The Centre for Internet and Society
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After the Lockdown
http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/after-the-lockdown
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<p>This post was first published in the <a class="external-link" href="https://www.business-standard.com/article/opinion/after-the-lockdown-120040200010_1.html">Business Standard</a>, on April 2, 2020.</p>
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This is a time when, as
the authorities deal with a lockdown, there needs to be an equal
emphasis on providing for large numbers of people without the money for
food and necessities, while the rest of us wait it out. Hard as it is,
an MIT scholar writes that after the Spanish flu in 1918, cities that
restricted public gatherings sooner and longer had fewer fatalities, and
emerged with stronger economic growth.<a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-usa-reopen-analysi/the-u-s-weighs-the-grim-math-of-death-vs-the-economy-idUSKBN21H1B4" target="_blank"><strong>1</strong></a> It
is likely that costs and benefits vary with economic and social
capacity, and we may have a harder time with it here. Going forward,
government action to help provide relief, rehabilitate people and deal
with loss needs to be well planned, including targeting aid to the urban
and displaced poor.<strong><a href="https://www.financialexpress.com/opinion/the-coronavirus-lockdown-and-indias-urban-vulnerables/1915316/" target="_blank">2</a></strong></div>
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As important now as to
ensure the lockdown continues is to plan on how to revive productive
activity and the economy, and restore public confidence. A systematic
approach will likely yield better results.</div>
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A major element of the
recovery plan is steps such as liberal credit and amortisation terms,
perhaps much more than the three-month extension the Reserve Bank of
India (RBI) has announced. A primary purpose is the re-initiation of
large-scale activities such as construction, of which there are
reportedly about 200,000 large projects around the country. These have
to be nursed back to being going concerns. The RBI may need to consider
doing more, including lowering rates.</div>
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An ominous development
that has grown as the economy slowed is financial stress that could
swell non-performing assets (NPAs). At the half-year ending September
2019, about half of non-financial large corporations in India, excluding
telecom, showed financial stress (<em>see table</em>).</div>
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<a style="text-align: center;" href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LUGInMPm0qA/XoX9HV4-HBI/AAAAAAAAHio/bpAUXcOxJ2AZ3mHTisIdMGLnbon7r5YpQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Indebted%2BFirms-Likely%2BFinancial%2BHeadwinds-Krishna%2BKant-BS.jpg"><img src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LUGInMPm0qA/XoX9HV4-HBI/AAAAAAAAHio/bpAUXcOxJ2AZ3mHTisIdMGLnbon7r5YpQCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/Indebted%2BFirms-Likely%2BFinancial%2BHeadwinds-Krishna%2BKant-BS.jpg" alt="null" height="320" width="205" /></a>
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<p>Source: Krishna Kant: "Coronavirus shutdown puts Rs 15-trillion debt at risk, to impact finances", BS, March 30, 2020:</p>
<div><a href="https://www.business-standard.com/article/markets/coronavirus-shutdown-puts-rs-15-trillion-debt-at-risk-to-impact-finances-120032901036_1.html">https://www.business-standard.com/article/markets/coronavirus-shutdown-puts-rs-15-trillion-debt-at-risk-to-impact-finances-120032901036_1.html</a></div>
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These include some of
India’s largest companies, producing power, steel, and chemicals. The
201 companies have total debt of nearly Rs 15 trillion, more than half
of all borrowings. There is also the debt overhang of the National
Highways Authority of India, and of the telecom companies. Ironically,
the telecom companies are our lifeline now, despite having nearly
collapsed under debt because of ill-advised policies in the past, which
have still not changed. Perhaps our obvious dependence telecom services
now will spark well conceived, convergent policies for this sector, so that we can function effectively. </div>
<div>
A start with immediate
changes in administrative rules for 60GHz, 70-80GHz, and 500-700MHz
wireless use, modelled on the US FCC regulations as was done for the
5GHz Wi-Fi in October 2018, could change the game. It will provide the
opportunity in India for the innovation of devices, their production,
and use, possibly unleashing this sector. This can help offset our
reliance on imported technology and equipment. However, such changes in
policies and purchasing support have eluded us thus far. Now, the only
way our high-technology manufacturers can thrive is to succeed
internationally, in order to be able to sell to the domestic market.
Imagine how hard that might be, and you begin to get an inkling of why
we have few domestic product champions, struggling against odds in areas
such as optical switches, networking equipment, and wireless devices.
For order-of-magnitude change, however, structural changes need to be
worked out in consultation with operators in the organisation of
services through shared infrastructure.</div>
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<p>For the longer term, a fundamental
reconsideration for allocating resources is needed through coherent,
orchestrated policy planning and support. What the government can do as a
primary responsibility, besides ensuring law and order and security, is
to develop our inadequate and unreliable infrastructure, including
facilities and services that enable efficient production clusters, their
integrated functioning, and skilling. For instance, Apple’s recent
decision against moving iPhone production
from China to India was reportedly because similar large facilities
(factories of 250,000) are not feasible here, and second, our logistics
are inadequate. Such considerations should be factored into our
planning, although Apple may well have to revisit the very
sustainability of the concept of outsize facilities that require the
sort of repressive conditions prevailing in China. However, we need not
aim for building unsustainable mega-factories. Instead, a more practical
approach may be to plan for building agglomerations of smaller,
sustainable units, that can aggregate their activity and output
effectively and efficiently. Such developments could form the basis of
numerous viable clusters, and where possible, capitalise on existing
incipient clusters of activities. Such infrastructure needs to be
extended to the countryside for agriculture and allied activities as
well, so that productivity increases with a change from rain-fed,
extensive cultivation to intensive practices, with more controlled
conditions.</p>
<p>The automotive industry,
the largest employer in manufacturing, provides an example for other
sectors. It was a success story like telecom until recently, but is now
floundering, partly because of inappropriate policies, despite its
systematic efforts at incorporating collaborative planning and working
with the government. It has achieved the remarkable transformation of
moving from BS-IV to BS-VI emission regulations in just three years,
upgrading by two levels with an investment of Rs 70,000 crore, whereas
European companies have taken five to six years to upgrade by one level.
This has meant that there was no time for local sourcing, and therefore
heavy reliance on global suppliers, including China. While the
collaborative planning model adopted by the industry provides a model
for other sectors, the question here is, what now. In a sense, it was
not just the radical change in market demand with the advent of
ridesharing and e-vehicles, but also the government’s approach to
policies and taxation that aggravated its difficulties.</p>
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Going forward, policies
that are more congruent in terms of societal goals, including employment
that support the development of large manufacturing opportunities, need
to be thought through from a perspective of aligning and integrating
objectives (in this case, transportation). Areas such as automotive and
other industries for the manufacture of road and rail transport vehicles
need to be considered from the perspective of reconfiguring the
purpose, flow, and value-added, to achieve both low-cost, accessible
mass transport, and vehicles for private use that complement
transportation objectives as also employment and welfare.</div>
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Systematic and convergent planning and implementation across sectors could help achieve a better revival.</div>
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Shyam (no space) Ponappa at gmail dot com</div>
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<em>1: <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-usa-reopen-analysi/the-u-s-weighs-the-grim-math-of-death-vs-the-economy-idUSKBN21H1B4">https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-usa-reopen-analysi/the-u-s-weighs-the-grim-math-of-death-vs-the-economy-idUSKBN21H1B4</a></em></div>
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<em>2: <a href="https://www.financialexpress.com/opinion/the-coronavirus-lockdown-and-indias-urban-vulnerables/1915316/">https://www.financialexpress.com/opinion/the-coronavirus-lockdown-and-indias-urban-vulnerables/1915316/</a></em></div>
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For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/after-the-lockdown'>http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/after-the-lockdown</a>
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No publisherShyam PonappaTelecominternet governanceInternet Governance2020-04-09T10:05:49ZBlog Entry India’s ‘Self-Goal’ in Telecom
http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/indias-self-goal-in-telecom
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<p> </p>
<p>This post was first published in the <a class="external-link" href="https://www.business-standard.com/article/opinion/india-s-self-goal-in-telecom-120030500019_1.html">Business Standard</a>, on March 5, 2020.</p>
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<p>The government apparently cannot resolve the problems in telecommunications. Why? Because the authorities are trying to balance the Supreme Court order on Adjusted Gross Revenue (AGR), with keeping the telecom sector healthy, while safeguarding consumer interest. These irreconcilable differences have arisen because both the United Progressive Alliance and the National Democratic Alliance governments prosecuted unreasonable claims for 15 years, despite adverse rulings! This imagined “impossible trinity” is an entirely self-created conflation.<br />If only the authorities focused on what they can do for India’s real needs instead of tilting at windmills, we’d fare better. Now, we are close to a collapse in communications that would impede many sectors, compound the problem of non-performing assets (NPAs), demoralise bankers, increase unemployment, and reduce investment, adding to our economic and social problems.<br />Is resolving the telecom crisis central to the public interest? Yes, because people need good infrastructure to use time, money, material, and mindshare effectively and efficiently, with minimal degradation of their environment, whether for productive purposes or for leisure. Systems that deliver water, sanitation, energy, transport and communications support all these activities. Nothing matches the transformation brought about by communications in India from 2004 to 2011 in our complex socio-economic terrain and demography. Its potential is still vast, limited only by our imagination and capacity for convergent action. Yet, the government’s dysfunctional approach to communications is in stark contrast to the constructive approach to make rail operations viable for private operators.<br />India’s interests are best served if people get the services they need for productivity and wellbeing with ease, at reasonable prices. This is why it is important for government and people to understand and work towards establishing good infrastructure.<br /><br /></p>
<h2>What the Government Can Do</h2>
<p><br />An absolute prerequisite is for all branches of government (legislative, executive, and judicial), the press and media, and society, to recognise that all of us must strive together to conceptualise and achieve good infrastructure. It is not “somebody else’s job”, and certainly not just the Department of Telecommunications’ (DoT’s). The latter cannot do it alone, or even take the lead, because the steps required far exceed its ambit.<br /><br /></p>
<h3>Act Quickly</h3>
<p><br />These actions are needed immediately:<br /><br />First, annul the AGR demand using whatever legal means are available. For instance, the operators could file an appeal, and the government could settle out of court, renouncing the suit, accepting the Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT) ruling of 2015 on AGR.<br /><br />Second, issue an appropriate ordinance that rescinds all extended claims. Follow up with the requisite legislation, working across political lines for consensus in the national interest.<br /><br />Third, take action to organise and deliver communications services effectively and efficiently to as many people as possible. The following steps will help build and maintain more extensive networks with good services, reasonable prices, and more government revenues.<br /><br /><br /><br /></p>
<h3>Enable Spectrum Usage on Feasible Terms</h3>
<p><br /><strong>Wireless regulations</strong><br /><br />It is infeasible for fibre or cable to reach most people in India, compared with wireless alternatives. Realistically, the extension of connectivity beyond the nearest fibre termination point is through wireless middle-mile connections, and Wi-Fi for most last-mile links. The technology is available, and administrative decisions together with appropriate legislation can enable the use of spectrum immediately in 60GHz, 70-80GHz, and below 700MHz bands to be used by authorised operators for wireless connectivity. The first two bands are useful for high-capacity short and medium distance hops, while the third is for up to 10 km hops. The DoT can follow its own precedent set in October 2018 for 5GHz for Wi-Fi, i.e., use the US Federal Communications Commission regulations as a model.1 The one change needed is an adaptation to our circumstances that restricts their use to authorised operators for the middle-mile instead of open access, because of the spectrum payments made by operators. Policies in the public interest allowing spectrum use without auctions do not contravene Supreme Court orders.<br /><strong><br />Policies: Revenue sharing for spectrum</strong><br /><br />A second requirement is for all licensed spectrum to be paid for as a share of revenues based on usage as for licence fees, in lieu of auction payments. Legislation to this effect can ensure that spectrum for communications is either paid through revenue sharing for actual use, or is open access for all Wi-Fi bands. The restricted middle-mile use mentioned above can be charged at minimal administrative costs for management through geo-location databases to avoid interference. In the past, revenue-sharing has earned much more than up-front fees in India, and rejuvenated communications.2 There are two additional reasons for revenue sharing. One is the need to manufacture a significant proportion of equipment with Indian IPR or value-added, to not have to rely as much as we do on imports. This is critical for achieving a better balance-of-payments, and for strategic considerations. The second is to enable local talent to design and develop solutions for devices for local as well as global markets, which is denied because it is virtually impossible for them to access spectrum, no matter what the stated policies might claim.</p>
<p><strong>Policies and Organisation for Infrastructure Sharing</strong><br /><br />Further, the government needs to actively facilitate shared infrastructure with policies and legislation. One way is through consortiums for network development and management, charging for usage by authorised operators. At least two consortiums that provide access for a fee, with government’s minority participation in both for security and the public interest, can ensure competition for quality and pricing. Authorised service providers could pay according to usage.<br />Press reports of a consortium approach to 5G where operators pay as before and the government “contributes” spectrum reflect seriously flawed thinking.3 Such extractive payments with no funds left for network development and service provision only support an illusion that genuine efforts are being made to the ill-informed, who simultaneously rejoice in the idea of free services while acclaiming high government charges (the two are obviously not compatible).<br />Instead of tilting at windmills that do not serve people’s needs while beggaring their prospects, commitment to our collective interests requires implementing what can be done with competence and integrity.<br /><br />Shyam (no space) Ponappa at gmail dot com<br />1. https://dot.gov.in/sites/default/files/2018_10_29%20DCC.pdf<br />2. http://organizing-india.blogspot.in/2016/04/ breakthroughs- needed-for-digital-india.html<br />3. https://www.business-standard.com/article/economy-policy/govt-considering-spv-with-5g-sweetener-as-solution-to-telecom-crisis-120012300302_1.html</p>
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For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/indias-self-goal-in-telecom'>http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/indias-self-goal-in-telecom</a>
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No publisherShyam PonappaTelecominternet governanceInternet Governance2020-04-09T07:18:26ZBlog EntryThe Telecom Crisis is an NPA Problem
http://editors.cis-india.org/telecom/blog/shyam-ponappa-business-standard-and-organizing-india-blogspot-november-7-2019-telecom-crisis-is-an-npa-problem
