The Centre for Internet and Society
http://editors.cis-india.org
These are the search results for the query, showing results 151 to 165.
Digital Native: Delete Facebook?
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/indian-express-nishant-shah-april-8-2018-digital-native-delete-facebook
<b>You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The article was <a class="external-link" href="http://indianexpress.com/article/technology/social/digital-native-delete-facebook-5127198/">published in Indian Express</a> on April 8, 2018.</p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; "><span>One fine day, we all woke up and were told that </span><a href="http://indianexpress.com/about/facebook/">Facebook</a><span> sold our data to Cambridge Analytica and then they made dastardly profiles of us to target us with advertisement and political propaganda, so, we made a beeline for #DeleteFacebook. The most surprising part about the expose is how much of a non-event it is. We have been warned, at least since the Edward Snowden revelations, if not earlier, that our data is the new oil, coal and gold. It is being used as a resource, it is being mined from our everyday digital transactions, and it is precious because it can result in a massive social engineering without our consent or knowledge. Ever since Facebook started expanding its domain from being a friends-poke-friends-with-livestock website, we have been warned that the ambition of Facebook was never to connect you with your friends but to be your friend.</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span><span>Time and again, we have been told that the sapient Facebook algorithm remembers everything you say and do, anticipates all your future needs, and listens to the most banal litany of your life. More than your mom, your partner or your shrink, it’s the Facebook algorithm which is interested in all your quotidian uselessness. It is not the stranger who accesses your post that should worry you. The biggest perpetrator of privacy violations on Facebook is Facebook itself. There is good reason why a company that offers its prime products for free is valuated as one of the richest corporations in the world. The product of Facebook – it has always been known – is us.</span></span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span><span><span>Why, then, are we suddenly taken aback at the fact that Facebook sold us? And while we are sharing our thoughts (ironically on Facebook) about deleting our profiles, the question that remains is this: How much of your digital life are you willing to erase? Because, and I am sorry if this pricks your filter bubble, Facebook’s problem is not really a Facebook problem. It is almost the entire World Wide Web, where we lost the battle for data ownership and platform openness more than two decades ago. Name one privately owned free service that you use on the internet and I will show you the section in its “terms and services” where you have surrendered your data. In fact, you can’t even find government services, tied up with their private partners, where your data is safe and stored in privacy vaults where it won’t be abused.</span></span></span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span><span><span><span>It is time to realise that the popular ’90s meme “All your base are belong to us” is the lived reality of our digital lives. As we forego ownership for convenience, as our governments sold our sovereignty for profits, and as digital corporations became behemoths that now have the capacity to challenge and write our constitutional and fundamental rights, we are waking up to a battle that has already been fought and resolved. A large part of our physical hardware to access the internet is privately owned. This means that almost all our PCs, tablets, phones, servers are owned and open to exploitation by private companies. Every time your phone does an automatic update or your PC goes into house-cleaning mode, you have to realise that you are being stored, somewhere in the cloud in ways that you cannot imagine.</span></span></span></span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span><span><span><span><span>It is tiring to hear this alarm and panic around Facebook’s data trading. Not only is it legal, it is something that has been happening for a while, most of us have been aware of it, and we have resolutely ignored it because, you know, cute cats. If somebody tells you that they are against privately owned physical property and are going to start a revolution to take away all private property and make it equally shared with the public, you would laugh at them because they are arriving at the battle scene after the war is over. This digital wokeness trend to #DeleteFacebook is the digital equivalent of that moment. If you want to fight, fight the governments and nations who can still protect us. Participate in conversations around Internet governance. Take responsibility to educate yourself about the politics of how the digital world operates. But stop trying to feel virtuous because you pulled out of a social media network, pretending that that is the end of the problem.</span></span></span></span></span></p>
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For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/indian-express-nishant-shah-april-8-2018-digital-native-delete-facebook'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/indian-express-nishant-shah-april-8-2018-digital-native-delete-facebook</a>
</p>
No publishernishantSocial MediaPrivacyInternet GovernanceFacebookResearchers at Work2018-05-06T03:08:25ZBlog EntryMaking Humanities in the Digital: Embodiment and Framing in Bichitra and Indiancine.ma
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/making-humanities-in-the-digital-embodiment-and-framing-in-bichitra-and-indiancine.ma
<b>The growth of the internet and digital technologies in the last couple of decades, and the emergence of new ‘digital objects’ of enquiry has led to a rethinking of research methods across disciplines as well as innovative modes of creative practice. This chapter authored by Puthiya Purayil Sneha (published in 'Making Things and Drawing Boundaries: Experiments in the Digital Humanities' edited by Jentery Sayers) discusses some of the questions that arise around the processes by which digital objects are ‘made’ and made available for arts and humanities research and practice, by drawing on recent work in text and film archival initiatives in India.</b>
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<p>Through an exploration of an online film archive, Indiancine.ma, and a digital variorum of Rabindranath Tagore’s works, Bichitra, developed at Jadavpur University, Kolkata, the chapter engages with the processes of making and studying digital objects as creative and analytical, affective, and embodied. Drawing also on observations from a study on mapping digital humanities work in India, the chapter explores conceptual and material processes of the digital to understand how they affect research and practice in the humanities. These also allow for a new perspectives to understand the condition of digitality we inhabit today, as well as the possibilities it offers for the humanities.</p>
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<p>This chapter authored by Puthiya Purayil Sneha was published in <a class="external-link" href="https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/making-things-and-drawing-boundaries"><strong>Making Things and Drawing Boundaries: Experiments in the Digital Humanities</strong></a> (2017), edited by Jentery Sayers, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, London.</p>
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For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/making-humanities-in-the-digital-embodiment-and-framing-in-bichitra-and-indiancine.ma'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/making-humanities-in-the-digital-embodiment-and-framing-in-bichitra-and-indiancine.ma</a>
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No publishersneha-ppResearchFeaturedPublicationsDigital HumanitiesResearchers at Work2018-06-25T12:50:36ZBlog EntryDesigning Urban Nervous Systems
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/designing-urban-nervous-system
<b>Dr. Anupam Saraph will be holding a talk on 'Designing urban nervous systems' at the CIS on Tuesday, March 27, 2018 at 3:30 p.m. The talk will revolve around looking at cities as living organisms, with nervous systems at the center of their being. </b>
<h3 style="text-align: justify;">Dr. Anupam Saraph</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Dr. Saraph is a future designer and an expert on complex systems. He holds a PhD in designing sustainable systems from the faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences of the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, the Netherlands. He has worked on building digital governance solutions and sustainable and resilient organizations with government and civil society organizations.</p>
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For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/designing-urban-nervous-system'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/designing-urban-nervous-system</a>
</p>
No publisherambikaComplex systemsUrban studiesResearchers at WorkEvent2018-04-20T05:28:32ZEventDigital Native: A new road to justice
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/indian-express-nishant-shah-march-25-2018-digital-native-a-new-road-to-justice
<b>Making the List takes courage and strength. It involves the formation of a new collective of care.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The article was published in the <a class="external-link" href="http://indianexpress.com/article/technology/social/digital-native-a-new-road-to-justice-5109557/">Indian Express</a> on March 25, 2018.</p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">I want to tell you today about an incredible and inspiring young woman — let us call her Hope, because that is the pseudonym she uses online, in order to talk about the current state of digital activism in the face of #MeToo movements and #List politics.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">I first met Hope in South Africa. She joined a series of workshops we were conducting on digital natives around online activism, and she was 19 at the time. In one of the conversations, she recounted the story that pushed her into activism. It was the gruesome story of a fellow student in school, who was raped and sexually abused by four other male students in the school. The men used their cellphones to record this act on school campus. The young survivor, traumatised by the incident, did not want to make the names of the perpetrators public or confront them by identifying them. The videos that emerged did not show the faces of the four young men. And the authorities, in the school, and in regulation, kept silent in the face of viral outrage online.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">When the people responsible for justice abdicated their responsibilities, young people, including students in the school, decided to take matters in their own hands. They conducted digital forensic investigations on the videos to trace them back to the devices and identities. They crowdsourced identification of the four young men involved by analysing voices, marks, mannerisms, and bodies. The four men were publicly named in an online list. Hope was a part of this group. She told us that it took the courage and collective care of more than 10,000 people to finally bring these abusers to public light and, eventually, to justice. She also told us that when her core group started these activities of naming, they were threatened, bullied, coerced and persecuted by others defending the men. Every time they tried to bring the matter to light, they were blocked, harassed and attacked.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">To name names, and to ask that they be brought to justice, seemed like an impossible thing. Any attempt at translating the shadow knowledge of whisper groups from human memory to digital storage met with resistance. Even when the case went to court, the young women who mobilised the organisation of this entire online movement were questioned and chastised for being vigilantes. Hope and her community were first questioned about their integrity, and later dismissed as clicktivists who don’t do any real work. The questioning came from authorities who felt pressured into taking up something that they would rather remain silent about. The dismissal came from traditional civil society organisations that remained excluded from this process and refused to accept the validity and the critical role that these young people play in transforming how we live.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">That was in 2009. It is disheartening and alarming that these approaches that seek to silence young people who want change persist in 2018. Last year, we saw the emergence of the list in the wake of the global #metoo context. Even when the first names were made public, the authorities tried to dismiss it because it had no credibility, and there were traditional groups that sought to silence it because it did not follow their established processes of intervention making in the field of sexual abuse. There are many troubles with the list — it sometimes flattens out the entire landscape of abuse and does not qualify the intensities that mark abuse in all its variety. It doesn’t allow us to understand that abuse is a genre and there are multiple forms of it which do not only take the form of physical sexual violence. It does not allow for negotiation and commits to memory the names which might be, perhaps, undeserving of the negative attention.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">And yet, we need to recognise, that the very act of making the list is one of courage and strength. It is not an individual attempt but the formation of a new collective of care. And just like other forms of digital organisation and activism, it has invisible labour, often performed by women, that remains unacknowledged. To dismiss the listmakers as finger-tip activists is to betray the ignorance and insecurity that one faces when confronted with new modes of direct action, informal collectives that digital networks produce. The list will continue to be a problem, and it will only do what lists can do — bring to light things that are being erased or forgotten. But to deny legitimacy or credibility to the list-making; and, hence, to negate the physical and affective labour behind such lists that can make people accountable — if not offer total justice — is a kind of abuse of power that needs to be questioned and called out.</p>
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For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/indian-express-nishant-shah-march-25-2018-digital-native-a-new-road-to-justice'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/indian-express-nishant-shah-march-25-2018-digital-native-a-new-road-to-justice</a>
</p>
No publishernishantResearchers at Work2018-03-25T03:44:34ZBlog EntryDigital native: Our lonely connected lives
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/indian-express-nishant-shah-march-11-2018-digital-native-our-lonely-connected-lives
