The Centre for Internet and Society
http://editors.cis-india.org
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Digital native: You can check out, you can never leave
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/indian-express-nishant-shah-april-2-2017-digital-native-you-can-check-out-you-can-never-leave
<b>Aadhaar is not something you define and opt into, it is something that defines you.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The article was <a class="external-link" href="http://indianexpress.com/article/technology/social/digital-native-you-can-check-out-you-can-never-leave-4595503/">published in the Indian Express</a> on April 2, 2017. Nishant Shah is a professor of new media and the co-founder of The Centre for Internet & Society, Bangalore.</p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">Ok. I get it. You don’t want yet another piece on the horrors and perils of the surveillance state that has come to the forefront with Aadhaar numbers now being tied to our taxes. I know that you must have already made up your mind about whether this is a good thing or a bad thing. If you believe that the way to streamlining bureaucracy and making our systems more accountable is transparency, then you are ready to welcome the digital ecosystem of Aadhaar, as introducing checks and balances that might help to curb some of the excesses and wastes of our governance systems . If you are of the opinion, however, that the state cannot be trusted with our information, without the oversee of the Parliament and the judiciary, then you want to resist this mandatory implementation of the “voluntary” Aadhaar. And, for once, I am unable to take a side, favouring one set of arguments over the other. This ambiguity does not come from a lack of political conviction. I continue to fear about the future of our lives when these technologies of control and domination fall in the hands of governments which have an authoritarian bend of mind.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Instead, my lack of preference on the good, bad and ugly sides of Aadhaar stems from a completely different concern around network technologies of digital connectivity that has found very little attention in the almost zealous discourse about “yes Aadhaar, no Aadhaar”.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">This is a concern about the relationship between technological networks and the messy realities that we embody. There has been an easy acceptance of a digital network as a description of our everyday life. If you look at any network that you belong to — from public discussion forums to private WhatsApp groups — you will realise that these networks offer to visualise your connections and transactions with the people, places and things in your circles. Thus, it is possible to say that <a href="http://indianexpress.com/about/facebook/">Facebook</a> describes your collection of friends and your social life. Or you could suggest that <a href="http://indianexpress.com/about/linkedin/">LinkedIn</a> is a visualisation of your professional landscape. And, in a similar vein, we can also propose that Aadhaar is a representation of the working of our government systems of identification.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Each one of these propositions, seemingly innocent, is blatantly wrong. Facebook, for example, didn’t just connect you with your friends. It has fundamentally changed the idea of what is a friend. For a generation of young people who grew up naturalised in social media, the notion of a friend has lost all its meaning and nuance. Every connection, acquaintance, friend of a friend, a random stranger who likes the same band as you do, is now a friend. And the increasing anxiety we have about people falling prey to predatory friendships is because Facebook has now normalised the idea that if somebody calls you their friend, you don’t have to worry about sharing personal and private information with them. Similarly , for anybody who has spent time on LinkedIn, we know that it is not just a portal that describes our work. It is the space where we stay connected with events and people far removed from us. It is the resource pool that we draw on while looking for new work. It is also the space that we keep an eye on just to see if a better job has opened up. It is a collection of events, links and connections that not only shows what you do but what you aspire for, who you connect with and what are the kinds of professional ambitions you see for yourself.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Just like Facebook and LinkedIn, which don’t just describe a reality but actually simulate, prescribe and shape it, Aadhaar is a digital network that is seeking to change the very foundational reality of our lives. Like most digital networks, it is not merely an explanation of how things are but the context within which who we are and what we do finds meaning and validation. Thus, Aadhaar might propose that it is merely trying to describe your identity but it is actually offering to shape a new one for you. The programme might suggest that it is trying to implement a system already in place, but it is, in reality, creating an entirely new system within which you and I have to now find space, function and identity. The latest announcements of mainstreaming Aadhaar merely betray this fact – that Aadhaar is not something you define and opt into, Aadhaar defines you. And opting out is going to have severe penalties and consequences.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Digital networks have long masqueraded as benign visualisations of the world. But they are, in principle, blueprints that transform the world as we know it. This, in itself, is not bad. However, hiding this transformation is. Because when a transformation happens, especially at systemic levels, it is always the people who are the most vulnerable that suffer the most from it. Think about the older friend who might not be the most tech savvy and how they struggle for inclusion on Facebook and WhatsApp messages. Pay some attention to people who did not understand the public nature of LinkedIn and ended up getting fired because they wrote about their current work conditions and the desire to change them. And, similarly, do think if the people who are being pushed into these digital ecosystems without adequate digital literacy, care and information about the consequences of their actions, are being made vulnerable in their access to resources of life and dignity.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Whether you and I like Aadhaar or not is not really the question. The question is not about the right to privacy either. What is at stake in this deployment of Aadhaar is a government that is pushing radical transformations of the life of its citizens without consulting with them and addressing their needs. In the past, when governments have done this, we have developed strong voices of protest and correction asking the state to be responsible towards those affected by the transformation. The reliance on the digital, however, allows these governments to escape this responsibility and, in the guise of description, are making prescriptions of reality which need to be resisted.</p>
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For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/indian-express-nishant-shah-april-2-2017-digital-native-you-can-check-out-you-can-never-leave'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/indian-express-nishant-shah-april-2-2017-digital-native-you-can-check-out-you-can-never-leave</a>
</p>
No publishernishantResearchers at WorkAadhaarDigital Natives2017-05-05T01:31:46ZBlog EntryDigital native: Lie Me a River
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/indian-express-nishant-shah-march-19-2017-digital-native-lie-me-a-river
<b>The sea of social media around us often drowns the truth, exchanging misinformation for facts.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><img alt="Social media, Fake news, Fake messages on WhatsApp, Fake news problem, Snopes, Facebook, Google, WhatsApp forwards, technology, tech culture, tech news" class="size-full wp-image-4574844" src="http://images.indianexpress.com/2017/03/fakenews_big_1.jpg" style="float: none; " /><br /><span class="discreet">This basic process of truth telling loses all affordance in social media practices. Let me channel my inner school teacher and present you with a question.</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">One of the most common methods of testing a student’s knowledge is the multiple choice question template that asks the examinee to identify one of four options as correct solutions to a problem. The pedagogic principle behind these questions is simple enough: We live in a world where truth and accuracy are important. No matter what our subjective feelings, impressions, memories or instincts might be, we need to rely on verifiable facts to make a truth claim. If we fail to do so, there would be negative consequences.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">This basic process of truth telling loses all affordance in social media practices. Let me channel my inner school teacher and present you with a question. Drawing on samples of WhatsApp messages on my social media feeds, I invite you to answer this simple question: Which of these statements is not true?</p>
<ol>
<li style="text-align: justify; "> Drinking from disposable paper cups lined with wax to keep the liquid from seeping leads to wax deposits in your stomach, resulting in fatal health risks.</li>
<li>Beverages in India have been contaminated by the Ebola virus and are on our shelves right now.</li>
<li>According to Ayurveda, burning camphor and cardamom together kills the swine flu virus in air.</li>
<li>Bollywood actor <a href="http://indianexpress.com/about/farida-jalal">Farida Jalal</a> is dead.</li>
</ol>
<p><iframe frameborder="0" height="260" scrolling="auto" src="http://vidshare.indianexpress.com/players/FrunroOr-xe0BVfqu.html" width="320"></iframe></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Of all of these, the only one you can verify is that Farida Jalal is not dead. The reason we know it for sure is because, she had to come to Twitter, and like Oscar Wilde, announce that the rumours of her death were wildly exaggerated. As Jalal herself pointed out in an interview, she was harassed by a barrage of phone calls, of people calling her up to ask her (oh, the irony!) if she was dead. The other three claims are right now floating in the air, ready to settle down as truth, with continuous repetition. We cannot be sure that they are inaccurate. Especially because they don’t just come as one-line headlines but long narratives of imaginary proofs.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Why have we reached this post-truth moment? Why have our social media feeds become minefields of dubious information masquerading as lies? There are many laments lately about how this lack of veracity and fact-checking is becoming the new normal and the blame is always put on either the media that promotes accelerated spread of messages without space for reflection, or gullible people who do not pause to think about the ludicrousness of the message before they spread it to their groups. And, while it is necessary to develop a critical literacy to make sure that we understand the responsibility of our role as information circulators and curators, there is one dimension that needs to be explored more — trust.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In our pre-digital knowledge practices, when information came with a signature, we believed that somebody had done the due diligence needed for the information to be published. An author’s book was supported by the rigour of the publisher behind it. A news report was fact-checked by verifiers who are employed precisely to do that. Information from a friend or somebody we know was credible because of our assessment of the person’s expertise and knowledge. We have always been able to determine the source of information, and our proximity with the source allowed us to trust the information that came through it.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">However, with social media, this relationship has changed. When somebody sends us a message on WhatsApp, it is still coming from a source that we know, but we have to realise that this source is not producing or verifying this information, but merely circulating it. Messages come with a signature, they seem to emerge from people we know and trust, and, hence, we presume that they have done the due diligence required before passing on the information.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">It is important to realise that within the social web we don’t really parse, analyse or process information, we merely pass and distribute it. This is how digital media perceives its users — as information circulators. And, this means, that information which mimics facts but is blatantly false, finds easy prey. So, the next time you come across information on these endless message groups, ask a simple question before you pass it along: no matter what the message claims, can you actually locate the source of the information? Is the person who forwards that message producing the information or merely sharing it? If they are sharing it, get back to them and ask how they know what they know. We trust things that are authored, but in our social apps, people are not authors, they are circulators. Making the distinction between the two might be the first step towards developing a critical literacy for fact-telling on the digital web.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><i>Nishant Shah is a professor of new media and the co-founder of The Centre for Internet & Society, Bangalore.</i></p>
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For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/indian-express-nishant-shah-march-19-2017-digital-native-lie-me-a-river'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/indian-express-nishant-shah-march-19-2017-digital-native-lie-me-a-river</a>
</p>
No publishernishantResearchers at WorkRAW BlogDigital Natives2017-03-19T14:47:16ZBlog EntryDigital native: Who will watch the watchman?
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/indian-express-nishant-shah-february-19-2017-digital-native-who-will-watch-the-watchman
<b>The state mining its citizens as data and suspending rights to privacy under the rhetoric of national security is alarming.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The article was <a class="external-link" href="http://indianexpress.com/article/technology/tech-news-technology/digital-native-who-will-watch-the-watchman-4531548/">published in the Indian Express</a> on February 19, 2017</p>
<hr style="text-align: justify; " />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">I want you to start getting slightly uncomfortable right now. Because even as you read this, your emails are being read without your knowledge. Your social media network has been accessed by an unknown agent. Somebody is getting hold of your financial transactions and your credit card purchases, and creating a profile of your spending habits. Somebody pretending to be you is checking the naked pictures you might have backed up in your private cloud.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Somewhere, the profiles that you created for your dating apps are under scrutiny. Your <a href="http://indianexpress.com/about/google/">Google</a> search history is slowly being browsed by people who now know what you searched for last Friday at 3.30 am when you just couldn’t find sleep. Your WhatsApp texts, including that long sexting session with your ex, is now being stored in some other memory.The false account that you had created on Twitter to troll the world, is now linked to all your other IDs. The <a href="http://indianexpress.com/about/linkedin/">LinkedIn</a> connections you sent to a rival company in search for a better job, are now available for others to find.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">I wish that I was only presenting a hypothetical dystopia to warn us about the future of privacy. But, I am not. Because, the future is already here and it is slowly unfolding in front of you. We often think of the Internet as a secure system, mumbling things about encryption and passwords, imagining that if so many people are using it, then it must surely be safe. And it is true, that largely most of our electronic communication on the digital circuits is secure, or, at least, not easily vulnerable to vicious attacks.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Every time we hear about hackers intercepting sensitive information in databases, we are assured that it was a one-time exceptional case, and that forensic investigations are being conducted to keep our data safe. The digital security industry is indeed working hard to make it increasingly difficult for people with malicious intent to actually read and manipulate our data that we secure with passwords, fingerprints, and encryption keys that become more complex and robust.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">However, the biggest concern around privacy, in the Internet of Things, is not about these cat-and-mouse games of data breaches and theft. Instead, perhaps, the biggest act of data theft and interception is conducted in full public view, with our consent. This happens when we download apps, use single user verification accounts and join free public hotspots, allowing our data to be freely captured by unseen actors.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The corporate mining of human users is not the only scenario in this landscape. In the recent reality TV edition of the US politics, they have just announced that border control in the US can now demand anybody to hand over their digital devices, passwords to email and social media accounts, and access to all their digital information in order to gain entry into the country. Or, in other words, you can be as secure as you like, but if the government wants, they will get that information from you as a price of entry into the country. You don’t need the NSA when you can just walk to the person and ask them to hand over this information.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Closer home in Digital India, things are not better. The Aadhaar project has failed to address data privacy questions. The data that we have voluntarily given to Aadhaar can be used to create a massive surveillance system that sells our data for profits and transactions to private companies. Similarly, in the post-demonetisation move, as we all went cashless, we increased our digital footprint in an ecosystem that has almost no safeguards to protect you from people knowing about your purchases at the chemist shop last weekend.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">As we connect more online, and more devices are linked to our user profiles, we continue to leak and bleed data which violates the very core of what we consider our private selves. When we learned about the market exploiting our private data, we thought that the state would be the watchman. As the states start being run as markets, we now have a new question: who shall watch the watchman?</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The new interest of the state in mining its citizens as data and suspending our rights to privacy under the rhetoric of national security and interest is alarming. The state now thinks of our private data as capital. We need mechanisms to protect ourselves from the predatory impulses of the new information states, and while we might not have remedies, we do need to start the conversation now to safeguard our futures from the war against privacy.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/indian-express-nishant-shah-february-19-2017-digital-native-who-will-watch-the-watchman'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/indian-express-nishant-shah-february-19-2017-digital-native-who-will-watch-the-watchman</a>
</p>
No publishernishantResearchers at WorkDigital Natives2017-03-03T16:18:50ZBlog EntryDigital Native: Do not go Gently into the Good Night
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/indian-express-nishant-shah-february-9-2017-digital-native-do-not-go-gently-into-the-good-night
<b>If there’s a lesson to be learned from the resistance to the Trump administration, it is this — patriotism is not a feeling, it is an action.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The article was <a class="external-link" href="http://indianexpress.com/article/world/digital-native-do-not-go-gently-into-the-good-night-4507852/">published by the Indian Express</a> on February 9, 2017.</p>
<hr style="text-align: justify; " />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">It was that time of the year. We wore our patriotism on our sleeves, painted our faces in the colours of the national flag, proclaimed our joy for the republic we live in. We performed our proud presence as nation-loving citizens on the social web, while ignoring the ominous fact that the chief guest at the celebration of our constitutional existence represented a country where lashes and stoning to death are still legal punishments. Be that as it may, it is undeniable that our peer-to-peer networks helped catalyse and stir the pride in our Constitution that enshrines us with some of our most basic, fundamental, and human rights, for life and living.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">As Republic Day recedes from our memory, let me warn you that the future of our social media feeds is grim. As we consume the impending Trumpocalypse, we cannot but realise that we have not only been there, but also done that. A government which does not communicate freely with the press: check. A discourse that supports messages of hate against specific religions and provides “alternative facts” in our history books: check. Politicians spreading fake news and populations being swayed by it: check.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">For all our Amreeka-loving souls, it might be a grim reassurance that we are ahead in the game and the United States of Trumpistan is merely catching up. The social web might seem to mimic the trend, where a problem becomes a problem only when it hits the developed countries in the north, but it is good for us to realise that the doom and gloom that these trends are forecasting are already the realities that we live in.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">However, there is one major difference that is worth noting. In the USA, even as this orange-hazed madness unfolds, there are people marching, protesting, and fighting to defend the annihilation of their democratic, constitutional rights. Their patriotism is not going to wait till Independence Day, but is right now on the streets, flooding the social web, inundating airports, and demanding in unprecedented ways, the recognition and the defence of their rights. While there isn’t much to be said about a nation that had an electoral system that allowed for a populist to come into power, there is something that we need to drive home —patriotism is not a feeling, it is an action.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">And so, if this Republic Day, you shared, consumed, viewed, read and rejoiced, even one item of patriotic impulse — even if you merely retweeted Kiran Bedi’s photoshopped image of world monuments adorned in the tricolour —here is my challenge for you.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Before the memory of patriotism and the pride of the Constitution fade away completely, we are going to head into Valentine’s Day. It is a day that is fraught with tension in India. On the one hand, there will be the sceptre of consumerist capitalism that will wear us down with the sales, the dances, the parties, and an aggressive market to sell, sell, sell, everything that they can, pretending that true love is in buying gifts. On the other hand, we will have the righteous people who even their mothers might find difficult to love, standing on the streets with weapons and force, intimidating people on the streets and slut-shaming women who they will deem too “Western” to be allowed to live their lives in peace.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Whether you believe in the fabricated spirit of St Valentine or not, whether you want to join the candy-flavoured pink brigade or not, whether or not you participate in the dhamaka shopping frenzy of the season — here is your chance to put your patriotism to practice.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">One of the most beautiful expressions of our Constitution is in our right to life, dignity, and self-determination. It means that as long as our actions do not harm and hurt others intentionally, it is our right to live, love, and express our life and love in ways that we determine worthy. So, as people around the country gear up to celebrate Valentine’s Day, and hooligans across the states polish their trishuls and lathis to obstruct these celebrations, bring your patriotism to the streets. Go and stand in solidarity with these people, defending their right to live their life without fear and intimidation. I am offering you the #RightToLove to show your support of people who want to take that brief moment from humdrum lives to find and experience love and longing, and if you see any acts of intimidation or violence, whisk out your phone and capture the event, share it on social media, make an intervention in person and fight against those who insist on violating our Constitution, and defend our country from the forces within.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/indian-express-nishant-shah-february-9-2017-digital-native-do-not-go-gently-into-the-good-night'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/indian-express-nishant-shah-february-9-2017-digital-native-do-not-go-gently-into-the-good-night</a>
</p>
No publishernishantResearchers at WorkDigital Natives2017-03-03T16:07:36ZBlog EntryDigital native: Back at it Again
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/indian-express-nishant-shah-january-22-2017-digital-native-back-at-it-again
<b>The Indian digital landscape has put us in a loop of hashtags and outrage, a space where we have mastered the art of shame.</b>
<p>The article was <a class="external-link" href="http://indianexpress.com/article/technology/digital-native-back-at-it-again-4485235/">published in the Indian Express</a> on January 22, 2017.</p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">Writing a regular column is daunting. One of the things that I constantly have to check is that I am not repeating myself. At the same time, in the digital age where all memory has become storage, and all that is stored is quickly forgotten, I also hope that what I write has life beyond the first few clicks, the Sunday morning coffee, the shares and likes that mark the beginning of the end of digital information.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">However, as I write the column this new year, I find myself in a strange situation where I am repeating what I have done the last three years at the beginning of each new year, and where I am desperately wishing that things I had last written became dated. Three years ago, while commenting on the Indian digital landscape, I had written about the rage, the fury, and the almost deafening battle cry that had captured the national imagination, when, at the turn of the year, a young woman we named Nirbhaya lost her life to violent sexual abuse on a moving bus in Delhi. #NeverAgain, we tweeted. #AlwaysRemember, we chanted. We called her #OurBraveheart and, in that moment of national outcry and dialogue about gender and sexual abuse in our public spaces, it seemed as if the digital landscape was reflecting a pivotal change in the fabric of the country.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The year after that, as we struggled to find ways in which law can keep us safe, the apex court in India re-criminalised homosexuality, reverting the judgment of the Delhi High Court which had given life and dignity to same sex and queer couples. The legal system proved that it is not only blind but also susceptible to mass populism that denies the rights to consenting adults to live their lives in dignity. That was the year when we hashtagged our solidarity with #NoGoingBack, making it trend so that umpteen number of people came out in support of homosexuality in the country. Support to the queer community came from unexpected quarters, like the generally reticent Bollywood celebrities who supported #Scrap377, and even religious and political representatives who recognise that the continued abuse of queer communities is a violation of our constitutional rights.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">While the struggles for gender and sexual equality continue in the country, and tireless activists and civil society advocates persist in their demands of justice and protection, here we are, waking up to yet another year of public shame and private grief, as reports came of the aggressive sexual abuse that women had to endure on the streets of Bangalore. The incident unfolded with all the trappings of victim blaming, slut shaming, and a sentence that should never be allowed — “She was asking for it.” On the digital social web, in the meantime, some sanctimonious men, indignant at the thought of being accused of patriarchal silence and misogynist privilege, decided to take attention away from the victims and decided to steal the spotlight with a hashtag that says #NotAllMen. These tweeters, who have no problem in enjoying the benefits of an abusive sexist social order — they might not actively go out to inflict gendered violence, but they are complicit in enjoying the privileges of that system — had a problem with taking responsibility for that system. They would not be shamed. Not even when an overwhelming number of women wrote back with #YesAllWomen, would they concede their grounds.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">As it occurs so often on the Interwebz, the conversation that demanded both a private reflection and a public dialogue, devolved into personal name calling and collective anger deflected from the problem at hand. In the midst of the sensationalism that passes off as discussion in populist media channels, I want to think of something else. If all these voices in our public discourse were to be heard, it would feel like gendered and sexual safety are national preoccupations and bipartisan concerns. The customised expressions of our personalised media abound with anger, shame, critique, and analyses of why our country is increasingly becoming unsafe for certain bodies to walk through it. Social media accounts are producing a spectacle of concern for safety so effectively that it would seem these questions will be resolved immediately.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">And yet, even as I look at my biographical history of writing this column, I realised that I have revisited these discussions over and over again. This is a debate that now occurs regularly, each time, giving us the chance to identify a problem, go online and make a lot of noise about it, and then settle down, with a smug smile on our faces of having done our public performance, without ever translating it into action. On the digital web, we seem to have mastered the art of shame without guilt. We continue to hashtag, like, tweet, share, and click our ways, using prepackaged formulae of expression without translating it into personal reflection or collective action. And the digital seems to be enabling this where having an opinion seems to matter more than actual transformation, and spectacles of shame seem to acquit us of the responsibility of action.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/indian-express-nishant-shah-january-22-2017-digital-native-back-at-it-again'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/indian-express-nishant-shah-january-22-2017-digital-native-back-at-it-again</a>
</p>
No publishernishantResearchers at WorkDigital Natives2017-02-02T15:04:46ZBlog EntryDigital Native: The Dream of the Cyborg
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/indian-express-nishant-shah-january-8-2017-digital-native-the-dream-of-the-cyborg
<b>We have arrived at hybrid realities, where the technological and the human cannot be separated. The digital future we had once imagined is already here.</b>