<b>After interim relief for telecom, structural reforms must follow.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The article originally published in <a class="external-link" href="https://www.business-standard.com/article/opinion/the-telecom-crisis-is-an-npa-problem-119110700062_1.html">Business Standard</a> on November 7, 2019 was also mirrored on <a class="external-link" href="https://organizing-india.blogspot.com/2019/11/the-telecom-crisis-is-npa-problem.html">Organizing India Blogspot</a></p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">The Committee of Secretaries to mitigate financial stress in telecom must act quickly on interim measures for the sector to survive. But is its mere survival sufficient for India’s development and growth? Is it possible to fix telecom in isolation?Our communications needs are very poorly served, although at rock-bottom prices. Is it even possible for our hapless citizens and enterprises to get past shoddy services and productivity foregone, to trade with other countries on a more even footing?</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Yes, if we succeed at major structural changes, starting with telecom. But to transform telecom, the government and all of us have to come to the stark realisation that just as finance drives the economy, digitisation and communications have to be at the heart of production and delivery. Telecom and digitisation are strategic enablers for all infrastructure and in all sectors. Leading countries are so far ahead and functioning so effectively that it is difficult for us to imagine. We must want that path, plan for it, and put in the requisite effort.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Simply tweaking overdue payments, tinkering to reduce charges, and plugging along as before isn’t going to get us there. In this sense, the Committee’s charter is too limited. All it can do is assuage the pain, whereas our need is for a revitalised industry to serve our purposes.If the Committee’s scope were broader, could we actually adopt digitisation as our core strategy for development and growth? A study on China, “Telecommunications reforms in China”, about the transformation in policies to make digitisation its development priority, is instructive.1</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Their approach to reforms was to balance the government’s aims of universal coverage, governance and control, and efficiency; industry’s profit-seeking; and the people and enterprises’ needs for freer, more rapid communications. This is what we need to do, in a way that works for us.Also, the government, the judiciary, the press and users need to understand and accept that the telecom crisis is part of the larger non-performing assets (NPAs) problem. It has systemic links to NPAs and banking, which links to real estate and construction, electricity and roads, and stable and predictable taxes. Government payment delays and tax terrorism must stop. Business as usual will not resolve NPAs soon to enable growth. These two articles explain why and deserve attention.2</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Essentially, entities that take deposits need Reserve Bank of India (RBI) regulation. In a crisis, people with domain expertise and capacity must be appointed to take immediate steps to protect assets and operations, as with Satyam or IL&FS, because seizing/freezing assets often hurts depositors and creditors. A bureaucratic process as with the Punjab & Maharashtra Co-operative bank is likely to result in yet another zombie bank, burning depositors’ money just to stay alive.The Committee’s focus should be on cash flows, modelling cash flows and their timing, not just the present value of discounted flows, or other extraneous emotional, political, or judicial/administrative reasons.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Employment is a legitimate consideration, but has to be sustainable, with timely cash generation. Else, other sources of timely cash support must be arranged, because without sustained cash flows, no gambit or subsidy can succeed (and maintaining unproductive employment will not be possible). Some fixes need major legislative changes to policies.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><strong>BSNL & MTNL</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><strong> </strong>On BSNL and MTNL, a recent article sets the context and explains why the revival plan is unrealistic.3 In short, these poorly supported and much-abused enterprises have so much debt that earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation would have to be at least 35 per cent. Governments have used them as market spoilers as with Air India, precipitating unsustainable price wars that gutted the industry.An alternative is to downsize, re-skill as needed, and retain the public sector entities (as one or both) in the role of security-and-public-interest-anchors in infrastructure consortiums. These must be run by the private sector (and in strategic areas, by defence). This will facilitate policies such as assigning spectrum for payment on usage without auctions, and extending Wi-Fi to 60 GHz and 6 GHz (details at: <a href="https://organizing-india.blogspot.com/2019/10/extend-tax-cut-logic-to-infrastructure.html" target="_blank">https://organizing-india</a><a href="https://organizing-india.blogspot.com/2019/10/extend-tax-cut-logic-to-infrastructure.html" target="_blank">.blogspot.com/2019/10/extend-tax-cut-logic-to-infrastructure</a><a href="https://organizing-india.blogspot.com/2019/10/extend-tax-cut-logic-to-infrastructure.html" target="_blank">.html</a>, and <a href="https://organizing-india.blogspot.com/2018/11/a-great-start-on-wi-fi-reforms.html" target="_blank">https://organizing-india.blogspot.com/2018/11/a-great-start-on-wi-fi-reforms.html</a>).</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><strong>Weak Financial Systems</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><strong> </strong>The Committee needs to apprehend and convey the need to strengthen financial institutions. Financial systems provide second-order infrastructure for productive activity and wellbeing. They need an adequate underlay of first-order, basic infrastructure, comprising communications, energy, water, waste, sewerage, and transport, leaving aside housing and the basics of security, and law and order. While most of us take these for granted, there should be no doubt about how critical these attributes are, and that they are being eroded and increasingly at risk because of social disorder and economic inadequacies. In addition, basic health care and education are essential adjuncts for the supply of trainable people to operate these sectors.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Until some years ago, despite weak infrastructure, financial systems were among India’s real strengths, although eroded periodically by disruptions resulting in NPAs. However, there was strength in the professional capacity of this sector that held up in spite of the pressures. Over time, these institutions have been severely degraded, through laxity, complicity, pressures for evergreening, the abrupt imposition of credit quality and NPAs, the extent of frauds because of lax or complicit supervision and the reputational damage, the buffeting from demonetisation and pressures to cross-sell products such as insurance. Governments need to understand this and support building professionalism, avoiding <em>melas</em> and waivers.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The scope of the Committee could be expanded to set the objectives of telecom and digitisation in the interests of governance, industry, and users, and to outline next steps. They could consider the experience of China and others such as Sweden for this vast effort, while addressing linkages and NPA issues. Perhaps, they could be exemplars by setting the tone for a national approach that is not departmental and becomes bipartisan, and helps to move away from our abrasive, confrontational politics that leads to deadlocks.</p>
<hr style="text-align: justify; " />
<ol style="text-align: justify; ">
<li style="text-align: left; ">Becky P.Y. Loo, October 2004: <a class="external-link" href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/227426547_Telecommunications_reforms_in_China_Towards_an_analytical_framework">https://www.researchgate.net/publication/227426547_Telecommunications_reforms_in_China_Towards_an_analytical_framework</a></li>
<li>Debashis Basu, October 27, 2019: <a class="external-link" href="https://www.business-standard.com/article/opinion/how-to-fix-the-pmc-bank-crisis-119101400006_1.html October 13, 2019: https://www.business-standard.com/article/opinion/lessons-from-pmc-why-govt-is-responsible-for-co-operative-bank-crises-119102700620_1.html">https://www.business-standard.com/article/opinion/how-to-fix-the-pmc-bank-crisis-119101400006_1.html October 13, 2019: https://www.business-standard.com/article/opinion/lessons-from-pmc-why-govt-is-responsible-for-co-operative-bank-crises-119102700620_1.html</a></li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Rahul Khullar, October 31, 2019: <a class="external-link" href="https://www.business-standard.com/article/opinion/don-t-bet-on-bsnl-mtnl-s-revival-119103100040_1.html">https://www.business-standard.com/article/opinion/don-t-bet-on-bsnl-mtnl-s-revival-119103100040_1.html</a></li>
</ol>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/telecom/blog/shyam-ponappa-business-standard-and-organizing-india-blogspot-november-7-2019-telecom-crisis-is-an-npa-problem'>http://editors.cis-india.org/telecom/blog/shyam-ponappa-business-standard-and-organizing-india-blogspot-november-7-2019-telecom-crisis-is-an-npa-problem</a>
</p>
No publisherShyam PonappaTelecom2019-12-15T07:26:50ZBlog EntryTraffic Rules, Mindset and On-Time Payments
http://editors.cis-india.org/telecom/blog/business-standard-september-4-2019-shyam-ponappa-traffic-rules-mindset-and-on-time-payments
<b>There's no alternative to following the rules and working together with discipline for our common interests.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The article was published in the <a class="external-link" href="https://www.business-standard.com/article/opinion/traffic-rules-mindset-and-on-time-payments-119090401568_1.html">Business Standard</a> on September 4, 2019 and carried in <a class="external-link" href="https://organizing-india.blogspot.com/2019/09/traffic-rules-mindset-and-on-time.html">Organizing India Blogspot </a>on September 5, 2019.</p>
<hr style="text-align: justify; " />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Payments have gained currency, pun unintended, with the sharp focus on consumer spending and the economy. The following anecdote from newspaper reports begins with a payment problem for a traffic infraction, which leads on to existential questions on behaviour and governance.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">A motorcycle rider in Uttar Pradesh was booked for not wearing a helmet. Events spiralled quickly to arrive at the heart of the matter: The state of governance and our utter disregard for due process and the law. But let’s not get ahead of the story.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The rider was an electrician on contract with the UP State Electricity Board. He pleaded with the police to be let off on the Rs 500 fine, saying he earned only Rs 6,000 a month, and hadn’t been paid for four months. The police said it was the law, and issued a ticket. The electrician’s superior interceded at his request, but couldn’t convince the police to waive the fine. (It turned out that tickets had been issued to 70 policemen for traffic violations.)</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The electrician checked on the electricity dues owed by the police station. Finding that they amounted to Rs 662,463 over several years, he disconnected their power supply. When questioned, he said that this was as required by the law.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The power supply to the police station was soon restored, with the customary, vague assurance that the bill “would be paid soon”. A positive outcome, however, was that the state electricity board then paid Rs 17 crore of arrears for the month of May to 9,627 contract workers, including the electrician. The remaining amount, they said, “would be paid soon”.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Why were wages delayed? Apparently because consumers delayed payments, and the electricity board didn’t have the money to pay. Employees were still owed back pay for three months. Meanwhile, a formal enquiry reportedly began on the episode.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Such incidents are not unusual. In August, there was an instance in Agra of unpaid sanitation workers responsible for the toilets at the Taj Mahal going on strike. In Noida near New Delhi, two major shopping malls, a hospital, and a school had their water and sewer lines shut off because of unpaid dues. There were apparently 107 defaulters who owed over Rs 10 lakh each, with the highest being Rs 46.35 crore.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">It isn’t as though citizens and the private sector are the sole culprits, with only stray government entities defaulting. A former Confederation of Indian Industry chairperson said in an interview on television recently that while hard data on government dues to the private sector are unavailable, informal estimates of the dues from central and state governments, state-owned companies such as electricity boards, and arbitration awards, ranged from Rs 2 trillion to Rs 5 trillion. Her observation was that if these dues were paid, it would provide the biggest boost for the economy, because it would result in much-needed capital formation and economic rejuvenation. As to where the funding could be found, given the government’s finances, she replied that the same sources (for example, bonds) could be used that would fund whatever waivers or incentives the central and state governments were promising. Those funds could be channelled for productive use in capital formation by their rightful claimants.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Stepping back for perspective, the problems appear to stem from slack implementation of protocols (defined, sequential steps), whether it is the discipline of timely payments, or rules and regulations. The same malady afflicting payments shows in the disregard for traffic rules, and the confusion in disallowing tyre shredders to discourage driving the wrong way, which is even more dangerous to the public.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In some cases, the design itself is flawed. For instance, resources for infrastructure such as coal and spectrum need to be priced low to facilitate productivity. If auctioned at a premium, instead of abundant supply of good quality at reasonable prices, the supply is constrained in quantity or quality, or priced high. Other instances are of processes not thought through in terms of design (e.g, stranded power generation. A requirement of Letters of Credit (LC) for purchasing power has been around, but has not been enforced. Will a new directive enforce this, when banks acting prudently can issue LCs only to distribution companies with strong finances?) The design shortcomings could result from fragmented and episodic attention, disaggregated responsibilities, lack of professional capacity, or simply winging it.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">These failings have existed over decades, regardless of the governments in office. Some initial successes, as in mobile telephony from 2003 to around 2011, or in road construction or electricity supply, have not been consistent, nor have they been convergent to yield all-round, sustainable growth of the sort that could result from well-organised orchestration across the board. They have not even been able to sustain their performance, and now comprise the troubled sectors for banking and non-performing assets.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The root causes may be in underlying contradictions in our attitudes. These include feudal and post-colonial (exploitative) notions, with the trappings of a Westminster system, without the requisite culture and preparation of policies, practices and training. The result is either government and citizens facing off in an “Us vs Them”, with citizens often being viewed in the way colonials regarded “the natives”, or episodic “schemes” that fizzle out. Our political leadership and we have to realise that we are in the same boat, and that there is no substitute for working together with discipline for our common interests.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">There are no colonial masters here, only their mindsets that we adhere to, without refashioning them for our purposes. This is what we must change over time from a total-solutions perspective, from on-time payments, to law and order including traffic, to waste management,<sup>1</sup> all infrastructure, finance, industry, farming, the arts and daily living.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/telecom/blog/business-standard-september-4-2019-shyam-ponappa-traffic-rules-mindset-and-on-time-payments'>http://editors.cis-india.org/telecom/blog/business-standard-september-4-2019-shyam-ponappa-traffic-rules-mindset-and-on-time-payments</a>
</p>
No publisherShyam PonappaTelecom2019-09-26T15:05:29ZBlog EntryFix Problems Before Complete Failure
http://editors.cis-india.org/telecom/blog/shyam-ponappa-business-standard-july-4-2019-fix-problems-before-complete-failure
<b>We need some real solutions on the ground. Examples - Jet Airways post mortem findings applied as the way forward for difficult NPAs; and a radical change of course a</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The article by Shyam Ponappa was published in the <a class="external-link" href="https://www.business-standard.com/article/opinion/fix-problems-before-complete-failure-119070400025_1.html">Business Standard</a> on July 4, 2019 and <a class="external-link" href="https://organizing-india.blogspot.com/2019/07/fix-problems-before-complete-failure.html">Organizing India Blogspot</a> on July 5, 2019.</p>
