Centre for Internet and Society

Wikipedia at Avenir

praskrishna — 2013-03-11T04:08:23Z

A 4 hours Wikipedia event at Avenir, 2013 is being held at Netaji Subhash Engineering College, Kolkata, West Bengal on 11th March 2013. The Centre for Internet and Society is supporting this event.

Read the event page on Wikipedia

Basic Agenda

1 hour Wikpedia edit-a-thon Workshop with Kolkata based Wikipedians.
3 hours long MediaWiki Workshop on Wikipedia-Gadgets and UserScripts.

Edit-a-thon

A 2 hours long Wikipedia editing workshop with Kolkata based Wikipedians.

Why an Edit-a-thon

It helps build the encyclopedia
It builds relationships in the community
It can help new Wikipedians to contribute
It's fun :)

Pre-requisites

Bring your own laptops if possible, we will be creating things!

What will you have learnt at the end of it?

Along with the idea of how to create and edit articles in Wikipedia, you will get to know about Wikipedia, about setting knowledge free, about all those awesome things, that make us believe in this huge repository of knowledge.

Articles Planned

Lascar War Memorial, Calcutta (Kolkata)

Facilitators

MediaWiki Workshop

3 hours long MediaWiki Workshop on Wikipedia-Gadgets and UserScripts with Developers from Wikimedia.

Goal

The Wikipedia community needs small bits of web tech that make the site better for lots of users. We'll take people who know wiki stuff and also a little programming stuff, and have them be able to write code for Wikipedia.

Pre-requisites

Please bring your laptops! This is a hands on session, and you'll be creating things!

Basic grasp of Javascript, CSS
An account on Wikipedia
A modern browser (preferably Chrome, but Firefox with Firebug will also do)

What will you have learnt at the end of it?

Understanding how user scripts work
Be able to use the MediaWiki API appropriately
Improve your own wiki experience / experience for your language wikipedia by writing scripts

Lesson Plan

Environment (JS, Dev Toolbar, Common.js, importScript)

Facilitators

Yuvi Panda

Register Yourselves!

Folks who are interested to join us, are requested to fill up the form and register themselves for the event. We shall send you an invitation via email!

Harsh Kothari

Data (API, API Sandbox, actions)
Accessing Data from the Environment (AJAX concepts, mw.API, mw.loader.using)

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/wikipedia-at-avenir

Income Bracket Form

praskrishna — 2013-03-06T10:50:16Z

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

Letter of Survey Request

praskrishna — 2013-03-06T10:49:42Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/letter-of-survey.pdf

Social media undermining journalistic credibility?

praskrishna — 2013-03-06T04:41:15Z

The line separating journalists and bloggers is being increasingly blurred due to the growth of social media, said Nelson Moses, who was a panelist at a discussion on the credibility of social media as a journalistic tool.

The article was published in the New Indian Express on March 4, 2013. Snehashish Ghosh was a panelist.

The talk titled, “Is social media credible?” comprising a panel of professionals from various media houses from across India, was held as a part of the alumni reunion at the Indian Institute of Journalism and New Media (IIJNM) recently.

The panel included Snehashish Ghosh, a policy associate at the Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore, Nelson Moses, who has had stints with numerous media houses and now works at Yahoo, Subhash Rai, web editor of the Economic and Political Weekly, and Tresa Morera, the deputy editor of the global online desk at Reuters, Bangalore.

The discussion, moderated by Professor Mark Austin of IIJNM, revolved around the crucial issues surrounding the Indian media industry and the use of social media.

Talking points included the role social media like Twitter and Facebook played in populist movements across the Middle East, such as the Arab Spring and also the exodus of people of Manipuri and Assamese descent from Bangalore last year, due to a series of phone messages which purportedly threatened them with violence.Other issues covered in the discussion were whether bloggers could be cited as credible sources of information and also if their roles in shaping public perception was influencing how media houses and journalists function.

During the course of the discussion, which centered around the drawbacks of a digitally interlinked media landscape, Subhash Rai, said that though it was clearly the work of “right-wing fundamental elements” which led to the circulation of provocative messages against people from the north eastern part of the country, the incident also pointed to the failure of neoliberalism in the Indian context.

“Journalists are one of the beneficiaries of neoliberalism,” said Shubash Rai, while arguing that often, urban concerns take precedence over more

pressing issues occurring outside the big cities, leading to these issues either not being reported or not given the same importance. “For example, nobody is reporting the agrarian crisis,” he said.