<p>The article was <a class="external-link" href="http://indianexpress.com/article/technology/digital-native-the-dream-of-the-cyborg-4463231/">published in the Indian Express</a> on January 8, 2017.</p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">The digital is not just in the future, it is the future. If we do a broad overview of where things are, we realise that almost everything we do, own, and are, is touched by digitality. Here are two short thought experiments. Look around you, think about your day, do a quick stocktaking exercise of things that you possess and communicate with, and try and think of one thing that is untouched by the digital. You realise that digital is not just the visible smart screens and computing devices. It works in insidious and networked ways to shape the world as we understand it. From the food we eat, that comes to our supermarkets, accompanied by barcodes that track it to the money that sits in our banks, and is now available only through digital transactions; from your own body that is being probed by digital health care instruments as well as its connectivity with digital objects, to the very idea of nature in the face of simulation models of climate change, we realise very quickly that the digital is now the default context of our life. The scope of digital might be uneven — there might be varying levels of access and literacy — but this is increasingly becoming the beginning point of all our realities.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Let’s do a reverse thought experiment. Look around you again, review the different processes, products and people around you, and try and find something that is purely digital and has no connection with anything that is human, natural or social. You will also arrive quickly to the conclusion that while the digital operates with agency, constructing smart things and cities, and shaping and facilitating our lives in ways that we can’t imagine, the digital is still incredibly human and social. The algorithms that can seem to be independent, still implement human visions. The robots — physical and virtual — that interact with us, are still engaging with and shaping the human factors. The purely technological is as difficult to find as the purely non-technological or natural.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">These realisations, quotidian as they are, are indicative that we live hybrid realities, where the technological and the human cannot be separated, and, indeed, it is impossible to extricate one from the other. It is easy to look at the phone in a hand and say that one is a device, the other is a hand. But the device only has meaning once it is in a hand, and the hand that is used to the comfort of that phone feels like it is missing something when the phone is removed. We live fused lives. We are getting enmeshed in visible and invisible digital networks in ways that are unprecedented. The digital future that we had once imagined, is already here.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Despite this cyborg reality, when we think of the future, we continue to make clear and discrete separations between the human and the technological. We imagine new modes of life and living, where we will either have achieved singularity, where the human self could be converted to code and thus transferred to a new body when the biological body gives up. Or, it could be a state where nanotechnological robots will be rushing through our body, cleaning, preserving and saving, making us live forever. We dream of the world being connected through unceasing data streams so that all our devices can speak to each other. This is the imagination of a hyperconnected world, where we live with the Internet of Things.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">However, it is good to realise that the Internet of Things is actually the Internet of Everything. It doesn’t mean that everything we see will be connected on the Internet. On the contrary, what it means is that everything that gets connected to the Internet will be considered a thing. One of the biggest challenges that the digital future poses to us, is how to understand our notions of being human. As the digital becomes the default way by which we are identified, stored, sorted, remembered, and kept alive, it becomes important to realise that as we turn digital, we turn into things. The data which was supposed to be a part of us, often becomes something that stands for us, and in some instances, replace us. What emerges with it is a new data reality, where we are represented only by things — data — that is then governed, shaped, and controlled, as a way of governing and forming the human subject. Thus, you don’t need to be killed in person — it can be done merely by deleting your data and identity from all databases, rendering you without support. Similarly, you do not need to be confined, but the data that you leak in all your everyday activities becomes a way by which you can be tracked, so that the entire world becomes your cage where you can be seen. You don’t need to necessarily have human contact, you can just connect using an algorithm, without really knowing whether the thing on the other end is human or not.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">As we celebrate the Internet of Things and a future where all things stay connected, it would be important to dwell on what happens to the human being when it also becomes a thing in this connected network.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/indian-express-nishant-shah-january-8-2017-digital-native-the-dream-of-the-cyborg'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/indian-express-nishant-shah-january-8-2017-digital-native-the-dream-of-the-cyborg</a>
</p>
No publishernishantResearchers at WorkDigital Natives2017-02-02T14:56:37ZBlog EntryDigital Native: The Future is Now
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/indian-express-october-16-2016-nishant-shah-digital-native-future-is-now
<b>The digital is not just an addition but the new norm in our lives, and it might not be all good. There used to be a popular joke among technology geeks when Bluetooth arrived on our mobile devices — everything becomes better with Bluetooth. </b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The article was <a class="external-link" href="http://indianexpress.com/article/technology/digital-native-the-future-is-now-reliance-jio-bluetooth-tech-3084089/">published in the Indian Express</a> on October 16, 2016.</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">A cursory web search for things with Bluetooth have yielded toys, lunch boxes, hair clips, cushion covers and sex toys, just to name a few of the bewildering array of things that seemed to be better with a Bluetooth connection. As the projected future moves towards the Internet of Everything, we are in a similar position where we firmly believe that digital makes everything better. In the spirit of random search queries, one can easily find government, relationships, dating, shopping, shower gels, food and families as things that are enhanced by the digital. Advertisers have no qualms in declaring their products as “e-something” or “cyber-this”, emphasising the touch of technology in the most unexpected of things and processes.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The ubiquity of the digital is undeniable. However, as the digital becomes transparent and everywhere, it also seems to be going through a dramatic moment of invisibility and meaninglessness. There was a time when the digital invoked an image of a binary code flashing in black and green on heated computer screens. The presence of the digital made us cyborgs, with prostheses sticking out of our heads and wires sinuously entwined with our bodies. Digital was tied with precision, with the idea that robotic hands and machines performed tasks that were beyond human capacity or exercise. It gave the idea of acceleration, harnessing the power of high-process computing that helped tasks requiring complex logistics and systems management to be performed faster. It had a futuristic value, making us rethink the idea of intelligence, sapience, and a machine-aided life that would significantly alter the quality and habits of life and living.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Our present is the science fiction future that our pasts had imagined. The promises of the digital have already found fruition and its premises have changed so dramatically that our immediate past feels dated and slow when parsed through the lens of the present. The digital has been reconsidered as a fundamental right, being promoted through plans of universal connectivity like with the latest fanfare around Reliance Telecom’s Jio programme. When the digital becomes an all-encompassing force, it is fruitful to ask what exactly it means. Largely, the question needs asking because there is almost nothing left in our urban connected life that is not digitally mediated. From healthcare and childbirth to relationships and disbursement of rights and money, we depend on silent algorithms of work and survival almost without noticing it. Digital is a part of social, economic, cultural, political and biological production and reproduction and hence to call something digital, as if it is a marker of difference is fruitless.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">If everything is digital, why do we still insist on using it as a special adjective to describe people, processes, and places? The answer is not in the digital divide, that quickly alerts us to the fact that the terrain of digitality is uneven and that there are still large swathes of world population that remain disconnected. Because, when we see the incredible efforts at digital connectivity infrastructure, we realise quickly that this is something that is going to be resolved sooner rather than later.<br /><br />The answer is not in pitching the human against the machine, because we have already formed ecosystems where we live our cyborg, symbiotic lives, where each system of the human and the machine requires the other. The answer is not in a futuristic appeal, waiting for the digital to arrive because our future is now, and already in the making, if not quite there.<br /><br />I would propose then, that we need the crutch of digital descriptors in order to hide the fact that in our quest for digitisation, we have stopped considering and caring about the human user in the digital networks. The human, alarmingly, has been reduced to nothing more than a node, a resource, a set of data, a flow of traffic, connected in these circuits of electronic communication, rescued from itself by the force of digital transformation.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">As we look at the digital schemes, policies and programmes that we are nationally embracing, the human only becomes the end point — the last-mile consumer who has to be connected, the individual who has to be enrolled into a database, an information pod that needs to be harvested for data services.<br /><br />Digital Everything is not just a benign description but a clear indication that the digital is not just an augmentation but the new norm. The digital has become the principle around which these shall be shaped, and, perhaps, it is time to worry, when we see “digital”, about what will happen to those who cannot or would not want to afford the promises and conditions of being digitally human.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/indian-express-october-16-2016-nishant-shah-digital-native-future-is-now'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/indian-express-october-16-2016-nishant-shah-digital-native-future-is-now</a>
</p>
No publishernishantResearchers at WorkRAW BlogDigital Natives2016-10-17T02:12:43ZBlog EntryApril 2014 Bulletin
http://editors.cis-india.org/about/newsletters/april-2014-bulletin
<b>The newsletter for the month of April can be accessed below:</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">We at the Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) welcome you to the fourth issue of the newsletter (April) for the year 2014. Archives of our newsletters can be accessed at: <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/about/newsletters/">http://cis-india.org/about/newsletters</a></p>
<h2 style="text-align: justify; ">Highlights</h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">We have published a compilation of the various central government schemes in a blog post as part of our National Resource Kit project.</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>The 27<sup>th</sup> session of the WIPO Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (WIPO-SCCR) was held in Geneva from April 28 to May 2, 2014. Nehaa Chaudhari participated in the event. CIS made its statements on Technological Measures of Protection on Limitations and Exceptions for Libraries and Archives, Orphan Works, Retracted and Withdrawn Works, and Works out of Commerce on Limitations and Exceptions for Libraries and Archives, and on the WIPO Proposed Treaty for the Protection of Broadcasting Organizations. </li>
<li>CIS signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Mysore University for converting to Unicode and re-releasing their encyclopaedia under Creative Commons License. Dr. U.B. Pavanaja on behalf of the CIS-A2K team signed the MoU.</li>
<li>A two-day global stakeholder meeting on future of internet governance (NETmundial) was organized by the Brazilian Internet Steering Committee in partnership with /1Net at Sao Paulo in Brazil on April 23 and 24, 2014. Achal Prabhala participated in the event. As part of its research to enable productive discussions of the critical internet governance issues at the meeting and elsewhere CIS published a total of 16 blog entries. </li>
<li>We conducted an empirical study of five separate and diverse banks (State Bank of India, Central Bank of India, ICICI Bank, IndusInd Bank, and Standard Chartered Bank) to gain a practical perspective on the existing banking practices and policies in India, and published a Banking Policy Guide. </li>
<li>As part of the Making Change project Denisse Albornoz interviewed Tuhin Paul, an artist and storyteller behind Menstrupedia, an India-based social venture creating comics to shatter the myths and misunderstandings surrounding menstruation around the world. Denisse provides an analysis of ‘menstrual activism’ — a movement that despite its trajectory in feminism remains unnoticed in most accounts of traditional and digital activism.</li>
<li>Six research studies were commissioned by HEIRA-CSCS (over November 2013-March 2014) as part of the collaborative exercise with CIS to map the Digital Humanities within a broad rubric of exploring changes at the intersection of youth, technology and higher education in India. P.P.Sneha in her blog post presents a broad overview of some of the key learnings from these projects.</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><br /><b><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/jobs">Jobs<br /></a></b>CIS is seeking applications for the post of <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/jobs/programme-officer-access-to-knowledge-and-openness">Programme Officer</a> (Access to Knowledge). There are two vacancies for this post one in Delhi and one in Bangalore. To apply, please send your resume to Sunil Abraham (<a href="mailto:sunil@cis-india.org">sunil@cis-india.org</a>), Nirmita Narasimhan (<a href="mailto:nirmita@cis-india.org">nirmita@cis-india.org</a>) and Pranesh Prakash (<a href="mailto:pranesh@cis-india.org">pranesh@cis-india.org</a>) with three writing samples of which at least one demonstrates your analytic skills, and one that shows your ability to simplify complex policy issues.</p>
<h2><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/accessibility">Accessibility and Inclusion</a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Under a grant from the Hans Foundation we are doing two projects. The first project is on creating a national resource kit of state-wise laws, policies and programmes on issues relating to persons with disabilities in India. We compiled the first draft of the kit (29 states and 6 union territories). The chapters along with the quarterly reports can be accessed on the <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/accessibility/resources/national-resource-kit-project">project page</a>. The second project is on developing text-to-speech software for 15 Indian languages. The progress made so far in the project can be accessed <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/accessibility/resources/nvda-text-to-speech-synthesizer">here</a>.</p>
<h3>NVDA</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Monthly Update</b></p>
<p><b> </b></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<b> </b>
<li><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/accessibility/resources/nvda-text-to-speech-synthesizer">NVDA e-Speak Text-to-Speech Project Update</a> (by Suman Dogra, April 28, 2014). </li>
</ul>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">National Resource Kit</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Blog Entry</b></p>
<p><b> </b></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<b> </b>
<li><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/central-government-schemes">Central Government Schemes</a> (by Anandhi Viswanathan and CLPR, April 27, 2014). </li>
</ul>
<h3>Other</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Blog Entry</b></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/polling-pains">Polling Pains</a> (by Amba Salelkar, April 30, 2014). </li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Media Coverage</b></p>
<p><b> </b></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<b> </b>
<li><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/news/new-indian-express-april-8-2014-papiya-bhattacharya-are-elections-fair-to-people-with-special-needs">Are Elections Fair to People With Special Needs?</a> (by Papiya Bhattacharya, New Indian Express, April 8, 2014). </li>
<li><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/news/vijay-karnataka-april-9-2014-enabling-elections">Enabling Elections</a> (Vijay Karnataka, April 9, 2014). This was published in Kannada. </li>
</ul>
<h2><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k">Access to Knowledge</a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">As part of the Access to Knowledge programme we are doing two projects. The first one (Pervasive Technologies) under a grant from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) is for research on the complex interplay between pervasive technologies and intellectual property to support intellectual property norms that encourage the proliferation and development of such technologies as a social good. The second one (Wikipedia) under a grant from the Wikimedia Foundation is for the growth of Indic language communities and projects by designing community collaborations and partnerships that recruit and cultivate new editors and explore innovative approaches to building projects.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">WIPO SCCR</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Participation in Events</b></p>
<p><b> </b></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<b> </b>
<li>Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights: Twenty-Seventh Session (organized by WIPO, Geneva, April 28 – May 2, 2014). Nehaa Chaudhari participated in the event. France, Greece, India and the European Union <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blog/france-greece-india-eu-sign-marrakesh-treaty">signed the Marrakesh Treaty</a>. CIS delivered statements on <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blog/cis-statement-on-technological-measures-of-protection-27-sccr-on-limitations-exceptions-for-libraries-and-archives">Technological Measures of Protection on Limitations and Exceptions for Libraries and Archives</a>, <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blog/cis-statement-orphan-works-retracted-withdrawn-works-and-works-out-of-commerce-at-27-sccr-on-limitations-and-exceptions-for-libraries-and-archives">Orphan Works, Retracted and Withdrawn Works, and Works out of Commerce on Limitations and Exceptions for Libraries and Archives</a>, and on the <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blog/cis-statement-27-sccr-on-wipo-proposed-treaty-for-protection-of-broadcasting-organizations">WIPO Proposed Treaty for the Protection of Broadcasting Organizations</a>. Transcripts of the discussions can be <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blog/wipo-sccr-27-discussions-transcripts">accessed here</a>.</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Blog Entries</b></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blog/report-on-cpdip-2">Report on CDIP-12</a> (by Puneeth Nagraj, April 22, 2014).</li>
<li><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blog/signing-and-ratification-of-marrakesh-treaty-to-facilitate-access-to-published-works-for-persons-blind-visually-impaired-print-disabled">Signing and Ratification of the Marrakesh Treaty to Facilitate Access to Published Works for Persons who are Blind, Visually Impaired, or Otherwise Print Disabled</a> (by Nehaa Chaudhari, April 25, 2014). </li>
<li><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blog/report-on-wipo-director-general-meeting-with-ngos">Report on the WIPO Director General’s Meeting with NGO’s</a> (by Puneeth Nagraj, April 30, 2014). </li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Media Coverage</b></p>
<p><b> </b></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<b> </b>
<li><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/news/knowledge-ecology-international-manon-ress-april-29-2014-is-wipo-treaty-for-broadcasters-moving-forward-at-sccr-27">Is the WIPO Treaty for Broadcasters Moving Forward at SCCR 27?</a> (by Manon Ress, Knowledge Ecology International, April 29, 2014).</li>
<li><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/news/ip-watch-catherine-saez-may-1-2014-wipo-authors-civil-society-watchful-of-rights-for-broadcasters">At WIPO, Authors, Civil Society Watchful of Rights for Broadcasters</a> (by Catherine Saez, IP Watch, May 1, 2014).</li>
</ul>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Other</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Event Organized</b></p>
<p><b> </b></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<b> </b>
<li><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/events/nasa-international-space-apps-challenge-2014">NASA International Space Apps Challenge 2014</a> (CIS, Bangalore, April 12 – 13, 2014). </li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Blog Entries</b></p>
<p><b> </b></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<b> </b>
<li><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blog/online-survey-for-indian-mobile-app-developer-enterprise">Online Survey for Indian Mobile App Developer Startups & Enterprises</a> (by Samantha Cassar, April 9, 2014). </li>
<li><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blog/app-developers-series-services-products-dichotomy-ip-2013-part-i">App Developers Series: Services, Products, Dichotomy & IP – Part I</a> (by Samantha Cassar, April 10, 2014).</li>
<li><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blog/report-on-cpdip-2">Report on CDIP-12</a> (by Puneeth Nagraj, April 22, 2014).</li>
<li><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blog/report-on-31-session-of-standing-committee-on-trademarks">Report on the 31st Session of the Standing Committee on Trademarks</a> (by Puneeth Nagraj, April 29, 2014).</li>
</ul>
<h3>Wikipedia</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The following has been done under <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/access-to-knowledge-program-plan">grant from the Wikimedia Foundation</a>:</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Announcement</b></p>
<p><b> </b></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<b> </b>
<li><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog/cis-signs-mou-with-mysore-university">CIS Signs MoU with Mysore University</a> (by Dr. U.B.Pavanaja, April 16, 2014): for converting to Unicode and re-releasing their encyclopaedia under Creative Commons License. Dr. U.B. Pavanaja on behalf of the CIS-A2K team signed the MoU. The signing event took place earlier on February 22, 2014. </li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Articles</b></p>
<p><b> </b></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<b> </b>
<li><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog/openaccessweek-april-3-2014-subhashish-panigrahi-vachana-sanchaya">Vachana Sanchaya: Bringing Access to 11th century Kannada Literature</a> (by Subhashish Panigrahi, April 3, 2014)</li>
<li><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog/subhashish-panigrahi-article-in-amalekha">୭୯ ବର୍ଷରେ ସ୍ୱତନ୍ତ୍ର ଓଡ଼ିଶା: ଶାସ୍ତ୍ରୀୟ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଓ କମ୍ପ୍ୟୁଟରରେ ଏହାର ବ୍ୟବହାର</a> (by Subhashish Panigrahi, Amalekha, April 4, 2014).</li>
<li><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog/kadambini-april-8-2014-subhashish-panigrahi-odia-language-and-development-in-digital-era">ଓଡ଼ିଅା ଭାଷାର ବିକାଶ ଓ କମ୍ପ୍ୟୁଟର</a> (by Subhashish Panigrahi, The Kadambini, April 8, 2014). </li>
<li><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog/creative-commons-subhashish-panigrahi-april-18-2014-report-from-india-relicensing-books-under-creative-commons">Report from India: Relicensing books under CC</a> (by Subhashish Panigrahi, Creative Commons Blog, April 19, 2014). </li>
<li><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog/dna-rohini-lakshane-april-26-2014-14-books-re-released-under-creative-commons-license">14 Odia books re-released under Creative Commons license</a> (by Subhashish Panigrahi, DNA, April 26, 2014). The article was edited by Rohini Lakshane.</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Events Organized</b></p>
<p><b> </b></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<b> </b>
<li><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/events/tulu-wikipedia-workshop">Tulu Wikipedia Workshop</a> (organized by CIS-A2K, Balmatta Computer Centre, Mangalore, April 5, 2014). Dr. U.B.Pavanaja conducted the workshop. </li>
<li><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/news/daijiworld-april-6-2014-mangalore-wikipedia-workshop-held-for-konkani-writers">Konkani Wikipedia Workshop</a> (co-organized by All India Konkani Writers Organization and CIS-A2K, Kalaangann Shaktinagar, April 6, 2014). Dr. U.B.Pavanaja conducted the workshop.</li>
<li><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/events/tulu-wikipedia-editathon">Tulu Wikipedia Editathon</a> (co-organized by Karnataka Theological College and CIS-A2K, Mangalore, April 19, 2014). Dr. U.B.Pavanaja conducted the workshop.</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Participation in Events</b></p>
<p><b> </b></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<b> </b>
<li><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/news/wiki-session-for-prajavani-journalists">Wikipedia Session for Trainee Journos</a> (organized by Prajavani, Bangalore, April 28, 2014). Dr. U.B.Pavanaja took a session for the trainee journalists of Prajavani Kannada daily on Wikipedia. </li>
<li><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/news/world-book-day">World Book Day</a> (organized by Karnataka Publishers’ Association, Indian Institute of World Culture, Basavanagudi, Bangalore, April 23, 2014). Dr. U.B.Pavanaja was a speaker.</li>
<li><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/news/relevance-of-bhagabat-tungi-in-evolution-of-odia-language?searchterm=Relevance+of+Bhagabat+Tungi+in+the+evolution+of+Odia+language+from+Buddha+era+to+digital+age">Relevance of Bhagabat Tungi in the evolution of Odia language from Buddha era to digital age</a> (organized by The Intellects, Shree Jagannath Mandir and Odisha Art and Cultural Center, New Delhi, April 24, 2014). Subhashish Panigrahi participated in the event.</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Media Coverage<br /></b>CIS gave its inputs to the following media coverage:</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/news/daijiworld-april-6-2014-mangalore-wikipedia-workshop-held-for-konkani-writers">M'lore: Wikipedia Workshop held for Konkani writers</a> (Daijiworld, April 6, 2014).</li>
<li><a href="http://rising.globalvoicesonline.org/blog/2014/04/10/odia-loves-wikipedia/">Odia Loves Wikipedia</a> (Rising Voices, April 10, 2014). This was also published in <a href="http://es.globalvoicesonline.org/2014/04/12/el-idioma-oriya-ama-a-wikipedia/">Spanish</a> and in <a href="http://ru.globalvoicesonline.org/2014/04/13/28775/">Russian</a>.</li>
<li><a href="http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-karnataka/international-book-day/article5932673.ece">International Book Day</a> (The Hindu, April 21, 2014). </li>
<li><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/news/deccan-herald-april-23-2014-books-are-a-bridge-between-generations">Books are a bridge between generations</a> (The Deccan Herald, April 23, 2014). </li>
<li><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/news/vijayavani-april-23-2014-world-book-day">World Book Day Report</a> (Vijaywani, April 23, 2014).</li>
<li><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/news/eodishasamacharseminar-on-odia-language-in-new-delhi-by-the-intellects">Seminar on Odia Language in New Delhi by the Intellects</a> (Odisha Samachar, April 24, 2014). </li>
<li><a href="http://www.dailypioneer.com/state-editions/bhubaneswar/delhi-meet-focuses-on-bhagabat-tungi-revival.html">Delhi meet focuses on Bhagabat Tungi revival</a> (The Pioneer, April 26, 2014).</li>
</ul>
<h2><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance">Internet Governance</a></h2>
<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 International Development Research Centre (IDRC)) is on surveillance and freedom of expression (SAFEGUARDS). The second one (under a grant from MacArthur Foundation) is on studying the restrictions placed on freedom of expression online by the Indian government.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">NETmundial</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">As part of its participation in the NETmundial event organized in Brazil by Brazilian Internet Steering Committee in partnership with /1Net at Sao Paulo on April 23 and 24, 2014 CIS produced a total of 16 outputs:</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>Sumandro Chattapadhyay produced these visual representations: <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/net-mundial-comparing-appearance-of-fifty-most-frequent-words">Comparing Appearance of Fifty Most Frequent Words</a>, <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/net-mundial-contributions-by-countries-of-origin">Contributions by Countries of Origin</a>, <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/net-mundial-contributions-by-types-of-organisation">Contributions by Types of Organisation</a>, <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/net-mundial-which-countries-have-not-contributed-to-net-mundial">Which Countries Have Not Submitted Contributions to NETmundial?</a>, <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/net-mundial-which-governments-have-not-contributed-to-net-mundial">Which Governments Have Not Submitted Contributions to NETmundial?</a>, <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/net-mundial-word-clouds-of-contributions-by-types-of-organisation">Word Clouds of Contributions by Types of Organisation</a> and <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/net-mundial-tracking-multi-stakeholder-across-contributions">Tracking *Multistakeholder* across Contributions</a>. Achal Prabhala participated in the event and wrote these: <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/net-mundial-day-0">Day 0</a>, <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/net-mundial-day-1">Day 1</a>, and <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/net-mundial-day-2">Day 2</a>. <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/netmundial-transcript-archive">Transcript of the NETmundial</a> for archival purposes was made available by Pranesh Prakash. Smarika Kumar produced two research outputs: <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/net-mundial-and-suggestions-for-iana-administration">NETmundial and Suggestions for IANA Administration</a> and <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/accountability-of-icann">Accountability of ICANN</a>. Geetha Hariharan wrote two blog posts: <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/marco-civil-da-internet">Marco Civil da Internet: Brazil’s ‘Internet Constitution’</a> and <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/brazil-passes-marco-civil-us-fcc-alters-stance-on-net-neutrality">Brazil passes Marco Civil; the US-FCC Alters its Stance on Net Neutrality</a>. Jyoti Panday wrote one blog post: <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/net-mundial-roadmap-defining-roles-of-stakeholders-in-multistakeholderism">NETmundial Roadmap: Defining the Roles of Stakeholders in Multistakeholderism</a>.</li>
</ul>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Privacy</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Analyses</b></p>
<p><b> </b></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<b> </b>
<li><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/report-of-group-of-experts-on-privacy-vs-leaked-2014-privacy-bill">Report of the Group of Experts on Privacy vs. The Leaked 2014 Privacy Bill</a> (by Elonnai Hickok, April 14, 2014).</li>
<li><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/banking-policy-guide">Banking Policy Guide</a> (by Elonnai Hickok, April 22, 2014).</li>
<li><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/the-embodiment-of-right-to-privacy-within-domestic-legislation">The Embodiment of the Right to Privacy within Domestic Legislation</a> (by Tanvi Mani, April 29, 2014).</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Articles</b></p>
<p><b> </b></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<b> </b>
<li><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/yojana-april-2014-sunil-abraham-who-governs-the-internet-implications-for-freedom-and-national-security">Who Governs the Internet? Implications for Freedom and National Security</a> (by Sunil Abraham, Yojana, April 4, 2014).</li>
<li><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/the-hoot-bhairav-acharya-april-15-2014-privacy-law-in-india-a-muddled-field-1">Privacy Law in India: A Muddled Field – I</a> (by Bhairav Acharya, The Hoot, April 15, 2014). </li>
