Centre for Internet and Society

Otago Southland are the Coolest

praskrishna — 2015-12-15T08:06:13Z

LIANZA Otago Southland are delighted to announce our speaker, Subhashish Panigrahi (@subhapa), from the Centre for Internet and Society’s Access To Knowledge programme, will be tuning in via the interwebs from India to share his vision of Guerilla GLAM, describe case studies of these initiatives in India, as well as touching on the creation of documentaries, learning resources and promotional material from acquired content.

This was published by Library and Information Association of New Zealand. The submission was accepted for Wikimania 2015.

Subha believes “this presentation will be useful for those who can mobilize a small team of volunteers equipped with digital camera, access to local cultural institutions and some level of expertise of curating data.”

Read more about Subha and the abstract for his talk here https://blogs.otago.ac.nz/openotago/2015/10/06/how-to-do-guerilla-glam/

Please share this event with your other GLAM networks!

Event Details

How to do Guerilla GLAM / Subhashish Panigrahi @subhapa <https://twitter.com/subhapa>Tuesday 20 October, 3.00pm NZDT In Dunedin: Conference Room 3, 1st floor University of Otago Central Library, 65 Albany Street, Dunedin<http://www.otago.ac.nz/library/locations/#central>

Online: via Adobe Connect<https://connect.otago.ac.nz/sarah/?launcher=false>. [No software required, just click the link and sign in as a guest. Please ensure you are logged in before 3pm and have read the participant notes on screen] The session will be recorded.

Pre - presentation preparation - entirely optional

If you’re planning on attending Subhashish’s webinar and want to know more about using Wikipedia in your GLAM, you might be interested in watching this first.

This blog post from Alex Stinson<https://twitter.com/sadads> from the Wikimedia Foundation<https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Home>, entitled "Librarian as Teacher: ways to use Wikipedia"<http://interlibnet.org/2015/10/07/librarian-as-teacher-ways-to-use-wikipedia/>, specifically regarding her discussion about GLAM-wiki
A recording of the September webcast by Phoebe Ayers<http://if%20you%E2%80%99re%20planning%20on%20attending%20subhashish%E2%80%99s%20webinar%20and%20want%20to%20know%20more%20about%20using%20wikipedia%20in%20your%20glam%2C%20you%20might%20be%20interested%20in%20watching%20this%20first./>, a librarian at MIT and former member of the Wikimedia Foundation’s Board of Trustees about the basics of editing Wikipedia especially for Librarians.https://join.onstreammedia.com/play/sparc/7087-edit-a-thon-training-09.30

How to do Guerilla GLAM

Open Access Week (19-25 October) is fast approaching and we have a number of events in store – one I’m keen to tell you about now is a webinar we have planned entitled, “How to do Guerilla GLAM”.

Our speaker, Subhashish Panigrahi @subhapa, from the Centre for Internet and Society’s Access To Knowledge programme will be tuning in via the interwebs from India to share his vision, case studies of Guerilla GLAM initiatives in India, as well as touching on the creation of documentaries, learning resources and promotional material from acquired content.

GLAM = Galleries Libraries Archives and Museums
Guerilla Glam = “getting the most out from cultural institutions where collaboration and long term engagement has high cost and time implications.”

Details of the event

How to do Guerilla GLAM / Subhashish Panigrahi @subhapa
Tuesday 20 October, 3.00pm NZDT
Conference Room 3, 1st floor University of Otago Central Library, 65 Albany Street, Dunedin
Or join us via Adobe Connect. [Please ensure you are logged in before 3pm and have read the participant notes on screen]

We will be recording this session and Subha has given permission for us to make the recording and his slides available here on the blog. We encourage participants to ask questions via the chat facility in Adobe Connect, or to tweet questions using #OAWeek #AOASG.

Abstract
Building partnership with galleries, libraries, archives and museums (collectively known as GLAM institutions) is a great way of funneling the cultural content acquisition and bringing open access to such valuable data. But it is not that easy given the complications each country has in terms of formal agreement, organizational framework, etc. This presentation will detail about the learning curve of institutional partnership building, leveraging personal contacts in small scale GLAM projects and bringing in several indie-projects to cut implication cost, and execute low-cost models.

During this presentation I will present two case studies of contrasting nature: India’s first GLAM project at the National Crafts Museum, New Delhi, and various small-scale collaborative projects. Where the first one would have learning from the six months long project, the second one will draw inspirations from many initiatives that have really no cost or low cost implication and less implementation time involved.

At times, institutional collaborations become liabilities and labor intensive with low Return on Investment. Training staff and implementing GLAM projects are not always easy and retaining contributors is a challenge. Alternatively Guerrilla GLAM could be thought of when having a Wikimedian-in-Residence is not feasible. This presentation will be useful for those who can mobilize a small team of volunteers equipped with digital camera, access to local cultural institutions and some level of expertise of curating data.

Making documentaries and building narratives based on acquired content to creating learning resources and promotional materials will be another aspect of this presentation. Building partnerships with many federal or private institutions also needs sustained long-term engagement and volunteer time is not always enough to devote for a long term GLAM project. This presentation will detail about going the guerrilla way to acquire data from GLAM institutions. This will involve low cost models, leveraging various factors, and getting the most out from cultural institutions where collaboration and long term engagement has high cost and time implications.

About Subhashish

Subhashish Panigrahi is an India based educator, author, blogger, Wikimedian, language activist and free knowledge evangelist. Earlier with Wikimedia Foundation’s India Program and currently at the Centre for Internet and Society‘s Access To Knowledge program, Panigrahi works on building partnership with universities, language research and GLAM (Gallery, Library, Archive and Museums) organizations for bringing more scholarly and encyclopedic content under free licenses, designing outreach programs for South Asian language Wikipedia/Wikimedia projects and communities.

The other hats he wears are as the Editor for Global Voices Odia, Community Moderator of Opensource.com, and Ambassador for India in OpenGLAM Local, Juror of 2015 American Alliance of Museum Muse Awards, and member of OER 2016 Standing Committee. He has presented in various Indian and international conferences on the free knowledge, GLAM and Open Access movement. Panigrahi has authored of “Rising Voices: Indigenous language Digital Activism” in Digital Activism in Asia Reader and was winner of the 2015 Opensource.com People’s Choice Award. Subhashish is available on Twitter at @subhapa and over email at psubhashishatgmaildotcom for more discussion.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/news/guerilla-glam

September 2015 NVDA Report

praskrishna — 2015-10-09T02:07:37Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/september-2015-nvda-report.pdf

Access at the cost of Net neutrality?

praskrishna — 2015-10-09T01:18:31Z

In the Net neutrality debate, there is a conflict between two core values: ease of access and neutrality. The ease of access promised by applications like Free Basics compromises neutrality and may later morph into a method of predatory pricingIf programs that bring access to a part of the Internet in the immediate future were to entrench themselves, it could eventually lead to telecom companies abusing their dominant positionsIn the absence of a specific law mandating a neutral Internet, telecom companies enjoy a virtual carte blanche to discriminate between different applications. Though they have not yet exploited this autonomy fully, they are certainly moving towards that.

The article by Suhrith Parthasarathy was published in the Hindu on October 8, 2015. Pranesh Prakash gave inputs.

Earlier this year, the social media giant, Facebook, formalised a partnership with Reliance Communications that enabled the Indian company to provide access to over 30 different websites, without any charge on mobile data accruing to the ultimate user. The platform, originally known as “Internet.org,” has now been rebranded as “Free Basics,” Facebook announced last month. Its fundamental ethos, though, remains unchanged. It allows Reliance’s subscribers to surf completely free of cost a bouquet of websites covered within the scheme, which includes, quite naturally, facebook.com. Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s founder, views this supposed initiative as a philanthropic gesture, as part of a purported, larger aim to bring access to the Internet to those people who find the costs of using generally available mobile data prohibitive.

