Centre for Internet and Society

Documentation and Wikipedia Contribution — A One Day Workshop

praskrishna — 2013-11-12T04:20:37Z

On November 14, the CIS-A2K team is organizing a one day orientation workshop on 'Documentation and Wikipedia Contribution' at the Kalinga Institute of Social Studies (KISS), Bhubaneswar from 10.30 a.m. to 5.00 p.m.

ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆ ରୁ

ଭୁବନେଶ୍ୱରସ୍ଥିତ ଆଦିବାସୀ ଆବାସିକ ଅନୁଷ୍ଠାନ KISS (କଳିଙ୍ଗ ଇନଷ୍ଟିଚୁଟ ଅଫ ସୋସିଆଲ ଷ୍ଟଡିଜ)ଠାରେ ଏଠାକାର ଶିକ୍ଷକ ଓ ସ୍ନାତକୋତ୍ତର ଛାତ୍ରଛାତ୍ରୀମାନେ ଆଦିବାସୀମାନଙ୍କର ଭାଷା, ଚଳଣି ଓ ଜନ‌ଜୀବନ ବାବଦରେ ଅନେକ ଗବେଷଣାଭିତ୍ତିକ ପ୍ରସଙ୍ଗ ଏକାଧିକ ଭାଷାରେ ଲେଖିବାର ଏକ ପ୍ରକଳ୍ପ ଆରମ୍ଭ କରାଯାଇଛି । ପ୍ରାରମ୍ଭିକ ପର୍ଯ୍ୟାୟରେ ଏହି ନ‌ଥିକରଣ ତିନୋଟି ଭାଷାରେ (ଓଡ଼ିଆ, ଇଂରାଜୀ ଓ ହିନ୍ଦୀ)ରେ କରାଯାଇ KISS ୱେବସାଇଟରେ ଉପଲବ୍ଧ କରାଯିବ । ଏହି ପ୍ରସଙ୍ଗସମୂହ ଜ୍ଞାନ‌କୋଷ ପରିସରରେ ଥିବାରୁ ଏସବୁକୁ ଉଇକିକରଣ କରି ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆର ପ୍ରସଙ୍ଗସବୁକୁ ସମୃଦ୍ଧ କରିବା ନିମନ୍ତେ ଏହି ଏହି କର୍ମଶାଳାର ଆୟୋଜନ କରାଯାଇଛି । ନ‌ଭେମ୍ବର ୧୪ (ଗୁରବାର‌) ଦିନ ସକାଳ ୧୧:୦୦ ରେ ଅନୁଷ୍ଠିତ ହେବାକୁ ଥିବା ଏହି କର୍ମଶାଳାରେ ୧୨ ଜଣ ଶିକ୍ଷକ ଓ ୩୨ ଜଣ ସ୍ନାତକୋତ୍ତର ଯୋଗଦେଇ ଓଡ଼ିଆରେ ଟାଇପ କରିବା ଓ ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆ ବାବଦରେ ତାଲିମ ଗ୍ରହଣ କରିବେ ।

Click to read the full details published on the Wiki meta page here.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/events/documentation-and-wikipedia-contribution

Wikimedia Diversity Conference

praskrishna — 2013-12-02T06:40:02Z

T.Vishnu Vardhan participated in the conference organized by the German Wikipedia community in Berlin (GLS Campus) on November 9 and 10, 2013. He presented on So Many Languages- Challenges and Opportunities for the Wikimedia Movement in India and also led a Round-up session on Geographic diversity and Language pluralism on Wikimedia.

This was published on the meta page of Wikipedia.

Vishnu's presentation can be accessed here.
A brief discussion of the round-up session can be seen here.
All the videos can be watched here.

Video

Wikimedia Diversity Conference 2013: Interview - T Vishnu Vardhan from Wikimedia Deutschland on Vimeo.

Why a Diversity Conference?

Representing the world's knowledge is the mission of the global Wikimedia movement. But we are still in our infancy. Many languages and cultures are not adequately represented in the different Wikimedia projects, many people shy away from participating in our projects and sharing their knowledge with the world. Particularly striking is the low proportion of women. To gain this knowledge and commitment, both to increase the pool of knowledge in the Wikimedia projects and to enable a heterogeneous, colourful, diverse community, is the goal of our work.

Wikimedia Deutschland is planning to make "Diversity" the topic of an international conference in Berlin. Here we will gather to exchange findings, methods, and approaches for incorporating more gender diversity in Wikimedia projects, and for considering gender diversity within the wider context of diversity in general (language, culture, projects, etc).

New technological innovations such as VisualEditor can have an impact on the formation and composition of authorship, and community projects like Teahouse or WikiWomen's Collaborative have been successfully aimed at supporting diverse contributors. Let's gather to share information about what's working and what's not in current initiatives, consider the impact of technical and community developments, and connect in order to turn ideas into action.

Goals of the Conference

Establish a sustainable dialogue with collaborators in Wikimedia Chapters, the Wikimedia Foundation and the international communities to frame the issue of diversity in the context of Wikimedia.

We aim to build a shared understanding of what diversity means for Wikimedia projects and why it is important.
Connect, multiply and create successful initiatives for increasing gender and other types of diversity in Wikimedia.

We aim to turn ideas into action.

Focus of the conference

We are very happy to see all your ideas and it seems that many Wikipedians, Wikimedians and interested people are highly engaged in thinking about many aspects concerning diversity in Wikipedia. This is great!

To help us organize sessions and accomplish our goals of developing a shared understanding and set of actions for improving diversity, we intend to focus this first conference on two aspects of diversity:

Gender diversity - the gender gap, LGBT initiatives
Geographic diversity - the global south, linguistic and economic diversity

We hope that future events will be organized to focus more specifically on other important diversity aspects like age, education, and disabilities.

Timeline

application for scholarships/submission of proposals August 20 - September 20, 2013
official registration August 20 - October 20, 2013
note of acceptance: by October 4, 2013
agenda finalized: end of October 2013
conference: November 9 - November 10, 2013

Background Information

In 2013, Wikimedia Deutschland initiated a research and development project "Diversity for Wikipedia" that develops possible courses of action towards more gender diversity. Within the project, gender diversity guidelines, gender diversity action plans and designs are developed. It will implement specific actions aimed at enhancing a welcoming culture, diversity awareness among Wikipedians and participation of female editors. In a co-operation with Beuth University, digital web-based educational material with a focus on gender topics will be developed.

Within the framework of developing a diversity concept about what diversity in Wikipedia really means, we will organise this conference to further develop our existing approaches and to elaborate on new ideas. By the end of this year, the project will be in an advanced state and we are looking forward to discuss the different worldwide initiatives with the international communities, Wikimedia Chapters and the Wikimedia Foundation.

Contact

Julia Kloppenburg. You can reach Julia via her user page or via e-mail. For general enquiries and questions concerning scholarships you can contact the organising team at: diversity@wikimedia.de Feel free to get in touch!