<b>Even as the UK last month announced the appointment of Minister of Loneliness, which sounds more like the title of the next Arundhati Roy novel, it is worth examining why we are so alone in the age of hyperconnectivity.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The article was published in the<a class="external-link" href="http://indianexpress.com/article/technology/social/digital-native-our-lonely-connected-lives-5092696/"> Indian Express</a> on March 11, 2018</p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">It is time for us to introduce the idea of Schrodinger’s Loneliness. Because one of the biggest threats and promises of digitally-networked lives is loneliness. When you are online, you are connected and alone at the same time. Technology utopias are premised on the idea that greater connectivity will lead to greater collectivity, and time and again, they have been proven right. New forms of socially mediated communication and technologies have led to the formation of unprecedented communities and networks at personal and global scales. For voices, identities, and bodies who were always silenced, discriminated against or punished, the digital web has found a space of respite, of belonging, and of organising. We have witnessed more acts of speaking up, calling out, and resistance across the globe as old voices find new channels of communication and find solidarity in their coming together.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Technology dystopias, simultaneously, have also painted terrifying pictures of human loneliness amplified by the digital isolation that often gets celebrated as personalisation. Stories emerge of people being bullied, silenced, and excluded from the digital webs, often ending in fatal consequences as the final promise of the web as an emancipatory space fails. The Black Mirror-like predictions show that under the aegis of anonymous action and alienated interaction, some of the darkest and most depraved human actions and fantasies emerge. We have now seen that those who cannot bear the burden of the digital lightness of being often find themselves burdened under the heavy cloaks of loneliness. And this loneliness often gets exacerbated because so many of our digital interactions which give the impression of connection, are actually transactions supported and fueled by shallow, illusionary intimacy.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Even as the UK last month announced the appointment of Minister of Loneliness, which sounds more like the title of the next Arundhati Roy novel, it is worth examining why we are so alone in the age of hyperconnectivity. In his provocative science fiction series called the Three Body Problem, Chinese author Cixin Liu had proposed a sociology for the cosmic worlds. Liu suggested that the universe is such a dark space of competing resources that loneliness — the hiding from others, and not letting them know that you exist — is a primary survival instinct. To connect is to bear the risk of attack, infection, and annihilation.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Liu’s science fiction proposition might only bear corroboration at the moment of extra terrestrial interaction in some unforeseen future, but it does open up an interesting proposition: When we choose to be alone and celebrate loneliness as our default. It is an indication not just of a personal choice or problem but a symptom of the fact that increasingly we are building hostile and dark societies where the best survival option is to disconnect. Perhaps, the digital solitude that we seek and the networked loneliness that we seem to be sliding into, is not just about the temptations and seductions of living with algorithms and interfacing with virtual reality. Maybe, it is also a sign that the digital worlds that we are building are a response to the increasingly difficult universes that we live in.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Despite the emergence of the global web and the promises of equity, equality, fairness, and justice that have long been mounted on technologisation, we do witness a world where the predators and hunters far outnumber the hunted. While digital networks have brought out a fascinating possibility of organised solidarity, they have also created alarming expressions of anger, hatred and xenophobia around the world. In the supreme moment of fake truth politics enabled by the filter bubbles of manipulative algorithms owned by profiteering companies and governments, the world seems to be balanced on the sine curve of a silicon chip. Across the world, we see the rise of fascist governments and expressions of hatred, where people are lynched to death by power hungry vigilantes, and communities are dislocated by resource-hunting corporations. Global populations are experiencing poverty, hunger, and an erosion of foundational human rights even as they get unfettered access to digital technologies. As IT companies surpass the economic and political strengths of nation states, we see new violations and new strategies of manipulation without accountability and safeguards.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The rise of the digital has not just been the moment of resistance, it has been a coup. The world as we know it has not only changed, but it has been replaced, and in this new version of the rebooted world, the user is perhaps the most disenfranchised and precarious. It is not really a wonder that being disconnected might be the last chance for survival.</p>
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For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/indian-express-nishant-shah-march-11-2018-digital-native-our-lonely-connected-lives'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/indian-express-nishant-shah-march-11-2018-digital-native-our-lonely-connected-lives</a>
</p>
No publishernishantResearchers at Work2018-03-25T03:40:33ZBlog EntryDigital Native: AI Manifesto
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/indian-express-nishant-shah-february-25-2018-digital-native-ai-manifesto
<b>Our intention and government action will determine our relationship with AI.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The article was <a class="external-link" href="http://indianexpress.com/article/technology/tech-news-technology/digital-native-artificial-intelligence-manifesto/">published in the Indian Express</a> on February 25, 2018.</p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">There was a time when artificial intelligence was a thing of the future. We had fantasy-filled projections of AI that would assist, serve, augment, and amplify human actions at an unprecedented scale and speed. We dreamt of autonomous machines performing tasks to serve human intention and simplify our lives. The science-fiction future that our past once imagined has become the present that we live in. It is true that we haven’t quite cracked the code on organising equitable and fair societies because of the rise of the machines — quite the contrary — but we have definitely become accustomed to living with AI.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Last week, Prime Minister <a href="http://indianexpress.com/about/narendra-modi">Narendra Modi</a> opened a new research institute for the development of artificial intelligence in Kalina, Maharashtra. In his opening speech, keeping in tune with the ‘Make in India’ campaign that we have been building Digital India dreams on, Modi declared that AI and automation are the new leaps of technology that will transform human race, and that it is important for India to invest in these technologies. In a speech that was largely a political on-brand messaging of local jobs and more investment in digitisation, there was one statement that stood out for me: “It is our intention that will determine outcomes of AI”, said Modi, as he argued for an AI that will help reconcile and diminish the differences in our societies.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">This centring of human intention as critical to the future of artificial intelligence has been missing in too many techno-centric views, which often think of AI as purely a technological evolution. The past decade has shown us enough examples that AI is anything but. Image recognition AI applications have shown their racial biases and tagged non-white faces as animals; the same application has also been used to silence protestors by identifying them in crowds and reporting them to authoritarian governments.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Predictive AI smart city applications have shown a preference towards communities in power, and have affected property rates based on segregation and zoning. Companion AI like Siri and Alexa still struggle to interact with non-standard accents, while companion smart devices like refrigerators and TVs have become gateways for hacking and infecting networks with viruses. AI has triggered seismic collapses in the stock market and rendered more volatile the valuations of new cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. Despite the proof that AI is not only informed but also constrained by human expression, desire, and intention, the Elon Muskian techno-futurism holds sway.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Modi’s lucid recognition of AI as led by human interventions is a welcome break from the otherwise breathless investments that nations, including India, have been making in the development of AI neural learning networks and algorithms. I was surprised that the Prime Minister struck this note of caution and gave us the direction that all AI cannot be good unto itself. We will need to find an ethical code that determines AI for social good, and that the measure of the AI will be in its service of the human intention.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">While I applaud this critical stance, I still wonder, then, why there have been no attempts to “walk this talk”. Across the world, as countries invest in AI development, many of them have simultaneously developed ministries, committees, and communities to examine, question and bring out a manifesto for what artificial intelligence can and cannot do. In Japan, a ministry works on developing a framework of artificial intelligence for social good. In China, there are ongoing conversations about ethical conduct of AI. In Singapore, AI standards include ethical checks and balances that ensure that it cannot be used for rogue purposes. In India, however, when it comes to these critical public conversations, there has been a vacuum. Even in systems like <a href="http://indianexpress.com/article/what-is/what-is-aadhaar-card-and-where-is-it-mandatory-4587547/">Aadhaar</a>, which have now continually been critiqued for being invasive, there is very little attention paid to conditions of privacy, safety, and social good.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">I know that we are still in the emergent phase of AI, and even more nascent in India. However, I take hope in Modi’s words that, for once, the government will understand ethics, social justice interventions and designs to be as critical to AI development as innovation and technology hubs; and, hopefully, there will be resources and thought invested in building a manifesto for living with AI.</p>
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For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/indian-express-nishant-shah-february-25-2018-digital-native-ai-manifesto'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/indian-express-nishant-shah-february-25-2018-digital-native-ai-manifesto</a>
</p>
No publishernishantResearchers at Work2018-03-17T11:02:55ZBlog EntryResearch Symposium on Digital Transitions in Cultural and Creative Industries in India, New Delhi, Feb 27-28
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/digital-transitions-in-cultural-and-creative-industries-in-india-symposium-2018
<b>It is our privilege to collaborate with LabEx ICCA (Université Paris 13), UNESCO New Delhi, Centre for Social Sciences and Humanities (CSH), and Centre d'études de l'Inde et de l'Asie du Sud (CEIAS), to organise a Research Symposium on Digital Transitions in Cultural and Creative Industries in India. The symposium gathers researchers and practitioners engaging with the changing landscape of cultural and creative industries in India in the context of the rapid expansion of digital technologies and social media. We invite you to join us for a critical exploration of the prevalent discourse around cultural and creative industries, to identify what could be the different forms of digital creative and cultural industries developing in India, and how they problematise the questions of cultural expression, knowledge production, creativity, and labour.</b>
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<h4>Venue: <a href="https://www.google.com/maps/place/UNESCO+NEW+DELHI/@28.5962104,77.1766346,17z/data=!4m12!1m6!3m5!1s0x390d1d69e65aea35:0x95c8f02076400bf2!2sUNESCO+NEW+DELHI!8m2!3d28.5962104!4d77.1788233!3m4!1s0x390d1d69e65aea35:0x95c8f02076400bf2!8m2!3d28.5962104!4d77.1788233?hl=en" target="_blank">Conference Room, UNESCO New Delhi, 1 San Martin Marg, Chanakyapuri, New Delhi, 110021</a> (<em>Note: Please bring your identity document to enter the UNESCO premises</em>)</h4>
<h4>RSVP: Registration is closed</h4>
<h4>Booklet: <a href="https://github.com/cis-india/website/raw/master/docs/labex-icca-cis-unesco_symposium-2018_booklet.pdf">Download</a> (PDF)</h4>
<h4>Programme: <a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/files/research-symposium-on-transitions-in-cultural-and-creative-industries-in-india-programme-2018/at_download/file">Download</a> (PDF)</h4>
<h4>Poster: <a href="https://raw.githubusercontent.com/cis-india/website/master/img/labex-icca-cis-unesco_symposium-2018_poster.png">Download</a> (PNG)</h4>
<h4>Organisers: <a href="https://icca.univ-paris13.fr/" target="_blank">LabEx ICCA, Université Paris 13</a>, <a href="http://www.unesco.org/new/en/newdelhi" target="_blank">UNESCO New Delhi</a>, <a href="http://csh-delhi.com/" target="_blank">Centre for Social Sciences and Humanities (CSH)</a>, <a href="http://ceias.ehess.fr/" target="_blank">Centre d'études de l'Inde et de l'Asie du Sud (CEIAS)</a>, and the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), India</h4>
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<img src="digital-transitions-in-cultural-and-creative-industries-in-india-symposium-2018/leadImage" alt="Research Symposium on Digital Transitions in Cultural and Creative Industries in India, New Delhi, Feb 27-28" width="50%" />
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<h3><strong>Concept Note</strong></h3>
<p>Digital technologies involve, accompany and provoke changes in the structuring of industrial sectors. How are they more particularly transforming the creation, production, distribution processes in cultural and creative industries? What are reconfigurations and challenges associated with the rise in power of actors from the industries of communication and information? What are the new stakeholder strategies, economic models and power relationships involved? Does digital have the effect of empowering the smallest actors / self-employed / freelancers or on the contrary does it allow large players to relieve themselves of the promotion, production costs on individual creator?</p>
<p>A growing interest in fields such as digital humanities, new media, digital cultures and the Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums (GLAM) sector is another important development here. The rise of a number of digital initiatives in arts and humanities practice, research and teaching has also brought up significantly the question of new skills or expertise required in these fields. The need for digital literacy and ‘re-skilling’ to adapt to new forms of arts and humanities practice in a digital environment has often come with much criticism, as it is viewed as an effort towards vocationalisation and professionalization of these disciplines, a result of the changing mandates of the university and higher education in general. How do we then productively engage with these questions of skill, expertise and labour that goes into the building of new digital industries, which are often located within and at the periphery of academia and creative practices? Importantly, how can concerns about a perceived conflict of creativity and industry be addressed as these transformations take place rapidly with the advent of the digital is an important point of focus.</p>
<p>A critical exploration of the prevalent discourse around creative industries would offer ways of identifying what could be the different forms of digital creative and cultural industries developing in India, and how they problematize for us questions of cultural expression, knowledge production, creativity and labour. The conflation and overlap of both ‘cultural’ and ‘creative industries’ and the location of these terms within a larger discourse around policy, economic development, livelihoods and rights, takes on different dimensions post the digital turn. In the context of initiatives like Digital India, and efforts to consolidate an IPR regime, the implications of policy reforms for creative work, especially that performed within informal/underground economies and in the cultural heritage sector are many. These discussions would inform and draw from the ongoing efforts in fostering of a digital economy in India, and the many ways in which it determines cultural production in the rest of the world.</p>