Neutrality, an interpretive concept
On the face of it, this supposed act of altruism appears to be commendable. But, there are many critics — some of whom have come together to launch a website “savetheinternet.in” with a view to defending Internet freedom — who argue that Free Basics violates what has come to be known as the principle of network (or Net) neutrality.

While it is clear to all of us that a notion of Net neutrality involves some regulation of the Internet, it is less clear what the term actually means. Like any phrase that involves either a moral or a legal obligation, Net neutrality is also an interpretive concept. People who employ the term to denote some sort of binding commitment, or at the least an aspirational norm, often tend to disagree over precisely how the idea ought to be accomplished. Tim Wu — an American lawyer and presently a professor at the Columbia University — who coined the term, views the notion of Net neutrality as signifying an Internet that does not favour any one application over another. In other words, the idea is to ensure that Internet service providers do not discriminate content by either charging a fee for acting as its carrier or by incorporating any technical qualifications.

In India, there is no law that expressly mandates the maintenance of a neutral Internet. This March, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) released a draft consultation paper seeking the public’s views on whether the Internet needed regulation. Unfortunately, much of its attention was focussed on the supposedly pernicious impact of applications such as WhatsApp and Viber. “In a multi-ethnic society there is a vital need,” wrote TRAI, “to ensure that the social equilibrium is not impacted adversely by communications that inflame passions, disturb law and order and lead to sectarian disputes.” The questions, therefore, in its view were these: should at least some Internet applications be amenable to a greater regulation, and should they compensate the telecom service providers in addition to the data charges that the consumers pay directly for the use of mobile Internet?

If the government eventually answers these questions in the affirmative, the consequences could be drastic. It could lead to a classification of Internet applications based on arbitrary grounds, by bringing some of them, whom the government views as harmful to society in some manner or another, within its regulatory net. Through such a move, the state, contrary to helping establish principles of Net neutrality as a rule of law, would be actively promoting an unequal Internet.

In any event, as things stand, in the absence of a specific law mandating a neutral Internet, telecom companies enjoy a virtual carte blanche to discriminate between different applications. Though these companies have not yet completely exploited this autonomy, they are certainly proceeding towards such an exercise. In April this year, Airtel announced Airtel Zero, an initiative that would allow applications to purchase data from Airtel in exchange for the telecom company offering them to consumers free of cost.

On the face of it, this programme appears opposed to Net neutrality. But what is even more alarming is that mobile Internet service providers could, in the future, plausibly also control the speeds at which different applications are delivered to consumers. For example, if WhatsApp were to subscribe to Airtel Zero by paying the fee demanded by the company, Airtel might accede to offering WhatsApp to consumers at a pace superior to that at which other applications are run. This kind of discrimination, as Nikhil Pahwa, one of the pioneers of the Save The Internet campaign, has argued, is prototypically opposed to Net neutrality. It tends to breed an unequal playing field, and, if allowed to subsist, it could create a deep division in the online world. Ultimately, we must view Net neutrality as a concept that stands for the values that we want to build as a society; it pertains to concerns about ensuring freedom of expression and about creating an open space for ideas where democracy can thrive. There is a tendency, though, to view those who support Net neutrality as representing a supercilious position. Such criticism is unquestionably blinkered, but it also highlights certain telling concerns.

Telecom companies that wish to discriminate between applications argue that in the absence of an Internet that has completely permeated all strata of society, an obligation to maintain neutrality is not only unreasonable on the companies, but also unfair on the consumer. After all, if nothing else, Airtel Zero and Free Basics bring, at the least, some portions of the Internet to people who otherwise have no means to access the web. What we have, therefore, at some level, is a clash of values: between access to the Internet (in a limited form) and the maintenance of neutrality in an atmosphere that is inherently unequal. This makes tailoring a solution to the problem a particularly arduous process.

The Internet, in its purest form, is a veritable fountain of information. At its core lies a commitment to both openness and a level playing field, where an ability to innovate is perennially maintained. It is difficult to argue against Facebook when it says that some access is better than no access at all. But one of the problems with Free Basics, and indeed with Airtel Zero too, is that the consumer has no choice in which websites he or she might want to access free of cost. If this decision is made only by Facebook, which might argue that it gives every developer an equal chance to be a part of its project as long as it meets a certain criteria, what we have is almost a paternalistic web. In such a situation, information, far from being free, is shackled by constraints imposed by the service provider.

Laudable end, unethical means
This is precisely one of the concerns raised by those arguing in favour of Net neutrality, who, it is worth bearing in mind, aren’t resistant to the idea of a greater penetration of the Internet. Their apprehensions lie in companies resorting to what they believe is an unethical means to achieving, at least in theory, a laudable end. According to them, negating Net neutrality, in a bid to purportedly achieve greater access to the Internet in the immediate future, could prove profoundly injurious in the long run. Yes, Airtel Zero and Free Basics would bring to the less-privileged amongst us some access to the Internet, but the question is this: at what cost?

The worry is that if the programs that bring access to a part of the Internet in the immediate future were to entrench themselves, it could eventually lead to these telecom companies abusing their dominant positions. No doubt, as Pranesh Prakash, policy director at the Centre for Internet and Society, has argued, it might require a deeper analysis to argue convincingly that packages such as Free Basics and Airtel Zero require immediate invalidation in their present forms; significantly, the former does not demand payments from the applications while the latter is premised on such consideration. But, viewed holistically, the companies’ actions could potentially be characterised as a form of predatory pricing, where consumers might benefit in the short run, only for serious damage to ensue to competition in the long run.

It is, therefore, necessary that any debate on the issue must address the tension between the two apparently conflicting goals — the importance of maintaining a neutral Internet and the need to ensure a greater access to the web across the country. Mr. Zuckerberg argues that these two values are not fundamentally opposed to each other, but can — and must — coexist. He is possibly correct at a theoretical level.

But the history of markets tells us that we have to be very careful in allowing predatory practices, devised to achieve short-term goals, to go unbridled. As citizens, each of us has a fundamental right to freedom of speech and expression. If we were to get the balance between these two values wrong, if we were to allow the domination, by a few parties, of appliances that facilitate a free exchange of ideas, in a manner that impinges on the Internet’s neutrality, our most cherished civil liberties could well be put to grave danger.

(Suhrith Parthasarathy is an advocate in the Madras High Court.)

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/the-hindu-october-8-2015-suhrith-parthasarathy-access-at-the-cost-of-net-neutrality

4th Annual US - China IP Conference: Best Practices for Innovation and Creativity

praskrishna — 2015-11-29T13:51:15Z

Bhairav Acharya attended this conference organized by Berkeley Law, University of California on October 6, 2015.

WHAT: The 4th Annual U.S.-China IP Conference: Best Practices for Innovation and Creativity

WHEN: Thurs. Oct. 8, 9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. and Fri. Oct. 9, 9:00 a.m.—noon

WHO: Lawyers, government officials, scholars, and corporate counsel from China and U.S.

Participants include:

Chuntian Liu, dean of China Renmin University
Ping Liu, dep. director-general, Music Copyright Society of China
Robert Merges, co-dir. of the Berkeley Center for Law & Technology at Berkeley Law
Maria Strong, deputy dir. of the U.S. Copyright Office
Duane Valz, sr. patent counsel, Google

For a full list of speakers and bios, go here.

WHERE: The Claremont Hotel, 41 Tunnel Road, Berkeley, CA 94705.

DETAILS: Last year marked the first in which Chinese investment in the United States—heavily weighted toward technology—exceeded U.S. investment in China. With companies in each country increasingly seeking joint ventures in the other, intellectual property (IP) issues that lie at the core of these investments have taken on even greater importance.

Participants will compare the latest trends and developments in IP creation, protection and cross-border enforcement in China and U.S.

