March 2016 Bulletin

The Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) is happy to share its March 2016 newsletter. Previous issues of the newsletters can be accessed at http://cis-india.org/about/newsletters.

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Accessibility & Inclusion
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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 here.

►NVDA and eSpeak

The workshops were conducted earlier but published recently on our website:

• Report on eSpeak with NVDA Screen Reader and Assistive Technology for Visually Challenged (Organized by National Association for the Blind, New Delhi, Centre for Differently Abled Persons, Bharathidasan University, Tiruchirappalli, and CIS; January 21, 2016; Tiruchirappalli).
• Report on NVDA with E-Speak and BookShare Online Library (Organized by Karna Vidya Technology Centre, Computer and Internet Society, and CIS; February 27, 2016; Chennai).

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Access to Knowledge
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As part of the Access to Knowledge programme we are doing two projects. The first one (Pervasive Technologies) under a grant from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) is for research on the complex interplay between pervasive technologies and intellectual property to support intellectual property norms that encourage the proliferation and development of such technologies as a social good. The second one (Wikipedia) under a grant from the Wikimedia Foundation is for the growth of Indic language communities and projects by designing community collaborations and partnerships that recruit and cultivate new editors and explore innovative approaches to building projects.

►Pervasive Technologies

Article

• Fueling the Affordable Smartphone Revolution in India (Anubha Sinha; The Good Life in Asia's 21st Century Essay Collection; March 16, 2016).

Blog Entries

• Report of the 30th Session of the WIPO SCCR by the Centre for Internet & Society (edited by Nehaa Chaudhari with assistance from Nisha S.K., Aarushi Bansal, Amulya P., and Saahil Dama; March 16, 2016).
• Dataset: Patent Landscape of Mobile Device Technologies in India (Rohini Lakshané; March 31, 2016).

• Patents and Mobile Devices in India: An Empirical Survey (Rohini Lakshané; March 31, 2016)

• Too Clever By Half: Strengthening India’s Smart Cities Plan with Human Rights Protection (Vanya Rakesh; The Wire; March 22, 2016).

• Adoption of Standards in Smart Cities - Way Forward for India (Vanya Rakesh; March 19, 2016).

• Sexual Harassment at ICANN (Padmini Baruah; March 18, 2016).
• CIS' Statement on Sexual Harassment at ICANN55 (Vidushi Marda; March 21, 2016).

• List of Recommendations on the Aadhaar Bill, 2016 - Letter Submitted to the Members of Parliament (Amber Sinha, Sumandro Chattapadhyay, Sunil Abraham, and Vanya Rakesh; March 16, 2016).

• Flaws in the UIDAI Process (Hans Varghese Mathews; Economic & Political Weekly, Journal, Vol. 51, Issue No. 9, February 27, 2016).
• Aadhaar: Still Too Many Problems (Pranesh Prakash; Livemint; March 7, 2016).
• Aadhaar Bill fails to incorporate suggestions by the Standing Committee (Amber Sinha; The Wire; March 10, 2016).
• Are we Losing the Right to Privacy and Freedom of Speech on Indian Internet? (Amber Sinha; March 10, 2016).
• Privacy Concerns Overshadow Monetary Benefits of Aadhaar Scheme (Pranesh Prakash and Amber Sinha; Hindustan Times; March 12, 2016).
• Will Aadhaar Act Address India’s Dire Need For a Privacy Law? (Nehaa Chaudhari; Quint; March 31, 2016).

• A comparison of the 2016 Aadhaar Bill, and the 2010 NIDAI Bill (Vanya Rakesh; March 9, 2016).
• Aadhaar Bill 2016 & NIAI Bill 2010 - Comparing the Texts (Sumandro Chattapadhyay; March 9, 2016).
• The New Aadhaar Bill in Plain English (Amber Sinha, Vanya Rakesh and Vipul Kharbanda; March 11, 2016).
• An Urgent Need for the Right to Privacy (Sumandro Chattapadhyay; March 16, 2016).
• The Law cannot Fix what Technology has Broken! (Japreet Grewal and Sunil Abraham; March 16, 2016).
• The New Bill Makes Aadhaar Compulsory! (Amber Sinha; March 16, 2016).
• Analysis of Aadhaar Act in the Context of A.P. Shah Committee Principles (Vipul Kharbanda; March 17, 2016).
• Vulnerabilities in the UIDAI Implementation Not Addressed by the Aadhaar Bill, 2016 (Pooja Saxena and Vipul Kharbanda; March 21, 2016).