<p>Topics that will be addressed at the symposium include, but are not restricted to:</p>
<p>- Digital turns and transformations in cultural and creative industries</p>
<p>- Media infrastructure, digital platforms, and changing landscape of actors</p>
<p>- Digital transitions in the Indian news industry</p>
<p>- Online/offline lives of creative industries and media consumption</p>
<p>Presented by the Labex ICCA and the Center for Internet and Society (CIS), the symposium will gather Indian, French, and international specialists in the cultural industries, new media and technology, information and communication sciences, and social sciences but also professionals and industrial actors in the cultural and artistic sectors. The event is driven an ambition to promote the creation of an interdisciplinary and inter-institutional Franco-Indian research network to initiate, develop and share research on cultural industries in India and more widely in South Asia.</p>
<h4>Organising Committee</h4>
<p>- Christine Ithurbide (LabEx ICCA, Université Paris 13 / CSH)</p>
<p>- Philippe Bouquillion (LabEx ICCA, Université Paris 13)</p>
<p>- Vibodh Parthasarathi (Jamia Millia Islamia)</p>
<p>- Sumandro Chattapadhyay (The Centre for Internet and Society)</p>
<p>- Puthiya Purayil Sneha (The Centre for Internet and Society)</p>
<p> </p>
<h3><strong>Symposium Programme (Draft)</strong></h3>
<h4>First Day – Tuesday, February 27, 2018</h4>
<p>10:00-10:30<br />
<strong>Tea and Coffee</strong></p>
<p>10:30-11:00<br />
<strong>Welcoming Address</strong><br />
<em>Snigdha Bisht (UNESCO Cultural Department)</em><br />
<strong>Introductions</strong><br />
<em>Shailendra Sigdel (UNESCO Institute for Statistics), Christine Ithurbide (LabEx ICCA / CSH), and Vibodh Parthasarathi (Jamia Millia Islamia)</em></p>
<p>11:00-12:30<br />
<strong>Session 1: Digital Opportunities and Challenges in the Cultural Industries</strong><br />
<em><strong>Speakers:</strong> Tanishka Kachru (National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad), Akshaya Kumar (IIT Indore), and Vivan Sharan (KOAN Advisory)<br />
<strong>Chair:</strong> Christine Ithurbide (LabEx ICCA / CSH)</em></p>
<p>12:30-13:30<br />
<strong>Lunch</strong></p>
<p>13:30-15:00<br />
<strong>Session 2: Digital Transitions in the News Landscape</strong><br />
<em><strong>Speakers:</strong> Zeenab Aneez (Freelance Journalist), Ravichandran Bathran (Dalit Camera), and Franck Rebillard (University of Paris 3 – Sorbonne Nouvelle and Labex ICCA)<br />
<strong>Chair:</strong> Vibodh Parthasarathi (Jamia Millia Islamia)</em></p>
<p>15:00-15:30<br />
<strong>Tea and Coffee</strong></p>
<p>15:30-17:00<br />
<strong>Session 3: Technology, Creativity, and (Re)Skilling</strong><br />
<em><strong>Speakers:</strong> Padmini Ray Murray (Srishti School of Art Design and Technology), Sneha Raghavan (Asia Art Archive), and Xenia Zeiler (University of Helsinki)<br />
<strong>Chair:</strong> Puthiya Purayil Sneha (The Centre for Internet and Society)</em></p>
<h4>Second Day – Wednesday, February 28, 2018</h4>
<p>10:00-10:30<br />
<strong>Tea and Coffee</strong></p>
<p>10:30-12:30<br />
<strong>Session 4: Digital Platforms and Media Distribution</strong><br />
<em><strong>Speakers:</strong> Narendra Ganesh (KPMG), Mae Thomas (Maed in India), Philippe Bouquillion (Université Paris 13 / LabEx ICCA), and Nikhil Pahwa (Medianama)<br />
<strong>Chair:</strong> Sumandro Chattapadhyay (The Centre for Internet and Society)</em></p>
<p>12:30-13:30<br />
<strong>Lunch</strong></p>
<p>13:30-15:00<br />
<strong>Session 5: Copyright, Creative Content, and Rights of Performers</strong><br />
<em><strong>Speakers:</strong> Nandita Saikia (Lawyer), Anubha Sinha (The Centre for Internet and Society), and Manojna Yeluri (Artistik License)<br />
<strong>Chair:</strong> Neha Paliwal (Sahapedia)</em></p>
<p>15:00-15:30<br />
<strong>Tea and Coffee</strong></p>
<p>15:30-17:00<br />
<strong>Session 6: Technologies of Aesthetic Imagi/nation</strong><br />
<em><strong>Speakers:</strong> Farrah Miranda (Artists), Rashmi Munikempanna (Artist), Swati Janu (Architect), and Tara Atluri (Writer, Researcher, Artist)<br />
<strong>Chair:</strong> Tara Atluri (Writer, Researcher, Artist)</em></p>
<p>17:00-18:00<br />
<strong>Concluding Remarks</strong><br />
<em><strong>Speakers:</strong> Christine Ithurbide (LabEx ICCA / CSH), Neha Paliwal (Sahapedia), Philippe Bouquillion (Université Paris 13 / LabEx ICCA), Puthiya Purayil Sneha (The Centre for Internet and Society), Tara Atluri (Writer, Researcher, Artist), and Vibodh Parthasarathi (Jamia Millia Islamia)<br />
<strong>Chair:</strong> Sumandro Chattapadhyay (The Centre for Internet and Society)</em></p>
<p> </p>
<h3><strong>Location of Venue</strong></h3>
<iframe src="https://www.google.com/maps/embed?pb=!1m18!1m12!1m3!1d3503.1188754990826!2d77.17663461441647!3d28.596210382432034!2m3!1f0!2f0!3f0!3m2!1i1024!2i768!4f13.1!3m3!1m2!1s0x390d1d69e65aea35%3A0x95c8f02076400bf2!2sUNESCO+NEW+DELHI!5e0!3m2!1sen!2sin!4v1518344368273" frameborder="0" height="450" width="600"></iframe>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/digital-transitions-in-cultural-and-creative-industries-in-india-symposium-2018'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/digital-transitions-in-cultural-and-creative-industries-in-india-symposium-2018</a>
</p>
No publishersumandroDigital NewsRAW EventsDigital EconomyDigital KnowledgeDigital MediaCreative IndustriesResearchers at Work2018-02-26T11:04:24ZEventInternet Researchers' Conference 2018 (IRC18): Offline, February 22-24, Sambhaavnaa Institute
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc18
<b>We are proud to announce that the third edition of the Internet Researchers' Conference series will be held at the Sambhaavnaa Institute, Kandbari (Himachal Pradesh) during February 22-24, 2018. This annual conference series was initiated by the Researchers@Work (RAW) programme at CIS in 2016 to gather researchers, academic or otherwise, studying internet in/from India to congregate, share insights and tensions, and chart the ways forward. The *offline* is the theme of the 2018 edition of the conference (IRC18), and the conference agenda will be shaped by nine sessions selected by all the teams that submitted session proposals, and an independent paper track consisting of six presentations.</b>
<p> </p>
<h4>Venue: <a href="http://www.sambhaavnaa.org/" target="_blank">Sambhaavnaa Institute</a>, Kandbari, Palampur, Himachal Pradesh, 176061</h4>
<h4>Travel Information: <a href="http://www.sambhaavnaa.org/contact/how-to-reach-us/" target="_blank">Getting to Sambhaavnaa</a> (Sambhaavnaa Institute)</h4>
<h4>Weather in Kandbari: <a href="https://www.accuweather.com/en/in/palampur/198333/daily-weather-forecast/198333?day=8" target="_blank">10°-20°c with possibility of light shower</a> (AccuWeather)</h4>
<h4>Registration: <a href="https://goo.gl/forms/H4kYubotpBgN5hFE3" target="_blank">RSVP</a> (Google Drive)</h4>
<h4>Agenda: <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1KvfsYRCafNcjoGkocVRxbsH_N9dI51k7me7nC8R1LY4/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">Conference Programme</a> (Google Drive)</h4>
<h4>Poster: <a href="https://raw.githubusercontent.com/cis-india/irc/master/irc18/IRC18_Poster.png" target="_blank">Download</a> (JPG)</h4>
<hr />
<img src="https://cis-india.org/raw/irc18-offline-call/image" alt="IRC18: Offline - Call for Sessions" width="45%" />
<img src="https://raw.githubusercontent.com/cis-india/irc/master/irc18/IRC18_Poster.png" alt="IRC18: Offline - Poster" width="45%" />
<h3><strong>IRC18: Offline</strong></h3>
<p>Does being offline necessarily mean being disconnected? Beyond anxieties such as FOMO, being offline is also seen as disengagement from a certain milieu of the digital (read: capital), an impediment to the way life is organised by and around technologies in general. However, being offline is not the exception, as examples of internet shutdown and acts on online censorship illustrate the persistence and often alarming regularity of the offline even for the ‘connected’ sections of the population.</p>
<p>State and commercial providers of internet and telecommunication services work in tandem to produce both the “online” and the “offline” - through content censorship, internet regulation, generalised service provision failures, and so on. Further, efforts to prioritise the use of digital technologies for financial transactions, especially since demonetisation, has led to a not-so-subtle equalisation of the ‘online economy’ with the ‘formal economy’; thus recognising the offline as the zones of informality, corruption, and piracy. This contributes to the offline becoming invisible, and in many cases, illegal, rather than being recognised as a condition that necessarily informs what it means to be digital.</p>
<p>Who is offline, and is it a choice? The global project of bringing people online has spurred several commendable initiatives in expanding access to digital devices, networks, and content, and often contentious ones such as Free Basics / internet.org, which illustrate the intersectionalities of scale, privilege, and rights that we need to be mindful of when we imagine the offline. Further, the experience of the internet, for a large section of people is often mediated through prior and ongoing experiences of traditional media, and through cultural metaphors and cognitive frames that transcend more practical registers such as consumption and facilitation. How do we approach, study, and represent this disembodied internet – devoid of its hypertext, platforms, devices, it's nuts and bolts, but still tangible through engagement in myriad, personal and often indiscernible ways.</p>
For the third edition of the Internet Researchers’ Conference (IRC18), we invite participants to critically discuss the *offline*. We invite sessions that present or propose academic, applied, creative, or technical works that explore social, economic, cultural, political, infrastructural, or aesthetic dimensions of the *offline*.
<h3><strong>Sessions</strong></h3>
<p><strong>#OnlineGovernanceOfflineGovernment</strong> - Mohammad Javed Alam and Suman Mandal - <a href="https://cis-india.github.io/irc/irc18/sessions/onlinegovernanceofflinegovernment.html">Session Details</a></p>
<p><strong>#WomenInTech</strong> - Priyanka Chaudhuri and Tripti Jain - <a href="https://cis-india.github.io/irc/irc18/sessions/womenintech.html">Session Details</a></p>
<p><strong>#Cyberflesh</strong> - Akriti Rastogi, Ishani Dey, and Sagorika Singha - <a href="https://cis-india.github.io/irc/irc18/sessions/cyberflesh.html">Session Details</a></p>
<p><strong>#RethinkingTheVirtualPublic</strong> - Daisy Barman and Aamir Qayoom - <a href="https://cis-india.github.io/irc/irc18/sessions/rethinkingthevirtualpublic.html">Session Details</a></p>
<p><strong>#FeminismIRL</strong> - Mamatha Karollil, the SIVE Collective, and Tara Atluri - <a href="https://cis-india.github.io/irc/irc18/sessions/feminismirl.html">Session Details</a></p>
<p><strong>#ILoveYou</strong> - Dhiren Borisa and Dhrubo Jyoti - <a href="https://cis-india.github.io/irc/irc18/sessions/iloveyou.html">Session Details</a></p>
<p><strong>#CollectionAndIdentity</strong> - Ravi Shukla, Rajiv Mishra, and Mrutyunjay Mishra - <a href="https://cis-india.github.io/irc/irc18/sessions/collectionandidentity.html">Session Details</a></p>
<p><strong>#FollowUsOffline</strong> - Dinesh, Farah Yameen, Afrah Shafiq, and Bhanu Prakash GS - <a href="https://cis-india.github.io/irc/irc18/sessions/followusoffline.html">Session Details</a></p>
<p><strong>#OfSiegesAndShutdowns</strong> - Chinmayi S. K. and Rohini Lakshané - <a href="https://cis-india.github.io/irc/irc18/sessions/ofsiegesandshutdowns.html">Session Details</a></p>
<h3><strong>Papers</strong></h3>
<p><strong>Slow journalism and the temporalities of the offline</strong> - Akshata Pai - <a href="https://cis-india.github.io/irc/irc18/selected-papers.html#slow-journalism">Paper Abstract</a></p>
<p><strong>Campus campaigns: User perceptions in pre-digital and digital eras</strong> - Arjun Ghosh - <a href="https://cis-india.github.io/irc/irc18/selected-papers.html#campus-campaigns">Paper Abstract</a></p>
<p><strong>The many lives of food: Blogs to books and back</strong> - Dhrupadi Chattopadhyay - <a href="https://cis-india.github.io/irc/irc18/selected-papers.html#lives-of-food">Paper Abstract</a></p>
<p><strong>Feminism in digital age</strong> - Putul Sathe - <a href="https://cis-india.github.io/irc/irc18/selected-papers.html#feminism-digital">Paper Abstract</a></p>
<p><strong>Marathi literary criticism in the era of social media</strong> - Rajashree Patil - <a href="https://cis-india.github.io/irc/irc18/selected-papers.html#marathi-literary-social">Paper Abstract</a></p>
<p><strong>Taking open science offline</strong> - Shreyashi Ray - <a href="https://cis-india.github.io/irc/irc18/selected-papers.html#open-science">Paper Abstract</a></p>
<h3><strong>About the IRC Series</strong></h3>
<p>The Researchers at Work (RAW) programme at the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) initiated the <a href="https://cis-india.github.io/irc/index.html">Internet Researchers' Conference (IRC)</a> series to address these concerns, and to create an annual temporary space in India, for internet researchers to gather and share experiences.</p>
<p>The IRC series is driven by the following interests:</p>
<ul><li>creating discussion spaces for researchers and practitioners studying internet in India and in other comparable regions,</li>
<li>foregrounding the multiplicity, hierarchies, tensions, and urgencies of the digital sites and users in India, accounting for the various layers, conceptual and material, of experiences and usages of internet and networked digital media in India, and</li>
<li>exploring and practicing new modes of research and documentation necessitated by new (digital) objects of power/knowledge.</li></ul>
<p>The <a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/irc16">first edition of the Internet Researchers' Conference</a> series was held in February 2016. It was hosted by the Centre for Political Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University, and was supported by the CSCS Digital Innovation Fund. The <a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/irc17">second Internet Researchers' Conference</a> was organised in partnership with the Centre for Information Technology and Public Policy (CITAPP) at the International Institute of Information Technology Bangalore (IIIT-B) campus on March 03-05, 2017.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc18'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc18</a>
</p>
No publishersumandroResearchers at WorkInternet StudiesEventInternet Researcher's Conference2018-07-02T18:30:52ZBlog EntryJanuary 2018 Newsletter
http://editors.cis-india.org/about/newsletters/Qjanuary-2018-newsletter
<b>January 2018 Newsletter</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span>Dear readers,</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Previous issues of the newsletters can be <a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/about/newsletters">accessed here</a>.</p>
<hr style="text-align: justify; " />
<table class="plain">
<tbody>
<tr>