Panel topics include:

Opportunities and Challenges in U.S.-China Film Co-Production and Other Media
New Trends and Legal Issues in Transnational Technology Investment
Specialized IP Courts
Recent Developments in Copyright: Legislation and Cases
Recent Developments in Patents: Legislation and Cases
Cross-border IP Enforcement

For a complete agenda, go here. Read a preview story about the conference here.

Event co-sponsors: The UC Berkeley School of Law’s Berkeley Center for Law & Technology (BCLT); Loyola Law School, Los Angeles; and Renmin University of China Law School.

For more information or to schedule interviews contact: Jim Dempsey, exec. dir. BCLT, 510-643-6960; or Louise Lee, assoc. dir., llee@law.berkeley.edu, 510-642-9353.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/4th-annual-us-china-ip-conference-best-practices-for-innovation-and-creativity

Cyber 360 Agenda

praskrishna — 2015-10-02T15:41:54Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/cyber-360-agenda

Copyright: Access to Knowledge in Free Trade Agreements?

praskrishna — 2015-10-02T03:36:53Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/copyright-access-to-knowledge-in-fta.pdf

Do you agree with our fee hike? Press 1 to answer Yes; or 2 for Yes

praskrishna — 2015-10-01T15:28:37Z

It has long been a concern that domain-name overseer ICANN is largely funded by companies reliant on the organization to make money.

The article by Kieren McCarthy was published in the Register on September 29, 2015.

Every biz that wishes to sell domain names – called a registrar – has to pay the organization $4,000 a year, plus 18 cents on every domain they sell.

In addition, they have to pay a variable fee that comprises the money ICANN says it spends on registrar-related activities divided by the number of companies that are accredited. This year that cost was $3.8m and with roughly 1,150 companies, that's $3,300 a head.

The pricing structure provides California-based ICANN with just under $40m a year, more than a third of its total budget. But in order to make sure the non-profit organization doesn't abuse its market control to hike up its fees, each year the registrars have to formally approve the fee structure that the ICANN Board has adopted. And they do that through an online vote.

This year, some registrars are wondering whether the $3.8m spent by ICANN is a good deal for them.

"What do your ICANN fees get you?" ICANN asks itself in an email sent to all registrars. "In addition to helping cover the expenses associated with ICANN meetings and ICANN's day-to-day operations, your fees have allowed us to conduct regular outreach with registrars through 'roadshow' type training seminars, webinars, in-person events, and site visits."

Don't ask, don't tell

It's not clear how that money is spent nor on what, since ICANN continues to provide only the vaguest details over its budget, providing annual sums for "travel" and for "meetings" across the entire organization.

ICANN is also actively refusing to hand that information over, telling one outfit that formally asked for additional financial data that for it to do so would be "extremely time consuming and overly burdensome." That organization – the Centre for Internet and Society – is appealing that decision [PDF] to ICANN's Board with a decision made two days ago but still unpublished.

ICANN expenditure is increasing: in 2014 alone, its "travel" costs jumped by 85 per cent to $17m; its meetings budget nearly doubled from an average of $3.2m per public meeting in 2013 to $6m in 2014. But there is almost no information on where this money has been spent, and so far no explanation for why it spent $113m in 2014 with an income of just $84m.

What else is ICANN spending registrars' fees on? "We've recruited Registrar Services staff dedicated to serving Europe, the Middle East/Africa, and Asia and have already begun a series of (low-cost) micro-regional events in China, Japan, Singapore, and South Korea, with plans taking shape for events in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and the Americas in the near future," we're told.

But existing registrars are wondering whether all these new staff and events are needed. Are there hundreds of new registrars entering the market? Are they in Asia?

Unfortunately, ICANN has stopped providing that kind of information. In 2009, under pressure to be more open about what was going on, the organization made big play of the fact it was going to produce statistics showing how many registrars there were, how big they were, and where they were based in a new "dashboard."

But those stats stopped being produced two years ago and the most recent data provided is from 2012.

Software and security

Where else do the millions of dollars from the companies that support ICANN go? "We're building up the 'GDD Portal'," says a note from ICANN's staff, "which will become a one-stop destination for all registrar resources at ICANN, and transitioning our customer relationship management software from RADAR to salesforce.com."

This is the same GDD Portal that ICANN had to shut down earlier this year because of a security breach. It had misconfigured out-the-box software and exposed every user's information, including financial projections, launch plans, and confidential exchanges, to every other user. Having at first claimed there was "no indication" that confidential information was exposed, it later admitted that it had in fact happened 330 times.

As for RADAR, it was specifically named in a report by Verisign as a security risk; this is one of the things on a "growing list of examples where ICANN's operational track record leaves much to be desired."

We're listening...

Finally, in explaining why the registrar fees are a good deal for the companies, ICANN's staff note: "Most importantly, we're doing our best to listen to you to ensure that our work is of real value to you."

Unfortunately that listening does not extend to hearing any complaints about the fees, or what they are spent on.

All registrars receive an email during the annual approval of the fees levied against them with a link to an online survey. Incredibly enough, however, they are only allowed to agree to the fees – there is no option to disagree. Or in fact do anything other than sign up for another year.

And what is ICANN's explanation for why the companies that provide it with over a third of its budget are not allowed to express anything but approval of the fees ICANN sets? Problems with the voting software:

The system is only able to accept affirmative expressions of approval. (A technical limitation in the voting software prevents us from knowing when we've reached the level of approval required if we offer both a 'yes, I approve,' and a 'no, I don't approve' option.) But if you have reservations about approving the budget or concerns you'd like addressed first, please let me know and I'll be happy to try to address those directly with you.

So despite charging the companies $3,500 each a year to run the systems that they use, ICANN has been unable to find voting software that is capable of accepting more than one answer. Money well spent.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/the-register-september-29-2015-kieren-mccurthy-do-you-agree-with-our-fee-hike

Online outcry forces government to withdraw draft encryption policy

praskrishna — 2015-10-01T02:05:01Z

The article by Naina Khedekar discussing encryption policy was published in First Post on September 23, 2015. Pranesh Prakash has been quoted.

Read the original published by First Post here.

Yesterday, the government released a draft encryption policy aimed at keeping a tab on the use of technology by specifying algorithms and length of encryption keys used by ‘all’. It wanted businesses, telcos and Internet companies to store all encrypted data for 90 days in plain text which should be presented before the law enforcement agencies whenever asked to. Moreover, failing to do so would mean legal action as per the laws of the country.

After a huge outcry, most of us woke up to the new proposed addendum this morning wherein the government has clarified to exempt products such as social media sites including WhatsApp, Facebook and Twitter; payment gateways; e-commerce and password based transactions and more from the draft policy.

Finally, the government has decided to withdraw the draft encryption policy.

I have written for that draft to be withdrawn, made changes to and then re-released: RS Prasad : ANI pic.twitter.com/W2IP4meEGb

— Firstpost (@firstpost) September 22, 2015

Some sort of encryption policy is there all over the world: Ravishankar Prasad pic.twitter.com/cDvsOWtjcM

— Firstpost (@firstpost) September 22, 2015

What’s fascinating is how the whole process felt like déjà vu. Haven’t we seen the drama unfold before. While the dust on the net neutrality sage has barely settled, we’re already facing newer issues related to encryption and privacy. We never learn from our mistakes, do we? A new draft policy, public outcry, and then comes the much-needed changes.

The Indian government hasn’t just caused anxiety and chaos among the netizens, but the initial draft completely misguided people. According to TheNextWeb, “The Indian government has made a fool of itself and caused anxiety among citizens with a woefully misguided proposal for a national encryption policy that it’s just released to the public for feedback.”

While we sit back and talk about Digital India, smarter cities and so on, the makers of the law seem to be clueless about some major by-products concerning these initiatives such as security, privacy and likewise. Each time the government talks about a new initiative meant to bring in some law and order pertaining to digital rights, it somehow manages to come up with implications that could affect us far worse.

In this case, the Indian government is trying to ensure that its law enforcement agencies have easy access to encrypted information whenever required, but this could easily compromise security and privacy in the process.