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/wikimedia-diversity-conference

Human rights, freedom of expression and free flow of information on the Internet

praskrishna — 2013-11-09T03:38:59Z

This session will offer a multistakeholder overview of the current status of human rights, freedom of expression and free flow of information on the Internet. Pranesh Prakash was a speaker at this event.

Click to read the details posted on IGF website here.

The interactive discussion will touch upon many of the key issues that will be discussed in related workshops prior to the session and will give all stakeholders an equal platform to address issues related to human rights and the Internet to find points of consensus, points of convergence and points of further action/research/referral to other institutions or actors if appropriate.

Policy related questions that this session will address include:

What are/have been the main themes at the nexus of the Internet and human rights in 2013? What have been the policy responses? What are the key strategies and actions for responding to these themes?
What is working well to promote human rights, freedom of expression and the free flow of information on the Internet? What are areas for concern?
What HR standards can be applied in the digital environment?
The HRC adopted a milestone resolution in 2012, in which governments agreed that the same HR apply online as offline (Res 20/8). Do all stakeholders agree with this core concept? What is the relevance of this resolution to Internet public policy making? What has been the impact of the revelations of wide-spread mass surveillance been on taking the implications of this resolution forward?
How can all stakeholders, taking their different roles and responsibilities into account, respect, protect and promote human rights on the Internet nationally, regionally and globally?

Speakers:

Host Country Chair: Prof. Dr. Harkristuti Harkrisnowo (Director General of Human Right, Ministry of Law and Human Right)
Moderators: Anja Kovacs, Internet Democracy Project, New Delhi and Johan Hallenborg, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Stockholm, supported by Anriette Esterhuysen, APC, Johannesburg.
Remote Moderator: TBC
Rapporteur: Joy Liddicoat, APC, Wellington (The rapporteur will summarise the session at the end and report into 'Taking Stock')

PART 1: Regional perspectives on human rights on the Internet [45 minutes]

To get the discussion going, the moderators will ask the following people to respond, from a regional perspective, to the question: What are/have been the main themes at the nexus of the Internet and human rights in 2013 in your region?

Eduardo Bertoni, CELE, University of Palermo, Buenos Aires
Fadlah Adams, South African Human Rights Commission, Cape Town
Gayathry Venkiteswaran, Executive Director, Southeast Asian Press Alliance, Bangkok
Jochai Ben-Avie, Access, New York
Moez Chakchouk, ATI, Tunis
Lee Hibbard, Council of Europe, Strasbourg

PART 2: Delving into specific issues [45 minutes]

What is working well to promote human rights, freedom of expression and the free flow of information on the Internet? What are areas for concern? What HR standards can be applied in the digital environment?
Potential Speakers from the Audience:

Freedom of expression: Guy Berger, UNESCO, Paris; Cynthia Wong, Human Rights Watch, Washington DC; Beryl Aidi, Kenyan Human Rights Commission, Nairobi; Ramiro Alvarez Ugarte, Association for Civil Rights, Buenos Aires.
Internet intermediary liability: Gbenga Sesan, Paradigm Initiative, Lagos; Zahid Jamil, Barrister-at-law, Karachi; Malcolm Hutty, LINX, London.
Sexual rights (rights of LGBT communities): Bishakha Datta, Point of View, New Delhi; Nadine Mouawad, EROTICS, Beirut.
Free flow of information, access to knowledge and IP issues: Stuart Hamilton, International Federation of Library Associations, The Hague; Nick Aston Hart, International Digital Economy Alliance (IDEA), Geneva; Pranesh Prakash, CIS, Bangalore; Claudio Ruiz, Derechos Digitales, Santiago.

Network neutrality (in terms of free flow of information): Lisl Brunner, GNI, US/Europe; Luca Belli, Dynamic Coalition on Net Neutrality, Tech and academic community, Europe; Paul Mitchell, Microsoft, US.

Surveillance and transborder access to data: global and national dimensions: Nicolas Seidler, ISOC, Geneva, Ross LaJeunesse, Global Head of Free Expression and International Relations, Google, Mountain View; Seth Bouvier, US Dept. of State, Government, Washington DC; Meryem Merzouki, EDRI (European Digital Rights), Paris.

PART 3: Input from IGF workshops, dynamic coalitions, open forums and other focus sessions [45 minutes]

Organisers of workshops etc. related to Human Rights will be asked to respond to further questions from the moderators, from the perspective of the outcome of their workshop/event.

How can all stakeholders, taking their different roles and responsibilities into account, respect, protect and promote human rights in Internet related public policy making nationally, regionally and globally?

What are some points of consensus; points of convergence; points of further action/research/referral to other institutions or actors that emerged from their sessions?

PART 4: Discussion and going forward [45 minutes]

The following questions will be addressed:

The Human Rights Council adopted a milestone resolution in which governments agreed that the same HR apply online as offline. Do all stakeholders agree with this core concept? What is the relevance of this resolution to Internet public policy making? What has been the impact of the revelations of wide-spread mass surveillance been on taking the implications of this resolution forward?

What do you think we should do next and what is the role of the IGF?

The rapporteur will be given 6 minutes at the end to summarise.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/igf-2013-october-24-human-rights-freedom-of-expression-free-flow-of-information-on-internet

Pondering Copyright and Recasting Openness

praskrishna — 2013-11-08T09:50:03Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/pondering-copyright-and-recasting-openness

Conference on eGovernance for India: Opportunities, Challenges and Policy Alternatives

praskrishna — 2013-11-20T06:09:27Z

The OECD Korea Policy Centre in partnership with the Centre for Good Governance, Hyderabad is organising an international conference on ‘eGovernance for India: Opportunities, Challenges and Policy Alternatives’ at Hyderabad during November 6-7, 2013.

Sunil Abraham is a panelist in the session on OECD Principles on eGovernment and their applicability to the developing world and India. See the event report published by the Centre for Good Governance here.

Click to download the agenda here.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/conference-on-e-governance-for-india

The Relaunch of Creative Commons India

praskrishna — 2013-12-11T08:12:50Z

Wikimedia India, the Centre for Internet and Society, and Acharya Narendra Dev College invite you to the Relaunch of Creative Commons India in New Delhi on November 12, 2013 with the Minister of State for Human Resource Development Dr. Shashi Tharoor as the Chief Guest.

What is Creative Commons?

Creative Commons is a non-profit organization headquartered in Mountain View, California, United States, devoted to expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. The organization has released several copyright-licenses known as Creative Commons licenses free of charge to the public. These licenses allow creators to communicate which rights they reserve, and which rights they waive for the benefit of recipients or other creators.

In simple words, Creative Commons helps you share your knowledge and creativity with the world.

Some more facts about Internet licenses

Ever wondered what "Some Rights Reserved" means?

