Centre for Internet and Society

Heads I Win, Tails You Lose: The Intransigence of STM Publishers

praskrishna — 2015-02-12T00:16:46Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/heads-i-win-tails-you-lose-the-intransigence-of-stm-publishers

NetGain: Working Together for a Stronger Digital Society

praskrishna — 2015-03-13T02:32:38Z

Sunil Abraham made a presentation at this event.

Join the conversation on Twitter using the hashtag #NetGain. This was published by the Ford Foundation.

We need everyone’s help to identify the biggest challenges that lie ahead of us. How do we balance security and privacy? How will we connect the entire world’s population? How will we archive all information and make this knowledge accessible? How can technology make democracies more participatory and responsive? Think big, and take the Netgain Challenge: Submit your ideas and help us focus on the most significant challenges at the intersection of the Internet and philanthropy.

Event Information

The Internet has transformed how we work, learn, and express ourselves. It has connected us with each other and sparked bold thinking about how to create a more fair and just world. Building that better world—and living in it—depends on an open, secure, and equitable Internet.

What is philanthropy’s role in addressing the challenges and potential of our digital society? Can we collaborate, as we have in the past on other crucial issues, to bend the arc of progress and ensure that everyone shares in the tremendous opportunity the Internet offers? Have we thought big—really big—about what the digital revolution can mean for the common good?

On Feb. 11, the presidents of the Knight, Open Society, Mozilla, and Ford Foundations—along with a special surprise guest—will come together with leading figures from government, philanthropy, business, and the tech world to launch a major new partnership, explore shared principles, and get ambitious about the next generation of innovation for social change and progress.

Read the press release.

8:45 – 9:30 am
Registration and Breakfast

9:30 – 9:45 am
Welcome
Darren Walker President, Ford Foundation

9:45 – 10:00 am
Keynote Address: New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio

10:00 – 10:45 am
The Internet, Philanthropy, and Progress: Principles for Future Work
Read the principles 139 KB

Introduction by Jenny Toomey Director, Internet Rights, Ford Foundation
Mitchell Baker Executive Chairwoman, Mozilla Foundation
Chris Stone President, Open Society Foundations
Darren Walker President, Ford Foundation
Moderator Gwen Ifill Managing Editor, “Washington Week”

10:45 – 11:00 am
Break

11:00 am – 12:20 pm
NetGain Challenges
Hosted by:
John Palfrey Head of School, Phillips Academy
Ethan Zuckerman Director, MIT Center for Civic Media

Presenters:
Ethan Zuckerman Director, MIT Center for Civic Media
Emily Bell Director, Tow Center for Digital Journalism, Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism
Alicia Garza Co-Founder, #BlackLivesMatter; Special Projects Director, National Domestic Workers Alliance
Sunil Abraham Executive Director, Centre for Internet & Society
Chip Pickering CEO, Comptel
Laura Poitras Filmmaker, “Citizenfour”
Chris Soghoian Principal Technologist, Speech, Privacy, & Technology Project, ACLU
Brewster Kahle Digital Librarian and Founder, Internet Archive
Joi Ito Director, MIT Media Lab

12:20 – 12:45 pm
Break

12:45 – 1:30 pm
Lunch Discussion: Celebrating 25 Years of the World Wide Web
Introduction by Alberto Ibargüen President and CEO, Knight Foundation
Tim Berners-Lee Inventor, World Wide Web
Susan Crawford Co-Director, Berkman Center for Internet & Society, Harvard University

1:30 – 2:00 pm
Break

2:00 – 4:30 pm
Citizenfour Screening and Discussion
Introduction by Eric Sears Program Officer, Human Rights, MacArthur Foundation
Laura Poitras Filmmaker, “Citizenfour”
Ben Wizner Director, Speech, Privacy & Technology Project, ACLU
Moderator Brian Lehrer Host, “The Brian Lehrer Show,” WNYC

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/net-gain-working-together-for-stronger-digital-society

File

praskrishna — 2015-02-11T16:12:10Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/file-1.ods

Facebook launches Internet.org in India

praskrishna — 2015-03-13T02:27:14Z

Joins hands with Reliance Communications. Move spurs neutrality concerns.

The article by Lalatendu Mishra and Sriram Srinivasan was published in the Hindu on February 11, 2015. Pranesh Prakash was quoted.

