Centre for Internet and Society

Iraqi Public Data Presentation Slides

praskrishna — 2013-04-02T04:53:25Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/iraqi-public-data.zip

Clarify and define terms in IT rules, panel tells govt.

praskrishna — 2013-04-03T10:02:33Z

In the wake of concerns that the government is increasingly using ambiguously-phrased terms in legal codes to crack down on online speech, the Parliament’s Committee on Subordinate Legislation has asked for greater clarity and definition on terms which can serve as grounds for restrictions.

The article by Prashant Jha was published in the Hindu on April 1, 2013. Pranesh Prakash is quoted.

In 2011, the government issued Intermediary Guidelines under Section 79 of the Information Technology (IT) Act. Rule 3 requires intermediaries – including Internet Service Providers (ISPs), web hosts, cyber cafes, blogging platforms, search engines and others – to inform users not to ‘host, display, upload, modify, publish, transmit or share information’ that is ‘grossly harmful, harassing, blasphemous, defamatory, obscene, pornographic, paedophilic, libellous, invasive of another’s privacy, hateful, or racially, ethnically objectionable, disparaging, or otherwise unlawful in any manner whatsoever.’ Any person aggrieved by the content can ask intermediaries to take it down, and if they do not do so within 36 hours, they can be legally liable.

‘Remove ambiguities’

The committee has heeded the views of NGOs that these terms have not been defined either in the IT Act or the rules. In a report submitted on March 21, it has drawn the attention of the Ministry of Communication and IT to the ‘reported misuse’ of Section 66A of the IT Act in the absence of precise definitions, and said it was important to remove ‘ambiguities/misgivings in the minds of people.’

In its report, the committee, chaired by MP P. Karunakaran, suggested that the definition of those terms in other laws be incorporated in one place for the ‘convenience of reference’ of intermediaries and general public. It has added that those terms not mentioned in other laws be defined in a way that ‘no new category of crimes or offences is created in the process of delegated legislation.’ The committee said it expected the Ministry to have a fresh look at the guidelines and ‘make amendments to ensure there is no ambiguity.’

Highlighting the significance of the committee’s directive not to create new offences, Pranesh Prakash of the Centre for Internet and Society said that this was recognition that ‘many categories of speech prohibited by the Intermediary Guidelines Rules are not prohibited by the statute, and hence cannot be prohibited by the government through these rules.’

‘Conflicting picture’

The committee has also pointed out that there was a ‘conflicting picture’ regarding the ‘legal enforceability’ of these guidelines. In its response, the Ministry told the committee that these are of ‘advisory’ nature; it is not ‘mandatory’ for the intermediary to disable information and this does not amount to ‘censorship.’ But the rules state the intermediary ‘shall act’ within 36 hours of complaint.

The committee said there was a need for ‘clarity on the aforesaid contradictions,’ particularly on the process of ‘take down of content,’ and install ‘safeguards to protect against any abuse during such process.’

Mr. Prakash of CIS said that this had exposed the ‘government’s Janus-faced stance on the issue of mandatory nature of these rules.’

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/the-hindu-april-1-2013-prashant-jha-clarify-and-define-terms-in-it-rules-panel-tells-govt

2nd Odia Wikipedia Edit-a-thon

praskrishna — 2013-04-01T10:17:22Z

The event is being organized today, April 1, 2013 online by the Odia Wikipedia Community, from 10.00 a.m. to 7.00 p.m. The Centre for Internet and Society is supporting this event.

Click to read about the event on Facebook

"ଓଡ଼ିଶା ଦିବସ - ୨୦୧୩" ଉପଲକ୍ଷେ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆରେ ମିଳିତ ଗଣ-ସମ୍ପାଦନା ତଥା ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆ ସହ "ଅନଲାଇନ ଓଡ଼ିଶା ଦିବସ ପାଳନ" . ଏହି ଦିନ ଆମେ କଣ କରିବୁ: ସକାଳ ୧୦ ଘଟିକାରୁ ନେଇ ସନ୍ଧ୍ୟା ୭ ଘଟିକା ଭିତରେ ଆମେମାନେ ନିଜ ନିଜର ଗାଁ, ପଞ୍ଚାୟତ, ସ‌ହର ଉପରେ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆରେ ପ୍ରସଙ୍ଗମାନ ତିଆରି କରିବୁ । କେମିତି ତିଆରିକରିବେ ପ୍ରସଙ୍ଗ:

୧. http://or.wikipedia.org/s/ 8b -> ଏହି ଲିଙ୍କଙ୍କୁ ଯାଇ ଉପରେ ଥିବେ "Type in Odia" କୁ ଯାଇ "Enable (Ctrl-M)" ରେ କ୍ଲିକ କରନ୍ତୁ । ଖୋଜିବା ପାଇଁ ଥିବା ଘରେ ନିଜ ଗାଁର ନାମ ଟାଇପ କରନ୍ତୂ ।

This ia a mass article writing event or Edit-a-thon on the occasion of "Odisha Dibasa -2013". We are inviting you to join and take part in creating articles about your villages, Grama Pachayata, Block on Odia Wikipedia.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/odia-wikipedia-editathon

Access to Knowledge Bulletin — March 2013

praskrishna — 2013-04-15T16:47:20Z

In the third issue of our newsletter for 2013, we are pleased to bring you updates from the Indic Wikipedia Visualisation project, reports of events organised in Goa, and press coverage of the Kannada Wikipedia Workshop held in Mysore.

The A2K team consists of four members based in Delhi: T. Vishnu Vardhan, Nitika Tandon, Subhashish Panigrahi and Noopur Raval, and one member Dr. U.B. Pavanaja who is working from Bangalore office.