Moreover, each time the government releases a proposal for our digital lives, it’s people who remind the government about the adverse implications it could have. Does the expert panel writing these reports know nothing about privacy and how it possibly works? Or is the government simply looking at a trial balloon policy to gauge reactions by people. So, next time we don’t react, a draconian rule might just be governing our digital lives.

The whole net neutrality saga continued for months with assurance from the government on how it supports free and equal Internet, and eventually made ‘certain changes’. This seems headed on a similar path. Though the new addendum comes with changes, it still leaves us as muddled as before.

Pranesh Prakash of the CIS has tweeted out how the new clarification clarifies nothing.

This clarification by the govt does not clarify anything, but further muddles the encryption policy. pic.twitter.com/1KK8AFRp6Q

— Pranesh Prakash (@pranesh_prakash) September 22, 2015

All OSes will be illegal in India (IV.6 + V.3 of draft encryption policy) unless Microsoft, Apple, Red Hat, etc, sign agreement w/ govt.

— Pranesh Prakash (@pranesh_prakash) September 21, 2015

If India enacts that National Encryption Policy, their global back-end and support business will be drastically reduced. If it survives.

— Lin S (@Just_this_time) September 21, 2015

A new Medianama report also points out loopholes in the changes announced. The report adds how any encrypted service would have to sign an agreement with the government. With the heavy mobile penetration and increasing number of encrypted mobile services that people use, it is really feasible for the government to ink an agreement with all the services that are based outside the country.

Problems with the update to India's draft anti-privacy policy http://t.co/gKus1o3uaC pic.twitter.com/adqVJTedFI

— Nikhil Pahwa (@nixxin) September 22, 2015

In the past, we’ve seen the blame game around the laws, usually the ‘hurriedly’ changed laws passed (after the inability to monitor encrypted messages during the Mumbai terrorist attacks) in the winter session of 2008 without any debate or discussion by bears the brunt. Earlier this year, we saw the government crack down the Section 66A of the 2008 Information Technology Act describing it “unconstitutional” and “hit at the root of liberty and freedom of expression, the two cardinal pillars of democracy.”

Why can’t all the thinking be done before drafts are penned down for public review. A well thought out report would help avoid retractions later.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/first-post-naina-khedekar-september-23-2015-online-outcry-forces-government-to-withdraw-draft-encryption-policy

Understanding and Mitigating Online Hate Speech and Youth Radicalisation

praskrishna — 2015-10-01T01:59:24Z

The tenth annual IGF meeting will be held in João Pessoa, Brazil, on November 10 - 13, 2015. IGF's MAG has decided to retain the title “Evolution of Internet Governance: Empowering Sustainable Development” as the overarching theme. UNESCO as part of the IGF event is organizing a workshop on hate speech and youth radicalisation. Sunil Abraham will be a panelist for this workshop.

Co-organizers: Council of Europe, Oxford University; OHCHR, Google, ISOC

From socializing and entertainment to homework, the Internet is an essential part of life for young people today, opening vast new opportunities for connecting and learning. At the same time, the Internet provides violent extremists with powerful tools to propagate hatred and violence and to identify and groom potential recruits, creating global online communities that promote radicalization.

The emergence and diffusion of hate speech online is a new and fast evolving phenomenon and collective efforts are needed to understand its significance and consequences, as well as to develop effective responses.

UNESCO takes this session to share the initial outcome from its commissioned research on online hate speech including practical recommendations on combating against online hate speech through understanding the challenges, mobilizing civil society, lobbying private sectors and intermediaries and educating individuals with Media and Information Literacy. In related to this, the workshop would also discuss how to help empower youth to address online radicalization and extremism, and realize their aspirations to contribute to a more peaceful and sustainable world.

Chaired by Ms Lidia Brito, Director for UNESCO Office in Montevideo
Frank La Rue, Former Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression
Lillian Nalwoga, President ISOC Uganda and rep CIPESA, Technical community
Bridget O’Loughlin, CoE, IGO
Gabrielle Guillemin, Article 19
Iyad Kallas, Radio Souriali
Sunil Abraham executive director of Center for Internet and Society, Bangalore, India
Eve Salomon, global Chairman of the Regulatory Board of RICS (the self-regulatory body for surveyors)
Javier Lesaca Esquiroz, University of Navarra
Representative GNI
Remote Moderator: Xianhong Hu, UNESCO
Rapporteur: Guilherme Canela De Souza Godoi, UNESCO

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/understanding-and-mitigating-online-hate-speech-and-youth-radicalisation

National Conference: WTO, FTAs and Investment Treaties: Implications for development policy space

praskrishna — 2015-10-02T03:41:00Z

The conference was jointly organized by Focus on the Global South, Institute for Studies in Industrial Development (ISID), Madhyam, MSF Access Campaign, National Working Group on Patent Laws and WTO (NWGPL), Public Services International (PSI) – South Asia, South Solidarity Initiative – ActionAid, Third Word Network (TWN), and Forum against FTAs. Nehaa Chaudhari attended the event.

Nehaa Chaudhari made a presentation on Copyright: Access to Knowledge in Free Trade Agreements?

Day 1:

9.00 to 9.30 : Registration

9.30 to 10.00: Welcome and Introduction,

Prof Murthy, ISID

Shri. TN Chaturvedi, President of ISID

Prof Goyal, ISID

Prof. Dinesh Abrol, ISID

Shalini Bhutani, Legal researcher

( The session will cover objectives of the meeting, meeting schedule with purpose why people need to come forward and strategize and brief self-introduction by participants and state the introduction to the conference in very brief (2Mins to participants))

10.00 to 11.30: Session 1: Trade and Investment regimes: An overview of implications for development policy space

(The session will provide overview of macro-economic framework with the critical perspective over current state of play on WTO, FTAs and bilateral investment treaties (BITs)).

Chair: Shri. Muchkund Dubey, Centre for Social Development (CSD)

Panel of speakers:

Prof. Biswajit Dhar, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) – Current dynamics of trade and investment negotiations: Issues and options. (Synthesis of our views and what India should do – presentation of the background paper to the conference- Speech will cover elements of trade negotiations scenario, update on WTO, FTAs, BITs

Shri. Rajiv Kher, Former Commerce Secretary, Ministry of Commerce, Government of India - WTO negotiations: Challenges Ahead,

Deborah James, Our World Is Not For Sale (OWINFS) network: Overview of recent developments in WTO negotiations and Challenges Ahead

Followed by Discussion:

11.30 to 11.45 Tea

11.45 to 1.30: Manufacturing sector and Challenges for policy space

(The session will provide an overview of challenges for employment and development emerging from proposed trade agreements such as NAMA, Information technology agreement (ITA), Environmental Goods Agreement (EGA), and impact of FTAs. It will also critically analyze Global Value Chain arguments, Make in India initiative, protecting policy space, employment and trade union rights issues)

Chair: Prof. Biswajit Dhar, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU)

Panel of speakers:

Smitha Francis, ISID – FTAs, NAMA, ITA and EGA – Implications for Manufacturing sector

Amb. Jayant Das Gupta, Former Ambassador of India to the WTO - Issues and options in Non-Agricultural Market Access negotiations in WTO

Respondents: 5 to 7 Mins

Amitava Guha, Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) / FMRI (TBC)

Gautam Mody, New Trade Union Initiative (NTUI)

Saji Narayanan, Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS)

1.30 PM to 2.30 PM: Lunch

2.30 PM to 4.00 PM: Services Liberalization and Privatization – Part 1

(The session will focus on RCEP, TPP and TISA highlighting the corporate agenda in services liberalization. The session will then look at key sectors evaluating the extent of liberalization that has taken place and routes through which development policy is being lost.)