<hr style="text-align: justify; " />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">There is much talk about improving the big picture in India. What we really need, though, is some successes on the ground — some actual resolution of problems as building blocks for further success. Two instances are discussed below.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The first is a puzzling business failure: Jet Airways running aground in slow motion. It is already bankrupt, but unravelling the sequence could make such financial predicaments, of which there are many, more tractable. India’s once dominant airline slipped up and, inexplicably, was allowed to collapse. Over 16,000 employees are affected, and India’s airline services are in turmoil. One estimate of liabilities was Rs 26,000 crore.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Why didn’t lenders and government agencies use a combination of executive action, judicial process and bridge financing to keep the airline afloat? Did legal obstacles genuinely prevent resolution? Or was it irresolute collective action, including lenders being gun-shy because of the Non-Performing Assets (NPAs) and witch-hunts, or manipulation, complicity, or vindictiveness? Answers and corrective action could help fix other high-profile NPAs.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The second is a macro-level example from telecom: The mishandling of BSNL and MTNL. Since the 1990s, successive governments have repeatedly attempted to give a fresh impetus to these hapless telecom entities, while depriving them of what could actually have made them successful, namely, strong, informed leadership, with independence/non-interference. Consequently, BSNL’s accumulated losses amount to nearly Rs 1 trillion. This is nearly five times Jet Airways’, and double Air India’s accumulated losses until March 2018, the latter being roughly the size of India’s annual health budget.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Sorting out these infrastructure service problems is crucial because of their effect on everything from security, education and healthcare, to work and entertainment. If BSNL and MTNL can change course constructively, we may be able to get them off their collapsing trajectory. Resolving this situation would remove severe impediments to our effectiveness and convenience, and an enormous drag on productivity. Connectivity and communications are so critical to social and economic capabilities, and our approach for decades has been so flawed and on a disastrous trajectory, that it is incomprehensible that we should be resolutely following this failing path without changing it. Now, the government is reportedly considering infusing thousands of crores into the same business, together with monetising land and assets.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>What Is In The Public Interest?</b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b></b>The first step is setting appropriate objectives for BSNL and MTNL. What public-interest needs do they serve? The communications minister mentioned strategic areas like home and defence, and services for crisis management during times of disaster such as cyclones and floods. Two others that he mentioned appear unjustifiable: That they are national assets, and leading providers of free services. The first is just an assertion, while the second is inappropriate for commercial undertakings. It’s time to drop wishful thinking and take honest stock. For instance, after policy statements supporting spectrum sharing, regulations were framed to be so restrictive as to make it not worthwhile. Instead, policy-makers should set objectives that actually serve the public interest.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Thus far, we have had confused and absurdly contradictory objectives in practice: High government collections from auction fees and charges, while expecting ubiquitous, reasonably-priced, good-quality services. It seems self-evident that such contradictory objectives cannot possibly be achieved. The fact that high government charges deprive networks of funds and increase user costs are documented in the following reports:<br />“<a href="http://icrier.org/pdf/Working_Paper_380.pdf" target="_blank">A Study of the Financial Health of the Telecom Sector</a>”1 and <br /><br />“<a href="https://www.nera.com/content/dam/nera/publications/2017/PUB_High_Spectrum_Costs_0517.pdf." target="_blank">The Impact of High Spectrum Costs on Mobile Network Investment and Consumer Prices</a>”2<br /><br /><strong>Suggested Objectives</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><strong></strong>A genuine reset could be attempted on the following lines:</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>Connectivity is the most essential objective. The ideal must be balanced with the practical, through trade-offs and phasing. The top cities and clusters have a major share of economic and social activity and are therefore a priority, of which 35-50 may be the fastest growing, with the next 50 requiring attention because of sheer size. For instance, Sweden’s phasing for 2025 is for 98 per cent of the population to have a minimum of 1 Gbps at home/work, 1.9 per cent at least 100 Mbps, and 0.1 per cent at 30 Mbps. But to the extent communications are available in our hinterland together with roads, water and sanitation, activity and prosperity will spread, with less pressure to migrate to urban centres. The longer term objective therefore needs to be good connectivity everywhere (within reason).</li>
<li>An equally important objective is to safeguard the public interest, while ensuring good, reliable services at reasonable prices. The question is not whether to shut down BSNL and MTNL, but how to provide the right structuring and support including reskilling and continuing education, so that they participate effectively in consortiums and provide safety, security, and oversight in the public interest.</li>
<li>A third is to avoid disrupting markets with unsustainable prices, including free services. Governments have done this repeatedly in telecom, airline and electricity services. It needs to stop. People need high-quality infrastructure for productivity, not shoddy services that undermine productivity and waste their time, pre-empting better services because of low pricing.</li>
<li>A fourth is to actively ensure adequate capacity and quality in services to not constrain or waste public resources and potential. This is to avoid the shoddy services referred to above, that are bottlenecks that subvert alternatives as low-priced barriers to competition, through constraining revenues while draining public resources.</li>
<li>Finally, we must embrace infrastructure- and spectrum-sharing. Sweden provides a model not only for the European Union, but also for India. Singapore had a model public-private partnership until some years ago, when SingTel, a passive anchor partner, took over OpenNet. We need mandatory active network sharing (including spectrum) through consortiums run by the private sector, with BSNL and MTNL as guardian anchor participants. A report by Stokab in March 2017,<sup>3</sup> the City of Stockholm’s IT infrastructure company, provides details of an operator-neutral fibre and mobile infrastructure. </li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Resolving connectivity problems that affect many people may be more easily doable than, for example, clearing the NPAs, or reconfiguring agriculture.</p>
<hr style="text-align: justify; " />
<p style="text-align: justify; "><em>Shyam dot Ponappa at gmail dot com</em> <br /><br />1: <a href="http://icrier.org/pdf/Working_Paper_380.pdf">http://icrier.org/pdf/Working_Paper_380.pdf</a><br /><br />2: <a href="https://www.nera.com/content/dam/nera/publications/2017/PUB_High_Spectrum_Costs_0517.pdf">https://www.nera.com/content/dam/nera/publications/2017/PUB_High_Spectrum_Costs_0517.pdf</a><br /><br />3. <a href="https://www.stokab.se/Documents/Nyheter%20bilagor/Provins%20rapport%20mars%202017_en.pdf">https://www.stokab.se/Documents/Nyheter%20bilagor/Provins%20rapport%20mars%202017_en.pdf</a></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/telecom/blog/shyam-ponappa-business-standard-july-4-2019-fix-problems-before-complete-failure'>http://editors.cis-india.org/telecom/blog/shyam-ponappa-business-standard-july-4-2019-fix-problems-before-complete-failure</a>
</p>
No publisherShyam PonappaTelecom2019-07-31T02:43:51ZBlog EntryJuly 2019 Newsletter
http://editors.cis-india.org/about/newsletters/july-2019-newsletter
<b>Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) newsletter for July 2019.</b>
<table class="grid listing">
<tbody>
<tr>
<th>Highlights for July 2019</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">CIS <a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/comments-on-the-draft-copyright-amendment-rules-2019-concerning-statutory-licensing">presented its comments on the proposed rules 29,30,31 of the Draft Copyright (Amendment) Rules, 2019</a> to the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade, Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Govt. of India. The comments were made in response to Notification G.S.R 393(E) published in the Gazette of India on May 30, 2019. CIS submitted that in the domestic approach to modernising our copyright legislation, we must refrain from considering distribution of born-digital/ digitised works over the public Internet equivalent to the function of broadcasting works over cable/ satellite.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">The Indian National Trust for Art & Heritage Pune Chapter is working with various organisations to preserve the natural heritage places like rivers in Pune district of Maharashtra, India. After the presentation of 'Project Jalbodh' by CIS-A2K in River Dialogue organised by INTACH in April 2018, several organisations have shown keen interest in collaboration. Subodh Kulkarni <a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/subodh-kulkarni-july-30-2019-wikimedia-workshop-on-rivers-under-project-jalbodh">shares some insights in his report</a>.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">ICANN has Advisory Committees which help guide the policy recommendations that the ICANN community develops while its Supporting Organizations are charged with developing policy recommendations for a particular aspect of ICANN's operations. ICANN publishes a combined budget for all these bodies under the head of policy development. <a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/didp-34-on-granular-detail-on-icanns-budget-for-policy-development-process">CIS inquired about the financial resources allocated to each of them specifically</a>.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">CIS in partnership with the Internet Society organized an event on the impact of consolidation in the Internet economy. It was divided into two roundtable discussions, the first one focusing on the policies and regulation while the latter dealt with the technical evolution of the Internet. The roundtables aimed to analyze how growing forces of consolidation, including concentration, vertical and horizontal integration, and barriers to market entry and competition would influence the Internet in the next 3 to 5 years. <a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/akriti-bopanna-and-gurshabad-grover-july-3-2019-impact-of-consolidation-in-the-internet-economy-on-the-evolution-of-the-internet">The report by Akriti Bopanna and Gurshabad Grover provides an insight into the developments</a>.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">As part of its Researchers at work programme <span>on key thematics at the intersections of internet and society,</span> CIS <a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/raw/call-for-essays-list">called for abstracts for essays that explore social, economic, cultural, political, infrastructural, or aesthetic dimensions of the ‘list’</a>. Ten abstracts would be shortlisted by August 9 from the list of submissions and the selected authors would be requested to submit the full essay of their draft by September 15. Final versions of the essays are expected to be published in October.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">With the rise and popularity of app-based platforms such as Ola, Uber, Swiggy Zomato, and others, there is a growing public conversation about regulation of such 'gig-work' platforms and the working conditions of people who work for them. <a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/raw/platform-work-india-panel-discussion-20190719">To explore this further CIS conducted a panel discussion at its Bangalore office</a>. Researchers associated with the project presented their preliminary findings. Panelists 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.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">An excerpt from an essay by Maya Indira Ganesh, written for and published as part of the Bodies of Evidence collection of Deep Dives titled <a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/raw/maya-indira-ganesh-you-auto-complete-me-romancing-the-bot">You auto-complete me: romancing the bot</a> explains human relations with bots. <span>The Bodies of Evidence collection, edited by Bishakha Datta and Richa Kaul Padte, is a collaboration between Point of View and the Centre for Internet and Society, undertaken as part of the Big Data for Development Network supported by International Development Research Centre, Canada.</span></li>
</ul>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<h3>CIS and the News</h3>
<p>The following articles were authored by CIS secretariat during the month:</p>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/the-diplomat-justin-sherman-and-arindrajit-basu-july-3-2019-fostering-strategic-convergence-in-us-india-tech-relations-5g-and-beyond">Fostering Strategic Convergence in US-India Tech Relations: 5G and Beyond</a> (<span style="text-align: justify; ">Justin Sherman and Arindrajit Basu; The Diplomat; July 3, 2019).</span></li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/shyam-ponappa-business-standard-july-4-2019-fix-problems-before-complete-failure">Fix Problems Before Complete Failure</a> (Shyam Ponappa; Business Standard; July 4, 2019).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/what-is-the-problem-with-2018ethical-ai2019-an-indian-perspective">What is the problem with ‘Ethical AI’? An Indian Perspective</a> (A rindrajit Basu and Pranav M.B; cyberBRICS; July 17, 2019).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/the-wire-mira-swaminathan-and-shweta-reddy-july-20-2019-old-isnt-always-gold-face-app-and-its-privacy-policies">Old Isn't Always Gold: FaceApp and Its Privacy Policies</a> (Mira Swaminathan and Shweta Reddy; The Wire; July 20, 2019).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/raw/nishant-shah-indian-express-july-31-2019-the-worrying-survival-of-moon-landing-conspiracy-theorists">The worrying survival of moon landing conspiracy theorists</a> (Nishant Shah; Indian Express; July 22, 2019).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/the-wire-karan-saini-and-prem-sylvester-july-23-2019-india-is-falling-down-the-facial-recognition-rabbit-hole">India Is Falling Down the Facial Recognition Rabbit Hole</a> (Karan Saini and Prem Sylvester; The Wire; July 23, 2019).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/raw/nishant-shah-indian-express-july-28-2019-why-i-am-not-going-to-tell-you-about-the-dangers-of-apps-like-face-app">Why I’m not going to tell you about the dangers of apps like FaceApp</a> (Nishant Shah; Indian Express; July 28, 2019).</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/aayush-rathi-and-ambika-tandon-indian-express-july-29-2019-the-digital-identification-parade">The Digital Identification Parade</a> (Aayush Rathi and Ambika Tandon; Indian Express; July 29, 2019). <i>The authors acknowledge Sumandro Chattapadhyay, Amber Sinha and Arindrajit Basu for their edits and Karan Saini for his inputs</i>.</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/the-wire-shweta-mohandas-july-30-2019-in-india-privacy-policies-of-fintech-companies-pay-lip-service-to-user-rights">In India, Privacy Policies of Fintech Companies Pay Lip Service to User Rights</a> (Shweta Mohandas; The Wire; July 30, 2019).</li>
</ul>
<h3>CIS in the News</h3>
<p>CIS secretariat was consulted for the following articles published during the month in various publications:</p>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/pibplans-a-fact-checking-unit-to-counter-fake-news">PIB plans a fact-checking unit to counter fake news</a> (Smriti Kak Ramachandran; Hindustan Times; July 3, 2019).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/huffington-post-gopal-sathe-july-4-2019-fintech-apps-privacy-snooping-credit-vidya">How Sai Baba Was Made To Spy On Your Phone For Credit Ratings</a> (Gopal Sathe; Huffington Post; July 4, 2019).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/openness/news/zd-net-july-8-2019-catalin-cimpanu-mozilla-is-funding-a-way-to-support-julia-in-firefox">Mozilla is funding a way to support Julia in Firefox</a> (Catalin Cimpanu; ZD Net; July 8, 2019).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/deccan-herald-july-14-2019-rajmohan-sudhakar-deepfakes-algorithms-at-war-trust-at-stake">Deepfakes: Algorithms at war, trust at stake</a> (Rajmohan Sudhakar; Deccan Herald; July 14, 2019).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/e2de2de01e41e1ae1ae23e30e1ae1ae02e49e2de21e39e25e1be23e30e0ae32e0ae19e14e34e08e34e17e31e25-e04e38e22e01e31e1ae1ce39e49e40e0ae35e48e22e27e0ae32e0de2be32e41e19e27e17e32e07e40e2be21e32e30e2ae21">Digital public information system design: Talk to experts, find the right way</a> (Prachatai; July 18, 2019).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/observer-research-foundation-shashidhar-kj-and-kashish-parpiani-july-22-2019-easing-the-us-india-divergence-on-data-localisation">Easing the US-India divergence on data localisation</a> (Shashidhar KJ and Kashish Parpiani; Observer Research Foundation; July 22, 2019).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/economic-times-july-23-2019-tushar-kaushik-for-sex-workers-mobile-phone-becomes-a-double-edged-sword">For sex workers, mobile phone becomes a double-edged sword</a> (Tushar Kaushik; Economic Times; July 23, 2019).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/fxstreet-rajarshi-mitra-july-26-2019-twitter-reacts-to-india-s-crypto-currency-drama">Twitter reacts to the India's cryptocurrency drama</a> (<span style="text-align: justify; ">Rajarshi Mitra; FXStreet; July 26, 2019).</span></li>
</ul>
<h2><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/a2k">Access to Knowledge</a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Access to Knowledge is a campaign to promote the fundamental principles of justice, freedom, and economic development. It deals with issues like copyrights, patents and trademarks, which are an important part of the digital landscape.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Copyright and Patent</h3>
<p>Research on harms caused to consumers, developing countries, human rights, and creativity/innovation from excessive regimes of copyright, patents, and other such monopolistic rights over knowledge:</p>
<p><strong>Submission</strong></p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/comments-on-the-draft-copyright-amendment-rules-2019-concerning-statutory-licensing">Comments on the Draft Copyright (Amendment) Rules, 2019 concerning Statutory Licensing</a> (Anubha Sinha; July 11, 2019). <span>This submission presents comments to the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (“</span><strong>DPIIT</strong><span>”), Ministry of Commerce and Industry pertaining to the notification G.S.R 393(E) containing the </span><a class="external-link" href="http://copyright.gov.in/Documents/pdfgazette.pdf">draft Copyright (Amendment) Rules, 2019</a><span> issued on 30</span><span>th</span><span> May 2019.</span></li>
</ul>
<h3>Wikipedia</h3>
<p>Under a grant from Wikimedia Foundation we are doing a project <span style="text-align: justify; ">for the growth of Indic language communities and projects by designing community collaborations and partnerships that recruit and cultivate new editors and explore innovative approaches to building projects.</span></p>
<p><span style="text-align: justify; "><strong>Blog Entries</strong></span></p>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/subodh-kulkarni-july-19-orientation-programme-wikipedia-workshop-and-action-plan-meeting-in-pah-solapur-university">Orientation programme, Wikipedia workshop & Action Plan meeting in PAH Solapur University</a> (Subodh Kulkarni; July 19, 2019).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/subodh-kulkarni-july-30-2019-wikimedia-workshop-on-rivers-under-project-jalbodh">Wikimedia Workshop on Rivers under Project Jalbodh</a> (Subodh Kulkarni; July 30, 2019).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/subodh-kulkarni-july-31-2019-re-licensing-sessions-with-authors-and-organisations">Re-licensing Sessions with Authors and Organisations</a> (Subodh Kulkarni; July 31, 2019).</li>
</ul>
<h3><span>Openness</span></h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Our work in the Openness programme focuses on open data, especially open government data, open access, open education resources, open knowledge in Indic languages, open media, and open technologies and standards - hardware and software:</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><strong>Participation in Event</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/openness/news/learning-and-understanding-the-frameworks-of-rights-at-work">Learning and Understanding the Frameworks of Rights at Work</a><span> (Organized by Kai Hsin Hung; IT for Change; Bangalore; July 13, 2019). Torsha and Mira attended the workshop.</span></li>
</ul>