Wikipedians from various communities can request for outreach programs, technical bugs, logistics-merchandize and media, public relations and communications at http://bit.ly/TOcXId.

Indic Wikipedia Visualisation Project

Visualising Basic Parameters (by Sajjad Anwar and Sumandro Chattapadhyay, March 26, 2013): Sajjad and Sumandro bring you a visualisation of the growth of Indic Wikipedia in this first post on Indic Wikipedia Visualisation project.

Events Organised

Introductory Wikipedia session at BITS Goa (organised by CIS, Birla Institute of Technology & Science, Pilani, Goa, March 7, 2013). The Access to Knowledge team was invited by Nikhil Dixit from BITS to organise a Wikipedia editing session. Nitika Tandon led the editing session.
Kannada Wikipedia Workshop (organised by CIS, Institution of Engineers, JLB Road, Mysore, March 24, 2013). Dr. U.B. Pavanaja led the event.

Events Co-organised

Wiki Women's Day in Goa (organised by the Wikimedia India Chapter and CIS, Nirmala Institute of Education, Panaji, Goa, March 8, 2013). Nitika Tandon participated in this workshop held on International Working Women's Day, and shares the developments in this report.
Wikipedia Workshop for Kannada Science Writers (organised by Wikimedia Chapter India, Karnataka Rajya Vijnana Parishath and CIS, Karnataka Rajya Vijnana Parishath Conference Hall, Banashankari 2nd Stage, Bangalore, March 17, 2013). Dr. U.B. Pavanaja participated in the event.

Upcoming Event (Co-organised)

Telugu Wiki Mahotsavam 2013 (co-organised with the Telegu Wikipedia community, Hyderabad, April 9 to 11, 2013). Vishnu Vardhan is participating in this event as a speaker. A public event will be held on April 11 from 5.00 p.m. to 8.00 p.m. at Golden Threshold (Sarojini Naidu's house) in Hyderabad.

Events Participated In

Wikipedia Women's Workshop Bangalore 2013 (organised by Wikimedia India, Servelots Infotech, Jayanagar, Bangalore, March 8, 2013). The event was covered by Kannada Prabha on March 9, 2013. Dr. U.B. Pavanaja participated in the event.
Wikipedia at Avenir (organised by the Wikipedia community, Netaji Subhash Engineering College, Kolkata, West Bengal, March 11, 2013). CIS supported the event.

Event Report from Other Organisations

Wikipedia Community members helped the Higher Education Innovation and Research Applications Programme (HEIRA) of CSCS Bangalore organize a day-long workshop on ‘Digital Literacy’ at Ahmednagar College, Ahmednagar, Maharasthra on January 17, 2013. Tanveer Hasan of HEIRA shares with us the developments in this report.

Media Coverage

Kannada Wikipedia Workshop, Mysore (Prajavani, March 25, 2013).

About CIS

CIS was registered as a society in Bangalore in 2008. As an independent, non-profit research organisation, it runs different policy research programmes such as Accessibility, Access to Knowledge, Openness, Internet Governance, and Telecom. The policy research programmes have resulted in outputs such as the e-Accessibility Policy Handbook for Persons with Disabilities with ITU and G3ict, and Digital Alternatives with a Cause?, Thinkathon Position Papers and the Digital Natives with a Cause? Report with Hivos, etc. We have conducted policy research for the Ministry of Communications & Information Technology, Ministry of Human Resource Development, Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, etc., on WIPO Treaties, Copyright Bill, NIA Bill, etc.

CIS is accredited as an observer at WIPO. CIS staff participates in the Standing Committee for Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR) meetings regularly held in Geneva, and participate in the discussions and comments on them from a public interest perspective. Our Policy Director, Nirmita Narasimhan won the National Award for Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities from the Government of India and also received the NIVH Excellence Award.

Follow us elsewhere

Get short, timely messages from us on Twitter
Join the CIS group on Facebook
Visit us at http://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

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-march-2013

March 2013 Bulletin

praskrishna — 2013-04-14T11:45:29Z

The Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) welcomes you to the third issue of its newsletter for the year 2013. In this issue we bring you an overview of our research programs, updates of events organised by us, events we participated in, news and media coverage, and videos of some of our recent events.

Jobs
CIS invites applications for the posts of Developer (NVDA Screen Reader Project), Programme Officer (Access to Knowledge and Openness), and Programme Officer (Internet Governance). To apply send your resume to sunil@cis-india.org and pranesh@cis-india.org.

Accessibility

CIS is doing two projects in partnership with the Hans Foundation. One of this is to create a national resource kit of state-wise laws, policies and programmes on issues relating to persons with disabilities in India and another is for developing a screen reader and text-to- speech synthesizer for Indian languages. CIS is also working with the World Blind Union and many other organisations to develop a Treaty for the Visually Impaired helped by the WIPO:

National Resource Kit for Persons with Disabilities
Anandhi Viswanathan from CIS and Manojna Yeluri from the Centre for Law and Policy Research are working in this project. Draft chapters have been published. Feedback and comments are invited from readers for the chapters on Lakshadweep, Meghalaya and Uttar Pradesh:

The Lakshadweep Chapter (by Anandhi Viswanathan, March 25, 2013): The union territory of Lakshadweep has not passed any legislation for persons with disabilities, but implements the provisions under the central laws. The benefits currently available to persons with disabilities in Lakshadweep include disability pension, unemployment allowance and grant for setting up kiosks.
The Meghalaya Chapter (by Manojna Yeluri, March 25, 2013): Meghalaya is one of the few north-eastern states, which has appointed a Commissioner for Disabilities. Most of the schemes and benefits given to persons with disabilities in Meghalaya are under centrally sponsored schemes. Very few schemes are initiated by the state government.
The Uttar Pradesh Chapter (by Manojna Yeluri, March 31, 2013): The Government of Uttar Pradesh has established shelter homes and vocational training centres in several parts of the states — most recently in Meerut, Bareilly and Gorakhpur. It has also undertaken to finance nearly 4340 corrective surgeries for polio across nine cities of Uttar Pradesh. It also intends to start several projects in 2013. These include the establishment of a Braille Press in order to produce Braille books, magazines and other study material.