Copyright grants to creators a bundle of exclusive rights over their creative works, which generally include the right to reproduce, distribute, display, make adaptations, perform, sell and so on. The phrase “All Rights Reserved” is often used by owners to indicate that they reserve all of the rights granted to them under the law. When copyright expires, the work enters the public domain, and the rightsholder can no longer stop others from engaging in those activities under copyright, with the exception of moral rights reserved to creators in some jurisdictions. Creative Commons licenses offer creators a spectrum of choices between retaining all rights and relinquishing all rights (public domain), an approach we call "Some Rights Reserved."

Is Creative Commons against copyright?

Absolutely not. CC has responded to claims to the contrary. CC licenses are copyright licenses, and depend on the existence of copyright to work. CC licenses are legal tools that creators and other rightsholders can use to offer certain usage rights to the public, while reserving other rights. Those who want to make their work available to the public for limited kinds of uses while preserving their copyright may want to consider using CC licenses. Others who want to reserve all of their rights under copyright law should not use CC licenses.

Relaunch

Dr. Savithri Singh, Principal, Acharya Narendra Dev College will be the Master of Ceremony and the Moderator for the sessions:

Time	Detail
16.00 16.30	Shashi Tharoor, Minister of State for Human Resource Development, Government of India: Initiatives of MHRD around Openly Licensed Content
16.30 16.45	Question and Answer Session
16.45 17.00	Sam Pitroda (TBC), Adviser to the Prime Minister on Public Information Infrastructure and Innovations: Creative Commons and Open Government Data
17.00 17.05	Question and Answer Session
17.05 17.25	Rohini Nilekani, Chairperson, Pratham Books: Creative Commons and Pratham Books Case Study (Including Question and Answer Session)
17.25 17.40	Moksh Juneja, President, Executive Committee, Wikimedia India Chapter: Creative Commons and Wikipedia (Including Question and Answer Session)
17.40 18.00	Lawrence Liang, Co-founder of Alternative Law Forum: Creative Commons and Open Access to Scholarly Journals (Including Question and Answer Session)
18.00	Tea

VIDEO

Registration

Please register here to attend the event: http://ccindia.doattend.com/ Registration is free.
Please carry a soft or hard copy of the confirmation email to the venue.
Seating will be on first come first served basis.

Invite to the Relaunch of Creative Commons India

Link to the meta page on Wiki: http://wiki.wikimedia.in/Events/Creative_Commons_India_launch

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/events/relaunch-of-creative-commons-india

Kannada Wikipedia and its Tenth Anniversary

praskrishna — 2016-01-28T13:14:20Z

Dr. U.B. Pavanaja was on RadioCity to talk about Kannada Wikipedia and its tenth anniversary. The programme was aired on November 2, between 8 a.m. and 9 a.m.


Above: Dr. U.B. Pavanaja speaking on RadioCity.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/kannada-wikipedia-tenth-anniversary

From Seemingly Transparent to Definitely Opaque

praskrishna — 2013-11-20T09:41:18Z

Nishant Shah is teaching a course on "From Seemingly Transparent to Definitely Opaque" and presenting on a panel on 'Secrets of Digital Culture' at the St. Gallen Business school in Switzerland in November 2013.

Nishant Shah is the Research Director at the Centre for Internet & Society (CIS), Bangalore. Prior to CIS Nishant worked as an information architect with Yahoo, Partecs and Khoj Studios, was a Research Analyst for Comat Technologies and designed and taught several courses and workshops on the aesthetics and Politics of New Digital Media, for undergraduate and graduate level students in different universities around the world. Nishant manages a portfolio of multi-disciplinary projects on Histories of the Internet, Wikipedia and the Critical Point of View, Technology mediated education, Digital Archives and Memories, and e-Governance.

Read more on the St. Gallen Business School website here.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/from-seemingly-transparent-to-definitely-opaque

EC guidelines on social media: Welcome move, but not enough

praskrishna — 2013-11-19T10:18:51Z

With election season close by and the growing ubiquity of social media, the Election Commission of India’s recent guidelines for how candidates and political parties must conduct themselves on social media are a well-intentioned step. But are these guidelines enough to regulate how online media is used by parties and candidates, given the kind of proxy wars that are played online? For now, not really.

This article was published in the First Post on November 1. Sunil Abraham is quoted.

For the first time time, the EC is seeking detailed expenditure records, and disclosure of all authentic social media accounts of every candidate. The guidelines have also looked at online advertising and the EC has asked that all ads by political parties should be pre-certified before they are released online. In fact, Firstpost’s Pallavi Pollanki had reported even before the guidelines were published that the EC was working towards monitoring the use of social media. You can read the full story here.

Currently, however, the guidelines don’t take into account, content posted by persons other than candidates and political parties. The last paragraph of the EC’s order states, “As far as the content posted by persons other than candidates and political parties is concerned, the Commission is considering the matter in consultation with the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology on practical ways to deal with the issue, in so far as they relate to, or can be reasonably connected with, the election campaigning of political parties and candidates.”

The nature of the web is such that possible to create many IPs, change Twitter handles, create new user ids on public discussion forums. Thus it becomes very hard to gauge who is a volunteer/ just another ordinary supporter or who is a paid supporter. Even the EC acknowledges that.

Sunil Abraham, Director of the Centre for Internet and Society based in Bangalore, has a valid point on this. He says, “The guidelines only regulate the social media accounts of politicians and their parties. It does not regulate social media content published by others. This basically means that the EC needs to develop sophisticated tools to detect astroturfing, sock puppetry, meat puppetry and other forms of manipulation of the networked public sphere. Without these tools it would not be possible to tell when politicians and political parties use proxies to circumvent the guidelines.”

Astroturfing, for instance is when a site or an independent entity claims to be completely neutral and in favour of a political message without revealing its funding source. Very often software is used to create many online avatars. Sometimes it’s one person with many online identities which is also known as sock puppetry.

So yes, there might be online content or websites that claim to be independent and supports or mocks a particular leader but it might not always be possible to know who is financing them. While the EC might be able to keep a tab on official Twitter handles and Facebook and perhaps other few that are revealed by the party, it will be very hard to pinpoint proxy accounts, websites etc.

For example when it comes to a leader like Modi, there are many websites that are pro and anti-Modi. One in particular which defends Modi is called Godhra Riots the True Story and seeks to tell what it claims is the true tale behind the Godhra riots. When you type Godhra Riots, it is the number two search result in Google. In the About Us section, the website claims to be run by well-wishers of humanity and gives only a vague idea of its owner.

The site tries to absolve Modi, but since it doesn’t claim to be run by any political party, it doesn’t come under the purview of the EC’s guidelines and there is no reason to reveal who runs or funds it.