<h2><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance">Internet Governance</a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The Tunis Agenda of the second World Summit on the Information Society has defined internet governance as the development and application by governments, the private sector and civil society, in their respective roles of shared principles, norms, rules, decision making procedures and programmes that shape the evolution and use of the Internet. As part of internet governance work we work on policy issues relating to freedom of expression primarily focusing on the Information Technology Act and issues of liability of intermediaries for unlawful speech and simultaneously ensuring that the right to privacy is safeguarded as well.</p>
<h3>Freedom of Speech & Expression</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Under a grant from the MacArthur Foundation, CIS is doing research on the restrictions placed on freedom of expression online by the Indian government and contribute studies, reports and policy briefs to feed into the ongoing debates at the national as well as international level. As part of the project we bring you the following outputs:</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><strong>Blog Entry</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/didp-34-on-granular-detail-on-icanns-budget-for-policy-development-process">DIDP #34 On granular detail on ICANN's budget for policy development process</a><span> (Akriti Bopanna; July 6, 2019).</span></li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Participation in Events</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/european-summer-school-on-internet-governance">13th European Summer School on Internet Governance</a> (Organized by European Summer School on Internet Governance; Meissen; July 13 - 20, 2019). <span>Akriti Bopanna attended the school.</span> </li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/icann-65-de-briefing-meeting">ICANN 65 De-briefing Meeting</a> (Organized by <span>Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations ; July 16, 2019). Akriti Bopanna remotely presented on the Human Rights related developments that took place at the Marrakech meeting, over the course of the 4 days.</span></li>
</ul>
<h3>Privacy</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Under a grant from Privacy International and IDRC we are doing a project on surveillance. CIS is researching the history of privacy in India and how it shapes the contemporary debates around technology mediated identity projects like Aadhar. As part of our ongoing research, we bring you the following outputs:</p>
<p><strong>Blog Entry</strong></p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/akriti-bopanna-and-gurshabad-grover-july-3-2019-impact-of-consolidation-in-the-internet-economy-on-the-evolution-of-the-internet">The Impact of Consolidation in the Internet Economy on the Evolution of the Internet</a> (Akriti Bopanna and Gurshabad Grover; July 3, 2019). The blog post was <span>edited by Swaraj Barooah, Elonnai Hickok and Vishnu Ramachandran. Swagam Dasgupta provided inputs. </span></li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Participation in Events</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/digital-id-forum-2019">Digital ID Forum 2019</a> (Organized by UNDP; Chulalongkorn University, Thailand; July 3, 2019). Sunil Abraham was one of the panelists at this event.</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/bis-litd-17-meeting">BIS LITD 17 meeting</a> (Organized by Bureau of Indian Standards; New Delhi; July 3, 2019). Gurshabad Grover attended the sixteenth meeting of the Information Systems Security and Biometrics Section Committee (LITD17).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/facebook-data-for-good-in-bangalore">Facebook Data for Good in Bangalore</a> (Organized by Facebook; Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore; July 25, 2019).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/roundtable-with-the-whatsapp-leadership">Roundtable with the WhatsApp leadership</a> (Organized by WhatsApp; Mountbatten, The Oberoi, New Delhi; July 26, 2019). Will Cathcart, WhatsApp's new global head, visited India and invited Sunil Abraham for a discussion.</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/facebook-data-for-good-delhi">Facebook Data for Good in New Delhi</a> (Organized by Facebook; University of Chicago Center, New Delhi; July 29, 2019).</li>
</ul>
<h3>IT / Information Technology</h3>
<p>A research on the usage of systems (computers and telecommunications) for storing, retrieving and sending information as well as the IT Act:</p>
<p><strong>Participation in Event</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/leveraging-web-application-vulnerabilities-for-reconnaissance-and-intelligence-gathering">Leveraging Web Application Vulnerabilities for Reconnaissance and Intelligence Gathering</a> (Organized by Has Geek; GRD College of Science, Coimbatore; July 5, 2019). Karan Saini gave a talk at the JSFoo Conference.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Artificial Intelligence</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">With origins dating back to the 1950s Artificial Intelligence (AI) is not necessarily new. However, interest in AI has been rekindled over the recent years due to advancements of technology and its applications to real-world scenarios. We conduct research on the existing legal and regulatory parameters:</p>
<p><strong>Participation in Events</strong></p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/roundtable-discussion-on-201cthe-future-of-ai-policy-in-india201d-icrier">Roundtable Discussion on “The Future of AI Policy in India”</a> (Organized by Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations, New Delhi; July 1, 2019).</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/emerging-ai-technology-in-health-care-in-india-health-equity-and-justice-critical-reflections-and-charting-out-way-forward">Emerging AI technology in health care in India, health equity and justice: Critical reflections and charting out way forward</a> (Organized by HEaL (Health, Ethics, and Law Institute of Training, Research and Advocacy) of FMES (Forum for Medical Ethics Society) in collaboration with CPS (Centre for Policy Studies), Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay; July 13, 2019). <span>Radhika Radhakrishnan, participated in a roundtable discussion on "Emerging AI technology in health care in India, health equity and justice: Critical reflections and charting out way forward."</span></li>
</ul>
<h3>Gender</h3>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/presentation-to-amnesty-international-on-researching-the-future-of-work">Presentation to Amnesty International on researching the Future of Work</a> (Organized by Amnesty Interntional, New Delhi; July 18, 2019). Aayush Rathi and Ambika Tandon made a presentation on CIS research on Future of Work.</li>
</ul>
<h2><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/telecom">Telecom</a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The growth in telecommunications in India has been impressive. While the potential for growth and returns exist, a range of issues need to be addressed for this potential to be realized. One aspect is more extensive rural coverage and the second aspect is a countrywide access to broadband which is low at about eight million subscriptions. Both require effective and efficient use of networks and resources, including spectrum.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><strong>Monthly Blog</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/shyam-ponappa-business-standard-july-4-2019-fix-problems-before-complete-failure">Fix Problems Before Complete Failure</a> (Shyam Ponappa; Organizing India Blogspot; July 4, 2019).</li>
</ul>
<h2 style="text-align: justify; "><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/raw">Researchers@Work</a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The researchers@work programme at CIS produces and supports pioneering and sustained trans-disciplinary research on key thematics at the intersections of internet and society; organise and incubate networks of and fora for researchers and practitioners studying and making internet in India; and contribute to development of critical digital pedagogy, research methodology, and creative practice.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><strong>Event Organized</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/raw/platform-work-india-panel-discussion-20190719">#MappingDigitalLabour - Panel discussion on platform-work in Mumbai and New Delhi</a> (CIS, Bangalore; July 19, 2019). Watch the <a class="external-link" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1lwpb3jRMQ">session recording video here</a>.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Blog Entries</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://medium.com/rawblog/studying-the-internet-discourse-in-india-through-the-prism-of-human-rights-2a5cefff6f03">Studying the Internet Discourse in India through the Prism of Human Rights</a> (Deva Prasad M.; July 1, 2019).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://medium.com/rawblog/digitalpedagogies-ebda95720926">#DigitalPedagogies</a> (Ashutosh Potdar, Maya Dodd, Nidhi Kalra, and Ravikant Kisana; July 1, 2019).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://medium.com/rawblog/openaccessscholarlypublishing-f12f4af43322">#OpenAccessScholarlyPublishing</a> (Abhishek Shrivastava, Dibyaduti Roy, and Nirmala Menon; July 11, 2019).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://medium.com/rawblog/renarrationweb-b51b8bcce1c0">#RenarrationWeb</a> (Anuja Mirchandaney, Deepak Prince, Dinesh and Shalini; July 23, 2019).</li>
</ul>
<hr />
<h3><a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/">About CIS</a></h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">CIS is a non-profit organisation that undertakes interdisciplinary research on internet and digital technologies from policy and academic perspectives. The areas of focus include digital accessibility for persons with disabilities, access to knowledge, intellectual property rights, openness (including open data, free and open source software, open standards, open access, open educational resources, and open video), internet governance, telecommunication reform, digital privacy, and cyber-security. The academic research at CIS seeks to understand the reconfigurations of social and cultural processes and structures as mediated through the internet and digital media technologies.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><strong>Follow CIS on:</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>Twitter:<a href="http://twitter.com/cis_india"> http://twitter.com/cis_india</a></li>
<li>Twitter - Access to Knowledge: <a href="https://twitter.com/CISA2K">https://twitter.com/CISA2K</a></li>
<li>Twitter - Information Policy: <a href="https://twitter.com/CIS_InfoPolicy">https://twitter.com/CIS_InfoPolicy</a></li>
<li>Facebook - Access to Knowledge:<a href="https://www.facebook.com/cisa2k"> https://www.facebook.com/cisa2k</a></li>
<li>E-Mail - Access to Knowledge: a2k@cis-india.org</li>
<li>E-Mail - Researchers at Work: raw@cis-india.org</li>
<li>List - Researchers at Work: <a href="https://lists.ghserv.net/mailman/listinfo/researchers">https://lists.ghserv.net/mailman/listinfo/researchers</a></li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Support CIS:</strong></p>
<p>Please help us defend consumer and citizen rights on the Internet! Write a cheque in favour of 'The Centre for Internet and Society' and mail it to us at No. 194, 2nd 'C' Cross, Domlur, 2nd Stage, Bengaluru - 5600 71.</p>
<p><strong>Collaborate with CIS:</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">We invite researchers, practitioners, artists, and theoreticians, both organisationally and as individuals, to engage with us on topics related internet and society, and improve our collective understanding of this field. To discuss such possibilities, please write to Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, at sunil@cis-india.org (for policy research), or Sumandro Chattapadhyay, Research Director, at sumandro@cis-india.org (for academic research), with an indication of the form and the content of the collaboration you might be interested in. To discuss collaborations on Indic language Wikipedia projects, write to Tanveer Hasan, Programme Officer, at tanveer@cis-india.org.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><i>CIS is grateful to its primary donor the Kusuma Trust founded by Anurag Dikshit and Soma Pujari, philanthropists of Indian origin for its core funding and support for most of its projects. CIS is also grateful to its other donors, Wikimedia Foundation, Ford Foundation, Privacy International, UK, Hans Foundation, MacArthur Foundation, and IDRC for funding its various projects</i>.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/about/newsletters/july-2019-newsletter'>http://editors.cis-india.org/about/newsletters/july-2019-newsletter</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaTelecomResearchers at WorkInternet GovernanceAccess to Knowledge2019-08-09T13:50:49ZPageFostering Strategic Convergence in US-India Tech Relations: 5G and Beyond
http://editors.cis-india.org/telecom/blog/the-diplomat-justin-sherman-and-arindrajit-basu-july-3-2019-fostering-strategic-convergence-in-us-india-tech-relations-5g-and-beyond
<b>The 2019 G-20 summit underscores the importance of fostering strategic convergence in U.S.-India tech relations.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The article by Justin Sherman and Arindrajit Basu was <a class="external-link" href="https://thediplomat.com/2019/07/fostering-strategic-convergence-in-us-india-tech-relations-5g-and-beyond/">published in the Diplomat</a> on July 3, 2019.</p>
<hr style="text-align: justify; " />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">As world leaders gathered for the G-20 summit in Osaka, Japan this past weekend, a multitude of issues from climate to trade to technology came to the fore. Much of the focus was on U.S.-China interactions at the summit, as the two nations are locked in both a trade war and broader technological and geopolitical competition. Despite the present focus on the U.S. and China, however, it is crucial to not overlook another bilateral relationship of ever-growing importance in the process: The tech relationship between the United States and India.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Certainly, the two countries have many disagreements on some technology issues. But this is a geopolitical relationship that is both strategically important for each country, and a vital opportunity for the two largest democracies in the world to collectively combat Chinese-style digital authoritarianism.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><strong>Huawei and 5G</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">First, with respect to national security and 5G roll-outs, the U.S and India are not on the same page. The United States, for several months now, has been on a <a href="https://www.lawfareblog.com/confused-us-messaging-campaign-huawei" target="_blank">diplomatic messaging tour</a> of the world to try to convince — with great resistance (some would argue failure) — allies, partners, and potential partners alike to ban Chinese firm Huawei from supplying components of 5G networks. Many officials across Europe, the Middle East, South America, and elsewhere have been reluctant to ban Huawei per the U.S. recommendation, and India is no exception. Indeed, National Security Advisory Board Chairman P.S. Raghavan <a href="https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/on-5g-and-data-india-stands-with-developing-world-not-us-japan-at-g20/article28207169.ece/amp/?__twitter_impression=true" target="_blank">told</a> <em>The Hindu</em> that “5G is becoming a fault line in the technology cold war between world powers” and that India must avoid getting caught in these fault lines.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In large part, U.S. diplomatic messaging here has fallen short due to <a href="https://www.lawfareblog.com/confused-us-messaging-campaign-huawei" target="_blank">heavy conflations</a> of national security- and trade-related risks; and Trump only contributed further to this fact with his latest <a href="https://twitter.com/JenniferJJacobs/status/1145072073800183808" target="_blank">reference</a> to Huawei, during the G-20, as a potential trade war bargaining chip. The sheer population of India, however, combined with its fast growing technology sectors and <a href="http://www.cmai.asia/digitalindia/" target="_blank">desire to digitize</a>, makes the country an important market player when it comes to the 5G revolution. U.S.-India engagement on 5G issues must be managed effectively through robust articulation of each country’s national interests underscored by a clean segregation of trade and security questions in the discussion. This partnership has the potential to wield great influence in the global market, including in ways that could prioritize or deprioritize certain 5G equipment suppliers (like Huawei).</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><strong>Data Sovereignty and Data Privacy</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Data sovereignty is another hot area in which the U.S.-India tech relationship demands careful negotiation. Over the past year, the Indian government has <a href="https://twitter.com/cis_india/status/1143096429298085889" target="_blank">introduced a range of policy instruments</a> which dictate that certain kinds of data must be stored in servers located physically within India — termed “<a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/resources/the-localisation-gambit.pdf" target="_blank">data localization</a>.” While there are <a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/resources/the-localisation-gambit.pdf" target="_blank">a number of policy objectives</a> this gambit ostensibly seeks to serve, the two which stand out are (1) the presently cumbersome process for Indian law enforcement agencies to access data stored in the U.S. during criminal investigations, and (2) extractive economic models used by U.S. companies operating in India.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">A range of conflicting developments emerging from the G-20 summit underscore this fact. India, along with the BRICS grouping, <a href="https://mea.gov.in/bilateral-documents.htm?dtl/31506/Joint+Statement+on+BRICS+Leaders+Informal+Meeting+on+the+margins+of+G20+Summit" target="_blank">focused</a> on the development dimensions of data governance and re-emphasized the need for <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0a8YsZQ0F6k&feature=youtu.be" target="_blank">data sovereignty</a> — broadly understood as the sovereign right of nations to govern data in their national interest for the welfare of their citizens. President Trump <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-g20-leaders-special-event-digital-economy-osaka-japan/" target="_blank">reigned in his focus</a> on the need for cross-border data flows and, in direct opposition to some proposals that have emerged from India, explicitly opposed data localization. While India did not sign the <a href="https://www.international.gc.ca/world-monde/international_relations-relations_internationales/g20/2019-06-29-g20_declaration-declaration_g20.aspx?lang=eng" target="_blank">Osaka Declaration on the Digital Economy</a> that promoted cross-border data flows, the importance of cross-border data flows in spurring the global economy did find its way into the <a href="https://g20.org/pdf/documents/en/FINAL_G20_Osaka_Leaders_Declaration.pdf" target="_blank">Final G-20 Leaders Declaration</a> — which, of course, both countries signed.