<li><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/council-for-responsible-genetics-april-2014-sunil-abraham-very-big-brother">Very Big Brother</a> (by Sunil Abraham, GeneWatch, January – April 2014 Issue).</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Blog Entry</b></p>
<p><b> </b></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<b> </b>
<li><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/south-african-protection-personal-information-act-2013">South African Protection of Personal Information Act, 2013</a> (by Divij Joshi, April 16, 2014). </li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Participation in Events</b></p>
<p><b> </b></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<b> </b>
<li><a href="http://cgcs.asc.upenn.edu/fileLibrary/PDFs/MW_Updated_Agenda_for_Website.pdf">Milton Wolf Seminar on Media and Diplomacy: The Third Man Theme Revisited: Foreign Policies of the Internet in a Time Of Surveillance and Disclosure</a> (jointly organized by the Center for Global Communication Studies (CGCS) at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School for Communication, the American Austrian Foundation (AAF), and the Diplomatic Academy of Vienna (DA), Vienna, March 30 – April 1, 2014). Nishant Shah participated in the event as a panelist.</li>
<li><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/news/gsma-partners-meeting">GSMA Partners Meeting</a> (organized by Privacy International, London, April 9, 2014). Elonnai Hickok participated in this meeting.</li>
<li><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/news/critical-life-of-information">The Critical Life of Information</a> (organized by Yale University, 100 Wall Street, April 11, 2014). Nishant Shah spoke in the panel on Big Data and Governance. Malavika Jayaram spoke in the panel on Big Data and the Arts.</li>
<li><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/news/round-table-on-user-safety-on-internet">Round-table on User Safety on the Internet</a> (organized by Consumer Voice and Google, Infantry Road, Bangalore, April 24, 2014).</li>
<li><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/news/ssn-2014-sixth-biannual-surveillance-and-society-conference">6th Biannual Surveillance and Society Conference</a> (organized by Eticas Research and Consulting, University of Barcelona and CCCB, April 26 – 24, 2014). Malavika Jayaram gave a talk on “Biometrics in beta: experimenting on a nation (while normalising surveillance for 1.2 billion people)”.</li>
</ul>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Other</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Articles</b></p>
<p><b> </b></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<b> </b>
<li><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/cgcs-nishant-shah-april-1-2014-between-the-local-and-the-global">Between the Local and the Global: Notes Towards Thinking the Nature of Internet Policy</a> (by Nishant Shah, cgcsblog, April 1, 2014).</li>
<li><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/dml-central-april-17-2014-nishant-shah-networks-what-you-dont-see-is-what-you-for-get">Networks: What You Don’t See is What You (for)Get</a> (by Nishant Shah, April 17, 2014).</li>
</ul>
<h2 style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/news">News & Media Coverage</a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">CIS gave its inputs to the following media coverage:</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/news/outlook-april-1-2014-two-indians-in-global-commission-on-web-governance">Two Indians in Global Commission on Web Governance</a> (April 1, 2014): Sunil Abraham was named as one of the experts. This was published in <a href="http://news.outlookindia.com/items.aspx?artid=835007">Outlook</a>, <a href="http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2014-04-01/news/48767578_1_internet-governance-two-indians-general-dynamics">Economic Times</a>, and in <a href="http://mattersindia.com/two-indians-among-25-selected-for-internet-governance-network/">Matters India</a>.</li>
<li><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/news/newslaundry-april-1-2014-somi-das-the-take-down-of-free-speech-online">The Take Down of Free Speech Online</a> (Newslaundry, April 1, 2014): CIS research on Intermediary Liabilities is quoted.</li>
<li><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/news/livemint-april-1-2014-shweta-taneja-the-politics-of-facebook">The politics of Facebook</a> (by Shweta Tiwari, April 1, 2014).</li>
<li><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/news/business-standard-april-3-2014-surabhi-agarwal-new-privacy-bill-more-refined-has-wider-ambit-say-experts">New privacy Bill more refined & has wider ambit, say experts</a> (by Surabhi Agarwal, Business Standard, April 2, 2014).</li>
<li><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/news/economic-times-april-3-2014-m-rajshekhar-should-nandan-nilekani-aadhar-project-for-identity-proof-and-welfare-delivery-exist">Should Nandan Nilekani's Aadhaar project, for identity proof and welfare delivery, exist at all?</a> (by M. Rajshekhar, April 3, 2014).</li>
<li><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/news/economic-times-april-10-2014-varuni-khosla-lok-sabha-polls">Lok sabha polls: Social media companies launch special pages for polls</a> (by Varuni Khosla, Economic Times, April 10, 2014).</li>
<li><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/news/governance-now-april-12-2014-pratap-vikram-singh-parties-give-short-shrift-to-privacy">Parties give short shrift to privacy</a> (by Pratap Vikram Singh, GovernanceNow.com, April 12, 2014).</li>
<li><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/news/governance-now-april-13-2014-pratap-vikram-singh-no-party-has-got-clear-stand-aadhaar-fate-hangs-in-balance">No party's got a clear stand, Aadhaar's fate hangs in balance</a> (by Pratap Vikram Singh, GovernanceNow.com, April 13, 2014).</li>
<li><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/news/the-times-of-india-april-24-2014-india-wants-core-internet-infrastructure">'India wants core internet infrastructure'</a> (by Indrani Bagchi, April 24, 2014).</li>
<li><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/news/the-times-of-india-april-25-indrani-bagchi-india-for-inclusive-internet-governance">India for inclusive internet governance</a> (by Indrani Bagchi, April 25, 2014).</li>
<li><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/news/dna-amrita-madhukalya-april-26-2014-facebook-launches-fb-newswire-for-journalists-loses-part-of-its-immunity-under-it-act-2000">Facebook launches FB Newswire for journalists; loses part of its immunity under IT Act 2000</a> (by Amrita Madhukalya, DNA, April 26, 2014).</li>
</ul>
<h2><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/digital-humanities">Digital Humanities</a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">CIS is building research clusters in the field of Digital Humanities. The Digital will be used as a way of unpacking the debates in humanities and social sciences and look at the new frameworks, concepts and ideas that emerge in our engagement with the digital. The clusters aim to produce and document new conversations and debates that shape the contours of Digital Humanities in Asia:</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Blog Entries</b></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/digital-humanities/confession-in-digital-age">Confession in the Digital Age</a> (by Rimi Nandy, April 14, 2014).</li>
<li><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/digital-humanities/animating-the-archive">Animating the Archive – A Survey of Printed Digitized Materials in Bengali and their Use in Higher Education</a> (by Saidul Haque, April 14, 2014).</li>
<li><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/digital-humanities/doing-digital-humanities">‘Doing’ Digital Humanities: Reflections on a project on Online Feminism in India</a> (by Sujatha Subramanian, April 14, 2014).</li>
<li><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/digital-humanities/the-machinistic-paradigm-collapse">The Machinistic Paradigm Collapse</a> (by Anirudh Sridhar, April 14, 2014).</li>
<li><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/digital-humanities/exploring-the-digital-landscape">Exploring the Digital Landscape: An Overview</a> (by P.P.Sneha, April 14, 2014).</li>
<li><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/digital-humanities/digital-humanities-problem-of-definition">Digital Humanities and the Problem of Definition</a> (by P.P.Sneha, April 25, 2014).</li>
</ul>
<h2><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives">Digital Natives</a></h2>
<p>CIS is doing a research project titled “Making Change”. The project will explore new ways of defining, locating, and understanding change in network societies. Having the thought piece 'Whose Change is it Anyway' as an entry point for discussion and reflection, the project will feature profiles, interviews and responses of change-makers to questions around current mechanisms and practices of change in South Asia and South East Asia:</p>
<h3>Making Change Project<b> </b></h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Blog Entry</b></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/making-change/multimedia-storytellers">Multimedia Storytellers: Panel Discussion</a> (by Denisse Albornoz, April 16, 2014).</li>
<li><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/making-change/menstrupedia-taboo-beautiful">From Taboo to Beautiful – Menstrupedia</a> (by Denisse Albornoz, April 30, 2014).</li>
</ul>
<h2><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/telecom">Telecom</a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">CIS is involved in promoting access and accessibility to telecommunications services and resources and has provided inputs to ongoing policy discussions and consultation papers published by TRAI. It has prepared reports on unlicensed spectrum and accessibility of mobile phones for persons with disabilities and also works with the USOF to include funding projects for persons with disabilities in its mandate:</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Event Organized</b></p>
<p><b> </b></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<b> </b>
<li><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/events/tech-talk-landscape-of-wireless-communications-and-electromagnetic-spectrum">Tech Talk: Landscape of Wireless Communications & Electromagnetic Spectrum</a> (CIS, Bangalore, April 28, 2014). A. Radha Krishna gave a talk on wireless communication technologies.</li>
</ul>
<h2 style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/">About CIS</a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The Centre for Internet and Society is a non-profit research organization that works on policy issues relating to freedom of expression, privacy, accessibility for persons with disabilities, access to knowledge and IPR reform, and openness (including open government, FOSS, open standards, etc.), and engages in academic research on digital natives and digital humanities.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">► Follow us elsewhere</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>Twitter:<a href="https://twitter.com/CISA2K"> </a><a href="https://twitter.com/CISA2K">https://twitter.com/CISA2K</a></li>
<li>Facebook group: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/cisa2k">https://www.facebook.com/cisa2k</a></li>
<li>Visit us at:<a href="https://cis-india.org/"> </a><a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge">https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge</a></li>
<li>E-mail: <a href="mailto:a2k@cis-india.org">a2k@cis-india.org</a></li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">► Support Us</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Please help us defend consumer / citizen rights on the Internet! Write a cheque in favour of ‘The Centre for Internet and Society’ and mail it to us at No. 194, 2nd ‘C’ Cross, Domlur, 2nd Stage, Bengaluru – 5600 71.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">► Request for Collaboration:<br />We invite researchers, practitioners, and theoreticians, both organisationally and as individuals, to collaboratively engage with Internet and society and improve our understanding of this new field. To discuss the research collaborations, write to Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, at <a href="mailto:sunil@cis-india.org">sunil@cis-india.org</a> or Nishant Shah, Director – Research, at <a href="mailto:nishant@cis-india.org">nishant@cis-india.org</a>. To discuss collaborations on Indic language Wikipedia, write to T. Vishnu Vardhan, Programme Director, A2K, at <a href="mailto:vishnu@cis-india.org">vishnu@cis-india.org</a>.</p>
<hr style="text-align: justify; " />
<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 style="text-align: justify; "><i> </i></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/about/newsletters/april-2014-bulletin'>http://editors.cis-india.org/about/newsletters/april-2014-bulletin</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaAccess to KnowledgeDigital NativesTelecomAccessibilityInternet GovernanceOpennessResearchers at Work2014-07-04T03:38:00ZPageInstitute for Internet & Society 2014, Pune
http://editors.cis-india.org/telecom/blog/institute-for-internet-society-2014-pune
<b>Last month, activists, journalists, researchers, and members of civil society came together at the 2014 Institute for Internet & Society in Pune, which was hosted by CIS and funded by the Ford Foundation. The Institute was a week long, in which participants heard from speakers from various backgrounds on issues arising out of the intersection of internet and society, such as intellectual property, freedom of expression, and accessibility, to name a few. Below is an official reporting summarizing sessions that took place.</b>
<p style="text-align: center; "><iframe frameborder="0" height="500" src="http://www.slideflickr.com/iframe/J3JYk2bm" width="700"></iframe></p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<h1></h1>
<h1></h1>
<h1>Day One</h1>
<p>February 11, 2014</p>
<table class="listing">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>
<p><b>Time</b></p>
</td>
<td>
<p><b>Detail</b></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p align="center" style="text-align: center; ">9.30 a.m. – 9.40 a.m.</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Introduction: Sunil Abraham, <i>Executive Director Centre for Internet and Society</i><i> </i></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>10.00 a.m. – 10.15 a.m.<br /></td>
<td>
<p>Introduction of Participants</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>10.15 a.m. – 12.00 p.m.</td>
<td>
<p>Internet Governance and Privacy: Sunil Abraham</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p align="center" style="text-align: center; ">12.00 p.m. – 12.30 p.m.</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Tea-break</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p align="center" style="text-align: center; ">12.30 p.m. – 1.00 p.m.</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Keynote: Bishakha Datta, <i>Filmmaker and Activist, and Board Member, Wikimedia Foundation</i></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p align="center" style="text-align: center; ">1.00 p.m. – 2.00 p.m.</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Lunch</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p align="center" style="text-align: center; ">1.30 p.m. – 3.00 p.m.</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Participant Presentations<i> </i></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p align="center" style="text-align: center; ">3.00 p.m. – 3.15 p.m.</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Tea Break</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p align="center" style="text-align: center; ">3.15 p.m. – 4.45 p.m.</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Histories, Bodies and Debates around the Internet: Nishant Shah, <i>Director-Research, CIS</i></p>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">This year’s Internet Institute, hosted by the Centre for Internet & Society (CIS), kicked off in Pune to put a start to a week of learnings and discussions surrounding internet usage and its implications on individuals of society. Twenty two attendees from all over India attended this year, from backgrounds of activism, journalism, research and advocacy work.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Attendees were welcomed by<b> Dr. Ravina Aggarwal</b>, Program Officer for Media Rights & Access at the Ford Foundation, the event’s sponsor, who started off the day by introducing the Foundation’s initiatives in pursuit of bridging the digital divide by addressing issues of internet connectivity.</p>
<table class="invisible">
<thead>
<tr>
<th><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/DSC_0050.JPG/image_preview" title="Pune_Sunil" height="243" width="367" alt="Pune_Sunil" class="image-inline image-inline" /><br /></th>
<td>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Internet Governance & Privacy</b>, Sunil Abraham <br />The Institute’s first session was led by <b>Sunil Abraham</b>, Executive Director of CIS, and engaged with issues of internet governance and privacy with reference to four stories: 1) a dispute between tweeters from the US and those in South Africa over the use of hashtag <a href="http://www.thoughtleader.co.za/khayadlanga/2009/11/05/yesterday-a-short-lived-war-broke-out-between-america-and-south-africa/comment-page-1/">#thingsdarkiesays</a>, which is said not to be as racially derogatory as it is in the US; 2) Facebook’s contested policies on <a href="http://www.zdnet.com/blog/facebook/facebook-clarifies-breastfeeding-photo-policy/8791">photos featuring users breastfeeding</a>, 3) a lawsuit between <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2010/jul/26/tata-sue-greenpeace-turtle-game">Tata and Greenpeace</a> over the organization’s use of Tata’s logo in a video game created for public criticism of their environmentally-degrading practices, and lastly, 4) the case of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savita_Bhabhi">Savita Bhabhi</a>, an Indian pornographic cartoon character which had been banned by India’s High Court and which had served as a landmark case in expanding the statutory laws for what is considered to be pornographic.</p>
</td>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">Each of these stories has one major thing in common: due to their nature of taking place over the internet, they are not confined to one geographic location and in turn, are addressed at the international level. The way by which an issue as such is to be addressed cuts across State policies and internet intermediary bodies to create quite a messy case in trying to determine who is at fault. Such complexity illustrates how challenging internet governance can be within today’s society that is no longer restricted to national or geographic boundaries.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Sunil also goes on in explaining the relationship between privacy, transparency, and power, summing it up in a simple formula; <b>privacy protection s</b>hould have a <i>reverse</i> relationship to <b>power</b>—the more the power, the less the privacy one should be entitled to. On the contrary, a <i>direct correlation</i> goes for <b>power</b> and <b>transparency</b>—the more the power, the more transparent a body should be. Instead of thinking about these concepts as a dichotomy, Sunil suggests to see them as absolute rights in themselves—instrumental in policies and necessary to address power imbalances.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>The Web We Want</b>, Bishakha Datta<br />The Institute’s kickoff was also joined by Indian filmmaker and activist, <b>Bishakha Datta</b>, who had delivered the keynote address. Bishakha bridged together notions of freedom of speech, surveillance, and accessibility, while introducing campaigns that work to create an open and universally accessible web, such as the <a href="https://webwewant.org/">Web We Want</a> and <a href="http://www.sexualityanddisability.org/">Sexuality and Disability</a>. Bishakha stresses how the internet as a space has altered how we experience societal constructs, which can be easily exhibited in how individuals experience Facebook in the occurrence of a death, for example. Bishakha initiated discussion among participants by posing questions such as, “what is our expectation of privacy in this brave new world?” and “what is the society we want?” to encompass the need to think of privacy in a new way with the coming of the endless possibilities the internet brings with it.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Histories, Bodies and Debates around the Internet</b>, Nishant Shah<br />CIS Research Director, <b>Nishant Shah</b>, led a session examining internet as a technology more broadly, and our understandings of it in relation to the human body. Nishant proposes the idea that history is a form of technology, as well as time, itself, for which our understanding only comes into being with the aid of technologies of measurement. Although we are inclined to separate technology from the self, Nishant challenges this notion while suggesting that technology is very integral to being human, and defines a “cyborg” as someone who is very intimate with technology. In this way, we are all cyborgs. While making reference to several literary pieces, including Haraway’s <i>Cyborg: Human, Animus, Technology</i>; Kevin Warwick’s <i>Living Cyborg</i>; and Watt’s small world theory, Nishant challenges participants’ previous notions of how one is to understand technology in relation to oneself, as well as the networks we find ourselves implicated within.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Also brought forth by Nishant, was the fact that the internet as a technology has become integral to our identities, making <i>us</i> accessible (rather than us solely making the technology accessible) through online forms of documentation. This digital phenomenon in which we tend to document what we know and experience as a means of legitimizing it can be summed in the modern version of an old fable: “If a tree falls in a lonely forest, and nobody tweets it, has it fallen?”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Nishant refers to several case studies in which the use of online technologies has created a sense of an extension of the self and one’s personal space; which can then be subject to violation as one can be in the physical form, and to the same emotional and psychological effect—as illustrated within the 1993 occurrence referred to as “<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Rape_in_Cyberspace">A Rape in Cyberspace</a>.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Attendee Participation</b><br />Participants remained engaged and enthusiastic for the duration of the day, bringing forth their personal expertise and experiences. Several participants presented their own research initiatives, which looked at issues women face as journalists and as portrayed by the media; amateur pornography without the consent of the woman; study findings on the understandings of symptoms of internet addiction; as well as studies looking at how students engage with college confession pages on Facebook.</p>
<div></div>
<hr />
<h1>Day Two</h1>
<p>February 12, 2014</p>
<table class="listing">
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<p><b>Time</b></p>
</td>
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<p><b>Detail</b></p>
</td>
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<p align="center" style="text-align: center; ">9.30 a.m. – 11.00 a.m.</p>
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<td>
<p>Wireless Technology: Ravikiran Annaswamy, <i>CEO and Co-founder at Teritree Technologies</i></p>
</td>
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<p align="center" style="text-align: center; ">11.00 a.m. – 11.15 a.m.</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Tea-break</p>
</td>
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<td>
<p align="center" style="text-align: center; ">11.15 a.m. – 12.45 p.m.</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Wired Technology: Ravikiran Annaswamy</p>
</td>
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<td>
<p align="center" style="text-align: center; ">12.45 p.m. – 1.30 p.m.</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Lunch</p>
</td>
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<tr>
<td>
<p align="center" style="text-align: center; ">1.30 p.m. – 3.00 p.m.</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Network, Threats and Securing Yourself: Kingsley John, <i>Independent Consultant</i></p>
</td>
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<td>
<p align="center" style="text-align: center; ">3.00 p.m. – 3.15 p.m.</p>
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<td>
<p>Tea Break</p>
</td>
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<p align="center" style="text-align: center; ">3.15 p.m. – 4.45 p.m.</p>
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<td>
<p>Practical Lab: Kingsley John</p>
</td>
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<td>
<p align="center" style="text-align: center; ">4.45 p.m. – 5.00 p.m.</p>
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<p>Wrap-up: Sunil Abraham</p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">Day Two of the Institute entailed a more technical orientation to “internet & society” across sessions. Participants listened to speakers introduce concepts related to wired and wireless internet connectivity devices and their networks, along with the network of internet users and how one may secure him or herself while “online.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Wireless & Wired Technology</b>, Ravikiran Annaswamy<br />Senior industry practitioner, <b>Ravikiran Annaswamy</b> had aimed to enable the Institute’s participants to “understand the depth and omnipresent of telecom networks” that we find ourselves implicated within. Ravikiran went through the basics of these networks—including fixed line-, mobile-, IP-, and Next Generation IP-networks—as well as the technical structuring of wired and wireless broadband. Many participants found this session to be particularly enriching as their projects aimed to provide increased access to internet connectivity to marginalized areas in India, and had been without the know-how to go about it.</p>
</td>
<th><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/5.JPG/image_preview" alt="Pune_Participants" class="image-inline image-inline" title="Pune_Participants" /><br /></th>
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<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Network, Threats and Securing Yourself</b>, Kinglsey John<br />An instructional session on how to protect oneself was given by <b>Kingsley John</b>, beginning with a lesson on IP Addresses—what they are and the different generations of such, and how IP addresses fit into a broader internet network. Following, Kingsley demonstrated and explained <a href="http://www.slideshare.net/lupucosmin/encrypting-emails-using-kleopatra-pgp">email encryption through the use of software, Kleopatra</a>, and how it may be used to generate keys to <a href="http://thehackernews.com/2014/01/PGP-encryption-Thunderbird-Enigmail_12.html">encrypt emails through Thunderbird mail client</a>.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Evening Discussion</b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">A handful of participants voluntarily partook in an evening discussion, looking at the role of big players in the global internet network, such as Google and Facebook, how they collect and utilize users’ data, and what sorts of measures can be taken to minimize the collecting of such. Due to the widely varying backgrounds of interest among participants, those coming from this technical orientation towards the internet were able to inform their peers on relevant information and types of software that may be found useful related to minimizing one’s online presence.</p>
<hr />
<h1>Day Three</h1>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">February 13, 2014</p>
<table class="listing">
<tbody>
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<td>
<p><b>Time</b></p>
</td>
<td>
<p><b>Detail</b></p>
</td>
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<td>
<p>9.30 a.m. – 11.00 a.m.</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Free Software: Prof. G. Nagarjuna, <i>Chairperson, Free Software Foundation</i></p>
</td>
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<td>
<p>11.00 a.m. – 11.15 a.m.</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Tea-break</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p align="center" style="text-align: center; ">11.15 a.m. – 12.45 p.m.</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Open Data: Nisha Thompson, <i>Independent Consultant</i></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p>12.45 p.m. – 1.30 p.m.</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Lunch</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p align="center" style="text-align: center; ">1.30 p.m. – 3.00 p.m.</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Freedom of Expression: Bhairav Acharya, <i>Advocate and Adviser, Centre for Internet and Society</i></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p align="center" style="text-align: center; ">3.00 p.m. – 3.15 p.m.</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Tea-break</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p align="center" style="text-align: center; ">3.15 p.m. – 4.45 p.m.</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Copyright: Nehaa Chaudhari, <i>Program Officer, Centre for Internet and Society</i></p>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The third day of the Internet Institute incorporated themes presented by speakers ranging from free software, to freedom of expression, to copyright.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Free Software</b>, Prof. G. Nagarjuna<br />Chairman on the Board of Directors for the Free Software Foundation of India, <b>Professor G. Nagarjuna</b> shared with the Institute’s participants his personal expertise on <b>software freedom</b>. Nagarjuna mapped for us the network of concepts related to software freedom, beginning with the origins of the <b>copyleft movement</b>, and also touching upon the art of hacking, the <b>open source movement</b>, and what role software freedom plays in an interconnected world.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Nagarjuna looks at the free software movement as a political movement in the digital space highlighting the <a href="http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html">user’s freedoms</a> associated to the use, distribution, and modification of software for the greater good for all. This is said to distinguish this movement from that of Open Source—a technical and more practical development-oriented movement. The free software movement is not set out to compromise the fundamental issues for the sake of being practical and in that sense, ubiquitous. Instead, its objective is “not to make everybody <i>use</i> the software, but to have them understand <i>why</i> they are using the software,” so that they may become “authentic citizens that can also resonate <i>why </i>they’re doing what they’re doing. We want them to understand the ethical and political aspects of doing so,” Nagarjuna says.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Open Data</b>, Nisha Thompson<br />Participants learned from <b>Nisha Thompson</b> on Open Data; what it is, its benefits, and how it is involved in central government initiatives and policy, as well as civil society groups—generally for uses such as serving as evidence for decision making and accountability. Nisha explored challenges concerning the use of open data, such as those pertaining to privacy, legitimacy, copyright, and interoperability. The group looked at the <a href="http://www.indiawaterportal.org/">India Water Portal</a> as a case study, which makes accessible more than 300 water-related datasets already available in the public space for use from anything from sanitation and agriculture to climate change.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Freedom of Expression</b>, Bhairav Acharya<br /><b>Bhairav Acharya</b>, a constitutional lawyer, traced the development of the freedom of speech and expression in India. Beginning with a conceptual understanding of censorship and the practice of censorship by the state, society, and the individual herself, Bhairav examines the limits traditionally placed by a nation-state on the right to free speech.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In India, modern free speech and censorship law was first formulated by the colonial British government, which broadly imported the common law to India. However, the colonial state also yielded to the religious and communitarian sensitivities of its subjects, resulting in a continuing close link between communalism and free speech in India today. After Independence, the post-colonial Indian state carried forward Raj censorship, but tweaked it to serve to a nation-building and developmental agenda. Nation-building and nationalism are centrifugal forces that attempt to construct a homogenous 'mainstream'; voices from the margins of this mainstream (the geographical, ethnic, and religious peripheries) and of the marginalised within the mainstream (the poor and disadvantaged), are censored.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Within this narrative, Bhairav located and explained the evolution of the law relating to press censorship, defamation, obscenity, and contempt of court. Free speech law applies equally online. Broadly, censorship on the internet must survive the same constitutional scrutiny that is applied to offline censorship; but, as technology develops, the law must innovate.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Copyright</b>, Nehaa Chaudhari<br />CIS Programme Officer, <b>Nehaa Chaudhari</b> examined the concept of Copyright as an intellectual property right in discussing its fundamentals, purpose and origins, and Copyright’s intersection with the internet. Nehaa also explained the different exceptions to Copyright, along with its alternatives, such as opposing intellectual property protection regimes, including the Creative Commons and Copyleft. Within this session, Nehaa also introduced several cases in which Copyright came into play with the use of the internet, including Hunter Moore’s “<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is_Anyone_Up%3F">Is Anyone Up</a>?” website, which had showcased pornographic pictures obtained by submission bringing rise to the phenomenon of “revenge porn.” Instances as such blur the lines of what is commonly referred to as intellectual property, and what specific requirements enables one to own the rights to such.</p>