Resources
We now have a new section on our website which contains all government notifications, RTI applications, and accessibility related resources: cases, statutes, etc. The following were published earlier this month:

Information about Schemes for Disabled Persons in Haryana We received this notification on schemes and policies for persons with disabilities from the Government of Haryana.
Haryana Government Notification (Hindi version): The notification that we received from the state government was in Hindi. We will put up the English translation soon.
West Bengal (Govt) Notifications: We received a series of notifications from the West Bengal Government from its various departments such as finance, higher education, transport, health and family welfare, labour, land and land reforms, panchayats and rural development, etc. OCR versions of the same have been published.
Lakshadweep (Govt) Notifications: Notifications received from the Lakshadweep Government including guidelines for functioning of KIOSKS, grant of unemployment allowance and special jobs to persons with disabilities, issuing identity card to persons with disabilities for availing government benefits, etc., are published. OCR versions have also been put up.

Event Participated In

A Discussion on Intercept between UNCRPD & CEDAW (organized by the Shanta Memorial Institute of Rehabilitation – Odisha, CBR Network and Mitra Jyoti, Bangalore, Karnataka, February 4, 2013): Anandhi Viswanathan participated in this event.

Access to Knowledge and Openness

The Wikimedia Foundation awarded CIS a two year grant of INR 26,000,000 to support and develop the growth of Indic language communities and projects by community collaborations and partnerships. This is being carried out by the Access to Knowledge team based in Delhi. CIS is also doing a project (Pervasive Technologies) on examining the relationship between production of pervasive technologies and intellectual property. CIS also promotes openness including open government data, open standards, open access, and free/libre/open source software through its Openness programme.

Wikipedia

Beginning from September 1, 2012, Wikimedia Foundation awarded CIS a two-year grant of INR 26,000,000 to support and develop free knowledge in India. The A2K team consists of four members based in Delhi: T. Vishnu Vardhan, Nitika Tandon, Subhashish Panigrahi and Noopur Raval, and one team member Dr. U.B. Pavanaja who is working from Bangalore office.

Indic Wikipedia Visualisation Project

Visualising Basic Parameters (by Sajjad Anwar and Sumandro Chattapadhyay, March 26, 2013): Sajjad and Sumandro bring you a visualisation of the growth of Indic Wikipedia in this first post on Indic Wikipedia Visualisation project. They look into the different aspects of the past and present activities of Indic Wikipedias, and divide the visualisation into three different focus areas: (1) basic parameters, (2) geographic patterns of edits, and (3) exploring the topics that receives the greatest number of edits.

Events Organised

Introductory Wikipedia session at BITS Goa (organised by CIS, Birla Institute of Technology & Science, Pilani, Goa, March 7, 2013). The Access to Knowledge team was invited by Nikhil Dixit from BITS to organise a Wikipedia editing session. Nitika Tandon led the session on IP editing.
Kannada Wikipedia Workshop (organised by CIS, Institution of Engineers, JLB Road, Mysore, March 24, 2013). Dr. U.B. Pavanaja led this workshop.

Events Co-organised

Wiki Women's Day in Goa (organised by the Wikimedia India Chapter and CIS, Nirmala Institute of Education, Panaji, Goa, March 8, 2013). Nitika Tandon participated in this workshop held on International Working Women's Day, and shares the developments in this report.
Wikipedia Workshop for Kannada Science Writers (organised by Wikimedia India Chapter, Karnataka Rajya Vijnana Parishath and CIS, Karnataka Rajya Vijnana Parishath Conference Hall, Banashankari 2nd Stage, Bangalore, March 17, 2013). Dr. U.B. Pavanaja participated in the event.

Upcoming Event

Telugu Wiki Mahotsavam 2013 (co-organised with the Telegu Wikipedia community, Hyderabad, April 9 to 11, 2013). Vishnu Vardhan is participating in this event as a speaker. A public event will be held on April 11 from 5.00 p.m. to 8.00 p.m. at Golden Threshold (Sarojini Naidu's house) in Hyderabad.

Events Participated

Wikipedia Women's Workshop Bangalore 2013 (organised by Wikimedia India, Servelots Infotech, Jayanagar, Bangalore, March 8, 2013). The event was covered by Kannada Prabha on March 9, 2013. Dr. U.B. Pavanaja participated in the event.
Wikipedia at Avenir (organised by the Wikipedia community, Netaji Subhash Engineering College, Kolkata, West Bengal, March 11, 2013). CIS supported this event.

Event Report from Other Organisations
Wikipedia Community members helped the Higher Education Innovation and Research Applications Programme (HEIRA) of CSCS Bangalore to organize a day-long workshop on ‘Digital Literacy’ at Ahmednagar College, Ahmednagar, Maharasthra on January 17, 2013. Tanveer Hasan of HEIRA shares with us the developments in this report.

Other Openness Updates

Event Report

Iraqi Public Data Scenario Workshop: A Summary (by Sumandro Chattapadhyay, March 26, 2013): A workshop on public data was conducted by Sunil Abraham and Sumandro Chattapadhyay for the officials of the Government of Iraq. It was organized by UNDP Iraq in Amman, Jordan from October 18 to 23, 2012. Sumandro Chattapadhyay shares with us the developments from the workshop held over five days.

