Centre for Internet and Society

7th Emerging Markets Finance Conference

praskrishna — 2016-12-17T00:51:00Z

Anubha Sinha participated as a panelist in the "Intellectual Property, Copyright and Patent Finance" session in Mumbai on December 15, 2016. The event was organized by Finance Research Group in association with Vanderbilt Law School.

Programme Committee

N. Prabhala, Centre For Advanced Financial Research And Learning
Tarun Ramadorai, Imperial College London
Subrata Sarkar, IGIDR
Ajay Shah, National Institute for Public Finance and Policy
Avanidhar Subramanyam, University of California, Los Angeles
Ram Thirumalai, Indian School of Business
Susan Thomas, IGIDR
Pradeep Yadav, University of Oklahoma, Business School
Yesha Yadav, Vanderbilt Law School

For more info and the agenda click here.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/news/7th-emerging-markets-finance-conference

Myanmar Digital Rights Forum

praskrishna — 2016-12-17T00:44:25Z

Sunil Abraham was a speaker at the Myanmar Digital Rights Forum in Myanmar on December 14 and 15, 2016. The two day event was organized by Phandeeyar, You Can Do IT, Engage Media and Myanmar Centre for Responsible Business with support form the Embassy of Sweden.

More than 55 representatives from technology companies, government, media and civil society organizations gathered at the innovation lab Phandeeyar to participate in the Myanmar Digital Rights Forum. The event was organized to address critical digital rights challenges in Myanmar. Participants discussed the issues raised by the increasing access, in recent years, of large numbers of Myanmar citizens to the internet, social media and mobile phones. For more info see here.

Click to read the agenda

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/myanmar-digital-rights-forum

Myanmar Digital Rights Forum Agenda

praskrishna — 2016-12-17T00:32:46Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/files/myanmar-digital-rights-forum-agenda.pdf

25th WIPO SCCR Agenda

praskrishna — 2016-12-16T22:44:14Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/25-wipo-sccr-agenda.pdf

Best Practices in Digital Accessibility

praskrishna — 2016-12-16T22:35:44Z

Nirmita Narasimhan will be part of a discussion on the best practices in digital accessibility to be organized by the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore (IIMB) on 19 December 2016 in Bengaluru.

IIMB is also inviting few select panel members who work in organizations to talk about specifics such as their tangible activities, success stories, and needs.The outcome of this discussion will be featured in the journal - IIMB Management Review. Nirmita will be attending as a special audience invitee.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/accessibility/news/best-practices-in-digital-accessibility

Protection of Privacy in Mobile Phone Apps

praskrishna — 2016-12-15T14:17:20Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/files/protection-of-privacy-in-mobile-phones.pdf

Writing skills improve with Wikipedia editing

praskrishna — 2016-12-15T02:21:23Z

Pavan Santhosh said that contributing to Wikipedia and working in Wikimedia community improves our leadership qualities and writing skills. In an awareness session conducted about "You can edit Wikipedia" in JKC college, Guntur, Santhosh explained how to create and improve articles about Wikipedia in this program. Principal I.Nageswara Rao presided over this meeting.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/news/eenadu-december-3-2016-writing-skills-improve-with-wikipedia-editing

Annual Report 2014-15

praskrishna — 2016-12-11T07:29:05Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/about/reports/annual-report-2014-15.pdf

Comments on Draft National Policy on Software Products

praskrishna — 2016-12-11T03:32:14Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/files/comments-on-draft-national-policy-on-software-products.pdf

National Policy on Software Products

praskrishna — 2016-12-11T03:30:25Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/files/national-policy-on-software-products.pdf

Response to the Consultation Note on Model for Nation-wide Interoperable and Scalable Public Wi-Fi Networks

praskrishna — 2016-12-11T03:17:38Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/telecom/files/response-to-the-consultation-note-on-model-for-nation-wide-interoperable-and-scalable-public-wi-fi-networks

Consultation Note on Model for Nation-wide Interoperable and Scalable Publi Wi-Fi

praskrishna — 2016-12-11T03:02:18Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/telecom/files/consultation-note-on-model-for-publi-wifi.pdf

Vijay Mallya cries foul after his Twitter and email accounts are hacked

praskrishna — 2016-12-10T13:50:25Z

The attackers said they were able to access over a gigabyte of data from Mallya's email.

The article by Alnoor Peermohamed was published in Business Standard on December 10, 2016. Sunil Abraham was quoted.

Liquor baron Vijay Mallya on Friday cried foul over his Twitter account being hacked by a group calling itself ‘Legion’. The group is believed to be the same as the one behind the hack of Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi’s Twitter and e-mail servers last week.