Participation in Events

• GNI-Industry Dialogue Learning Session: Human Rights Impact Assessments and Due Diligence in the ICT sector (Organized by Global Network Initiative; March 11, 2016; Washington D.C.). Elonnai Hickok attended the event.
• RightsCon Silicon Valley 2016 (Organized by RightsCon; Mission Bay Conference Center in San Francisco, California; March 30 - April 1, 2016).

• Connectivity: Let's Apply What We Know (Shyam Ponappa; Business Standard; March 2, 2016).

• TRAI Consultation on Differential Pricing for Data Services - Post-Open House Discussion Submission (Sumandro Chattapadhyay; March 30, 2016).

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

Blog Entry

• Studying Digital Creative Industries in India: Initial Questions (P.P. Sneha; March 17, 2016).

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News & Media Coverage
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• The Crypto Wars Are Global (Joseph Cox; Motherboard; March 4, 2016).
• Govt narrative on Aadhaar has not changed in the last six years: Sunil Abraham (Shreeja Sen; Livemint; March 8, 2016).
• Aadhaar: Govt will not compromise on national security (Shreeja Sen; Livemint; March 9, 2016).
• Hard to broad ban! (Taru Bhatia; Governance Now; March 9, 2016).
• Seven reasons why Parliament should debate the Aadhaar bill (and not pass it in a rush) (Anumeha Yadav; March 11, 2016).
• Aadhaar is actually surveillance tech: Sunil Abraham (Sahil Makkar; Business Standard; March 12, 2016).
• Will Only Legal Backing For Aadhaar Suffice? (Indian Express; March 14, 2016).
• India's billion-member biometric database raises privacy fears (Sanjeev Miglani and Manoj Kumar; March 16, 2016).
• A scheme in India to help the poor raises privacy concerns (John Ribeiro; IDG News Service and CSO; March 16, 2016).
• Pratap Vikram Singh - Why Aadhaar is Baseless? (Governance Now; March 17, 2016).
• Forget privacy, Aadhaar Bill gives too much power to the executive (Aloke Tikku; Sunil Abraham; March 17, 2016).
• In India, Biometric Data Storage Sparks Demands for Privacy Laws (Anjana Pasricha; Voice of America; March 18, 2016).
• Dead and Clicking (Jayanthi Madhukar and Sowmya Rajaram; Bangalore Mirror; March 20, 2016).
• India Still Trying To Turn Optional Aadhaar Identification Number Into A Mandatory National Identity System (TechDirt; March 22, 2016).
• Debate: Five Aadhaar Myths that Don’t Stand Up to Scrutiny (Reetika Khera; March 23, 2016).
• How the government gains when private companies use Aadhaar (M. Rajshekhar and Anumeha Yadav; March 24, 2016).
• Making Aadhaar Mandatory: Gamechanger For Governance? (NDTV; March 24, 2016).
• ICANN Sexual Harassment Case Highlights Lack of Procedure at Global Internet Body (Wire; March 24, 2016).
• Securing the internet’s future (Hindu Businessline; March 25, 2016).
• On Google Maps, JNU top result in search for 'anti-national' (Kim Arora; The Times of India; March 25, 2016).
• Woman Alleges Harassment at Major International Conference (Kavita Patil; Bangalore Mirror; March 30, 2016).

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About CIS
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The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) is a non-profit organisation that undertakes interdisciplinary research on internet and digital technologies from policy and academic perspectives. The areas of focus include digital accessibility for persons with diverse abilities, access to knowledge, intellectual property rights, openness (including open data, free and open source software, open standards, open access, open educational resources, and open video), internet governance, telecommunication reform, digital privacy, and cyber-security. The academic research at CIS seeks to understand the reconfigurations of social and cultural processes and structures as mediated through the internet and digital media technologies.

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