief to ‘gig workers’ will have to be combined, involving the central and state governments and on-demand service companies.</p>
<p>We suggest that the measures adopted incorporate the recommendations outlined below. The recommendations have been drafted after discussion between civil society actors including labour unions from delivery and transportation sectors, researchers, and activists. A summary of the discussions leading to this charter of recommendations can be found <a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/zothan-mawii-covid-19-and-relief-measures-for-gig-workers-in-india" target="_blank">here</a>.</p>
<h3><strong>Charter of Recommendation on Gig Work</strong></h3>
<p><img src="https://cis-india.org/raw/covid19-charter-image-1/" alt="null" width="85%" /></p>
<p><img src="https://cis-india.org/raw/covid19-charter-image-2/" alt="null" width="85%" /></p>
<p><img src="https://cis-india.org/raw/covid19-charter-image-3/" alt="null" width="85%" /></p>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/covid-19-charter-of-recommendations'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/covid-19-charter-of-recommendations</a>
</p>
No publisherAayush Rathi and Ambika TandonResearchers at WorkGig WorkDigital LabourCovid19ResearchPlatform-WorkFuture of WorkFeaturedNetwork EconomiesHomepage2020-05-13T08:53:02ZBlog EntryZothan Mawii - COVID-19 and Relief Measures for Gig Workers in India
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/zothan-mawii-covid-19-and-relief-measures-for-gig-workers-in-india
<b>CIS is cohosted a webinar with Tandem Research on the impact of the COVID-19 response on the gig economy on 9 April 2020. It was a closed door discussion between representatives of workers' unions, labour activists, and researchers working on gig economy and workers' rights to highlight the demands of workers' groups in the transport, food delivery and care work sectors. We saw this as an urgent intervention in light of the disruption to the gig economy caused by the nationwide lockdown to limit proliferation of COVID-19. This is a summary of the discussions that took place in the webinar authored by Zothan Mawii, a Research Fellow at Tandem Research.</b>
<p> </p>
<em>Re-posted from <a href="https://tandemresearch.org/blog/covid19-and-relief-measures-for-gig-workers-in-india" target="_blank">Tandem Research</a> (April 14, 2020)</em>
<hr />
<h3><strong>List of Participants</strong></h3>
<ul>
<li>Aayush Rathi, Ambika Tandon and Tasneem Mewa, The Centre for Internet and Society, India (Co-organisers)</li>
<li>Zothan Mawii, Iona Eckstein and Urvashi Aneja, Tandem Research (Co-organisers)</li>
<li>Aditi Surie, Indian Institute for Human Settlements</li>
<li>Astha Kapoor, Aapti Institute</li>
<li>Dharmendra Vaishnav, Indian Delivery Lions (IDL)</li>
<li>Janaki Srinivasan, International Institute of Information Technology, Bangalore</li>
<li>Kaveri Kaliyanda, The University of Sussex</li>
<li>Pradyumna Taduri, Fairwork Foundation</li>
<li>Rakhi Sehgal, Independent researcher</li>
<li>Shaik Salauddin, Indian Federation of App-based Transport Workers (IFAT)</li>
<li>Simiran Lalvani, Independent researcher</li>
<li>Tanveer Pasha, Ola, Taxi 4 Sure and Uber Drivers and Owners’ Association (OTU)</li>
<li>Vinay Sarathy, United Food Delivery Partners’ Union (UFDPU)</li></ul>
<h3><strong>What relief measures do gig workers need during this pandemic?</strong></h3>
<p>The coronavirus pandemic has the world in its grips, and exposed the fragility of our economic systems and societal structures. The ensuing lockdown and physical distancing measures put in place by states to control the spread of the virus has impacted citizens differently and largely along class lines. While white collar workers remain relatively insulated as they work from home and have their essentials delivered, it has laid bare the vulnerabilities faced by India’s largely informal workforce. Since announcing the lockdown and the exodus of migrant workers from cities, the central and state governments in India have announced a number of relief measures for workers. However, those working on on-demand platforms have been excluded, while relief measures announced by a few platforms are inadequate to provide meaningful protection, leaving workers to fall at the cracks. Tandem Research and the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) hosted a webinar on 9th April with a group of union leaders and researchers to draft a charter of demands for platforms and government to ensure better protection for gig workers.</p>
<p>We heard from 4 union leaders about the situation facing workers on the ground and the shortcomings of the measures platforms claim to be taking to ensure their workers' safety and protection. This piece recaps some of the issues that were uncovered during the meeting.</p>
<p>Tanveer Pasha, President of Ola, Taxi 4 Sure and Uber Drivers and Owners’ Association (OTU) and Shaik Salauddin, President of the Indian Federation of App-based Transport Workers (IFAT) pointed out that while Ola Cabs and Uber claim to have instructed drivers on safety and hygiene measures and provided personal protective equipment (PPE), in reality their efforts have been wanting. The unions themselves have been conducting these awareness drives while IFAT purchased masks for drivers in Telangana. On-demand food delivery services have also not provided workers with any PPE, although they have been deemed essential workers and must continue to interact with customers and restaurants as they go about their tasks.</p>
<p><strong>High on the list of concerns facing gig workers was income security and the security of their jobs once the lockdown is lifted</strong>. Transportation companies Uber and Ola cab have suspended services although some drivers in Bengaluru, working with OTU have pivoted to delivering essential goods or transporting healthcare workers. The number of orders on on-demand food delivery services has dropped drastically too. Gig workers are earning little to no money during this time and have little recourse to savings or other safety nets.</p>
<p><strong>Unions are demanding that workers are paid a sum of money to tide them over during this time, which can be paid back to the platforms without interest</strong>. Unions argue that the commissions charged by platform companies can be used to cover these costs and even call for a reduction in the commission after the lockdown is lifted so that workers can recover financially.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.carandbike.com/news/ola-introduces-drive-the-driver-fund-initiative-to-fund-relief-for-driver-community-2201886" target="_blank">Ola Cabs</a> and <a href="https://yourstory.com/2020/03/coronavirus-zomato-feed-daily-wager" target="_blank">Zomato</a> have started funds to support their workers, taking donations from the public and from management, <strong>but workers are yet to see the benefits of the funds</strong>. With little transparency or clarity as to how these funds will operate, unions and workers are left wondering if this is solely a publicity move on the part of platforms. No announcements have been made regarding these funds - who is eligible for the fund? What are the criteria workers will have to meet to receive funds? Will workers have to pay the amount back to the platforms? If yes, will it carry interest? Will workers’ ratings or the hours they’ve logged on the app be used to determine their eligibility?</p>
<p>The government announced a moratorium on EMI and loan repayments, and has directed the RBI to set guidelines. Some state governments have also announced waivers on house rent payments. While these measures should have eased the pressure on gig workers, that hasn’t been the case - <strong>informal lenders and non banking financial companies (NBFC) have continued to ask workers for payments, flouting the RBI guidelines</strong>. In the absence of enforcement from the government, gig workers are unable to reap the benefits of directives designed to relieve the financial pressure they are currently under.</p>
<p><strong>Delivery workers find themselves in a double bind</strong> - they have been deemed essential workers by the government and on-demand services remain up and running. However, with few restaurants remaining open and few orders coming in, they are forced to work long hours for little money, and in risky conditions as roads remain deserted because of the lockdown. Dharmender Vaishnav (Indian Delivery Lions) and Kaveri Kaliyanda (PhD scholar, University of Sussex) raised pertinent questions over the classification of delivery workers as essential workers - <strong>Who are the workers essential for? At what personal cost to their health and safety must delivery workers continue to serve the interests of platforms and their middle class customer base?</strong> This categorisation also allows on-demand food delivery companies to absolve themselves of the responsibility for ensuring workers receive wages - they can claim services continued to operate and shift the blame onto workers for not logging in. Many of the workers who have gone back to their native towns and villages are anxious that their accounts will be deactivated for not logging in.</p>
<p>These issues facing gig workers will be drafted into a set of demands for platforms and government to provide relief. However, many questions remain unanswered. While these measures may address the hardships gig workers face in the short term, it doesn’t address long standing issues that characterise this line of work. The precarity of gig workers stems from the marginal space they occupy in the labour market. As ‘partners’ or ‘independent contractors’, they are not entitled to social protection measures from the government nor are platforms obliged to provide them. Unlike construction workers or domestic workers-who are also informal workers but enjoy recognition of an organised body and some legislative protections-they remain largely invisible to policymakers and government. Getting gig workers this type of recognition will be crucial to ensure their wellbeing. In Karnataka, there are efforts underway to introduce regulations similar to <a href="https://edd.ca.gov/Payroll_Taxes/ab-5.htm" target="_blank">California’s AB5 bill</a> that recognises gig workers as employers eligible for state and employer sponsored benefits. Gig workers have been included in the <a href="https://www.prsindia.org/sites/default/files/bill_files/Code%20on%20Social%20Security%2C%202019.pdf" target="_blank">draft Code on Social Security</a>. However, regulating platforms to make them more accountable and safeguarding worker welfare is long overdue. It is especially urgent at this time - the economic repression that will follow is likely to push more young jobseekers to the platform economy as a stop gap solution in the absence of suitable employment. The conditions of work platforms engender are far from ideal and should not become the model for jobs in the future.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/zothan-mawii-covid-19-and-relief-measures-for-gig-workers-in-india'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/zothan-mawii-covid-19-and-relief-measures-for-gig-workers-in-india</a>