Tresa Morera, an IIJNM alumna, said that she believed that “transparency” in the Indian media, and a series of “checks and balances” within media organizations could help in better reporting by the media.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/new-indian-express-march-4-2013-social-media-undermining-journalistic-credibility

A Wikipedia Editing Workshop in Goa

praskrishna — 2013-03-05T09:10:24Z

On the occasion of International Women's Day, the Access to Knowledge team from the Centre for Internet & Society is organizing a wikipedia editing workshop on March 8, 2013 at Nirmala Institute of Education, from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m., followed by an offline and online editathon.

The online editathon is a month-long affair, which will be held every weekend starting with the weekend after March 8. The goal of the month-long event is to encourage more women to contribute to Wikipedia and increase representation of articles related to women in Wikipedia.

The event aims at creating new articles, expanding the existing stubs and translating English articles to various Indian languages. Members are requested to start edithons in regional language Wikipedias.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/events/wikipedia-editing-workshop-in-goa

Pavanaja's Profile

praskrishna — 2013-11-20T09:44:34Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/pavanaja-profile.pdf

Wikipedia Workshop @ BITS Goa

praskrishna — 2013-03-05T08:29:13Z

The Access to Knowledge team at the Centre for Internet & Society is organising a workshop at BITS Pilani KK Birla Goa Campus on March 7, 2013, from 5.30 p.m. to 8.00 p.m.

The workshop aims to spread awareness about Wikipedia, who edits Wikipedia and how to edit Wikipedia. Some of you might be curious to learn more about Wikipedia and contribute to this pool of knowledge in your own special ways. We'd like to encourage such students and provide them all the information and support they need. Several colleges and universities across the world have already successfully participated in similar Wikipedia workshops.

Below are some more details about the Wikipedia session:

Purpose:

Understand what is Wikipedia
Explore how Wikipedia works
Learn how they can contribute (i.e., writing) to Wikipedia
Discover what they (students / faculty / institutes) can gain by editing

Logistics:

A room big enough to accommodate all the students comfortably
If possible, laptops or computers for everyone
Stable internet connection
Projector facility

Duration:

2-3 hour workshop

Participants

Maximum 40-50
Students, faculty & staff
Please do convey to everyone that it is totally voluntary and should not be in lieu of attendance, etc.

Our experience has shown that Wikipedia for students (and, indeed faculty) is invaluable in supporting better writing skills, stronger research abilities, richer critical thinking, improved collaboration as well as providing a massive global audience to students (which drives academic excellence).

Feel free to get in touch with Nitika Tandon (nitika@cis-india.org) if you have any queries.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/events/wikipedia-workshop-bits-goa

West Bengal Chapter

praskrishna — 2013-03-05T00:41:25Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/west-bengal-chapter.pdf

International Conference on Contours of Media

praskrishna — 2013-03-04T23:41:32Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/intl-conf-on-contours-of-media.pdf

Chidambaram to Talk Budget on Google+ Hangout

praskrishna — 2013-03-11T04:14:29Z

Indian politicians are slowly warming up to social media.

This article by Dhanya Ann Thoppil was published in the Wall Street Journal on March 4, 2013. Sunil Abraham is quoted.

In a first for a cabinet minister, Indian Finance Minister P. Chidambaram tonight is hosting a Google+ Hangout, a Web video chat, to answer citizens’ questions on the budget he presented last week.

At 8 p.m. on Monday India time, Mr. Chidambaram will be joined by a group of experts to discuss the state of India’s economy, which looks set to grow at its weakest pace in a decade this financial year.

On the panel are also Amit Singhal, senior vice president at Google Inc., Anand Mahindra, chairman and managing director of Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd., Jahangir Aziz, chief economist for India at J.P. Morgan and Manish Chokhani, chief executive officer at Axis capital.

The online chat, which the Ministry of Finance in a statement described as “a powerful communication platform,” is an attempt to engage India’s tech-savvy, middle-class youth in the political process.

“It is an attempt by the government to reach out to gen-next,” ahead of the general elections scheduled in 2014, said S. Chandrasekharan, the director of South Asia Analysis Group, a Delhi-based think tank.

Improving opportunities for the country’s younger generations was a major focus of Mr. Chidambaram’s budget speech to lawmakers Thursday. “My budget has before it one overarching goal: to create opportunities for our youth to acquire education and skills that will get them decent jobs or self-employment,” he said, adding, “Their concern are my concerns, too.”