Counter to that is another website called Truth of Gujarat, which seeks to reveal the truth behind Narendra Modi’s development and other claims. The work published on the site bears bylines prominently but there is no easy way of knowing who finances the site and its research. The fact is that everyone claims to be represent a certain version of the truth on the web and when you don’t know the source, it becomes deeply problematic.

There’s also the question of Internet trolls who are largely un-touched by the guidelines. And there’s no denying that trolls do form a large part of the online political discourse in India.

We asked Ishan Russel, the managing partner for The Image People, a firm that specialises in political campaign management, if the guidelines are insufficient to deal with trolls.

He wrote, “Social media has ensured that a lot more people are expressing their opinion plus the added advantage of anonymity makes it easy for trolling. The days of the political class laying down the agenda are perhaps over… To try and regulate every comment is impossible, the best perhaps the EC can ensure is that no hateful campaigning happens online.”

EC also wants pre-certification for online advertising. But Sunil feels that pre-certification is overkill. He says, “This will greatly reduce the agility required by political parties on social media. Post facto notification would have been a sufficient measure to ensure compliance with the guidelines and other regulations of the EC.”

Ishant however says that pre-certification is good especially for video-based content, “In cases where for example a video ad is used it is good perhaps to pre-screen it so that it does not violate any norms.” He feels it is necessary to ensure that the online space remains fair too.

It would be fair to say that for now while the EC’s guidelines were much-needed but given the way the Internet works, they still have a long way to go.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/firstpost-november-1-2013-shruti-dhapola-ec-guidelines-on-social-media

Access to Knowledge Bulletin — October 2013

praskrishna — 2014-01-04T12:04:56Z

The Access to Knowledge (Wikipedia) newsletter for the month of October 2013:

Train the Trainer Program
Wikipedians, about 20 of them, from 10 different cities, speaking 8 different languages, joined together for the first ever four days "Train the Trainer Program" organised by the Centre for Internet and Society's Access to Knowledge (CIS-A2K) team in Bangalore from October 3 to 6, 2013. CIS-A2K organised the residency training program to build capacities amongst different language Wikimedia communities. A good diversity of Wikipedians from various language communities such as Bengali, Gujarati, Sanskrit, Malayalam, Hindi, Marathi, Telugu, Odia, came over for the event. Two prominent reasons identified for organizing the event were the limitations of a virtual sphere and the limited number of Wikipedians leading outreach activities. Seventeen people participated in the event: http://bit.ly/18hjw0n

► Events Organised
Workshop on Wikipedia in the Indian Undergraduate Language Classrooms (October 1, 203, Christ University, Bangalore). Dr. U.B. Pavanaja conducted the workshop: http://bit.ly/HIiC30.
వికీపీడియా:సమావేశం/బెంగుళూరు/అక్టోబర్ (UTC, Bangalore, October 12, 2013). T. Vishnu Vardhan gave a talk: http://bit.ly/1hpmXrt.
Konkani Vishwakosh Digitization (Goa University, October 19-20, 2013). CIS-A2K team conducted the workshop. Thirty-seven people participated in the event: http://bit.ly/1a9m8N2. Nitika Tandon shares a detailed blog post on the re-release of Konkani Vishwakosh under CC License: http://bit.ly/1cm9wBH.
► Event Participated In
Re-sourcing Indian Cinema: Humanities Research, New Archives and Collaborative Knowledge Production (organised by the Centre for Contemporary Studies and the Centre for Study of Culture and Society, October 29, 2013). T. Vishnu Vardhan gave a talk on “Let Cinephiles Collaborate: Pleasures and Perils of Indian Film History on Wikipedia”: http://bit.ly/18Obr2P.
► Media Coverage
CIS gave its inputs for the following media coverage:

Mangalore: Konkani writers resolve to form all-India forum at JKS conference (Daijiworld, October 1, 2013): http://bit.ly/1ek8AzW.
Wikipedia in Indian Languages on Mobile Phones (by Megha Prakash, Sci Dev Net, October 15, 2013): http://bit.ly/Hfh7sI.
कोंकणी विश्‍वकोश ‘विकिपीडिया’वर (Navprabha Daily, October 22, 2013). A detailed article about the digitalization of Konkani Vishwakosh: http://bit.ly/18J3YlB.

Wikimedia Foundation has funded A2K to anchor the growth of Wikimedia movement in India. The A2K team consists of six members, four based in Bangalore: T. Vishnu Vardhan, Dr. U.B. Pavanaja, Subhashish Panigrahi and Muzammiluddin Syed, one member Nitika Tandon in Delhi and one Advisor Dr. Tejaswini Niranjana. Archives of our newsletters can be accessed here (http://cis-india.org/about/newsletters). Wikipedians from various communities can request for outreach programs, technical bugs, logistics-merchandize and media, public relations and communications at http://bit.ly/TOcXId.

About CIS

The Centre for Internet and Society is a non-profit research organization that works on policy issues relating to freedom of expression, privacy, accessibility for persons with disabilities, access to knowledge and IPR reform, and openness (including open government, FOSS, open standards, etc.), and engages in academic research on digital natives and digital humanities.

Follow us elsewhere

Twitter: https://twitter.com/CISA2K
CIS group on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/cis.india
Visit us at: https://cis-india.org

Support Us
Please help us defend consumer / citizen rights on the Internet! Write a cheque in favour of ‘The Centre for Internet and Society’ and mail it to us at No. 194, 2nd ‘C’ Cross, Domlur, 2nd Stage, Bengaluru – 5600 71.

Request for Collaboration:
We invite researchers, practitioners, and theoreticians, both organisationally and as individuals, to collaboratively engage with Internet and society and improve our understanding of this new field. To discuss the research collaborations, write to Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, at sunil@cis-india.org or Nishant Shah, Director – Research, at nishant@cis-india.org. To discuss collaborations on Indic language wikipedia, write to T. Vishnu Vardhan, Programme Director, A2K, at vishnu@cis-india.org

CIS is grateful to its donors, Wikimedia Foundation, Ford Foundation, Privacy International, UK, Hans Foundation and the Kusuma Trust which was founded by Anurag Dikshit and Soma Pujari, philanthropists of Indian origin, for its core funding and support for most of its projects.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/about/newsletters/access-to-knowledge-bulletin-october-2013

NSA leaks helping India become 'Big Brother' state?

praskrishna — 2013-11-19T09:45:13Z

While the US and Britain fend off accusations of Big Brother-style spying, other countries are learning lessons from fugitive ex-US intelligence contractor Edward Snowden's leaks and, critics say, developing the same kind of mass-surveillance.

This post was published in BBC on October 31, 2013. Sunil Abraham is quoted.

India is one of those in the frame.

Its authorities are bringing in new measures against foreign cyber-snooping, including a plan to move internet traffic inside its borders and banning officials from using Gmail and other external email services.

Simultaneously, campaigners say the Indian government is loosening controls on electronic snooping by its own spies.