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Geopolitically, the importance of India’s data governance stance cannot be overstated as it could pave the way for the approach adopted by other emerging economies — most notably the BRICS countries. Likewise, the U.S. has important thinking to do around such questions as what shape a national data privacy law could take. Even though the two countries’ views on data may be quite different from one another, the seats that India and the U.S. have at the table for <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2019/06/g20-data/592606/" target="_blank">global data governance discussions</a> — alongside others like Japan, China, and the European Union — underscore the value of meaningful interactions and mutual trust and respect on this issue.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><strong>Norms for a Democratic Digital Future</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Finally, as the <a href="https://www.un.org/disarmament/ict-security/" target="_blank">United Nations Group of Governmental Experts</a> and the <a href="https://www.un.org/disarmament/open-ended-working-group/" target="_blank">Open-Ended Working Group</a> meet to resurrect the norm-formulation process for fostering responsible state behavior in cyberspace, India has some homework to do. Even though it has been a member of five out of the six Group of Governmental Experts set up thus far, India is yet to come out with a public statement delineating its views on the applicability of International Law applies in cyberspace. Further, India has also failed to articulate a cohesive digital strategy — instead relying on a patchwork of hastily rolled out and often ill-conceived regulatory policies, some of which commentators in the West <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/14/technology/india-internet-censorship.html" target="_blank">have hastily labeled</a> as digital authoritarianism. The U.S., for its part, amidst a <a href="https://www.newamerica.org/cybersecurity-initiative/c2b/c2b-log/four-opportunities-for-states-new-cyber-bureau/" target="_blank">cutback</a> to diplomatic cyber engagement (as part of cutbacks to diplomacy writ large), could also up its support of international engagement on these issues. Its recent repeal of net neutrality protections could also be argued as a step back from long-time international <a href="https://d1y8sb8igg2f8e.cloudfront.net/documents/The_Idealized_Internet_vs._Internet_Realities_Version_1.0_2018-07-25_203930.pdf" target="_blank">norm promotion</a> around internet openness.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Through a combination of domestic policy gambits and foreign policy maneuvers, both states need to draw lines in the sand that safeguard human rights, international law, and democracy online, while arriving at some balance with each other’s national interests.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">A primary example lies with artificial intelligence (AI). AI has found increasing use in digital authoritarianism, as dictators use automated, intelligent systems to boost their surveillance capabilities. The Chinese government has arguably been at the <a href="https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-net/freedom-net-2018" target="_blank">forefront</a> of this enhanced level of authoritarian rule for the digital age.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In addition to <a href="https://www.newamerica.org/cybersecurity-initiative/digichina/blog/translation-chinese-government-outlines-ai-ambitions-through-2020/" target="_blank">focusing</a> on AI applications for everything from natural language processing to self-driving cars — through investments, strategies, policy documents, and so on — Beijing has also been <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/14/technology/china-surveillance-artificial-intelligence-racial-profiling.html" target="_blank">deploying</a> AI in the service of large-scale human-rights abuses. Chinese strategy papers on AI, while similarly emphasizing many commercial or benign applications and raising attention to such issues as algorithmic fairness, concurrently have <a href="https://www.newamerica.org/cybersecurity-initiative/digichina/blog/online-symposium-chinese-thinking-ai-security-comparative-context/" target="_blank">discussed</a> using AI for “social governance,” censorship, and surveillance. To combat the rising intersection of AI and digital authoritarianism, the U.S. and India could wield enormous leverage — as the two largest democracies in the world — in governing these technologies in a democratic fashion that counters <a href="https://www.newamerica.org/cybersecurity-initiative/reports/essay-reframing-the-us-china-ai-arms-race/" target="_blank">dangerous arms-race narratives</a> and uses of AI for surveillance and repression.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The same goes for paying attention to technology exports and diffusion to human-rights abusers. For instance, companies incorporated in China, among those incorporated elsewhere, have been <a href="https://www.cfr.org/blog/authoritarians-are-exporting-surveillance-tech-and-it-their-vision-internet" target="_blank">heavily involved</a> in exports of dual-use surveillance technologies to other countries, including those with questionable or outright poor human-rights records. Although companies incorporated in democracies may engage in such practices as well, most democracies take steps to curtail these practices as much as possible, such as through the multilateral Wassenaar Arrangement — which lays out export controls around conventional weapons and dual-use goods and technologies. The U.S. has long been a party to this agreement, and India <a href="https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/defence/wassenaar-arrangement-decides-to-make-india-its-member/articleshow/61975192.cms?from=mdr" target="_blank">officially joined</a> in 2018. Arguments persist about the extent to which Beijing is involved in these dual-use surveillance technology exports, but these exports may only increase going forward as companies <a href="https://www.newamerica.org/weekly/edition-254/long-view-digital-authoritarianism/" target="_blank">increasingly</a> sell not just internet surveillance tools but also dual-use AI tools. In this way, too, India and the U.S. could play an important role in countering the spread of such capabilities to human-rights abusers and standing against the spread of digital authoritarianism in the process.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The relationship here is, therefore, one that requires careful navigation for its significant geopolitical, economic, and ideological consequences. For the future of the technological relationship between the world’s largest democracies—and the extent to which they respect each other’s strategic autonomy while converging on issues of mutual interest—could determine the future of global digital governance.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/telecom/blog/the-diplomat-justin-sherman-and-arindrajit-basu-july-3-2019-fostering-strategic-convergence-in-us-india-tech-relations-5g-and-beyond'>http://editors.cis-india.org/telecom/blog/the-diplomat-justin-sherman-and-arindrajit-basu-july-3-2019-fostering-strategic-convergence-in-us-india-tech-relations-5g-and-beyond</a>
</p>
No publisherJustin Sherman and Arindrajit BasuTelecomArtificial Intelligence2019-07-05T02:19:09ZBlog Entry5G Aspirations and Realities
http://editors.cis-india.org/telecom/blog/shyam-ponappa-business-standard-june-6-2019-5g-aspirations-and-realities
<b>What the government can do for 5G and Digital India with a Systems Approach.</b>
<p>The article by Shyam Ponappa was published in <a class="external-link" href="https://www.business-standard.com/article/opinion/5g-aspirations-and-realities-119060600042_1.html">Business Standard</a> on June 6 and in <a class="external-link" href="https://organizing-india.blogspot.com/2019/06/5g-aspirations-and-realities.html">Organizing India Blogspot </a>on the same day.</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Ah, 5G! The very thought seems to excite so many. What is it? It is a mix of telecom technologies<sup>1</sup> delivering much higher data speeds on more extensive connectivity, using much lower power, with extended battery life, and emitting less radiation, for ways to connect and operate most of the conveniences people use regularly. From smartphones and computers for communications, study, work, research, entertainment, to other devices and machines, such as for managing utilities (electricity and water) at home and the workplace, refrigerators and cooking devices, industrial equipment, transport, and more, so that daily activities are eased considerably. The catch is that 5G is at an early stage in a long process — perhaps a couple of years to manifest in large trials in India, and several more years to be widely available, needing huge investment ($100 billion in India).</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Yet, there are compelling reasons for developing India’s capabilities. There is the sheer necessity for India to partially meet its requirements, instead of relying entirely on imports. The big draw is the size of the Indian market and prospective demand, the global market, and the possibility of innovation at this early stage. Domestic capabilities are a prerequisite to afford deployment at a level that would otherwise exceed petroleum imports, with unsustainable effects on our balance of payments. Without domestic capacity, energy imports would limit electronics imports. (This highlights India’s need for solar power development, a separate and equally high priority.)</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">However, the sobering financial condition of India’s communications industry gives pause. Financial capacity — revenue generation and access to capital, both equity and debt at favourable terms — is required to develop capabilities. After the telecom price wars, even Reliance Jio is reportedly cutting staff. Airtel, meanwhile, having invested heavily in 4G infrastructure, has stated its unwillingness to bid for 5G pectrum unless prices are lower.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The government set up a committee for 5G in September 2017 with a steering group chaired by emeritus professor at Stanford Arogyaswami Paulraj, a pioneer in wireless communications. This committee recommended network deployment as the immediate priority, i.e., rolling out early, efficient and pervasive 5G networks. Technology design and manufacturing capacity were recommended for later phases.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Network deployment needs policy support driven by a Systems Approach, especially for a debt-encumbered sector faced with declining revenues per user, and unused, inaccessible spectrum, even as other countries enhance their lead. This is ironic, because India has real strengths in this sector and a large market, with the potential to catapult productivity and prospects. Yet, government policies have not succeeded in coordinating our reservoir of human resources and potential.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">India lags in 5G despite the government’s stated interest in establishing a lead. Spectrum allocation and large trials were scheduled towards the end of 2019, and auctions in 2020. However, government statements this week target 5G trials by September, and auctions by the end of 2019. As spectrum band choices and allocations for trials have yet to be made, this appears overambitious without radical improvement in resolving many such issues.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Also, India’s reserve price for spectrum is seven times Korea’s. As sectoral cash flows are weak, there may be takers only at very low prices unless funding is from external sources as for Reliance. A monopolistic outcome would be undesirable in the public interest. Therefore, shared access with Wireless Resource Virtualisation and Network Function Virtualisation may be a much better solution for network deployment and market development.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Inexplicably, government and the public still view communications as a “government cash-cow” instead of as critical infrastructure, while complaining bitterly about poor delivery from low investment. It is obvious that exorbitant government charges (29-32 per cent of revenues plus corporate tax) crowd out investment. The government can change this, or give up on establishing a lead in communications and 5G. Worse, India will continue to lose out on leveraging communications for development.</p>
<p><strong>Initiate a breakthrough - Apply Systems Thinking</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><strong> </strong>The government can catalyse a breakthrough by doing the following:a) Reduce borrowing costs and taxes for communications as infrastructure. This aim of the National Telecom Policy 2012 (NTP-2012) has been ignored.b) Provide adequate spectrum aligned with global allocations. Given India’s low fibre penetration and need for digital technology, allow shared access to all spectrum and infrastructure, with charges for usage based on revenue sharing.c) Clear administrative impasses through coordination and due process without delay. For example, allocate spectrum immediately for 12 months for trials.Many countries have completed 5G spectrum assignments and are already deploying 5G. These include Korea, Switzerland, Finland, UK, USA, Canada, Australia, Germany, Russia, Italy, and Japan.<sup>2</sup>There are nearly 300 5G deployments, as shown on an interactive map on Ookla’s site (Chart 1).<br />Chart 1: 5G Map – June 4, 2019<br /><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/--WHCFztEMqI/XPi0GDVSVeI/AAAAAAAAGVA/9LJAWbq8HtYJjApEr6xv82aHFFevo1e9ACLcBGAs/s1600/Ookla%2B5G%2BMap-2019-06-04.jpg"></a><br /><img src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/--WHCFztEMqI/XPi0GDVSVeI/AAAAAAAAGVA/9LJAWbq8HtYJjApEr6xv82aHFFevo1e9ACLcBGAs/s320/Ookla%2B5G%2BMap-2019-06-04.jpg" /><br /><br />Source: <a href="https://www.speedtest.net/ookla-5g-map">https://www.speedtest.net/ookla-5g-map</a><br />In this context, Huawei’s role in India is contentious. One issue is of non-discriminatory trading terms, or fairness in competition. If an entity such as Huawei achieves global dominance through government support, it competes on terms that cannot be matched because of cost of funds and scale advantages. Such entities can establish dominance in any country against competitors who do not enjoy similar support. Second, while Huawei may be doing nothing different from Nokia or Ericsson, the fact that it is supported by a neighbour with apparently hegemonic behaviour, China, suggests that dependence or entanglement are inadvisable.<br /><br />To succeed with Digital India and 5G, government can begin by classifying communications as infrastructure, and adopting the approach taken for 5 GHz Wi-Fi. Take pointers from the US FCC, ETSI, and so on; use spectrum and network sharing to leverage equipment and spectrum fully; support local technology champions such as a fabless chip design unit and a network equipment manufacturer in Bangalore, and a wireless equipment manufacturer in Delhi; and focus only on delivery with sustainable revenue generation.</p>
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<p><em>Shyam dot Ponappa at gmail dot com</em></p>
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<p><em>1: 5G technologies include Multi-User – MIMO (MU-MIMO) to improve reception, small cells for better performance and reduced radiation, WiGig and other high-speed wireless technologies, Software Defined Networks with Network Function Virtualisation, Wireless Resource Virtualisation, and a fibre backbone.</em></p>
<p><em><em>2: Page 8: https://img.lightreading.com/5g/downloads/ webinar-breaking-the-wireless-barriers-to-mobilize-5g-</em></em></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/telecom/blog/shyam-ponappa-business-standard-june-6-2019-5g-aspirations-and-realities'>http://editors.cis-india.org/telecom/blog/shyam-ponappa-business-standard-june-6-2019-5g-aspirations-and-realities</a>
</p>
No publisherShyam PonappaTelecom2019-07-02T04:29:22ZBlog EntryPlugging into India’s broadband revolution
http://editors.cis-india.org/telecom/news/livemint-navadha-pandey-june-4-2019-plugging-into-indias-broadband-revolution
<b>After many false starts, the plan to wire India’s digital future may finally take off with Jio GigaFiber’s entry.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The article by Navadha Pandey was <a class="external-link" href="https://www.livemint.com/technology/tech-news/plugging-into-india-s-broadband-revolution-1559662971455.html">published in Livemint</a> on June 4, 2019. Sunil Abraham was quoted.</p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">All through 2018, 58-year-old Ashok Kumar Rai’s Lucknow-based small architecture firm used to spend a princely sum of ₹11,800 each month for the privilege of a good broadband internet connection. “We used to send building walk-through files to clients every day and the size of each file could go up to 1GB (gigabytes)," he says. Doling out cash for reliable internet was a necessity. All that changed when a new player, Atria Convergence Technologies Ltd (ACT), came to Rai’s upmarket Gomti Nagar neighbourhood in Lucknow. In the summer of 2019, Rai’s internet access speed has shot up from 4 to 150 Mbps (megabits per second). And the monthly bill has come crashing down to about ₹1,000.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">For far too long, India’s internet action lay centered in its metros, leaving out even relatively big cities like Lucknow. The fledgling online access push into smaller cities and rural India happened primarily via mobile data transmitted over wireless spectrum. Home broadband was nowhere in the picture. But all that seems set for some dramatic change. If the country’s richest man, Mukesh Ambani, has his way, high-speed broadband will become a reality in at least 1,600 cities.</p>
<p>In the process, he aims to also leapfrog India from its current rank—134—in fixed-line broadband penetration to the top five with the help of Jio GigaFiber.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The dream of a broadband revolution, however, has its fair share of detractors. Bhaskar Ramamurthi, for example, who helms the Centre of Excellence in Wireless Technology (CWEiT at Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras), says: “Fiber penetration will take a long time in India."</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The logic is simple: unlike mobile towers, fiber needs to reach each home physically. China’s broadband boom happened because it has rebuilt nearly its entire housing stock in the last 15 years, fuelled by a construction-led growth bubble. “In India, initially only all the upcoming new buildings may get connected to fiber-based (fast) internet," says Ramamurthi.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">But India’s untapped millions are about to set off a race. And this journey, which will clearly not be a cakewalk, has huge rewards in store. Sample this: India has 1.16 billion mobile subscribers but just 18.42 million wired broadband subscribers. And many of them, like Rai, are data hungry. There is an existing playbook: what happened to mobile broadband after 2014.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In 2014, the cost of one GB of mobile data was ₹270. Now, it is ₹10 per GB. As a result, mobile data consumption has soared. In late-2014, an average user on Airtel’s network (India’s largest telecom operator back then) used 622 megabytes (MB) of data in a month. By late-2018, the number of users had tripled, but, despite a broader base, average data usage stood at 10GB a month.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/LinkingIndia.jpg" alt="Linking India" class="image-inline" title="Linking India" /></p>