But Mr. Chidambaram won’t be interacting with citizens directly. He will answer questions submitted by citizens in advance through video uploads on this YouTube channel or on this Google + page. The session will be streamed live on both websites.

Social media is only beginning to emerge as a tool Indian politicians use to reach out to the country’s citizens.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, often criticized for not being accessible to the media, set up a Twitter profile about a year ago. But the account is managed by his office staff, not by Mr. Singh himself, and it’s mostly used to share links to pictures or speeches of the Prime Minister.

Narendra Modi, chief minister of the state of Gujarat and possible prime ministerial candidate for the opposition Bhartiya Janata Party, has embraced digital media more than other politicians. In August he hosted a Google + Hangout session to answer questions from citizens and in December had a holographic image of himself projected live at rallies in four different locations to communicate with his supporters during his election campaign.

The government last year also came up with a series of guidelines for its various arms on the effective use of social media to reach out to people and to ensure public participation in policy framing.

Still, the government often views social media with suspicion, and has taken steps to regulate user-generated content on websites more tightly.

There are 14 million broadband connections in India, meaning that only a small portion of the country’s 1.2 billion population has reliable Internet access, says Sunil Abraham, executive director at the Bangalore-based Centre for Internet and Society.

“So, unlike in the U.S., where you can fault the government for not being online, in India you can’t really fault the government,” says Mr. Abraham.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/wsj-march-4-2013-dhanya-ann-thoppil-chidambaram-to-talk-budget-on-google-hangout

UID has no legal sanctity, says lawyer-activist

praskrishna — 2013-03-11T06:08:32Z

‘Iris scanning adopted for the UID project is flawed as the iris keeps changing’

This article was published in the Hindu on March 3, 2013. CIS organized a workshop at the event.

Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) and the UID project have no legal sanctity, said independent law researcher and human rights activist Usha Ramanathan on Saturday.

Speaking at a workshop on the UID, the National Population Register and Governance, organised by the Centre for Internet and Society, Ms. Ramanathan said the UIDAI has “no clear legal status.” “The fact that there are no limits placed on its functioning is deeply worrying,” she remarked.

Ms. Ramanathan pointed out that an agency, which was created by a mere executive order in 2009, now “owns” the data obtained from Indian citizens. Although the UIDAI has said enrolment is not mandatory, a host of providers of essential services – from ration shops to LPG distributors and now even railway tickets – require Aadhaar authentication.

The idea of using biometric validation of identities was adopted despite there “being no evidence of its viability anywhere in the world,” Ms. Ramanathan said. In fact, several reports have established the failure of biometrics as a means of validating identities, she claimed. The iris scanning, which has been adopted for the UID project is flawed because the iris does change over time, she said.

Anant Maringati, a geographer from Hyderabad, said the “positive” potential of the project have been usurped by entities such as microfinance institutions, which sue them to track those who have defaulted on loans.

‘An agency, which was created by a mere executive order in 2009, now owns the data obtained from Indian citizens’

‘Although the UIDAI has said enrolment is not mandatory, providers of essential services seek Aadhaar authentication’

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/the-hindu-march-3-2013-uid-has-no-legal-sanctity

People should resist enforcement of UID scheme, say experts

praskrishna — 2013-03-11T06:45:23Z

Internationally recognized expert on law and poverty Dr. Usha Ramanathan Saturday urged citizens of the country to question the enforcement of the UID scheme that has no legitimacy.

This was published in newzfirst on March 3, 2013. CIS organized a workshop at the event.

Addressing the gathering of people from various sections of the society at a workshop- The Unique Identity Number (UID), National Population Register (NPR), and Governance - organized by the ‘Centre for Internet and Society’ and the ‘Say No to UID Campaign’ Ramanathan said that the enforcement of UID scheme is unconstitutional and a mere a experiment on the population.

The scheme is full of ambiguity, confusions and suspicions; while UIDAI says it as voluntary, other government agencies and enterprises have made them mandatory. Neither the government nor the UIDAI officials have the satisfactory answers for the concerns of citizens, she said.

Saying that the ‘Data’ is one of the important properties today, she elaborated that how the individual’s privacy and confidential data was breached after sharing with many companies and agencies, despite the assurances from the authorities.

Emphasizing the resistance against enforcement of UID scheme, another speaker Col. Mathew Thomas of Citizen Action Forum Bangalore, said “If we don’t resist this scheme now, we are putting pushing poor people of the country into more vulnerable situation. We need to fight it by protests and legal means.”