Event Participated

Open DataCamp - 2013 (organized by Open Data Camp, Dharmaram Vidya Kshetram (inside Christ University Campus), Dairy Circle, Bangalore, March 2 and 3, 2013): Sunil Abraham was a panelist.

HasGeek
HasGeek creates discussion spaces for geeks and has organised conferences like the Fifth Elephant, Droidcon India 2011, Android Camp, etc. HasGeek is supported by CIS and works from the CIS office in Bengaluru.

Upcoming Events

Pig Workshop (organized by HasGeek, Alchemy Solutions, Domlur, Bangalore, 9.00 a.m. to 6.00 p.m.): A workshop on how to use Pig for mining useful information from data. It is open to programmers who have a background in Java programming, some familiarity with Hadoop and MapReduce algorithms, and have worked with large chunks of data.
The Fifth Elephant 2013 (organized by HasGeek, July 11 to 13, 2013, NIMHANS Convention Centre, Bangalore).

Internet Governance

The Internet Governance programme conducts research around the various social, technical, and political underpinnings of global and national Internet governance, and includes online privacy, freedom of speech, and Internet governance mechanisms and processes. Currently, CIS is doing a project with Privacy International, London to facilitate research and events around surveillance, and freedom of speech and expression.

Privacy

Policy

Draft Human DNA Profiling Bill (April 2012): High Level Concerns (by Elonnai Hickok, March 12, 2013). The post examines the high level concerns that CIS has with the April 2012 draft of the Bill.
Human DNA Profiling Bill 2012 Analysis (by Jeremy Gruber, Council for Responsible Genetics, US, March 19, 2013). Jeremy provides an analysis of the Human DNA Profiling Bill, 2012. He says that India’s updated 2012 Human DNA Profiling Bill offers largely superficial changes from its predecessor, the Draft DNA Profiling Bill, 2007.

The Privacy (Protection) Bill 2013: A Citizen's Draft (by Bhairav Acharya, March 26, 2013). Bhairav Acharya has drafted the Privacy (Protection) Bill 2013. It contains provisions that speak to data protection, interception, and surveillance and also establishes the powers and functions of the Privacy Commissioner, and lays out offenses and penalties for contravention of the Bill. The Bill represents a citizen's version of possible privacy legislation for India, and will be shared with key stakeholders including civil society, industry, and government.

Upcoming Events

A Privacy Round Table in Delhi (organized by CIS and Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, FICCI Federation House, Tansen Marg, New Delhi, April 3, 2013).
A Privacy Round Table in Bangalore (organized by CIS and Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, Jayamahal Palace, Jayamahal Road, Bangalore, April 20, 2013).

Event Organized

Analyzing the Draft Human DNA Profiling Bill 2012 (organized by the Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore, March 1, 2013): Maria Xynou shares a summary of the workshop in this report.

Events Participated In

Global Partners Meeting @ London (organized by Privacy International, London School of Economics and Political Science, March 22 – 25, 2013). Sunil Abraham and Malavika Jayaram participated in the event.
India’s Civil Liberties Crisis: Of Bans, Blocks, Bullying and Biometrics (organized by the Center for Global Communication Studies, Annenberg School of Communication, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, March 28, 2013). Malavika Jayaram participated as a speaker.
Future of Privacy in India (organized by DSCI and ICOMP, Oberoi Hotel, New Delhi, April 5, 2013). Sunil Abraham is a speaker at this event.

Blog Posts

Hacking without borders: The future of artificial intelligence and surveillance (by Maria Xynou, March 15, 2013). In this post, Maria looks at some of DARPA´s artificial intelligence surveillance technologies in regards to the right to privacy and their potential future use in India.
Driving in the Surveillance Society: Cameras, RFID tags and Black Boxes... (by Maria Xynou, March 26, 2013). Maria examines red light cameras, RFID tags and black boxes used to monitor vehicles in India.
Microsoft Releases its First Report on Data Requests by Law Enforcement Agencies around the World (by Maria Xynou, March 27, 2013). CIS presents Microsoft´s report on law enforcement requests, with a focus on data requested by Indian law enforcement agencies.
The Criminal Law Amendment Bill 2013 — Penalising 'Peeping Toms' and Other Privacy Issues (by Divij Joshi, March 31, 2013). The pending amendments to the Indian Penal Code, if passed in their current format, would be a huge boost for individual physical privacy by criminalising stalking and sexually-tinted voyeurism and removing the ambiguities in Indian law which threaten the privacy and dignity of individuals.

IT Act

Featured Blog Post

CIS Welcomes Standing Committee Report on IT Rules (by Pranesh Prakash, March 27, 2013). CIS welcomes the report by the Standing Committee on Subordinate Legislation, in which it has lambasted the government and has recommended that the government amend the Rules it passed in April 2011 under section 79 of the Information Technology Act. The post was quoted in: The Times of India (March 28, 2013), The Statesman (March 28, 2013), Economic Times (March 28, 2013), Data Quest (March 28, 2013), and The Hindu (April 1, 2013).

Submissions
Bhairav Acharya, on behalf of CIS submitted comments to the Committee on Subordinate Legislation of the 15^th Lok Sabha for the following rules:

Comments on the Information Technology (Electronic Service Delivery) Rules, 2011. The Rules were notified by the Central Government in the Gazette of India vide Notification GSR 316(E) on April 11, 2011.
Comments on the Information Technology (Reasonable Security Practices and Procedures and Sensitive Personal Data or Information) Rules, 2011. The Rules were notified by the Central Government in the Gazette of India vide Notification GSR 313(E) on April 11, 2011.
Comments on the Information Technology (Guidelines for Cyber Cafe) Rules, 2011. The Rules were notified by the Central Government in the Gazette of India vide Notification GSR 315(E) on April 11, 2011.

