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Unbox Festival 2019: CIS organizes two Workshops
Centre for Internet & Society organized two workshops at the Unbox Festival 2019, in Bangalore, on 15 and 17 February 2019.
Data Infrastructures and Inequities: Why Does Reproductive Health Surveillance in India Need Our Urgent Attention?
In order to bring out certain conceptual and procedural problems with health monitoring in the Indian context, this article by Aayush Rathi and Ambika Tandon posits health monitoring as surveillance and not merely as a “data problem.” Casting a critical feminist lens, the historicity of surveillance practices unveils the gendered power differentials wedded into taken-for-granted “benign” monitoring processes. The unpacking of the Mother and Child Tracking System and the National Health Stack reveals the neo-liberal aspirations of the Indian state.
Mini MediaWiki Training Theni
CIS-A2k is trying to strengthen the MediaWiki movement in India, and over the last six months, the team has collaborated with different Indian Wikimedians and started a project called Indic-TechCom.
Intermediary liability law needs updating
The time has come for India to exert its foreign policy muscle. There is a less charitable name for intermediary liability regimes like Sec 79 of the IT Act — private censorship regimes.
CIS Comment on ICANN's Draft FY20 Operating Plan and Budget
At the Centre for Internet and Society, we are grateful for the opportunity to provide our comments on the proposed draft of ICANN’s FY20 Operating Plan and Budget along with their Five-Year Operating Plan Update. As part of the public comment process, ICANN provided a list of documents which can be found here that included their highlights of the budget, the total draft budget for FY20, an operating plan segregated by portfolios, amongst others.
The Future of Work in the Automotive Sector in India
This report empirically studies the future of work in the automotive sector in India. The report has been authored by Harsh Bajpai, Ambika Tandon and Amber Sinha. Rakhi Sehgal and Aayush Rathi have edited the report.
Response to the Draft of The Information Technology [Intermediary Guidelines (Amendment) Rules] 2018
In this response, we aim to examine whether the draft rules meet tests of constitutionality and whether they are consistent with the parent Act. We also examine potential harms that may arise from the Rules as they are currently framed and make recommendations to the draft rules that we hope will help the Government meet its objectives while remaining situated within the constitutional ambit.
CIS Submission to UN High Level Panel on Digital Cooperation
The UN high-level panel on Digital Cooperation issued a call for inputs that called for responses to various questions. CIS responded to the call for inputs.
Supporting Indian Community 2018: Needs Assessment
The Wikimedia Foundation and Google worked in close coordination with the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), Wikimedia India chapter (WMIN) and user groups will pilot a program encouraging Wikipedia communities to create locally relevant and high-quality content in Indian languages. Here is the needs-assessment report.
India’s proposed new internet bill is as repressive as the worst of Chinese laws
The proposed new internet bill is as repressive as the worst of Chinese restrictions. The new intermediaries liability and content monitoring act that will become a law in February, unquestioningly expand the remit of the government.
Marathi Wikipedia Workshop & 1lib1ref session at Goa University
Marathi language department of Goa University has initiated the process to document the culture of Goa on Marathi Wikipedia and Commons.
CIS Submission to UN High Level Panel on Digital Co-operation
The High-level Panel on Digital Cooperation was convened by the UN Secretary-General to advance proposals to strengthen cooperation in the digital space among Governments, the private sector, civil society, international organizations, academia, the technical community and other relevant stakeholders. The Panel issued a call for input that called for responses to various questions. CIS responded to the call for inputs.
India should reconsider its proposed regulation of online content
The lack of technical considerations in the proposal is also apparent since implementing the proposal is infeasible for certain intermediaries. End-to-end encrypted messaging services cannot “identify” unlawful content since they cannot decrypt it. Presumably, the government’s intention is not to disallow end-to-end encryption so that intermediaries can monitor content.
Response to GCSC on Request for Consultation: Norm Package Singapore
The GCSC opened a public comment procedure to solicit comments and obtain additional feedback. CIS responded to the public call-offering comments on all six norms and proposing two further norms.
The DNA Bill has a sequence of problems that need to be resolved
In its current form, it’s far from comprehensive and fails to adequately address privacy and security concerns.
How to make EVMs hack-proof, and elections more trustworthy
Free and fair elections are the expression of democratic emancipation. India has always led by example: the Nehru Committee sought universal adult franchise in 1928, at a time when France didnât let women vote, and laws in the USA allowed disqualification of poor, illiterate, and African-American voters. But how reliable are our voting systems, particularly in terms of security?
Response to TRAI Consultation Paper on Regulatory Framework for Over-The-Top (OTT) Communication Services
This submission presents a response to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India’s Consultation Paper on Regulatory Framework for Over-The-Top (OTT) Communication Services.
Internet Researchers' Conference 2019 (IRC19): #List, Jan 30 - Feb 1, Lamakaan
Who makes lists? How are lists made? Who can be on a list, and who is missing? What new subjectivities - indicative of different asymmetries of power/knowledge - do list-making, and being listed, engender? What makes lists legitimate information artifacts, and what makes their knowledge contentious? Much debate has emerged about specificities and implications of the list as an information artifact, especially in the case of #LoSHA and NRC - its role in creation and curation of information, in building solidarities and communities of practice, its dependencies on networked media infrastructures, its deployment by hegemonic entities and in turn for countering dominant discourses. For the fourth edition of the Internet Researchers’ Conference (IRC19), we invited sessions and papers that engage critically with the form, imagination, and politics of the *list* - to present or propose academic, applied, or creative works that explore its social, economic, cultural, material, political, affective, or aesthetic dimensions. IRC19 will be organised in Lamakaan, Hyderabad, during January 30 - February 1, 2019.
Registering for Aadhaar in 2019
It is a lot less scary registering for Aadhaar in 2019 than it was in 2010, given how the authentication modalities have since evolved.
Welcome to r@w blog!
We from the researchers@work programme at the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) are delighted to announce the launch of our new blog, hosted on Medium. It will feature works by researchers and practitioners working in India and elsewhere at the intersections of internet, digital media, and society; and highlights and materials from ongoing research and events at the researchers@work programme.
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