The workshop also discussed the National Population register (NPR), its impact on citizenship and the governance, and how they are linked with national security.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/newzfirst-march-3-2013-people-should-resist-enforcement-of-uid-scheme-say-experts

Foreign Funding of NGOs

praskrishna — 2013-03-04T23:52:31Z

Should FDI in India’s thinktank sector worry us? It is a debate long overdue.

This article by Prashant Reddy was published in the March issue of Open Magazine.

In 1976, at the height of the Emergency imposed by Indira Gandhi, India’s Parliament enacted a piece of legislation called the Foreign Regulation Contribution Act. It prohibited political parties and ‘organisations of a political nature’, civil servants and judges, as also correspondents, columnists and editors/owners of registered newspapers and news broadcasting organisations— and even cartoonists—from receiving foreign contributions.

The very fact that the Act makes a specific reference to cartoonists should be hint enough of the establishment’s paranoia vis-à-vis the ‘invisible hand’ of foreign powers back then. During a Rajya Sabha debate on the proposed bill on 9 March 1976, the term ‘CIA’ (Central Intelligence Agency) was mentioned at least 30 times by different legislators, while ‘Lockheed Martin’ (a military aerospace corporation) came up at least six times in the context of alleged instances of Americans pumping dollars into governments worldwide to buy influence during the Cold War.

The sentiment of the times was captured by the following statement made during that debate by Khurshid Alam Khan, father of India’s present Minister for External Affairs: “The CIA’s doings all over the world have very clearly indicated as to what could be done by foreign money and foreign interference.”

In 2010, a different parliament, with opposition members who had not been imprisoned like those in 1976, unanimously voted to update the law by passing the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA). In fact, the Parliamentary Standing Committee that examined the bill was headed by the BJP’s Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj, and it had no major objections.

This time round, there was no talk of the CIA or Lockheed Martin. Instead, concern was focused on the increasingly influential role of Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) as institutions of civil society in India. The term ‘NGO’ found at least 40 mentions during the Rajya Sabha debate on the 2010 bill. The main concern of the Upper House appeared to be a lack of transparency among NGOs receiving foreign contributions. Hence the calls to strengthen the monitoring regime, although several MPs expressed worry that the new law would give the Centre too much discretionary power to crack down on dissenting NGOs.

Worries about the 2010 Act’s overreach were validated last year when the Government used it to clamp down on NGOs involved in anti-corruption and anti-nuclear protests. As part of that exercise, at least four NGOs were booked under the FCRA for allegedly diverting foreign funds to aid the organisation of protests against the Koodankulam nuclear power plant in Tamil Nadu. Their bank accounts were frozen. The protests, however, did not end.

Perhaps the most ironic use of the FCRA was when the Ministry of Home Affairs reportedly held back potential funding from the US-based Ford Foundation for the Mumbai-based Institute for Policy Research Studies (IPRS), a thinktank that runs Parliamentary Research Service (PRS).

Incubated at the Centre for Policy Research (CPR), a Delhi-based thinktank, PRS was spun off and institutionalised as IPRS in 2010 as a Section 25 non-profit company with a registered office in Mumbai. The main aim of PRS was to provide non-partisan legislative research services to parliamentarians, most of whom are starved of resources to conduct independent research required to hold the Executive accountable in Parliament. The service’s popularity among MPs was obvious from the fact that several of them reportedly made individual representations to the Home Ministry against blocking foreign funds for its parent institute.

The tragedy of why Parliament does not have a public-funded service like PRS is a debate for another day, but choking the IPRS of foreign funds raises a question of hypocrisy since the Central Government routinely collaborates with a wide range of civil society thinktanks that receive funds from the West.

Let’s start with the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER). According to its filings with the MHA, accessible on the FCRA website (http://mha.nic.in/fcra.htm), ICRIER has received over Rs 11.5 crore in foreign donations from a range of international institutions such as the Asian Development Bank, World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF) and Sasakawa Peace Foundation between 2007 and 2012. This council, currently headed by Dr Isher Judge Ahluwalia, wife of Planning Commission Vice-chairperson Dr Montek Singh Ahluwalia, appears to have a cosy relationship with the present establishment. When the Government was in a fix over the contentious General Anti- Avoidance Rules (GAAR) of taxation, for example, it delegated the task of ironing out its problems to a four-member committee headed by Dr Parthasarathi Shome, a well-known economic policy expert at ICRIER. There are several other projects on which the Council’s faculty collaborates closely with the Government of India.