<th>Highlights</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">The paper titled <a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/patent-working-requirements-and-complex-products">"Patent Working Requirements and Complex Products" </a>has been published in the latest issue of the NYU Journal of Intellectual Property and Entertainment Law. It is one of the outputs of the Pervasive Technology project and has been authored by Prof. Jorge L. Contreras, Paxton M. Lewis, and Rohini Lakshané.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">CIS <a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/submission-to-dipp-at-meeting-with-ip-stakeholders">made a submission to the Department of Industrial Planning and Promotion on mobile patents</a>. CIS offered its assistance on matters aimed at developing a suitable policy framework for SEPs and FRAND in India, and, working towards sustained innovation, manufacture and availability of mobile technologies in India</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">The use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in healthcare in India is increasing with new startups and large ICT companies offering AI solutions for healthcare challenges in the country. <a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/artificial-intelligence-and-the-healthcare-industry-in-india" style="text-align: left; ">The report</a><span style="text-align: left; "> by </span><span>by Yesha Paul, Elonnai Hickok, Amber Sinha and Udbhav Tiwari <span>seeks to map the present state of AI in the healthcare sector in India.</span></span></li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><span><span>About 27% of India's population is still illiterate or barely literate. Most privacy policies and terms of services for web and mobile applications are in English and therefore it is only 10% of us who can actually read them before we provide our consent. The article by Sunil Abraham was <a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/deccan-herald-january-20-2018-sunil-abraham-data-protection-we-can-innovate-leapfrog">published in Deccan Herald</a> on January 20, 2018.</span></span></li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><span><span>CIS <a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/submission-to-trai-consultation-on-inputs-for-formulation-of-national-telecom-policy-2018">made a submission to TRAI Consultation</a> on inputs to the National Telecom Policy. CIS in its submission also recommended what all should be the main objectives of TRAI while drafting the next edition of National Telecom Policy.</span></span></li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><span><span>Under a <a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/raw/life-of-a-tuple-nrc-assam-citizen-identification-infrastructure">research grant from the Azim Premji University CIS</a> has initiated a study of the ongoing updation process of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam and the resultant reform of citizen identification infrastructure in India.</span></span></li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><span><span>The <a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/business-standard-shyam-ponappa-january-3-2018-2g-judgment-of-december-2017">2G judgment of December 2017</a> provides a critique of how no proper evidence was presented on existence of an FCFS policy and its improper implementation, wrote Shyam Ponappa in his article in the Business Standard which was published on January 3, 2018. </span></span></li>
</ul>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p>The following articles were written by CIS members:</p>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/raw/indian-express-nishant-shah-december-3-2017-digital-native-memory-card-is-full">Digital native: Memory card is full</a><span> (Nishant Shah; Indian Express; January 3, 2018).</span></li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/business-standard-shyam-ponappa-january-3-2018-2g-judgment-of-december-2017">The 2G Judgment of December 2017: What Was It About?</a> (Shyam Ponappa; Business Standard; January 3, 2018).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/business-standard-sunil-abraham-january-10-fixing-aadhaar">Fixing Aadhaar: Security developers' task is to trim chances of data breach</a> (Sunil Abraham; Business Standard; January 10, 2018).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/governance-now-elonnai-hickok-another-step-towards-privacy-law-data-protection">Another Step towards Privacy Law</a> (Elonnai Hickok; Governance Now; January 15, 2018).</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/deccan-herald-january-20-2018-sunil-abraham-data-protection-we-can-innovate-leapfrog">Data Protection: We can innovate, leapfrog</a> (Sunil Abraham; Deccan Herald; January 20, 2018).</li>
</ul>
<p><span><br />CIS in the News:</span></p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/economic-times-surabhi-agarwal-and-samanwaya-rautray-from-net-neutrality-to-ibc-and-aadhaar-how-vidhi-is-framing-key-government-legislation">From net neutrality to IBC & Aadhaar, how Vidhi is framing key government legislation</a> (Surabhi Agarwal and Samanwaya Rautray; Economic Times; January 4, 2018).</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/livemint-komal-gupta-january-7-2018-uidai-denies-any-breach-of-aadhaar-database">UIDAI denies any breach of Aadhaar database</a> (Komal Gupta; Livemint; January 7, 2018).</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/livemint-january-9-2018-manasa-venkataraman-ajay-patri-token-security-or-tokenized-security">Token security or tokenized security?</a> (Manasa Venkataraman and Ajay Patri; Livemint; January 9, 2018).</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/economic-times-january-11-2018-uidai-introduces-new-two-layer-security-system-to-improve-aadhaar-privacy">UIDAI introduces new two-layer security system to improve Aadhaar privacy</a> (Economic Times; January 11, 2018).</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/indian-express-january-11-2018-">Hammered government offers Virtual ID firewall to protect your Aadhaar </a>(New Indian Express; January 11, 2018).</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/hindu-yuthika-bhargava-january-11-2018-virtual-aadhaar-id-too-little-too-late">Virtual Aadhaar ID: too little, too late?</a> (Yuthika Bhargava; Hindu; January 11, 2018).</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/bloomberg-quint-january-11-2018-india-to-introduce-virtual-id-for-aadhaar-to-strengthen-privacy">India To Introduce Virtual ID For Aadhaar To Strengthen Privacy</a> (Bloomberg Quint; January 11, 2018).</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/uidais-virtual-id-limited-kyc-does-little-to-protect-aadhaar-data-already-collected-say-critics">UIDAI's Virtual ID, limited KYC does little to protect Aadhaar data already collected, say critics</a> (Business Today; January 12, 2018).</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/ndtv-sukriti-dwivedi-january-13-2018-aadhaar-body-talked-about-virtual-id-7-years-ago-put-it-off-uidai-chief">Aadhaar Body Talked About Virtual ID 7 Years Ago, Put It Off: UIDAI Chief</a> (Sukriti Dwivedi; NDTV; January 13, 2018).</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/deccan-herald-january-14-2018-pranshu-rathee-bengaluru-gives-data-safety-tips-to-panel">Bengaluru gives data safety tips to panel </a>(Deccan Herald; January 14, 2018).</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/hindu-businessline-january-16-2018-sravanthi-challapalli-is-your-personal-information-under-lock-and-key">Is your personal information under lock and key?</a> (Sravanthi Challapalli; Hindu Businessline; January 16, 2018).</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/first-post-january-18-2018-aadhaar-privacy-debate-how-the-12-digit-number-went-from-personal-identifier-to-all-pervasive-transaction-tool">Aadhaar-privacy debate: How the 12-digit number went from personal identifier to all pervasive transaction tool</a> (First Post; January 18, 2018).</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/livemint-komal-gupta-remya-nair-january-24-2018-paytm-payments-bank-woos-corporates-with-digital-incentives">Paytm Payments Bank woos corporates with digital incentives</a> (Komal Gupta and Remya Nair; Livemint; January 24, 2018).</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/business-standard-january-25-2018-alnoor-peermohamed-aadhaars-new-security-measures-are-good-it-is-still-work-in-progress">Aadhaar's new security measures are good, it is still work in progress</a> (Alnoor Peermohamed; Business Standard; January 25, 2018).</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><strong>-----------------------------------</strong><br /><a href="http://cis-india.org/a2k">Access to Knowledge</a> <br /><strong>----------------------------------- </strong><br />Our Access to Knowledge programme currently consists of two projects. The Pervasive Technologies project, conducted under a grant from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), aims to conduct research on the complex interplay between low-cost pervasive technologies and intellectual property, in order to encourage the proliferation and development of such technologies as a social good. The Wikipedia project, which is under a grant from the Wikimedia Foundation, is for the growth of Indic language communities and projects by designing community collaborations and partnerships that recruit and cultivate new editors and explore innovative approaches to building projects.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">►Wikipedia</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><strong>Blog Entries</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/government-of-odisha-adopting-creative-commons-license-to-promote-transparency-and-access-to-knowledge">Government of Odisha adopting Creative Commons License to Promote Transparency and Access to Knowledge</a> (Sailesh Patnaik; January 17, 2018).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/experience-and-learning-outcome-from-wikipedia-education-program">Experience and Learning outcome from Wikipedia Education Program</a> (Lakshmi Karlekar; January 30, 2018).</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><strong>Events Organized</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Marathi_Wikipedia_Workshop_at_Dept._of_Mass_Communication,_Solapur_University">Marathi Wikipedia Workshop at Dept. of Mass Communication, Solapur University</a> (Organized by CIS-A2K and Dept of Mass Communication, Solapur University; Solapur; January 2, 2018).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Marathi_Wikipedia_Workshop_at_Dayanand_College,_Solapur">Marathi Wikipedia Workshop at Dayanand College, Solapur</a> (Organized by CIS-A2K and Dayanand College, Solapur; Solapur; January 3, 2018).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Marathi_Wikipedia_Workshop_at_Willingdon_College,_Sangli">Marathi Wikipedia Workshop at Willingdon College, Sangli</a> (Organized by CIS-A2K and Willingdon College; Sangli; January 5, 2018).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Marathi_Wikipedia_Workshop_at_Govt.Science_%26_Arts_College,_Aurangabad">Marathi Wikipedia Workshop at Govt.Science & Arts College, Aurangabad</a> (Organized by CIS-A2K and Govt.Science & Arts College; Aurangabad; January 9, 2018).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Marathi_Wikipedia_Workshop_at_Dr.Babasaheb_Ambedkar_Marathwada_Vidyapeeth">Marathi Wikipedia Workshop at Dr.Babasaheb Ambedkar Marathwada Vidyapeeth</a> (Organized by CIS-A2K and Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Marathwada University; Aurangabad; January 10, 2018).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Marathi_Wikipedia_Workshop_at_Shivaji_University,_Kolhapur">Marathi Wikipedia Workshop at Shivaji University, Kolhapur </a>(Organized by CIS-A2K and Shivaji University; Kolhapur; January 15, 2018).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://te.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%B0%B5%E0%B0%BF%E0%B0%95%E0%B1%80%E0%B0%AA%E0%B1%80%E0%B0%A1%E0%B0%BF%E0%B0%AF%E0%B0%BE:%E0%B0%B5%E0%B0%BF%E0%B0%95%E0%B1%80%E0%B0%AA%E0%B1%8D%E0%B0%B0%E0%B0%BE%E0%B0%9C%E0%B1%86%E0%B0%95%E0%B1%8D%E0%B0%9F%E0%B1%81/%E0%B0%86%E0%B0%82%E0%B0%A7%E0%B1%8D%E0%B0%B0_%E0%B0%B2%E0%B1%8A%E0%B0%AF%E0%B1%8B%E0%B0%B2_%E0%B0%95%E0%B0%B3%E0%B0%BE%E0%B0%B6%E0%B0%BE%E0%B0%B2/2018/%E0%B0%B5%E0%B0%BF%E0%B0%95%E0%B1%80%E0%B0%A1%E0%B1%87%E0%B0%9F%E0%B0%BE_%E0%B0%95%E0%B0%BE%E0%B0%B0%E0%B1%8D%E0%B0%AF%E0%B0%B6%E0%B0%BE%E0%B0%B2_-_%E0%B0%9C%E0%B0%A8%E0%B0%B5%E0%B0%B0%E0%B0%BF">Wikidata Workshop</a> (Organized by CIS-A2K and Andhra Loyola College; Vijaywada; January 20 - 21, 2018).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/events/train-the-trainer-2018">Train the Trainer 2018</a> (Organized by CIS-A2K; Mysore; January 26 - 28, 2018).</li>
</ul>
<p><span style="text-align: justify; ">►</span><span style="text-align: justify; ">Pervasive Technologies</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><strong>Research Paper</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/patent-working-requirements-and-complex-products">Patent Working Requirements and Complex Products</a> (Jorge L. Contreras, Rohini Lakshané and Paxton M. Lewis; JIPEL NYU Journal of Intellectual Property & Entertainment Law, Vol. 7 - No.1 on January 16, 2018). </li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Submission</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/submission-to-dipp-at-meeting-with-ip-stakeholders">Submission to DIPP at Meeting with IP Stakeholders</a> (Anubha Sinha; January 1, 2018). <i>The submission was made in December 2017 but it was published on the website in January 2018</i>.</li>
</ul>
<p>►Openness</p>
<div style="text-align: justify; ">Our work in the Openness programme focuses on open data, especially open government data, open access, open education resources, open knowledge in Indic languages, open media, and open technologies and standards - hardware and software. We approach openness as a cross-cutting principle for knowledge production and distribution, and not as a thing-in-itself.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify; "><strong>-----------------------------------</strong><span style="text-align: justify; "> </span>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance">Internet Governance</a> <br /><strong>-----------------------------------</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">As part of its research on privacy and free speech, CIS is engaged with two different projects. The first one (under a grant from Privacy International and IDRC) is on surveillance and freedom of expression (SAFEGUARDS). The second one (under a grant from MacArthur Foundation) is on restrictions that the Indian government has placed on freedom of expression online.</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">►Privacy</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><strong>Blog Entry</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/artificial-intelligence-and-the-healthcare-industry-in-india">Artificial Intelligence and the Healthcare Industry in India</a> (Yesha Paul, Elonnai Hickok, Amber Sinha and Udbhav Tiwari (Ecosystem mapping by Shweta Mohandas, Sidharth Ray and Elonnai Hickok. Designed by Saumyaa Naidu under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License; January 26, 2018).</li>
</ul>
<div><strong>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Events Organized</p>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/events/roundtable-on-ai-and-manufacturing-and-services">Roundtable on A.I. and Manufacturing and Service</a>s (TERI, Bengaluru; January 19, 2018).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/events/null-bangalore-meet-january-19">null Bangalore Meet: Special Session on Digital Identity and Privacy</a> (CIS, Bengaluru; January 19, 2018). Sunil Abraham gave a talk.</li>
</ul>
<br />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">►Free Speech and Expression</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Blog Entries</p>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/internet-governance-forum-report-2017">Internet Governance Forum Report 2017</a> (Shweta Mohandas; January 11, 2018).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/mobile-net-ban-during-peaceful-protest-leaves-farmers-confused">Mobile net ban during peaceful protest leaves farmers confused</a> (Shruti Jain; January 19, 2018).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/2018hurt-sentiments2019-cost-udaipur-internet-access-for-four-days">‘Hurt sentiments’ cost Udaipur internet access for four days</a> (Shruti Jain; January 19, 2018).</li>
</ul>
</strong></div>
<div><span style="text-align: justify; "><strong><strong>-----------------------------------</strong></strong><span style="text-align: justify; "> </span>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><strong><a href="http://cis-india.org/telecom">Telecom</a> <br /><strong>----------------------------------- </strong><br /></strong><span>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:</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><strong>Article </strong></p>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/submission-to-trai-consultation-on-inputs-for-formulation-of-national-telecom-policy-2018">Submission to TRAI Consultation on "Inputs for Formulation of National Telecom Policy - 2018"</a> (Pranesh Prakash; January 25, 2018).</li>
</ul>