</p>
No publisherZothan Mawii (Tandem Research)Gig WorkDigital LabourResearchPlatform-WorkFuture of WorkNetwork EconomiesResearchers at Work2020-05-19T05:41:57ZBlog EntryPlatformisation of Domestic Work in India: Report from a Multistakeholder Consultation
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/platformisation-of-domestic-work-in-india-report-from-a-multistakeholder-consultation
<b>On November 16, 2019, The Centre for Internet and Society invited officials from the Department of Labour (Government of Karnataka), members of domestic worker unions, domestic workers, company representatives, and civil society researchers at the Student Christian Mission of India House to discuss preliminary findings of an ongoing research project and facilitate a multistakeholder consultation to understand the contemporaneous platformisation of domestic work in India. Please find here a report from this consultation authored by Tasneem Mewa. </b>
<p> </p>
<h4>Report from the consultation: <a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/platformisation-of-domestic-work-in-india-report-february-2020/" target="_blank">Download</a> (PDF)</h4>
<h4>Agenda and details of the consultation: <a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/domestic-work-in-the-gig-economy-20191116" target="_blank">URL</a></h4>
<hr />
<h3>Introduction</h3>
<p>On November 16, 2019, The Centre for Internet and Society invited officials from the Department of Labour (Government of Karnataka), members of domestic worker unions, domestic workers, company representatives, and civil society researchers at the Student Christian Mission of India House to discuss preliminary findings of an
ongoing research project and facilitate a multistakeholder consultation to understand the contemporaneous platformisation of domestic work in India.</p>
<p>This collaborative project is being led by the the Centre for Internet and Society, India (CIS) together with Domestic Workers Rights Union (DWRU) in Bangalore. The research team comprises of Geeta Menon, Parijatha G.P., Sumathi, Radha K., and Zennathunnisa from DWRU, and Aayush Rathi and Ambika Tandon from CIS. Through a collective research process, this research team has explored the proliferation of digital platforms as a key intermediary in the domestic work sector, and in supporting or challenging deeply rooted structural inequities. For more information on the research project, see the project announcement published on the CIS website [1]. This work forms part of the Association for Progressive Communications’ <a href="https://www.apc.org/en/project/firn-feminist-internet-research-network" target="_blank">Feminist Internet Research Network</a> project, supported by the International Development Research Centre, Ottawa, Canada.</p>
<p>The multistakeholder consultation was structured in two segments: a) a presentation outlining initial observations and analysis, and b) a semi-moderated open discussion. Together, these sessions aimed to initiate conversations pertaining to the role of digital platforms, the legal classification of domestic and gig workers, and devising regulatory solutions to improve conditions of work. Preliminary findings were based on qualitative in-depth interviews with workers, platform companies, unions, skilling agencies, and labour officials in both Bengaluru and
New Delhi. Feminist approaches were employed in conducting these interviews, and participatory, consensual, reflexive and collaborative research was prioritised.</p>
<p>Situating the lived realities of domestic workers, the event sought to centre the voice of domestic workers in the consultation around the future of their work. The event had attendance from multilingual attendees. The original presentation was made in English, and Geeta Menon translated the presentation and the discussion that followed in Kannada [2].</p>
<p> </p>
<h3>Footnotes</h3>
<p>[1] Tandon, A., & Rathi, A. (2019, October 1). Digital mediation of domestic and care work in India: Project
Announcement. Retrieved from <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-domestic-work-india-announcement" target="_blank">https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-domestic-work-india-announcement</a></p>
<p>[2] Rathi, A. (2019, November 16). Domestic Work in the 'Gig Economy'. Retrieved from
<a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/domestic-work-in-the-gig-economy-20191116" target="_blank">https://cis-india.org/raw/domestic-work-in-the-gig-economy-20191116</a>; Tandon, A., & Rathi, A. (2019).
Domestic workers in the ‘gig’ economy [PowerPoint slides]. Retrieved from
<a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/domestic-work-and-platforms-presentation" target="_blank">https://cis-india.org/raw/domestic-work-and-platforms-presentation</a></p>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/platformisation-of-domestic-work-in-india-report-from-a-multistakeholder-consultation'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/platformisation-of-domestic-work-in-india-report-from-a-multistakeholder-consultation</a>
</p>
No publishertasneemDigital EconomyRAW EventsDigital LabourResearchResearchers at WorkDigital Domestic Work2020-02-17T09:46:52ZBlog EntryAnnouncing Selected Researchers: Welfare, Gender, and Surveillance
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/announcing-selected-researchers-welfare-gender-and-surveillance
<b>We published a Call for Researchers on January 10, 2020, to invite applications from researchers interested in writing a narrative essay that interrogates the modes of surveillance that people of LGBTHIAQ+ and gender non-conforming identities and sexual orientations are put under as they seek sexual and reproductive health (SRH) services in India. We received 29 applications from over 10 locations in India in response to the call, and are truly overwhelmed by and grateful for this interest and support. We eventually selected applications by 3 researchers that we felt aligned best with the specific objectives of the project. Please find below brief profile notes of the selected researchers.</b>
<p> </p>
<h4>Call for Researchers: <a href="https://cis-india.org/jobs/researchers-welfare-gender-surveillance-call" target="_blank">URL</a></h4>
<hr />
<h2>Kaushal Bodwal</h2>
<p>Kaushal is persuing his MPhil in Sociology at Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi. He completed his Master's in Sociology at Centre for the Study of Social Systems, Jawaharlal Nehru University after getting a BSc honors degree in Biomedical Sciences from Delhi University. He is one of the founding members of Hasratein: a queer collective, New Delhi. He has been an active spokesperson for Queer and Trans Rights in India and have been on a number of panel discussion on Trans Act 2019 in various campuses. He has also delivered a lecture series on Colonialism and Medicine in Ambedkar University, Kashmiri Gate, Delhi. His areas of interest are Sociology of medicine, gender and medicine, sexuality, religion and biomedical science, intersex studies.</p>
<p><a href="https://kafila.online/2019/08/27/queerness-as-disease-a-continuing-narrative-in-21st-century-india-kaushal-bodwal/" target="_blank">Queerness as disease – a continuing narrative in 21st century India</a>, Kafila, 27 August 2019</p>
<p><a href="https://www.firstpost.com/india/what-it-means-to-be-a-queer-and-live-under-regime-bent-on-remaking-india-on-terms-of-their-tradition-writes-queer-scholar-trolled-by-right-wing-7915391.html" target="_blank">What it means to be queer under a regime bent on remaking India on its own ideological terms</a>, Firstpost, 17 January 2020</p>
<h2>Rosamma Thomas</h2>
<p>Rosamma has worked both as a reporter and as an editor of news reports with newspapers. She currently writes reports for NGOs while also undertaking freelance reporting assignments. She is based in Pune.</p>
<p><a href="http://iced.cag.gov.in/wp-content/uploads/2016-17/NTP%2007/article.pdf " target="_blank">India's mining state steps up fight to rein in killer silicosis</a>, The Times of India, 29 June 2016</p>
<p><a href="https://www.newsclick.in/doctor-may-have-found-early-marker-silicosis-who-will-fund-him" target="_blank">Doctor may have found early marker for silicosis, but who will fund him?</a>, Newsclick, 18 July 2019</p>
<p><a href="https://www.newsclick.in/Asbestos-Poisoning-Raghunath-Manwar-Fight-Safer-Work-Conditions" target="_blank">Asbestos poisoning: Raghunath Manwar’s fight for safer work conditions</a>, Newsclick, 9 January 2020</p>
<h2>Shreya Ila Anasuya</h2>
<p>Shreya is a writer, editor, journalist and performance artist currently based in Calcutta. Her fiction explores the places where myth, memory, history and the performing arts meet. As a journalist, her work explores gender, sexuality, politics, culture and history. She has been published in <em>The Wire</em>, <em>Caravan</em>, <em>Scroll</em>, <em>Mint Lounge</em>, <em>Deep Dives</em>, <em>GenderIT</em>, <em>Helter Skelter</em>, and many more. She is the editor of the digital publication <a href="https://medium.com/skin-stories" target="_blank"><em>Skin Stories</em></a>, housed at the non-profit Point of View. She is the writer and narrator of ‘Gul - a story in text, song and dance’ which has been performed in several cities in India. She was a Felix Scholar at SOAS, University of London, from where she has an MA in Anthropology. For a full portfolio, please click <a href="http://porterfolio.net/dervishdancing" target="_blank">here</a> or visit her <a href="https://www.shreyailaanasuya.com/" target="_blank">website</a>.</p>
<hr />
<p>This project is led by Ambika Tandon, Aayush Rathi, and Sumandro Chattapadhyay at the Centre for Internet and Society, and is supported by a grant from Privacy International.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/announcing-selected-researchers-welfare-gender-and-surveillance'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/announcing-selected-researchers-welfare-gender-and-surveillance</a>
</p>
No publishersumandroWelfare GovernancePrivacyGenderResearchGender, Welfare, and PrivacyResearchers at Work2020-02-13T15:04:24ZBlog EntryRoundtable on India’s Gig-work Economy
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/india-gig-work-economy-roundtable
<b>Working in the gig-economy has been associated with economic vulnerabilities. However, there are also moral and affective vulnerabilities as workers find their worth measured everyday by their performance of—and at—work and in every interaction and movement. This roundtable discussion marks the end of our series on 'India’s Gig-work Economy' published by the Platypus blog of the Committee on the Anthropology of Science, Technology, and Computing (CASTAC). In this discussion, the researchers reflect on methods, challenges, inter-subjectivities and possible future directions for research on the topic. Listen to the audio track below or read the transcript for the full discussion.</b>
<p> </p>