Moderator: Benny Kuruvilla, South Solidarity Initiative

Services liberalization: The Corporate Agenda: Deborah James, CEPR

Banking and insurance sector liberalization: Prof. C.P.Chandra Sekhar

Responses:

Banking sector Unions: Thomas Franko, All India State Bank Officers Association (TBC)

Insurance sector Union: V Narasimhan, All India National Life Insurance Employees Federation (AINLIEF)

4.00 to 4.15 Tea Break

4.15 to 6.00: Services Liberalisation – Part 2: Impacts on essential services

(The session will focus on key essential services and assess the extent of liberalisation achieved through different routes and the challenges posed by the TISA agenda).

Moderator: PSI

Panel of speakers: Health system: privatization and challenges to domestic regulation: Amit Sengupta, People’s Health Movement (PHM) – Challenges from autonomous liberalization and TISA, (Presentation will also cover the issue of Movement of health professional - debunking Mode 4.).

Privatization of education: Anil Sadagopal, All India Right to Education Forum Anil Sadagopal/ or JJ Thilak, National University of Education Planning and Administration (NUEPA) (presentation will focus on Foreign universities) (TBC)

Privatisation of electricity: EAS Sharma (TBC)

Responses:

Water sector: Jammu Anand, National Platform against water privatization / or someone from Karnataka

Day 2

9.30 AM to 11.30 AM: Trade policies and Agriculture: Challenges to food sovereignty and local communities

(The session will discuss challenges emerging from trade policies in the agriculture sector with the focus on WTO negotiations and India’s FTAs. It will also include views from representatives of farmers’ organizations)

Chair: Ranja Sengupta, TWN (We will say we are looking forward to strategy related suggestions)

Panel

Prof. Abhjit Das, Indian Institute of Foreign Trade (IIFT): Agriculture and challenges emerging from trade negotiations / Ranja in case of (Speech will cover key agriculture issues in WTO Agreement on Agriculture and FTAs)

Afsar Jafri, Focus on the Global South – Food sovereignty, Peasant livelihood and free trade

Shalini Bhutani, Legal Researcher – Seeds and Intellectual Property Rights – implications for local communities

Responses (5 to 7 min.)-

Sridhar - ASHA

Biraj Patnaik - Right to Food Campaign -

Yudhvir Singh - Via Campasina

Kannaiyan - Via Campasina

Vijoo Krishnan - All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS)

11.30 am to 11.45: Tea Break

Discussion

11.45 to 1.15

Investment regime and Challenges for Development:

Moderator: Prof. Chimni, JNU

Kavaljit Singh, Madhyam: Investment regimes and challenges for development (20 min)

Prof. Chalapaty Rao, ISID: FDI and Development demystifying foreign investments' contribution to development (10 min)

Kajal Bharadwaj, ISDS case studies (health, mining and environment cases)

(The session will demystify issues around BIPAs and Foreign Direct investment. It will cover issues emerging from FTAs through BIPA, and review of BIPA with example of ISDS cases)

Responses:

FDI in Retail: Dharmendra Kumar / Praveen

Natural resources and Infrastructure Investment: NAPM – Madhuresh /Forest Workers

Infrastructure Investment in North East: Ramananda Wangkheirakpam, North East Peoples’ Alliance (NEPA)

1.15 to 2.15 Lunch Break

2.15 to 3.15: Session on Intellectual Property

Chair: Prof. Dinesh Abrol, ISID

Medicines - MSF Access Campaign

“TRIPS – State of Play in WTO negotiations” By Gopakumar, Third World Network (TWN)

“Copy rights: Access to knowledge” by Neha Chowdhury (CIS)

3.15 to 5.15 The Way Forward

(Starts with presentation from moderators on key issues raised in sectoral sessions. From each section draw a broad conclusion and arrange them towards a declaration or statement of unity)

Chair: Prof. Deepak Nayyar

Moderators: Prof. Dinesh Abrol and Shalini Bhutani

Valedictory address by Shri. S P Shukla (TBC)

Creating a Time line of key moments

4.00 to 4.15 Tea Break

4.15 to 5.45 Conclusion

5.45 to 6.00: Vote of Thanks

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/news/national-conference-wto-ftas-and-investment-treaties-implications-for-development-policy-space

Cyber 360

praskrishna — 2015-10-14T02:22:27Z

Synergy Foundation organized the Cyber 360 conference in Bangalore on September 29 and 30, 2015. Sunil Abraham participated in the event.

As part of Cyber 360 Degree, a two-day conference on cyber security continuing Wednesday in Bangalore, experts from around the world gathered to discuss global threats to information security, particularly focusing on open wifi, which poses a huge threat to information security. The conference aimed to bring together strategic security practitioners, policymakers, media and business enterprises on a single platform to obtain a 360o perspective on cybersecurity. It was an endeavour to create a holistic security strategy that will help to achieve resilience against modern cyber-threats. A range of keynote presentations and panel discussions will give participants a rare chance to interact and learn from leading cyber security experts and solution providers from around the world.

The Participants

 CEOs, Members of Board and CIOs of more than 60 companies
 Security practitioners
 Policy-makers
 Leading Academia
 International think tanks & media

Download the agenda

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/cyber-360

Unable to read Odia on your android device? Don’t fret!

praskrishna — 2015-12-15T08:04:39Z

If you get only boxes in place of Odia fonts in your Android device then it does not support the language. So you need to install Odia font in your smart phone; one way is to root it, but it’s not without cons.

The article by Ruby Nanda was published in Odisha Sun Times on September 28, 2015. Subhashish Panigrahi was quoted.

Rooting means breaking and getting full rights into the entire operating system of your Android. If done right it can turn you into a super user and open a wealth of opportunities with your handheld device. But, rooting is a complex process and definitely not for a newbie, as rooting leads to loss of warranty, security issues and a wrong move can turn it into a paperweight.

“Rooting is not advisable as it is bit complicated and turns your phone warranty void”, says Subhashish Panigrahi, Programme Officer at the Centre for Internet and Society, an NGO. By far the easiest way to read Odia is by installing Firefox Browser for your android mobile, he added.

Nihar Kumar Dalai, IT professional, has found an easy hack and with Panigrahi, he has designed a free licensed tutorial by which one can easily read Odia language in their smart phones.

“Odia fonts are supported only in the latest android 5.1.1 update, but people using android devices with older version may not have Odia fonts and can see only the boxes. We see many people seeking help to resolve this problem on Twitter and Facebook. With missing Odia fonts, people may end up writing Odia in Roman script, said Dalai.

“There has been very positive response from people who have tried this method. I’m happy to play a very small part for this cause, the IT professional added.

So if you are unable to read or write Odia in your android handheld then no sweat, just try out these simple steps and enjoy the fun of reading and writing Odia in your mobile.

Install Mozilla Firefox browser for Android on your phone from Google Play.
Launch Firefox and go to the Oriya fonts package Add-Ons page and select “Add to Firefox”
Click on Install
Eureka! Now Odia fonts appear on your android device instead of unrecognizable boxes.

Click here to watch the tutorial:

https://or.wikipedia.org/s/ucf

Once you’re able to read and write Odia, you can use any online Odia transliteration service e.g. TypeOdia (on Firefox browser), iBUS on Linux, Microsoft’s Indic language Input Tool, Google Input Tool.

P.S: This method only works on Firefox Browser for Android and not on any other Apps. Android jellybean 4.3 version also supports Odia but there might be issues which are fixed by 5.1.1.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/news/odisha-sun-times-september-28-2015-ruby-nanda-unable-to-read-odia-on-your-android-device

September 2015 Bulletin

praskrishna — 2015-11-25T01:55:25Z

We are happy to share with you the ninth issue of the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) newsletter (September 2015). It has been a significant month for public debates on the digital future of governance, citizenship, and economy in India, led by conversations around the draft National Encryption Policy, the Aadhaar number as a basis for provision of welfare services, the investigation of Google for potential abuse of market dominance by the Competition Commission of India, and the Guidelines for Examination of Computer Related Inventions released by the Indian Patents Office. We were busy engaging with these issues, and more.