<div>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><strong>-----------------------------------</strong><br /><a href="http://cis-india.org/raw">Researchers at Work</a> <br /><strong>----------------------------------- </strong><br /><span>The Researchers at Work (RAW) programme is an interdisciplinary research initiative driven by an emerging need to understand the reconfigurations of social practices and structures through the Internet and digital media technologies, and vice versa. It aims to produce local and contextual accounts of interactions, negotiations, and resolutions between the Internet, and socio-material and geo-political processes:</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><strong>Blog Entry</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><strong><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/raw/life-of-a-tuple-nrc-assam-citizen-identification-infrastructure">Life of a Tuple: National Register of Citizens (NRC) and the Reform of Citizen Identification Infrastructure in Assam</a> (Sumandro Chattapadhyay; January 22, 2018). All posts related to the study can be <a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/raw/life-of-a-tuple/">found here</a>.</strong></li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><strong><strong><br /><span>-----------------------------------<br /></span></strong></strong><a href="http://cis-india.org/">About CIS<br /></a><span>----------------------------------- </span></p>
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<p>The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) is a non-profit organisation that undertakes interdisciplinary research on internet and digital technologies from policy and academic perspectives. The areas of focus include digital accessibility for persons with disabilities, access to knowledge, intellectual property rights, openness (including open data, free and open source software, open standards, open access, open educational resources, and open video), internet governance, telecommunication reform, digital privacy, and cyber-security. The academic research at CIS seeks to understand the reconfigurations of social and cultural processes and structures as mediated through the internet and digital media technologies.</p>
<p>► Follow us elsewhere</p>
<div>
<ul>
<li>Twitter:<a href="http://twitter.com/cis_india"> http://twitter.com/cis_india</a></li>
<li>Twitter - Access to Knowledge: <a href="https://twitter.com/CISA2K">https://twitter.com/CISA2K</a></li>
<li>Twitter - Information Policy: <a href="https://twitter.com/CIS_InfoPolicy">https://twitter.com/CIS_InfoPolicy</a></li>
<li>Facebook - Access to Knowledge:<a href="https://www.facebook.com/cisa2k"> https://www.facebook.com/cisa2k</a></li>
<li>E-Mail - Access to Knowledge: <a>a2k@cis-india.org</a></li>
<li>E-Mail - Researchers at Work: <a>raw@cis-india.org</a></li>
<li>List - Researchers at Work: <a href="https://lists.ghserv.net/mailman/listinfo/researchers">https://lists.ghserv.net/mailman/listinfo/researchers</a></li>
</ul>
</div>
<p>► Support Us</p>
<div>Please help us defend consumer and citizen rights on the Internet! Write a cheque in favour of 'The Centre for Internet and Society' and mail it to us at No. 194, 2nd 'C' Cross, Domlur, 2nd Stage, Bengaluru - 5600 71.</div>
<p>► Request for Collaboration</p>
<div>
<p>We invite researchers, practitioners, artists, and theoreticians, both organisationally and as individuals, to engage with us on topics related internet and society, and improve our collective understanding of this field. To discuss such possibilities, please write to Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, at sunil@cis-india.org (for policy research), or Sumandro Chattapadhyay, Research Director, at sumandro@cis-india.org (for academic research), with an indication of the form and the content of the collaboration you might be interested in. To discuss collaborations on Indic language Wikipedia projects, write to Tanveer Hasan, Programme Officer, at <a>tanveer@cis-india.org</a>.</p>
<div><em>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</em>.</div>
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<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/about/newsletters/Qjanuary-2018-newsletter'>http://editors.cis-india.org/about/newsletters/Qjanuary-2018-newsletter</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaAccess to KnowledgeTelecomAccessibilityInternet GovernanceResearchers at Work2018-03-01T01:35:56ZPageLife of a Tuple: National Register of Citizens (NRC) and the Reform of Citizen Identification Infrastructure in Assam
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/life-of-a-tuple-nrc-assam-citizen-identification-infrastructure
<b>We are proud to announce that a research grant from the Azim Premji University has enabled us to initiate a study of the updation process of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam, and the resultant reform of citizen identification infrastructure in India. The study is being led by Khetrimayum Monish and Ranjit Singh, along with Sumandro Chattapadhyay. </b>
<p>The research focuses on two specific aspects of the NRC update:</p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Challenges of legal citizenship: In this context, we will investigate the constitutional acts and provisions for making citizenship claims in India, the historical narratives of identity politics in Assam and its culmination in the exercise of updating the NRC.</li>
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<li style="text-align: justify; ">Challenges of procedurally implementing the NRC update: Here, we plan to explore the subsequent design process of updating the register.</li>
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<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Starting with the first aspect of legally defining Indian citizenship, the project will document and discuss the various legal processes of defining the bureaucratic process of updating NRC that emerge along two sets of concerns at different levels of Indian government. First, at the state level, we will explore the socio-political tensions around illegal immigration from Bangladesh and the history of identity-based politics in Assam. Second, at the level of the central government, we plan to investigate the constitutional and legal rules and provisions that are used to define citizenship in India.</li>
</ul>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/life-of-a-tuple-nrc-assam-citizen-identification-infrastructure'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/life-of-a-tuple-nrc-assam-citizen-identification-infrastructure</a>
</p>
No publishersumandroPolitical Economy of DataNational Population RegisterCitizenshipNRC in AssamResearchResearchers at WorkE-Governance2023-04-27T16:54:24ZBlog EntryDigital native: The age of consent
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/indian-express-nishant-shah-december-31-2017-digitial-native-the-age-of-consent
<b>Just like porn is not real life, all news is not real news. It’s time, therefore, to come of age in the 18th year of this century.
</b>
<p>The article was published in <a class="external-link" href="http://indianexpress.com/article/technology/social/digital-native-the-age-of-consent/">Indian Express</a> on December 31, 2017</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">WE ARE 18 years into this new century. If this century were a person, it would now legally be allowed to vote, to drive, and to engage in sexual activities with other consenting centuries of permissible age. As the century finally becomes ready for adulthood, we need to be giving it some advice. While there are many things about digital rights, responsibilities, and restrictions that it will have to learn, like most teenagers coming of age, I know that the century is not going to listen to me preach, so I am going to grab its attention and talk to it about porn.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Remember, the Internet is all about porn. Ok, so you know that is not true, but your entire future of watching porn and swiping on people you want to watch porn with, depends on the principles of Net Neutrality which is being diminished by private companies that want to profit from your pervert pleasures. Net Neutrality is the principle that ensures that no matter what you are accessing online, as long as you have the physical bandwidth and the infrastructure to access that information, no private company or regulatory body can privilege other people’s access over yours. You are not judged by what you consume and your own perverse and personal access remains unbiased. This is a big deal because it not only allows you to access porn in all your desire, but it also provides a level playing field for new companies, collectives and communities to find equal voice without facing technical discrimination or technological bias.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Second, you will often be told that what you see online is not to be trusted. You definitely need to learn that the world wide web is filled with a variety of information and that you need to make the distinction between porn and real sexual encounters. And while you are doing it, please pay attention to the fact that the same holds true for politics, facts, and information online. Just like porn is not real life, all news is not real news. One sure way of making sure that you can trust the information you consume is by making sure that you validate the sources. Check who is sending the information. Make sure that when you share it, you are sure that what you are sharing is credible. Just like you will not share your nude selfies with your family and friends, make sure you are not sharing untrue information with the circles that trust you. Fact check information before you share, forward, retweet and like posts, train your hands to not be trigger happy.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">And third, you should be able to access porn as long as it is a healthy expression of your sexual fantasy. As you go down the smut route, you will encounter many different forms of porn and while they might titillate and stimulate in unexpected ways, please remember that all porn is not the same. There is porn which is between consenting performers and then there is porn that is shot without the knowledge or permission of the people involved in it. The internet of things has started providing surveillance opportunities in invisible ways, and there are people who use spycams on unsuspecting people, making us unwilling participants in their lives. These videos can destroy people’s lives by shaming, harassing and blackmailing them. Imagine what would happen the next time you are whistling to porntubes and somebody captures a video of it and shares it in your social networks. The next time you come across non-consenting porn, step back and report it or flag it as abuse.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">This goes for all spaces of the internet. The internet is not a utopian place of forced happiness. It amplifies some of our most dangerous and dark desires and practices. However, the joy of the internet is that it is a self organised space and we need to take responsibility for not just our actions but our collective ethical behaviour online. We do not want the internet to be policed, but we definitely want to step up and be sure that it is not abused against those who do not have the power to fight back.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Welcome to adulthood, 2018. May you mature into your heart’s desires and find safe spaces to do it in. And on the way, take the responsibility of protecting the digital network that is going to define who you are and what you grow up to be in the future.</p>
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<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/indian-express-nishant-shah-december-31-2017-digitial-native-the-age-of-consent'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/indian-express-nishant-shah-december-31-2017-digitial-native-the-age-of-consent</a>
</p>
No publishernishantResearchers at Work2018-01-10T02:17:00ZBlog EntryDecember 2017 Newsletter
http://editors.cis-india.org/about/newsletters/december-2017-newsletter
<b></b>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span>Dear readers,</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Previous issues of the newsletters can be <a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/about/newsletters">accessed here</a>.</p>
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<table class="plain">
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<th>Highlights</th>
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<td>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Shruthi Anand <a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/artificial-intelligence-literature-review">wrote a report</a> that seeks to map the development of Artificial Intelligence both generally and in specific sectors culminating in a stakeholder analysis and contributions to policy making.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">CIS made a submission to the Department of Industrial Planning and Promotion on December 7, 2017. CIS also <a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/submission-to-dipp-at-meeting-with-ip-stakeholders">offered its assistance on other matters aimed at developing a suitable policy framework for SEPs and FRAND in India</a>, and, working towards sustained innovation, manufacture and availability of mobile technologies in India.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">The Office of the Controller General of Patents, Designs and Trademarks held a meeting with IP stakeholders on December 7, 2017, chaired by the Secretary, DIPP, to take suggestions on improving procedures and functioning of the Office. <a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/cis-submissions-to-dipp-and-cgptdm-at-meeting-with-ip-stakeholders">Anubha Sinha attended the meeting and requested the DIPP to improve compliance of uploading Form 27s by patentees and ensure proper enforcement of related provisions within the Indian Patent Act, 1970</a>.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">A Kannada Wikipedia orientation workshop was held at the Entrepreneurship Centre, SID, Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru on 26 November, 2017. The <a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/kannada-wikipedia-orientation-workshop-at-iisc-bengaluru">day long event was aimed at adding content to Kannada Wikimedia projects</a> on topics such as ecology, environment, wildlife and sciences of Karnataka.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Shyam Ponappa <a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/business-standard-december-6-2017-shyam-ponappa-the-tragedy-of-the-unused-commons">wrote an article on the tragedy of commons</a> in the Business Standard on December 6, 2017.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Just like porn is not real life, all news is not real news. It’s time, therefore, to come of age in the 18th year of this century, wrote Nishant Shah in an article in the <a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/raw/indian-express-nishant-shah-december-31-2017-digitial-native-the-age-of-consent">Indian Express</a> on December 31, 2017.</li>
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<p>CIS wrote the following articles:</p>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/the-wire-amber-sinha-">New Recommendations to Regulate Online Hate Speech Could Pose More Problems Than Solutions</a> (Amber Sinha; Wire; October 14, 2017). <i>This was published in the month of December on the CIS website</i>.</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/asian-age-amber-sinha-december-3-2017-">Breeding misinformation in virtual space</a> (Amber Sinha; Asian Age; December 3, 2017).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/the-wire-amber-sinha-december-1-2017-inclusive-co-regulatory-approach-possible-building-indias-data-protection-regime">India’s Data Protection Regime Must Be Built Through an Inclusive and Truly Co-Regulatory Approach</a><span> (Amber Sinha; Wire; December 1, 2017).</span></li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/raw/indian-express-nishant-shah-december-3-2017-digital-native-memory-card-is-full">Digital native: Memory card is full</a> (Nishant Shah; Indian Express; December 3, 2017).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/should-aadhaar-be-mandatory">Should Aadhaar be mandatory?</a> (Amber Sinha; Deccan Herald; December 9, 2017).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/raw/indian-express-nishant-shah-december-31-2017-digitial-native-the-age-of-consent">Digital native: The age of consent</a> (Nishant Shah; Indian Express; December 31, 2017).</li>