That thinktanks are well networked goes without saying. In fact, ICRIER and PRS were involved in quite a controversy during last year’s Parliament vote on Foreign Direct Investment in India’s multi-brand retail sector. As reported by India Today, (‘Foreign Direct Instruction for our MPs?’ 6 December 2012), IPRS had organised a ‘close-door’ meeting at Delhi’s Constitution Club the day before the vote, where MPs were briefed on the benefits of FDI by Professor Arpita Mukherjee of ICRIER. Some MPs had publicly labelled this a ‘lobbying’ effort.

Another example of close collaboration between the Centre and a thinktank that gets significant foreign funding is the one between the Government and the CPR, headed by Dr Pratap Bhanu Mehta. Between 2007 and 2012, according to its filings with the MHA, this thinktank received foreign funds of over Rs 40.8 crore from a range of donors such as the Ford Foundation, Google Foundation, International Development Research Centre, Economic and Social Research Council, Hewlett Foundation and IKEA Social Initiative.

Environmental policy is another area in which foreign-funded thinktanks have a significant impact. The Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), headed by Sunita Narain with a governing board that has Ela Bhatt, BG Verghese, Dr MS Swaminathan and Dr NC Saxena among others, has received over Rs 67.7 crore in foreign funds between 2006 and 2012. The CSE’s main donors, according to FCRA records, include the Denmark- based Dan Church Aid, Germany-based Evangelischer Entwicklungsdienst EV, Heinrich Boll Foundation and the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency. Other donors include the Commission of European Communities and Government of India.

Going by the media coverage that CSE receives, it is safe to say that this thinktank has a profound influence on India’s environmental policy. An indication of its ties with the Government is the fact that the two had their own ‘side-event’ at the recently concluded Doha talks on climate change.

The other green thinktank with generous foreign contributions that works closely with the Government is The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI). Consider this: the International Bioenergy Summit of 2012 held in New Delhi was organised by TERI and sponsored by the Department of Biotechnology (DBT). According to its FCRA filings, TERI, with a staff of over 900, has received about Rs 155.9 crore between 2006 and 2012 from a vast variety of donors.

In the field of health policy, one of the most influential thinktanks is the Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI). Since it was founded in 2006, it has received a total of Rs 219 crore in funds, its biggest foreign donor being the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and biggest Indian donor being the Government of India. Other foreign donors, according to FCRA filings, include the National Institutes of Health (of the US government), Welcome Trust, International Development Research Centre and MacArthur Foundation.

A public-private initiative, the PHFI is expected to shape India’s approach to public health policy over the next decade. An example of its influence on India’s health policy is the fact that its secretariat has been thanked and praised in a report of the High Level Expert Group constituted by the Planning Commission to frame a new policy on ‘universal health coverage’ for all Indians.

On matters of internet policy, the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), a Bangalore-based thinktank focused on internet governance and intellectual property issues, has been a member of some key government committees, like the one under Justice AP Shah to study privacy laws in India. The CIS also receives foreign funding. According to its website, it has received over Rs 8.3 crore in funds, a significant portion of it from foreign donors like the UK-based Kusuma Trust, which was founded by Anurag Dikshit, an Indian businessman who made a fortune selling his stake in a popular online gambling website. He eventually donated most of his wealth to the Kusuma Trust, which funds various charities across the world.

In the human rights space, there is the famous Lawyers Collective, which, apart from its human rights advocacy, also provides legal aid to members of disadvantaged communities. Although this collective does not appear to work all that closely with the Government, it is interesting to note that it was founded by Indira Jaising, who is currently one of the Centre’s Additional Solicitor Generals. Since 2006, according to its FCRA filings, the organisation has received around Rs 21.8 crore in foreign funds from the Ford, Levi Strauss and Open Society foundations and from the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids, Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, among others.

