October 2018 Newsletter
Highlights
- Published an article titled "Digital Technology Engaging Pedagogy through Hindi Wikipedia - A Case Study" in International Journal of English Language, Literature in Humanities. The authors of the article were Hindi faculty members of Christ University. Ananth Subray from Centre for Internet & Society provided research assistance.
- Ananth Subray wrote an article "History of Wikipedia Education programme at Christ University" which has given an insight of Christ Wikipedia Education Program, how students are involved in different capacities in the program and shares the best practices of the Education Program.
- CIS-A2K has collaborated with Tribal Research and Training Institute (TRTI) to facilitate development of Open knowledge resources on Community Forest Resource and content development in Wikimedia projects with community participation. These contents will become a part of "Van Bodh Knowledge repository".
- Elonnai Hickok and Arindrajit Basu co-authored a research paper that was published as part of the Briefings from the Research and Advisory Group (RAG) of the Global Commission on the Stability of Cyberspace (GCSC) for the Full Commission Meeting held at Bratislava in 2018.
- Arindrajit Basu in an article published by Oxford Human Rights Hub has argued that artificial Intelligence offers the potential to augment many existing bureaucratic processes and improve human capacity, if implemented in accordance with principles of the rule of law and international human rights norms.
- Agnidipto Tarafder and Arindrajit Basu in an article published in Socio-Legal Review has traced the journey of the recent 377 (Navtej Johar v Union of India) and assessed its societal implications.
- CIS invites applications for *three Research Fellow positions* to undertake field studies of platform-work in two cities, including Bangalore and another city (to be decided). The project seeks to produce a comparative understanding of at least two different kinds of platform-work as unfolding across Indian cities. Each fellow will be responsible for one field study (one form of work in one city) based on their language fluency and research experience.
Articles
- 377 Bites the Dust: Unpacking the long and winding road to the judicial decriminalization of homosexuality in India (Agnidipto Tarafder and Arindrajit Basu; Socio Legal Review; October 11, 2018).
- Digital Native: Time to Walk the Talk (Nishant Shah; Indian Express; October 14, 2018).
- Why Data Localisation Might Lead To Unchecked Surveillance (Pranesh Prakash; Bloomberg Quint; October 15, 2018).
- Discrimination in the Age of Artificial Intelligence (Arindrajit Basu; Oxford Human Rights Hub; October 23, 2018).
- Digital Native: Hashtag Fatigue (Nishant Shah; Indian Express; October 28, 2018).
- Lessons from US response to cyber attacks (Arindrajit Basu; Hindu Businessline; October 30, 2018). The article was edited by Elonnai Hickok.
Media Coverage
- Gmail users beware while giving access (Surupasree Sarmmah; Deccan Herald; October 4, 2018).
- Are online shows obscene? (Anila Kurian; Deccan Herald; October 10, 2018).
- Internet services not to be affected as DNS servers undergo update (Hindustan Times; October 12, 2018).
- Spending too much time on social media? Tech abuse may lead to mental health issues (Divya Shekhar; Economic Times; October 13, 2018).
- Sales of surveillance cameras are soaring, raising questions about privacy (Rahul Sachitanand; Economic Times; October 14, 2018).
- Not Surprised by Indian govt's data localisation directives: Michael Dell (Anand J.; VC Circle; October 17, 2018).
- Factcheck: No, phones of users who provided only Aadhaar as proof of identity won’t be disconnected (Kanishk Karan; Scroll.in; October 18, 2018).
- Rural Indians don’t trust messages on WhatsApp blindly: Survey (Vidhi Choudhary; Hindustan Times; October 19, 2018).
- Brazil’s experience a red flag for WhatsApp in Indian polls, say experts (Vidhi Choudhary; Hindustan Times; October 21, 2018).
- Reliance-Jio Users Complain Of Porn Websites Being Blocked; Company Yet To Issue Official Statement (Logical Indian; October 27, 2018).
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Access to Knowledge
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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.
►Wikipedia
As part of the project grant from the Wikimedia Foundation we have reached out to more than 3500 people across India by organizing more than 100 outreach events and catalysed the release of encyclopaedic and other content under the Creative Commons (CC-BY-3.0) license in four Indian languages (21 books in Telugu, 13 in Odia, 4 volumes of encyclopaedia in Konkani and 6 volumes in Kannada, and 1 book on Odia language history in English).
Peer Reviewed Article
- Digital Technology Engaging Pedagogy through Hindi Wikipedia - A Case Study (Dr. George Joseph,Dr. Sebastian K.A, and Kavitha A with research assistance from Ananth Subray; International Journal of English Language, Literature in Humanities, Volume 6, Issue 8, August 2018).
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Blog Entries
- South India Copyright Workshop (Subodh Kulkarni; October 21, 2018).