It is also stepping up efforts to build its own mass-surveillance system, which critics have dubbed "India's PRISM" - a reference to one of the US spy programmes revealed by Mr Snowden.

This is the downside of Mr Snowden's leaks, says Sunil Abraham of the Centre for Internet and Society, an Indian advocacy group.

"Governments like India are now cherry-picking the worst practices, in a race for the bottom in terms of human rights".

Documents released by Mr Snowden to journalist Glenn Greenwald showed America's National Security Agency (NSA) was hoovering up billions of chunks of Indian data, making the country its fifth most important target worldwide.

'Not actually snooping'

But unlike other states that have discovered the US is siphoning off their secrets, India has conspicuously avoided joining the chorus of criticism. That may be because it doesn't want to draw attention to its own activities.

Its foreign minister Salman Khurshid even appeared to excuse American monitoring, saying it "was not actually snooping".

When the German chancellor Angela Merkel erupted over reports the NSA had been bugging her mobile phone, the Indian prime minister's office was untroubled by the possibility he too had been targeted.


Indian PM Manmohan Singh does not use a mobile phone or Gmail, his spokesman says

"There are no concerns", a spokesman for Manmohan Singh told the BBC, because "he does not use a mobile phone or Gmail".

Many Indian officials do. But from this December the government is planning to bar them from using their private email accounts for any official business - in direct response to evidence of US prying. Instead, they will have to use government email.

The latest reports of even deeper NSA penetration of Google is likely to further spur such moves.

It won't be an easy change to make though, judging from the BBC's own experiences dealing with Indian officials. Many prefer to use Gmail or Yahoo rather than their official accounts because the government email system so often crashes.

More ambitious still is a plan to bring all internal Indian internet traffic inside its borders. Currently, an email sent from say Delhi to Calcutta is more likely to travel via the US or Europe, partly because of the way the internet is designed but also because of a lack of Indian capacity.

But at a summer meeting to assess Mr Snowden's leaks, one of India's security chiefs called for "100%" of emails and files sent between Indians to stay in the country to limit snooping by "foreign elements".

As other governments take similar measures, these changes may not just mean a tougher job for spies but also a more fragmented internet under tighter state control.

Critics say India was already on the road to creating a Big Brother state, long before anyone had heard of Edward Snowden.

Their biggest concern is a secret mass-surveillance project the government has reportedly been building for the past few years. The Central Monitoring System (CMS) is supposed to give security agencies the ability to listen or record all communications nationwide and track individuals, in real time - like some of the US programmes that have been revealed.

If the few details that have emerged are correct, Indian cyber-spies would have even more freedom, bypassing internet and telecom companies and tapping straight into the cables and servers carrying the traffic.

Mirroring America's defence of its spying programmes, the government says the monitoring system is to protect against terrorists and other national security threats. But a lack of concrete information has only heightened fears about its intentions.

A draft privacy bill which was supposed to allay some concerns has been watered down in the light of Mr Snowden's revelations.

According to Sunil Abraham, "India's intelligence agencies argued: Look at what the US can do. Why curtail what we can do?"

In any case, India's spies are not troubled by any parliamentary or judicial oversight. In the world's largest democracy, the intelligence agencies still report straight to the prime minister and the home minister.

India needs to "protect its sovereign rights", says Pavan Duggal, a Supreme Court advocate and cyber-law specialist. But these are "unprecedented powers".

Right now, these are minority concerns in India, which is far more consumed with the early political sparring before next year's elections.

Meanwhile, the Indian government is learning many lessons from the NSA's troubles. But Mr Duggal says, "Sooner or later it will have to address the issue of greater accountability."

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/bbc-october-31-2013-nsa-leaks-helping-india-become-big-brother-state

October 2013 Bulletin

praskrishna — 2014-01-04T04:31:01Z

Our newsletter for the month of October 2013 can be accessed below.

Highlights

The National Resource Kit team is pleased to bring you its research for the states of Delhi, Madhya Pradesh and Arunachal Pradesh, and the Union Territory of Daman and Diu.
The Department of Electronics and Information Technology invited comments on the Framework on the proposed adoption of Open Source Software in E-Governance Systems. CIS gave its feedback.
The Access to Knowledge team in collaboration with the Goa University re-released the Konkani Vishwakosh under Creative Commons License CC-BY-SA-3.0.
Sunil Abraham, Pranesh Prakash and Chinmayi Arun participated in the Internet Governance Forum held in Bali, Indonesia from October 21 to 25. Overall CIS spoke in 7 panels.
In an article on Spy Files, Maria Xynou examines the legality of India’s surveillance technologies and their potential connection to India’s central monitoring system.
A clause-by-clause comments on the Working draft version of the Human DNA Profiling Bill, 2012 was sent to the Ministry of Science and Technology.
CIS started the first Privacy Watch in India. The map includes data on the UID, NPR and CCTNS schemes, installation of CCTV cameras and the use of drones throughout the country.

Accessibility

As part of our project (under a grant from the Hans Foundation) on creating a national resource kit of state-wise laws, policies and programmes on issues relating to persons with disabilities in India, we bring you draft chapters for the states of Madhya Pradesh and Arunachal Pradesh, and the union territory of Daman and Diu. With this we have completed compilation of draft chapters for 24 states and 5 union territories. Feedback and comments are invited from readers for the following chapters:

National Resource Kit

The Daman and Diu Chapter (by Anandhi Viswanathan, October 28, 2013).
The Arunachal Pradesh Chapter (by CLPR, October 29, 2013).
The Madhya Pradesh Chapter (by Anandhi Viswanathan, October 30, 2013).
The Delhi Chapter (by Anandhi Viswanathan, October 31, 2013).

Note: All of these are early drafts and will be reviewed and updated.

Survey (Other Organisation)

Accessibility of Banks and Financial Services Institutions: A Global Survey (posted by Nilofar Ansher, October 20, 2013). G3ict and Scotiabank, requests senior managers, COO / CEOs, Managing Directors, IT Directors, HR Directors, and accessibility professionals from banks and financial services companies to participate.

Blog Entry

Bengali eSpeak Aids in Disaster Management (by Anirudh Sridhar, October 15, 2013).

Access to Knowledge

The Access to Knowledge programme addresses the harms caused to consumers and human rights, and critically examines Open Government Data, Open Access to Scholarly Literature, and Open Access to Law, Open Content, Open Standards, and Free/Libre/Open Source Software. We produced a column in the Economic and Political Weekly, submitted our feedback on Framework on Open Source Software Adoption in E-Governance Systems, and conducted 3 Wikipedia workshops:

Article

The Fight for Digital Sovereignty (by Sunil Abraham, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol-XLVIII No. 42, October 19, 2013).

Blog Entries

Mobile Phone Patents: Prior Art Survey (by Nehaa Chaudhari, October 23, 2013).
Ambiguity in the App Store: Understanding India’s emerging IT sector in light of IP (by Samantha Cassar, October 24, 2013).