<hr />
<h1>Day Four</h1>
<p>February 14, 2014</p>
<table class="listing">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>
<p><b>Time</b></p>
</td>
<td>
<p><b>Detail</b></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p align="center" style="text-align: center; ">9.30 a.m. – 11.00 a.m.</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>E-Accessibility and Inclusion: Prashant Naik, <i>Union Bank</i></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p align="center" style="text-align: center; ">11.00 a.m. – 11.15 a.m.</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Tea-break</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p align="center" style="text-align: center; ">11.15 a.m. – 12.45 p.m.</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Patents: Nehaa Chaudhari</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p align="center" style="text-align: center; ">12.45 p.m. – 1.30 p.m.</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Lunch</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p align="center" style="text-align: center; ">1.30 p.m. – 2.00 p.m.</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Fieldwork Assignment</p>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<table class="invisible">
<thead>
<tr>
<th><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/DSC_0053.JPG/image_preview" alt="Pune_Rohini" class="image-inline" title="Pune_Rohini" /><br /></th>
<td style="text-align: justify; ">
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Day Four of the Internet Institute introduced concepts of eAccessibilty and Inclusion on the internet for persons with disabilities, along with patents as an intellectual property right. Participants were also assigned a fieldwork exercise as a hands-on activity in which they were to employ what they’ve learned to initiate conversation with individuals in public spaces and collect primary data while doing so.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>eAccessibility and Inclusion</b>, Prashant Naik</p>
<b>Prashant Naik</b> started off the day with his session on E-Accessibility and Inclusion. Prashant illustrated the importance of accessibility and what is meant by the term. Participants learned of assistive technologies for different disability types and how to create more accessible word and PDF documents, as well as web pages for users. Prashant demonstrated to participants what it is like to use a computer as a visually impaired individual, which provided for an enriching experience.</td>
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<tbody>
</tbody>
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<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Patents</b>, Nehaa Chaudhari<b><br />Nehaa Chaudhari </b>led a second session at the Internet Institute on intellectual property rights—this one looking at patents particularly and their role within statutory law. Nehaa traced the historical origins of patents before examining the fundamentals of them, and addresses the questions, “Why have patents? And is the present system working for everyone?” Nehaa also introduced notions of the Commons along with the Anticommons, and perspectives within the debate around software patents, as well as different means by which the law can address the exploitation of patents or “patent thickets”—such as through patent pools or compulsory licensing.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Fieldwork Assignment</b>, Groupwork<br />Participants were split into groups and required to carry out a mini fieldwork assignment in approaching individuals in varying public spaces in Pune in attempts to collect primary data. Questions asked to individuals were to be devised by the group, so long as they pertained to themes examined within the Internet Institute. Areas visited by groups included the Pune Central Mall, MG Road, and FC Road.</p>
<hr />
<h1>Day Five</h1>
<p>February 15, 2014</p>
<table class="listing">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>
<p><b>Time</b></p>
</td>
<td>
<p><b>Detail</b></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p>9.30 a.m. – 11.00 a.m.</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>E-Governance: Manu Srivastav, <i>Vice President, eGovernments Foundation</i></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p>11.00 a.m. – 11.15 a.m.</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Tea-break</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p align="center" style="text-align: center; ">11.15 a.m. – 12.45 p.m.</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Market Concerns: Payal Malik, <i>Economic Adviser, Competition Commission of India</i></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p>12.45 p.m. – 1.30 p.m.</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Lunch</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p align="center" style="text-align: center; ">1.30 p.m. – 3.00 p.m.</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Digital Natives: Nishant Shah</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p align="center" style="text-align: center; ">3.00 p.m. – 3.15 p.m.</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Tea-break</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p align="center" style="text-align: center; ">3.15 p.m. – 4.45 p.m.</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Fieldwork Presentations</p>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<table class="invisible">
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<td>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Day Five of the Internet Institute brought with it sessions related to themes of e-governance, market concerns of telecommunications, and so called “Digital Natives.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>eGovernance</b>, Manu Srivastava<br />Vice President of the eGovernments Foundation, <b>Manu Srivastava</b> led a session on eGovernance—the utilization of the internet as a means of delivering government services communicating with citizens, businesses, and members of government. Manu examined the complexities of the eGovernance and barriers to implementation of eGovernance initiatives. Within discussion, participants examined the nuanced relationship between the government and citizens with the incorporation of other governing bodies in an eGovernance system, as well as new spaces for corruption to take place.</p>
</td>
<th><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/19.JPG/image_preview" alt="Pune_Chatting" class="image-inline image-inline" title="Pune_Chatting" /><br /></th>
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</thead>
<tbody>
</tbody>
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<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Market Concerns</b>, Payal Malik<br /><b>Payal Malik</b>, Advisor of the Economics Division of the Competition Commission of India shared her knowledge on market concerns of the telecommunications industry, and exclaimed the importance of competition issues in such an industry as a tool to create greater good for a greater number of people. She demonstrated this importance by stating that affordability as a product of increased access can only be possible once there is enough investment, which generally only happens in a competitive market. In this way, we must set the conditions to make competition possible, as a tool to achieve certain objectives. Payal also demonstrated the economic benefits of telecommunications by stating that for every 10% increase in broadband penetration, increase in GDP of 1.3%. She also examined the broadband ecosystem in India and touched upon future possibilities of increased broadband penetration, such as for formers and the education sector.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Digital Natives</b>, Nishant Shah<br /><b>Nishant Shah</b> shed some light on one of the areas that the Centre for Internet & Society looks at within their research scope, this being the “<a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives">Digital Native</a>.” As referred to by Nishant, the Digital Native is not to categorize a specific type of internet user, but can be said for simply any person who is performing a digital action, while doing away with this false dichotomy of age, location, and geography.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Nishant examines varying case studies in which “the digital is empowering natives to not merely be benefactors of change, but agents of change,” from the <a href="http://blog.blanknoise.org/2012/07/i-never-ask-for-it.html">Blank Noise Project</a>’s “I NEVER Ask for it…” campaign in efforts to rethink sexual violence, to <a href="http://www.wherethehellismatt.com/">Matt Harding</a>’s foolish dancing with groups of individuals from all over the world.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">As occurrences in the digital realm, however, these often political expressions may be rewritten by the network when picked up as a growing phenomenon, in order to make it accessible to online consumers by the masses. In doing so, the expression is removed from its political context and is presented in the form of nothing more than a fad. For this reason, Nishant stresses the need to become aware of the potential of the internet in becoming an “echo-chamber”—in which forms of expression are amplified and mimicked, resulting in a restructuring of the dynamics surrounding the subject—whether it be videos of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Back_Dorm_Boys">boys lipsyncing to Backstreet Boys</a> in their dorm room going viral, or a strong and malicious movement to punish the Chinese girl who had taken a video of her heinously and wickedly killing a kitten after locating her using the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_flesh_search_engine">Human Flesh Search Engine</a>.<b><br /></b></p>
<p><b>Fieldwork Presentations</b>, Groupwork</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">To end off the day, participant groups presented findings collated from the prior evening’s fieldwork exercise, in which they were to ask strangers in various public places of Pune questions pertaining to themes looked at from within this year’s Institute. Participants were divided into four groups and visited Pune’s FC Road, Mahatma Gandhi Road, and Central Mall.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Groups found that the majority of those interviews primarily accessed the phone via the mobile. There was also a common weariness of using the internet and concern for one’s privacy while doing so, especially with uploading photos to Facebook and online financial transactions. People were also generally concerned about using cyber cafes for fear of one’s accounts being hacked. Generally people suspected that so long as conversations are “private” (i.e. in one’s Facebook inbox), so too are they secure. Just as well, those interviewed shared a sense of security with the use of a password.</p>
<hr />
<h1>Day Six</h1>
<p>February 16, 2014</p>
<table class="listing">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>
<p><b>Time</b></p>
</td>
<td>
<p><b>Detail</b></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p align="center" style="text-align: center; ">9.30 a.m. – 11.00 a.m.</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Wikipedia: Dr. Abhijeet Safai</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p align="center" style="text-align: center; ">11.00 a.m. – 11.15 a.m.</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Tea-break</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p align="center" style="text-align: center; ">11.15 a.m. – 12.45 p.m.</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Open Access: Muthu Madhan (TBC)</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p align="center" style="text-align: center; ">12.45 p.m. – 1.30 p.m.</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Lunch</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p align="center" style="text-align: center; ">1.30 p.m. – 3.00 p.m.</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Case Studies Groupwork</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p align="center" style="text-align: center; ">3.00 p.m. – 3.15 p.m.</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Tea-break</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p align="center" style="text-align: center; ">3.15 p.m. – 4.45 p.m.</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Case Studies Presentations</p>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">As the Institute came closer to its end, participants got the opportunity to hear from speakers on topics pertaining the Wikipedia editing in addition to Open Access to scholarly literature. Participants also worked together in groups to examine specific case studies referenced in previous sessions, and then presented their conclusions.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Wikipedia</b>, Dr. Abhijeet Safai<br />The Institute was joined by Medical Officer of Clinical Research at Pune’s Symbiosis Centre of Health Care, <b>Dr. Abhijeet Safai</b>, who led a session on Wikipedia. Having edited over 3700 Wikipedia articles, Dr. Abhijeet was able to bring forth his expertise and familiarity in editing Wikipedia to participants so that they would be able to do the same. Introduced within this session were Wikipedia’s different fundamental pillars and codes of conducts to be complied with by all contributors, along with different features and components of Wikipedia articles that one should be aware of when contributing, such as how to cite sources and discuss the contents of an article with other contributors.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Open Access</b>, Muthu Madhan<br /><b>Muthu Madhan</b> joined the Internet Institute while speaking on Open Access (OA) to scholarly literature. Within his session, Muthu examined the historical context within which the scholarly journal had arisen and how the idea of Open Access began within this space. The presence of Open Access in India and other developing nations was also examined in this session, and the concept of Open Data, introduced.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Case Studies</b>, Groupworks</p>
<table class="invisible">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/11.JPG/image_preview" alt="Pune_Group2" class="image-inline image-inline" title="Pune_Group2" /><br /></td>
<td><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/8.JPG/image_preview" alt="Pune_Group" class="image-inline image-inline" title="Pune_Group" /><br /></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Participants were split up into groups and assigned particular case studies looked at briefly in previous sessions. Case studies included <a href="http://siditty.blogspot.in/2009/11/things-darkies-say.html"><i>#thingsdarkiessay</i></a><i>,</i> a once trending Twitter hashtag in South Africa which had offended many Americans for its use of “darkie” as a derogatory term; the literary novel, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hindus:_An_Alternative_History"><i>The Hindus</i></a>, which offers an alternative narrative of Hindu history had been banned in India for obscenity; a case in which several users’ avatars had been controlled by another in a virtual community and forced to perform sexual acts, referred to as <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Rape_in_Cyberspace"><i>A Rape Happened in Cyber Space</i></a>; and lastly, a pornographic submission website, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is_Anyone_Up%3F">Is Anyone Up?</a>, for which content was largely derived from “revenge porn.” Each group then presented on the various perspectives surrounding the issue at hand.<b><br /></b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>The Cyborg</b>, Nishant Shah<br />Nishant Shah led an off-agenda session in the evening looking more closely at the notion of the human cyborg. Nishant deconstructs humanity’s relationship to technology, in suggesting that we “think of the human as <i>produced</i> with the technologies… not who <i>produces</i> technology.” Nishant explores the Digital Native as an attained identity for those who, because of technology, restructure and reinvent his or her environment—offline as well as online. Among other ideas shared, Nishant refers to works by Haraway on the human cyborg in illustrating our dependency on technology and our need to care for these technologies we depend on.</p>
<hr />
<h1>Day Seven</h1>
<p>February 17, 2014</p>
<table class="listing">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>
<p><b>Time</b></p>
</td>
<td>
<p><b>Detail</b></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p align="center" style="text-align: center; ">9.30 a.m. – 11.00 a.m.</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Internet Activism: Laura Stein, <i>Associate Professor, University of Texas </i>and <i>Fulbright Fellow<br /></i></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p align="center" style="text-align: center; ">11.00 a.m. – 11.15 a.m.</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Tea-break</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p align="center" style="text-align: center; ">11.15 a.m. – 12.45 p.m.</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Domestic and International Bodies: Chinmayi Arun, <i>Research Director<br /></i></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p align="center" style="text-align: center; ">12.45 p.m. – 1.30 p.m.</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Lunch</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p align="center" style="text-align: center; ">1.30 p.m. – 3.00 p.m.</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Participant Presentations</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p align="center" style="text-align: center; ">3.00 p.m. – 3.15 p.m.</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Tea-break</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p align="center" style="text-align: center; ">3.15 p.m. – 4.45 p.m.</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Hot Question Challenge</p>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b> </b>The last day of the week-long Internet Institute examined concepts of Internet Activism and Domestic and International Bodies. Some participants led presentations on topics of personal familiarity, before a final wrap-up exercise, calling upon individuals to share any new formulations resulting from the Institute.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Internet Activism</b>, Laura Stein</p>
<table class="invisible">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/17.JPG/image_preview" alt="Pune_Laura" class="image-inline image-inline" title="Pune_Laura" /><br /></td>
<td style="text-align: justify; ">Associate Professor from the University of Texas, <b>Laura Stein</b>, spoke on activism on the internet. Laura examined some grassroots organizations and movements taking place on the online and the benefits that the internet brings in facilitating their impact, such as its associated low costs, accessibility and possibility for anonymity. Despite the positive effects catalyzed by the internet, Laura stresses that the “laying field is still unequal, and movements are not simply transformed by technology.” Some of the websites exemplifying online activism that were examined within this session includes the <a href="http://www.itgetsbetter.org/">It Gets Better Project</a>, which aims to give hope to LGBT youth facing harassment, and the national election watch by the <a href="http://adrindia.org/">Association for Democratic Reforms</a>. Additionally, Laura spoke on public communication policy, comparing that of the US and India, and how this area of policy may influence media content and practice.</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Domestic and International Bodies</b>, Chinmayi Arun<br />As the Internet Institute’s final speaker, Research Director for Communication Governance at National Law University<i> </i>,<b> Chinmayi Arun</b>, explores the network of factors that affect one’s behavior on the internet—these including: social norms, the law, the markets, and architecture. In referring to Lawrence Lessig’s <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pathetic_dot_theory">pathetic dot theory</a>, Chinmayi illustrates how individual’s—the pathetic dots in question—are functions of the interactions of these factors, and in this sense, regulated, and stresses the essential need to understand the system, in order to effectively change the dynamics within it. It is worth noting that not all pathetic dots are equal, and Google’s dot, for example, will be drastically bigger than a single user’s, having more leveraging power within the network of internet bodies. Also demonstrated, is the fact that we must acknowledge the need for regulation by the law to some extent, otherwise, the internet would be a black box where anything goes, putting one’s security at risk of violation.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Hot Question Challenge</b><br />The very last exercise of the Institute entailed participants asking each other questions on demand, relating back to different themes looked at within the last week. Participants had the chance, here, to bridge together concepts across sessions, as well as formulate their own opinions, while posing questions to others that they, themselves, were still curious about.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/DSC_0371.JPG/image_large" alt="Pune_Everyone" class="image-inline image-inline" title="Pune_Everyone" /></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/telecom/blog/institute-for-internet-society-2014-pune'>http://editors.cis-india.org/telecom/blog/institute-for-internet-society-2014-pune</a>
</p>
No publishersamanthaAccess to KnowledgeDigital NativesTelecomResearchers at WorkWikipediaAccessibilityInternet GovernanceFeaturedWikimediaOpennessHomepage2014-04-07T11:31:23ZBlog EntryFebruary 2014 Bulletin
http://editors.cis-india.org/about/newsletters/february-2014-bulletin
<b>The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) welcomes you to the second issue of its newsletter (February) for the year 2014: </b>
<p>-------------------------------<br />Highlights<br />-------------------------------</p>
<ul>
<li>We published revised chapters for the states of Mizoram, Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Himachal Pradesh and Haryana, as part of our National Resource Kit project.</li>
<li>In the concluding blog post of a three-part study Ananth Padmanabhan looks at the Indian law in the Copyright Act and the Information Technology Act, and concludes that both those laws restrain courts and private companies from ordering an ISP to block a website for copyright infringement.</li>
<li>Telugu Wikipedia celebrated its 10<sup>th</sup> anniversary. An event was co-organized in Vijaywada to celebrate the same.</li>
<li>The second Institute on Internet and Society was held in Pune from February 11 to 17. The proceedings from the workshop are captured in a blog post. </li>
<li>CIS announced an Open Call for Comments for the latest draft of the Privacy Bill, 2013 prepared by Bhairav Acharya.</li>
<li>Forbes India published its “30 Under 30 List”. Pranesh Prakash is featured in the list.</li>
<li>As part of the Making Change Project, Denisse Albornoz wrote a blog post that compares the production behind a performance with the process of storytelling.</li>
<li>Beli gives an introduction to spectrum sharing. The post looks at GSM and CDMA, and touches upon LTE, and how they might share spectrum.</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">-----------------------------------------------<a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/jobs"><br />Jobs<br /></a>-----------------------------------------------<br />CIS is seeking applications for the post of Program Officer (Access to Knowledge): <a href="http://bit.ly/1fnydB0">http://bit.ly/1fnydB0</a>. There are two vacancies for this post and it is full-time based in Delhi. To apply, please send your resume to Sunil Abraham (<a href="mailto:sunil@cis-india.org">sunil@cis-india.org</a>), Nirmita Narasimhan (<a href="mailto:nirmita@cis-india.org">nirmita@cis-india.org</a>) and Pranesh Prakash (<a href="mailto:pranesh@cis-india.org">pranesh@cis-india.org</a>) with three writing samples of which at least one demonstrates your analytic skills, and one that shows your ability to simplify complex policy issues.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">----------------------------------------------<br /><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/accessibility">Accessibility and Inclusion<br /></a>----------------------------------------------<br />As part of our project (under a grant from the Hans Foundation) on creating a national resource kit of state-wise laws, policies and programmes on issues relating to persons with disabilities in India, we bring you draft chapters for the states of Mizoram, Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Himachal Pradesh and Haryana. With this we have completed compilation of draft chapters for 35 states.</p>
<p><i>Based upon discussion with the office of the Chief Commissioner for Persons with Disabilities (CCPD) the following chapters were revised</i>:</p>
<p>► National Resource Kit Chapter</p>
<ul>
<li>The Mizoram Chapter (by CLPR, February 5, 2014): <a href="http://bit.ly/1eUSvxW">http://bit.ly/1eUSvxW</a> </li>
<li>The Dadra & Nagar Haveli Chapter (by CLPR, February 6, 2014): <a href="http://bit.ly/1mv3YhJ">http://bit.ly/1mv3YhJ</a> </li>
<li>The Haryana Chapter (by Anandhi Viswanathan, February 10, 2014): <a href="http://bit.ly/1dVOiKI">http://bit.ly/1dVOiKI</a> </li>
<li>The Himachal Pradesh Chapter (by Anandhi Viswanathan, February 12, 2014): <a href="http://bit.ly/1jSk03x">http://bit.ly/1jSk03x</a> </li>
</ul>
<p>► Other</p>
<p># Participation in Events</p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">National Consultation on Inclusion of Persons with Disabilities in Development Process (organized by CBM India in collaboration with United Nations Solution Exchange for Gender Community, WHO Regional office for South-East Asia, New Delhi, February 12, 2014). Anandhi Viswanathan participated in a panel discussion. She made a presentation on the National Resource Kit project: <a href="http://bit.ly/OlkHVq">http://bit.ly/OlkHVq</a>. </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Zero Project Conference on Accessibility: Innovative Policies and Practices for Persons with Disabilities (organized by Essl Foundation, the World Future Council and the European Foundation Centre, United Nations Office, Vienna, February 27 and 28, 2014). Pranesh Prakash spoke on Affordable Text-to-Speech Software from India: <a href="http://bit.ly/1czo32s">http://bit.ly/1czo32s</a>. Nominations on e-speak were recognised as examples of innovative practices and policies from India. Pranesh Prakash was also a speaker on Copyright Exception for Accessible Formats: <a href="http://bit.ly/1l8HRth">http://bit.ly/1l8HRth</a>.</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">-----------------------------------------------------------<br /><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k">Access to Knowledge</a><br />-----------------------------------------------------------<br />The Access to Knowledge programme addresses the harms caused to consumers and human rights, and critically examines Open Government Data, Open Access to Scholarly Literature, and Open Access to Law, Open Content, Open Standards, and Free/Libre/Open Source Software.</p>
<p># Analyses</p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Can Judges Order ISPs to Block Websites for Copyright Infringement? (Part 2) (by Ananth Padmanabhan, February 5, 2014): <a href="http://bit.ly/1cddoKm">http://bit.ly/1cddoKm</a>. Analyses the law laid down by the U.S. Supreme Court and the Delhi High Court on secondary and contributory copyright infringement.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Can Judges Order ISPs to Block Websites for Copyright Infringement? (Part 3) (by Ananth Padmanabhan, February 5, 2014): <a href="http://bit.ly/1g35mDg">http://bit.ly/1g35mDg</a>. Analyses the Indian law in the Copyright Act and the Information Technology Act. </li>
</ul>
<p># Participation in Events</p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">2nd International Conference on Managing Intellectual Property Rights and Strategy (MIPS 2014) (organized by Shailesh J. Mehta School of Management, IIT Bombay with support from the Ministry of Human Resources Development IPR Chair Project, Government of India): <a href="http://bit.ly/PsPEbq">http://bit.ly/PsPEbq</a>. </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Consultation on Institutional Arrangements for IP management under MHRD (organized by the Planning Commission and Ministry of Human Resource Development, New Delhi, February 21, 2014). Nehaa Chaudhari participated in this consultation: <a href="http://bit.ly/1fTCoar">http://bit.ly/1fTCoar</a>. </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">National Conference on Use of Technology in Higher Education (organized by the Ministry of Human Resource and Development and Planning Commission in partnership with Microsoft Research and British Council, Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, February 25, 2014): <a href="http://bit.ly/P6u78i">http://bit.ly/P6u78i</a>. Nehaa Chaudhari participated in the event as a panelist in the session on "Future of Content Creation". </li>
</ul>
<p align="left"># Media Coverage</p>
<ul>
<li>Pranesh Prakash: Influencing India's IP Laws (by Samar Srivastava, Forbes India, February 15, 2014): <a href="http://bit.ly/1kBzLMq">http://bit.ly/1kBzLMq</a>. </li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The following has been done under grant from the Wikimedia Foundation (<a href="http://bit.ly/SPqFOl">http://bit.ly/SPqFOl</a>). As part this project (<a href="http://bit.ly/X80ELd">http://bit.ly/X80ELd</a>), we organised 4 workshops in the month of January, published an article in DNA, and signed a memorandum of understanding with KIIT University and Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences to further the development of Odia Wikipedia:</p>
<p>►Wikipedia</p>
<p># Articles / Blog Entries</p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Odia Language's Presence in Digital Media and Wikipedia's Role (by Subhashish Panigrahi, The Samaja, March 2, 2014): <a href="http://bit.ly/1ieF3sC">http://bit.ly/1ieF3sC</a>. </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Indian Wikimedia community coordinates Women’s History Month (by Netha Hussain and Jeph Paul, Wikimedia Foundation, March 6, 2014): <a href="http://bit.ly/1cyRfqf">http://bit.ly/1cyRfqf</a>,</li>
</ul>
<p># Events Co-organized</p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Cinemathon2014 Bangalore (organized by Pad.ma and CIS-A2K, CIS, Bangalore, February 8-9, 2014): <a href="http://bit.ly/MRRkZz">http://bit.ly/MRRkZz</a>. </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Tewiki 10th Anniversary (organized by CIS-A2K and Telugu Wikipedia community, February 15, 2014): <a href="http://bit.ly/1iI2Pxs">http://bit.ly/1iI2Pxs</a>. T. Vishnu Vardhan and Rahmanuddin Shaikh were speakers at the event.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Cinemathon2014 Mumbai (organized by Pad.ma and CIS-A2K, CAMP Studio, Mumbai, February 15-16, 2014): <a href="http://bit.ly/P5YGL8">http://bit.ly/P5YGL8</a>. </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Wikipedia Mangalore Workshop (organized by Roshini Nilaya and CIS-A2K, Mangalore, February 26, 2014). Dr. U.B.Pavanaja gave a presentation on Wikipedia with a special focus on students and women.</li>
</ul>
<p>CIS gave its inputs to the following media coverage:</p>
<p># Media Coverage</p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Father-son duo promote Punjabi online (by Jatinder Preet, Sunday Guardian, February 1, 2014): <a href="http://bit.ly/1l87b2h">http://bit.ly/1l87b2h</a>. </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">୧୦ ବର୍ଷରେ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ୱିକିପିଡିଆ (Rabibara Sambad (Sunday supplement of Odia newspaper The Sambad), February 9, 2014): <a href="http://bit.ly/1igMynn">http://bit.ly/1igMynn</a>. This is a feature about Odia Wikipedia's 10th anniversary and the story of a dead volunteer community reviving after 8 years.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Wikipedia Mangalore Workshop (Prajavani, February 27, 2014): <a href="http://bit.ly/1gVMG6f">http://bit.ly/1gVMG6f</a>. </li>