The past editions of the newsletter can be accessed at http://cis-india.org/about/newsletters.

Sumandro Chattapadhyay, Research Director

Internet Researchers' Conference (IRC) 2016 - Studying Internet in India
With great excitement, we are announcing the beginning of an annual conference series titled Internet Researchers' Conference (IRC), the first edition of which is to take place in Delhi during February 25-27, 2016 (yet to be confirmed). We invite you to propose sessions for the conference by Sunday, November 15, 2015.

Highlights

CIS sent an Open Letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his US visit, requesting him to urge USA to ratify the Marrakesh Treaty. During the month, NVDA team organized training programmes for the visually impaired at Kullu, Bangalore and Ranchi. Nehaa Chaudhari in a blog post laid out a series of research questions, potentially seeking to apply actor-network theory as a research methodology. Recently, the Indian Patents Office released the Guidelines for Examination of Computer Related Inventions (“2015 Guidelines/ Guidelines”) in an attempt to clarify examination of software related patents in India. Anubha Sinha analysed the 2015 Guidelines. Read on to understand how the new guidelines will potentially lead to an increase in software patenting activity by expanding the scope of patentable subject matter – in negation of the legislative intent of section 3(k) of the Indian Patents Act, 1970. As a part of its content donation initiative, CIS has brought Nadustunna Charithra magazine under CC BY SA licence. CIS-A2K has received 74 issues as of now from the Telugu Jaati foundation. Sunil Abraham’s article titled Hits and Misses with the Draft Encryption Policy was published in The Wire on September 26, 2015. Vidushi Marda in a blog post titled Data Flow in the Unique Identification Scheme of India analysed the data flow within the UID scheme and highlighted the vulnerabilities at each stage. Vanya Rakesh in a blog post titled Human DNA Profiling Bill 2012 v/s 2015 Bill has analysed the Human DNA Profiling Bill introduced in 2012 with the provisions of the 2015 Bill. CIS sought information from ICANN on their revenue streams by sending them a second request under their Documentary Information Disclosure Policy. This request and their response have been described in a blog post by Aditya Garg. CIS has submitted a joint proposal with DataMeet and Oorvani for the Knight News Challenge 2015. We are proposing the development of "an application for users to search for locally-relevant data, discuss missing data, demand data, explore and respond to data demands by others, and start data crowd-sourcing exercises." CIS made its submission on CCWG-Accountability 2nd Draft Proposal on Work Stream 1 Recommendations to ICANN's CCWG-Accountability. Pranesh Prakash, on behalf of CIS, submitted comments to the Department of Telecom Panel’s report on net neutrality via MyGov. Prakash states that the report displays a far better understanding of the underlying issues than the TRAI consultation paper did, and is overall a good effort at balancing the different sides. Shyam Ponappa’s monthly column titled More on Those Dropped Calls was published by Business Standard.

Accessibility and Inclusion

Under a grant from the Hans Foundation we are doing a project on developing text-to-speech software for 15 Indian languages. The progress made so far in the project can be accessed here.

NVDA and eSpeak

Monthly Updates

September 2015 Report (Suman Dogra; September 30, 2015).

Event Reports

Training in the use of eSpeak Hindi with NVDA (Organized by CIS and Lakshay for the Differently Abled; September 29 – 30, 2015; Ranchi). The event was conducted online by Dr. Homiyar over skype, with local support from Mritunjay Kumar and Zainab.
5 day TOT for Training in Use of eSpeak Kannada with NVDA (Organized by CIS, Mithra Jyoti, Enable India and NFB, Bangalore; September 21 – 25, 2015; Bangalore).
eSpeak Training in Hindi Language (Organized by CIS and National Association for the Blind; Kullu; September 3 – 4, 2015).
Training in eSpeak Marathi (Organized by CIS; Atmadepam Society; August 22 – 23, 2015). The report was published in the month of September.

Access to Knowledge

As part of the Access to Knowledge programme we are doing two projects. The first one (Pervasive Technologies) under a grant from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) is for research on the complex interplay between pervasive technologies and intellectual property to support intellectual property norms that encourage the proliferation and development of such technologies as a social good. The second one (Wikipedia) under a grant from the Wikimedia Foundation is for the growth of Indic language communities and projects by designing community collaborations and partnerships that recruit and cultivate new editors and explore innovative approaches to building projects.

Pervasive Technologies

Blog Entries

Pervasive Technologies: Working Document Series - Research Questions and a Literature Review on the Actor-Network Theory (Nehaa Chaudhari; September 5, 2015).
FAQ: CIS Proposal for Compulsory Licensing of Critical Mobile Technologies (Rohini Lakshané; September 25, 2015).

Other (Copyright and Patent)

Submission

Comments on the Guidelines for Examination of Computer Related Inventions (CRIs) (Anubha Sinha; September 21, 2015).

Blog Entries

Open Letter to PM Modi on Intellectual Property Rights issues on His Visit to the United States of America in September 2015 (Pranesh Prakash and Nehaa Chaudhari; September 23, 2015).

Participation in Events

National Conference: WTO, FTAs and Investment Treaties: Implications for development policy space (Organized by Focus on the Global South, Institute for Studies in Industrial Development (ISID), Madhyam, MSF Access Campaign, National Working Group on Patent Laws and WTO (NWGPL), Public Services International (PSI) – South Asia, South Solidarity Initiative – ActionAid, Third Word Network (TWN), and Forum against FTAs; September 22 – 23, 2015; Institute for Studies in Industrial Development, New Delhi). Nehaa Chaudhari made a presentation on Copyright: Access to Knowledge in Free Trade Agreements?
IPEX 2015 (Organized by Confederation of Indian Industry, APTDC and TDPC; September 25 - 26, 2015; Chennai). Rohini Lakshané attended the event.

Media Coverage

Open letter from CIS to PM Modi on Intellectual Property Rights issues on his Visit to US (Apoorva Mandhani; LiveLaw; September 23, 2015).

Wikipedia

As part of the project grant from the Wikimedia Foundation we have reached out to more than 3500 people across India by organizing more than 100 outreach events and catalysed the release of encyclopaedic and other content under the Creative Commons (CC-BY-3.0) license in four Indian languages (21 books in Telugu, 13 in Odia, 4 volumes of encyclopaedia in Konkani and 6 volumes in Kannada, and 1 book on Odia language history in English).

Blog Entries

CIS brings Nadustunna Charithra magazine under CC BY SA licence (Tanveer Hasan; September 2, 2015).
OCR and OER – update (Subhashish Panigrahi; Open Education Working Group; September 25, 2015).
As Odia Wikipedia turns 13, what happens next? (Subhashish Panigrahi; September 26, 2015). This was originally published on the Wikimedia Blog on August 21. The post was shared on Wikipedia's official Facebook page, and on Twitter handles [1 and 2].
Google's Optical Character Recognition Software Now Works with All South Asian Languages (Subhashish Panigrahi; September 26, 2015).
Wikimedia contributor shares his Linux story (Subhashish Panigrahi; September 27, 2015). This article is part of a series called My Linux Story. To participate and share your Linux story, contact us at: open@opensource.com. Read the original published by Opensource.com on September 3, 2015.

Events Co-organized

Annamaya Library edit-a-thon (Organized by CIS-A2K and Telugu Wikipedia Community; August 6, 2015; Andhra Loyola College; Vijaywada).
International Workshop on Digitization and Archiving (Organized by CIS-A2K and Wikipedia Community; August 19 – 21, 2015). Rahmanuddin Shaik was one of the trainers.

Media Coverage

CIS gave its inputs to the following:

Unable to read Odia on your android device? Don’t fret! (Ruby Nanda; Odisha Sun Times; September 28, 2015).