Submission

Feedback on the Framework on OSS Adoption in E-Governance Systems (by Nehaa Chaudhari, October 26, 2013). In September, 2013, the DeitY invited comments on the Framework on the proposed adoption of Open Source Software in E-Governance Systems. CIS gave its feedback.

Events Participated In

OSOD 2013: International Workshop on Open Science and Open Data (organised by Indian Statistical Institute, Bangalore, October 7, 2013). Nehaa Chaudhari participated as a panelist and gave a presentation on Government Accessibility and Copyright Conundrum.

National Conference on Opening up by Closing the Circle: Strengthening Open Access in India (co-organised by UNESCO, Central Library, Jawaharlal Nehru University and the Commonwealth Educational Media Centre for Asia, October 21, 2013). Nehaa Chaudhari was a panelist in the discussion on "Why Open Access?". She gave a presentation on 'Pondering Copyright and Recasting Openness'.

Note: The following has been done under grant from the Wikimedia Foundation (http://bit.ly/SPqFOl). As part this project (http://bit.ly/X80ELd), we held 3 Wikipedia workshops in October:

Event Co-organised

Re-release of Konkani Vishwakosh under CC-BY-SA 3.0 (organised by Goa University and CIS-A2K, Goa University Conference Hall, September 26, 2013). Nitika Tandon has blogged about the event.

Events Organised

Workshop on Wikipedia in the Indian Undergraduate Language Classrooms (October 1, 203, Christ University, Bangalore). Dr. U.B. Pavanaja conducted the workshop.
Train the Trainer — Four-day long Residential Programme (October 3 – 6, 2013, CEO Center, Gubbi, Bangalore. CIS-A2K Team conducted the workshop. Seventeen people participated in the event.
Konkani Vishwakosh Digitization (Goa University, October 19-20, 2013). CIS-A2K team conducted the workshop. Thirty-seven people participated in the event.

Events Participated In

Re-sourcing Indian Cinema: Humanities Research, New Archives and Collaborative Knowledge Production (organised by the Centre for Contemporary Studies and the Centre for Study of Culture and Society, October 29, 2013). T. Vishnu Vardhan gave a talk on “Let Cinephiles Collaborate: Pleasures and Perils of Indian Film History on Wikipedia”.

Media Coverage

CIS gave its inputs for the following media coverage:

Mangalore: Konkani writers resolve to form all-India forum at JKS conference (Daijiworld, October 1, 2013).
Wikipedia in Indian Languages on Mobile Phones (by Megha Prakash, Sci Dev Net, October 15, 2013).
कोंकणी विश्‍वकोश ‘विकिपीडिया’वर (Navprabha Daily, October 22, 2013). A detailed article about the digitalization of Konkani Vishwakosh.

Internet Governance

CIS is doing a project (under a grant from Privacy International and International Development Research Centre (IDRC)) on conducting research on surveillance and freedom of expression (SAFEGUARDS). So far we have organised seven privacy round-tables and drafted the Privacy (Protection) Bill. This month we bring you clause-by-clause comments on the Human DNA Profiling Bill, 2012, and a map monitoring privacy in India. As part of its project (funded by Citizen Lab, Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto and support from the IDRC) on mapping cyber security actors in South Asia and South East Asia we did an interview with Anja Kovacs on cyber security. With this we have completed a total of 10 video interviews:

Internet Governance Forum

Sunil Abraham, Pranesh Prakash and Chinmayi Arun participated in the Internet Governance Forum held in Bali, Indonesia in the month of October. Overall, CIS spoke in 7 panels:

Charting the Charter: Internet Rights and Principles Online (organised by IRP Coalition, October 22, 2013). Pranesh Prakash was a panelist.
Fair process frameworks for cross-border online spaces (organised by the Internet & Jurisdiction Project, Civil Society of France, Western Europe and Others Group and Internet & Jurisdiction Project, Civil Society of Germany, Western Europe and Others Group, October 22, 2013). Sunil Abraham and Chinmayi Arun were panelists for this workshop.
Removing Barriers to Connectivity: Connecting the Unconnected (organised by Internet Society and ETNO, October 23, 2013). Pranesh Prakash was a panelist.
FOSS: Smart Choice for Developing Countries (organised by TechNation and Open Source Alliance of Central Asia, October 23, 2013). Sunil Abraham spoke on FOSS and IT Growth Policies in South Asia.
Privacy: from regional regulations to global connections? (organised by Internet Society, Bali, October 24, 2013). Sunil Abraham was one of the panelists.
Human rights, freedom of expression and free flow of information on the Internet (a Focus Session on Openness, October 24, 2013). Pranesh Prakash was a speaker at this event.
Taking Stock: Emerging Issues - Internet Surveillance (a session on Internet Surveillance, October 25, 2013). Pranesh Prakash made intervention in this session.
Tweets from Bali IGF 2013: To enable research by those who didn't want to mess around with Twitter's APIs, CIS has made available tweets from the IGF as downloadable .CSV files.

Privacy

Magazine Article

What India can Learn from the Snowden Revelations (by Elonnai Hickok, Yahoo, October 23, 2013). The title of the article was changed in the version published by Yahoo.

Blog Entries

Concerns Regarding DNA Law (by Bhairav Acharya, October 9, 2013): http://bit.ly/1aoxXM9.
Interview with Big Brother Watch on Privacy and Surveillance (by Maria Xynou, October 15, 2013): http://bit.ly/1cRDMbV.
Interview with Bruce Schneier (by Maria Xynou, October 17, 2013): http://bit.ly/GS6oDX.
An Interview with the Tactical Technology Collective (by Maria Xynou, October 18, 2013): http://bit.ly/1i1lVNo.
Interview with Dr. Alexander Dix (by Maria Xynou, October 23, 2013): http://bit.ly/1a7dgtQ.
Open Letter to Members of the European Parliament of the Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs Committee (by Elonnai Hickok, October 23, 2013): http://bit.ly/17eZntz.
An Interview with Jacob Kohnstamm (by Elonnai Hickok, October 25, 2013): http://bit.ly/17NcQmD.
Spy Files 3: WikiLeaks Sheds More Light on the Global Surveillance Industry (by Maria Xynou, October 25, 2013): http://bit.ly/1d6EmjD.

Comments

Re: The Human DNA Profiling Bill, 2012 (by Bhairav Acharya, October 9, 2013). CIS provided clause-by-clause comments on the on the Working Draft version of the Human DNA Profiling Bill: http://bit.ly/17Jpp63.

Announcement

The India Privacy Monitor Map (by Maria Xynou with assistance from Srinivas Atreya, October 9, 2013). CIS has started a first of its kind Privacy Watch in India. The map includes data on the UID, NPR and CCTNS schemes, as well as on the installation of CCTV cameras and the use of drones throughout the country: http://bit.ly/19A5mCZ.