</ul>
<p># Participation in Event</p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">The Dynamics of Education to Employment Journey: Opportunities and Challenges (organized by KIIT School of Management, KIIT University, Bhubaneswar, February 21-22, 2014). T. Vishnu Vardhan gave a talk: <a href="http://bit.ly/1ePwqHc">http://bit.ly/1ePwqHc</a>. </li>
</ul>
<p>Event Organized</p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Wiki Women's Workshop (ICG – Dona Paula, Goa, March 9, 2014): <a href="http://bit.ly/MRRJLy">http://bit.ly/MRRJLy</a>. The event is being organized as part of the commemoration of the International Women's Day. </li>
</ul>
<p>Openness</p>
<p># Event Organised</p>
<ul>
<li>Bitcoin & Open Source with Aaron Koenig (CIS, Bangalore, February 7, 2014): <a href="http://bit.ly/1fbN6mP">http://bit.ly/1fbN6mP</a>. </li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">-----------------------------------------------<br /><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance">Internet Governance</a><br />-----------------------------------------------<br />CIS is doing a project (under a grant from Privacy International and International Development Research Centre (IDRC)) on conducting research on surveillance and freedom of expression (SAFEGUARDS). So far we have organised seven privacy round-tables and drafted the Privacy (Protection) Bill. Gautam Bhatia gives an analysis of the right to privacy from a constitutional perspective. Bhairav Acharya prepared an updated version of the Privacy Protection Bill which was published for comments.</p>
<p># Call for Comments</p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">The Privacy Protection Bill, 2013 (by Bhairav Acharya, February 25, 2014): <a href="http://bit.ly/1g3TwIX">http://bit.ly/1g3TwIX</a>. CIS announced an Open Call for Comments to the latest version of the bill.</li>
</ul>
<p># Articles</p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">The Internet Way (by Nishant Shah, Biblio Vol. 19 No.8 (1&2), January – February 2014): <a href="http://bit.ly/1kBp9gJ">http://bit.ly/1kBp9gJ</a>. Dr. Nishant Shah's review of the book “The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon” by Bantam Press/Random House Group, London can be found on page 16.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Surveillance and the Indian Constitution - Part 3: The Public/Private Distinction and the Supreme Court’s Wrong Turn (by Gautam Bhatia, Indian Constitutional Law and Philosophy Blog, February 25, 2014): <a href="http://bit.ly/1kBosnw">http://bit.ly/1kBosnw</a>. This was originally published on Indian Constitutional Law and Philosophy Blog.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Big Democracy, Big Surveillance: India's Surveillance State (by Maria Xynou, Open Democracy, February 28, 2014): <a href="http://bit.ly/1nkg8Ho">http://bit.ly/1nkg8Ho</a>. </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Will You be Paid to Post a Picture? (by Nishant Shah, Indian Express, February 18, 2014): <a href="http://bit.ly/P65d8L">http://bit.ly/P65d8L</a>. </li>
</ul>
<p># Blog Entries</p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">February 11: The Day We Fight Back Against Mass Surveillance (by Divij Joshi, February 14, 2014): <a href="http://bit.ly/1e7drCV">http://bit.ly/1e7drCV</a>. </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Calcutta High Court Strengthens Whistle Blower Protection (by Divij Joshi, February 24, 2014): <a href="http://bit.ly/1cG8v7t">http://bit.ly/1cG8v7t</a>.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">CIS Welcomes 52nd Report on Cyber Crime, Cyber Security, and Right to Privacy (by Elonnai Hickok, February 24, 2014): <a href="http://bit.ly/1oviMJ4">http://bit.ly/1oviMJ4</a>. </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">UIDAI Practices and the Information Technology Act, Section 43A and Subsequent Rules (by Elonnai Hickok, February 25, 2014): <a href="http://bit.ly/1fbSfep">http://bit.ly/1fbSfep</a>. </li>
</ul>
<p align="left"># Events Organized</p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Nullcon Goa Feb 2014 — International Security Conference (organised by Nullcon, Bogmallo Beach Resort, Goa, February 12 – 15, 2014). CIS is one of the sponsors for this event: <a href="http://bit.ly/1lrBu5I">http://bit.ly/1lrBu5I</a>. </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Counter Surveillance Panel: DiscoTech & Hackathon (co-organized by CIS, MIT Centre for Civic Media Co-Design Lab, Tactical Technology Collective, Hackteria.org, and Shristi School of Art, Design and Technology, Bangalore, March 1, 2014): <a href="http://bit.ly/NCGMyH">http://bit.ly/NCGMyH</a> </li>
</ul>
<p># Participation in Events</p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">First Meeting of the Multistakeholder Advisory Group for India Internet Governance Forum (organized by the Department of Electronics and Information Technology, New Delhi, February 10, 2014). Sunil Abraham participated in this meeting: <a href="http://bit.ly/1fKu5xz">http://bit.ly/1fKu5xz</a>. </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Internet Intermediary Liability: Towards Evidence-based Policy and Regulatory Reform to Secure Human Rights on the internet (organized by Association for Progressive Communications, The Wedgewood, Melville, Johannesburg, February 10-11, 2014): <a href="http://bit.ly/1fMAEK2">http://bit.ly/1fMAEK2</a>. Elonnai Hickok was a speaker. </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Towards an Equitable and Just Internet (organized by IT for Change, New Delhi, February 14-15, 2014). Bhairav Acharya was a speaker: <a href="http://bit.ly/1cz9EDt">http://bit.ly/1cz9EDt</a>. </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Workshop on Media Law & Policy Curriculum Development (organized by the Centre for Communication Governance, National Law University, Delhi and University of Oxford in support with the International Higher Education-Knowledge Economy Partnerships Programme of the British Council, February 16, 2014, National Law University, Delhi): <a href="http://bit.ly/1ovoT00">http://bit.ly/1ovoT00</a>. Bhairav Acharya was a speaker. </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">The Changing Role of the Media in India: Constitutional Perspectives (organized by School of Law, Christ University, February 28, 2014): <a href="http://bit.ly/1lB2nTO">http://bit.ly/1lB2nTO</a>. Snehashish Ghosh moderated a session at this conference. </li>
</ul>
<p>--------------------------------<br /><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/news">News & Media Coverage</a><br />--------------------------------<br />CIS gave its inputs to the following recent media coverage:</p>
<ul>
<li>The Dangers of Birdsong (by Namrata Joshi, Outlook, January 25, 2014): <a href="http://bit.ly/1kB8J7L">http://bit.ly/1kB8J7L</a>. </li>
<li>A Tale of Two Internet Campaigns (by Deepa Kurup, The Hindu, February 11, 2014): <a href="http://bit.ly/1lDdRZy">http://bit.ly/1lDdRZy</a>. </li>
<li>Dark days for the creative class in India: Siddiqui (by Haroon Siddiqui, thestar.com, February 16, 2014): <a href="http://bit.ly/1gdtgbC">http://bit.ly/1gdtgbC</a>. </li>
<li>The Forbes India 30 Under 30 List (by Abhilasha Khaitan, Forbes India, February 21, 2014): <a href="http://bit.ly/1ovnvKM">http://bit.ly/1ovnvKM</a>. Pranesh Prakash features in the list. </li>
<li>India ‘tea parties’ enable politicians to woo urban youth with technology (by Avantika Chilkoti, Financial Times, February 26, 2014): <a href="http://bit.ly/1cGfOMm">http://bit.ly/1cGfOMm</a>. </li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">--------------------------------<br /><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/digital-humanities">Digital Humanities</a><br />--------------------------------<br />CIS is building research clusters in the field of Digital Humanities. The Digital will be used as a way of unpacking the debates in humanities and social sciences and look at the new frameworks, concepts and ideas that emerge in our engagement with the digital. The clusters aim to produce and document new conversations and debates that shape the contours of Digital Humanities in Asia:</p>
<p># Blog Entries</p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Defending the Humanities in the Digital Age (by Nishant Shah, DML Central, February 24, 2014): <a href="http://bit.ly/1czdZqg">http://bit.ly/1czdZqg</a>. </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Digital Humanities in India- Mapping Changes at the Intersection of Youth, Technology and Higher Education (by Sneha PP, February 21, 2014): <a href="http://bit.ly/1qd6xo4">http://bit.ly/1qd6xo4</a>. </li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">--------------------------------<br /><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives">Digital Natives</a><br />--------------------------------<br />CIS is doing a research project titled “Making Change”. The project will explore new ways of defining, locating, and understanding change in network societies. Having the thought piece 'Whose Change is it Anyway' as an entry point for discussion and reflection, the project will feature profiles, interviews and responses of change-makers to questions around current mechanisms and practices of change in South Asia and South East Asia:</p>
<p>►Making Change Project</p>
<p># Blog Entries</p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Storytelling as Performance: The Ugly Indian and Blank Noise 1 (by Denisse Albornoz, February 24, 2014): <a href="http://bit.ly/1jX4qBb">http://bit.ly/1jX4qBb</a>.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Storytelling as Performance: The Ugly Indian and Blank Noise 2 (by Denisse Albornoz, February 27, 2014): <a href="http://bit.ly/1fKwQil">http://bit.ly/1fKwQil</a>. </li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">--------------------------------<br /><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/telecom">Telecom</a><br />--------------------------------<br />Shyam Ponappa, a Distinguished Fellow at CIS is a regular columnist with the Business Standard. The articles published on his blog Organizing India Blogspot is mirrored on our website:</p>
<p># Newspaper Column</p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Centre- or State-Driven Development? (by Shyam Ponappa, Business Standard, February 5, 2014, Observer India Blogspot, February 7, 2014): <a href="http://bit.ly/1ceuWFS">http://bit.ly/1ceuWFS</a>. </li>
</ul>
<p># Blog Entry</p>
<ul>
<li>An Introduction to Spectrum Sharing (by Beli, February 24, 2014): <a href="http://bit.ly/NZlknd">http://bit.ly/NZlknd</a>. </li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">----------------------------------------------------------<br /><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/telecom/knowledge-repository-on-internet-access">Knowledge Repository on Internet Access</a><br />----------------------------------------------------------<br />CIS in partnership with the Ford Foundation is executing a project to create a knowledge repository on Internet and society. This repository will comprise content targeted primarily at civil society with a view to enabling their informed participation in the Indian Internet and ICT policy space. The repository is available at the Internet Institute website: <a href="http://bit.ly/1iQT2UB">http://bit.ly/1iQT2UB</a>.</p>
<p>►Event Organized</p>
<ul>
<li>Institute on Internet and Society (organised by Ford Foundation and CIS, Yashada, Pune, February 11-17, 2014): <a href="http://bit.ly/1fpTdDS">http://bit.ly/1fpTdDS</a>. Bishakha Datta, Ravikiran Annaswamy, Kingsley John, Prof. G. Nagarjuna, Nisha Thompson, Prashant Naik, Nehaa Chaudhari, Bhairav Acharya, Manu Srivastav, Dr. Abhijeet Safai, Payal Malik, Nishant Shah, Laura Stein, Sunil Abraham, Madan Muthu and Chinmayi Arun taught at the institute. </li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">-----------------------------------------------------<br /><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/">About CIS</a><br />-----------------------------------------------------<br />The Centre for Internet and Society is a non-profit research organization that works on policy issues relating to freedom of expression, privacy, accessibility for persons with disabilities, access to knowledge and IPR reform, and openness (including open government, FOSS, open standards, etc.), and engages in academic research on digital natives and digital humanities.</p>
<p>► Follow us elsewhere</p>
<ul>
<li>Twitter:<a href="https://twitter.com/CISA2K"> </a><a href="https://twitter.com/CISA2K">https://twitter.com/CISA2K</a></li>
<li>Facebook group: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/cisa2k">https://www.facebook.com/cisa2k</a></li>
<li>Visit us at:<a href="https://cis-india.org/"> </a><a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge">https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge</a></li>
<li>E-mail: <a href="mailto:a2k@cis-india.org">a2k@cis-india.org</a></li>
</ul>
<p>► Support Us</p>
<p>Please help us defend consumer / citizen rights on the Internet! Write a cheque in favour of ‘The Centre for Internet and Society’ and mail it to us at No. 194, 2nd ‘C’ Cross, Domlur, 2nd Stage, Bengaluru – 5600 71.</p>
<p>► Request for Collaboration:</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">We invite researchers, practitioners, and theoreticians, both organisationally and as individuals, to collaboratively engage with Internet and society and improve our understanding of this new field. To discuss the research collaborations, write to Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, at <a href="mailto:sunil@cis-india.org">sunil@cis-india.org</a> or Nishant Shah, Director – Research, at <a href="mailto:nishant@cis-india.org">nishant@cis-india.org</a>. To discuss collaborations on Indic language Wikipedia, write to T. Vishnu Vardhan, Programme Director, A2K, at <a href="mailto:vishnu@cis-india.org">vishnu@cis-india.org</a>.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><i>CIS is grateful to its donors, Wikimedia Foundation, Ford Foundation, Privacy International, UK, Hans Foundation, MacArthur Foundation, IDRC and 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</i>.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/about/newsletters/february-2014-bulletin'>http://editors.cis-india.org/about/newsletters/february-2014-bulletin</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaAccess to KnowledgeDigital NativesTelecomAccessibilityInternet GovernanceDigital HumanitiesOpenness2014-04-07T07:27:46ZPageNishant Shah: “We will develop new textual and visual practices to facilitate the transfer of knowledge worldwide”
http://editors.cis-india.org/news/nishant-shah-we-will-develop-new-textual-and-visual-practices-to-facilitate-the-transfer-of-knowledge-worldwide
<b>Today we are starting with a new format for the blog of the Hybrid Publishing Lab. There will be an interview series with our International Tandem Partners giving an insight on their current work, interest and cooperation with HP.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><a class="external-link" href="https://hybridpublishing.org/2014/02/nishant-shah-we-will-develop-new-textual-and-visual-practices-to-facilitate-the-transfer-of-knowledge-worldwide/">Read Dr. Shah's interview by Julia Rehfeldt published on the website of Hybrid Publishing Lab</a></p>
<hr style="text-align: justify; " />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">First up is our Tandem Partner <a href="http://cdc.leuphana.com/people/#nishant-shah">Dr. Nishant Shah</a>, Research Associate at Common Media Lab and Hybrid Publishing Lab. He is the co-founder and Director-Research at the <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/">Centre for Internet and Society</a> in Bangalore, India.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Julia Rehfeldt</b>: Dr. Shah, can you introduce yourself briefly und tell us what you are currently concerned with in your research?<br /> <br /> <b>Dr. Nishant Shah</b>: This is a question that has always flummoxed me. I have spent all of the last decade trying to figure out how to explain what I do and what my research concerns are and I never have one straightforward answer to give.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The easiest way to answer this would be to say that I wear many hats. I am deeply interested in looking at how the digital shift is changing the way in which we see the world around us. And so my work spans several sectors, disciplines and intersections, trying to look at the mechanics and logics, logistics and structures of the world that we live in.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">At the Hybrid Publishing Lab, as an International Tandem Partner, I look at the knowledge infrastructures of the digital times. I learn from the research and practice of my colleagues to explore the future of academic publishing, and I try to critically think through questions of Intellectual Property, Open Access movements, and concerns of Digital Humanities in the global knowledge circuits. Apart from that, I like to translate my research and knowledge for different stakeholders, to work with practitioners, policy makers, artists, technologists, hackers, legal scholars and development actors at the intersection of Internet and Society. As the Director – Research at the Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore, I have been trying to develop South-based global networks that examine the conditions of being human, being social, and being political in emerging network societies. I also enjoy exploring new forms and content of pedagogy for students in and out of the classrooms, to develop new conditions of learning through and with digital media and cultures.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b><br /> Rehfeldt:</b> What was the most significant change, talk or lecture you experienced in 2013 that had an impact on the rights of open access or on your personal insights on that matter?</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Dr. Shah</b>: I think, on a very personal and a professional level, the death of Aaron Swartz and the horrific face of Intellectual Property tyrannies that surround the academic publishing which ironically focuses on questions of human liberty, values, equity and access, has had the most dramatic impact on me. Aaron Swartz committed suicide just over a year ago, and the conditions of his persecution, on the behalf of the American legal system, the intellectual property conglomerates and a globally reputed university that claims to build better futures for our digital worlds, has shocked most of us.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">While playing the blame-game is redundant now – it is not going to bring back a young man who only believed in dreams of utopic sharing and commons – it is important to remind us that these battles of information and intellectual property are not for niche circles. We are increasingly living in worlds where more and more of our everyday life is being mediated, mitigated and measured in big data and quantified services.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">We don’t only live in information age, but we also live through information, constantly producing data. And the technologies we use, the applications we live with, the platforms we live on, the social networks that we belong to, all take our information and data and copyright it so that we have almost no rights over it. This problem becomes only more amplified in the traditional academic knowledge industries where publicly funded research and practice gets hidden behind paywalls so that it remains in niche circles of access to those with privilege. We are reaching a stage where not only our formal knowledge but even our thoughts, desires and memories are quickly being contained in forms and formats that are no longer accessible to us.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">2013 has shown that the more we lose control of our data, the more we lose battles of access to our collective knowledge, the more we concede our rights to information, which is the de facto currency of our times, the more we are going to be at the service of private and governmental conglomerates that shall control and contain the possibilities of radical transformation and change in our future.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b><br /> Rehfeldt:</b> You are currently involved in setting up a ‘Making Change’ project based on your paper ‘Whose change is it, anyway?’ published April 2013. Can you tell us what prompted your reflections in that paper, and what you seek to achieve with the project?</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Dr. Shah:</b> The ‘<a href="http://cdc.leuphana.com/structure/common-media-lab/making-change/">Making Change</a>‘ project is an example of the multi-stakeholder, multi-disciplinary, knowledge methods and production that I am interested in. It is shaped by the framework proposed in the ‘Whose Change is it anyway?’ concept paper that proposes that in order to look at the change processes around us, we need to change the ways in which forms, formats, conditions, structures, processes, and life-cycles of knowledge practices need to be re-examined. The project aims to build conceptual frameworks by engaging different change actors in digital storytelling to understand how we analyse and examine the radical processes of change in the times to come.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Making Change is a knowledge exploration through which we seek to unpack the form, function, and practice of social and political change in emerging network societies. With this project, we will map existing traditional and innovative change practices through new knowledge methods and propose hybrid ways of building a knowledge commons that helps consolidate, curate and disseminate these new insights for change actors.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Hence, we will create a Knowledge Commons. The Knowledge Commons is a mash-up of resources, which we will set in motion through four distinct processes of getting insight into the mechanics, logistics, and catalysts of social and political change:</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">1. In this project, we will use new methods of collaborative knowledge production methods that bring in different knowledge stakeholders and actors to reflect upon and consolidate their existing projects.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">2. We will develop new textual and visual practices to facilitate the transfer of knowledge worldwide.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">3. We will work with existing knowledge communities – academia, policy, and practice – to build pedagogic resources for training knowledge visionaries about the future of change.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">4. We will produce, curate and disseminate knowledge prototypes through storytelling to debate, question and re-energize discussions on important keywords and concepts in the change narratives.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The core of the Knowledge Commons will consist of new narratives and prototypes of how these narratives might help other approaches for social and political change. We shall further organize these narratives to train and help social change actors to develop better strategies of working within digital and network societies. The Knowledge Commons seeks to generate cross-fertilization between different networks of knowledge actors to generate critical insights to gain access, exchange and contribute to knowledge dialogues.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The Knowledge Commons is not just an online platform, but is built up through a combination of knowledge generating workshops (production sprints) as well as reflections, which are curated through online dialogues and critique. The production sprints invite the key change actors from our networks to incite conversations inspired by the thought piece ‘Whose Change is it Anyway?’. The conversations will be further annotated by the ‘Making Change’ white paper which offers more complex and nuanced ways of looking at the contexts, catalyst and processes of change embedded in particular movements.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Rehfeldt:</b> There has been a lot of talk about ‘Twitter revolutions’ and ‘Blackberry riots’ – what would you say do digital technologies contribute to contemporary social movements and political action in the public sphere more generally?</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Dr. Shah:</b> I have spent some time trying to do away with the binaries and polarised responses that phrases like ‘Twitter Revolutions’ and ‘Blackberry Riots’ produce. They seem to bring pre-defined responses – they either suggest that the emergence of new digital technologies and applications, by their very presence, are producing radical change practices. They deny the historical conditions, the political contexts, the social and cultural practices of the region, and the structures of inequity and injustice that are often characteristic to particularly geographies and cultures. They refuse to understand that the digital does not merely produce things new – instead, it helps extend the existing movements of social and political change and are a part of a much larger paradigm shift. They alienate existing human endeavours of change and create false dichotomies like the old and new activisms, or traditional and digital movements.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">I think it is better to understand that the digital produces ruptures and interruptions in the narrative of change; but the digital also has historical continuities which need to be better embedded in the geographical and political contexts of change. At the end of the day, we need to debunk the idea that digital activism around the globe is the same. Just because everybody uses Twitter to orchestrate people’s movements in different countries, it doesn’t mean that they are doing the same thing or in the same way. We need to do away with the homogenizing rhetoric of the digital that presumes that digital cultures are universal, and learn to look at the intersections of life that inform and are shaped by the emergence of the digital technologies.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Rehfeldt</b>: To finish up, is there an interesting online article, or video you have read or seen lately which you could suggest to our readers?</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Dr. Shah:</b> I think one of the most interesting collections around digital and new activism last year was the anthology edited by Kees Biekart: <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/dech.2013.44.issue-3/issuetoc">Development and Change – Special Issue: FORUM 2013</a></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/news/nishant-shah-we-will-develop-new-textual-and-visual-practices-to-facilitate-the-transfer-of-knowledge-worldwide'>http://editors.cis-india.org/news/nishant-shah-we-will-develop-new-textual-and-visual-practices-to-facilitate-the-transfer-of-knowledge-worldwide</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaDigital Natives2014-03-06T12:05:45ZNews ItemJanuary 2014 Bulletin
http://editors.cis-india.org/about/newsletters/january-2014-bulletin
<b>The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) welcomes you to the first issue of its newsletter (January) for the year 2014:</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">-------------------------------<br /> Highlights<br /> -------------------------------</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li> Amba Salelkar provides an analysis of the three stages of the Rights for Persons with Disabilities 2013 since it was initially commissioned.</li>
<li> We published revised chapters for the states of Andhra Pradesh and Chhattisgarh as part of our National Resource Kit project.</li>
<li> In the first of a three-part study Ananth Padmanabhan examines the "John Doe" orders that courts have passed against ISPs, which entertainment companies have used to block websites.</li>
<li> The second Institute on Internet and Society is being held in Pune from February 11 to 17.</li>
<li> CIS signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with KIIT University and Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences for furthering Odia Wikipedia.</li>
<li> Dr. Nishant Shah co-authored a chapter on video games in a book published by Palestinian Art Court-al Hoash.</li>
<li> Sneha gives an overview of the research enquiry in the field of Digital Humanities in her blog post on Mapping Digital Humanities in India.</li>
<li> In the first of the insightful seven part series, Gautam Bhatia looks at surveillance and the right to privacy in India from a constitutional perspective, tracing its genealogy through Supreme Court case law and compares it with the law in the USA.</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">----------------------------------------------- <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4718&qid=376274" target="_blank"><br /> Jobs</a><br /> -----------------------------------------------<br /> CIS is seeking applications for the posts of Program Officer (Access to Knowledge): <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4719&qid=376274" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/1fnydB0</a> and Program Officer (Internet Governance): <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4720&qid=376274" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/1aA57K6</a>. There are two vacancies each for these posts and these are full-time based in Delhi. To apply, please send your resume to Sunil Abraham (<a href="mailto:sunil@cis-india.org" target="_blank">sunil@cis-india.org</a>), Nirmita Narasimhan (<a href="mailto:nirmita@cis-india.org" target="_blank">nirmita@cis-india.org</a>) and Pranesh Prakash (<a href="mailto:pranesh@cis-india.org" target="_blank">pranesh@cis-india.org</a>) with three writing samples of which at least one demonstrates your analytic skills, and one that shows your ability to simplify complex policy issues.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">----------------------------------------------<a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4721&qid=376274" target="_blank"><br /> Accessibility and Inclusion</a><br /> ----------------------------------------------<br /> As part of our project (under a grant from the Hans Foundation) on creating a national resource kit of state-wise laws, policies and programmes on issues relating to persons with disabilities in India, we bring you draft chapters for the states of Madhya Pradesh and Arunachal Pradesh, and the union territory of Daman and Diu. With this we have completed compilation of draft chapters for 27 states and 5 union territories.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><i>Based on the feedback and comments received from our readers the following chapters were revised</i>:</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">► National Resource Kit Chapter</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li> Andhra Pradesh Chapter (by Anandhi Viswanathan, January 31, 2014): <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4722&qid=376274" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/1lzUFcG</a>.</li>
<li> Chhattisgarh Chapter (by Anandhi Viswanathan, January 31, 2014): <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4723&qid=376274" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/1fY4NZ0</a>. </li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "># Blog Entry</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li> The Right of Persons with Disabilities Bill 2013 and the Lack of Access to Accessibility Rights (by Amba Salelkar, January 31, 2014): <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4724&qid=376274" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/1diSg40</a>. </li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">----------------------------------------------------------- <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4725&qid=376274" target="_blank"><br /> Access to Knowledge</a><br /> -----------------------------------------------------------<br /> The Access to Knowledge programme addresses the harms caused to consumers and human rights, and critically examines Open Government Data, Open Access to Scholarly Literature, and Open Access to Law, Open Content, Open Standards, and Free/Libre/Open Source Software.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "># Analysis</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li> Can Judges Order ISPs to Block Websites for Copyright Infringement? (Part 1) (by Ananth Padmanabhan, January 30, 2014). Ananth looks at the theory behind John Doe orders and finds that it would be wrong for Indian courts to grant "John Doe" orders against ISPs: <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4726&qid=376274" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/1nteYaK</a>. </li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "># Blog Entries</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li> Open Letter to the Vatican: Request for Holy See to Comment on IPR (by Samantha Cassar, January 31, 2014): <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4727&qid=376274" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/1dGN7OS</a>.</li>