<p><em>Originally published by the <a href="http://blog.castac.org/category/series/indias-gig-work-economy/" target="_blank">Platypus blog</a> of CASTAC on September 5, 2019.</em></p>
<h4>Full <a href="http://blog.castac.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/09/CASTAC-roundtable-transcript.docx" target="_blank">transcript</a> of the roundtable in English.</h4>
<hr />
<iframe src="https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/q4G4v46ZlOU" frameborder="0" height="315" width="100%"></iframe>
<h3><strong>Excerpts from the roundtable</strong></h3>
<h4>Part 1: On continuities between traditional and newer forms of work in cab-driving</h4>
<p><strong>Anushree (researcher, taxi-driving in Mumbai):</strong> “Something that came out during field work was the flow of workers from traditional services to app-based services which kind of happened in phases and all these platforms have played a different function in the history of this. While the radio taxis were more important in teaching workers to become professionals in the service economy the new platforms have given them a larger customer base and hired access to audience.”</p>
<p><strong>Sarah (researcher, taxi-driving in Delhi):</strong> “Prior to Ola and Uber there were radio cabs, but they were not the same phenomenon obviously. They used to work in specific pockets better, such as the airport route.”</p>
<h4>Part 2: Regulation of platform companies and platform-work</h4>
<p>The State’s response to disruptive technologies in India has always accounted for worker groups as electoral constituents as well. This means that there are no neat divisions between older black and yellow cabs and the newer ride-hailing app-based cabs. To pacify the threatened black and yellow cab drivers, they were accorded a special category on hailing apps as well:</p>
<p><strong>Anushree:</strong> So there were a lot of issues around the emergence of the app-based platforms and services and how they were disrupting the existing arrangements so in a bid to pacify the yellow and black cab drivers who are already operating in the city, these platform companies decided to go ahead and provide access to traditional taxi services as well. But also the related development that happened there is at the Maharashtra state government also provided another app to the black and yellow Cab drivers and as far as I found out during my fieldwork there hasn’t been any resolution on that front and most black and yellow cab drivers also use the State government made app but they also log into apps and every time I tried to book a black and yellow cab using Ola and Uber I could not get one.</p>
<h4>Part 3: On motivations and perceptions of gig-work</h4>
<p><strong>Simiran (researcher, food-delivery work in Mumbai):</strong> “So, I felt that these non app-based workers had difficulty joining apps because they lack domicile proof to prove they live in the city. There is also a perception that one needs to be English speaking. I am not implying that app-based workers have no rural roots or are all English speaking or educated but this is the perception that was held by non-app workers that was interesting.”</p>
<p><strong>Rajendra (researcher, food-delivery work in Delhi):</strong> “In case of the food-delivery workers in Delhi, they push them to deliver orders on time. This pressure makes them violate traffic rules, they ride on pavements, they break traffic signals. This also disrupts the social understanding of how to move in the city.”</p>
<h4>Part 4: On studying the gig-economy in India: how did you recruit, why?</h4>
<p><strong>Noopur:</strong> Why not order and recruit because so many people seem to be taking this pathway to approach gig-economy workers?</p>
<p><strong>Simiran:</strong> “…One thing is that I have never ordered food online so I wanted to keep it a bit blind that way but also the other thing is that I did not want my first interaction with the worker to be as a consumer or in a consumer-provider relationship. So, I was searching on Youtube, looking for city names and looking for search terms such as strikes or protests. Looking for videos about these things and their views on the companies…This was very interesting because there were also people from non-metro cities, from small towns doing this work who were also very eager to speak to me. They were expressive already and wanting to speak…”</p>
<p><strong>Anushree:</strong> “Apart from them fleet owners and union members were very eager to talk to us. They saw the study as a way to put their voice out. I had to establish my identity as well as a researcher. I used Telegram and facebook groups extensively…I think I relied on Telegram the most. It was also surprising that such a diverse set of people were on that platform. I had never used Telegram before this project but the comfort levels of all the people using it was really surprising. Drivers in the union members group was sort of surprising to me, they were posting images from the road, they were posting audio notes, they were moderating conversations in the group. Telegram was my major source of responses and I also got to know what was happening on the ground.”</p>
<p><strong>Sarah:</strong> “So, when you identify as a researcher and ask them these questions there is a certain expectation of allyship. So, I started asking them what they think is a good customer. That was a good entry point to assuring them that I was on their side. Some of them were still very cautious. We were talking about things like drunk women and they would be quick to tell me that not all women are bad. Or not all customers are bad. But discussing customers and their behavior was generally a good way to connect with them…”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/india-gig-work-economy-roundtable'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/india-gig-work-economy-roundtable</a>
</p>
No publisherNoopur Raval, Anushree Gupta, Rajendra Jadhav, Sarah Zia, and Simiran LalvaniGenderDigital LabourResearchPlatform-WorkFuture of WorkNetwork EconomiesResearchers at WorkMapping Digital Labour in India2020-05-19T06:36:34ZBlog EntryNoopur Raval and Rajendra Jadhav - Power Chronography of Food-Delivery Work
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/noopur-raval-rajendra-jadhav-power-chronography-of-food-delivery-work
<b> Working in the gig-economy has been associated with economic vulnerabilities. However, there are also moral and affective vulnerabilities as workers find their worth measured everyday by their performance of—and at—work and in every interaction and movement. This essay by Noopur Raval and Rajendra Jadhav is the fourth among a series of writings by researchers associated with the 'Mapping Digital Labour in India' project at the CIS, supported by the Azim Premji University, that were published on the Platypus blog of the Committee on the Anthropology of Science, Technology, and Computing (CASTAC).</b>
<p> </p>
<p><em>Originally published by the <a href="http://blog.castac.org/category/series/indias-gig-work-economy/" target="_blank">Platypus blog</a> of CASTAC on August 15, 2019.</em></p>
<p><em>The ethnographic research was conducted by Rajendra and this short essay was collaboratively produced by the field researcher and Noopur (co-PI). The accompanying audio recording has been produced by Noopur.</em></p>
<h4>Summary of the essay in Hindi: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPIfIvp2000" target="_blank">Audio</a> (YouTube) and <a href="http://blog.castac.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/08/Rajendra-Hindi-Transcript-.docx" target="_blank">Transcript</a> (text)</h4>
<hr />
<p>This post presents the observations around the design of temporality within app-based food-delivery platforms in India. It draws on semi-structured interviews by field-researcher Rajendra and his time spent “hanging out” with food-delivery workers who are also often referred to as “hunger saviors” and “partners” in the platform ecosystem in India. Like in the <a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/simiran-lalvani-workers-fictive-kinship-relations-app-based-food-delivery-mumbai" target="_blank">earlier post by Simiran Lalvani</a> on food-delivery workers in Mumbai, we also observed that app-based work was structured and monitored along similar lines. However, in this post, we go into a detailed description of how work-time and temporality of work are configured in order to fulfill the promises that app companies make to customers in urban India. Before such app-based services came into existence, there were some popular claims around delivery-time (“30 minutes or free pizza” by Domino’s) but the entire process of food preparation, travel and delivery had not been made as transparent and quantified in a granular way as they are now through popular apps such as Swiggy, Zomato and UberEats. While such companies exist in the other parts of the world and make the promise of “anytime work” to potential workers, as we observed during fieldwork, app-based food delivery-work is anything but flexible. People could indeed start working at any time of the day, but it had real consequences to earn a living wage. While they were free to logout or switch off their app also at their convenience, they would be constantly nudged in the form of calls by warehouse managers as well as through text messages telling them how they were missing out on earnings. It is also important to note that, in India especially, food-delivery as a standardized form of work, exists in a regulatory grey space. In that sense, there is not a lot of clarity on the maximum limit of working hours in a day and in a week. In the following sections, I provide details about how work is structured temporally in this system.</p>
<h3><strong>Shift-based Work</strong></h3>
<p>When Rajendra spoke to workers in the Delhi-NCR region, they reported that they could choose to work different kinds of shifts like part-time (8 AM – 3 PM or 7 PM – 12 AM), full-time (11 AM -11 PM) or ultra full-time (7 AM -11 PM). While workers could pick their timings or slots on weekdays, it was mandatory to work on the weekends. As mentioned earlier, while companies claimed that riders could log in and out at any time of the day, their pay depended on the number of deliveries they make and the hours they worked. But it’s not that simple. It is not just the wholly quantified units (an hour, a day) that become exigent and overbearing; it was in fact how these rules demanded high levels of alertness and care from the workers. Any kind of carelessness, not paying attention (to time, text message announcements) could be detrimental to claiming pay for the work they had done already. For instance, like a worker described, if he even logged out a minute before the end of the shift, he would lose out on his incentive. Another worker added,</p>
<blockquote>If you log off even five minutes before eleven (pm), a call comes from the company and they ask you to log back in immediately.</blockquote>