Event Organised

Privacy Round-table, New Delhi (organised by FICCI, DSCI and CIS, FICCI, Federation House, Tansen Marg, New Delhi, October 19, 2013): http://bit.ly/GAsStr.

Event Participated In

'Free Speech and Media in South Asia: Human Rights Concerns in a Globalizing World (organised by the Programme in Comparative Media Law and Policy, Centre for Socio-Legal Studies, University of Oxford, in collaboration with the Centre for Media and Governance, National Law University, Delhi, Oxford University, October 25, 2013). Chinmayi Arun spoke about “Privacy and Surveillance in India” in a panel discussion: http://bit.ly/18bRGi5.

Cyber Security

Laird Brown, a strategic planner and writer with core competencies on brand analysis, public relations and resource management and Purba Sarkar who in the past worked as a strategic advisor in the field of SAP Retail are working in this project:

Part 11: An Interview with Anja Kovacs (October 15, 2013): http://bit.ly/15EAZOE.

Other IG Updates
Event Organised

Mapping Digital Media: Broadcasting, Journalism and Activism in India (co-organised by Alternative Law Forum, Maraa and CIS, Bangalore International Centre, October 27, 2013). Samantha Cassar has blogged about the event: http://bit.ly/17EVtdw. It was covered by the New Indian Express (http://bit.ly/1dGENE6) and Hindu (http://bit.ly/1bcVUIU) on October 28.

Events Participated In

Religious Pluralism and the Tensions between Freedom of Expression and Respect for the 'Other’ (organised by Reset-Dialogues on Civilizations project, in cooperation with Jamia Millia Islamia, India Habitat Centre, New Delhi, October 10, 2013). Chinmayi Arun was a speaker at the session on “Democracy and the Tension between Freedom of Speech and Respect for the Other’s Religion, Culture, Identity, India and Europe”: http://bit.ly/194dtI7.
Fragmentation in a Democracy: The Role of Social Movements and the Media (organised by the Observer Research Foundation, Delhi and Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung, Berlin at Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi, October 16, 2013). Sunil Abraham was a panelist in the session on “Impact of Media, Social Media & Technology on Democracy / Governance”: http://bit.ly/17e3PZ9.
Internet, Mobile & Digital Economy Conference (IMDEC) 2013 (organised by FICCI, in association with the Ministry of Communications & IT, Government of India, New Delhi, October 25, 2013). Sunil Abraham participated as a speaker in the session on "The Internet We Want: A Multistakeholder Approach": http://bit.ly/1b8QHDD.

New and Media Coverage

CIS gave its inputs to the following media coverage:

Decline in web freedom steepest in India: Report (by Javed Anwer, The Times of India, October 3, 2013): http://bit.ly/1cVOJ99.
Google survey: 37% of urban Indian voters are online (by Anuja and Moulishree Srivastava, Livemint, October 8, 2013): http://bit.ly/1gtqqDY.
The quest for genuine clout on the internet (by Karthik Subramanian, October 13, 2013): http://bit.ly/1b8TdKa.
India believes in Complete Freedom of Cyber Space: Kapil Sibal (by Elizabeth Roche, Livemint, October 14, 2013): http://bit.ly/1fZgwd1.
Location Tracking: Why the Govt-Mobile Manufacturer War Won’t End Soon (by Danish Raza, FirstPost, October 15, 2013): http://bit.ly/HkIvF7.
Bouquets & brickbats for Google's new privacy policy (by Indu Nandakumar, Economic Times, October 18, 2013): http://bit.ly/18Rzkqm.
Bali meet to discuss Internet governance issues (by Moulishree Srivastava, October 22, 2013): http://bit.ly/17I4r3M.
Indian politicians yet to tap voters online: CIS’s Abraham (by Venkatesh Upadhyay, Livemint, October 22, 2013): http://bit.ly/17HRV4s.
Beyond the Searchlight (by Debarshi Dasgupta, October 23, 2013): http://bit.ly/17IitlZ.
Nowhere to hide: Govt making your personal details public (by FirstPost editors, FirstPost, October 28, 2013): http://bit.ly/1dGE6KJ.
Your private data may be online, courtesy govt (by Somesh Jha and Surabhi Agarwal, Business Standard, October 29, 2013): http://bit.ly/HpQRMp.
Saving privacy as we knew it (by Somesh Jha and Surabhi Agarwal, Business Standard, October 29, 2013): http://bit.ly/16HNYwu.
E-governance hopes rise as India crosses 1 billion transactions (by J Srikant, Economic Times, October 29, 2013): http://bit.ly/1cnJIKd.

Digital Humanities

CIS is building research clusters in the field of Digital Humanities. The Digital will be used as a way of unpacking the debates in humanities and social sciences and look at the new frameworks, concepts and ideas that emerge in our engagement with the digital. The clusters aim to produce and document new conversations and debates that shape the contours of Digital Humanities in Asia:

Events Participated In

GFM 2013 (organized by the University of Luneberg, Germany, October 3 – 5, 2013). Dr. Nishant Shah participated in a panel discussion with Wendy Chun, Tom Levine and Geert Lovink, around 'The End of Bibliographies: New Media and Research'. Nishant also participated as a panelist in a panel discussion on 'Open Up: Pragmatism and Politics of Open Access': http://bit.ly/1f9LCOH.
Digitalization of Culture (organized by Leuphana University, Luneberg, October 8, 2013). Dr. Nishant Shah did an introduction keynote to 1600 undergraduate students. A video of the lecture can be accessed here: http://bit.ly/1enWQPv.
RENEW: The 5th International Conference on the Histories of Media Art, Science and Technology (hosted by RIXC Centre for New Media Culture in Riga in partnership with the Art Academy of Latvia, Stockholm School of Economics in Riga and Danube University’s Center for Image Science, October 8 - 11, 2013). Dr. Nishant Shah was a part of the selection committee for the conference and chaired a session on Network Art on October 9: http://bit.ly/17e41aJ.

Blog Entry

A Hitchhikers Guide to the Cyberspace (by Anirudh Sridhar, October 4, 2013): http://bit.ly/1ga8yfH.

Knowledge Repository on Internet Access

CIS in partnership with the Ford Foundation is executing a project to create a knowledge repository on Internet and society. This repository will comprise content targeted primarily at civil society with a view to enabling their informed participation in the Indian Internet and ICT policy space. The repository is available at the Internet Institute website: http://bit.ly/1iQT2UB.

Modules

World Intellectual Property Organisation (by Anirudh Sridhar and Snehashish Ghosh, October 31, 2013). WIPO is a specialized agency of the United Nations which deals with issues related to intellectual property rights throughout the world. Find out more at http://bit.ly/17a8WEk.
An Interview on Internet Governance with Professor Milton Mueller and Jeremy Malcolm (by Anirudh Sridhar, October 31, 2013). Professor Milton Mueller from the Syracuse University School of Information and Jeremy Malcolm, an Information Technology and Intellectual Property Lawyer, spoke about current issues and debates surrounding internet governance: http://bit.ly/17ix3Ro.