</ul>
<p><span>CIS in the News:</span></p>
<ul>
<li>
<div id="_mcePaste"><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/aadhaar-linking-deadline-approaches-here-are-all-the-myths-and-facts">Aadhaar linking deadline approaches: Here are all the myths and facts</a> (Business Today; December 7, 2017).</div>
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<li>
<div id="_mcePaste"><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/the-hindu-peerzada-abrar-december-9-2017-checks-and-balances-needed-to-mass-surveillance-of-citizens-say-experts">Checks and balances needed for mass surveillance of citizens, say experts</a> (Hindu; December 9, 2017).</div>
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<li>
<div id="_mcePaste"><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/masking-personal-data-to-protect-privacy-crucial-for-india-say-experts">Masking personal data to protect privacy crucial for India, say experts</a> (Deepti Govind; Livemint; December 11, 2017).</div>
</li>
<li>
<div id="_mcePaste"><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/factor-daily-sriram-sharma-december-12-2017-paranoid-about-state-surveillance-here-s-the-fd-guide-to-living-in-the-age-of-snoops">Paranoid about state surveillance? Here’s the FD Guide to living in the age of snoops</a> (Sriram Sharma; Factor Daily; December 12, 2017).</div>
</li>
<li>
<div id="_mcePaste"><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/deadline-for-linking-bank-accounts-with-aadhaar-to-be-extended-to-31-march">Deadline For Linking Bank Accounts With Aadhaar To Be Extended To 31 March</a> (Komal Gupta and Ramya Nair; Livemint; December 14, 2017).</div>
</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><strong>-----------------------------------</strong><br /><a href="http://cis-india.org/a2k">Access to Knowledge</a> <br /><strong>----------------------------------- </strong><br />Our Access to Knowledge programme currently consists of two projects. The Pervasive Technologies project, conducted under a grant from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), aims to conduct research on the complex interplay between low-cost pervasive technologies and intellectual property, in order to encourage the proliferation and development of such technologies as a social good. The Wikipedia project, which is under a grant from the Wikimedia Foundation, is for the growth of Indic language communities and projects by designing community collaborations and partnerships that recruit and cultivate new editors and explore innovative approaches to building projects.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">►Copyright & Patent</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><strong>Submission</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/submission-to-dipp-at-meeting-with-ip-stakeholders">Submission to DIPP at Meeting with IP Stakeholders</a> (Anubha Sinha; December 12, 2017).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/cis-submissions-to-dipp-and-cgptdm-at-meeting-with-ip-stakeholders">CIS' Submission to DIPP and CGPDTM at meeting with IP Stakeholders</a> (Anubha Sinha; December 13, 2017).</li>
</ul>
<p>►Openness</p>
<div style="text-align: justify; ">Our work in the Openness programme focuses on open data, especially open government data, open access, open education resources, open knowledge in Indic languages, open media, and open technologies and standards - hardware and software. We approach openness as a cross-cutting principle for knowledge production and distribution, and not as a thing-in-itself.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify; "></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; "><span>►</span>Wikipedia</div>
<div style="text-align: justify; "><strong>Blog Entries</strong></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; ">
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/christ-university-wikipedia-education-program-internship-1">Christ University Wikipedia Education Program Internship</a> (Manasa Rao; December 11, 2017).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/wikipedia-orientation-program-at-rotary-club-of-salem">Wikipedia Orientation Program at Rotary Club of Salem</a> (Manasa Rao; December 11, 2017).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/nichole-saad-from-the-wikimedia-foundation-visits-christ-university">Nichole Saad from the Wikimedia Foundation visits Christ University</a> (Manasa Rao; December 17, 2017).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/kannada-wikipedia-orientation-workshop-at-iisc-bengaluru">Kannada Wikipedia Orientation Workshop at IISc, Bengaluru</a> (A. Gopalakrishna; December 19, 2017).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/wikimedia-technical-workshop-at-savitribai-phule-pune-university">Wikimedia Technical Workshop at Savitribai Phule Pune University</a> (Manasa Rao; December 19, 2017).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/marathi-wikipedia-workshop-for-sandarbh-science-magazine-writers">Marathi Wikipedia workshop for Sandarbh Science magazine writers</a> (Manasa Rao; December 19, 2017).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/marathi-wikipedia-vishwakosh-workshop-for-science-writers-in-iucaa-pune">Marathi Wikipedia - Vishwakosh Workshop for Science writers in IUCAA, Pune</a> (Manasa Rao; December 20, 2017).</li>
</ul>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify; "></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; "><strong>-----------------------------------</strong><span style="text-align: justify; "> </span>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance">Internet Governance</a> <br /><strong>-----------------------------------</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">As part of its research on privacy and free speech, CIS is engaged with two different projects. The first one (under a grant from Privacy International and IDRC) is on surveillance and freedom of expression (SAFEGUARDS). The second one (under a grant from MacArthur Foundation) is on restrictions that the Indian government has placed on freedom of expression online.</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span>►</span>Free Speech & Expression</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><strong>Blog Entries</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/it-hurts-them-too">It Hurts Them Too</a> (Mir Farhat; December 19, 2017).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/internet-shutdowns-a-modern-day-siege">Internet Shutdowns: A Modern-day Siege</a> (Ayswarya Murthy; December 19, 2017).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/days-to-derail-work-of-two-generations">Days to Derail Work of Two Generations?</a> (Mahesh Kumar Shiva; December 19, 2017).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/sorry-business-closed-until-internet-is-back-on">Sorry, Business Closed until Internet is Back On</a> (Nalanda Tambe; December 19, 2017).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/stock-brokers-dont-love-an-internet-shutdown">Stock Brokers Don't Love an Internet Shutdown</a> (Binita Parikh; December 19, 2017).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/was-there-an-unofficial-internet-shutdown-in-bhu-ntpc">Was there an Unofficial Internet Shutdown in BHU & NTPC?</a> (Saurabh Sharma; December 19, 2017).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/how-media-beat-the-shutdown-in-darjeeling">How Media beat the Shutdown in Darjeeling</a> (Manish Adhikary; December 19, 2017).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/internet-and-the-police-tool-to-some-trash-to-others">Internet and the Police: Tool to Some, Trash to Others</a> (Manoj Kumar; December 19, 2017).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/business-woes-from-saharanpurs-internet-ban">Business Woes from Saharanpur's Internet Ban</a> (Mahesh Kumar Shiva; December 19, 2017).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/amid-unrest-in-the-valley-students-see-a-dark-wall">Amid Unrest in the Valley, Students See a Dark Wall</a> (Aakash Hassan; December 19, 2017).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/the-rising-stars-in-music-loath-losing-their-only-platform">The Rising Stars in Music Loath Losing their Only Platform</a> (Umar Shah and Mir Farhat; December 19, 2017).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/internet-and-banking-a-trust-broken">Internet and Banking: A Trust Broken</a> (Roshan Gupta; December 19, 2017).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/online-or-offline-protest-goes-on">Online or Offline, Protest Goes On</a> (Junaid Nabi Bazaz; December 19, 2017).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/digital-banking-dreams-interrupted">Digital Banking Dreams: Interrupted</a> (Safeena Wani; December 19, 2017).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/will-darjeeling-regain-the-trust-of-tourists">Will Darjeeling Regain the Trust of Tourists?</a> (Roshan Gupta; December 20, 2017).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/silence-on-the-dera-front">Silence on the Dera Front</a> (Sat Singh; December 20, 2017).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/isps-in-kashmir-grappling-with-mounting-losses-amid-recurrent-shutdowns">ISPs in Kashmir Grappling with Mounting Losses Amid Recurrent Shutdowns</a> (Safina Wani; December 20, 2017).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/taxes-in-the-time-of-internet-shutdown">Taxes in the Time of Internet Shutdown</a> (Avijit Sarkar; December 20, 2017).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/every-town-had-its-jio-dara">Every Town had its Jio Dara</a> (Ayswarya Murthy; December 20, 2017).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/education-and-employment-opportunities-tossed-out-of-the-window">Education and Employment Opportunities Tossed out of the Window</a> (Roshan Gupta; December 20, 2017).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/darjeeling2019s-e-commerce-crumbles-after-100-days-sans-internet">Darjeeling’s e-commerce Crumbles after 100 days sans Internet</a> (Avijit Sarkar; December 20, 2017).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/e-administration-efforts-are-lame-ducks-without-internet">E-administration Efforts are Lame Ducks without Internet</a> (Amit Kumar and Sat Singh; December 20, 2017).</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><br />►Privacy</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><strong>Blog Entries</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/artificial-intelligence-literature-review">Artificial Intelligence - Literature Review</a><span> (Shruthi Anand; edited by Amber Sinha and Udbhav Tiwari with research assistance by Sidharth Ray; December 16, 2017).</span></li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/ai-and-healthcare-in-india-looking-forward">AI and Healthcare in India: Looking Forward</a> (Shweta Mohandas; edited by Roshni Ranganathan; December 16, 2017).</li>
</ul>
<br />
<div><strong>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span>Participation in Event</span></p>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/figi-symposium-2017">FIGI Symposium 2017</a> (Organized by Telecommunication Standardization Bureau (TSB) of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), jointly with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the World Bank and the Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructure (CPMI) and support of the Government of India; November 29 - December 1, 2017; Bangalore). Elonnai Hickok participated in the symposium and spoke in the "Security, Infrastructure, and Trust" working group on big data and privacy in DFS.</li>
</ul>
</strong></div>
<div><span style="text-align: justify; "><strong><strong>-----------------------------------</strong></strong><span style="text-align: justify; "> </span>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><strong><a href="http://cis-india.org/telecom">Telecom</a> <br /><strong>----------------------------------- </strong><br /></strong><span>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:</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><strong>Article </strong></p>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/business-standard-december-6-2017-shyam-ponappa-the-tragedy-of-the-unused-commons">The tragedy of the unused commons</a> (Shyam Ponappa; Business Standard; December 6, 2017).</li>
</ul>
<div>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span>-----------------------------------<br /></span><a href="http://cis-india.org/">About CIS<br /></a><span>----------------------------------- </span></p>
<div class="keyResearch">
<div id="parent-fieldname-text-8a5942eb6f4249c5b6113fdd372e636c">
<div style="text-align: justify; ">
<p>The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) is a non-profit organisation that undertakes interdisciplinary research on internet and digital technologies from policy and academic perspectives. The areas of focus include digital accessibility for persons with disabilities, access to knowledge, intellectual property rights, openness (including open data, free and open source software, open standards, open access, open educational resources, and open video), internet governance, telecommunication reform, digital privacy, and cyber-security. The academic research at CIS seeks to understand the reconfigurations of social and cultural processes and structures as mediated through the internet and digital media technologies.</p>
<p>► Follow us elsewhere</p>
<div>
<ul>
<li>Twitter:<a href="http://twitter.com/cis_india"> http://twitter.com/cis_india</a></li>
<li>Twitter - Access to Knowledge: <a href="https://twitter.com/CISA2K">https://twitter.com/CISA2K</a></li>
<li>Twitter - Information Policy: <a href="https://twitter.com/CIS_InfoPolicy">https://twitter.com/CIS_InfoPolicy</a></li>
<li>Facebook - Access to Knowledge:<a href="https://www.facebook.com/cisa2k"> https://www.facebook.com/cisa2k</a></li>
<li>E-Mail - Access to Knowledge: <a>a2k@cis-india.org</a></li>
<li>E-Mail - Researchers at Work: <a>raw@cis-india.org</a></li>
<li>List - Researchers at Work: <a href="https://lists.ghserv.net/mailman/listinfo/researchers">https://lists.ghserv.net/mailman/listinfo/researchers</a></li>
</ul>
</div>
<p>► Support Us</p>
<div>Please help us defend consumer and citizen rights on the Internet! Write a cheque in favour of 'The Centre for Internet and Society' and mail it to us at No. 194, 2nd 'C' Cross, Domlur, 2nd Stage, Bengaluru - 5600 71.</div>
<p>► Request for Collaboration</p>
<div>
<p>We invite researchers, practitioners, artists, and theoreticians, both organisationally and as individuals, to engage with us on topics related internet and society, and improve our collective understanding of this field. To discuss such possibilities, please write to Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, at sunil@cis-india.org (for policy research), or Sumandro Chattapadhyay, Research Director, at sumandro@cis-india.org (for academic research), with an indication of the form and the content of the collaboration you might be interested in. To discuss collaborations on Indic language Wikipedia projects, write to Tanveer Hasan, Programme Officer, at <a>tanveer@cis-india.org</a>.</p>
<div><em>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</em>.</div>
</div>
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<div class="documentActions"></div>
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<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/about/newsletters/december-2017-newsletter'>http://editors.cis-india.org/about/newsletters/december-2017-newsletter</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaAccess to KnowledgeTelecomAccessibilityInternet GovernanceResearchers at Work2018-03-17T11:12:26ZPageDigital native: Memory card is full
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/indian-express-nishant-shah-december-3-2017-digital-native-memory-card-is-full
<b>We train ourselves to forget as our devices store everything. How do we remember things that matter?