Several tweets alleging that Mallya’s e-mail had been compromised and documents related to his offshore investments and bank accounts had been stolen were made from his official Twitter account in early on Friday.

“Outfit called Legion has hacked my e-mail accounts and are blackmailing me!! What a joke,” Mallya tweeted after seemingly taking back control of his account.

The attackers said they were able to access over a gigabyte of data from Mallya’s e-mail and shared a link for the public to gain access to it. They also tweeted the rest of the information on Mallya would be made public in the coming weeks, targeted at bringing him to justice for committing fraud.

The Twitteratti (the general public on the social networking platform), including several of Mallya’s 5.51 million followers, emerged in support of the hackers, who they proclaimed were working in the interest of the Indian people. Mallya has defaulted Rs 7,200 crores in loans and is being investigated for it.

“The e-mail hack is interesting because it’s the same global pattern. People are following Julian Assange’s advice — transparency should be directly proportional to power. What one really means is, public interest should be preserved,” says Sunil Abraham, executive director at Bengaluru-based Centre for Internet and Society.

While a lot of hacks continue to be carried out for monetary gain through extortion, several Internet vigilante groups have cropped up over the past decade, the most famous being WikiLeaks and more recently Anonymous. As India’s politicians, businessmen and the general public increasingly use technology and the Internet, they too are becoming targets for such hackers.

“If Mallya’s email account is hacked and all we get out of it is gossip, then it’s of no use. But if we as a nation ensure that the law is followed, or laws are improved, or corporate governance is evolved, all of that is positive impact of such an event. So hacktivists have to be very responsible when they do this, otherwise they spoil the name of whistleblowers and so on,” added Abraham.

Mallya is currently wanted by Indian law enforcement agencies and has a non-bailable warrant issued against his name by the court. He has currently exiled himself in the UK and refuses to travel to the country unless offered amnesty. While often denying any wrongdoing, the general public perception among Indians is that the billionaire playboy Mallya portrayed himself to be is guilty.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/business-standard-alnoor-peermohamed-december-10-2016-vijay-mallya-cries-foul-after-his-twitter-and-email-accounts-are-hacked

Most popular smartphone apps inaccessible to disabled: Study

praskrishna — 2016-12-10T05:12:25Z

Booking cabs, buying food and making payments online seem like they're just a swipe and a tap away, but for millions of disabled Indians, these apps are not designed for them to use.

The article was published by ET Telecom on December 7, 2016. Nirmita Narasimhan was quoted.

Booking cabs, buying food and making payments online seem like they're just a swipe and a tap away, but for millions of disabled Indians, these apps are not designed for them to use.

According to a study conducted by Centre for Internet and Society last month, many of the most-commonly used mobile apps for food delivery, online payments, grocery shopping and transportation were not accessible to the visually challenged. The study covered 22 popular apps. The 2011 census puts the number of disabled in the country at 26 million, while advocacy groups say the real figure is closer to 150 million. Last year, India recorded nearly nine billion downloads of mobile-based applications last year.

"The national policy for universal electronic accessibility says that all IT products and services should be accessible. However, the government is still unable to implement it. Several government apps are inaccessible," said Nirmita Narasimhan, policy director at CIS. CIS's survey of some key government mobile-based applications like MyGov, EPathshala and Prime Minister Narendra Modi's official app found them to be severely lacking. The illiterate, aged and those not proficient in English would also struggle with the apps, the study found. The guidelines for government websites laid out accessibility standards in 2009. The 2013 national policy on universal electronic accessibility clearly upholds equal rights "ensuring that accessibility standards and guidelines and universal design concepts are adopted and adhered to."

However, most commonly-used app fail to follow this. All 22 of the apps studied were privately-owned but not all were fully compliant with universal standards. Of taxi-hailing apps Meru, Ola and Uber, only Uber was completely accessible to the disabled. The others had mis-labelled or unlabeled buttons and graphics.

When it came to food delivery, Zomato was the best at replicating the user experience for disabled people. Swiggy and Foodpanda were difficult for new users, and Freshmenu was completely inaccessible.

Of the marketplace apps, Amazon and Snapdeal were the only accessible ones. Myntra and Flipkart had incorrectly labelled buttons and misleading graphic tags, which made them impossible for the disabled to use. For instance, customers would be able to select the product they wanted to buy but had no way of choosing the quantity, the study said.