About CIS
The Centre for Internet and Society is a non-profit research organization that works on policy issues relating to freedom of expression, privacy, accessibility for persons with disabilities, access to knowledge and IPR reform, and openness (including open government, FOSS, open standards, etc.), and engages in academic research on digital natives and digital humanities.

Follow us elsewhere

Twitter: https://twitter.com/CISA2K

Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/cisa2k

Visit us at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge

E-mail: a2k@cis-india.org

Request for Collaboration:
We invite researchers, practitioners, and theoreticians, both organisationally and as individuals, to collaboratively engage with Internet and society and improve our understanding of this new field. To discuss the research collaborations, write to Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, at sunil@cis-india.org or Nishant Shah, Director – Research, at nishant@cis-india.org. To discuss collaborations on Indic language wikipedia, write to T. Vishnu Vardhan, Programme Director, A2K, at vishnu@cis-india.org

CIS is grateful to its donors, Wikimedia Foundation, Ford Foundation, Privacy International, UK, Hans Foundation and the Kusuma Trust which was founded by Anurag Dikshit and Soma Pujari, philanthropists of Indian origin, for its core funding and support for most of its projects.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/about/newsletters/october-2013-bulletin

Civil society and Internet Governance: practices from Southeast Asia and beyond

praskrishna — 2013-11-19T09:29:44Z

On 21 October, the day before the opening of the 2013 Internet Governance Forum in Indonesia, Hivos’ Southeast Asia Regional Office co-organised a pre-event workshop with ID-CONFIG, “Civil Society and Internet Governance: Multi-Stakeholder Engagement Practices from Southeast Asia and Beyond,” at the Bali Nusa Dua Convention Centre.

Click to read the original published by Hivos on October 31.

Recognising that the IGF has been a global project for the past eight years, the workshop provided a critical perspective to the forum’s impact on local civil society organisations. In the past, the IGF has been criticised for focusing on policy-level IG debates that lack grassroots, on-the-ground applications. Additionally, it is has been challenged to demonstrate the relevance of IG policies for civil society organisations, which frequently have limited understanding of and involvement in the issue.

By drawing empirical case studies from different regions of Asia, the aim of the workshop was to help civil society organisations find a relevant role in IG and explore how IG frameworks with a focus on the role of civil society can be applied in developing regions to uphold the right of citizens to express themselves through the Internet.

Five speakers discussed the intersections between Internet Freedom and Internet Governance: Arthit Suriyawongkul (Thai Netizen Network, Thailand), Shahzad Ahmad (Bytes 4 All, Pakistan), Donny Budhi Utoyo (ICTWatch, Indonesia), Lobsang Gyatso Sither (Tibet Action Institute), and Pranesh Prakash (Center for Internet and Society, India). Attended by approximately 70 participants, the discussions revolved around the varying feasibility of a multi-stakeholder platform in different political contexts.

The speakers represent civil society organisations in vastly different political environments in South Asia, Southeast Asia and East Asia. They all continuously pointed out how emerging democratic movements are often counterbalanced by political power concentrated in existing state institutions. In such state-centric Internet Governance contexts, civil society organisations are often pitted against official censorship and filtering attempts. While speakers from relatively more democratic countries, namely India and Indonesia, showcased examples of how civil society organisations have engaged the government in Internet policy-making, those from Thailand and Pakistan illustrated the need for a strong litigation capacity for public interests in order to defend citizens from state infringement of their rights. At the other end of the spectrum, Gyatso Sither emphasised the importance of safeguarding Tibetan activists in the homeland and in the diaspora from surveillance by the Chinese state, whose latest strategies have included interceptions, targeted malware, and cyber attacks.

Nonetheless, civil society organisations are uniquely placed to engage both government agencies, as providers of regulatory frameworks, and the private sector, as the primary provider of ICT infrastructure, to demand equitable access to the Internet and maintain the freedom to expression online. Through an ideal multi-stakeholder framework, civil society organisations can empower communities by strategically using ICT to uphold transparency and accountability.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/hivos-october-31-2013-civil-society-and-internet-governance-practices-southeast-asia-and-beyond

MIPS 2014

praskrishna — 2013-10-29T10:26:23Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/mips-2014.pdf

Nowhere to hide: Govt making your personal details public

praskrishna — 2013-10-29T06:15:06Z

The worst fears are coming true. Your sensitive private data may be up online turning you into a potential target of frauds. What is all the more dangerous is that you may be not even aware of this.

The article by First Post editors was published on October 28, 2013. Sunil Abraham is quoted.

An investigation by the Business Standard has revealed that various state and central government departments have already started putting up citizen’s personal details such as bank accounts and income on websites. The rationale behind the move is bringing about transparency.

The report also provides details of two persons, which the reporters could access online – a 25-year-old from Haryana and another farmer from Uttar Pradesh.

In the first instance, the paper got the details from the state government website which has published all the details as the youth is a beneficiary of the NREGS.

The Haryana government made public the details of the NREGS beneficiaries in its bid to bring about transparency. In Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh’s words, the aim is to make available all these data for public scrutiny.

In the second instance, the paper has obtained the occupation and yearly income, ration card number, full address, age, father’s/husband’s name, category and poverty status of the farmer. These details are available online as the state government is computerising the public distribution system.

If you thought, not everybody’s data will be made public this way, you are wrong, because before long the details of all the beneficiaries of direct benefit transfer will also be published online.

Though the Information Technology Act does not permit publishing sensitive personal financial details online, there is an exception if such information is come under Right to Information Act.

At the face of it transparency is a lame excuse to publish such data. How can the government provide all the details, including the bank account details of its citizen, at a time when cyber crime has increased many-fold.

And nobody knows the gravity of the situation better than the government. Minister of State for Communications & IT Milind Deora recently told Lok Sabha that this year until June as many as 78 government websites were hacked.

Citing Indian Computer Response Team (CERT-In) data he said in 2011 as many as 308 government sites were hacked and in 2012 the figure was 371.

The number of security breach incidents in 2011 stood at 13,301 and in 2012 at 22,060. The corresponding figure for this year until June has already hit 16,035, he said. Security breach included incidents related to spam, malware infection and system break-in.

In such an environment, the governments’ transparency drive comes at the cost of personal security.

The problem with making public details such as date of birth and names of family members is that it helps the hackers crack passwords. Most of the people have such details as their passwords and pins, the BS report says.

Sunil Abraham of Centre for Internet and Society rightly says in the BS report, “If people start publishing information like these and the government doesn’t regulate it through a data protection law, criminal minds can harvest and combine all databases accurately.”

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/first-post-october-28-2013-nowhere-to-hide