</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The article was <a class="external-link" href="http://indianexpress.com/article/technology/tech-news-technology/digital-native-memory-card-is-full-4964383/">published in Indian Express</a> on December 3, 2017</p>
<hr style="text-align: justify; " />
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span style="text-align: justify; ">#metoo #himtoo #privacy #bigdata #artificialintelligence #machinerights #Aadhaarprivacy #ItHappensToEverybody #chillingeffects #cyberbullying #Anonymity #checkyourprivilege #botlogic #bluewhale #kidsonline #alonetogether #digitalfreedom #freespeech #righttolove #righttobeforgotten #digitalIndia #mobility #digitalcare #emojis #freeexpression #Internetblackouts #DigitallyDisconnected #attentioneconomies #Digitalcurrencies #algorithmicfriendships #MakeInIndia #AadhaarLeaks #freepress #wisdomofmobs #snapchatgate #digitalivesmatter #ClosedWebs #dataconsent #rightobeforgotten #surveillance #digitalcitizens #fakenews #righttoprivacy #alternativefacts #neveragain #alwaysremember #Nogoingback #Notallmen #yesallmen #dalitlivesmatter</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span style="text-align: justify; "> </span></p>
<p id="_mcePaste" style="text-align: justify; ">As you stare at the mass of hashtags, I want you to play a little game with me. These are all hashtags associated with social movements, political protests, cultural phenomena and individual impulses that have marked 2017. Over this year, I have written about these. Most of these events were discussed a lot and they must have come to your attention in our viral webs. I want you to look at each of these hashtags and try to remember what events and circumstances, concerns and questions, alarms and crises were associated with them.</p>
<div style="text-align: justify; "></div>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span>I must confess that I only have faint memories of some of these events and a complete blank spot on the specificities of a few. At the time of writing, these were questions that were urgent, critical, and all-consuming. And yet, in the brief span of a few months, they have receded from my memory. The only reason I was able to list all these topics was not because I remembered them, but because they were stored and archived in the digital web, and I was able to pull them out through a search query.</span></p>
<div style="text-align: justify; "></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; ">
<p>This relationship between memory and storage is both intriguing and alarming. One of the joys of being human is to be able to forget. One of our strongest coping mechanisms is our capacity to make things fade in memories, so that we can live without being trapped in our pasts. The ability to forget also allows us to forgive and to move on, focusing on corrections rather than mistakes.</p>
<div></div>
<p>However, when it comes to the digital, memory and storage are the same thing. Human memory falters. But digital storage, outside of a system crash or a black-out is always there, and ready to be converted into memory at the click of a search button. This infinite storage produces a new crisis for us in our digitally mediated lives. It means that even when we forget and depend on our social networks forgetting, the algorithmic databases of storage will not forget our actions and reactions.</p>
<div></div>
<p>Now, we also train ourselves to forget because we are assured that these new artificial memories will retain the information longer. As we rely on algorithmic prompts to remind us of things from our past, we lose our capacity to remain engaged and committed to different questions and ideas that are important to us. This reliance on digital storage rather than human memory enables a culture of fragmented and multitasking politics, where we pay momentary attention to the hashtag of the day and forget it quickly as new things grab our attention.</p>
<div></div>
<div>It poses crucial questions to our ways of thinking about social collectives: Who are we when our machines remember what we have forgotten? What happens when somebody animates forgotten memories through querying digital storage? How do we ensure that the prompts for the new do not draw us away from remembering things that are critical? Human civilisations have depended on cultures of memory making. All our cultural products — even the pictures of dancing babies and cute cats — are indeed ways by which we create collective memories of who we are and who we want to be. However, we are increasingly living in times where our capacity to forget is superseded by our machines of storage. We need to find new ways of figuring out how we can remember things that need longer memory, and how we can be forgotten from actions which need to be un-stored.</div>
</div>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/indian-express-nishant-shah-december-3-2017-digital-native-memory-card-is-full'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/indian-express-nishant-shah-december-3-2017-digital-native-memory-card-is-full</a>
</p>
No publishernishantResearchers at Work2018-01-10T02:08:57ZBlog EntryNovember 2017 Newsletter
http://editors.cis-india.org/about/newsletters/november-2017-newsletter
<b>November 2017 Newsletter</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span>Dear readers,</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Previous issues of the newsletters can be <a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/about/newsletters">accessed here</a>.</p>
<hr style="text-align: justify; " />
<table class="plain">
<tbody>
<tr>
<th>Highlights</th>
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<tr>
<td>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Anubha Sinha took part in the 35th Session of the World Intellectual Property Organization (“WIPO”) Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (“SCCR”) at Geneva from 13 November, 2017 to 18 November, 2017. <a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/35th-sccr-cis-question-to-dr-rostama-on-her-study-on-the-impact-of-the-digital-environment-on-copyright-legislation">She posed a question on the agenda</a> 'Other Matters' on behalf of CIS on Day 5, 17 November, 2017. CIS also gave statements on <a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/35th-sccr-cis-statement-on-limitations-and-exceptions-for-libraries-and-archives">Limitations and Exceptions for Libraries and Archives</a> and <a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/35th-sccr-cis-statement-on-grulac-proposal-for-analysis-of-copyright-in-the-digital-environment">GRULAC Proposal for Analysis of Copyright in the Digital Environment</a>.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/cis-a2k-signs-mou-with-telangana-government">CIS-A2K signed a Memorandum of Understanding</a> with the Telangana Government’s IT, Electronics & Communications Department with to catalyse the development of the Wikimedia movement in Telangana and improve the state of free-licensed digital content in Telugu and Urdu.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">The Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology, Government of India has published the Guidelines for Indian Government Websites (GIGW). Nirmita Narasimhan on behalf of the Centre for Internet & Society <a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/comments-on-guidelines-for-indian-government-websites">gave comments on GIGW</a>.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">The government has already set up a Nudge unit; now, it should apply the Nobel laureate's insights on auctions relating to essential infrastructure wrote Shyam Ponappa in <a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/business-standard-november-1-2017-nobel-laureate-richard-thaler-views-on-auctions">an article in the Business Standard</a> on November 1, 2017.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">DataMeet and CIS have <a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/openness/steps-towards-integrated-open-water-data">collaborated on identifying and addressing the challenges to open up and integrate data and information</a> in the water sector.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">CIS <a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/counter-comments-on-trais-consultation-paper-on-privacy-security-and-ownership-of-data-in-telecom-sector">commented on the Consultation Paper on Privacy, Security and Ownership of Data in Telecom Sector</a> published by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India on August 9, 2017.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">CIS <a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/a-comparison-of-legal-and-regulatory-approaches-to-cyber-security-in-india-and-the-united-kingdom">published a report that compares laws and regulations in the United Kingdom and India</a> to see the similarities and disjunctions in cyber security policy between them.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">CIS <a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/cis-comments-on-promoting-local-telecom-equipment-manufacturing">sent comments on TRAI consultation paper on promoting local telecom equipment manufacturing</a>. The submission drew on research primarily done in the Pervasive Technologies project.</li>
</ul>
</td>
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</tbody>
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<p>CIS in the News:</p>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/telangana-today-november-8-2017-alekhya-hanumanthu-big-data-for-governance">Big Data for governance</a> (Alekhya Hanumanthu; Telangana Today; November 4, 2017).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/accessibility/news/the-times-of-india-shalini-umachandrani-november-7-2017-how-tech-is-making-life-easier-for-differently-abled">How tech is making life easier for differently-abled</a> (Shalini Umachandrani; November 7, 2017).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/india-today-priya-pathak-november-8-2017-india-today-conclave-next-2017-aadhaar-was-rushed-says-mp-rajeev-chandrashekhar">India Today Conclave Next 2017: Aadhaar was rushed, says MP Rajeev Chandrashekhar</a> (Priya Pathak; India Today; November 8, 2017).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/youth-ki-awaaz-roopa-sudarshan-what-you-need-to-worry-about-before-linking-your-mobile-number-with-aadhaar">What You Need To Worry About Before Linking Your Mobile Number With Aadhaar </a>(Roopa Raju and Shekhar Rai; Youth Ki Awaaz; November 8, 2017).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/news-18-lt-general-retd-ds-hooda-data-is-new-oil-and-human-mind-the-new-battlefield-india-must-wake-up-now">OPINION | Data is New Oil and Human Mind the New Battlefield. India Must Wake Up Now</a> (Lt. General (Retd.) D. S. Hooda; News18.com; November 11, 2017).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/shaikh-zoaib-saleem-livemint-november-14-2017-aadhaar-seeding-benefits-and-concerns">Aadhaar seeding: benefits and concerns</a> (Shaikh Zoaib Saleem; Livemint; November 14, 2017).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/livemint-november-23-2017-ronald-abraham-privacy-issues-exist-even-without-aadhaar">Privacy issues exist even without Aadhaar</a> (Ronald Abraham; November 15, 2017).</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/accessibility/news/cima-sarah-oh-november-15-2017-openness-nine-ways-civil-society-groups-have-mobilized-to-defend-internet-freedom">Advocating for Openness: Nine Ways Civil Society Groups Have Mobilized to Defend Internet Freedom</a> (Centre for International Media Assistance; November 15, 2017).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/livemint-november-16-2017-komal-gupta-govt-working-to-set-up-financial-cert-to-tackle-cyber-threats">Govt working to set up financial CERT to tackle cyber threats</a> (Komal Gupta; Livemint; November 16, 2017).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/ciso-mag-financial-cert-to-combat-cyber-threats-says-mos-home-affairs">Financial CERT to combat cyber threats, says MoS home affairs</a> (CISO MAG; November 17, 2017).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/financial-express-november-20-2017-government-websites-made-aadhaar-details-public">UIDAI admits 210 government websites made Aadhaar details public</a> (Financial Express; November 20, 2017).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/sunny-sen-livemint-november-23-2017-indias-internet-missionaries">India’s internet missionaries: The women Google is relying on to spread its Next Billion message</a> (Sunny Sen; Livemint; November 21, 2017).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/economic-times-surabhi-agarwal-november-23-2017-fcc-plan-to-repeal-net-neutrality-may-not-impact-india">FCC’s plan to repeal net neutrality may not impact India</a> (Surabhi Agarwal; Economic Times; November 23, 2017).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/hindustan-times-kul-bhushan-november-23-2017-indian-activists-slam-fcc-decision-to-ditch-net-neutrality">Indian activists slam FCC decision to ditch net neutrality</a> (Kul Bhushan; Hindustan Times; November 23, 2017).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/economic-times-surabhi-agarwal-november-23-2017-fcc-plan-to-repeal-net-neutrality-may-not-impact-india">FCC’s plan to repeal net neutrality may not impact India</a> (Surabhi Agarwal; Economic Times; November 23, 2017).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/digit-subhrojit-mallick-november-24-2017-why-should-you-keep-a-close-eye-on-net-neutrality-debate-in-us">Why should you keep a close eye on the net neutrality debate in the US</a> (Subhrojit Mallick; Digit; November 24, 2017).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/livemint-november-24-2017-komal-gupta-cyberattacks-a-significant-threat-to-democracy-modi">Cyberattacks a significant threat to democracy: Modi</a> (Komal Gupta; Livemint; November 24, 2017).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/hindustan-times-aman-sethi-november-27-2017-aadhaar-verification-at-airports-raises-need-for-stricter-data-privacy-regulations">Aadhaar verification at airports raises need for stricter data privacy regulations</a> (Aman Sethi; Hindustan Times, November 27, 2017).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/accessibility/news/idap-interview-series-interview-x-with-nirmita-narasimhan">IDAP Interview Series: Interview with Nirmita Narasimhan</a> (IDIA Law; November 27, 2017).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/livemint-november-28-2017-komal-gupta-govt-releases-white-paper-on-data-protection-framework">Govt releases white paper on data protection framework</a> (Komal Gupta; Livemint; November 28, 2017).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/accessibility/news/deccan-herald-november-30-2017-bengalureans-to-receive-helen-keller-award">Bengalureans to receive Helen Keller award</a> (Deccan Herald; November 30, 2017).</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">-------------------------------------<br /><a href="http://cis-india.org/accessibility">Accessibility & Inclusion</a> <br />------------------------------------- <br />India has an estimated 70 million persons with disabilities who don't have access to read printed materials due to some form of physical, sensory, cognitive or other disability. As part of our endeavour to make available accessible content for persons with disabilities, we are developing a text-to-speech software in 15 languages with support from the Hans Foundation. The progress made so far in the project can be accessed <a href="http://cis-india.org/accessibility/resources/nvda-text-to-speech-synthesizer">here</a>.</p>
<div><strong>Submission</strong></div>
<div>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/comments-on-guidelines-for-indian-government-websites">Comments on Guidelines for Indian Government Websites</a> (Nirmita Narasimhan; November 26, 2017).</li>
</ul>
</div>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><strong>-----------------------------------</strong><br /><a href="http://cis-india.org/a2k">Access to Knowledge</a> <br /><strong>----------------------------------- </strong><br />Our Access to Knowledge programme currently consists of two projects. The Pervasive Technologies project, conducted under a grant from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), aims to conduct research on the complex interplay between low-cost pervasive technologies and intellectual property, in order to encourage the proliferation and development of such technologies as a social good. The Wikipedia project, which is under a grant from the Wikimedia Foundation, is for the growth of Indic language communities and projects by designing community collaborations and partnerships that recruit and cultivate new editors and explore innovative approaches to building projects.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span style="text-align: justify; ">►</span>Copyright & Patent</p>
<ul>
<li>
<div id="_mcePaste"><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/35th-sccr-cis-statement-on-limitations-and-exceptions-for-libraries-and-archives">35th SCCR: CIS Statement on Limitations and Exceptions for Libraries and Archives</a> (Anubha Sinha; November 15, 2017).</div>
</li>
<li>
<div id="_mcePaste"><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/35th-sccr-cis-statement-on-grulac-proposal-for-analysis-of-copyright-in-the-digital-environment">35th SCCR: CIS Statement on Limitations and Exceptions for Libraries and Archives</a> (Anubha Sinha; November 17, 2017).</div>