<li> The Game of IPR: Insights from the 6th Global Intellectual Property Convention in Hyderabad (by Samantha Cassar, January 31, 2014): <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4728&qid=376274" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/1fY5qS6</a>. </li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The following has been done under grant from the Wikimedia Foundation (<a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4729&qid=376274" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/SPqFOl</a>). As part this project (<a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4730&qid=376274" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/X80ELd</a>), we organised 4 workshops in the month of January, published an article in DNA, and signed a memorandum of understanding with KIIT University and Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences to further the development of Odia Wikipedia:</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">►Wikipedia</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "># Articles / Newspaper Columns</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li> Odia Wikipedia: Three Years of Active Contributions Gives Life to a Ten Year Old Project (by Subhashish Panigrahi, HASTAC, January 31, 2014): <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4731&qid=376274" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/1jvxD8r</a>.</li>
<li> WikiSangamotsavam 2013 brings Indian Wikimedians together (by Netha Hussain and Subhashish Panigrahi, DNA, January 14, 2014). The article was edited by Rohini Lakshane: <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4732&qid=376274" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/1jvynKP</a>.</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "># Announcement</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li> CIS-A2K, KIIT University and Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences sign MoUs (by Subhashish Panigrahi, January 11, 2014): KIIT University, Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences and the Centre for Internet and Society's Access to Knowledge team (CIS-A2K) have entered into a memorandum of understanding (MoUs) for furthering Odia Wikipedia: <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4733&qid=376274" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/1j1qtFv</a>.</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "># Blog Entries</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li> Wikipedia Editing as Assessment Tool in the Indian Higher Education Classroom (by Dr. Tejaswini Niranjana, Ashwin Kumar A.P. and T. Vishnu Vardhan, January 30, 2014): <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4734&qid=376274" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/1m5QHMD</a>.</li>
<li> Wikipedia at Forefront in Christ University (by Syed Muzamiluddin, January 29, 2014): <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4735&qid=376274" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/LTFA8E</a>.</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "># Events Organised</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li> Odia WikiMeetup (Bhubaneswar, January 11, 2014): <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4736&qid=376274" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/NBkFJi</a>.</li>
<li> Introductory talk about "Wikipedia in Academics" (KIIT School of Technology, Bhubaneswar, January 12, 2014): <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4737&qid=376274" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/1j1yv1f</a>.</li>
<li> Odia Wikipedia's 10th anniversary @ KISS (Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences, Bhubaneswar, January 28, 2014): <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4738&qid=376274" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/1gsqkJC</a>.</li>
<li> Odia Wikipedia 10th anniversary (Indian Institute of Mass Communication, Dhenkanal, January 29, 2014): <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4739&qid=376274" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/1dGRBoy</a>.</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "># Event Participated In</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li> The Dynamics of Education to Employment Journey: Opportunities and Challenges (organized by KIIT School of Management, KIIT University, Bhubaneswar, February 21-22, 2014). T. Vishnu Vardhan gave a talk: <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4740&qid=376274" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/1ePwqHc</a>.</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "># Media Coverage</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">CIS gave its inputs to the following media coverage:</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li> Digitising contest to preserve rare books in Malayalam (The Hindu, January 4, 2014): <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4741&qid=376274" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/NBtVgz</a>.</li>
<li> ‘With Internet in every pocket, power to the people’ (by Shubhadeep Chaudhury, The Tribune, January 12, 2014): <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4742&qid=376274" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/1ojb1IZ</a>. Shubhadeep interviews T. Vishnu Vardhan on internet and social media.</li>
<li> ଆଦିବାସୀଭାଷାରଉନ୍ନତିକଳ୍ପେଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆ(Odishan.com, January 12, 2014):<a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4743&qid=376274" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/1kAWJmG</a>.</li>
<li> KIIT University to lead building free knowledge repository initiative (India Education Diary.com, January 20, 2014): <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4744&qid=376274" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/1j1Rzwk</a>.</li>
<li> Odisha: KISS to create tribal languages and heritage repository (Odisha Diary Bureau, January 20, 2014): <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4745&qid=376274" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/1bLBhmB</a>. </li>
<li> FDC recognition for the Centre for the Internet and Society (Wikimedia Foundation, January 30, 2014): <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4746&qid=376274" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/1fYdxOz</a>. Wikimedia Foundation published a resolution declaring CIS eligible for funding through the Annual Plan Grants program. </li>
<li> Tech-savvy students given tips to enter IT field (The Times of India, January 31, 2014): <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4747&qid=376274" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/1j1QvIX</a>.</li>
<li> Odia Wikipedia (Sanchar, January 31, 2014): <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4748&qid=376274" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/1ePwAON</a>.</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Openness</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "># Event Organised</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li> What is happening in South America and how Openness is an opportunity to Social, Political and Activist Movements? (Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore, January 17, 2014): <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4749&qid=376274" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/1bnZaq0</a>.</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">----------------------------------------------- <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4750&qid=376274" target="_blank"><br /> Internet Governance</a><br /> -----------------------------------------------<br /> CIS is doing a project (under a grant from Privacy International and International Development Research Centre (IDRC)) on conducting research on surveillance and freedom of expression (SAFEGUARDS). So far we have organised seven privacy round-tables and drafted the Privacy (Protection) Bill. Gautam Bhatia gives an analysis of the right to privacy from a constitutional perspective and Elonnai Hickok analyses a public report published by GNI.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "># Analyses</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li> Surveillance and the Indian Constitution - Part 1: Foundations (by Gautam Bhatia, January 13, 2014): <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4751&qid=376274" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/1ntqsen</a>.</li>
<li> Surveillance and the Indian Constitution - Part 2: Gobind and the Compelling State Interest Test (by Gautam Bhatia, January 27, 2014): <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4752&qid=376274" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/1dH3meL</a>. </li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "># Newspaper Columns / Book Chapter</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li> Big Brother is Watching You (by Chinmayi Arun, The Hindu, January 3, 2014): <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4753&qid=376274" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/1cGpg0K</a>.</li>
<li> Making the Powerful Accountable (by Chinmayi Arun, The Hindu, January 30, 2014): <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4754&qid=376274" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/1nvzSpC</a>.</li>
<li> Video Games: A Case Study of a Cross-cultural Video Collaboration (by Larissa Hjorth and Nishant Shah, January 31, 2014): <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4755&qid=376274" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/1eTaXLX</a>. A new book focusing on Palestinian artists’ video, edited by Bashir Makhoul and published by Palestinian Art Court- al Hoash, 2013, includes a chapter co-authored by Larissa and Nishant. </li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "># Blog Entries</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li> Letter requesting public consultation on position of GoI at WGEC (by Snehashish Ghosh, January 7, 2014): <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4756&qid=376274" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/1g66bL7</a>.</li>
<li> Electoral Databases – Privacy and Security Concerns (by Snehashish Ghosh, January 16, 2014): <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4757&qid=376274" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/Mb4ktM</a>.</li>
<li> GNI Assessment Finds ICT Companies Protect User Privacy and Freedom of Expression (by Elonnai Hickok, January 20, 2014): <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4758&qid=376274" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/1mjbpmL</a>.</li>
<li> Interview with Mathew Thomas from the Say No to UID campaign - UID Court Cases (by Maria Xynou, January 27, 2014): <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4759&qid=376274" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/1eT9XHv</a>. Maria interviewed Mathew Thomas on UID.</li>
<li> India's Central Monitoring System (CMS): Something to Worry About? (by Maria Xynou, January 30, 2014): <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4760&qid=376274" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/1gsM4oQ</a>. </li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "># Events Organized</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li> Biometrics or Bust? Implications of the UID for Participation and Inclusion (CIS, Bangalore, January 10, 2014). Malavika Jayaram gave a talk: <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4761&qid=376274" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/1lJZhuK</a>. </li>
<li> Digital Citizens: Why Cyber Security and Online Privacy are Vital to the Success of Democracy and Freedom of Expression (CIS, Bangalore, January 14, 2014): <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4762&qid=376274" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/KucEU5</a>. Michael Oghia gave a talk. </li>
<li> Nullcon Goa Feb 2014 — International Security Conference (organised by Nullcon, Bogmallo Beach Resort, Goa, February 12 – 15, 2014). CIS is one of the sponsors for this event: <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4763&qid=376274" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/1lrBu5I</a>.</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "># Events Co-organised</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li> CPDP 2014 Reforming Data Protection: The Global Perspective (organised by CPDP, Brussels, January 22 – 24, 2014): <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4764&qid=376274" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/KsgCws</a>. CIS is one of the sponsors for this event. Malavika Jayaram was a speaker.</li>
<li> The Future of the Internet, Who Should Govern It and What is at Stake for You? (organised by Internet and Mobile Association of India, Cellular Operators Association of India, Internet Democracy project, Media for Change, SFLC and CIS, India International Centre, January 29, 2014): <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4765&qid=376274" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/1eqkSUu</a>. Chinmayi Arun moderated a session. Snehashish Ghosh participated in the event as a speaker.</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "># Events Participated In</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li> Seminar on "Hate Speech and Social Media" (organized by NALSAR University of Law, Hyderabad and British Deputy High Commission, Hyderabad, January 4 – 5, 2014): <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4766&qid=376274" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/1dmcEkT</a>. Chinmayi Arun was one of the speakers.</li>
<li> Multistakeholders Consultation on International Public Policy Issues (organized by the Department of Electronics & Information Technology, New Delhi, January 21, 2014): <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4767&qid=376274" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/Mbfkao</a>. Snehashish Ghosh participated in this meeting.</li>
<li> Internet Governance and India: The Way Forward (organized by Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi, January 22, 2014): <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4768&qid=376274" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/1ePFueY</a>. Snehashish Ghosh participated in the event.</li>
<li> Data Privacy Day 2014 (organized by Data Security Council of India, Infosys, Bangalore, January 28, 2014). Elonnai Hickok was a panelist: <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4769&qid=376274" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/1ePFfk8</a>.</li>
<li> TACTIS Symposium 2014 (organized by Tata Consultancy Service, TCS Siruseri, Chennai, January 28 and 29, 2014): <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4770&qid=376274" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/1bo9y0R</a>. Sunil Abraham gave the keynote address. </li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">--------------------------------<a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4771&qid=376274" target="_blank"><br /> News & Media Coverage</a><br /> --------------------------------<br /> CIS gave its inputs to the following media coverage:</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li> Inventions that will make a difference (by Geeta Padmanabhan, The Hindu, January 1, 2014): <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4772&qid=376274" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/MKwmfu</a>.</li>
<li> Rise of the bot: all you need to know about the latest threat online (by Danish Raza, Hindustan Times, January 5, 2014): <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4773&qid=376274" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/1dHgNex</a>.</li>
<li> Despite apex court order, IOC proceeds with Aadhaar-linked DBT (by Deepa Kurup, The Hindu, January 6, 2014): <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4774&qid=376274" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/1g6ffjn</a>.</li>
<li> Worldwide: International Privacy - 2013 Year in Review – Asia (by Gonzalo S. Zeballos, James A. Sherer and Alan M. Pate, Mondaq Yearly Review, January 8, 2014): <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4775&qid=376274" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/1iOaYRO</a>.</li>
<li> Election panel rejects Google’s proposal for electoral services tie-up (by Anuja and Moulishree Srivastava, Livemint, January 9, 2014): <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4776&qid=376274" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/1gpaGjF</a>.</li>
<li> Social Notworking - 'Murder by Twitter'(by Malini Nair, The Times of India, January 19, 2014): <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4777&qid=376274" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/1j2kT63</a>.</li>
<li> The net is taking over (by Veenu Sandhu and Surabhi Agarwal, Business Standard, January 24, 2014): <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4778&qid=376274" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/1hb4eQL</a>.</li>
<li> The Dangers of Birdsong (by Namrata Joshi, January 25, 2014): <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4779&qid=376274" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/1kB8J7L</a>.</li>
<li> Is Bhutan selling its soul to Google? (by Lucky Wangmo from Thimphu and Pema Seldon form Bangalore, Business Bhutan, January 25, 2014): <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4780&qid=376274" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/1fYl3sO</a>. </li>
<li> What is net neutrality and why it is important (The Times of India, January 30, 2014): <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4781&qid=376274" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/1ePFZ8P</a>. </li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">--------------------------------<a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4782&qid=376274" target="_blank"><br /> Digital Humanities</a><br /> --------------------------------<br /> CIS is building research clusters in the field of Digital Humanities. The Digital will be used as a way of unpacking the debates in humanities and social sciences and look at the new frameworks, concepts and ideas that emerge in our engagement with the digital. The clusters aim to produce and document new conversations and debates that shape the contours of Digital Humanities in Asia:</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "># Blog Entry</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li> Mapping Digital Humanities in India (by Sneha PP, January 16, 2014): <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4783&qid=376274" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/1gsQEEQ</a>.</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">--------------------------------<a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4784&qid=376274" target="_blank"><br /> Digital Natives</a><br /> --------------------------------<br /> CIS is doing a research project titled “Making Change”. The project will explore new ways of defining, locating, and understanding change in network societies. Having the thought piece 'Whose Change is it Anyway' as an entry point for discussion and reflection, the project will feature profiles, interviews and responses of change-makers to questions around current mechanisms and practices of change in South Asia and South East Asia:</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">►Making Change Project</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "># Blog Entry</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li> Creative Activism - Voices of Young Change Makers in India (UDAAN) (by Denisse Albornoz, January 20, 2014): <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4785&qid=376274" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/1cxXAMI</a>.</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">►Other<br /> # Newspaper Column</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li> 10 Ways to Say Nothing New (by Nishant Shah, Indian Express, January 19, 2014): <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4786&qid=376274" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/1gsONjn</a>.</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">----------------------------------------------------------<br /> <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4787&qid=376274" target="_blank">Knowledge Repository on Internet Access</a><br /> ----------------------------------------------------------<br /> CIS in partnership with the Ford Foundation is executing a project to create a knowledge repository on Internet and society. This repository will comprise content targeted primarily at civil society with a view to enabling their informed participation in the Indian Internet and ICT policy space. The repository is available at the Internet Institute website: <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4788&qid=376274" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/1iQT2UB</a>.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">►Ongoing Event</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li> Institute on Internet and Society (organised by Ford Foundation and CIS, Yashada, Pune, February 11-17, 2014): <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4789&qid=376274" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/180mQi9</a>.</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">-----------------------------------------------------<a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4790&qid=376274" target="_blank"><br /> About CIS</a><br /> -----------------------------------------------------<br /> The Centre for Internet and Society is a non-profit research organization that works on policy issues relating to freedom of expression, privacy, accessibility for persons with disabilities, access to knowledge and IPR reform, and openness (including open government, FOSS, open standards, etc.), and engages in academic research on digital natives and digital humanities.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">► Follow us elsewhere</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li> Twitter:<a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4791&qid=376274" target="_blank">https://twitter.com/CISA2K</a></li>
<li> Facebook group: <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4792&qid=376274" target="_blank">https://www.facebook.com/cisa2k</a></li>
<li> Visit us at:<a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4793&qid=376274" target="_blank">https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge</a></li>
<li> E-mail: <a href="mailto:a2k@cis-india.org" target="_blank">a2k@cis-india.org</a></li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">► Support Us<br /> Please help us defend consumer / citizen rights on the Internet! Write a cheque in favour of ‘The Centre for Internet and Society’ and mail it to us at No. 194, 2nd ‘C’ Cross, Domlur, 2nd Stage, Bengaluru – 5600 71.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">► Request for Collaboration:<br /> We invite researchers, practitioners, and theoreticians, both organisationally and as individuals, to collaboratively engage with Internet and society and improve our understanding of this new field. To discuss the research collaborations, write to Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, at <a href="mailto:sunil@cis-india.org" target="_blank">sunil@cis-india.org</a> or Nishant Shah, Director – Research, at <a href="mailto:nishant@cis-india.org" target="_blank">nishant@cis-india.org</a>. To discuss collaborations on Indic language Wikipedia, write to T. Vishnu Vardhan, Programme Director, A2K, at <a href="mailto:vishnu@cis-india.org" target="_blank">vishnu@cis-india.org</a>.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><i>CIS is grateful to its donors, Wikimedia Foundation, Ford Foundation, Privacy International, UK, Hans Foundation and the Kusuma Trust which was founded by Anurag Dikshit and Soma Pujari, philanthropists of Indian origin, for its core funding and support for most of its projects</i>.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/about/newsletters/january-2014-bulletin'>http://editors.cis-india.org/about/newsletters/january-2014-bulletin</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaAccess to KnowledgeDigital NativesTelecomAccessibilityInternet GovernanceDigital HumanitiesOpenness2014-04-07T07:09:59ZPageDecember 2013 Bulletin
http://editors.cis-india.org/about/newsletters/december-2013-bulletin
<b>Our newsletter for the month of December 2013 can be accessed below. </b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">We at the Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) wish you all a great year ahead and welcome you to the twelfth issue of its newsletter (December) for the year 2013:</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">-------------------------------<br />Highlights<br />-------------------------------</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>The National Resource Kit team has published a draft chapter highlighting the state of laws, policies and programmes for persons with disabilities in the state of Gujarat.</li>
<li>Government of India has passed the National Electronic Accessibility Policy. CIS had worked with the Department of Electronics and Information Technology to formulate this policy. We bring you a brief analysis of the policy and provisions therein in a blog post.</li>
<li>Nehaa Chaudhari on behalf of CIS submitted comments on the Proposed WIPO Treaty for the Protection of Broadcasting Organizations to the Ministry of Human Resource Development.</li>
<li>CIS-A2K team has published a report highlighting the key accomplishments about the work accomplished on Konkani Wikipedia from September to December 2013.</li>
<li>Vipul Kharbanda has provided an analysis of the laws and regulations that apply to Bitcoin in India concluding that government can regulate Bitcoin. </li>
<li>We released the first documentary film (DesiSec) on cyber security in India in Bangalore on December 11.</li>
<li>In the module on Global Histories of the Internet (part of the Knowledge Repository on Internet Access project) Nishant Shah analyses the understanding of the internet, cyberspace and everyday life and why do we need to know the history of the internet.</li>
<li>The second "Institute on Internet and Society" will be held in Yashada, Pune from February 11 to 17, 2014.</li>
<li>As part of the Making Change project, Denisse Albornoz provides an analysis of the benefits and limitations of increasing access to information to enable citizenship and political participation.</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">-----------------------------------------------<br /><a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4615&qid=367159">Jobs</a><br />-----------------------------------------------<br />CIS is seeking applications for the posts of Program Officer (Access to Knowledge) and Program Officer (Internet Governance): <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4616&qid=367159">http://bit.ly/1aA57K6</a>. There are two vacancies each for these posts and these are full-time based in Delhi. To apply, please send your resume to Sunil Abraham (<a href="mailto:sunil@cis-india.org">sunil@cis-india.org</a>) and Pranesh Prakash (<a href="mailto:pranesh@cis-india.org">pranesh@cis-india.org</a>) with three writing samples of which at least one demonstrates your analytic skills, and one that shows your ability to simplify complex policy issues.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">----------------------------------------------<br /><a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4617&qid=367159">Accessibility and Inclusion</a><br />----------------------------------------------<br />As part of our project (under a grant from the Hans Foundation) on creating a national resource kit of state-wise laws, policies and programmes on issues relating to persons with disabilities in India, we bring you draft chapters for the states of Madhya Pradesh and Arunachal Pradesh, and the union territory of Daman and Diu. With this we have completed compilation of draft chapters for 27 states and 5 union territories. Feedback and comments are invited from readers for the following chapter:</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">► National Resource Kit Chapter</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>The Gujarat Chapter (by Anandhi Viswanathan, December 31, 2013): <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4618&qid=367159">http://bit.ly/Kxbg3b</a>. </li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Note: <i>All of the chapters published so far in this project are early drafts and will be reviewed and updated</i>.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><br />►Other</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "># Media Coverage</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>An “Advocacy” Saga and the Inspiring Legacy of Rahul Cherian (by Shamnad Basheer, Spicy IP, December 16, 2013): <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4619&qid=367159">http://bit.ly/1a5B7sU</a>.</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "># Blog Entry</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>National Policy on Universal Electronic Accessibility – An Analysis (by Anandhi Viswanathan, December 27, 2013): <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4620&qid=367159">http://bit.ly/1dfCW3I</a>.</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">-----------------------------------------------------------<br /><a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4621&qid=367159">Access to Knowledge</a><br />-----------------------------------------------------------<br />The Access to Knowledge programme addresses the harms caused to consumers and human rights, and critically examines Open Government Data, Open Access to Scholarly Literature, and Open Access to Law, Open Content, Open Standards, and Free/Libre/Open Source Software.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "># Submission</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>Comments on Proposed WIPO Treaty for the Protection of Broadcasting Organizations (by Nehaa Chaudhari, December 7, 2013). CIS submitted its comments to the Ministry of Human Resource Development: <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4622&qid=367159">http://bit.ly/1hpWeuu</a>.</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "># Events Participated In</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>3rd Global Congress on IP and the Public Interest & Open A.I.R. Conference on Innovation and IP in Africa (organized by University of Cape Town, December 9-13, 2013). Sunil Abraham participated as a speaker in the sessions on Bridging into the Global Congress: Global Issues, Local Answers?, User Rights Track: What Medicines Can Teach Tech: Exploring Patent Pooling and Compulsory Licensing in the Indian Mobile Device Market (<a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4623&qid=367159">http://bit.ly/1f74yir</a>), User Rights Track: Reclaiming the World Trade Organisation: A Modest Proposal for a WTO Agreement on the Supply of Global Public Goods (<a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4623&qid=367159">http://bit.ly/1f74yir</a>), and was a keynote speaker on The Freedom Continuum (<a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4624&qid=367159">http://bit.ly/1dH1WEM</a>). Nehaa Chaudhari also participated in this event: <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4625&qid=367159">http://bit.ly/1bJArFJ</a>. </li>
<li>Twenty-Sixth Session of the Standing Committee on Copyrights and Related Rights (organized by WIPO, Geneva, December 16 – 20, 2013). CIS gave its statement on Limitations and Exceptions for Libraries and Archives (<a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4626&qid=367159">http://bit.ly/JWnjq7</a>) and on Limitations and Exceptions for Education, Teaching and Research Institutions and Persons with Other Disabilities (<a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4626&qid=367159">http://bit.ly/JWnjq7</a>). Nehaa Chaudhari participated as a speaker. India and the United States introduced 6 proposals on the WIPO Broadcast Treaty: <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4627&qid=367159">http://bit.ly/1edqvr3</a>.</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The following has been done under grant from the Wikimedia Foundation (<a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4628&qid=367159">http://bit.ly/SPqFOl</a>). As part this project (<a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4629&qid=367159">http://bit.ly/X80ELd</a>), we held 3 workshops in the month of December, published a detailed report of key accomplishments of the work done in Konkani Wikipedia, a report on Train the Trainer Program held in the month of October and published an article in DNA.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">►Wikipedia</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "># Article</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>Telugu Wikipedia completes 10 years (by Rahmanuddin Shaik, DNA, December 16, 2013): <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4630&qid=367159">http://bit.ly/19OAvUV</a>. The article was edited by Rohini Lakshané. </li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "># Report</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>CIS-A2K: Work Accomplished on Konkani Wikipedia (by Nitika Tandon, December 31, 2013): <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4631&qid=367159">http://bit.ly/1l6ttmp</a>. The report throws some light on the work accomplished on Konkani Wikipedia from September to December 2013.</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "># Blog Entries</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>First ever Train-the-Trainer Program in India (by Nitika Tandon, December 5, 2013): <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4632&qid=367159">http://bit.ly/1euwSXt</a>.</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><i>The following are videos of participants from the Konkani Vishwakosh Digitization project (jointly organised by CIS-A2K and Goa University) speaking on their experiences with Wikimedia projects</i>.</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>Priyadarshini Tadkodkar on Konkani language (by Subhashish Panigrahi, November 17, 2013): <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4633&qid=367159">http://bit.ly/1hldNM8</a>. <i>We are featuring this here as we didn’t carry this in the last newsletter</i>. </li>