Facebook on Tuesday announced a tie-up with Reliance Communications to launch Internet.org in India, bringing to the land of a billion-plus people a service that the social media giant says helps affordable Internet access but whose critics disapprove its restrictiveness.

India now becomes the sixth destination for Internet.org, a Facebook-led initiative envisaged about a year-and-a-half back with six other founding partners, including Samsung and Qualcomm. The service has already been launched in Zambia, Tanzania, Kenya, Colombia and Ghana.

Facebook’s 30-year-old founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the development on his social network. He posted, “More than a billion people in India don’t have access to the internet. That means they can’t enjoy the same opportunities many of us take for granted, and the entire world is robbed of their ideas and creativity.”

The tie-up gives subscribers of the Anil Ambani-led Reliance Communications who have Internet-enabled handsets free access to 38 Websites – a mix of news, music, education, weather and health sites. The list includes Facebook, Wikipedia, and Reliance Astrology. The lone search option available is Microsoft’s Bing. They can be accessed via an Android app.

For the time being, the service has gone live in Maharashtra, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, and Kerala. The pan-India launch is planned in three months. Nearly 70% of Reliance’s customers who have Internet-enabled phones but are now offline are expected to avail themselves of this service.

Gurdeep Singh, CEO, Consumer Business, Reliance Communications, said during the launch in Mumbai, “This partnership will not only accelerate internet penetration In India, it will also open new socioeconomic opportunities to users in fields like education, information and commerce.”

Chris Daniels, Vice President of Internet.org at Facebook, said, “This is a big step forward in our efforts to connect every one in India to the internet and help people discover new tools and information that can create more jobs and opportunities.”

Critics, however, see little altruism in Internet.org. Rather, what they see is a huge challenge to the neutrality of the Internet. Their point is that a selective access to the Internet makes it extremely difficult for rivals not part of the service.

Lawyer Prashant Reddy said, “It will be interesting to see how Trai (the regulator Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) handles such deals, and whether the market will accuse both these players of violating network neutrality.”

He said, “Also one needs to see how public understands the principles of Net neutrality.” His point is: there is no outcry when data packs are offered free but controversy erupts when a service provider tries to charge subscribers for services, as in the case of Airtel recently.

Internet activist and director of the Center for Civic Media at MIT, Ethan Zuckerman, told The Hindu in an email interview that "If Facebook were donating millions or billions to upgrade infrastructure - or even to lobby mobile phone carriers for cheaper data services for all - it would be less troubling. But instead, they're offering a limited version of the internet, one that centers on Facebook, to low-income internet users. That raises real concerns that this is not a charitable effort, but a customer acquisition strategy."

Pranesh Prakash, Policy Director of the Bengaluru-based research and advocacy organisation The Centre for Internet & Society, said he is worried about the long-term consequences. “The Internet.org model violates most definitions of net neutrality, as it provides access to a limited menu of services claiming to be the Internet — being based on a cable TV model — rather than providing actual access to the Internet at a low cost.”

He said, “Since it is an exclusive deal with a single mobile service provider, it also calls into question the genuineness of Mark Zuckerberg’s publicly-stated motive of bringing the Internet to a billion people and bridging the digital divide.”

It isn’t clear how Facebook and Reliance would bear the cost of the free service. What Facebook said in its annual report of 2013 is that it would continue to invest in projects even if it doesn’t have a clear path to monetisation, “such as our commitment to the Internet.org initiative to increase global Internet access.”

Even prior to the internet.org initiative, companies such as Facebook and Twitter have individually worked out deals with telecom companies in fast-growing markets to make their services free for subscribers. Research firm eMarketer had forecast India to be the fastest-growing geography for Facebook in terms of users in 2014.

(With inputs from Sanjay Vijayakumar)

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/hindu-lalatendu-mishra-sriram-srinivasan-february-11-2015-hindu-facebook-launches-internet-org-in-india

Govt may turn to supercomputing for better use of Aadhaar database

praskrishna — 2015-03-08T05:53:03Z

Technology experts working with the Aadhaar project have spotted other potential uses for it, all to be powered by a string of supercomputers.

The article by Moulishree Srivastava was published in Livemint on February 10, 2015. Sunil Abraham is quoted.

When India launched a scheme in 2009 to give every one of its residents a unique identity number called Aadhaar, there were two main objectives: an efficient delivery of welfare services, and a tool for monitoring government schemes.