<p>In such cases, those managing the backend systems even make these calls to shield workers from the eventuality of losing pay and the hassle of resolving disputed payments later by simply urging and pushing workers to stay on-time and online. In that sense, there is not only an expectation of punctuality and always being-on as a desirable thing, but it is also imperative for the workers to meet these expectations while they interact with the app itself.</p>
<p> </p>
<img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/CIS_APU_DigitalLabour_PlatypusEssays_NRRJ_01.jpg/image_preview" alt="CIS_APU_DigitalLabour_PlatypusEssays_NR-RJ_01" class="image-left image-inline" title="CIS_APU_DigitalLabour_PlatypusEssays_NR-RJ_01" />
<h5>Sticker provided by a food-delivery platform to promote its brand. <em>Source: Noopur Raval, author</em>.</h5>
<p> </p>
<h3><strong>Time of Eating, Time of Sleeping</strong></h3>
<p>Typically, restaurants and food businesses in Indian cities are heavily regulated, especially in terms of closing times. While these rules differ for each city, in and around Delhi, restaurants are expected to close down by 10 pm, and those that seek to remain open for longer need special permissions. With the arrival of app-based delivery companies, the time of food production and consumption has stretched. Also, with the right kinds of permits, cloud kitchens and home-based producers are also allowed to operate through these platforms, thus making multiple food choices and cuisines available until as late as 4 am in the morning. Whose consumption needs are being serviced at these late hours is a question beyond the scope of this post, but it also means that there is opportunity/compulsion for workers to stay up late at night, making deliveries. Not surprisingly, it is also often these late-night shifts that are better incentivized, not just money-wise but also because there is less traffic at night (a constant source of stress in day-time shifts). As other studies have also noted, platform companies, especially food-delivery services that mostly engage bike and scooter riders (Lee et al. 2016) globally, enforce this cruel temporal inversion where being a service-worker in this economy also means working on others’ (customers’) time of leisure and/or comfort. Especially in Delhi, where the winters get brutally cold, ironically, the profitability of delivering hot food increases. However, it is not that straightforward. One worker Rajendra spoke to in March (springtime) explained,</p>
<blockquote>I am not going to work with any of the food delivery company from April onwards because of the hot summer in Delhi, it is very difficult to ride in a day time of summer.</blockquote>
<h3><strong>Temporary Work</strong></h3>
<p>Temporariness is the dominant temporal fate of gig-work at-large—workers in our study (food-delivery as well as ride-hailing) often insisted how gig-work was only temporary until they could become business-owners, find a better job, or fund their education and so on. However, as we observed in food-delivery work, there was also a lot of seasonal movement of workers, a reminder of the contextual, ecological and urban migration continuities that inform, support and shape who comes to the reserve force/waiting zone of gig-work. In classic labour terms, the push and pull factors that move people out of agricultural labour or other kinds of work must be studied with an eye to new forms of easy-entry jobs such as gig-work. On the other hand, there were also other considerations on time such as responsibilities and social obligations to family that made food-delivery work (fast paced, inhering a certain amount of recklessness and the willingness to put oneself at risk) less attractive to some (older men and women with a family) and more to some others (younger single men). This made us think of the way in which Sarah Sharma (2011) emphasizes temporal power over speed discourses (she offers the term ‘power-chronography’) where, the ways in which food-delivery work is temporally arranged, distributed and rewarded, privileges certain actors (the customers but also some kinds of workers) over others in the city’s labour market.</p>
<h3><strong>References</strong></h3>
<p>Lee, Do J., et al. “Delivering (in) justice: Food delivery cyclists in New York City.” <em>Bicycle Justice and Urban Transformation</em>. Routledge, 2016. 114-129.</p>
<p>Sharma, Sarah. “It changes space and time: introducing power-chronography.” <em>Communication Matters: Materialist Approaches to Media, Mobility and Networks</em> (2011): 66-77.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/noopur-raval-rajendra-jadhav-power-chronography-of-food-delivery-work'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/noopur-raval-rajendra-jadhav-power-chronography-of-food-delivery-work</a>
</p>
No publisherNoopur Raval and Rajendra JadhavDigital LabourResearchPlatform-WorkNetwork EconomiesPublicationsResearchers at WorkMapping Digital Labour in India2020-05-19T06:33:39ZBlog EntryCall for Researchers: Welfare, Gender, and Surveillance
http://editors.cis-india.org/jobs/researchers-welfare-gender-surveillance-call
<b>We are inviting applications for two researchers. Each researcher is expected to write a narrative essay that interrogates the modes of surveillance that people of LGBTHIAQ+ and gender non-conforming identities and sexual orientations are put under as they seek sexual and reproductive health (SRH) services in India. The researchers are expected to undertake field research in the location they are based in, and reflect on lived experiences gathered through field research as well as their own experiences of doing field research. Please read the sections below for more details about the work involved, the timeline for the same, and the application process for this call.</b>
<p> </p>
<h4>Call for Researchers: <a href="https://github.com/cis-india/website/raw/master/docs/CIS_Researchers_WelfareGenderSurveillance_Call_20200110.pdf" target="_blank">Download</a> (PDF)</h4>
<hr />
<h3><strong>Description of the Work</strong></h3>
<p>Each researcher is expected to author a narrative essay that presents and reflects on lived experiences of people of LGBTHIAQ+ and gender non-conforming identities and sexual orientations as they seek sexual and reproductive health (SRH) services in India. We expect the essay to contribute to a larger body of knowledge around the increasing focus on data-driven initiatives for public health provision in the country and elsewhere. Accordingly, the researcher may respond to any one or more than one of the following questions, within the context of the geographical focus as specified by the researcher:</p>
<ul>
<li>What are the modes of surveillance, especially in terms of generation and exploitation of digital data, experienced by people of marginalised gender identities and sexual orientations in India, as they avail of sexual and reproductive healthcare?</li>
<li>How are the lived experiences of underserved populations, such as people of marginalised gender identities and sexual orientations, shaped by gendered surveillance while accessing sexual and reproductive services?</li>
<li>What are the modes of governance and gender ideologies that have mediated the increasing datafication of such provision?</li></ul>
<p>We expect the researchers to draw on a) the Indian Supreme Court’s framing of privacy in India, as a fundamental right, and its implications; and b) apply and/or build on feminist conceptualisations of privacy. Further, we expect the researchers to respond to the uncertain landscape of legal rights accessible to people of LGBTHIAQ+ and gender non-conforming identities and sexual orientations, especially in the current context shaped by The Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, 2019.</p>
<p>The researchers will undertake field research in locations of their choice, conduct interviews and discussions with people of LGBTHIAQ+ and gender non-conforming identities and sexual orientations seeking such services, and conduct formal and informal interviews with officials and personnel associated with public and private sector agencies involved in the provision of SRH services.</p>
<h3><strong>Eligibility and Application Process</strong></h3>
<h4>We specifically encourage people of LGBTHIAQ+ and gender non-conforming identities and sexual orientations to submit their applications for this call for researchers.</h4>
<p>We are seeking applications from individuals who:</p>
<ul>
<li>Are based in the place where field study is to be undertaken, for the duration of the study;</li>
<li>Are fluent in the main regional language(s) spoken in the city where the study will be conducted, and in English (especially written);</li>
<li>Preferably have a postgraduate degree (current students should also apply) in social or technical sciences, journalism, or legal studies (undergraduate degree-holders with research or work experience should also apply); and</li>
<li>Have previous research and writing experiences on issues at the intersection of sexual and reproductive health, gender justice and women’s rights, and health informatics or digital public health.</li></ul>
<p>Please send the following documents (in text or PDF formats) to <strong>raw@cis-india.org by Friday, January 24</strong> to apply for the researcher positions:</p>
<ul>
<li>Brief CV with relevant academic and professional information;</li>
<li>Two samples of academic/professional (published/unpublished) writing by the applicant; and</li>
<li>A brief research proposal (around 500 words) that should specify the scope (geographical and conceptual), research questions, and motivation of the essay to be authored by the applicant.</li></ul>
<p>All applicants will be informed of the selection decisions by Friday, January 31.</p>
<h3><strong>Timeline of the Work</strong></h3>
<p><strong>February 3-7</strong> CIS research team will have a call with each researcher to plan out the work to be undertaken by them</p>
<p><strong>February - March</strong> Researchers are to undertake field research, as proposed by the researchers and discussed with the CIS research team</p>
<p><strong>March 27</strong> Researchers are to submit a full draft essay (around 3,000 words)</p>
<p><strong>March 30 - April 3</strong> CIS research team will have call with each researcher to discuss the shared draft essays and make plans towards their finalisation</p>
<p><strong>May 15</strong> Researchers are to submit the final essay (around 5,000 words, without footnotes and references)</p>
<p>As part of this project, CIS will organise two discussion events in Bengaluru and New Delhi during April-June (tentatively). Event dates are to be decided in conversation with the researchers, and they will be invited to present their works in the same.</p>
<h3><strong>Remuneration</strong></h3>
<p>Each researcher will be paid a remuneration of Rs. 1,00,000 (inclusive of taxes) over two equal installments: first on signing of the agreement in February 2020, and second on submission of the final essay in May 2020.</p>
<p>We will also reimburse local travel expenses of each researcher upto Rs. 10,000, and translations and transcriptions expense (if any) incurred by each researcher upto Rs. 10,000. These reimbursements will be made on the basis of expense invoices shared by the researcher.</p>