<p><strong>First-mover advantage</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The expansion in wired broadband access may have far-reaching implications beyond a mere spike in data usage. When Mukesh Ambani, chairman and managing director of Reliance Industry Ltd which owns Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd, declared optical fibre based fixed-line broadband as “the future" last July, the real play was not on the infrastructure itself, but the services that would ride on top—from smart home experiences to new forms of e-commerce. The revenue and the first-mover advantage lie in who gets to tap into the “ecosystem"—of how a household connects to the wider world to buy, watch, and exchange.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Essentially, new businesses could emerge to feed the “ecosystem". And some existing small and medium-scale businesses may finally become viable enough to expand and go big. Netflix, for example, emerged as one of the world’s largest video streaming platform, riding on top of the US broadband boom. But India already has a crowded pack of 34 web video streaming entertainment platforms, most of which have cropped up to sustain the attention of mobile data guzzling Indians. With wired broadband following mobile usage expansion, unlike in most other countries, India’s new-age internet businesses are likely to be unique and different.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Home-based surveillance and security systems could be one space that could gain significant traction, says Sunil Abraham, executive director of the Bengaluru-based think-tank Centre for Internet and Society. “If there are 40 families (in a high-rise apartment) who have babies and need surveillance facilities, each apartment going for an individual connection from a telecom service provider would involve a huge amount of money. But a fibre-based intranet or peer network could connect all 40 flats for a much smaller price," he says.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">There could also be unintended consequences for the country’s digital gender divide. Only 29% of India’s current internet users are women, according to a recent Unicef report. If the cost of wired broadband begins to crash—thereby increasing the number of homes which have access—women who will never get access to a phone (due to the cost of device and patriarchy) will finally be able to see things on the internet, says Nandini Chami, a researcher at IT for Change, a non-governmental organization. “How this negotiation will happen inside the house, we will have to wait and watch," she says. Household-level access would also confuse corporate entities trying to “hyper-profile" users since multiple people will be accessing the internet through shared devices at home, she adds.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">But as internet access improves, making the digital economy more vital, Chami says, governments would have an important role in ensuring women get to use the internet “on terms that are empowering". “We can think of innovative models when fixed broadband becomes cheap. The household is not the space for this. It can be libraries which have special times for young girls or digital labs for women. We need to rethink the missed opportunity of the BharatNet and the national optic fibre network. Internet access should not stop at just the panchayat office. We must think of different points of access, particularly for women," Chami adds.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The possibility of many of these radical changes in both the social and business realms will, of course, entirely rely on the pace at which India goes broadband. Despite the rapid expansion in mobile internet, data originating from mobile devices still account for only 20% of India’s data consumption. That is why what happens in the wired broadband space will matter increasingly. And that is also why Jio is betting big on expanding the existing wired user base (18 million) to 50 million.</p>
<p><strong>The Jio gameplan</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Jio is currently running beta trials for GigaFiber in New Delhi and Mumbai, providing 100GB of data at 100 Mbps for free, except for the ₹4,500 one-time deposit for a router. While the landline will come with unlimited calling facility, television channels will be delivered over the internet (Internet Protocol Television, or IPTV). The packaged trio of fast Internet, landline telephony, and television access will remain free for a while—similar to what had happened in the mobile phone services segment in 2016. After commercial launch, the per month cost is expected to be ₹600, roughly half of what similar services cost currently.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Jio’s rival Bharti Airtel Ltd has decided that it is not interested in the entire pie but just the creamy top layer. It will focus on premium customers and expand its broadband services across India’s top 100 cities, instead of copying Reliance Jio’s ambitious plan to create a fibre-optic network across the country. To achieve this, Airtel, which already has 2.36 million fibre customers, will stay focussed on high-rise buildings rather than horizontal deployment, as this business model is more economical and logical.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The dark horse in this race is, of course, ACT with its existing 1.42 million customers. Its presence is much smaller with just 18 cities, largely in the south India and the newly expanded zones of Delhi, Jaipur and Lucknow. On the ACT fibre network, average data consumption per user is already at 130GB a month.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">“We have seen a 150% increase in average consumption in the last 18 months," says Bala Malladi, chief executive officer, ACT. “People are now looking at higher speeds and the experience is taking precedence over cost. In fact, even in the hinterland, people want higher speeds and non-buffered experience," he adds.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">But why hasn’t fibre penetration gone up if the demand is booming? Why did India miss the bus when other countries like the US have an 80% fibre penetration?</p>
<p><strong>Policy paralysis</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Firstly, fibre is expensive to lay, unlike a SIM card which can be given away for free. Moreover, India till a few years ago was mostly a voice calls market and not a data market. Secondly, municipalities in India have complicated right-of-way (RoW) procedures which act as a big hurdle for digging and laying fibre. This is one of the reasons why even government (such as the Delhi government) plans to set up citywide surveillance and Wi-Fi hotspots have failed.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">“The centre has finally issued a very good RoW model, but now every state has to come up with its own policy modelled on the central guidelines. They are taking their own sweet time," says Rajan Mathews, director general, Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI).</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The lack of forward movement on these fixable policy issues assumes significance given the government’s focus on fibre in its National Digital Communications Policy-2018, which has a target of attracting $100 billion worth of investments in digital communications.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The policy’s goals include universal broadband for all, creating four million jobs in digital communications, and raising the share of digital communications in India’s gross domestic product (GDP) to 8% (from less than 6% in 2017). Deployment of five million public Wi-Fi hotspots by 2020 through a National Broadband Mission is also on the agenda. The key goal, however, is to provide 1 Gbps (gigabit per second) connectivity to all gram panchayats by 2020 and 10 Gbps by 2022.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The sad reality is that the last five years were an absolute failure in laying fibre in the country. BharatNet, the flagship mission to connect 250,000 gram panchayats with broadband, which was being implemented by Bharat Broadband Network Ltd (BBNL), a special purpose vehicle set up under the department of telecommunications (DoT) in February 2012, has been a disappointment, to say the least.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The government has completed laying optical fibre cables across more than 100,000 gram panchayats in the first phase and had aimed to complete connecting the remaining 150,000 councils by March 2019. The second phase has seen “zero progress", according to government officials close to the matter. Pained by poor utilization of digital infrastructure, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) suggested auctioning BharatNet infrastructure on an “as is where is" basis after a meeting held in December at the prime minister’s office to take stock of the mission.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">To start with, the DoT plans to monetize fibre assets built by the government under its flagship mission BharatNet through outright sale to private players or by leasing these assets for a 20-year period after a bidding process. If successful, it could boost connectivity in Indian villages, which have so far been kept out of the digital dividend.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Bigger cities, however, will have a different consumption story. With intra-city fibre coverage leading to improved penetration, wired broadband would not just offer an enhanced content viewing experience, but also open doors for internet of things, or IoT. “Home security is going to become a big business going forward, riding on fibre. Even gaming will see a lot of traction as you can enjoy a 4K game in real-time, thanks to low latency and high speed of an optic network," Malladi of ACT says.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The looming question, however, is how much investment can operators put in given the current low tariff environment in the telecom sector. Big players are stressed for funds and are diluting their non-core assets to generate funds to keep networks afloat. “If you are looking at what will happen in the next three years... I believe that there is a business case to be made and tariffs should sustain it (the investment)," Mathews says.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Whether that happens or not could become an important footnote in India’s growth story. The far-reaching implications of fast internet access pushed billionaire tech entrepreneur Elon Musk, chief executive officer of Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX), to launch 60 internet-beaming satellites last month. The grand scheme is a response to the practical constraint of laying fibre, a concern which is more pressing in India’s vast landmass.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Unlike Musk, the country’s broadband dreams, however, still remain rooted to the ground—in the simple tech of optic fibre. And the success or failure of those dreams will be written by how fast the fibre network expands.</p>
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For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/telecom/news/livemint-navadha-pandey-june-4-2019-plugging-into-indias-broadband-revolution'>http://editors.cis-india.org/telecom/news/livemint-navadha-pandey-june-4-2019-plugging-into-indias-broadband-revolution</a>
</p>
No publisherNavadha PandeyTelecom2019-06-05T14:02:48ZNews ItemThe Huawei bogey
http://editors.cis-india.org/telecom/blog/indian-express-may-30-2019-gurshabad-grover-the-huawei-bogey
<b>India needs to prove company aids Chinese government, or risk playing into US hands.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The article by Gurshabad Grover was published in <a class="external-link" href="https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/huawei-ban-india-united-states-china-5755232/">Indian Express</a> on May 30, 2019.</p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">The Trump administration has not only passed orders restricting the US government and its departments from procuring networking equipment from Chinese companies, but is exerting considerable pressure on other countries to follow suit. The fear that <a href="https://indianexpress.com/about/huawei/">Huawei</a> and ZTE will aid Chinese espionage and surveillance operations has become common even though there has been no compelling evidence to suggest that Huawei’s equipment is substantively different from its competitors.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">These events have also sparked a larger debate about the security of India’s communications infrastructure, an industry powered by foreign imports. Commentators have not shied away from suggesting that India ban the import of network equipment. <a href="https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/the-tech-wars-are-here-huawei-cfo-meng-wanzhou-arrest-5487264/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">C Raja Mohan, in ‘The tech wars are here</a>’ (IE, December 11, 2018), expressed these concerns and asked whether Chinese telecom equipment manufacturers should be allowed to operate in India. A larger point was made by <a href="https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/cyber-warfare-indian-military-defence-cyber-attack-at-digital-war-5416998/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">D S Hooda in his piece, ‘At digital war’</a> (IE, October 25, 2018). He pointed out threats that arise from using untrusted software and hardware all over the stack: From Chinese networking middleboxes to American operating systems and media platforms. As a method to establish trust in ICT infrastructure, Hooda recommends “indigenis[ing] our cyber space”.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The path towards indigenised manufacturing of networking equipment is an expensive, elaborate process. Restricting certain foreign companies from operating in the country without evidence would be a knee-jerk reaction solely based on cues from US policy, and would undermine India’s strategic autonomy.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">At the heart of threats from untrusted software or hardware, lies an information asymmetry between the buyer and seller. It is not always possible to audit the functioning of every product that you purchase. Open technical standards, developed by various standards development organisations (SDOs), govern the behaviour of networking software, and remove this information asymmetry: They allow buyers to glean or implicitly trust operational and security aspects of the equipment.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">It is clear that various governments including India have repeatedly failed to advance privacy and security in the 5G standards, which are developed at the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) — the organisation developing standards for telephony. Government and industry dominance at the 3GPP has ensured that telecom technologies include security vulnerabilities that are euphemistically termed as “lawful interception”. From an architectural perspective, 5G does not contain any significant vulnerabilities that were absent in older telecom standards. Unfortunately, these vulnerabilities are indifferent to those who exploit them: A security exception for law enforcement is tantamount to a security vulnerability for malicious actors. As the report from UK’s Huawei Cyber Security Evaluation Centre Oversight Board confirmed, there is perhaps no technical way to mitigate the security risks that 5G poses now. But there is still no evidence to suggest that Huawei is operating differently from say Ericsson or <a href="https://indianexpress.com/about/nokia/">Nokia</a>.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">India needs to establish that Huawei is aiding the Chinese government through their products (5G or otherwise) before reacting. That Chinese companies are rarely insulated from Beijing’s influence is indisputable. However, the legal requirements placed on Chinese companies by Beijing are equivalent to de facto practices of countries like the US, which has a history of intercepting equipment from American companies to introduce vulnerabilities, or directly compelling them to aid intelligence operations. Such influence should be fought back by pushing for international norms that prevent states from acquiring data from companies en masse, and domestic data protection legislation.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In the long term, the Indian government and its defence wings would benefit from understanding the argument Lawrence Lessig has made since the 1990s: Decisions of technical architecture have far-reaching regulatory effects. A long-term strategy that focuses on advancing security at technical SDOs will prove more effective in ensuring the security of India’s critical infrastructure than the economically expensive push for indigenisation.</p>
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For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/telecom/blog/indian-express-may-30-2019-gurshabad-grover-the-huawei-bogey'>http://editors.cis-india.org/telecom/blog/indian-express-may-30-2019-gurshabad-grover-the-huawei-bogey</a>
</p>
No publishergurshabadTelecom2019-06-05T03:38:19ZBlog EntryLive [Closed]: TRAI Open House Discussion on OTT Regulation - Delhi
http://editors.cis-india.org/telecom/news/live-closed-trai-open-house-discussion-on-ott-regulation-delhi
<b>TRAI organized an open house discussion on “Regulatory Framework for OTT Services” in Delhi on May 20, 2019. Anubha Sinha attended the event.</b>
<p><span>The objective of </span><a href="https://main.trai.gov.in/consultation-paper-regulatory-framework-over-top-ott-communication-services">the consultation</a><span> was to look into services that they are considering as being possibly ‘similar’ to those provided by telecom service providers. </span><a href="https://main.trai.gov.in/sites/default/files/CPOTT12112018_0.pdf">The consultation paper</a><span> sought to compare licensing norms and regulations applicable to TSPs and OTTs, on the grounds that the certain services provided by them are substitutable with one another. Our notes from the TRAI Open House in Bangalore on April 24th are </span><a href="https://www.medianama.com/2019/04/223-live-trai-open-house-discussion-on-ott-regulation/">here</a><span>.</span></p>
<p>For more see <a class="external-link" href="https://www.medianama.com/2019/05/223-live-trai-open-house-discussion-on-ott-regulation-delhi/">Medianama site</a></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/telecom/news/live-closed-trai-open-house-discussion-on-ott-regulation-delhi'>http://editors.cis-india.org/telecom/news/live-closed-trai-open-house-discussion-on-ott-regulation-delhi</a>
</p>
No publisherAdminTelecomTRAI, OTT2019-05-28T02:04:17ZNews ItemDemocracy, Digital India and Networks
http://editors.cis-india.org/telecom/blog/business-standard-may-1-2019-shyam-ponappa-democracy-digital-india-and-networks
<b>Digitisation and democracy are ruled by the ineluctable dynamics of networks.