Six years on, as the government moves a step closer to covering all 1.25 billion citizens with Aadhaar, technology experts working with the project have spotted other potential uses, all to be powered by a string of supercomputers. With Aadhaar having crossed the 700 million milestone in 2014, the government is preparing to launch supercomputing applications to make more sense of the scheme’s massive database. These will help link the database to public services by running data analytics, which in turn will throw up trends that can help promote better-informed policy-making.

“We are talking about the Aadhaar database and the huge population data associated with it. Right now it is only a collection of data, but once we start rolling out applications, the amount of information that will be generated and the amount of usage that will happen will be enormous,” said Rajat Moona, director general of the Pune-based Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (CDAC), the research and development arm of the department of electronics and information technology responsible for the National Supercomputing Mission.

“Big data analysis and big data visualization, these are supercomputing problems. It (handling Aadhaar database) is actually visualization of huge data that can help in the planning,” he added. “When you have that much amount of information, you can do a lot of data analysis and figure out trends. We can thus see what are the policies needed to be defined. Therefore proactive policymaking based on previous trends is possible provided we have data,” he said.

Aadhaar is being used by the government for transferring cash subsidies directly into the bank accounts of beneficiaries in order to plug leakages. It is used to identify beneficiaries for transferring funds under scholarship schemes, pension money, cooking gas subsidy as well as seeding of bank accounts to weed out multiple beneficiaries under the government’s financial inclusion programme.

There are also plans to use Aadhaar to curb black money in real estate transactions. Developing these applications further, says Moona, needs supercomputers, which will give far better results. “In order to develop these applications we need to understand supercomputing and use of supercomputing,” he said. “We don’t have such applications developed…we usually take larger applications developed elsewhere and customize it according to our needs. So applications that are developed for solving India-centric problems will actually give a better output,” he said.

“We are talking about creating related applications that can run on supercomputing cloud of million cores (cloud supported by million-core supercomputers),” he added. “It will be a platform, where we can solve a large number of problems using shared model.” “It (supercomputing cloud) will not be a public cloud. There will be research institutes, research organizations, security agencies, government departments and each of them will have its own data and access pattern.

This is going to be a part of our application-centric usage of (the proposed) supercomputing (grid).” The million-core supercomputing cloud is a part of the government’s Rs.4,500 crore project aimed at setting up a grid of more than 70 supercomputers to be hooked up across these institutions and organizations over the next five to seven years. This will enable Indian researchers to build applications on the network, as well as to harness the power of supercomputers for research and development. India has 12 of the world’s 500 most powerful supercomputers, the largest currently deployed being a 500 teraflops (equivalent to half a petaflop) computer, administered by the CDAC. To work on supercomputing applications in areas such as the Aadhaar database, terrorism, advanced weather monitoring— including cyclone and flood prediction—and geo exploration, the government plans to train 22,000 high-quality professionals over 5-7 years.

Some experts point out that a centralized Aadhaar database faces cybersecurity risks that can threaten people’s privacy. Centralization is a terrible idea from the perspective of cybersecurity, said Sunil Abraham, executive director of the Bengaluru-based research organization Centre for Internet and Society. “This is a honeypot (a computer system that is set up to attract and trap people who attempt to penetrate other people’s computer systems) and variety of bad actors, i.e. criminals, terrorists, as well as states and corporations, will target this database hoping to compromise it.”

A petition filed by former Justice K.S. Puttaswamy in 2012 said that Aadhaar scheme infringes citizens’ privacy as applicants need to provide personal information on biometrics, iris and fingerprints, which infringes their right to privacy that is a part of the fundamental right to life under Article 21 of the Constitution. Security experts have been raising concerns about lack of secure and foolproof system to ensure that all the data will be safe and will not be misused. “How do we address the security and innovation imperative without compromising on the right to privacy? We must build individual transaction databases for each government department/ministry and (have) decentralised authentication. Only anonymized dataset should be made available to the supercomputing applications that are being built,” Abraham said. “For innovation and improved e-governance, anonymized data is sufficient.”

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/livemint-february-10-2015-moulishree-srivastava-govt-may-turn-to-supercomputing-for-better-use-of-aadhaar-database

Facebook offers free but limited access to the Internet in India

praskrishna — 2015-03-08T07:42:19Z

Facebook-backed Internet.org is extending its offer of free but limited Internet access to India via a mobile app.