- History of Wikipedia Education programme at Christ (Deemed to be University) (Ananth Subray; Wikimedia Blog; October 29, 2018).
Event Organized
- Van Bodh Workshop for content development on Forest Resources at Gadchiroli (Co-organized by TRTI and CIS-A2K; October 2 - 5, 2018).
Participation in Event
- Community Toolkit for Greater Diversity (Organized by Wikipedia Community; Mandrem, Goa; October 5 - 7, 2018). P.P. Sneha participated in the event.
►Copyright and Patent
Media Coverage
- 5th Global Congress On IP And The Public Interest: Successes, Strategies Highlighted (David Branigan; Intellectual Property Watch; October 3, 2018).
Participation in Events
- KEI Seminar on "Appraising the WIPO Broadcast Treaty and its Implications on Access to Culture" (Organized by KEI; Geneva; October 3 - 4, 2018). Anubha Sinha spoke on the panel titled "Rationale, Beneficiaries and Scope (of the Treaty)".
- Stakeholders Consultation on draft WIPO Treaty to Protect Broadcasting Organization (Organized by Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Govt. of India; Copyright Office, New Delhi; October 23, 2018). Anubha Sinha participated in the meeting.
►Openness
Participation in Event
- Panel Discussion on Equitable Access to Knowledge (Organized by DST Centre for Policy Research (IISc); Bangalore; October 23, 2018). Pranesh Prakash was a panelist and moderator at the event.
- Sting job by Hyderabad scientist exposes fake journals (Business Standard; October 11, 2018).
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Internet Governance
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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.
►Privacy
Participation in Events- Confidentiality of Communications and Privacy of Data in the Digital Age (Organized by INCLO and Privacy International; Human Rights Council 39th ordinary session; September 25, 2018). Elonnai Hickok participated in the event.
- Meetings of ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 27 'IT Security techniques' (Organized by Standards Norway with support from NTNU, Microsoft, Telenor, et.al.; Gjøvik, Norway; September 30 - October 4, 2018). Gurshabad Grover participated in the meetings.
- State of Work in India (Organized by Bangalore International Centre, TERI and Azim Premji University; Bangalore; October 3, 2018).
- Technology Foresight Group Tandem Research's AI policy lab on the theme AI and Environment (Organized by Tandem Research; Goa; October 5, 2018). Shweta Mohandas attended a roundtable discussion on artificial intelligence and environment.
- Indian Feminist Judgment Project Workshop (Organized by Jindal Industries; New Delhi; October 6 - 7, 2018). Swaraj Paul Barooah participated in the discussions.
- Community Standards Roundtable Conversations (Organized by Facebook, School of Media & Cultural Studies, and Tata Institute of Social Sciences; Bangalore; October 7, 2018). Ambika Tandon participated in the roundtable discussions.
- Surveillance Stories: Optimizing rights and governance (Organized by National Centre for Biological Sciences; Bangalore; October 16, 2018). Sunil Abraham gave a talk.
- Debating Ethics: Dignity and Respect in Data Driven Life (Organized by International Conference of Data Protection and Privacy Commissioners; Brussels; October 24 - 25, 2018). Elonnai Hickok was a speaker in the panel "Move Slower and Fix Things".
►Cyber Security
Research Paper
- Conceptualizing an International Security Regime for Cyberspace (Elonnai Hickok and Arindrajit Basu; October 26, 2018).
- Roundtable on Cyber-security and the Private Sector (Omidyar Network Office; Bangalore; October 17, 2018).
- CyFy 2018 (Organized by Observer Research Foundation; New Delhi; October 3 - 5, 2018).
Telecom
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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:
Article
- Policies & the Public Interest (Shyam Ponappa; Business Standard; October 4, 2018 and Organizing India Blogspot; October 4, 2018).
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Researchers at Work
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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:
- Call for Research Fellows - Field Studies of Platform-Work: The Research Fellows will be associated with CIS from December 2018 to June 2019, undertake fieldwork, participate in two research workshops, and prepare an Ethnographic Report based on the fieldwork.
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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 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.
► Follow us elsewhere
- Twitter: http://twitter.com/cis_india
- Twitter - Access to Knowledge: https://twitter.com/CISA2K
- Twitter - Information Policy: https://twitter.com/CIS_InfoPolicy
- Facebook - Access to Knowledge: https://www.facebook.com/cisa2k
- E-Mail - Access to Knowledge: [email protected]
- E-Mail - Researchers at Work: [email protected]
- List - Researchers at Work: https://lists.ghserv.net/mailman/listinfo/researchers
► Support Us
► Request for Collaboration
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 [email protected] (for policy research), or Sumandro Chattapadhyay, Research Director, at [email protected] (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 [email protected].