Note: The above rules were submitted earlier but published on our website only recently.

Unique ID Project

Event Organized

Unique Identity Number (UID), National Population Register (NPR), and Governance (organized by CIS and Say No to UID Campaign, TERI, Bangalore, March 2, 2013): CIS interviewed Usha Ramanathan and Anant Maringanti. Watch the videos uploaded in this blog post by Maria Xynou. This was covered in newzfirst on March 3, 2013 and in the Hindu on March 3, 2013.

Interview

Unique Identification Scheme (UID) & National Population Register (NPR), and Governance (by Elonnai Hickok, March 14, 2013). The post examines the UID, NPR and Governance as it exists in India. A video on the UID interview Questions and Answers is published.

News and Media

Indian ID crisis unveils Aadhaar doubts (ZDNet, March 14, 2013). Sunil Abraham is quoted.
New $1 Billion RIC Project Casts Doubts on Aadhaar (AEG India, March 16, 2013). Sunil Abraham is quoted.

Blog Entry

India's Biometric Identification Programs and Privacy Concerns (by Divij Joshi, March 31, 2013).

Free Speech and Expression

News and Media

Foreign Funding of NGOs (by Prashant Reddy, Open Magazine, March 2, 2013).
Iceland’s proposed porn ban ‘like repression in Iran, N. Korea’ – activists (RT, March 1, 2013). Sunil Abraham is quoted.
Chidambaram to Talk Budget on Google+ Hangout (by Dhanya Ann Thoppil, Wall Street Journal, March 4, 2013). Sunil Abraham is quoted.
Responding to govt requests is a challenge for online firms: Colin Maclay (LiveMint, March 13, 2013). Colin M. Maclay, managing director of Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard mentioned CIS.
Indian police set up lab to monitor social media (originally published by AFP, March 18, 2013, and also carried in Global Post on the same day). Sunil Abraham is quoted.
Namaste, Mr. Eric Schmidt (by R. Jai Krishna, Wall Street Journal, March 20, 2013). Sunil Abraham is quoted.
Parliament panel blasts govt over ambiguous internet laws (by Ishan Srivastava, The Times of India, March 28, 2013). Pranesh Prakash is quoted.
What if the Net shut down for a few days (by Atul Sethi, The Times of India, March 30, 2013). Sunil Abraham is quoted.
Press controls ‘send wrong message to rest of world’ (by Jerome Starkey from Johannesburg, Francis Elliott from Delhi and David Brown, The Times, UK).

Event Organized

Freedom Song: Film Screening and Discussion (IIHS Bangalore City Campus, March 21, 2013). Freedom Song, a documentary film produced by the Public Service Broadcasting Trust and directed by Paranjoy Guha Thakurta and Subi Chaturvedi was screened.

Events Participated In

Is Social Media Incredible? (organized by Indian Institute of Journalism & New Media, Bangalore, March 2, 2013). Snehashish Ghosh participated in a panel discussion. The New Indian Express published a post-event report.
Rethinking the Internet: The Way Forward (organized by Telecom Italia and Financial iTimes, Telecom Italia Future Centre, Italy, March 21 – 22, 2013). Pranesh Prakash participated in this event.

Others

Events Organised

DML 2013: Fourth Annual Conference (co-organised by CIS and Digital Media & Learning Research Hub Central, Sheraton Chicago Hotel & Towers - Chicago, Illinois, March 14 – 16, 2013). We had a special track that ran through the conference on "Whose Change Is It Anyway? Futures, Youth, Technology And Citizen Action In The Global South (And The Rest Of The World)". Noopur Raval was one of the 16 presenters that we had selected on the tracks. Nishant Shah was one of the members in the Conference Committee.

Blog Posts

WGIG+8: Stock-Taking, Mapping, and Going Forward (Fontenoy Building, conference room # 7, UNESCO Headquarters, Paris, February 27, 2013). Pranesh Prakash was the moderator for the session. A summary of the discussion has been published.
What’s In a Name? — DNS Singularity of ICANN and the Gold Rush (by Sharath Chandra Ram, March 31, 2013). March 2013 being the 28th birthday of the first ever registered Internet domain as well as the exigent launch of the Trademark Clearing House disguised as a milestone in rights protection by ICANN for its new gTLD program, Sharath Chandra Ram, dissects the transitory role of ICANN from being a technical outfit to the Boardroom Big Brother of Internet Governance.
An Introduction to Bitfilm & Bitcoin in Bangalore, India (by Benson Samuel, March 12, 2013). Video of the event organized by CIS on January 23, 2013 is published in this blog post.

Knowledge Repository on Internet Access

CIS in partnership with the Ford Foundation is executing a project on Internet Access. It covers the history of the internet, technologies involved, principle and values of internet access, broadband market and universal access and will touch upon various polices and regulations which has an impact on internet access and bodies and mechanism which are responsible for formulation policies related to internet access. The blog posts and modules will be published in a new website: www.internet-institute.in.

Upcoming Event
We are hosting an “Institute on Internet and Society” in collaboration with the Ford Foundation India, which is to be held from June 8, 2013 to June 14, 2013. Call for registration and relevant details will be announced soon on our website.

The following units have been published:

Internet Protocols (by Srividya Vaidyanathan, March 18, 2013).
How email works, how do you get your email? Email Protocols (SMTP, POP, IMAP), SPAM/Phishing (by Srividya Vaidyanathan, March 19, 2013).
Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (by Snehashish Ghosh, March 19, 2013).
ITU sectors — ITU-R, ITU-T, ITU-D, etc. (by Snehashish Ghosh, March 27, 2013).
World Conference on International Telecommunications 2012 (by Snehashish Ghosh, March 29, 2013).