<h3><strong>Description of the Project</strong></h3>
<p>Previous research conducted by CIS on the subject of sexual and reproductive health (SRH) services in India observes that there is a complex web of surveillance, or ‘dataveillance’, around each patient as they avail of SRH services from the state. In this current project, we are aiming to map the ecosystem of surveillance around SRH services as their provision becomes increasingly ‘data-driven’, and explore its implications for patients and beneficiaries.</p>
<p>Through this project, we are interested in documenting the roles played by both the public and the private sector actors in this ecosystem of health surveillance. We understand the role of private sector actors as central to state provision of sexual and reproductive health services, especially through the institutionalisation of data-driven health insurance models, as well as through extensive privatisation of public health services. By studying semi-private, private, and public medical establishments including hospitals, primary/community health centres and clinics, we aim to develop a comparative analysis of surveillance ecosystems across the three establishment types.</p>
<p>This project is led by Ambika Tandon, Aayush Rathi, and Sumandro Chattapadhyay at the Centre for Internet and Society, and is supported by a grant from Privacy International.</p>
<h3><strong>Indicative Reading List</strong></h3>
<p><em>We are sharing below a short and indicative list of readings that may be useful for potential applicants</em>.</p>
<p>Aayush Rathi, <a href="https://www.epw.in/engage/article/indias-digital-health-paradigm-foolproof" target="_blank">Is India's Digital Health System Foolproof?</a> (2019)</p>
<p>Aayush Rathi and Ambika Tandon, <a href="https://www.epw.in/engage/article/data-infrastructures-inequities-why-does-reproductive-health-surveillance-india-need-urgent-attention" target="_blank">Data Infrastructures and Inequities: Why Does Reproductive Health Surveillance in India Need Our Urgent Attention?</a> (2019)</p>
<p>Ambika Tandon, <a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/ambika-tandon-december-23-2018-feminist-methodology-in-technology-research" target="_blank">Feminist Methodology in Technology Research: A Literature Review</a> (2018)</p>
<p>Ambika Tandon, <a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/big-data-reproductive-health-india-mcts" target="_blank">Big Data and Reproductive Health in India: A Case Study of the Mother and Child Tracking System</a> (2019)</p>
<p>Anja Kovacs, <a href="https://genderingsurveillance.internetdemocracy.in/theory/" target="_blank">Reading Surveillance through a Gendered Lens: Some Theory</a> (2017)</p>
<p>Lindsay Weinberg, <a href="https://www.westminsterpapers.org/articles/10.16997/wpcc.258/" target="_blank">Rethinking Privacy: A Feminist Approach to Privacy Rights after Snowden</a> (2017)</p>
<p>Nicole Shephard, <a href="https://www.apc.org/en/pubs/big-data-and-sexual-surveillance" target="_blank">Big Data and Sexual Surveillance</a> (2016)</p>
<p>Sadaf Khan, <a href="https://deepdives.in/data-bleeding-everywhere-a-story-of-period-trackers-8766dc6a1e00" target="_blank">Data Bleeding Everywhere: A Story of Period Trackers</a> (2019)</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/jobs/researchers-welfare-gender-surveillance-call'>http://editors.cis-india.org/jobs/researchers-welfare-gender-surveillance-call</a>
</p>
No publisherambikaWelfare GovernancePrivacyGenderGender, Welfare, and PrivacyResearchers at Work2020-02-13T15:05:37ZBlog EntryAnushree Gupta - Ladies ‘Log’: Women’s Safety and Risk Transfer in Ridehailing
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/anushree-gupta-ladies-log-women-safety-risk-transfer-ridehailing
<b>Working in the gig-economy has been associated with economic vulnerabilities. However, there are also moral and affective vulnerabilities as workers find their worth measured everyday by their performance of—and at—work and in every interaction and movement. This essay by Anushree Gupta is the third among a series of writings by researchers associated with the 'Mapping Digital Labour in India' project at the CIS, supported by the Azim Premji University, that were published on the Platypus blog of the Committee on the Anthropology of Science, Technology, and Computing (CASTAC). The essay is edited by Noopur Raval, who co-led the project concerned.</b>
<p> </p>
<p><em>Originally published by the <a href="http://blog.castac.org/category/series/indias-gig-work-economy/" target="_blank">Platypus blog</a> of CASTAC on August, 1, 2019.</em></p>
<h4>Summary of the essay in Hindi: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ty0a_u9lzCE" target="_blank">Audio</a> (YouTube) and <a href="http://blog.castac.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/07/Blog-Post-Audio-Transcript-Devanigiri.docx" target="_blank">Transcript</a> (text)</h4>
<hr />
<p>Mumbai, India’s financial capital, is also often considered one of the safest cities for women in India, especially in contrast with New Delhi which is infamously dubbed as the “rape capital” within the country. Sensationalised incidents of harassment, molestation and rape serve as anecdotal references and warnings to other women who dare to venture out alone even during the daytime. The Delhi government recently proposed a policy for free transport for women in public buses and metro trains with the objective of increasing women’s affordability and access and to ensure safety in public transportation. [1] Despite such measures to increase women’s visibility and claims to public utilities and spaces, women who use public transport have historically suffered groping and stalking on buses and trains, which uphold self-policing and surveillance narratives. The issue of women’s safety in India remains a priority as well as a good rhetorical claim and goal to aspire to, for public and private initiatives. Ironically, the notion of women’s safety is also advanced to increase moral policing and censure women’s access to public spaces, which also perpetuates exclusion of other marginalised citizens (Phadke 2007). Further, and crucially, whose safety is being imagined, prioritized and designed for (which class of women are central to the imagination of the safety discourse) is often a point of contention.</p>
<p>In this context, ridehailing services offered by Uber and Ola have come to be frequently cited as safer and more reliable options for women to traverse the cityspace, compared to overcrowded buses and trains. Their mobile applications promise accountability and traceability, enforcing safety standards by way of qualified and well-groomed drivers, SOS buttons and location-sharing features. However, it has increasingly become common knowledge that these alternatives are prone to similar, if not worse, categories of crimes against women. While reports of violence against women in cabs have mostly been outside of Mumbai, due to “platform-effects,” such incidents have widespread ramifications for drivers across the country. Cab drivers who operate via cab aggregator platforms have come under heavy scrutiny not only by the corporate and legal infrastructures of aggregator companies but also in the public eye. On the other hand, platform companies independently, and in partnership with city and state administrations, continue to launch “social impact” initiatives aimed at women’s safety as well as employment (through taxi-driving training). [2] Incidents of violence against women present jarring narratives of risk not only for female passengers but also for the platform-workers, both of whom are responsible for abiding by the constructed notions of safety for women in urban spaces.</p>
<p>In this post, I explore women’s presence as workers as well as passengers/customers in the ridehailing platform economy, in the context of women’s safety, situating the analysis with a focus on Mumbai. The related discourses around risk for female commuters give rise to various interventions and women-centric services through female-only cab enterprises and training more women drivers to mitigate this risk. Through these, I will think through the figure of the woman in the ridehailing economy in Mumbai and by extension in India.</p>
<h3><strong>Platforms in Gendered Cityscapes</strong></h3>
<p>Mumbai’s public transport is comprised of the local train network, BEST buses and auto rickshaws, with the metro being the newest addition to the mix. Unlike in most of India, kaali-peelis (black-yellow cabs) have been a permanent feature of Mumbai’s landscape since the 1950s and, taking a cab is not necessarily a luxury. Against this backdrop, platform companies have sought to make the claims of democratizing public transport and providing safer travel options to women in the city.</p>
<p>Cab drivers on ridehailing platforms in Mumbai are usually domestic male migrants or Muslim drivers from within and outside the city, who are more often than not overworked and stressed due to the falling incomes and rising debts. It is important to recognise the ‘veiled masculinities’ (Chopra 2006) which labor to service the emergent platform economy and the hierarchies of caste and class which are sustained through their labor. The incongruence between the masculinity of a working class man and the demands of the service economy (Nixon 2009) exacerbates emotional pressures in customer-facing services, which can offer an explanation for angry outbursts and conflicts between drivers and customers.</p>
<p> </p>
<img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/CIS_APU_DigitalLabour_PlatypusEssays_AG_01.jpg/image_preview" alt="CIS_APU_DigitalLabour_PlatypusEssays_AG_01" class="image-left image-inline" title="CIS_APU_DigitalLabour_PlatypusEssays_AG_01" />
<h5>Uber’s ad on a billboard in Mumbai promises earnings of more than Rs. 1 lakh per month. Using a woman’s image illustrates the extent of their potential for transforming lives and livelihoods. <em>Source: Drivers’ Union Telegram Group</em>.</h5>
<p> </p>
<p>While Uber and Ola claim that a large number of women drivers work on their platforms, actual experiences of passengers and the male drivers I spoke to, suggested otherwise. Ironically, mass driver-training programs are seen as a quick way to make low-skilled and migrant male workers employable in Indian cities while, despite public-private partnerships to train women, it has been impossible to retain women drivers due to stereotypical perceptions of gender and persistent social stigma. [3] This made the ridehailing passenger woman (upper middle class, affording professional) a stakeholder to design for, while female drivers (but all female workers) appeared as liability for platforms.</p>