<li>Varsha Kavlekar on Konkani Wikipedia Incubator (by Nitika Tandon, December 12, 2013): <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4634&qid=367159">http://bit.ly/KmxyFo</a>.</li>
<li>Darshan Kandolkar on Konkani Vishwakosh Digitization Process (by Nitika Tandon, December 13, 2013): <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4635&qid=367159">http://bit.ly/1cqKyQ2</a>.</li>
<li>Darshana Mandrekar speaks on Konkani Wikipedia (by Nitika Tandon, December 16, 2013): <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4636&qid=367159">http://bit.ly/1keWyya</a>.</li>
<li>Pooja Tople on Wikimedia Projects (by Nitika Tandon, December 17, 2013): <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4637&qid=367159">http://bit.ly/1hlbubU</a>.</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "># Events Organised</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>You Too Can Write on Wikipedia! — Training workshop (National Institute of Tourism and Hotel Management, Gachibowli, Hyderabad, December 5, 2013): <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4638&qid=367159">http://bit.ly/1edmx1z</a>.</li>
<li>Telugu Wikipedia Training Workshop (KBN College, Vijaywada, December 16, 2013): <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4639&qid=367159">http://bit.ly/1i8ScnL</a>.</li>
<li>Kannada Wikipedia Workshop at Alvas Vishva Nudisiri Virasat (Moodabidre, December 19 – 22, 2013). Dr. U.B. Pavanaja gave a presentation about Kannada Wikipedia and also conducted a workshop on Kannada Wikipedia as a parallel track. The event was covered by Prajavani (December 22), Hosadigantha (December 22), and Deccan Herald (December 22): <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4640&qid=367159">http://bit.ly/1dGTBkw</a>.</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "># Events Co-organised</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>Wikipedia Orientation Workshop (organised by CIS-A2K and Christ University, Bangalore, December 2, 2013): <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4641&qid=367159">http://bit.ly/1lrkwEy</a>. </li>
<li>Wikipedia Training Session @ Tiruvur (organised by CIS-A2K and Telugu Wikipedia community, Srivahini College, Tiruvur, December 19, 2013). T. Vishnu Vardhan and Rahmanuddin Shaik conducted the workshop: <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4642&qid=367159">http://bit.ly/1e3oQX7</a>. It was covered by Andhraprabha (<a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4643&qid=367159">http://bit.ly/1bU5VsQ</a>), Eenadu (<a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4644&qid=367159">http://bit.ly/19fsttf</a>), Sakshi (<a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4645&qid=367159">http://bit.ly/1e3pQdU</a>), and Prajasakthi (<a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4646&qid=367159">http://bit.ly/JJs7ja</a>) on December 19, 2013.</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "># Event Participated In</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>A Wikipedia Workshop at IISC (organised by the Assamese Wikipedia community, Bangalore, December 1, 2013). CIS-A2K team and Wikipedian Shiju Alex supported this event: <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4647&qid=367159">http://bit.ly/1dSutY2</a>.</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "># Media Coverage</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">CIS gave its inputs for the following media coverage:</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>A Feature on Telugu Wikipedia (Namaste Telengana Newspaper, December 8, 2013): <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4648&qid=367159">http://bit.ly/19Yjwj6</a>.</li>
<li>Odisha: Odia Wikipedia reaching 5000 article mark! (Odisha Diary Bureau, December 17, 2013): <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4649&qid=367159">http://bit.ly/1dGU2vc</a>.</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">-----------------------------------------------<br /><a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4650&qid=367159">Internet Governance</a><br />-----------------------------------------------<br />CIS is doing a project (under a grant from Privacy International and International Development Research Centre (IDRC)) on conducting research on surveillance and freedom of expression (SAFEGUARDS). So far we have organised seven privacy round-tables and drafted the Privacy (Protection) Bill. This month we bring you an analysis on whether Bitcoin can be banned by the government and a blog post on misuse of surveillance powers in India. As part of its project (funded by Citizen Lab, Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto and support from the IDRC) on mapping cyber security actors in South Asia and South East Asia a film DesiSec: Episode 1was screened. We also did an interview with Pranesh Prakash on cyber security. With this we have completed a total of 13 video interviews so far:</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "># Analysis</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>Can Bitcoin Be Banned by the Indian Government? (by Vipul Kharbanda, December 24, 2013): <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4651&qid=367159">http://bit.ly/1lJrnGF</a>. </li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "># Blog Entries</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>Misuse of Surveillance Powers in India (Case 1) (by Pranesh Prakash, December 6, 2013): <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4652&qid=367159">http://bit.ly/1donbaJ</a>.</li>
<li>Brochures from Expos on Smart Cards, e-Security, RFID & Biometrics in India (by Maria Xynou, December 18, 2013): <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4653&qid=367159">http://bit.ly/1f714fN</a>.</li>
<li>India’s Identity Crisis (by Malavika Jayaram, December 31, 2013 Internet Monitor Annual Report: Reflections on the Digital World, published by Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet and Society): <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4654&qid=367159">http://bit.ly/1lTRuuz</a>.</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "># Upcoming Events</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>Digital Citizens: Why Cyber Security and Online Privacy are Vital to the Success of Democracy and Freedom of Expression (CIS, Bangalore, January 14, 2014): <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4655&qid=367159">http://bit.ly/KucEU5</a>. Michael Oghia will give a talk. </li>
<li>CPDP 2014 Reforming Data Protection: The Global Perspective (Brussels, January 22 – 24, 2014): <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4656&qid=367159">http://bit.ly/KsgCws</a>.</li>
<li>Nullcon Goa Feb 2014 — International Security Conference (organised by Nullcon, Bogmallo Beach Resort, Goa, February 12 – 15, 2014). CIS is one of the sponsors for this event: <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4657&qid=367159">http://bit.ly/1lrBu5I</a>.</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "># Events Organised</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>Big Democracy: Big Surveillance - A talk by Maria Xynou (CIS, Bangalore, December 3, 2013): <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4658&qid=367159">http://bit.ly/19YnA31</a>.</li>
<li>DesiSec: Episode 1 - Film Release and Screening (CIS, December 11, 2013): <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4659&qid=367159">http://bit.ly/1lJt2fm</a>.</li>
<li>Legal Issues pertaining to Cloud Computing (NLSIU Campus, Bangalore, December 14-15, 2013): <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4660&qid=367159">http://bit.ly/1cvcmGq</a>.</li>
<li>Biometrics or Bust? Implications of the UID for Participation and Inclusion (CIS, Bangalore, January 10, 2014). Malavika Jayaram will give a talk: <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4661&qid=367159">http://bit.ly/1lJZhuK</a>. </li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "># Events Participated In</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>Convention on Crisis of Capitalism and brazen onslaught on Democracy (organized by INSAF, December 6, 2013). Snehashish Ghosh participated as a speaker: <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4662&qid=367159">http://bit.ly/1gAxmNy</a>.</li>
<li>International View of the State-of-the-Art of Cryptography and Security and its Use in Practice (IV) (jointly organized by Microsoft Research India, Indian Institute of Science, and Indian Institute of Technology Madras, December 6, 2013). Sunil Abraham was a panellist: <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4663&qid=367159">http://bit.ly/1eAXl5t</a>.</li>
<li>Technology in Government and Topics in Privacy (organized by Data Privacy Lab, CGIS Cafe, Cambridge Street, Harvard University Campus, December 9, 2013). Malavika Jayaram participated as a speaker on Biometrics in Beta – India's Identity Experiment: <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4664&qid=367159">http://bit.ly/1bJDqht</a>.</li>
<li>Cyberscholars Working Group at MIT (organized by the Berkman Center for Internet & Society, Harvard University, December 12, 2013): Malavika Jayaram made a presentation on Biometrics or Bust - India’s Identity Crisis: <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4665&qid=367159">http://bit.ly/1eIpHef</a>.</li>
<li>Seventh NLSIR Symposium on “Bridging the Security-Liberty Divide” (organised by National Law School, Bangalore, December 21-22). Chinmayi Arun and Bhairav Acharya were speakers at this event: <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4666&qid=367159">http://bit.ly/1gjsxYe</a>.</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">--------------------------------<br /><a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4667&qid=367159">News & Media Coverage</a><br />--------------------------------<br />CIS gave its inputs to the following media coverage:</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>MongoDB startup hired by Aadhaar got funds from CIA VC arm (by Lison Joseph, Economic Times, December 3, 2013): <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4668&qid=367159">http://bit.ly/1f77bRg</a>.</li>
<li>A Three-Way Race Draws Delhi’s Young, and Everyone Else, Out to Vote (by Betwa Sharma, New York Times, December 4, 2013): <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4669&qid=367159">http://bit.ly/1gAxoFf</a>.</li>
<li>India for UN body to resolve internet governance issues (by Kim Arora, The Times of India, December 5, 2013): <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4670&qid=367159">http://bit.ly/JWESqe</a>.</li>
<li>Card transactions with Aadhaar validation need more time: experts (by Kirti V. Rao and Moulishree Srivastava, Livemint, December 5, 2013): <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4671&qid=367159">http://bit.ly/1hq35UL</a>.</li>
<li>Indian government wakes up to risk of Hotmail, Gmail (originally published by AFP, December 7, 2013): <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4672&qid=367159">http://bit.ly/19LrlOS</a>. This was also mirrored in The Times of India (<a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4673&qid=367159">http://bit.ly/1hpYEJu</a>), Reuters (<a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4674&qid=367159">http://bit.ly/1gaHhZk</a>), Dawn (<a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4675&qid=367159">http://bit.ly/1azuV95</a>), NDTV (<a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4676&qid=367159">http://bit.ly/19Ys7lS</a>), Yahoo News (<a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4677&qid=367159">http://yhoo.it/JCSreE</a>), The Malaysian Insider (<a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4678&qid=367159">http://bit.ly/1eAPAMW</a>) and Asia One Digital (<a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4679&qid=367159">http://bit.ly/JWuw9R</a>). A slightly modified version was published by Silicon India on December 11: <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4680&qid=367159">http://bit.ly/1gAtzjd</a>. </li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "># Announcement</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>Pranesh Prakash has been elected as the Asia-Pacific representative to the executive committee of the NonCommercial Users Constituency (NCUC) (part of the Non-Commercial Stakeholders Group, which is in turn part of the Generic Names Supporting Organization, which is in turn part of ICANN): <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4681&qid=367159">http://bit.ly/KuIVeC</a>.</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">--------------------------------<br /><a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4682&qid=367159">Telecom</a><br />-------------------------------<br />Shyam Ponappa, a Distinguished Fellow at CIS is a regular columnist with the Business Standard. The articles published on his blog Organizing India Blogspot is mirrored on our website:</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "># Newspaper Column</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>For a Telecom Revival (by Shyam Ponappa, Business Standard, December 4, 2013 and Organizing India Blogspot, December 5, 2013): <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4683&qid=367159">http://bit.ly/1avRDii</a>.</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">--------------------------------<br /><a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4684&qid=367159">Digital Humanities</a><br />--------------------------------<br />CIS is building research clusters in the field of Digital Humanities. The Digital will be used as a way of unpacking the debates in humanities and social sciences and look at the new frameworks, concepts and ideas that emerge in our engagement with the digital. The clusters aim to produce and document new conversations and debates that shape the contours of Digital Humanities in Asia:</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "># Blog Entry</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>The Conflict of Konigsberg (by Anirudh Sridhar, December 17, 2013): <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4685&qid=367159">http://bit.ly/1cEXhhU</a>.</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">--------------------------------<a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4686&qid=367159"><br />Digital Natives</a><br />--------------------------------<br />CIS is doing a research project titled “Making Change”. The project will explore new ways of defining, locating, and understanding change in network societies. Having the thought piece 'Whose Change is it Anyway' as an entry point for discussion and reflection, the project will feature profiles, interviews and responses of change-makers to questions around current mechanisms and practices of change in South Asia and South East Asia:</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">►Making Change Project</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "># Blog Entries</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>Tactical Technology: Information is Power? (by Denisse Albornoz, December 26, 2013): <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4687&qid=367159">http://bit.ly/1cEUrcY</a>.</li>
<li>Tactical Technology: Designing Activism (by Denisse Albornoz, December 27, 2013): <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4688&qid=367159">http://bit.ly/1a9IuzH</a>.</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">►Other</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "># Newspaper Column</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>Digital Native (by Nishant Shah, Indian Express, December 22, 2013): <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4689&qid=367159">http://bit.ly/1f7mU2P</a>.</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">------------------------------------------------------------<br /><a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4690&qid=367159">Knowledge Repository on Internet Access</a><br />------------------------------------------------------------<br />CIS in partnership with the Ford Foundation is executing a project to create a knowledge repository on Internet and society. This repository will comprise content targeted primarily at civil society with a view to enabling their informed participation in the Indian Internet and ICT policy space. The repository is available at the Internet Institute website: <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4691&qid=367159">http://bit.ly/1iQT2UB</a>.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "># Upcoming Event</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>Institute on Internet and Society (organised by Ford Foundation and CIS, Yashada, Pune, February 11-17, 2014): <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4692&qid=367159">http://bit.ly/180mQi9</a>. Registrations are closed for this event.</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "># Modules</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>History of the Internet: Building Conceptual Frameworks (by Nishant Shah, December 31, 2013): <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4693&qid=367159">http://bit.ly/19WRHLb</a>.</li>
<li>Internet Privacy in India (by Elonnai Hickok, December 31, 2013): <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4694&qid=367159">http://bit.ly/19SNk6v</a>.</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">-----------------------------------------------------<a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4695&qid=367159"><br />About CIS</a><br />-----------------------------------------------------<br />The Centre for Internet and Society is a non-profit research organization that works on policy issues relating to freedom of expression, privacy, accessibility for persons with disabilities, access to knowledge and IPR reform, and openness (including open government, FOSS, open standards, etc.), and engages in academic research on digital natives and digital humanities.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">► Follow us elsewhere</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>Twitter:<a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4696&qid=367159">https://twitter.com/CISA2K</a></li>
<li>Facebook group: <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4697&qid=367159">https://www.facebook.com/cisa2k</a></li>
<li>Visit us at:<a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=4698&qid=367159">https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge</a></li>
<li>E-mail: <a href="mailto:a2k@cis-india.org">a2k@cis-india.org</a></li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">► Support Us</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Please help us defend consumer / citizen rights on the Internet! Write a cheque in favour of ‘The Centre for Internet and Society’ and mail it to us at No. 194, 2nd ‘C’ Cross, Domlur, 2nd Stage, Bengaluru – 5600 71.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">► Request for Collaboration:<br />We invite researchers, practitioners, and theoreticians, both organisationally and as individuals, to collaboratively engage with Internet and society and improve our understanding of this new field. To discuss the research collaborations, write to Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, at <a href="mailto:sunil@cis-india.org">sunil@cis-india.org</a> or Nishant Shah, Director – Research, at <a href="mailto:nishant@cis-india.org">nishant@cis-india.org</a>. To discuss collaborations on Indic language wikipedia, write to T. Vishnu Vardhan, Programme Director, A2K, at <a href="mailto:vishnu@cis-india.org">vishnu@cis-india.org</a>.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><i>CIS is grateful to its donors, Wikimedia Foundation, Ford Foundation, Privacy International, UK, Hans Foundation and the Kusuma Trust which was founded by Anurag Dikshit and Soma Pujari, philanthropists of Indian origin, for its core funding and support for most of its projects</i>.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/about/newsletters/december-2013-bulletin'>http://editors.cis-india.org/about/newsletters/december-2013-bulletin</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaAccess to KnowledgeDigital NativesTelecomAccessibilityInternet GovernanceDigital HumanitiesOpenness2014-02-25T13:51:47ZPageInformation Design - Visualizing Action (TTC)
http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/making-change/tactical-technology-design-activism-1
<b>This is the second part of the Making Change analysis on information activism. It explores the role of the presentation and design of information to translate information into action.</b>
<pre style="text-align: justify;"><strong>CHANGE-MAKER:</strong> Maya Ganesh
<strong>
PROJECT</strong>:
Visualizing Information for Advocacy
<strong><strong>
METHOD OF CHANGE</strong>:
</strong>Redesign the production, presentation and representation of data to stimulate citizen action.<strong>
STRATEGY OF CHANGE: </strong>
- Demystify the technology, strategy and tactics behind information design
- Train people on how to use them for their projects.
- Empower people and increase political participation at the grassroots</pre>
<h2>Part 2: Information Design</h2>
<p align="justify">Tactical Technology aims to demystify strategies that stimulate citizen participation through the production, presentation and representation of data. Their 2010 program:<a href="https://tacticaltech.org/visualising-information-advocacy"> Visualizing Information for Advocacy</a> focuses on finding "the right combination of information, design, technology and networks" (2010) to communicate issues and stimulate action. As explored in the last post, campaigns must not only inform citizens, but must persuade them into acting. The way information is presented: the symbols, shapes and sequences plays a big part in creating deeper connections between the consumer and information. Using more visual advocacy examples, I will list three elements that underpin this connection: symbols, design and consumption culture.</p>
<h3>I. Symbols</h3>
<p><strong>Marks or characters representing an object, function or abstract process</strong></p>
<p>Lance Bennett’s work on civic engagement (2008), identified two features in information that motivate citizens to act:</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">a) Familiar values and activities<br /> b) Action options that facilitate decision-making and the participation process</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">By personalizing data and finding symbols that embody these values and action options, the citizen is more likely to engage with the information. Throughout this post we will look at some examples, outside of Tactical Tech, that are applying these principles.</p>
<pre style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">Example 1:<br />Dislike Poverty Campaign- Un Techo para mi Pais (TECHO) Latin America<br /></pre>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">First example is this is the <a href="http://vimeo.com/15656801">campaign</a> by the Chilean NGO<a href="http://www.techo.org/en/"> Un Techo para mi Pais</a>. The organization’s main objectives are to a) to eradicate poverty and b) build a strong body of volunteers that epitomize a new way of understanding citizenship in the region. They are very popular among youth, in part due to their communication strategies and their use of social media. Recently, the ‘No Me Gusta’ (Dislike) campaign was featured in Spanish graphic design activism blog:<a href="http://www.grafous.com/no-me-gusta/"> Grafous</a>, and the non-profit marketing website<a href="http://osocio.org/message/no_me_gusta_i_dislike_this/"> Osocio</a> for its creative use of 'slacktivism' to mirror the young citizen's attitude towards poverty.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" class="callout"><strong>Slacktivism</strong>: "actions performed via the Internet in support of a political or social cause but regarded as requiring little time or involvement, e.g. liking or joining a campaign group on a social networking website"</p>
<p align="center"><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/TECHO1.jpg/image_preview" alt="Techo 1" class="image-inline image-inline" title="Techo 1" /></p>
<p align="center"><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/TECHO2.jpg/image_preview" alt="Techo 2" class="image-inline image-inline" title="Techo 2" /><br /><span id="docs-internal-guid-3c3e8713-307f-8c4d-a5bf-1b5269c5701e">No Me Gusta campaign, Un Techo para mi Pais. Photo courtesy of Grafous: <a class="external-link" href="http://www.grafous.com/no-me-gusta/">http://www.grafous.com/no-me-gusta/</a>.</span></p>
<p align="justify">The images juxtapose pictures of slums and an adaptation of the Facebook Like button - a familiar symbol of affirmation and approval among youth- into a Dislike button: enabling expression of discontent. This is coupled with the phrase: “<em>if you dislike this, you can help by logging onto (...)</em>”, channeling this disapproval into a plan of action. The campaign shows a thorough understanding of its target audience: including the visual culture of social media users, their digital habits and their satisfaction driven behavior (embodied by the like button). It ridicules the user by facing him with two realities: the ineludible situation of poverty versus his redeemable slacktivist idleness. This strategy proved to be effective and attracted the attention of potential volunteers; asserting the middle class, tech-savvy identity of the TECHO volunteer throughout Latin America.</p>
<blockquote style="float: left;">
<p align="center"><strong>Nonviolent methods and <br />Civic Participation</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>Capture attention.</li>
<li>Increase visibility of activism.</li>
<li>Reduce the stake of participation <br />for citizens</li>
<li>Attracts 'risk-averse' citizens and<br />creates 'safety in numbers'.</li>
<li>Success of campaign is more likely<br />(if 3.5% of population participates)</li></ul>
</blockquote>
<p align="justify">The use of familiar symbols is one of the <a href="http://www.starhawk.org/activism/trainer-resources/198ways.html">198 strategies</a> listed by Gene Sharp in Part Two of <a href="http://www.aeinstein.org/books/the-politics-of-nonviolent-action-part-2/">The Politics of Nonviolent Action</a> (explored in a<a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/digitally-enhanced-civil-resistance"> past post</a>). In the same spirit, Tactical Technology’s project <a href="https://archive.informationactivism.org/">10 tactics</a> provides “original and artful” wide communication non-violent methods to capture attention and disseminate information. This includes slogans, caricatures, symbols, posters and media presence, which besides from grabbing attention also reduces the stake of participation for citizens. According to Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan, these methods increase the visibility of activist efforts, because they create a sense of ‘safety in numbers” and hence draw the “risk-averse” into the movements. Furthermore, their study shows that if a campaign manages to capture the active and sustained participation of only 3.5% of the total population, it is likely to succeed (2008).</p>
<p align="justify">While this statistic shows that enhancing the visibility of social change campaigns is an extremely resource-efficient strategy, on the other hand, it confirms information is in the hands of a privileged minority. The information-poor activist is completely reliant on the values and symbols the middle class chooses to downstream, unless information is designed by grassroots organizations who can localize it -one of the main objectives of Tactical Technology. The flow of ideas and conversations among the middle class, though not inclusive, is already stimulating the spirit of information dissemination. However, representations of data are not enough to trigger cognitive associations between the citizen and the issues. We must also consider the design and aesthetic features of these representations and how they inspire civic engagement.</p>
<h3>II. (Graphic) Design</h3>
<p><strong>Communication, stylizing and problem-solving through the use of type, space and image. </strong></p>
<blockquote>
<p id="docs-internal-guid-3c3e8713-3345-6c35-9147-f1533da6a2fe" style="text-align: justify;" class="callout" dir="ltr"><strong>MG</strong>: Presentation continues to be a problem. We have focused a lot on this, but it continues to be an issue when people have and are using information. You can’t assume people will get it and you need to think about what kind of information you have and what kind of audiences you want to see it, etc.</p>
</blockquote>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Liz Mcquiston, author of the 1995 and the 2004 editions of Graphic Agitation explored how art and design brings political and social issues to the fore. She argues that the increasing ubiquity of digital technology since the 90s, plus a popular ‘do-it-yourself’ culture, is creating a new environment of political protest that empowers individuals to take ownership of the creation and consumption of information. This is in line with Richard Wurman’s argument on the rise of the <strong>prosumer: </strong>digital users who are not only consuming but are also producing an unprecedented amount of information, which states that larger volumes of information, coupled with the expressive potential of art and design, makes personalized relationships with data possible, having it cater to our interests, needs and contexts (2001).</p>
<pre style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">Example 2:<br />Design for Protest by Hector Serrano (University Cardenal Herrera)<br /></pre>
<div style="text-align: justify;" class="pull quote" dir="ltr">Information design is creating ready-made avenues for civic engagement by breaking data down and providing step by step guides for implementation. For instance, students from the University Cardenal Herrera in Spain collaborated together in the project: “<a href="http://designforprotest.wordpress.com/proyectos/">Design for Protest”</a>, led by <a href="http://www.hectorserrano.com/">Hector Serrano</a>, graphic designer and activist. The concept was to design “effective and functional” tools of demonstration, rooted in the rising number of protests around the world during the economic crisis. The students created communication tools: from foldable banners to protest umbrellas that allow protesters in Spain (and around the world) to convey their messages in creative, quick and affordable ways. This is the perfect conflation between consuming information proposals and producing new information from the grassroots to intervene in the public space.</div>
<p align="center" style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr"><br /><img src="http://designforprotest.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/10.jpg?w=920" alt="" height="450" width="665" align="middle" /></p>
<p align="center">Paraguas (Umbrella). Photo courtesy and How-to: <a href="http://designforprotest.wordpress.com/2012/03/30/paraguas/">Design For Protest: Paraguas<br /></a></p>
<p align="center"><img src="http://designforprotest.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/4_01.jpg?w=920" alt="" height="450" width="665" align="middle" /><br /> Light Banner. Photo courtesy and How-to: <a href="http://designforprotest.wordpress.com/2012/03/30/light-banner/">Design For Protest: Light Banner</a></p>
<p align="center"><a href="http://designforprotest.wordpress.com/2012/03/30/paraguas/"><br /></a></p>
<div align="center"><img src="http://designforprotest.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/2_05.jpg?w=920" alt="" height="558" width="397" align="middle" /></div>
<p align="center" style="text-align: center;" dir="ltr">Pocket Protest. Photo courtesy and How-to: <a href="http://designforprotest.wordpress.com/2012/03/30/protesta-de-bolsillo/">Design for Protest: Protesta de Bolsillo</a></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">The field of information design is creating ready-made avenues for civic engagement. It is breaking down data and providing step-by-step guides for implementation. Although the Design for Protest project is not creating a permanent source of information, it is providing feasible alternatives to display information both in short-lived protests as much as in long-term campaigns, facilitating action-taking and abiding to the second feature of Bennett's hypothesis: providing action options to aid decision-making. Ganesh commented how these tool kits are also a mean Tactical Tech uses to secure sustainability and continuity:</p>