Telecom

CIS is involved in promoting access and accessibility of 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:

Newspaper Column

Are India's Glory Days Over? (by Shyam Ponappa, Organizing India Blogspot, March 8, 2013, originally published in the Business Standard, March 6, 2013).

Digital Natives

Digital Natives with a Cause? examines the changing landscape of social change and political participation in light of the role that young people play through digital and Internet technologies, in emerging information societies. Consolidating knowledge from Asia, Africa and Latin America, it builds a global network of knowledge partners who critically engage with discourse on youth, technology and social change, and look at alternative practices and ideas in the Global South:

Events Participated In

Video Vortex # 9 Re:assemblies of Video (organized by the Institute of Network Cultures, Post Media Lab, Moving Image Lab, Leuphana, et.al, February 28 – March 2, 2013). Nishant Shah gave the key note. Videos of the event are published.

Digital Humanities

From 2012 to 2015, the Researchers @ Work series is focusing on building research clusters in the field of Digital Humanities. We organised the first Habits of Living workshops in Bangalore last year. The next workshop is being held in Brown University

Event Co-organised

Habits of Living: Networked Affects, Glocal Effects (co-organised with Brown University, March 21 – 23, 2013, Brown University, Rhode Island). Nishant Shah was a speaker at this event. He made a presentation on network ontologies.

Event Participated

Korean Trans Cine-Media in Global Contexts: Asia and the World (organized by Trans-Asia Screen Culture Institute, Cinema Studies, Korean National University of Arts, Korean Film Archive and Tsubouchi Memorial Theatre Museum, Waseda University, Seoul, March 27 – 29, 2013). Nishant Shah was a speaker at this event. He spoke on "The Asian Intercourse: Reimagining the Inter-Asia moment through ‘net-porn’ in networks".

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.

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Request for Collaboration

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

Land and Social Justice - An introduction to Georgism

praskrishna — 2013-04-28T07:06:03Z

Cherry G Mathew will be giving a public talk on Georgism at the office of the Centre for Internet and Society in Bangalore on April 12, 2013, from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m.

Abstract

In his popular book of the 1870s "Progress and Poverty", Henry George examined the causes of Poverty in contemporary America, and proposed very specific solutions for economic justice. "His genius has been glowingly acknowledged by such renowned figures as philosophers John Dewey and Mortimer J. Adler, presidents Woodrow Wilson and Dwight D. Eisenhower, scientists Alfred Russel Wallace and Albert Einstein, essayists John Ruskin and Albert Jay Nock, jurists Louis D. Brandeis and Samuel Seabury, columnists William F. Buckley and Michael Kinsley, and statesmen Winston Churchill and Sun Yat-sen.", while being heavily criticised by Karl Marx (who referred to George's teaching as "Capitalism's last ditch."[*]

This talk will make a brief introduction to George's Ideas, and then will attempt to draw discussion on their relevence to information and current copyright and intellectual property landscapes.

Cherry G. Mathew

Cherry G. Mathew is a British Chevening Scholar and an Open Source Kernel Hacker. He has worked on the Linux kernel in the past, and is an active FreeBSD and NetBSD developer/committer. He is an Electronics Engineer by basic training, with a Masters in Evolutionary and Adaptive Systems. He has worn various hats professionally, from Technical Developer, Roboticist, Free Software campaigner, CEO, volunteer teacher and currently software consultant. His current area of professional work is the Xen hypervisor and BSD kernels. His non-technology hobbies include outdoor pursuits and swing dancing.

Click to see the presentation

[*]. http://bit.ly/13HZg7m (Retrieved on March 29, 2013).

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/events/land-and-social-justice-an-introduction-to-georgism

What if the Net shut down for a few days

praskrishna — 2013-04-03T11:01:38Z

When spammers attacked Spamhaus, a European spam-fighting group in what was billed as the "biggest cyber attack in history", they managed to temporarily slow down the internet. But what if dedicated attackers succeeded in shutting down the internet for a longer time, maybe a few days? What would be the potential impact of such a scenario in a world where crucial data is stored on emails, most financial transactions have shifted online and an entire generation has grown up not realising what life without the web could be like?

The article by Atul Sethi was published in the Times of India on March 30, 2013. Sunil Abraham is quoted.

"The thought itself is frightening," says Vijay Mukhi, president of the Foundation of Information Security and Technology and co-founder of the Internet Users Community of India. "Most people use their email or cloud computing to store their data. What happens when you can't access your crucial information? Also, financial activity in the absence of the internet will come to a standstill since there would be no money flow happening between banks or transactions in the stock market. The implications are huge. And I'm not even thinking of the withdrawal symptoms that many youngsters are going to go through when they can't log on. "

However, contrary to the horror that this situation might elicit from those whose lives revolve around the web, the impact on India, at least, should not be much, says Sunil Abraham, director of the Bangalore-based Centre for Internet and Society. "An internet blackout in India can at most be compared to a bandh. Life becomes uncomfortable but it still goes on. This is because in India, the internet is used by just about 20% of the population. At the most, one can argue that since this 20% also constitutes the elite of the country - bureaucrats, politicians, businessmen, media, etc, any disruption in their work could also affect the remaining 80% of the country indirectly."

Even though complete shutdown of the internet is believed to be virtually impossible - since it is made up of thousands of interconnections which ensure its infallibility - hackers haven't stopped trying as the latest cyber attack shows. Internet security consultant Ankit Fadia points out that the only way somebody can bring down the internet is if a few million hackers combine together as part of a sustained project. "Even then, it's a remote possibility that they can pull it off," he says.