<p>These narratives speak directly to the construction of insecurity and risk for women (Berrington and Jones 2002) on public transport systems as they highlight vulnerabilities due to public exposure of women’s bodies. Pandering to a moral panic standpoint and creating personalised or ‘inside’ safe spaces for women to manage risk (Green and Singleton 2006), these platforms can then be imagined as a boundary-setting exercise. Access to public spaces is encouraged but it is delimited by confining the woman’s body to a singular vehicle in the custody of the cab driver. Autonomy and access afforded by the platform manages to transform women—particularly upper class and upper caste women who can afford these services—into potential customers. Their agency is bounded though by tasking the driver to ferry her across the otherwise hostile cityscape filled with ‘unfriendly bodies’ (Phadke 2013). The production of the city’s gendered space goes hand in hand with the confinement/erasure of female bodies in the public space as they embody patriarchal norms even in a city as ‘progressive’ as Mumbai. As demonstrated by studies mapping the movement of women in the city (Ranade 2007), the spatio-temporal factors lend themselves to creating gendered bodies in order to keep patriarchal norms intact. These norms, as I argue in this post, are detrimental not just to women but also other marginalised sections of the urban population, in this case platform workers.</p>
<h3><strong>Terms of Safety</strong></h3>
<p>Male drivers’ social identities as lower class, lower caste individuals do not inspire confidence in the standards of safety boasted by these companies in the eyes of their predominantly upper caste and upper class customer base. Risk to female passengers is further exaggerated due to the closed space in which the service is provided, highlighting the proximity to a potential aggressor by way of these platforms. In specific situations wherein a female passenger is inebriated or is travelling alone at night, drivers report being extra cautious and helpful towards her. Many respondents proudly mention going out of their way to make sure women get home safely, for instance, prolonging waiting time or escorting them to the entrance of their residential buildings or involving the security guard at the gate.</p>
<p>However, there have also been cases wherein the driver has been under scrutiny either by an overly careful passenger or by the public. One driver reported being surrounded by a crowd at a traffic signal, only to realise that he was being suspected of foul play with the female passenger who had fallen asleep on the backseat of the car. In contrast to their western counterparts, the class differences between drivers and passengers in India exacerbate doubts, fears and insecurities in India which tend to take a caste-purity angle as well. The woman’s body undergoes an exchange of custody in these instances wherein she is deemed incapable of taking care of herself and requires external assistance. Imagining a deterrence effect of ridesharing services (Park et. al 2017) reinforces the logic of guardianship and protectionism for the woman. The risk of carrying her in the vehicle in these situations is borne by the cab driver, operating under a framework of overbearing protectiveness which holds him culpable for any misgivings, assumed or otherwise.</p>
<p> </p>
<img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/CIS_APU_DigitalLabour_PlatypusEssays_AG_02.jpg/image_preview" alt="CIS_APU_DigitalLabour_PlatypusEssays_AG_02" class="image-left image-inline" title="CIS_APU_DigitalLabour_PlatypusEssays_AG_02" />
<h5>Cautionary listicles advise women to not take a cab alone at night, carrying pepper sprays/umbrellas as tools for self-defence, refrain from conversations with drivers or talk continuously on the phone, among other things. The onus of the woman’s safety is either on the individual herself or the driver who is ferrying her. Moreover, the driver is a likely assailant whom the woman should guard against as well. <em>Source: <a href="https://www.hellotravel.com/stories/10-ways-for-women-to-ensure-safety-when-boarding-cab" target="_blank">HelloTravel</a></em>.</h5>
<p> </p>
<p>Notions of safety and risk are embodied in everyday interactions in urban spaces and mediated by disparate infrastructures of knowledge across distinctions of caste, class and gender. These distinctions define constraints which govern social interactions between actors of these categories. Interactions between lower caste or Muslim men and upper caste/class women are circumscribed by what Tuan (1979) describes as ‘landscapes of fear’. Be it the apprehensions about sharing a ride with a passenger of the opposite sex (Sarriera et. al 2017) or reports of gang-rapes by cab drivers, the boundaries of social conduct are laid out clearly by constructing narratives of risk and safety. The protection of the female body and her sexual safety is not her responsibility alone but that of the society as a whole. The so called preventive measures for rape and violence against women produce the dichotomies of frailty and strength (Campbell 2005) in so far as they project the woman as always at risk with the shadow of a potential assault always looming large.</p>
<p>When asked about interactions with women as customers or fellow drivers, drivers performed exaggerated respectability for women. The catch in these narratives however was that drivers justified and extended respect only to ‘good’ customers, where a ‘good’ woman was a certain kind of a moral actor.</p>
<p>Given the prevailing discontent with redressal mechanisms for workers on the platforms, it was not surprising to witness a group of drivers at the Uber Seva Kendra (help centre) in Mumbai, debating whether they should be accepting requests from any female customers at all. Drivers also had to attend mandatory training sessions for ‘good conduct’ with customers wherein they underwent behavioral correction and gender sensitisation lessons. [4] The gendering of the platform economy is baked into these instructions and trainings that reproduce male drivers as figures of safety and constant positive affect.</p>
<h3><strong>Gender, Safety, and Enterprise</strong></h3>
<p>In my fieldwork, I also came across a slew of ventures run by fleet owners and others that sought to service women passengers and employ women drivers exclusively. Claiming to fill in the gaps of inadequate vetting mechanisms in existing platforms, these alternate ventures purportedly smoothened out some anxieties by eliminating the risk of interacting with a man from different socio-economic strata. The premium charged by these companies was telling of the value of safety and affordability of these services for a large section of their intended audience, namely women with higher disposable incomes residing in metropolitan cities.</p>
<p>On the flipside, these enterprises encouraged women to break stereotypical perceptions about women drivers, also giving a nod to increasing and diversifying opportunities of employment for women. However, these ideas remained attractive only in principle and fizzled out sooner or later as most of these ventures did not succeed. A severe capital crunch due to unsustainable business models, limited funding options and lack of substantial supportive ecosystems for training and upkeep are possible reasons for failure. [5] Even so, the idea of a women-centric service continues to remain valuable because of the promise of safety which is produced through considerations of class, caste, gender and religion (Phadke 2005). Any alternative to avoid interaction with men from a lower class or caste background or from another religion (especially Hindu/Muslim in Mumbai) is welcome in a society which is deeply stratified and entrenched in caste-class systems of religion and economy alike.</p>
<h3><strong>Conclusion</strong></h3>
<p>The pervasiveness of the discourses of safety and risk in the ride hailing space became apparent to me during field research. Respondents indicated a heightened awareness of my gender, referring to me as “madam” and taking measures to ensure my safety. They advised me to use a separate phone to interact with drivers and moderated my interactions with drivers on the Telegram group (run by one of the Unions in Mumbai). Union representatives were also diligent in moderating the group to filter out abusive language as a token of respect for women. My apprehensions in interacting with drivers, most of whom were older men from a lower class/caste community, were also indicative of my social conditioning as an upper class and upper caste woman. Self-policing and boundary setting in both physical and virtual interactions, while necessary to some extent, were often rendered useless as the shifting of risks became apparent to me in my interactions with the drivers.</p>
<p>In this piece, I have tried to show how gendered norms govern the construction of safety and risk which in turn regulate social interactions. Limiting exposure in a personal cab as opposed to a public bus/train also heightens considerations of intimacy and proximity to a potential aggressor (often from a marginalised sociocultural background). Women-centric cab services mitigate this by promoting the image of the female driver who breaks social norms. However, these services dwindle till they completely disappear due to a capital crunch or insufficient infrastructural support. Patriarchal contexts reaffirm the woman as a risky object by highlighting narratives of vulnerabilities and insecurities in the ridehailing space. Besides the woman, the cab drivers are held accountable for bearing this risk and ensuring her sexual and physical safety. These patriarchal hierarchies of protectionism are sustained by platform workers’ affective labour which lubricate the wheels of the platform economy.</p>
<h3><strong>Endnotes</strong></h3>
<p>[1] <a href="https://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Delhi/free-rides-for-women-only-the-starting-point-say-activists/article28111938.ece" target="_blank">https://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Delhi/free-rides-for-women-only-the-starting-point-say-activists/article28111938.ece</a></p>
<p>[2] <a href="https://www.olacabs.com/media/in/press/ola-foundation-launches-drive-to-enable-sustainable-livelihoods-for-500000-women-by-2025" target="_blank">https://www.olacabs.com/media/in/press/ola-foundation-launches-drive-to-enable-sustainable-livelihoods-for-500000-women-by-2025</a></p>
<p>[3] <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/soniathomas/girl-power" target="_blank">https://www.buzzfeed.com/soniathomas/girl-power</a></p>
<p>[4] <a href="https://yourstory.com/2018/11/uber-gender-awareness-sensitisation-driver" target="_blank">https://yourstory.com/2018/11/uber-gender-awareness-sensitisation-driver</a></p>
<p>[5] <a href="https://www.livemint.com/Companies/bo4534H8mOWo0oG6VQ0xbM/As-demand-for-womenonly-cab-services-grow-challenges-loom.html" target="_blank">https://www.livemint.com/Companies/bo4534H8mOWo0oG6VQ0xbM/As-demand-for-womenonly-cab-services-grow-challenges-loom.html</a></p>
<h3><strong>References</strong></h3>
<p>Berrington, E. and Jones, H., 2002. Reality vs. myth: Constructions of women’s insecurity. Feminist Media Studies, 2(3), pp.307-323.</p>
<p>Campbell, A., 2005. Keeping the ‘lady’ safe: The regulation of femininity through crime prevention literature. Critical Criminology, 13(2), pp.119-140.</p>