The blog post was published in PC World on February 10, 2015. Pranesh Prakash is quoted.

The launch of the app in India follows similar introductions in Ghana, Zambia, Colombia, Kenya and Tanzania, despite criticism from activists that the program does not meet its stated objective of providing free and unfettered Internet access to all.

The common thread in all these launches is that the app is available only to subscribers of one operator in the country. In India, for example, Internet.org has tied with Reliance Communications, the country’s fourth-largest mobile services provider.

Internet.org is a collaborative effort, launched in 2013 by Facebook and other tech companies including Ericsson and Samsung Electronics, that aims to provide Internet access to those who don’t yet have it.

“Connectivity can’t just be a privilege for some of the rich and powerful,” Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said last year at the first meeting of Internet.org. “It needs to be something that everyone shares, and an opportunity for everyone.”

But the way the free service has been offered has come in for criticism from some social activists.

“This is a walled garden approach that undermines the infrastructure of free expression in India,” said Pranesh Prakash, policy director at Centre for Internet and Society, a Bangalore-based organization focused on research and policy advocacy, who pointed out that the app does not offer truly free access to the Internet.

Prakash is also critical that the service will only be available to subscribers of Reliance Communications, defeating the stated aim of Internet.org of providing free Internet access to all.

The free access is limited to 38 websites, including Facebook and its Messenger service, Bing Search, Dictionary.com, Wikipedia, BBC News, Reuters Market Lite for crop and farming information, and local jobs and news sites.

The service will only cover a few Indian states in South India. Reliance customers in the six states can access the free services through the Android app, from the start screen of the Opera Mini mobile web browser, and using the Android app UC Browser for Internet.org. The services will be available in English, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Gujarati and Marathi.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/pc-world-john-riberio-february-10-2015-facebook-offers-free-but-limited-access-to-the-internet-in-india

January 2015 NVDA Report

praskrishna — 2015-02-09T15:44:06Z

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

An International Conclave of Odia Language

praskrishna — 2015-03-08T05:06:14Z

Subhashish Panigrahi is participating in this event.

See the invitation letter and the concept letter.

The Odia language traces its roots back to 4th Century BC. Odisha was the first state to be carved out as a separate state on the basis of the language. The dawn of 20th February 2014 was a proud moment for all Odias as Odia language was accorded the ‘Classical language’ status of our country and occupied the 6th position. This achievement was due to the relentless effort of many scholars and activists. Now it becomes the responsibility of all the Odias to preserve, propagate and carry forward the legacy of the Odia language which is spoken by around 40 million people in India and around 45 million people globally. We will see that a day will come when it will be used as the first language in all government offices for official communications.

THE INTELLECTS, a forum of progressive individuals and intellectuals in Delhi, believes it as an utmost duty and responsibility to promote Odia identity in India and abroad. In its bid to impart our language to Pravasi Odias living in and around Delhi, THE INTELLECTS is on a missionary zeal. It has started its mission called “ASA SIKHIBA AMARI BHASHA” in National Capital region.

And now, the forum in association with SHRI JAGANNATH MANDIR, TYAGRAJNAGAR is organizing a two days conclave, on 20th & 21st February 2015, to celebrate the 1st anniversary of Classical status to Odia language & the World Mother tongue Day with a special focus on our mother tongue Odia.

The Event

International Conclave of Odia Language:
The event will be a two days festival showcasing the Odia identity in the national Capital and bringing some best minds of the country to discuss on various issues of immense need on language and culture of Odisha. Around 200 eminent people from across the world including many renowned experts from various walks of life are the invited speakers.

It will be our proud privilege to have you with us for the occasion.
With Kind Regards

Debendra Rout
Convener of the conclave & Chairman of The Intellects
Email: cm.intellects@gmail.com
Mob: +91-9350127370

Programme

Celebration of 1st Anniversary of Classical status of Odia language
Date: 20th February, Friday, Time: 6 p.m. to 9 p.m.