Another thinktank that deserves a mention is the Centre for Civil Society (CCS), which was founded by Dr Parth J Shah and has a ‘Board of Scholars’ with Isher Judge Ahluwalia, Jagdish Bhagwati, Lord Meghnad Desai and Swaminathan Anklesaria Aiyar, among others, as members. While it is not clear from its website whether it works closely with the Government, it was ranked 51st in a recent global survey of thinktanks by University of Pennsylvania. According to a CCS press release, these rankings were ‘based on not just our research and analysis, but also on our engagement with policy makers and ability to influence policy decisions’. The CCS’s rank was quite a surprise, given its modest resources. According to its FCRA filings, between 2006 and 2011, it received about Rs 6.2 crore from foreign donors such as the Atlas Economic Research Foundation, John Templeton Foundation and International Policy Network. As per its audited accounts, available on its website, donations from Indian donors were equally modest.

The above examples demonstrate the influence of foreign funded thinktanks on almost every major aspect of Indian policy today, be it economic or environmental, related to public health or internet governance.

Is this good or bad for India as a country? Given that most sectors of the economy are now open to foreign investment, does it make sense to regulate and restrict foreign funds for such thinktanks under laws like the FCRA?

The answer depends on what Indian society expects of them. Do we expect them to be completely independent of donors in their views? Would an organisation like the CSE still get foreign funds from European donors if it were to readily welcome genetically modified (GM) food in India? In such circumstances, how independent should we expect these thinktanks to be in the arena of policy?

Absolute objectivity—or at a least public perception of it—is an absolute myth. No matter who funds a thinktank, be it foreigners or Indians, it is impossible to be seen as such. The more pressing issue is of transparency. Are Indian policymakers aware of the details of foreign funds received by these thinktanks?

Take, for example, a recent Parliamentary Standing Committee report that expressed serious reservations about GM food. The Committee repeatedly quotes with approval the deposition of Dr Vandana Shiva against GM food. A little-known fact about Dr Shiva is that her organisation, Navdanya, according to its FCRA filings, has received a total of Rs 16.7 crore between 2006 and 2012 in foreign donations from mainly European organisations (some of which also contribute to the CSE) like Bread for the World, Diakonie Emergency Aid, Hivos Foundation, Evangelischer Entwicklungsdienst EV, RSF Innovations in Social Finance, and even from the European Union itself.

Would a Parliamentary Standing Committee headed by an MP of the CPM, a party that is always suspicious of the ‘foreign hand’, show the same deference to Dr Shiva’s views if its members knew of Navdanya’s European donors, several of which are also Christian churches?

In an op-ed article in The Indian Express (‘Do not disagree’, 29 February 2012), Dr Pratap Bhanu Mehta while criticising the FCRA, states, ‘Of course, NGOs should be transparent and accountable in terms of their sources of funding.’ Yet, the CPR, of which Dr Mehta is president, only discloses the names of its donors in its annual report, and that too without revealing the amounts received from each. Similarly, Navdanya offers no information on either of its websites, Indian and Italian (navdanyainternational.it), on any of its funding. Other thinktanks like the PHFI and CIS offer a more detailed breakup of their different sources of funding, while some like the CSE and CCS provide only a roll of donor names and a figure of cumulative funding with no breakup of individual contributions. So, while these thinktanks are forced to disclose their foreign funding sources to the MHA under the FCRA, why do they not volunteer exhaustive information on their own websites?

An amusing facet of this is that the Central Government and Corporate India are more transparent (even if forced to be) than these civil society institutions, thanks to the Right to Information Act, 2005, and the extensive disclosure requirements under the Companies Act, 1956. Of companies in particular, information is accessible over the internet on the MCA21 website of the Ministry of Corporate Affairs. This contrast is amusing because some of these thinktanks never tire of demanding transparency of the State and corporate sector.

For several thinktanks, it is often hard to figure out something as basic as the nature of the legal entity through which they conduct their activities. Are they societies, associations or trusts? More pertinently, why is the Government not pushing for a stricter transparency regime? A major stumbling block may be the fact that these thinktanks are set up under state laws and it is difficult for the Central Government to coordinate a nationwide transparency regime. However, given that most are beneficiaries of income tax exemptions, it may be possible for the Centre to use the Income Tax Act to demand comprehensive disclosures. Since they enjoy tax benefits, they might also qualify as ‘public authorities’ under the Right To Information Act, 2005.

Another reason that disclosure of funding is important is to inform the analysis of people who usually see NGOs as selfless entities dedicated to nothing but a higher cause. While this may be true of some NGOs, many leaders of these set-ups have personal stakes in ensuring certain outcomes. After all, future donor grants often depend on sustaining one’s influence in the policy space. Many of the institutions described in this article have been regular recipients of funds from the same sources year after year.