<p>Chopra, R., 2006. Invisible men: Masculinity, sexuality, and male domestic Labor. Men and Masculinities, 9(2), pp.152-167.</p>
<p>Green, E. and Singleton, C., 2006. Risky bodies at leisure: Young women negotiating space and place. Sociology, 40(5), pp.853-871.</p>
<p>Nixon, D., 2009. I Can’t Put a Smiley Face On’: Working‐Class Masculinity, Emotional Labour and Service Work in the ‘New Economy. Gender, Work & Organization, 16(3), pp.300-322.</p>
<p>Park, J., Kim, J., Pang, M.S. and Lee, B., 2017. Offender or guardian? An empirical analysis of ride-sharing and sexual assault. An Empirical Analysis of Ride-Sharing and Sexual Assault (April 10, 2017). KAIST College of Business Working Paper Series, (2017-006), pp.18-010.</p>
<p>Phadke, S., 2005. ‘You Can Be Lonely in a Crowd’ The Production of Safety in Mumbai. Indian Journal of Gender Studies, 12(1), pp.41-62.</p>
<p>Phadke, S., 2007. Dangerous liaisons: Women and men: Risk and reputation in Mumbai. Economic and Political Weekly, pp.1510-1518.</p>
<p>Phadke, S., 2013. Unfriendly bodies, hostile cities: Reflections on loitering and gendered public space. Economic and Political Weekly, pp.50-59.</p>
<p>Ranade, S., 2007. The way she moves: Mapping the everyday production of gender-space. Economic and Political Weekly, pp.1519-1526.</p>
<p>Raval, N. and Dourish, P., 2016, February. Standing out from the crowd: Emotional labor, body labor, and temporal labor in ridesharing. In Proceedings of the 19th ACM Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work & Social Computing (pp. 97-107). ACM.</p>
<p>Sarriera, J.M., Álvarez, G.E., Blynn, K., Alesbury, A., Scully, T. and Zhao, J., 2017. To share or not to share: Investigating the social aspects of dynamic ridesharing. Transportation Research Record, 2605(1), pp.109-117.</p>
<p>Tuan, Y.F., 2013. Landscapes of fear. U of Minnesota Press.</p>
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No publisherAnushree GuptaDigital LabourResearchPlatform-WorkNetwork EconomiesPublicationsResearchers at WorkMapping Digital Labour in India2020-05-19T06:29:12ZBlog EntryIs India's Digital Health System Foolproof?
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<b>This contribution by Aayush Rathi builds on "Data Infrastructures and Inequities: Why Does Reproductive Health Surveillance in India Need Our Urgent Attention?" (by Aayush Rathi and Ambika Tandon, EPW Engage, Vol. 54, Issue No. 6, 09 Feb, 2019) and seeks to understand the role that state-run reproductive health portals such as the Mother and Child Tracking System (MCTS) and the Reproductive and Child Health will play going forward. The article critically outlines the overall digitised health information ecosystem being envisioned by the Indian state.</b>
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<h4>This article was first published in <a href="https://www.epw.in/engage/article/indias-digital-health-paradigm-foolproof" target="_blank">EPW Engage, Vol. 54, Issue No. 47</a>, on November 30, 2019</h4>
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<p>Introduced in 2013 and subsequently updated in 2016, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MHFW) published a document laying out the standards for electronic health records (EHRs). While there exist varying interpretations of what constitutes as EHRs, some of its characteristics include electronic medical records (EMRs) of individual patients, arrangement of these records in a time series, and inter-operable linkages of the EMRs across various healthcare settings (Häyrinen et al 2008; OECD 2013).</p>
<p>To work effectively, EHRs are required to be highly interoperable so that they can facilitate exchange among health information systems (HIS) across participating hospitals. For this, the Integrated Health Information Platform (IHIP) is being developed so as to assimilate data from various registries across India and provide real-time information on health surveillance (Krishnamurthy 2018).</p>
<h3><strong>EHR Implementation: Unpacking the (Dis)incentive Structure</strong></h3>
<p>As the implementation of EHR standards is voluntary, anecdotal evidence indicates that their uptake in the Indian healthcare sector has been very slow. Here, the opposition of the Indian Medical Association to the Clinical Establishments (Registration and Regulation) Act, 2010, resulting in nationwide protests and subsequent legal challenges to the act, is instructive. To start with, the act prescribes the minimum standards that have to be maintained by clinical establishments which are registered or seeking registration (itself mandatory to run a clinic under the act) <strong>[1]</strong>. Further, Rule 9(ii) of the Clinical Establishments (Registration and Regulation) Rules, 2012, drafted under the act, requires clinical establishments to maintain EMRs or EHRs for every patient. However, with health being a state subject in India, the act has only been enforced in 11 states and all union territories except the National Capital Territory of Delhi (Jyoti 2018). The resistance to the act is largely due to protests by stakeholders from within the medical fraternity regarding its adverse impact on small- and medium-sized hospitals (Jyoti 2018).</p>
<h3><strong>Contextualising Clinicians' Inertia</strong></h3>
<p>Another major impediment to the adoption of EHRs by health service providers is reluctance on the part of individual physicians to transition to an EHR system. This is because compliance with EHR standards requires physicians to input clinical notes themselves.</p>
<p>Comparing the greater patient load faced by doctors in India vis-à-vis the United States (US), the chief medical officer of an EHR vendor in India estimates that the average Indian doctor sees about 40–60 patients a day, whereas in the US it may be around 18–20 patients (Kandhari 2017). This is suggestive of the wide disparity in the number of physicians per 1,000 citizens in both countries (World Bank nd). Given this, doctors in India tend to be more problem-oriented, time-strapped, and pay less attention to clinical notes (Kandhari 2017). Thus, clinicians will consider a system to be efficient only if the system reduces their documentation time, even if the time savings do not translate into better patient care (Allan and Englebright 2000). The inability of EHRs to help reduce documentation time deters clinicians from supporting their implementation (Poon et al 2004). Additionally, research done in the United States indicates that there is no evidence to suggest that an information system helps save time expended by clinicians on documentation (Daly et al 2002). Moreover, the use of an information system is stated to have had no impact on patient care, but doctors have acknowledged its use for research purposes (Holzemer and Henry 1992).</p>
<h3><strong>Prohibitive Costs of Implementation</strong></h3>
<p>While national-level EHRs have been adopted globally, their distribution across countries is telling. In a survey published in 2016 by the World Health Organization, wealthier countries were over-represented, with two-thirds from the upper-middle-income group and roughly half from the high-income countries having introduced EHR systems. On the other hand, only a third of lower-middle-income countries and 15% of low-income countries reported having implemented EHRs (World Health Organization 2016). A major reason for the slow uptake of EHRs in poorer countries is likely to be funding as EHR implementation requires considerable investment, with most projects averaging several million dollars (US) (Kuperman and Gibson 2003). Although various funding models for EHR implementation are being utilised globally, it is unclear what model will be adopted in India to bring in private healthcare service providers within its ambit (Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society 2007). This absence of funding direction for private actors poses to be a significant impediment in the integration of private databases with other public ones.</p>
<p>In general, poorer countries are also more likely to have less developed infrastructure and health Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to support EHR systems. Besides this, they not only lack the capacity and human resources required to develop and maintain such complex systems (Tierney et al 2010; McGinn et al 2011), but training periods have also been found to be long and more costly than expected (Kovener et al 1997).</p>
<h3><strong>Socio-economic Exclusions and Cross-cultural Barriers</strong></h3>
<p>There exists scant research investigating the existing use of EHRs in India, though preliminary work is being undertaken to assess EHR implementation in other developing countries (Tierney et al 2010; Fraser et al 2005). Even in the context of developed countries, where widespread adoption of EHRs has been gaining traction for some time now, very little data exists around implementation and efficacy in underserved regions and communities. This is further problematised as clinical information systems and user populations also vary in their characteristics and, for this reason, individual studies are unable to identify common trends that would predict EHR implementation success.</p>
<p>Underserved settings may lack the infrastructure needed to support EHRs. The risk of exclusion already exists in parts such as difficulties inherent in delivering care to remote locations, barriers related to cross-cultural communication, and the pervasive problem of providing care in the setting of severe resource constraints. Equally important is the fact that health workers who already report significant existing impediments in their delivery of routine care in these settings do not necessarily see EHRs as being useful in catering to the specific needs of their patient population (Bach et al 2004). Moreover, experience with EHRs also reveals that there are cultural barriers to capturing accurate data (Miklin et al 2019). What this could mean is that stigma associated with the diagnosis of conditions such as HIV/AIDS or induced abortions will result in their under-reporting even within EHR systems.</p>
<h3><strong>Stick or Twist?</strong></h3>
<p>Other modalities have been devised to nudge healthcare providers into adopting EHR standards voluntarily. The National Accreditation Board for Hospitals and Healthcare Providers (NABH), India, a constituent board of the Quality Council of India (a public–private initiative), has been reported to have incorporated the EHR standards within its accreditation matrix. NABH accreditation, considered an indicator of high quality patient care, is highly sought–after by hospitals in India in order to attract medical tourists as well as insurance companies: two prominent sources of income for hospitals (Kandhari 2017). Additionally, NABH accreditation is valid for a term of three years, thus requiring hospitals seeking to renew their accreditation to adopt EHR standards as well.</p>