If it does happen, though, remember to polish up your letter-writing skills and go over to your friend's house if you want to chat.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/times-of-india-atul-sethi-march-30-2013-what-if-the-net-shut-down-for-a-few-days

A Privacy Round Table in Delhi

praskrishna — 2013-04-12T09:33:46Z

The Centre for Internet and Society and the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry cordially invite you to a "Privacy Round Table" at the FICCI Federation House in Tansen Marg, New Delhi on April 13, 2013, from 10.30 a.m. to 4.00 p.m.

To discuss, in furtherance of Internet Governance Initiatives and Dialogue in 2013, the “Report of the Group of Experts on Privacy” by the Justice AP Shah Committee, and the text of the Citizens’ Privacy (Protection) Bill 2013, drafted by the Centre for Internet and Society.

The discussions and recommendations from the meeting will be published into a compilation, and presented at the Internet Governance meeting planned for October 2013.

Time	Detail
10.30 11.30	Overview of Justice AP Shah report: Purpose, principles, and framework
11.30 12.00	Tea
12.00 13.00	Overview, explanation, and discussion on the Citizens’ Privacy Protection Bill 2013
13.00 14.00	Lunch
14.00 16.00	In depth explanation and discussions regarding the Citizens’ Privacy Protection Bill 2013 (time for review and comments)
16.00 16.30	Tea

Confirmations and RSVP

Please send your email confirmations for attending the first New Delhi Roundtable on April 13, 2013, to Snehashish Ghosh at snehashish@cis-india.org, mobile no. +91- 9902763325,latest by end-of-business 5:30 p.m. on Friday April 5, 2013. As the conference is a roundtable dialogue, we request that attendees submit a brief introduction about themselves and their interest in the topic.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/events/privacy-round-table

Parliament panel blasts govt over ambiguous internet laws

praskrishna — 2013-03-28T08:37:30Z

The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Subordinate Legislation has come out with a report in which it has lambasted the government and asked it to make changes to IT rules that govern internet-related cases in India.

This article by Ishan Srivastava was published in the Times of India on March 28, 2013. Pranesh Prakash is quoted.

It said in the report that multiple clauses in the laws had inherent ambiguity and that discrepancies exist in the government's stand on whether some rules are mandatory or only of advisory nature.

The committee said that inherent ambiguity of words like 'blasphemy' and `disparaging', among others, could lead to harassment of people as has happened with Section 66A of the IT Act repeatedly in recent times. Incidents include the arrest of two girls over 'liking' a Facebook post and a defamation case against an individual for an 'offensive' tweet. It has also been used by multiple politicians to suppress voices of dissent by branding them as 'defamatory'.

These ambiguous terms are used in the Intermediary Guidelines rules, passed in April 2011, which the committtee said could lead to legitimate speech being removed. Also, the Standing Committee noted that many categories of speech prohibited by the Intermediary Guidelines rules were not prohibited by any statute, and hence could not be prohibited by the government through these rules. The Standing Committee has asked the government to ensure that "no new category of crimes or offences is created" by these rules.

The committee also said that discrepancies exist in the nature of implementation of these laws. While the government's stand is that Intermediary Guidelines are only "of advisory nature and self-regulation" and that "it is not mandatory for the Intermediary to disable the information", the wording of the laws suggest otherwise. In many of the laws, terms like "shall act" within 36 hours are used. The committee said that there was a "need for clarity on the aforesaid contradiction" and "safeguards to protect against any abuse" since it could lead to censorship.

"The government has told the Committee that the rules are for "self-regulation", but they in fact aren't. The rules dictate what content cannot be hosted. And our research found that intermediaries react to fake takedown requests too, just to avoid being liable for their users' content. This is not self-regulation, but government-mandated private censorship," said Pranesh Prakash, policy director at the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS). CIS is a Bangalore-based non-profit body looking at issues of public accountability, privacy, free expression, and openness, and has consistently argued that many parts of the IT Act are unconstitutional.

The committee also suggested that all evidence relating to foreign websites refusing to honour Indian laws should be made public and a public debate should be encouraged as the internet is a global phenomena. Recently there have been instances of issues between the Indian government and tech giants like Facebook and Google related to censorship and taking down of 'offensive' and 'defamatory' content.

While the government's stand is that Intermediary Guidelines are only "of advisory nature and self-regulation" and that "it is not mandatory for the Intermediary to disable the information," the wording of the laws suggest otherwise.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/times-of-india-ishan-srivastava-march-28-2013-parliament-panel-blasts-govt-over-ambiguous-internet-laws

Privacy Round Table in Delhi

praskrishna — 2013-03-28T09:12:41Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/privacy-roundtable.pdf

Lakshadweep Notifications (OCR)

praskrishna — 2013-03-27T03:28:20Z

Find below the unedited scanned versions of the notifications received from the Government of Lakshadweep.

The folder contains the following:

Guidelines for Functioning of KIOSKS for Encouraging Self Employment among Disabled Persons in the Islands, Lakshadweep.
Guidelines for Grant of Unemployment Allowance and Special Job to Persons with Disabilities.
Guidelines for Issuing Identity Card to Persons with Disabilities for Availing Government Benefits and Concessions.
Notification on Amendments in regard to Payment of Pension of Old Destitute Old-aged, Widows, Physically Disabled, Abandoned Ladies/Destitutes.
Notification on Setting up of District Disability Rehabilitation Centre at Kavaratti.
Notification for Constitution of a Local Level Committee for implementation of National Trusts Act, 1999.
Notification for Constitution of Lakshadweep State Executive Committee.
Notification for Constitution of Island Level Committee to Scrutinize, Certify and Recommend the Applications of Individuals/Voluntary Organizations related to Disability Section under the Chairmanship of Sub Divisional Officers/Deputy Collectors.
Notification for Constitution of a State Level Committee under the Chairmanship of Secretary (Welfare) with Representatives of Concerned Department/Agencies to Co-ordinate and Monitor the Implementation of the National Programme for Rehabilitation for Persons with Disabilities in Lakshadweep.