Another question is the volume of funds coming in and where it will leave India’s public institutions that were originally meant to aid policymaking with unbiased intellectual inputs. How are cash-strapped Indian universities to compete with these well-funded thinktanks?

Government-run institutions of higher learning are supposed to have an inbuilt guarantee of academic independence, but would their scholarly voices be drowned out by those backed by bigger resources?

Also, given the frequency with which a few foreign funders appear on donor lists, is it time to worry about their influence on Indian policies? After all, generous funding lets the faculty of these thinktanks jetset around the world to attend conferences, organise seminars in India and network with officials at a level that most public universities cannot afford. How does this impact our civil society discourse? Should Parliament limit the amount that a single foreign entity can donate, or are we better off sticking to a regulatory regime that only insists on a set of disclosure norms?

On a concluding note, let us not forget that a large part of the credit for the RTI Act of 2005—the country’s most empowering piece of legislation since the Constitution of 1950—goes to the advocacy efforts of the Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS), a farmers group in Rajasthan that does not accept institutional funding from either India or overseas. Bank interest on its corpus and donations by individuals are the MKSS’s only sources of funding. Together, the two gave it Rs 30 lakh for the financial year 2010-11, details of which are available on its website.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/openmagazine-article-business-prashant-reddy-march-2-2013-foreign-funding-of-ngos

Iceland’s proposed porn ban ‘like repression in Iran, N. Korea’ – activists

praskrishna — 2013-03-21T03:56:30Z

A group of 40 human rights activists from around the world fear that Iceland could become “a role model for Internet censorship” if it introduces Internet filters blocking online content deemed pornographic.

This blog post was published in RT on March 1, 2013. Sunil Abraham is quoted.

“The act of censoring pornography in Iceland differs in no way from repression of speech in Iran, China or North Korea,” human rights advocates wrote in an open letter to Icelandic Interior Minister Ögmundur Jónasson.

Activists from nearly 20 countries, including the UK, America, Austria and Finland, said that Iceland’s moral reasons for the push to censor Internet pornography is “justifying rather than condemning the actions of totalitarian regimes.”

Critics – including Jillian C. York, Director for International Freedom of Expression, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Sunil Abraham, Executive Director for India’s Internet and Society Center, and Ot van Daalen, head of the Dutch Bits of Freedom Center – have described the controversial measure as “an affront to basic principles of the society.”

They also argued that those advocating the Web porn ban have offered “no definition, no evidence, and suggested no technology.”

The authors of the letter warned that the prohibition of pornographic content could create demand for an underground porn industry, unregulated and most certainly affiliated with other illegal activities, “as we have seen in the case of drugs or alcohol prohibition. Hiding the problem is not a solution and may in fact make things worse.”

The solution, according to the activists, could be better sex education at home and schools: “Sex education that deals not only with conception, contraception and sexually transmitted diseases, but also relationships, communication and respect.”

Iceland, known for its feminist policies, could become the first Western country to censor online pornography, despite concerns over who will be given the authority to choose what is banned.

“It is tempting to regard filtering the Internet as a quick and easy way to restrict unwanted speech, opinions, or media, which the government regards as harmful for either them or the people,” the letter said. “The right to see the world as it is, is critical to the very tenets and functions of a democracy and must be protected at all costs.”

The activists claimed that it is technically impossible to censor the Internet without monitoring all telecommunications with automated machines: “This level of government surveillance directly conflicts with the idea of a free society.”

Iceland is not the only European country that has tried to implement such a ban. In December, the UK proposed blocking access to all pornographic websites, but UK ministers rejected the idea over a lack of public support.

According to supporters of the Icelandic ban, pornography has unquestionably damaging effects on both children and women.

"We have to be able to discuss a ban on violent pornography, which we all agree has a very harmful effects on young people and can have a clear link to incidences of violent crime," Interior Minister Jonasson, the author of the proposed ban, was quoted as saying.

While Iceland has already passed a law banning the distribution and printing of pornography, the proposed ban would eventually restrict access to pornographic websites in the country, and make it impossible to use Icelandic credit cards on X-rated sites.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/rt-march-1-2013-icelands-proposed-porn-ban

Open DataCamp - 2013

praskrishna — 2013-02-28T11:08:14Z

A two day unconference for people working with data from various sectors to come together and share their projects and idea is being organized by Open Data Camp on March 2 and 3, 2013 at Dharmaram Vidya Kshetram (inside Christ University Campus), Dairy Circle in Bangalore.