Openness

The advent of the Internet has radically redefined what it means to be open and collaborative. The Internet itself is built upon open standards and free/libre/open source software. Our work in the Openness programme focuses on open data, especially open government data, open access, open education resources, open knowledge in Indic languages, open media, and open technologies and standards - hardware and software. We approach openness as a cross-cutting principle for knowledge production and distribution, and not as a thing-in-itself.

Open Data

Submission

As one of the general stewards of the process, CIS was invited to take part in the final drafting meeting of the International Open Data Charter held before Con Datos 2015 in Santiago, Chile, but we could not take part in it. Apart from organising two public consultations on the draft Charter in Bengaluru and Delhi, we also submitted our detailed comments on the document. The final version of the Charter document has been launched at the United Nation General Assembly meeting, on September 27.

Free Software

Blog Entry

Software Freedom Pledge (Pranesh Prakash; September 25, 2015).

Internet Governance

As part of its research on privacy and free speech, CIS is engaged with two different projects. The first one (under a grant from Privacy International and International Development Research Centre (IDRC)) is on surveillance and freedom of expression (SAFEGUARDS). The second one (under a grant from MacArthur Foundation) is on studying the restrictions placed on freedom of expression online by the Indian government.

Privacy

Article

Hits and Misses With the Draft Encryption Policy (Sunil Abraham; The Wire; September 26, 2015).

Blog Entries

Data Flow in the Unique Identification Scheme of India (Vidushi Marda; September 3, 2015).
Human DNA Profiling Bill 2012 v/s 2015 Bill (Vanya Rakesh; September 6, 2015).
Open Governance and Privacy in a Post-Snowden World: Webinar (Vanya Rakesh; September 26, 2015).

Participation in Event

The Changing Landscape of ICT Governance and Practice - Convergence and Big Data (Co-organized by Innovation Center for Big Data and Digital Convergence, Yuan Ze University, Taiwan; August 24 – 25, 2015). Sharat Chandra Ram was granted the Young Scholar Award 2015 to attend the Young Scholar Workshop followed by main CPRSouth2015 conference (Communication Policy Research South) conference.

Free Speech and Expression

Submission

CIS Submission on CCWG-Accountability 2nd Draft Proposal on Work Stream 1 Recommendations (Pranesh Prakash; September 13, 2015).

Blog Entries

DIDP Request #11: NETmundial Principles (Aditya Garg; September 14, 2015).
DIDP Request #12: Revenues (Aditya Garg; September 14, 2015).
Peering behind the veil of ICANN’s DIDP (Padmini Baruah; September 21, 2015).

Participation in Event

Asian Regional Consultation on the WSIS+10 Review (Organized by The Internet Democracy Project, Bytes for All, APNIC, the Association for Progressive Communications, ISOC, Global Partners Digital and ICT Watch; September 3 – 5, 2015). Jyoti Panday attended the event.

IGF

The tenth annual IGF meeting will be held in João Pessoa, Brazil, on November 10 - 13, 2015. IGF's MAG has decided to retain the title “Evolution of Internet Governance: Empowering Sustainable Development” as the overarching theme. Sunil Abraham will be a panelist for the following workshops:

Understanding and Mitigating Online Hate Speech and Youth Radicalisation (Organized by Council of Europe, Oxford University, OHCHR, Google and ISOC; November 2015).
Transnational Due Process: A Case Study in Multi-stakeholder Cooperation (Organized by the United Nations; November 2015).

Cyber Security

Event Organized

Bangalore Chapter Meet of DSCI (Co-organized by DSCI and CIS; September 26, 2015). Melissa Hathaway, Commissioner, Global Commission for Internet Governance and Sunil Abraham gave a talk at this event.

Miscellaneous

Sustainable Smart Cities India Conference 2015, Bangalore (Vanya Rakesh; September 21, 2015).

Telecom

CIS is involved in promoting access and accessibility to 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:

Submission

Comments on the DoT Panel Report via MyGov (Pranesh Prakash; September 26, 2015).

Op-ed

More on those Dropped Calls (Shyam Ponappa; Business Standard; September 2, 2015 and Organizing India Blogspot; September 3, 2015).

Researchers at Work

The Researchers at Work (RAW) programme is an interdisciplinary research initiative driven by contemporary concerns to understand the reconfigurations of social practices and structures through the Internet and digital media technologies, and vice versa. It is interested in producing local and contextual accounts of interactions, negotiations, and resolutions between the Internet, and socio-material and geo-political processes:

Submission

Where's My Data? Submission for Knight News Challenge 2015 (Sumandro Chattapadhyay; September 30, 2015). The text of the proposal was prepared by Nisha Thompson of DataMeet, Meera K of Oorvani, and Sumandro Chattapadhyay.

Blog Entries

The Internet in the Indian Judicial Imagination (Divij Joshi; September 9, 2015).
The Many Lives and Sites of Internet in Bhubaneswar (Sailen Routray; September 21, 2015).

News & Media Coverage

CIS gave its inputs to the following media coverage:

Does this click with you? (Parshathy J. Nath; The Hindu; September 1, 2015).
Government may tieup with global police, Interpol to fight child pornography (Surabhi Agarwal; September 3, 2015).
Hiding behind rules on naming sites it banned, govt reveals fears (Harjeet Inder Singh Sahi; September 3, 2015).
Outrage before sharing (Nikhil Verma; The Hindu; September 9, 2015).
Faking a stand (Shweta T. Nanda; The Week; September 20, 2015).
Some Key Words Are Missing (Arindam Mukherjee; Outlook; September 21, 2015).
Open sesame (The Hindu; September 22, 2015).
India encryption policy draft faces backlash (Moulishree Srivastava; September 22, 2015)
Online outcry forces government to withdraw draft encryption policy (Naina Khedekar; First Post; September 23, 2015).
Encryption policy would have affected emails, operating systems, WiFi (Amrita Madhukalya; DNA; September 23, 2015).
Govt presses 'undo' button on draft encryption policy (Business Standard; September 23; 2015).
Huge outcry forces India to backtrack on social media data proposal (Today; September 24, 2015).
Facebook’s Free Internet Access Program in Developing Countries Provokes Backlash (Newley Purnell and Resty Woro Uniar; The Wall Street Journal; September 24, 2015).
Ahead of hosting Modi, Facebook rebrands internet.org as Free Basics (Business Standard; September 26, 2015).
‘By weakening our security, govt is putting us at risk of espionage’ (S. Raghotham and Mayukh Mukherjee; Asian Age; September 27, 2015).
ভারতে পাঁচশোরও বেশি স্টেশনে ফ্রি ওয়াই-ফাই চালু হবে (BBC; September 28, 2015).
Do you agree with our fee hike? Press 1 to answer Yes; or 2 for Yes (Kieren McCarthy; The Register; September 29, 2015).
Indian PM Narendra Modi’s digital dream gets bad reception (Amanda Hodge; September 29, 2015).
What Bengaluru Thinks of the Big Tech Announcements in Silicon Valley (Maya Sharma; NDTV; September 29, 2015).

About CIS

The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) is a non-profit organisation that undertakes interdisciplinary research on internet and digital technologies from policy and academic perspectives. The areas of focus include digital accessibility for persons with diverse abilities, access to knowledge, intellectual property rights, openness (including open data, free and open source software, open standards, open access, open educational resources, and open video), internet governance, telecommunication reform, digital privacy, and cyber-security. The academic research at CIS seeks to understand the mediation and reconfiguration of social and cultural processes and structures by the internet and digital media technologies.

► Follow us elsewhere

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► 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, artists, and theoreticians, both organisationally and as individuals, to engage with us on topics related internet and society, and improve our collective understanding of this field. To discuss such possibilities, please write to Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, at sunil@cis-india.org (for policy research), or Sumandro Chattapadhyay, Research Director, at sumandro@cis-india.org (for academic research), with an indication of the form and the content of the collaboration you might be interested in. To discuss collaborations on Indic language Wikipedia projects, write to Tanveer Hasan, Programme Officer, Access to Knowledge, at tanveer@cis-india.org.