<p>Another commercial use of EHR has been in health insurance. The Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) and the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDAI) have both voiced their support for expediting the implementation of the EHR standards (EMR Standards Committee 2013). Both, the FICCI and IRDAI have placed emphasis on adopting EHRs, seeing it as a necessary move for formalising the health insurance industry (FICCI 2015). They have also had representation on the committee that sent recommendations to the MHFW on the first version of the EHR standards in 2013 (FICCI 2015). FICCI had additionally played a coordination role in having the recommendations framed for the 2013 EHR standards.</p>
<h3><strong>Fluid Data Objectives</strong></h3>
<p>The push for EHR implementation is emblematic of a larger shift in the healthcare approach of the Indian state, that of an indirect targeting of demand-side financing by plugging data inefficiencies in health insurance.</p>
<p>The draft National Health Policy (NHP), published in 2015, reflected the mandate of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare to strengthen the public health system by creating a right to healthcare legislation and reaching a public spend of 2.5% of the gross domestic product by 2018. The final version of the NHP, published in 2017, however, codified a shift in healthcare policy by focusing on strategic purchasing of secondary and tertiary care services from the private sector and a publicly funded health insurance model.</p>
<p>In line with the vision of the NHP 2017, in February 2018, the Union Minister for Finance and Corporate Affairs, Arun Jaitley, announced two major initiatives as a part of the government’s Ayushman Bharat programme (Ministry of Finance 2018). Administered under the aegis of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, these initiatives are intended to improve access to primary healthcare through the creation of 150,000 health and wellness centres as envisioned under the NHP 2017, and improve access to secondary and tertiary healthcare for over 100 million vulnerable families by providing insurance cover of up to ₹ 500,000 per family per year under the Pradhan Mantri–Rashtriya Swasthya Suraksha Mission/National Health Protection Scheme (PM–RSSM/NHPS) (Ministry of Health and Family Welfare 2018). The NHPS, modelled along the lines of the Affordable Care Act in the US, was later rebranded as the Pradhan Mantri–Jan Arogya Yojana (PM-JAY) at the time of its launch in September 2018. It is claimed to be the world’s largest government-funded healthcare programme and is intentioned to provide health insurance coverage for vulnerable sections in lieu of the Sustainable Development Goal-3 (National Health Authority nd).</p>
<p>To enable the implementation of the Ayushman Bharat programme, the NITI Aayog then proposed the creation of a supply-side digital infrastructure called National Health Stack (NHS) (NITI Aayog 2018). As outlined in the consultation and strategy paper, the NHS is “built for NHPS, but beyond NHPS.” The NHS seeks to leverage the digitisation push through IndiaStack, which seeks to digitalise “any large-scale health insurance program, in particular, any government-funded health care programs.” The synergy is clear, with the NHPS scheme also aiming to be “cashless and paperless at public hospitals and empanelled private hospitals" (National Health Authority nd) <strong>[2]</strong>.</p>
<p>The NHS is also closely aligned with the NHP 2017, which draws attention to leveraging technologies such as big data analytics on data stored in universal registries. The Vision document for the NHS emphasises the fragmented nature of health data as an impediment to reducing inequities in healthcare provision. The NHS, then, also seeks to be the master repository of health data akin to the IHIP. By creating a base layer of registries containing information about various actors involved in the healthcare supply chain (providers such as hospitals, beneficiaries, doctors, insurers and Accredited Social Health Activists), it potentially allows for recording of data from both public and private sector entities, plugging a significant gap in the coverage of the HIS currently implemented in India. With the provision of open, pullable APIs, the NHS also shares the motivations of the IndiaStack to monetise health data.</p>
<p>A key component of the proposed NHS is the Coverage and Claims platform, which the vision document describes as “provid[ing] the building blocks required to implement any large-scale health insurance program, in particular, any government-funded healthcare programs. This platform has the transformative vision of enabling both public and private actors to implement insurance schemes in an automated, data-driven manner through open APIs " (NITI Aayog2018). A post on the iSPIRT website further explains the centrality of this Coverage and Claims platform in enabling a highly personalised medical insurance market in India: “This component will not only bring down the cost of processing a claim but ... increased access to information about an individual’s health and claims history ... will also enable the creation of personalised, sachet-sized insurance policies." These data-driven customised insurance policies are expected to generate “care policies that are not only personalized in nature but that also incentivize good healthcare practices amongst consumers and providers … [and] use of techniques from microeconomics to manage incentives for care providers, and those from behavioural economics to incentivise consumers" (Productnation Network 2019). The Coverage and Claims platform, and especially the Policy (generation) Engine that it will contain, is aimed at intensive financialisation of personal healthcare expenses, and extensive experiments with designing personalised nudges to shape the demand behaviour of consumers.</p>
<p>The imagination of healthcare the NHS demonstrates is one where broadening health insurance coverage is equated to providing equitable healthcare and as a panacea for the public healthcare sector. The first phase of this push towards better healthcare provision is to focus on contextualising the historical socio-economic divide. The next phase is characterised by digitalisation: the introduction of ICT to bridge the socio-economic divide in healthcare provision. In this process, the resulting data divide has been invisibilised in reframing better healthcare as an insurance problem for which data needs to be generated. Each policy innovation is then characterised by further marginalisation of those that were originally identified as underserved. This is a result of increasing repercussions of the data-divide, with access to benefits increasingly being mediated by technology.</p>
<h3><strong>Concluding Remarks</strong></h3>
<blockquote>The idea that any person in India can go to any health service provider/ practitioner, any diagnostic center or any pharmacy and yet be able to access and have fully integrated and always available health records in an electronic format is not only empowering but also the vision for efficient 21st century healthcare delivery.<br />
— Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Electronic Health Record Standards For India (2013)</blockquote>
<p>The objective of health data collection has evolved over the course of the institution of the HIS in 2011, to the development of the NHPS and National Health Policy in 2017. What began as a solution to measure and address gaps in access and quality in healthcare provisioning through data analysis has morphed into data centralisation and insurance coverage. Shifting goalposts can also be found in the objectives behind introducing digital systems to collect data.</p>
<p>In recent iterations of the healthcare imaginary, such as the IHIP and the NHS, data ownership by the beneficiaries is stressed upon. In the absence of a rights-based framework dictating the use of data, the role of ownership should be interrogated, especially in the context of a prevalent data divide (Tisne 2019). The legitimisation of data capture can be seen in the emergence of opt-in models of consent, data fiduciaries managing consent on the data subject’s behalf, etc. (Zuboff 2019).</p>
<p>This framing forecloses a discussion about the quality and kind of data being used. The push towards datafication needs to be questioned for its re-indexing of categorical meaning away from the complexities of narrative, context and history (Cheney-Lippold 2018). Instead, the proposed solution is one that stores datafied elements within a closed set (reproductive health= [abortion, aids, contraceptive,...vaccination, womb]). While this set may be editable, so new interpretations can be codified, it inherently remains stable, assuming a static relationship between words and meaning. Health is then treated as having an empirically definable meaning, thus losing the dynamism of what the health and wellness discourse could entail.</p>
<p>It has been historically demonstrated in the Indian context that multiple tools and databases for health data management are a barrier to an efficient HIS. However, generating centralised or federated databases without addressing concerns in data flows, quality, uses in existing data structures, and the digital divide across health workers and beneficiaries alike will lead to the amplification of existing exclusions in data and, consequently, service provisioning.</p>
<h3><strong>Acknowledgements</strong></h3>
<p>The author would like to express his gratitude to Sumandro Chattapadhyay and Ambika Tandon for their inputs and editorial work on this contribution. This work was supported by the Big Data for Development Network established by International Development Research Centre (Canada).</p>
<h3><strong>Notes</strong></h3>
<p><strong>[1]</strong> Section 2 (a) of the Clinical Establishments (Registration and Regulation) Act, 2010: A hospital, maternity home, nursing home, dispensary, clinic, sanatorium or institution by whatever name called that offers services, facilities requiring diagnosis, treatment or care for illness, injury, deformity, abnormality or pregnancy in any recognised system of medicine established and administered or maintained by any person or body of persons, whether incorporated or not.</p>
<p><strong>[2]</strong> The National Health Stack, then, is the latest manifestation of the Indian government’s push for a “Digital India.” A key component of Digital India has been e-governance, financial inclusion, and digitisation of transaction services. The nudge towards cashless modes of transaction and delivery, also accelerated by India’s demonetisation drive in November 2016, has led to rapid uptake of digital payment services in particular, and that of the IndiaStack initiative in general. Developed by iSPIRT, IndiaStack (https://indiastack.org/) aspires to transform service delivery by public and private actors alike through its “presence-less, paperless, and cashless” mandate.</p>
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No publisheraayushEHRBig DataBig Data for DevelopmentResearchBD4DHealthcareResearchers at Work2019-12-30T17:58:00ZBlog Entry