Online grocery delivery apps Grofers and Zop Now were hard for the disabled to use, while Big Basket was relatively better though pages change during orders. Online payment portals Paytm, Oxigen and FreeCharge were relatively accessible, the study found.

"Designers, developers and industries need to realize that there are more people out there who use this technology. The market is much bigger and they should work towards being inclusive," said Narasimhan of CIS.

Albinder Dhinda, co-founder of grocery delivery service Grofers, said their app meets all accessibility requirements. "However, the disability tools provided by Google Play Store or the App Store often don't benefit the user and are hard for them to use. We are trying to make it better. Things like online payments won't be accessible to the disabled as those apps are supported by third-party sites, and don't fall within our settings. We're trying to make it better. We're three years behind the US, in the playground they made. It'll be a while before we reach their level," he said.

The national policy for universal electronic accessibility says that all IT products and services should be accessible. However, the government is still unable to implement it. Several government apps are inaccessible

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/accessibility/news/et-telecom-december-7-2016-most-popular-smartphone-apps-inaccessible-to-disabled-study

English gottila,job illa

praskrishna — 2016-12-10T04:47:11Z

Quoted as the ‘golden boy of Karnataka’, after winning two gold medals for India in Special Olympics in 2003 in Dublin, once Aslam Pasha quit his last job as a night watchman a week back.

The article by Regina Gurung was published in the Indian Express on December 7, 2016. Nirmita Narasimhan was quoted.

Even as government services allow disability and sports quota, guess what is keeping this man from being employed? The Queen’s language.

Born and brought up in Bengaluru, Aslam was conceived at home to a home maker mother and a fish stall owner father. Hindi is the only language he can speak and read. Despite being born without functional legs, his love for sports was not hindered. He started participating in wheelchair racing competitions and became fond of shot put.

Tracing and reminiscing his past glories, he tells City Express the beginning and abrupt end of his golden career.

While in his teens, he says, he went to Hubli to participate in a wheelchair racing and shot put competition. After his win there, he was taken to Delhi and introduced to the Special Olympics Committee. He made it to the Special Olympics in Dublin in 2003 and secured two gold medals as a part of the eight-member team.

On his return to the country, he was welcomed with great warmth and was felicitated. He says he even met APJ Abdul Kalam, the then President of India, and received `2 lakh as a reward. He gave the entire sum to his parents. They live in a slum near Soda Factory. His popularity was short lived. Sooner than he realized, people forgot him. He wondered what more could he do with his life. The calls from the committee stopped, he was clueless on what to do next.

In his late 20s, he started applying for various jobs but was rejected for having ‘no communication skill’.“I have been looking for a job from over three years now. I even did a one-year course on data entry at Intel, but everything is useless as I don’t know English,” says Aslam.

‘’Do you mention that you are a gold medalist?” asked City Express.

“Yes I do but I always get the same reply… “You don’t know English, so what is the use?” Aslam replies.

Aslam did not complete his education since he was always keen on sports, says Neel Lama, Aslam’s school’s friend.

“Following Olympics training, most athletes drop out of educational institutions,” says Nirmita Narasimhan, Policy Director of Centre for Internet and Society, who heads the accessibilty and inclusion programme.

Aslam used to go for his night watchman duty in hiding, after his parents fell asleep.

“They tell me it is okay, but I know the difficulties they face,” says Aslam. G N Nagaraj, founder of Karnataka State Disabled and Care Giver’s Federation questions that when cricketers and other Olympians are showered with sponsors, why is the Paralympian who is “five times more deserving”, not offered a job?

On Saturday, Aslam Pasha, had gone to an institution to enroll himself in an English language speaking course.

He was told that he needs to pay `24,000 for the course that also includes the auto fare of the tutor. “How can I pay so much to learn English and then look for a job?” questions Aslam. “But still I desperately want to learn the language,” adds the 30 something Aslam.

“A wheel chair accessy (person who uses wheel chair) is considered 75 per cent disabled and those who are more than 75 per cent disabled can avail for a government pension of `1,200 per month,” says Nagaraj who is working towards the passage of the Rights of Persons with Disability bill.

“The procedure is tiring. A disabled person is expected to travel some 40-50 km and the office stays open from 10am to 12 noon only, so many don’t claim it,” Nirmita adds, who is also visually challenged herself.

“I had approached other institutions, but for reasons unknown they don’t approve of my enrollment, probably because of looks. I had to lie to the English instituition that I would be going to England, and only they they agreed,” Aslam says.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/accessibility/news/new-indian-express-december-7-2016-regina-gurung-english-gottila-job-illa