Read the original published by Open Data Camp. Sunil Abraham is a panelist.

Sessions

Day 1

9:00am - 10:00am	Registration
10:00am - 10:15am	Introduction to OpenDataCamp Team DataMeet
10:15am - 11.00am	Visualizing Politics By S Anand
11.00pm - 11.15pm	Tea
11:15am - 12.15am	Why Open Data is Good for Gov and Citizens alike Panel: Alka Mishra (NIC Data.Gov.In), Meera K (CitizenMatters) and Shekhar Krishan, PhD Student, (STS at MIT) Moderated by - Nisha Thompson
12:15pm - 01.00pm	Ignite talks. 6 of them 5 minutes each. OpenBangalore by Thejesh GN The School of Data is open for admissions By Maya Indira Ganesh Open Mapping for the Development of a Maoist-affected district in Orissa By Kuldip Gyaneswar Aggregate and Visualize your data with Ushahidi in 15 minutes By Praveen Selvasekaran DIY Weather Station By Samuel Rajkumar
01:00pm - 02.00pm	Lunch Break

	Room 034	Room 032	Room 117	Room 118	Room 119
2:00pm - 2:40pm	Public Problem Solving using Data: Lessons from the Daksh Survey. By Meera K and Rajesh Kasturirangan	SSLC data Infographics - Experiences By Sajjad Anwar	Examining Data Practices: the case of Cyberabad's Publicly Accesseble Crime Map By Siddharth Hande, Fellow, Hyderabad Urban Lab Anant Maringanti, Executive Director, Hyderabad Urban Lab	Leveraging UIDAI data for public benefit Tulika Khunger	Analyzing Voice Data of Community Based Organizations By Piyush Aggarwal
2:40pm - 3:20pm	Cont: Public Problem Solving using Data: Lessons from the Daksh Survey. By Meera K and Rajesh Kasturirangan	From Data to Evidence: How Activists Use Data in their Campaigns By Maya Indira Ganesh, Tactical Technology Collective	Quality of Gov Data By Amrtha Kasturi Rangan	Open Financial Data: Following the World Bank's money By Ankur Nagar	OpenData for Non-Profits! By Adethya Sudarsanan
3:20pm - 4:00pm	Telling Stories with Data By Amit Kapoor	Know Your Climate: Going Open with Climate Data - Part 2 Pavan Srinath	Adopt Open Governance By Sridhar Pabbisetty	Big Data and Hadoop in Indian Context By Mohan Kumar	Participatory community mapping as a tool for cumulative impact assessments By Shashank Srinivasan
4.00pm - 4.30pm	Tea
4:30pm - 5:30pm	Panel Discussion: What has Open Data got to with UIDAI? Panelists - Sunil Abraham, Anivar Aravind and Anant Maringanti. Moderated by - Sumandro Chattapadhyay.
5:30pm - 6:00pm	Unscheduled talks	Unscheduled talks	Unscheduled talks	Unscheduled talks	Unscheduled talks

Day 2

9:00am - 10:00am	Registration
10:00am - 10:15am	Welcome Team DataMeet
	Room 034	Room 032	Room 117	Hall
10:15am - 11:15am	Data and Maps Kaustubh Srikanth and Sajjad Anwar. Details	A gentle introduction to data cleaning from Tactical Tech's course on the School of Data By Allan Stanley and Maya Indira Ganesh, Tactical Technology Collective.	An Introduction to Apache Hadoop By Mrinal Wadhwa	Blocked for Hackathon
11:15am - 11:30am	Tea
11:30pm - 01:00pm	Cont: Data and Maps Kaustubh Srikanth and Sajjad Anwar Details	Cont: A gentle introduction to data cleaning from Tactical Tech's course on the School of Data By Allan Stanley and Maya Indira Ganesh, Tactical Technology Collective.	Cont: An Introduction to Apache Hadoop By Mrinal Wadhwa	Blocked for Hackathon
01:00pm - 02.00pm	Lunch Break
2:00pm - 4:00pm	Workshop-1	Designing a Story. How To: Look At Data and Tell A Story By Tejas Pande	Workshop-3	Blocked for Hackathon
4.00pm - 4.30pm	Feedback and Tea
4:30pm - 6:00pm	Unscheduled talks	Unscheduled talks	Unscheduled talks	Blocked for Hackathon

Contact Nisha Thompson (nisha.thompson@gmail.com)

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/open-data-camp-2013