<blockquote>
<p style="text-align: justify;" class="callout"><span id="docs-internal-guid-4b925b2a-3424-bea4-cc67-94b3cb5dc47a"><strong>MG:</strong> We have many available resources: from tools and guides (mobile in a box, security in a box, etc.), to the website. It is very focused on the digital tools that support what you want to do with your campaigning. You have a plethora of websites telling you what tools to use but not how to use it or how to think about how you want to use them for campaigning. As a result you have campaigns that are not well thought or that don’t use the appropriate type of technology, or driven by the technology first than what they want to do. This is one of the ways in which it continues.</span></p>
</blockquote>
<h3></h3>
<h3>III. (Culture) Design</h3>
<p><strong>Localizing information design</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The <strong>‘prosumer’ model </strong>aligns with an active model of citizenship we describe in a <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/making-change/blank-noise-active-citizen-dissonance">previous post.</a> It fits citizens who are active and willing to find resources, and create and disseminate information that resonates within their context. Yochai Benkler’s work on information production (2006) Also touches on how cultural production enhances democratic practices in network societies. He argues that creating cultural meaning of the world has two important effects:</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">a) Sustains values of individual freedom of expression.<br />b) Provides opportunities of participation and cultural reassertion.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">Ganesh’s account of the experience of Tactical Technology in the Middle East also highlights how cultural remix is a form political and creative empowerment:</p>
<blockquote>
<p style="text-align: justify;" class="callout" dir="ltr"><strong>MG:</strong> It is interesting how the Arab version has evolved. We had support to extend Ten Tactics in the Arabic region, but we didn’t want to do translations and tell people what to do. We wanted to see how people are thinking about information activism in their region, what kind of products would be useful to them. We’ve already printed 2000 copies and we are left only with 140. It is really popular because people really want to do this. We’ve met with 5-7 groups in the Arab region we’ve known for a long time. We said: here’s money (originally meant for translations) take our resources, anything you’ve found that we’ve published and: customize it, remix it, break it up and put it back together again; turn it into a resource that you can feel you can use with your communities. Partnering up, you must keep in mind their mandates and their communities.</p>
</blockquote>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">Localizing design and aesthetics is essential to keep the connections between data-citizen relevant. This is explored from the perspective of post-colonial computing by Irani et. al; a project that aims to understand how ‘good design’ must be consistent with cultural identities and the transformative nature of cultural formation between the context and the individual (2010).</p>
<pre style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr"><strong>Example 3:</strong><br />Proudly African and Transgender by Gabrielle Le Roux (In collaboration with Amnesty International and IGLHRC)</pre>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">An interesting example of this is the work done by Gabrielle Le Roux, in collaboration with African trans and intersex activists (<a href="http://www.iglhrc.org">IGLHRC</a>). A showcase of portraits and uncovered narratives of transgendered Africans in East and Southern Africa: that reasserts interesex and transgender identity in a society were these issues remain taboo and hence under the radar.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr"><img style="float: left;" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/f1HV0NnuLqLOP-N36QGFbr-eXSILqtz0vFXA6OrSTqPuqiniOe89xiyxhJqnlD2wRLgcOtPQYZf3po7biJGQZ9gCAwROMbywL9xyjO6OkyzcK3jNzIqWwT8J4Q" alt="" height="427px;" width="303px;" /> <img style="float: right;" dir="ltr" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/vCK1YHfG-_rOjr8VS8dRv4GVGE7AmrsalUMhIgMNP4Io6Th8IVHg4h5syGa0-NRrEMKhRjtpFPB877ssMJwtncjtM_w8YTt-gCiDpEgh64kbZlAuunQ-hvwrvw" alt="" height="431" width="303" /></p>
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<p align="center" style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">These visuals were exhibited in Europe by Amnesty International, and showcased in the <a href="http://www.blacklooks.org">Black Looks </a>community (who participated in Tactical Tech’s 2009 <a href="http://camp2013.tacticaltech.org">InfoCamp</a>) as well as in the WITS Centre for Diversity Studies research on <a href="http://incudisa.wordpress.com/">Politics of Engagement:</a> an interactive collaboration on social change through art-activism and research.</p>
<pre><strong>Example 4:</strong>
Camp Acra et Adoquin Delmas 33 - Haiti</pre>
<p align="justify">An example less inclined on aesthetics but focused on visual documentation is the <a href="http://chanjemleson.wordpress.com/">Camp Acra et Adoquin Delmas 33</a> blog, from Haiti. A site in which Camp Acra members are documenting their settlement and growth after the 2010 earthquake through essential information and images, fostering community building and communal identity reassertion.</p>
<p align="center"><img id="docs-internal-guid-4b925b2a-33b7-4c5f-4371-534d21958e0f" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/JaZwKtfIODw6LQuJOdRlEofLtr9tEZox9mw9WMTDJJxLnlJaX6RCmxjGbNggtgF2pD0B706J1kShumAImBWJ7X0Po44ktKjs5SmMh402BmjjNB4whfLowh1ixw" alt="" height="377px;" width="486px;" /></p>
<div align="right" class="pullquote">“visual representations of information gives context to numbers, uncovers relationships and engages the viewers in ways that raw information could never do”<br /> David McCandless</div>
<p align="justify">As <a href="http://www.davidmccandless.com/">David McCandless</a>,data journalist, information designer and author of <a href="http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/2009/the-visual-miscellaneum/">The Visual Miscellaneum</a> points out: “visual representations of information gives context to numbers, uncovers relationships and engages the viewers in ways that raw information could never do” (2009). Having these representations mingle with culturally specific undertones provides opportunities to create solidarity ties between the citizen and its culture, as well as the add of “individual glosses” through action, critical reflection and participation (Benkler, 2006). However is this need for an aesthetic approach to information and culture representation a result of our consumer behaviour? Is it problematic that activism is catering to a model of promotion and presentation of information to incite participation? The next section will look shortly at the consumption culture in information activism.</p>
<h3 align="justify">IV. Consumption (Culture)</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Is information design catering to consumption habits instead of citizen needs?</strong><br />As seen, information design is grounded on the premise that the representation of data must create deep connections with its audience in order to incite a reaction. However, is this the result of a culture of consumption? Let’s not forget the citizens targeted by visual campaigns are also consumers in constant interaction with the market. Kozinet’s study of virtual communities of consumption (1999), is in line with Wurman's description of the behavior of a prosumer:</p>
<h3 align="center" style="text-align: center;" dir="ltr"><strong>Behaviour of consumer vs. information prosumer</strong></h3>
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<td>Discerning consumer</td>
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<td>Producers of large amounts of cultural information</td>
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<p>Moreover, the Kozinet suggests a few strategies of how to interact with the consumer that also fit the strategies presented by Bennett at the beginning of this analysis:</p>
<h3 align="center">How to connect with the consumer vs. citizen</h3>
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<td>Segmentation of consumers<br id="docs-internal-guid-4b925b2a-3456-5d05-0f33-04a2bd0b87b2" /></td>
<td>Tailor information to values and activities familiar to the citizen</td>
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<p>With this parallel in mind, we asked Ganesh the extent to which info-activism resembles market consumption models:</p>
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<p style="text-align: justify;" class="callout" dir="ltr"><strong>MG:</strong> You need to think strategically about how it’s going to get picked up, where you want to promote your information, how you want to publish, present it; and push it. The problem with NGO, activists and independent individuals is that they are not as empowered financially [...]. If you look at the corporate section, journalism, etc; you have huge institutions and a lot of more finances behind this stuff. NGOs have one shot to make it work. That’s when people like us come in, to demystify, give people training and create platforms.</p>
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<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">Comparing activists with ‘virtual consumption communities’ questions the extent to which corporate and social impact models are feeding of each other to present information and succeed. A deeper analysis of this relationship falls out of the scope of this post, but it is worth mentioning when exploring activism in information network societies. As Ganesh clarified, info-activism is not related to marketing, but visualizing information in attractive and interesting ways is crucial not only to persuade, but to make activism accessible and enticing. Today, ten years after it was founded, Tactical Tech maintains a critical approach to their work. It is now moving on to a next stage, beyond the mere representation of data and paying closer attention to the type of information that enhances impact and influence of their tactics.</p>
<blockquote>
<p style="text-align: justify;" class="callout" dir="ltr"><strong>MG</strong>: We have definitely moved on thinking about interesting ways of looking at this. Our questions are more critical and political right now. The nature of platforms, the nature of information sharing, what is the true face of social media? There is so much information and data right now. Once information is out there how do you actually make it evidence for evidence-based advocacy. We are trying to play with that idea a little bit. It's not only about having impact but also influence.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Conclusion:</h2>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">Part 1 and 2 of this analysis have explored the process of transforming data into civic action. In part 1 we re-visited the question of information communities. We found that diversity in political opinion democratizes the debate in the public space. Information strategies must focus on making information from the grassroots visible and strengthening offline networks that facilitate information dissemination. In part 2, we explored the strategies behind the presentation and representation of this information.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">Three main findings came from this analysis:</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">a) Non-violent visual advocacy is more likely to reduce the stakes of participation for the common citizen making political engagement more likely.<br /> b) The role of design for short or long-term advocacy is to simplifythe process of civic action, facilitate decision-making and makethese projects self-sustainable. <br />c) Our consumption habits in the market are shaping how we process and interact with information in the public space. The possibility of consumer behavior permeating modalities of activism reinforces the need to explore the most interesting strategies for information dissemination.</p>
<p align="justify">From the perspective of the <strong>Making Change</strong> project’ it is interesting to explore this method to social change as a breach from the ‘spectacle’ criticism outlined by Shah. He argues that in contemporary activism, only a limited production of images enter the network - images in many cases detached from the material realities and experiences that shape the change process in the first place. This tendency results in paraphernalia over the visual, disregarding the crises that led to the inception of protests. The findings from this analysis indicate that visual persuasion is essential to capture the attention of citizens, and hence, the need for a pinch of ‘spectacle’ in data presentation cannot be overlooked. The challenge info-activism now faces is making data’s dissemination self-sustainable in offline communities through the strategy and design of its campaigns.</p>
<p align="justify">Furthermore, the data, stories and narratives Tactical Tech is working to uncover can only be effectively transformed into action through a reconfiguration of the data-citizen relationship. Information strategies, besides from focusing on how to make data enticing, must also focus on the recognition of a status quo of idleness around how we consume, produce, question or interact with information. Tactical Tech has gone a far way at spearheading this line of thought and spreading graphic resistance through civil society, however this is not sufficient unless this recalibration occurs at the individual citizen level.</p>
<h2 align="justify">Sources:</h2>
<ol>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Bennett, W. Lance. "Changing citizenship in the digital age." Civic life online: Learning how digital media can engage youth 1 (2008): 1-24.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">
<div id="gs_cit2" class="gs_citr">Benkler, Yochai. <em>The wealth of networks: How social production transforms markets and freedom</em>. Yale University Press, 2006.</div>
</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">
<div id="gs_cit2" class="gs_citr">Bimber, Bruce, Andrew J. Flanagin, and Cynthia Stohl. "Reconceptualizing collective action in the contemporary media environment." Communication Theory 15, no. 4 (2005): 365-388.</div>
</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Brundidge, J.S. & Rice, R.E. (2009). Political engagement online: Do the information rich get richer and the like-minded more similar? In Chadwick, A. and Howard, N.H. (eds.), Routledge Handbook of Internet Politics (pp. 144-156). New York: Routledge </li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Kozinets, Robert V. "E-tribalized marketing?: The strategic implications of virtual communities of consumption." European Management Journal 17, no. 3 (1999): 252-264. </li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">McCandless, David. The Visual Miscellaneum: A Colorful Guide to the World's Most Consequential Trivia. Collins Design, 2009.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Shah, Nishant “Whose Change is it Anyways? Hivos Knowledge Program. April 30, 2013.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Wurman, Richard Saul, Loring Leifer, David Sume, and Karen Whitehouse. Information anxiety 2. Vol. 6000. Indianapolis, IN: Que, 2001.</li></ol>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/making-change/tactical-technology-design-activism-1'>http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/making-change/tactical-technology-design-activism-1</a>
</p>
No publisherdenisseResearchers at WorkWeb PoliticsMaking ChangeDigital Natives2015-04-17T10:34:22ZBlog EntryInformation Activism - Tactics for Empowerment (TTC)
http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/making-change/tactical-technology-information-is-power
<b>This is the first of a two-part analysis of information activism for the Making Change project. This post looks at the benefits and limitations of increasing access to information to enable citizenship and political participation. </b>
<pre style="text-align: justify;"><strong>CHANGE-MAKER</strong>: Maya Ganesh<br /><strong><br />PROJECT</strong>: 10 Tactics for Information Activism<br /><strong><br />METHOD OF CHANGE</strong>: <br />Information activism at the intersection of data, design and technology<br /><strong><br />STRATEGY OF CHANGE</strong>:<br />-Demystify the technology, strategy and tactics behind information activism.
-Train people on how to use them for their projects.
-Empower people and increase political participation at the grassroots<br /></pre>
<p style="text-align: justify;">I came into the office today and CIS Director gifted me the Red House edition of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: ‘We are All Born Free”. Skimming through it, I found a series of graphics and artistic interpretations of Articles 1 to 30:</p>
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<p align="center"><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/bornfree.jpg/image_preview" alt="Article 5 - We are all born free" class="image-inline" title="Article 5 - We are all born free" /></p>
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<td><strong>Article 5 </strong><br /> Photo courtesy of Library Mice blog: <a href="http://librarymice.com/we-are-all-born-free/">http://bit.ly/1cAMpYy</a></td>
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<p align="center"><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/bornfree2.jpg/image_preview" alt="Article 24 - We are all born free" class="image-inline" title="Article 24 - We are all born free" /></p>
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<td style="text-align: center;"><strong>Article 24 </strong><br /> Photo courtesy of Illustration Cupboard: <a href="http://www.illustrationcupboard.com/illustration.aspx?iId=3405&type=artist&idValue=351&aiPage=1">http://bit.ly/1kI5EBd</a></td>
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<p>The purpose of this book is to find “exciting ways to socialize young people to very real issues”, rewrite human rights in a “simple,accessible form” and stimulate imagination to “observe and absorb details in a way that words struggle to express”. While specifically targeted for 12+ children, these images create associations and connections that trump the dullness of black and white texts for any audience; offering an alternative way of presenting complex bodies of knowledge crucial for our survival, such as the Declaration of Human Rights.</p>
<div style="text-align: left;" class="pullquote" dir="ltr">Change: information interventions to inspire and facilitate change-making among civil society networks.</div>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">In the same spirit, Tactical Technology aims to use information design strategies to create similar associations in the field of activism. The <a href="https://www.tacticaltech.org/">Tactical Technology Collective</a> is an organization dedicated to the intersections of data, design and technology in campaigning. Its has two main programs:<a href="https://www.tacticaltech.org/#evidence-and-action"> Evidence & Action</a> that works with data management in digital campaigning; and <a href="https://www.tacticaltech.org/#privacy-and-expression">Privacy & Expression</a> that provides digital security and privacysupport advice to activists. The collective envisions change as a creative and pragmatic intervention that inspires and facilitates change-making among civil society networks. We interviewed Maya Ganesh, who is part of the E&A program, and our conversation shed light on benefits and the challenges of using visual advocacy strategies to create social change.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">On this opportunity, I will explore the potential of information activism to create opportunities and spaces of engagement. Following Saussure’s dyadic model of the sign, it will be split in two parts. The first entry will look at the ‘signified’: the ideas, associations and cultural conventions derived from information and how these could solve crises of civic engagement and citizen action. The second entry will look at the ‘signifier’ -the shapes and sequences that compose the knowledges navigating political activism. These will be viewed from the strategic, design and technological point of view. Both parts will be informed by our conversation with Maya and complemented by literature on political engagement in the digital age. On a less academic note, the posts will also refer to the experience of graphic designers, artists and bloggers who are experimenting with information design to express dissent in transnational platforms.</p>
<h2 dir="ltr">Part 1: Is Information Power?</h2>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">‘Transforming Information into Action’ is Tactical Technology’s take on the traditional idiom ‘Knowledge is Power’. The collective’s experience shows there are a number of steps to transform raw data into political power and for the purpose of this analysis, I will only look at information disseminated with this particular intention. This will aid to understand the relationship between increasing information availability and having it trigger civic action in contemporary activism. According to Fowler and Biekart, acts of public disobedience and activism after 2010 share the objective of reclaiming active citizenship through ‘novel ways’ that counter traditional political participation mechanisms (2013). Hence, we want to know if information activism is one of these ‘novel’ strategies enabling citizenship in the digital era.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">More power to whom?</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Overcoming information inequity</strong><br />If information activism is “the strategic and deliberate use of information within a campaign”, the first step is to question the type of information used in these campaigns. While many scholars claim that access to political opinion increases participation in the democratic process by fostering debate and inclusive deliberation on policy issues (Dahl, 1989, Bennett, 2003, 2008; Montgomery et al. 2004,) Brundidge and Rice’s exploration of Internet politics shows that strategies that merely increase access to information are flawed by design. They claim that increasing information mainly benefits the middle class, who counts with previous exposure to political knowledge and hence processes it with greater ease. This group ultimately dominates the public discourse widening -what they call- the ‘knowledge gap’ between socioeconomic classes (Brunridge and Rice, 2009, Bimber et al. 2005). This is the ‘information’ version of the gentrification of politics explored by Shah in the <a href="http:http:/cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/hivos-knowledge-programme-june-14-2013-nishant-shah-whose-change-is-it-anyway">Whose Change is it Anyway</a> thought piece, and a definite deterrent of collective action at the grassroots level.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">A basic example to show how this manifests in the information environment is this info-graphic on <a href="http://www.2012socialactivism.com/">Social Activism</a> created by <a href="http://www.columnfivemedia.com/">Column Five</a> and <a href="http://www.takepart.com/">Take Part</a> and presenting the findings on their 2010 study on Social responsibility:</p>
<pre><strong>Example 1:
</strong>Social Activism Study (2010): <span class="st">How can brands engage Young Adults in Social Responsibility? </span></pre>
<p align="center"><img class="decoded" src="http://www.2012socialactivism.com/images/infographic.png" alt="http://www.2012socialactivism.com/images/infographic.png" height="878" width="310" align="middle" /><br />Access complete info-graphic here: <a href="http://www.2012socialactivism.com/images/infographic.png">http://www.2012socialactivism.com/images/infographic.png</a></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">The information is clear, the presentation is clean. This graphic could mobilize the middle class citizen who works in a company and has time and money to spare in donations and fund-raising activities. The graphic is informational yet it does not offer alternative participation avenues for groups outside of the politically savvy, young, educated and affluent circle (Brundidge and Rice, 2009) Instead, it reiterates socioeconomic inequalities from the offline community into the information landscape. With this in mind we asked Maya whether gentrification was a barrier for info-activism interventions at the grassroots:</p>
<blockquote style="text-align: justify;"><strong>MG</strong>: The things we are documenting are by citizens with socioeconomic barriers and obstacles. It is not our mandate to reach out to the ‘common citizen’ but it is very much our mandate to look at what is happening and what is happening to people with socioeconomic barriers who are lower on the ladder. If you look at <a href="https://tacticaltech.org/first-look-syrian-info-activism">Syrian info-activism</a>, these are people facing the worst situations you can imagine, and they are doing it [...] and we document what they are doing, trying to understand it, pull out trends and then showing people.<br /></blockquote>
<h3 id="docs-internal-guid-55c9389d-2e66-a4f1-cb32-393bdd9637f0" style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr"></h3>
<h3 id="docs-internal-guid-55c9389d-2e66-a4f1-cb32-393bdd9637f0" style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">Empowering information communities</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Offline networks support information dissemination</strong><br />In this respect, offline community networks are key to bridging the knowledge gap cited above. The relationship between organizations like Dawlaty, SMEX and Alt City and groups in the Arab region function as a core of ideas and resources from which localized methods and solutions emerge (read more <a href="https://www.tacticaltech.org/info-activism-resources-localised-and-arab-world">here</a>). This flow of information, coupled with the offline support, makes information from less visible demographics visible, deepens democracy and creates opportunities for these actors to participate and set the public agenda (2009). We asked Maya in what other ways information activism facilitates this process:</p>
<blockquote>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr"><strong>MG</strong>: We have moved on a lot from information activism. <a href="https://informationactivism.org/en">10 Tactics</a> is quite old for us now but it is still interesting to see how this stuff works. This material was produced in 2008-9 and is very popular with our audience. A lot of our work now is [...] take this material to newer communities of activists or people who have been around for a long time but are getting involved with the digital for the first time. That’s one part of our work and it’s sort of self-sustainable that way.</p>
</blockquote>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">Therefore the value of information activism, rather than increasing the quantity of available data, is how it enables diversity and visibility of political opinion in the public sphere. One of the better known examples of information design interventions that gloat inclusiveness is:</p>
<pre><strong>Example 2</strong>
Occupy Design: the collective that builds “visual design for the 99%”:</pre>
<p style="text-align: center;" dir="ltr"><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/Occupy1.jpg/image_preview" alt="Occupy 1" class="image-inline" title="Occupy 1" /></p>
<p style="text-align: center;" dir="ltr"><strong>2011</strong></p>
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<p style="text-align: center;" dir="ltr"><strong>2011</strong><br />Images courtesy of Experimenta Magazine: <a href="http://bit.ly/1hGpvOP">http://bit.ly/1hGpvOP</a></p>
<p align="justify">By presenting income and unemployment statistics about the American middle and lower class in the public space, activists from Occupy Design made the claims of the Occupy Wall Street Movement visual and visible. This enabled this group, the 99%, to reclaim the space not only through physical mobilization but also through the expression of subjectivities and open -graphic- power contestation. According to Pleyers, the pervasiveness of the movement both at the offline, online -and in this case, visual- levels created opportunities of horizontal participation, asserting spaces of democratic experience (2012).</p>
<h3>From Information to Action</h3>
<p><strong>Is information enough?</strong><br />Nevertheless, exposure to powerful images does not necessarily guarantee impact and influence, much less civic engagement. We asked Maya what she thought motivated civic action:</p>
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<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong> MG: </strong>External things push you over the edge. A flash-point issue could tip you over to do something different, even if you are that someone that has never been involved in anything. The gang rape in Delhi for example: it has sparked a lot of people who have never been involved and are now pushed to [act]. There are different precipitating factors and that’s why the stories of people: what people do, how they do it and why they do it, matters.</p>
</blockquote>
<p align="center"><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/Galhigangrape.jpg/image_preview" alt="Delhi Gang Rape" class="image-inline" title="Delhi Gang Rape" /></p>
<p align="center">Women protesting in Bangalore after the Delhi gang rape. Photo courtesy of Dawn: <a href="http://bit.ly/1cAFLRP">http://bit.ly/1cAFLRP</a></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">Whether it is ‘external things’, a ‘flash-point issue’ or ‘precipitating factors’; the individual must make a connection between new events and how they affect the current status quo. A set of critical skills must be in place, as well as a desire to participate in civic life. (Brundidge and Rice 2009, as well as Montgomery et al. 2004) Richard Wurman, the american graphic designer, refers to this in his book ‘Information Anxiety’. He posits that there is an ‘ever-widening gap’; a ‘black hole’ between data and knowledge that limits our ability to make sense of information; even if it is vital for our context and survival. “The opportunity is that there is so much information; the catastrophe is that 99 percent of it isn’t meaningful or understandable” (Wurman et. al 2001) How do we reconcile this challenge with Tactical Technology’s mandate? What is the turning point between exposure to information and engagement in civic action?</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">In this post two issues behind information dissemination have been explored:</p>
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<li style="text-align: justify;">The risk of creating homogeneous political discussions by catering only to middle class’ interests; overlooking diversity of political expression in the public discourse. </li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">The need for offline communities to facilitate information dissemination on the ground and mainstream the technical and financial support offered by collectives such as Tactical Technology. </li></ul>
<p style="text-align: justify;" class="callout">The next question is how info-activism creates the connections between data and information to trigger civic engagement, and on this note, we proceed to analyse the role of the ‘signifier’ in information dissemination on the next post. Part two post will look at the strategy, design and technology behind the symbols and sequences of information, and how these determine the citizen’s perception of its ability to create change.</p>
<h2></h2>
<p>Access Part 2: Information Design, following this link:</p>
<h2 style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">Sources:</h2>
<ol>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Biekart, Kees, and Alan Fowler. "Transforming Activisms 2010+: Exploring Ways and Waves." Development and Change 44, no. 3 (2013): 527-546.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Brundidge, J.S. & Rice, R.E. (2009). Political engagement online: Do the information rich get richer and the like-minded more similar? In Chadwick, A. and Howard, N.H. (eds.), Routledge Handbook of Internet Politics (pp. 144-156). New York: Routledge</li>
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<li style="text-align: justify;">Shah, Nishant “Whose Change is it Anyways? Hivos Knowledge Program. April 30, 2013.</li>
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For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/making-change/tactical-technology-information-is-power'>http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/making-change/tactical-technology-information-is-power</a>
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No publisherDenisse AlbornozResearchers at WorkWeb PoliticsMaking ChangeDigital Natives2015-04-17T10:36:01ZBlog Entry