Venue: Constitution Club, Rafi Marg, New Delhi

Welcome
Inauguration of Conclave
Inauguration of Special Report on the Conclave
Felicitation of prominent personalities for their contribution to
Odia language
Addresses
Vote of Thanks
Cultural Programme
Dinner

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/news/international-conclave-odia-language

RTI Response to Accessibility in States

praskrishna — 2015-02-08T14:36:08Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/rti-response-to-accessibility-in-states

Launch of the Open Data Lab Jakarta

praskrishna — 2015-02-07T13:05:19Z

World Wide Fund's first Open Data Lab was launched on February 5, 2015. It was launched at the Istana Ballroom, Sari Pan Pacific Hotel. Sunil Abraham was a speaker.

Click to view the programme schedule.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/news/launch-of-open-data-lab-jakarta

Launch of the Open Data Lab

praskrishna — 2015-02-07T12:56:48Z

World Wide Fund's first Open Data Lab was launched on February 5, 2015. It was launched at the Istana Ballroom, Sari Pan Pacific Hotel

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/launch-of-the-open-data-lab

Library and Information Professionals Summit (LIPS) 2015

praskrishna — 2015-02-07T12:21:27Z

Nehaa Chaudhari participated as a panelist at the Library and Information Professionals Summit, 2015 at NLU-Delhi. The event was jointly organized by Society for Library Professionals, National Law University Delhi with UN Information Centre for India & Bhutan and Special Library Association (USA), Asian Chapter.

Nehaa Chaudhari was on a panel discussing Internet Technology and Challenges for Libraries in IPR Regime. Here presentation can be seen here. For more info click here.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/news/library-and-information-professionals-summit-2015

Library and Information Professionals Summit 2015

praskrishna — 2015-02-07T11:46:05Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/library-and-information-professionals-summit.pdf

Regional Open Data Agenda-Setting Workshop 2015

praskrishna — 2015-02-07T10:14:12Z

Open Data Lab Jakarta Web Foundation hosted this workshop from February 4 to 6, 2015. Sunil Abraham was a speaker.

Priorities, opportunities and challenges for securing developmental outcomes from (open) data driven approaches vary across continents. It is important for the agenda for research and development in each region to be set, owned and driven from within that region. We are therefore convening a meeting of 1520 regional stakeholders with either strong open data, T/A and/or sectoral expertise.

Through an Outcome Mapping approach, the workshop will identify key issues to be addressed, and changes sought, both at a highlevel of creating solid foundations for open data impacts in the region, and at a practical level in particular sectors and countries. The workshop will emphasise the importance of an inclusive agenda for open data, and on ensuring the distribution of benefits from open data is equitable, and prodevelopment. It will also contribute to one of the Project’s overall goals of building towards the strengthening of a network of selfsustaining and southernowned organizations working on open data research and development, supported and coordinated by the Web Foundation’s Open Data Labs under the Open Data for Development Network.

The Regional Agenda Setting Workshop is conducted as part of the IDRC funded Harnessing Open Data to Achieve Development Results in Africa and Asia project and organized by the Web Foundation’s Open Data Lab Jakarta.

Objectives

Refine the selection of sectors to engage in and key issues to be addressed for creating solid foundations for open data impacts in the region, and at a practical level in particular sectors and countries.
Shape the design of CfPs, including sectors, countries and specific challenges, for a) sectoral scoping studies and b) labs action research projects to be conducted throughout the duration of the Project.
Build and foster relationships with strategic partners to expand and strengthen the network of organizations working on open data in the region4) Ensure that the agenda for open data research and development in each region is set, owned and driven from within that region.
Engage with stakeholders to act as mentors and advisors in the development and implementation of studies and action research projects conducted by partners with the support of the Jakarta Lab.

The outcomes of these workshops will also be fed into the Open Government Partnership Open Data Working Group, and where appropriate we will broker support for emerging leaders from Africa and Asia to engage in global open data conversations and action.

See more on the Open Data Labs website.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/news/region-open-data-workshop-2015

Digital Security Workshop for Journalists

praskrishna — 2015-03-08T05:25:34Z

The Centre for Internet and Society and the Mumbai Press Club are jointly organizing a workshop for journalists on February 7, 2015, from 9.30 a.m. to 1.30 p.m. at Mumbai Press Club, Azad Maidan.

Event Flier

The event would cover these topics:

Why should journalists care about digital security?
The threat model: assessing digital security risks and responses.
Security measures and solutions: alternatives to unsecure software and tools, good security practices, computer hygiene etcetera.

Event Pictures

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/events/digital-security-workshop-for-journalists