</b>
<p class="alternativeHeadline" style="text-align: justify; ">The article was published in <a class="external-link" href="https://www.business-standard.com/article/opinion/democracy-digital-india-and-networks-119050101078_1.html">Business Standard</a> on May 1, 2019 and mirrored on <a class="external-link" href="http://organizing-india.blogspot.com/2019/05/">Organizing India Blogspot</a> on May 2, 2019.</p>
<hr style="text-align: justify; " />
<p class="alternativeHeadline" style="text-align: justify; ">There’s no escaping the blessing or the curse of the Digital Age in India, any more than the benefits and challenges of democracy. The headlong rush into digitised networks provides incredible benefits of reach and efficiency in many different ways, at the individual and many collective levels — of family, friends, community, nation, polity, work, domain, and so on. It also lends itself to the dark side, plumbing the depths of social, religious, or political factions and tribalism, bigotry, autocracy and fascism, anarchy, social dysfunction, and the rest. Yet, there’s no denying that for India, with all its needs, talents, foibles, and contradictions, digitisation<a class="storyTags" href="https://www.business-standard.com/topic/digitisation" target="_blank"> </a>is a great enabler.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Likewise democracy. Romanticised notions of it are pure fluff, epitomised by selfies at the Parthenon, conjectures about Vaishali, or the spectacle and pageantry of electioneering. The reality was, and is, much harsher, whether then or now. Then, it was the practice of a privileged elite. Now, the reality of democracy in India with universal franchise and an insufficiently prepared polity is a space captured by politicians, many of them fractious opportunists, not really prepared or equipped for the complex analysis and decision-making that governance requires. Most citizens, however, have an illusory freedom of choice, despite the choice being restricted to accepting or rejecting incumbents, or choosing replacements from among these very politicians. This is where digitisation<a class="storyTags" href="https://www.business-standard.com/topic/digitisation" target="_blank"> </a>has a direct role and enormous impact through media in all its forms, including the nexus between money and politics as in the Cambridge Analytica episode.<br /><br />According to McKinsey’s ‘Digital India’ report of 2019, the benefits of digitising India are impressive, although only 40 per cent of the population has internet access, and there is uneven adoption in businesses, leaving considerable room for improvement. Yet, newly digitising sectors have experienced tremendous gains. For example, in logistics, fleet turnaround time has been reduced by 50 to 70 per cent, and digitised supply chains helped companies reduce inventory by 20 per cent. The question is whether and how this can be managed to yield more benefits than detriments, while preserving privacy, social convergence, and harmony, while avoiding divergence, repression, and instability through disharmony.<br /><br /><strong>The Imperative for Conscious Regulation</strong><br />Network science tells us that real-world networks share two characteristics. The first is growth with time, and the second is that new nodes link more often to more connected nodes, or hubs. Growth and preferential attachment result in the emergence of a few, highly connected, dominant hubs in all networks, whether the networks are of the cells in our bodies, computer chips, transport networks for airlines, social networks connecting people, or the World Wide Web. These characteristics are common across networks of any size and are scale-free.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The dominance manifested by companies such as Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, and Google, combined with the attenuated influence of less connected nodes highlights the role of regulation and structure for equitable development and outcomes in networks. The same issues of dominance and the need for regulation arise in democracy. In India, outrageous changes introduced recently with regard to election funding have increased opacity and the potential for abuse at the heart of democratic processes. Political parties can now receive foreign or domestic funding from any source without constraint, and funds can be anonymous through electoral bonds. Introduced with retrospective effect, both the National Democratic Alliance and the Congress benefitted, as previous adverse judgments were nullified. Therefore, one pointer is the need for regulation and appropriate controls applied in a host of areas including news and social media.<strong>Evidence-Based Policies</strong><br />An entirely constructive aspect of digitisation relates to the application of network science to issues by mapping the links between factors and actionable policies. Examples are the connection between genes and diseases for effective treatment,1 or the feasibility of upgrading products and exports for countries. An example of how proximate products and exports developed over 20 years is visualised in Chart 1, showing the Revealed Comparative Advantage (RCA) of Colombia (COL) and Malaysia (MYS) in production and exports from 1980 to 2000.<br /><br />Chart 1: Revealed Comparative Advantage – Colombia and Malaysia<br /><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-zc1YZsqQtu4/XMrBqKY3PhI/AAAAAAAAGQY/ocnCk3KmFmwZsCfRAt3Bx7UH7lz_4YRNwCLcBGAs/s1600/Revealed%2BComparative%2BAdvantage-Colombia%2B%2526%2BMalaysia-Hidalgo%2Bet%2Bal.jpg"></a><img src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-zc1YZsqQtu4/XMrBqKY3PhI/AAAAAAAAGQY/ocnCk3KmFmwZsCfRAt3Bx7UH7lz_4YRNwCLcBGAs/s320/Revealed%2BComparative%2BAdvantage-Colombia%2B%2526%2BMalaysia-Hidalgo%2Bet%2Bal.jpg" /></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><img src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-9kSOgqDOPio/XMrByjUrczI/AAAAAAAAGQc/kywVDitYiyog05s73VDs-XYRspU46DKkQCLcBGAs/s320/MYS%2Benlarged.jpg" /><br /><br />Source: Hidalgo et al: ‘The Product Space Conditions the Development of Nations – Science, 27 Jul 2007). <a href="https://science.sciencemag.org/content/317/5837/482">https://science.sciencemag.org/content/317/5837/482</a><br /><a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/6181618_The_Product_Space_Conditions_the_Development_of_Nations">https://www.researchgate.net/publication/6181618_The_Product_Space_Conditions_the_Development_of_Nations</a><br />The premise is that most upscale products are from a densely connected core, while lower order products are in a less connected periphery. Countries tend to move to products close to those for which they have specialised skills.The lower chart is for Malaysia alone (it helps to view enlarged images in colour on a screen to trace the progression).<br />India’s manufacturing and export opportunities in its product space in 2017 are in Chart 2.<br /><br />Chart 2: India - Export Opportunities Product Space - 2017 $292 billion<br /><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-frcstn7TtVM/XMrAuWRsZhI/AAAAAAAAGQQ/a6v09fGLC9chxpedsopZduJIrqiRDm4AACLcBGAs/s1600/India-Export%2BOpportunities%2BProduct%2BSpace-2017.jpg"></a><img src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-frcstn7TtVM/XMrAuWRsZhI/AAAAAAAAGQQ/a6v09fGLC9chxpedsopZduJIrqiRDm4AACLcBGAs/s320/India-Export%2BOpportunities%2BProduct%2BSpace-2017.jpg" /><br />Hidalgo: <a href="https://atlas.media.mit.edu/en/visualize/network/hs92/export/ind/all/show/2017/">https://atlas.media.mit.edu/en/visualize/network/hs92/export/ind/all/show/2017/</a><br />Such interactive charts are available and can help in planning for product areas such as automobile parts, chemicals, or electric motors.2<br /><br />A great deal of appropriate regulation followed by planning and execution is needed, incorporating insights such as these in areas like governance, healthcare and industrial policy. Realpolitik and preoccupation with obscurantism, religiosity, and caste/tribe, require that changes be driven by unraveling the nexus between politics and funding, evolving a transparent, state-funded system. Is such a transformation possible? Recent developments that have overtaken earlier attempts at electoral reform such as the Goswami Committee (1990) and the Vohra Committee (1993) emphasise an urgent need. But can public opinion and opportunistic opposition interests converge to effect appropriate changes in political funding? And elicit enlightened government action in public interest projects for health, manufacturing and export policies, agriculture, finance, construction, and so on? A tall order. Perhaps the best hope is that reactions to phenomena such as Brexit help create more equitable practices.</p>
<hr style="text-align: justify; " />
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span>1. For connections between diseases and genes, see Alex J. Cornish et al: https://genomemedicine.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13073-015-0212-9 </span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span> 2. https://atlas.media.mit.edu/en/ AJG Simoes, CA Hidalgo. The Economic Complexity Observatory 'An Analytical Tool for Understanding the Dynamics of Economic Development.' Workshops at the Twenty-Fifth AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence. (2011)</span></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/telecom/blog/business-standard-may-1-2019-shyam-ponappa-democracy-digital-india-and-networks'>http://editors.cis-india.org/telecom/blog/business-standard-may-1-2019-shyam-ponappa-democracy-digital-india-and-networks</a>
</p>
No publisherShyam PonappaTelecom2019-06-09T06:01:53ZBlog EntryApril 2019 Newsletter
http://editors.cis-india.org/about/newsletters/april-2019-newsletter
<b>The Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) newsletter for April 2019.</b>
<h3><span>Highlights for March 2019</span></h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">The unprecedented growth of the fintech space in India has concomitantly come with regulatory challenges around inter alia privacy and security concerns. Aayush Rathi and Shweta Mohandas <a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/aayush-rathi-and-shweta-mohandas-april-30-2019-fintech-in-india-a-study-of-privacy-and-security-commitments">have co-authored a report</a> which has analysed the privacy policies of 48 fintech companies operating in India to better understand some of these concerns.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">In today’s increasingly digitized world where an increasing volume of information is being stored in the digital format, access to data generated by digital technologies and on digital platforms is important in solving crimes online and offline. One such mechanism for international cooperation is the Convention on Cybercrime adopted in Budapest (“Budapest Convention”). Vipul Kharbanda <a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/vipul-kharbanda-april-29-2019-international-cooperation-in-cybercrime-the-budapest-convention">has provided a deeper analysis</a> on this in his research paper.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">CIS has responded to ICANN's proposed renewal of .org Registry. CIS has found severe issues with the proposed agreement. These centre around the removal of price caps and imposing obligations being currently deliberated in an ongoing Policy Development Process. Akriti Bopanna <a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/akriti-bopanna-april-28-2019-cis-response-to-icanns-proposed-renewal-of-org-registry">drafted the response</a>.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">The Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion released a draft e-commerce policy in February for which stakeholder comments were sought. CIS <a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/cis-response-to-call-for-stakeholder-comments-draft-e-commerce-policy">responded to the request for comments</a>.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">CIS Access to Knowledge team (CIS-A2K) <a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/ananth-subray-april-15-2019-cis-a2k-proposal-to-wikimedia-foundation-for-2019-2020">has submitted its proposal form for the year 2019 - 2020</a> to the Wikimedia Foundation. CIS thanks all community members who gave valuable suggestions and inputs for drafting this proposal.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><span style="text-align: justify; ">In 2017–2018, the </span><a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation" style="text-align: justify; " title="Wikimedia Foundation">Wikimedia Foundation</a><span style="text-align: justify; "> (WMF) and Google collaborated to start a pilot project in India, working closely with the </span><a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CIS-A2K" style="text-align: justify; " title="CIS-A2K">Centre for Internet and Society</a><span style="text-align: justify; "> (CIS) and the </span><a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_India" style="text-align: justify; " title="Wikimedia India">Wikimedia India</a><span style="text-align: justify; ">chapter (WMIN). <span style="text-align: justify; ">This project, titled Project Tiger was aimed at encouraging Wikipedia communities to create locally relevant and high-quality content in Indian languages. </span>CIS-A2K team submitted Project Tiger final report.</span></li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><span style="text-align: justify; ">The <a href="https://medium.com/rawblog">r@w blog </a>features works by researchers and practitioners working in India and elsewhere at the intersections of internet, digital media and society, and highlights and materials from ongoing research and events at the researchers@work programme at CIS. On the r@w blog we featured an essay titled <a href="https://medium.com/rawblog/the-internet-in-the-indian-judicial-imagination-4b7434bd2353">'The Internet in the Indian Judicial Imagination'</a> by Divij Joshi, as part of a series on <a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/call-for-essays-studying-internet-in-india">Studying Internet in India (2015)</a>; and audio recording of a session titled <a href="https://medium.com/rawblog/objectsofdigitalgovernance-ec4194a24bb">#ObjectsofDigitalGovernance </a>by Khetrimayum Monish Singh, Rajiv K. Mishra, and Vidya Subramanian which was part of the <a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/irc17">Internet Researchers Conference, 2017.</a><br /></span></li>
</ul>
<ul>
</ul>
<h3>Jobs</h3>
<p>CIS is hiring:</p>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/cis-a2k-finance-officer-call-for-application">CIS-A2K Finance Officer: Call for application</a> (Only women candidates).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/jobs/internship">Internship</a><span> - applications accepted throughout the year.</span></li>
</ul>
<h3></h3>
<h3><br />CIS and the News</h3>
<p>The following news pieces were authored by CIS and published on its website in January:</p>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/business-standard-april-3-2019-shyam-ponappa-delayed-cash-flows-and-npas">Delayed Cash Flows and NPAs</a> (Shyam Ponappa; Business Standard; April 3, 2019).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/hindustan-times-april-16-2019-gurshabad-grover-to-preserve-freedoms-online-amend-it-act">To preserve freedoms online, amend the IT Act</a> (Gurshabad Grover; April 16, 2019).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/raw/indian-express-april-21-2019-nishant-shah-getting-through-an-election-made-for-social-media-gaze">Digital Native: Getting through an election made for the social media gaze</a> (Nishant Shah; Indian Express; April 21, 2019).</li>
</ul>
<div></div>
<ul>
</ul>
<h3><br />CIS in the News</h3>
<p>CIS was quoted in these news articles published elsewhere:</p>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/business-standard-sai-sachin-ravikumar-april-3-2019-reddit-telegram-among-websites-blocked-in-india">Reddit, Telegram among websites blocked in India, say internet groups</a> (Sai Sachin Ravikumar; Business Standard; April 3, 2019).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/quartz-india-aria-thaker-april-4-2019-data-leaks-and-cybersecurity-should-be-an-election-issue-in-india">Data leaks could wreak havoc in India, so why aren’t they an issue this election?</a> (Aria Thaker; Quartz India; April 4, 2019).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/the-hindu-sweta-akundi-april-8-2019-microchips-cookies-and-the-internet-privacy-authentication">Cookies, not the monster you may think</a> (Sweta Akundi; Hindu; April 8, 2019).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/india-today-april-17-2019-gulam-jeelani-tik-tok-craze-a-ticking-time-bomb-for-city">TikTok craze a ticking time bomb for city</a> (Gulam Jeelani with inputs from Priyanka Sharma and Ajay Kumar; India Today; April 17, 2019).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/ananya-bhattacharya-quartz-india-april-19-2019-india-bans-tiktok-over-porn-but-not-facebook-twitter-instagram">Almost every social network has a porn problem—so why is India banning only TikTok?</a> (Ananya Bhattacharya; Quartz India; April 19, 2019).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/leon-kaiser-netzpolitik-april-24-2019-jugendschutz-und-cyber-grooming-indisches-gericht-hebt-eigenen-tiktok-bann-wieder-auf">Child protection and cyber-grooming: Indian court rescinds its own Tiktok ban</a> (Leon Kaiser; Netzpolitik.org; April 24, 2019).</li>
</ul>
<ul>
</ul>
<div></div>
<ul>
</ul>
<div></div>
<h2><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/a2k">Access to Knowledge</a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Our Access to Knowledge programme currently consists of two projects. The Pervasive Technologies project, conducted under a grant from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), aims to conduct research on the complex interplay between low-cost pervasive technologies and intellectual property, in order to encourage the proliferation and development of such technologies as a social good. The Wikipedia project, which is under a grant from the Wikimedia Foundation, is for the growth of Indic language communities and projects by designing community collaborations and partnerships that recruit and cultivate new editors and explore innovative approaches to building projects.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Wikipdedia</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">As part of the <a href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/access-to-knowledge-program-plan">project grant from the Wikimedia Foundation</a> we have reached out to more than 3500 people across India by organizing more than 100 outreach events and catalysed the release of encyclopaedic and other content under the Creative Commons (CC-BY-3.0) license in four Indian languages (21 books in Telugu, 13 in Odia, 4 volumes of encyclopaedia in Konkani and 6 volumes in Kannada, and 1 book on Odia language history in English).</p>