</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/35th-sccr-cis-question-to-dr-rostama-on-her-study-on-the-impact-of-the-digital-environment-on-copyright-legislation">35th SCCR: CIS' Question to Dr. Rostama on her Study on the Impact of the Digital Environment on Copyright Legislation</a> (Anubha Sinha; November 19, 2017).</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">►Wikipedia</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Blog Entry</p>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/cis-a2k-signs-mou-with-telangana-government">CIS-A2K signs MoU with Telangana Government </a>(Manasa Rao; November 8, 2017).</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<p>►Openness</p>
<div style="text-align: justify; ">Our work in the Openness programme focuses on open data, especially open government data, open access, open education resources, open knowledge in Indic languages, open media, and open technologies and standards - hardware and software. We approach openness as a cross-cutting principle for knowledge production and distribution, and not as a thing-in-itself.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify; "><strong>-----------------------------------</strong><span style="text-align: justify; "> </span>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance">Internet Governance</a> <br /><strong>-----------------------------------</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">As part of its research on privacy and free speech, CIS is engaged with two different projects. The first one (under a grant from Privacy International and IDRC) is on surveillance and freedom of expression (SAFEGUARDS). The second one (under a grant from MacArthur Foundation) is on restrictions that the Indian government has placed on freedom of expression online.</p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; "><span>►Privacy</span></p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; "><strong>Blog Entries</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/a-comparison-of-legal-and-regulatory-approaches-to-cyber-security-in-india-and-the-united-kingdom">A Comparison of Legal and Regulatory Approaches to Cyber Security in India and the United Kingdom</a> (Divij Joshi; edited by Elonnai Hickok; November 12, 2017).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/counter-comments-on-trais-consultation-paper-on-privacy-security-and-ownership-of-data-in-telecom-sector">Counter Comments on TRAI's Consultation Paper on Privacy, Security and Ownership of Data in Telecom Sector</a> (Amber Sinha; November 23, 2017).</li>
</ul>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify; ">
<ul>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><strong>Participation in Event</strong></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/bis-international-seminar-on-internet-of-things">BIS International Seminar on Internet of Things</a> (Organized by BIS; November 15, 2017; India Habitat Centre, New Delhi). Amber Sinha attended the event.</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/internet-universality-indicators-for-a-safe-secure-and-inclusive-cyberspace-for-sustainable-development">Internet Universality Indicators for a Safe, Secure and Inclusive Cyberspace for Sustainable Development</a> (Organized by UNESCO in collaboration with the Ministry of Electronics and IT, Government of India; UNESCO Conference Room, Chanakyapuri, New Delhi; November 17, 2017). Amber Sinha attended the event.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/roundtable-on-data-integrity-and-privacy">Roundtable on Data Integrity and Privacy</a> (Organized by Observer Research Foundation; November 18, 2017). The round table discussion was chaired by Shri Baijayant Panda, Hon'ble Member of Parliament.</li>
</ul>
<br />
<p style="text-align: justify; "><strong><span style="text-align: justify; ">►</span>Cyber Security</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><strong>Blog Entry</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/breach-notifications-a-step-towards-cyber-security-for-consumers-and-citizens">Breach Notifications: A Step towards Cyber Security for Consumers and Citizens</a> (Amelia Andersdotter; November 14, 2017).</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><strong>Event Organized</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/events/roundtable-on-enhancing-indian-cyber-security-through-multi-stakeholder-cooperation">Roundtable on Enhancing Indian Cyber Security through Multi-Stakeholder Cooperation</a> (Indian Islamic Centre; Lodhi Road; New Delhi; November 4, 2017).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/events/open-house-on-security-practices-in-fintech">Open House on Security Practices in FinTech</a> (Organized by CIS and Has Geek; November 17, 2017).</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><strong>Participation in Event</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/multinational-cyber-security-forum-at-university-of-haifa">Multinational Cyber Security Forum at University of Haifa</a> (Organized by Center for Cyber, Law and Policy and University of Haifa in collaboration with the Hewlett Foundation Cyber Initiative; November 5 - 7, 2017). Sunil Abraham participated in the meeting held in Israel.</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/global-commission-on-the-stability-of-cyberspace-gcsc">Global Commission on the Stability of Cyberspace</a> (GCSC) (Organized by GCSC; November 21, 2017; New Delhi). Pranesh Prakash participated in the event.</li>
</ul>
<div><strong>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span>-----------------------------------<br /></span><a href="http://cis-india.org/telecom">Telecom<br /></a><span>----------------------------------- </span></p>
</strong></div>
<div><span style="text-align: justify; ">
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span>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:</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><strong>Article </strong></p>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/business-standard-november-1-2017-nobel-laureate-richard-thaler-views-on-auctions">Nobel Laureate Richard Thaler's Views On Auctions</a> (Shyam Ponappa; Business Standard; November 1, 2017).</li>
</ul>
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<p>Submission</p>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/cis-comments-on-promoting-local-telecom-equipment-manufacturing">Comments on TRAI Consultation Paper on Promoting Local Telecom Equipment Manufacturing</a> (Anubha Sinha; November 26, 2017).</li>
</ul>
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<ul>
</ul>
<div>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><strong>-----------------------------------</strong><br /><a href="http://cis-india.org/raw">Researchers at Work</a> <br /><strong>----------------------------------- </strong><br /><span>The Researchers at Work (RAW) programme is an interdisciplinary research initiative driven by an emerging need to understand the reconfigurations of social practices and structures through the Internet and digital media technologies, and vice versa. It aims to produce local and contextual accounts of interactions, negotiations, and resolutions between the Internet, and socio-material and geo-political processes:</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><strong>Articles</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/raw/indian-express-nishant-shah-november-5-2017-digital-native-rebellion-by-google-doc">Digital native: Rebellion by Google Doc </a>(Nishant Shah; Indian Express; November 4, 2017)</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/raw/indian-express-november-19-2017-nishant-shah-digital-native-let-there-be-life">Digital native: Let there be life</a> (Nishant Shah; Indian Express; November 19, 2017).</li>
</ul>
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<div><strong>-----------------------------------</strong></div>
<p><a href="http://cis-india.org/">About CIS</a> <br /><strong>----------------------------------- </strong><br />The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) is a non-profit organisation that undertakes interdisciplinary research on internet and digital technologies from policy and academic perspectives. The areas of focus include digital accessibility for persons with disabilities, access to knowledge, intellectual property rights, openness (including open data, free and open source software, open standards, open access, open educational resources, and open video), internet governance, telecommunication reform, digital privacy, and cyber-security. The academic research at CIS seeks to understand the reconfigurations of social and cultural processes and structures as mediated through the internet and digital media technologies.</p>
<p>► Follow us elsewhere</p>
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<li>Twitter:<a href="http://twitter.com/cis_india"> http://twitter.com/cis_india</a></li>
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<li>Twitter - Information Policy: <a href="https://twitter.com/CIS_InfoPolicy">https://twitter.com/CIS_InfoPolicy</a></li>
<li>Facebook - Access to Knowledge:<a href="https://www.facebook.com/cisa2k"> https://www.facebook.com/cisa2k</a></li>
<li>E-Mail - Access to Knowledge: <a>a2k@cis-india.org</a></li>
<li>E-Mail - Researchers at Work: <a>raw@cis-india.org</a></li>
<li>List - Researchers at Work: <a href="https://lists.ghserv.net/mailman/listinfo/researchers">https://lists.ghserv.net/mailman/listinfo/researchers</a></li>
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<p>► Support Us</p>
<div>Please help us defend consumer and citizen rights on the Internet! Write a cheque in favour of 'The Centre for Internet and Society' and mail it to us at No. 194, 2nd 'C' Cross, Domlur, 2nd Stage, Bengaluru - 5600 71.</div>
<p>► Request for Collaboration</p>
<div>
<p>We invite researchers, practitioners, artists, and theoreticians, both organisationally and as individuals, to engage with us on topics related internet and society, and improve our collective understanding of this field. To discuss such possibilities, please write to Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, at sunil@cis-india.org (for policy research), or Sumandro Chattapadhyay, Research Director, at sumandro@cis-india.org (for academic research), with an indication of the form and the content of the collaboration you might be interested in. To discuss collaborations on Indic language Wikipedia projects, write to Tanveer Hasan, Programme Officer, at <a>tanveer@cis-india.org</a>.</p>
<div><em>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</em>.</div>
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For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/about/newsletters/november-2017-newsletter'>http://editors.cis-india.org/about/newsletters/november-2017-newsletter</a>
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No publisherpraskrishnaAccess to KnowledgeTelecomAccessibilityInternet GovernanceResearchers at Work2018-01-10T01:57:29ZPageDigital native: Let there be life
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/indian-express-november-19-2017-nishant-shah-digital-native-let-there-be-life
<b>The first robot citizen of the world is from Saudi Arabia, and she has the dubious fame of having more rights than human counterparts in the country.
</b>
<p>The article was <a class="external-link" href="http://indianexpress.com/article/technology/digital-native-let-there-be-life-4942955/">published in Indian Express</a> on November 19, 2017.</p>
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<p> </p>
<p id="_mcePaste" style="text-align: justify; "><img alt="Saudi human robot, Sophia human robot first robot citizen" src="http://images.indianexpress.com/2017/11/sophie-human-robot-759.jpg" /></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span class="custom-caption" style="text-align: start; ">The publicity stunt that Saudi Arabia pulled with Sophia as the first robot citizen, however, does bring to the fore some more disconcerting points. (Image Source: Thinkstock)</span></p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; "><span>Last week, Saudi Arabia made Sophia — a humanoid robot with artificial intelligence and neural networked computation — an honorary citizen. Saudi Arabia, thus, becomes the first country to recognise that the boundaries of human life and technology have been blurring for quite a while. This is not unprecedented because in other countries personhood has been granted to many other non-human agencies. For example, companies like Google, across the globe, have exercised their rights to free speech and expression. In other parts of the world, conversations have emerged around environmental rights where rivers and forests were given human rights in order to save them from exploitation and erasure. In Japan, the committee for the regulation of artificial intelligence for social good, since 2016, has already forwarded the idea of companion robots who will become quasi members of society, and, how artificial intelligence will help these robots integrate into human lives. </span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span>Last week, Saudi Arabia made Sophia — a humanoid robot with artificial intelligence and neural networked computation — an honorary citizen. Saudi Arabia, thus, becomes the first country to recognise that the boundaries of human life and technology have been blurring for quite a while. This is not unprecedented because in other countries personhood has been granted to many other non-human agencies. For example, companies like Google, across the globe, have exercised their rights to free speech and expression. In other parts of the world, conversations have emerged around environmental rights where rivers and forests were given human rights in order to save them from exploitation and erasure. In Japan, the committee for the regulation of artificial intelligence for social good, since 2016, has already forwarded the idea of companion robots who will become quasi members of society, and, how artificial intelligence will help these robots integrate into human lives.</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The publicity stunt that Saudi Arabia pulled with Sophia as the first robot citizen, however, does bring to the fore some more disconcerting points. While this well-calculated public relations gimmick might be positioned to put Saudi Arabia on the innovations map of the future, it does betray the fact that it now has the dubious fame of being a country where female-shaped robots have more rights than human women. In its press conference, Sophia appeared without the traditional headscarf, which is mandatory for all Saudi women to wear in public at all times. Sophia is allowed a voice, an agency and a sense of humour. It has been given the capacity and choice to talk to strangers and, in the future, the freedom to drive cars and stand up for its rights in a way that women in Saudi Arabia can’t.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Sophia, with its humanoid futures rendered in silicon and fibres, also gets citizenship in a country where tens of thousands of immigrant workers — who live in conditions of slavish exploitation — are not allowed citizenship or even permanent residence. Saudi Arabia’s laws do not allow for citizenship by naturalisation. Sophia’s honorary citizenship is yet another signal of how the future of human rights and entitlements is going to be blurred when technological artefacts and artificial intelligences start competing for similar status.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">However, the most interesting part of Sophia’s new found personhood, is that Sophia, in fact, is not an individual entity. The robot might mimic human form and emotions, but, as a product of deep neural networking and machine learning, Sophia is extensively connected to multiple layers of computational data processing. There are super computers processing all its sensory input, algorithms that help it to navigate physical and social structures, distributed databases drawing from a language corpus that help it to formulate meaningful sentences; and, there are multiple artificial intelligence softwares that evolve and change Sophia’s behaviour through pattern recognition and deep learning.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Sophia is not just a thing in isolation. It is a gateway robot that opens up a series of questions of what happens when we actually interact with and invite sapient technologies into our lives. Granting Sophia citizenship also includes granting citizenship to a server situated somewhere else in the world. In fact, if you establish a connection between Sophia and your machine, and manage to merge the two computing systems, your machine could easily make claims to be a part of the extended citizenship that has been granted to Sophia.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">It is important to remember that even as our machines appear more human, more personalised, they are not just a single thing. As we develop new intimacies with our neural networked devices, it is good to take a step back and remember that the rights of humans might still be worth championing over the state of machines.</p>
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For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/indian-express-november-19-2017-nishant-shah-digital-native-let-there-be-life'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/indian-express-november-19-2017-nishant-shah-digital-native-let-there-be-life</a>
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No publishernishantResearchers at Work2018-01-09T16:05:37ZBlog Entry