CIS is grateful to its primary donor the Kusuma Trust founded by Anurag Dikshit and Soma Pujari, philanthropists of Indian origin for its core funding and support for most of its projects. CIS is also grateful to its other donors, Wikimedia Foundation, Ford Foundation, Privacy International, UK, Hans Foundation, MacArthur Foundation, and IDRC for funding its various projects.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/about/newsletters/september-2015-bulletin

Facebook’s Free Internet Access Program in Developing Countries Provokes Backlash

praskrishna — 2015-09-29T16:35:02Z

In India and Indonesia, users criticize Internet.org initiative, saying it violates the principles of net neutrality.

The article by Newley Purnell and Resty Woro Uniar was published in the Wall Street Journal on September 24, 2015. Sunil Abraham gave inputs.

When Muhammad Maiyagy Gery heard about a new mobile app from Facebook Inc. that provides free Internet access in his native Indonesia, he was excited.

But after testing it, the 24-year-old student from a mining town on the eastern edge of Borneo soon deleted the app, called Internet.org, frustrated that he was unable to access Google. com and some local Indonesian sites.

Mr. Gery said Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg is an “inspiration in the tech world,” but added that the company’s free Internet effort is “inadequate.”

Mr. Gery’s reaction illustrates the unexpected criticism Facebook has encountered to its bold initiative to bring free Internet access to the world’s four billion people who don’t have it, and to increase connectivity among those with limited access. He is one of many users who say a Facebook-led partnership is providing truncated access to websites, thwarting the principles of what is known in the U.S. as net neutrality—the view that Internet providers shouldn’t be able to dictate consumer access to websites.

Since Mr. Zuckerberg’s announcement of the $1 billion project two years ago, Facebook has launched Internet.org in 19 countries across Asia, Latin America and Africa by teaming up with mobile carriers and technology giants including Samsung Electronics Co. , chip maker Qualcomm Inc. and telecom-equipment firm Ericsson AB. Facebook says that through the initiative, in which it is also experimenting with drones and satellites to deliver Web access, some nine million people have come online.

Users with data-enabled feature phones can access a special website through a mobile browser, while those with smartphones can download the app from Google’s Play Store. Though arrangements vary by country, the Internet.org app typically provides a simplified, low-data version of Facebook, its Messenger service and selected local websites offering services like jobs, health information and sports updates. Facebook says it works with mobile operators, which provide free data, and governments to pick sites for the platform.

While some applaud the Internet initiative, the U.S. company is dealing with a backlash from users in some of its fastest-growing markets like Indonesia and India, which are key to its future expansion.

In response to the criticism, Mr. Zuckerberg earlier this year wrote an opinion article that appeared in two Indian newspapers defending the project. He argued that the initiative is compatible with the principles of net neutrality, and that if people “can’t afford to pay for connectivity, it is always better to have some access and voice than none at all.”

But criticism about the initiative has placed Facebook in an awkward position. The social network along with other tech companies like Amazon.com Inc. and Twitter Inc. are members of the U.S. industry group Internet Association, which advocates for net neutrality, among other issues. In markets like Indonesia and India, critics say Facebook is more interested in controlling which websites users can tap into than in ensuring free Internet access. “It’s not Internet.org. It’s walled garden.org,” said Sunil Abraham, head of the Bangalore, India-based Center for Internet and Society.

Facebook wants to be seen as a pioneer “of the open and free Internet and not the opposite,” said Neha Dharia, an analyst at telecommunications research firm Ovum.

On Thursday, Facebook said it was changing the name of the Internet.org app and mobile website to Free Basics by Facebook in order to better distinguish it from the company’s wider Internet.org initiative. Asked whether the change was related to criticism of the project, a Facebook spokeswoman said that the name will “more intuitively describe the product to consumers.”

Chris Daniels, Facebook’s vice president in charge of the project, said in a recent interview that he has been surprised by the criticism of the project, noting that many people have gained access to the Web.

This spring in India, travel website Cleartrip, news channel NDTV and a mobile news app pulled their content from the platform amid concerns over net neutrality.

Cleartrip referred inquiries about its reasons for leaving the initiative to an April statement it posted on its website. In that statement, the company said the backlash in India “gave us pause to rethink our approach to Internet.org and the idea of large corporations getting involved with picking and choosing who gets access to what and how fast.”

Vishal Anand, chief product officer at mobile news app Dailyhunt, said that “While we appreciate the effort to give people Internet access, we fully support the principles of net neutrality.” He declined to elaborate on the company’s specific objections to Internet.org.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/wsj-september-24-2015-newley-purnell-resty-woro-uniar-facebook-free-internet-access-program-in-developing-countries-provokes-backlash

Indian PM Narendra Modi’s digital dream gets bad reception

praskrishna — 2015-09-29T15:23:04Z

As Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi told Silicon Valley’s most powerful chief executives this week how his government “attacked poverty by using the power of networks and mobile phones’’, the entire population of the state of Kashmir remained offline — by order of the state.

The article by Amanda Hodge was published in the Australian on September 29, 2015. Sunil Abraham gave inputs.

“I see technology as a means to empower and as a tool that bridges the distance between hope and opportunity,” Mr Modi said yesterday on a trip in which he will also discuss development at the UN.

Earlier, in a “town hall” meeting with Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg Mr Modi hailed the power of social media networks that gave governments the opportunity to correct themselves “every five minutes”, rather than every five years.

His remarks during his Digital India tour of the US west coast sparked a storm of Twitter protest.

The northern state’s former chief minister Omar Abdullah, who noted the “irony of listening to Prime Minister Modi lecturing about connected digital India, while we are totally disconnected”.

The ban on mobile and broadband internet in Jammu and Kashmir was imposed last Friday, the beginning of the Muslim holiday of Eid-ul-Zuha during which animals are slaughtered and the meat fed to the poor, for fear social media could inflame tensions over the state government’s decision to enforce a beef ban.

It was to have lasted 24 hours but — notwithstanding Twitter feedback — was extended twice as a “precautionary” measure.

As Mr Modi outlined his dreams of a broadband network connecting the country’s most remote communities, millions of New Delhi mobile phone users continued their daily wrestle with line dropouts.

“We are bringing technology, transparency, efficiency, ease and effectiveness in governance,” he said, as in New Delhi the government talked of pulling down more mobile towers.

Centre for Internet and Society director Sunil Abraham said yesterday: “Schizophrenia between rhetoric and reality (on digital policy) is the global standard for all world leaders.

“Politicians in opposition are invariably opposed to surveillance and in favour of free speech but the very day that politician assumes office even if it is someone as splendid as Barack Obama, they change their opinions on these topics and become pro-surveillance and pro-censorship.”

Certainly successive Indian governments have had a patchy record on such issues. Last March India’s activist Supreme Court struck down a controversial section of the Information Technology Act which made posting information of a “grossly offensive or menacing character” punishable by up to three years’ jail.

That month police in northern Uttar Pradesh arrested a teenager for a Facebook post, which they said “carried derogatory language against a community”.

Previous cases under the former Congress-led government include that of a university professor detained for posting a cartoon about the chief minister of West Bengal and the arrest of two young women over a Facebook post criticising the shutdown of Mumbai following the death of a Hindu right politician.

While Mr Modi’s government welcomed the Supreme Court ruling as a “landmark day for freedom of speech and expression”, last month it attempted to block 857 random porn sites.

Notwithstanding the gulf between Mr Modi’s digital dream rhetoric and the reality at home, his second US visit in 17 months has reaped dividends. Google has committed to a joint initiative to roll out free Wi-Fi to 500 railway stations across the country, and Qualcomm has pledged a $US150 million ($213m) tech startup fund.

But Mr Abraham warned of the potential for such investments to compromise net neutrality — the principle of allowing internet users access to all content and applications.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/the-australian-amanda-hodge-september-29-2015-indian-pm-narendra-modi-digital-dream-gets-bad-reception