<p><strong>Project Proposal / Reports</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/supporting-indian-language-wikipedias-program-report">Supporting Indian Language Wikipedias Program/Report </a><span>(Gopala Krishna A; April 5, 2019).</span></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/ananth-subray-april-15-2019-cis-a2k-proposal-to-wikimedia-foundation-for-2019-2020">CIS-A2K proposal to Wikimedia Foundation for 2019-2020</a> (Ananth Subray; April 15, 2019).</li>
</ul>
<p><span><br /><strong>Blog Entries</strong></span></p>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/subodh-kulkarni-april-9-2019-wikimedia-projects-session-at-tata-trust-vikas-anvesh-foundation">Wikimedia projects orientation session at Tata Trust's Vikas Anvesh Foundation</a> (Subodh Kulkarni; April 9, 2019).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/indic-wikisource-speak-sushant-savla">Indic Wikisource Speak: Sushant Savla</a> (Jayanta Nath; April 10, 2019).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/subodh-kulkarni-april-10-2019-svg-translation-workshop-at-kbc-north-maharashtra-university">SVG Translation Workshop at KBC North Maharashtra University </a>(Subodh Kulkarni; April 10, 2019).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/content-donation-sessions-with-authors">Content Donation Sessions with Authors</a> (Subodh Kulkarni; April 10, 2019).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/indic-wikisource-speak-ajit-kumar-tiwari">Indic Wikisource speak : Ajit Kumar Tiwari</a> (Jayanta Nath; April 11, 2019).</li>
</ul>
<h3><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance"><br />Internet Governance</a></h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">As part of its research on privacy and free speech, CIS is engaged with two different projects. The first one (under a grant from Privacy International and IDRC) is on surveillance and freedom of expression (SAFEGUARDS). The second one (under a grant from MacArthur Foundation) is on restrictions that the Indian government has placed on freedom of expression online.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Cyber Security</h3>
<p><strong>Research Paper</strong></p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/vipul-kharbanda-april-29-2019-international-cooperation-in-cybercrime-the-budapest-convention">International Cooperation in Cybercrime: The Budapest Convention</a> (Vipul Kharbanda; April 29, 2019).</li>
</ul>
<div>
<ul>
</ul>
<h3>Privacy</h3>
<p><strong>Research Paper</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/aayush-rathi-and-shweta-mohandas-april-30-2019-fintech-in-india-a-study-of-privacy-and-security-commitments">FinTech in India: A Study of Privacy and Security Commitments</a> (Aayush Rathi and Shweta Mohandas; April 30, 2019).</li>
</ul>
<div><strong>Submission</strong></div>
<div>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/cis-response-to-call-for-stakeholder-comments-draft-e-commerce-policy">CIS Response to Call for Stakeholder Comments: Draft E-Commerce Policy</a> (Arindrajit Basu, Vipul Kharbanda, Elonnai Hickok and Amber Sinha; April 10, 2019).</li>
</ul>
</div>
<div></div>
<div><strong>Participation in Events</strong></div>
<div>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="http://http//cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/ietf-104-prague">IETF 104 Prague</a> (Organized by IETF; Prague; March 23 - 29, 2019). Karan Saini and Gurshabad Grover participated in the event.</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/the-phantom-public-the-role-of-social-media-in-democracy">The Phantom Public: The Role of Social Media in Democracy</a> (Organized by Ambedkar University; New Delhi; April 3, 2019).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/crea-reconference">(re) conference</a> (Organized by CREA; New Delhi; April 10 - 12, 2019).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/data-for-development-mapping-key-considerations-for-policy-and-practice-in-india">Data for Development: Mapping key considerations for policy and practice in India</a><span> (Organized by Azim Premchand University; April 24, 2019). Arindrajit Basu delivered a talk. </span></li>
</ul>
</div>
<h3>Artificial Intelligence</h3>
<p>Participation in Event</p>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/telecom/news/policy-lab-on-artificial-intelligence-democracy">Policy Lab on Artificial Intelligence & Democracy</a> (Organized by Tandem Research, in partnership with Microsoft Research and Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung; Bangalore; April 2-3, 2019). Shweta Mohandas participated in the event. </li>
</ul>
<h3>Free Speech and Expression</h3>
<p><strong>Submission</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/akriti-bopanna-april-28-2019-cis-response-to-icanns-proposed-renewal-of-org-registry">CIS Response to ICANN's proposed renewal of .org Registry</a> (Akriti Bopanna; April 28, 2019).</li>
</ul>
<br />
<ul>
</ul>
</div>
<p><strong>Event Organized</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/events/internet-speech-perspectives-on-regulation-and-policy">Internet Speech: Perspectives on Regulation and Policy</a> ( Organized by CIS; India Habitat Centre, New Delhi; April 5, 2019).</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Blog Entry</strong></p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/akriti-bopanna-april-4-2019-didp-33-on-icann-s-2012-gtld-round-auction-fund">DIDP #33 On ICANN's 2012 gTLD round auction fund</a> (Akriti Bopanna; April 4, 2019).</li>
</ul>
<ul>
</ul>
<div></div>
<h2><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/raw">Researchers at Work (RAW)</a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The Researchers at Work (RAW) programme is an interdisciplinary research initiative driven by an emerging need to understand the reconfigurations of social practices and structures through the Internet and digital media technologies, and vice versa. It aims to produce local and contextual accounts of interactions, negotiations, and resolutions between the Internet, and socio-material and geo-political processes:</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><strong>Announcement</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/raw/call-for-essays-studying-internet-in-india">Call for Essays: Studying Internet in India</a> (Sumandro Chattapadhyay; April 6, 2019).</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><strong>Blog Entries</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://medium.com/rawblog/the-internet-in-the-indian-judicial-imagination-4b7434bd2353">The Internet in the Indian Judicial Imagination</a> (Divij Joshi; April 21, 2019).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://medium.com/rawblog/objectsofdigitalgovernance-ec4194a24bb">#ObjectsOfDigitalGovernance</a> (Khetrimayum Monish Singh, Rajiv K. Mishra, and Vidya Subramanian; April 21, 2019).</li>
</ul>
<p><span>Telecom</span></p>
<p><strong>Article</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/business-standard-april-3-2019-shyam-ponappa-delayed-cash-flows-and-npas">Delayed Cash Flows and NPAs </a>(Shyam Ponappa; Business Standard; April 3, 2019 and Organizing India Blogspot; April 4, 2019).</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Participation in Event</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/telecom/news/bif-conference-on-201csubstitutability-of-ott-services-with-telecom-services-regulation-of-ott-services">BIF conference on “Substitutability of OTT Services with Telecom Services & Regulation of OTT Services</a> (Organized by Broadband India Forum; Taj Mahal Hotel, Mansingh Road, New Delhi; April 5, 2019). Anubha Sinha was a panellist at a BIF conference on “Substitutability of OTT Services with Telecom Services & Regulation of OTT Services”.</li>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) is a non-profit organisation that undertakes interdisciplinary research on internet and digital technologies from policy and academic perspectives. The areas of focus include digital accessibility for persons with disabilities, access to knowledge, intellectual property rights, openness (including open data, free and open source software, open standards, open access, open educational resources, and open video), internet governance, telecommunication reform, digital privacy, and cyber-security. The academic research at CIS seeks to understand the reconfigurations of social and cultural processes and structures as mediated through the internet and digital media technologies.</p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">We invite researchers, practitioners, artists, and theoreticians, both organisationally and as individuals, to engage with us on topics related internet and society, and improve our collective understanding of this field. To discuss such possibilities, please write to Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, at sunil@cis-india.org (for policy research), or Sumandro Chattapadhyay, Research Director, at sumandro@cis-india.org (for academic research), with an indication of the form and the content of the collaboration you might be interested in. To discuss collaborations on Indic language Wikipedia projects, write to Tanveer Hasan, Programme Officer, at <a>tanveer@cis-india.org</a>.</p>
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No publisherpraskrishnaTelecomResearchers at WorkInternet GovernanceAccess to Knowledge2019-09-04T14:36:41ZPageDelayed Cash Flows and NPAs
http://editors.cis-india.org/telecom/blog/business-standard-april-3-2019-shyam-ponappa-delayed-cash-flows-and-npas
<b>We need to rid ourselves of a tolerance of delayed payments to avoid their consequences.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The article by Shyam Ponappa was published in <a class="external-link" href="https://www.business-standard.com/article/opinion/delayed-cash-flows-and-npas-119040301417_1.html">Business Standard</a> on April 3, 2019 and in <a class="external-link" href="https://organizing-india.blogspot.com/2019/04/delayed-cash-flows-and-npas.html">Organizing India Blogspot </a>on April 4, 2019.</p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">Many of us in India become inured to a laxity in standards and to the implementation of laws. There may be good reasons for targeting one of these for a start, and that is delayed payments. These are broadly tolerated by citizens, farmers, corporates, small businesses, and government agencies. Perhaps this is because payment delays are merely one among several instances we encounter of mediocre standards, indifferent quality, or shoddy performance. Delayed payments are the inception of process flow problems that lead to non-performing assets (NPAs). Perhaps delays in cash flows are a fundamental flaw in our processes that we need to fix as a root cause that drives much else, to begin to address a gamut of inadequacies.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">To see why, consider delays in government payments. Central and state government payments are often delayed, apparently even more than in the private sector. Even government payments related to high priority IT systems, for instance, are notoriously delayed. Major IT companies complain of losing money on large projects for this reason. Nasscom estimated a couple of years ago that government dues to the IT industry could be more than Rs 5,000 crore.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Some factors that render domestic projects attractive to the IT industry are the large domestic IT market, projects of significant size from state and central governments, and slowing exports over the last several years. The disincentives, however, are lower margins, long lead times for government contracts, payment delays, and a history of disputed payments and litigation. Also, IT majors complain that government processes often don’t accommodate changes in the terms of contracts when there are changes in the scope of projects. This is why IT companies are averse to domestic government projects.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Quite apart from these opportunity costs, delayed payments create serious cash flow problems for the economy, with outstandings running typically for many months, and sometimes for years. While the instances above are about the IT industry, there are similar problems in other sectors as well. In the construction industry, for example, estimates of private contractors’ dues held up by delays including disputes range from Rs 1 trillion to Rs 3 trillion.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">While some bank NPAs undoubtedly result from fraud and malfeasance (which are outside the scope of this article), disruptions in cash flows in commercially sound projects can result in the creation of NPAs. This aspect has to be addressed as a precursor to stressed assets in resolving NPAs, as is evident in considering the problems of power generating companies.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">A Ministry of Power portal (http://www.praapti.in/) shows that overdue payments from electricity distributors to power generating companies at the end of January 2019 amounted to Rs 28,504 crore. Meanwhile, in the Supreme Court, 34 power generating companies with NPAs of Rs 1.4 trillion were battling an RI Circular of February 12, 2018, that consigned their entire investment of double the NPA amount (Rs 3 trillion) to bankruptcy proceedings under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC). The reason was that their dues had not been resolved within the RBI-mandated 180 days by August 2018. The RBI insisted on bankruptcy as a time-bound consequence, regardless of the cause of default. By contrast, the Ministry of Power and the supplicants objected to the RBI Circular, attributing loan stress in several cases to factors beyond the borrowers’ control. These factors included reasons such as payment delays by state distributors, problems in the supply of coal, or in some cases, because consortiums of lenders were close to restructuring loans, whereas declaring bankruptcy would not resolve the underlying causes. A number of bankers suggested that the 180-day rule for bankruptcy in the RBI Circular was impractical. Major banks consider restructuring as the appropriate solution when defaults are caused by factors outside the borrowers’ control, such as delayed payments from state electricity boards or by government agencies, state government overdues, or major adverse changes such as the unexpected imposition of duties by supplier countries on coal.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The Supreme Court quashed the RBI Circular of February 2018 on April 2, 2019. This will likely pave the way for more constructive outcomes for many of these projects, provided the RBI and the banks follow through with feasible restructuring. The alternative of selling stalled projects that were unworkable because of reasons such as there being no fuel supply or power purchase agreement, or overdue payments by customers (state or central agencies) were outstanding, if indeed buyers could be found, would hardly solve these problems. The projects would remain stalled or unproductive until the underlying inadequacies were made good, whether by providing fuel, power purchase agreements, collecting overdue payments, or enabling realistic tariffs to yield viable margins. Until these deficiencies are made good, the problems will remain.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Popular opinion, however, seems to favour “selling off bankrupt projects” regardless of extenuating circumstances, even when owners have no control over them, although selling them will not rectify the conditions that created the default. This approach of attempting to sell off projects to get rid of problems without addressing the underlying issues for otherwise sound projects is best abandoned. To be flip, it’s like an “Off with his head!” approach.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">What's needed</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Standards for on-time payments are the real requirement, with penalties, e.g., double the SBI rate, enforced strictly for non-performance. Central and state governments need to take the lead on this as an essential aspect of governance. These difficult steps will be a real bear, but are necessary if we are to eliminate NPAs. Is this a realistic expectation? As realistic as it is to expect to eliminate the resulting NPAs.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The RBI will need to provide regulatory oversight, instituting real-time monitoring and reporting systems, and taking prompt action as necessary. Properly designed and deployed, such systems would prevent one form of ever-greening of loans at inception. Separate systems for loan renewals could be designed and deployed to prevent other aspects of ever-greening. These coordinated steps could prevent good assets from turning into NPAs.</p>
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For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/telecom/blog/business-standard-april-3-2019-shyam-ponappa-delayed-cash-flows-and-npas'>http://editors.cis-india.org/telecom/blog/business-standard-april-3-2019-shyam-ponappa-delayed-cash-flows-and-npas</a>
</p>
No publisherShyam PonappaTelecom2019-04-28T04:36:39ZBlog EntryBIF conference on “Substitutability of OTT Services with Telecom Services & Regulation of OTT Services
http://editors.cis-india.org/telecom/news/bif-conference-on-201csubstitutability-of-ott-services-with-telecom-services-regulation-of-ott-services
<b>Anubha Sinha was a panellist at a BIF conference on “Substitutability of OTT Services with Telecom Services & Regulation of OTT Services” organized by Broadband India Forum on April 5, 2019 at Taj Mahal Hotel, Mansingh Road, New Delhi.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The event was supported by the Department of Telecommunications, Ministry of Communications, Govt. of India, Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology, Govt. of India, NITI Aayog, and Department of Science and Technology. <a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/telecom/files/ott-services">Click to view the agenda</a>.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/telecom/news/bif-conference-on-201csubstitutability-of-ott-services-with-telecom-services-regulation-of-ott-services'>http://editors.cis-india.org/telecom/news/bif-conference-on-201csubstitutability-of-ott-services-with-telecom-services-regulation-of-ott-services</a>
</p>
No publisherAdminBroadbandTelecom2019-04-12T00:52:07ZNews Item