Click to download the OCR files.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/accessibility/resources/lakshadweep-ocr-notifications

Lakshadweep (OCR) Notifications

praskrishna — 2013-03-27T03:25:33Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/lakshadweep-ocr-notifications.zip

Lakshadweep (Govt) Notifications

praskrishna — 2013-03-27T03:19:13Z

The following folder contains a series of notifications received by CIS from the Government of Lakshadweep recently.

The folder contains the following:

Guidelines for Functioning of KIOSKS for Encouraging Self Employment among Disabled Persons in the Islands, Lakshadweep.
Guidelines for Grant of Unemployment Allowance and Special Job to Persons with Disabilities.
Guidelines for Issuing Identity Card to Persons with Disabilities for Availing Government Benefits and Concessions.
Notification on Amendments in regard to Payment of Pension of Old Destitute Old-aged, Widows, Physically Disabled, Abandoned Ladies/Destitutes.
Notification on Setting up of District Disability Rehabilitation Centre at Kavaratti.
Notification for Constitution of a Local Level Committee for implementation of National Trusts Act, 1999.
Notification for Constitution of Lakshadweep State Executive Committee.
Notification for Constitution of Island Level Committee to Scrutinize, Certify and Recommend the Applications of Individuals/Voluntary Organizations related to Disability Section under the Chairmanship of Sub Divisional Officers/Deputy Collectors.
Notification for Constitution of a State Level Committee under the Chairmanship of Secretary (Welfare) with Representatives of Concerned Department/Agencies to Co-ordinate and Monitor the Implementation of the National Programme for Rehabilitation for Persons with Disabilities in Lakshadweep.

Click to download the files (PDFs) received from the from the Government of Lakshadweep.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/accessibility/resources/lakshadweep-govt-notifications

Lakshadweep Government Notifications

praskrishna — 2013-03-27T03:15:43Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/lakshadweep-govt-notifications.zip

Faculty Seminar: Talk on Normativising Competitive Markets Contextually; Transmission Art Installation — Reordered Spaces

praskrishna — 2013-03-27T12:29:52Z

This event was organized by Azim Premji University on December 26, 2012. Sharath Chandra Ram installed and presented the Re-ordered Spaces. Abhayraj Naik gave a talk.

About the Installation

In the light of recent legal debates concerning street food vending, the video installations question habits of consumption and politics of public spaces complemented by a radio transmission of the audioscape, representing tactical ownership of available spectrum resource within private spaces.

Original installation link can be read here.
Click to read the full details of the event published on the website of Azim Premji University on March 26, 2013

About the Talk

Using urban street food vending as an example, this paper explores the possibilities of a contextualised normative outlook towards competitive markets, competition law, and economic policy in India. I argue that such an outlook would need to creatively engage with the phenomenon of substantial employment informality in India while also judiciously avoiding the allure of dogmatic half-truths based on empirically contestable assumptions about efficiency, illegality and welfare. In India the informal food sector caters to a vast population of desperately poor (and hungry) consumers who cannot afford a qualitatively substitutable product that is retailed through the formal production process. Private enterprise at generating affordable access to food in public spaces remains legally ambiguous, and the narratives of street food law, and street vending more generally, indicate confusion over how to understand the informal sector’s role in competitive urban retail trade. This paper suggests that a distinctively Indian perspective of constitutional economics is required to help us realign our (presently misguided) economic development models to appropriately recognize the empirical realities of the entrepreneurs in our midst, the pre-commitments of our unique constitutional order and competition policy, and the real demands of our customers as citizens.

Notes on the Speakers:

Abhayraj Naik works on issues in legal theory, philosophy, criminal justice, urban governance, ecology, and technology. He holds law degrees from the National Law School of India University (Bangalore) and the Yale Law School (New Haven).

Sharath Chandra Ram has research and pedagogical interests in citizen science, multimodal interaction, accessibility and digital humanities. He graduated from the University of Edinburgh specializing in Artificial Intelligence and interactive virtual environments and is Faculty at Srishti School of Art Design & Technology. As a researcher at the Centre for Internet & Society, he coordinates activities of the Metaculture Media Lab , an open citizen lab, now part of Columbia University's 'Dorkbot' collective.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/azimpremji-university-december-26-2012-talk-on-normativising-competitive-markets-contextually

Centre for Internet and Society

Iraqi Public Data Presentation Slides

Clarify and define terms in IT rules, panel tells govt.

2nd Odia Wikipedia Edit-a-thon

Access to Knowledge Bulletin — March 2013

Indic Wikipedia Visualisation Project

Events Organised

Events Co-organised

Upcoming Event (Co-organised)

Events Participated In

Event Report from Other Organisations

Media Coverage

Follow us elsewhere

Support Us

Request for Collaboration

March 2013 Bulletin

Access to Knowledge and Openness

Other Openness Updates

Privacy

IT Act

Unique ID Project

Free Speech and Expression

Others

Follow us elsewhere

Support Us

Request for Collaboration

Land and Social Justice - An introduction to Georgism

Abstract

Cherry G. Mathew

What if the Net shut down for a few days

A Privacy Round Table in Delhi

Confirmations and RSVP

Parliament panel blasts govt over ambiguous internet laws

Privacy Round Table in Delhi

Lakshadweep Notifications (OCR)

Contents

Lakshadweep (OCR) Notifications

Lakshadweep (Govt) Notifications

Contents

Lakshadweep Government Notifications

Faculty Seminar: Talk on Normativising Competitive Markets Contextually; Transmission Art Installation — Reordered Spaces

About the Installation

About the Talk

Notes on the Speakers: