Centre for Internet and Society

Are Elections Fair to People With Special Needs?

praskrishna — 2014-04-09T06:37:14Z

City-based think tanks have submitted a report to the Election Commission saying elections in India are unfriendly to people with disabilities.

The article by Papiya Bhattacharya was published in the New Indian Express on April 8, 2014. Dr. Nirmita Narasimhan is quoted.

The report, by the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) and Centre for Law and Policy Research (CLPR), says there are several legal barriers that hinder the involvement of people with disabilities in elections.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that India is home to 150 million people with disabilities. While the Constitution of India and the Representation of People Act, 1951, gives people with disabilities the right to vote, the report says the community remains excluded from polling largely because of the inaccessibility of the physical environment of polling and lack of easily-available electoral information.

Dr. Nirmita Narasimhan, policy director of CIS and one of the authors of the study, says, “The report is based on feedback from the disabled. It would be nice if the Election Commission makes it easy for them to vote.”
She said registration of voters with disabilities has not been completed because there have been too few attempts to reach out to them.

The report concludes with recommendations to make the electoral process more inclusive. The suggestions include ensuring complete registration of voters with disabilities, use of technology to this end, training and sensitising voters with disabilities and improving information accessibility and election monitoring.

The report also inludes the results of a test conducted on the information accessibility in websites of EC and major political parties. The test revealed that most of the websites don’t conform to standards of web accessibility and are not disabled-friendly.

Steps Taken for Fair Polling: JHA

Chief Electoral Officer Anil Kumar Jha told Express that the Election Commission has instructed polling officers to ensure fair treatment to people with special needs. He said, “We have instructed polling officers to provide entry to specially-challenged people on priority. The visually-impaired can take a companion above the age of 18 to the polling booth for help. The electronic voting machines have Braille stickers on their side. If the voters know the serial number of the candidate, they can vote on their own.” He added that a ramp will be set up wherever feasible.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/new-indian-express-april-8-2014-papiya-bhattacharya-are-elections-fair-to-people-with-special-needs

HLAC on National Electronic Accessibility Policy

praskrishna — 2014-04-09T01:35:54Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/hlac-on-national-electronic-accessibility-policy.pdf

NASA International Space Apps Challenge 2014

praskrishna — 2014-04-08T16:49:48Z

As part of the NASA Open Government Plan , the NASA International Space Apps Challenge have brought together citizen scientists, FOSS enthusiasts , Data Scientists, Open Hardware hackers and students throughout the world for collaborative problem solving with a goal of producing relevant open-source solutions to address global needs applicable to both life on Earth and life in Space.

Event Flier

And once again on April 12th and 13th, 2014, the event will be organized by the Centre for Internet and Society, with a special focus on Open Data, Open Science and Citizen Science, in collaboration with Team Indus, one of 3 teams to be selected globally amidst thousands, to launch a moon rover for the Google Lunar X-Prize 2015.

The event shall start on Saturday, 12th of April, with the following morning talks:

Keynote Speaker: Dr.Jayant Murthy, Professor, Indian Institute of Astrophysics, will be addressing the gathering on Open Science, Open Data and Computing within the Indian context.
Title of Talk : Open Data , Open Science and Computing in the Indian Context: 10:30 a.m.
Abstract: As Big Science gets bigger and yields massive amounts of data, we are left with a host of insurmountable problems from the physical - How do we store and access so much data? - to the computational - How do we process the data with increasingly complex models? - to the sociological - How do we change our paradigm so that we efficiently use the data with a limited pool of skilled manpower. I will also touch on some philosophical aspects of this problem - Should all data be free and what are the implications of this on policy and on individuals.
Speaker : Narayan Prasad, Co-Founder, Dhruva Space: 11:30 a.m.
Abstract: Narayan will talk about issues surrounding Open Data, Citizen Science and Governance whilst taking us on a journey of Bangalore based Dhruva Space, one of the world's few start-ups, looking at solutions ranging from small satellite development (CUBESAT, ARDUSAT), near space environmental design, high altitude balloon imaging and internet -- many of these using open source hardware devices like the Arduino.

We will then get into break out sessions to review and sign-up for existing challenges or propose new ones amongst those listed at : https://2014.spaceappschallenge.org/challenge/

The hackathon will end on Sunday, April 13, 2014 by 6 p.m.

Registration is free and you are requested to confirm your participation for the event here : https://2014.spaceappschallenge.org/location/bangalore/

Participants are requested to bring their own laptops.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/events/nasa-international-space-apps-challenge-2014

NASA International Space Apps Challenge 2014 (Hackathon)

praskrishna — 2014-04-08T06:42:08Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/nasa-open-hackathon.pdf

AIKWO Holds Wikipedia Workshop for Konkani Writers

praskrishna — 2014-05-05T04:22:10Z

A Wikipedia Workshop for Konkani writers writing in the Kannada script, was organised by All India Konkani Writers’ Organisation (AIKWO) in association with Wikipedia at Kalaangann Shaktinagar here on April 6.

Read the original published in Mangalorean.com here

Dr U B Pavanaja (Programme Officer – Indian Languages, Access to Knowledge Program, The Centre for Internet and Society), conducted the workshop. Harriet Vidyasagar, Wikipedian volunteer, was also present.

The one-day hands-on workshop included presentations on Wikipedia in general, and Konkani Wikipedia in particular, and the participants were taught how to add and edit Konkani articles in the Kannada script in Wikipedia.

On behalf of Mandd Sobhann, Dr Pratap Naik SJ handed-over three research works published by Mandd Sobhann – 1. Konkani Songs Among Mangalorean Catholics, 2. Anthology Of Konkani Literature In The Kannada Script and 3. Mandd Sobhann And Its Impact On Konkani Language And Literature – the representatives of Wikipedia – Dr. U. B. Pavanaja and Ms. Harriet Vidyasagar, to be updated in the Konkani Wikipedia. Shri Eric Ozario, Gurkar – Mandd Sobhann, Ms. Irine Rebello, Secretary – Mandd Sobhann and Dr. Edward Nazareth, General Secretary – AIKWO, were also present.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/mangalorean-april-6-2014-aikwo-holds-wikipedia-workshop-for-konkani-writers

Tulu Wikipedia Workshop: Report in Prajavani

praskrishna — 2014-05-05T04:15:29Z

Prajavani published a report of the Tulu workshop on April 6, 2014. A scanned version is below:

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/prajavani-april-6-2014-tulu-wikipedia-workshop

Global Knowledge Can Only Save a Language: Pavanaja

praskrishna — 2014-05-05T04:09:40Z

The Centre for Internet and Society, a NGO funded by Wikimedia Foundation has started a mission for the revival of Wikipedia sites of Tulu and Konkani under its "Access to Knowledge" project. As a part of it the NGO had organised a demonstration on the use of wikipedia, here on Saturday.

A scanned version of the report of the workshop is reproduced below:

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/deccan-herald-april-6-2014-global-knowledge-can-only-save-a-language

The Take Down of Free Speech Online

praskrishna — 2014-04-06T05:19:50Z

As part of a study to access rate of compliance, in 2011, the Centre for Internet and Society Bangalore sent frivolous “take down” requests to seven prominent intermediaries. The study showed exactly how easy it is to take down online content.

This was published in Newslaundry on April 1, 2014. CIS research on Intermediary Liabilities is quoted.

CIS found that six out of the seven intermediaries “over complied” with the notices. Facts such as these about intermediary liability were discussed in a panel discussion “Intermediary Liability & Freedom of Expression in India” in Delhi on March 27, 2014 organised by Centre for Communication Governance at National Law University in collaboration with the Global Network Initiative.

The panel also included Professor Ranbir Singh, Vice Chancellor of NLU, Jermyn Brooks (Independent Chair – Global Network Initiative, Washington DC), Shyam Divan (Senior Advocate, Supreme Court of India) and SiddharthVaradarajan (Journalist). They discussed proxy censorship by government through private players and how e-business’ lose out on opportunities because of the current legal framework in the country within which intermediaries have to function.

According to Section 2(1)(w) of The Information Technology Act, 2000, “intermediary”- with respect to any particular electronic message -signifies any person who on behalf of another person receives, stores or transmits that message or provides any service with respect to that message.According to Rishab Dara, recipient of the Google policy Fellowship 2011, in an article titled, Intermediary Liability in India: Chilling Effects on Free Expression on the Internet, “intermediaries are widely recognised as essential cogs in the wheel of exercising the right to freedom of expression on the Internet. Most major jurisdictions around the world have introduced legislations for limiting intermediary liability in order to ensure that this wheel does not stop spinning”.

The “safe harbor”or what is also known asIntermediary Liability Laws according to Section 79 of the Information Technology Act are given below:

Intermediaries not to be Liable in Certain Cases

(1) Notwithstanding anything contained in any law for the time being in force but subject to the provisions of sub-sections (2) and (3), an intermediary shall not be liable for any third party information, data, or communication link made available or hosted by him.

(2) The provisions of sub-section (1) shall apply if—

(a) the function of the intermediary is limited to providing access to a communication system over which information made available by third parties is transmitted or temporarily stored or hosted; or

(b) the intermediary does not—

(i) initiate the transmission,

(ii) select the receiver of the transmission, and

(iii) select or modify the information contained in the transmission;

(c) the intermediary observes due diligence while discharging his duties under this Act and also observes such other guidelines as the Central Government may prescribe in this behalf.

(3) The provisions of sub-section (1) shall not apply if—

(a) the intermediary has conspired or abetted or aided or induced, whether by threats or promise or othorise in the commission of the unlawful act;

(b) upon receiving actual knowledge, or on being notified by the appropriate Government or its agency that any information, data or communication link residing in or connected to a computer resource controlled by the intermediary is being used to commit the unlawful act, the intermediary fails to expeditiously remove or disable access to that material on that resource without vitiating the evidence in any manner.

Under the Act, the intermediary needs to act on a complaint within 36 hours of a take down notice -failing which they will be liable to legal action if the case is taken to the court.

Shyam Divan spoke about the absurdity of the 36-hour turnaround time that an intermediary has between receiving a complaint and taking down the content. According to him, without any kind of legal option to fall back on, intermediaries decide to comply with such take down notices fearing “serious penalties and possibility of prosecution” which results in “indirect censorship”. He also said, “Domestic constitution in itself is not going to be sufficient”. “Meta-constitutions” which are transnational and have uniform laws across countries could be a possible solution to the current confusion as the internet is a global phenomenon and it would ensure that “the extent of our online rights would not be limited to the constitution of the country”.

Giving the example of hate speech, Siddharth Varadarajan, mentioned the Indian executive’s different approaches towards different mediums. Referring to hate speeches made during the 1993 Bombay riots by Shiv Sena leaders and those made during the 2002 Gujarat riots, he said, “Hate speech never gets prosecuted when made amid a physical crowd in a volatile situation.I can understand why politicians won’t be prosecuted but why so much sensitivity on online content. This paradox is worth reflecting on.Despite its limited reach, the executive reacts in such a hyper-sensitive manner”.He adds that as the editor of a news website one faces daily problems in taking decisions on online content especially on comment moderation and whether the website would be responsible for a certain comment made by a reader. Echoing Shyam Divan’s views,he said that in India more than the punishment, when a case is filed, the legal process itself becomes a punishment, which forces Internet Service Providers to comply with requests of blocking online content.

The Global Network Initiative is a Washington-based organisation that provides a framework for companies to deal with governments requesting censorship or surveillance of online content, “rooted in international standards legal framework also interesting people”. According to a report released by it, “provided that the existing safe harbour regime is improved, intermediaries can become a significant part of the economy and their GDP contribution may increase to more than 1.3 per cent by 2015. The potential corresponds to $41 billion by 2015”.Jermyn Brooks,Independent Chair of GNI,argued that instead of focusing all efforts on ensuring that the Information Technology (Intermediaries Guidelines) Rules, 2011 gets struck down by Courts for its unconstitutionality, there should also be a movement to effect policy changes through the amendment of the law. According to him, such a proposition would be more lucrative for a government looking for “re-invigoration of economic growth in India”.

The discussion was significant in the light that a number of cases related to the IT Act and freedom of online speech will be heard in the Supreme Court in the coming months. A petition by Mouthshut.com challenges the Information Technology (Intermediaries Guidelines) Rules 2011 “which effectively creates a notice and takedown regime for content hosted by intermediaries”. Another important case up for hearing is a petition by Member of Parliament Rajeev Chandrashekhar,“which also challenges these rules on grounds that they are ambiguous, require private parties to subjectively assess objectionable content, and that they undermine the safe harbour exemptions from liability granted to intermediaries by section 79 of the IT Act”. The People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) has challenged the Intermediaries Guidelines rules as well as the Procedure and Safeguards for Blocking for Access of Information by the Public Rules 2009. “This petition has pointed to the lack of transparency in the blocking procedure, which does not currently offer the public any notice or reasons for the blocking.”

“The cases pending before the Supreme Court will have a significant impact on the freedom of expression. We should never take our rights for granted – the interpretation of these rights needs to be consistent with their spirit”, said Professor Ranbir Singh.

Citing the recent example of the Wendy Doniger episode, Varadarajan says, “If Penguin chooses to pack up at the District court level, you know how Internet Service Providers would react to take down notices…Specific targeting of online speech would ultimately have a negative impact on the traditional media”. And that is the crux of the matter. In the absence of intermediate liability not being limited, online censorship and the curtailment of the freedom of speech will become far easier and will only worsen.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/newslaundry-april-1-2014-somi-das-the-take-down-of-free-speech-online

Tulu Wikipedia Workshop

praskrishna — 2014-05-05T03:45:15Z

The CIS-A2K team is organizing a Tulu Wikipedia workshop at Balmatta Computer Centre in Mangalore on April 5, 2014. Dr. U.B.Pavanaja is conducting the workshop.



















Participants from the Tulu Wikipedia workshop in Mangalore (by Pavanaja, CC-BY-3.0 License)

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

Odia Wikipedia celebrates Odisha Day, brings 14 copyright-free Odia books and a free Odia font!

praskrishna — 2014-04-08T06:16:15Z

Odisha Day 2014 was celebrated on March 29, 2014. Brokenscooter.com has published a report of the event in its website.

Read the original post here.

The Odia Wikimedia community celebrated “Odisha Day” on 29th March at Jayadev Bhawan. Inaugurating this event, eminent linguist Padmashree Dr. Debiprasanna Pattanayak said, ‘Collaborative effort and open access to knowledge repositories will enrich our language an culture’. He also discussed about the efforts being laid for bringing Odia language as the sixth Indian classical language. Majority of the Odia publications are not available on the internet and readers are devoid of easily accessible. He discussed about the process of digitization for preserving valuable books that are out of print and the old palm leaf manuscripts.

Odia Wikipedia has been trying to popularize use of Odia language in the Internet since 2002. Available at or.wikipedia.org it is now 6000 articles rich and growing. More than 470,000 visitors visit Odia Wikipedia every month which also gives it the status of the largest Odia encyclopedia on the Internet. To enrich the online encyclopedia and getting more books digitized, Wikipedians organized a two day event at Jayadev Bhawan. Along with Dr. Debiprasanna Pattanayak, Professor Udayanath Sahu, The Odisha Review’s editor Dr. Lenin Mohanty, Odisha Bhaskar’s editor Pradosh Pattnaik, language researcher Subrat Prusty, Kalinga Institute of Social Science (KISS)’s principal Dr. Madan Mohan Sahu, Manik-Biswanath Smrutinyasa’s chairman Allhadmohini Mohanty along with the trust’s secretary Brajamohan Patnaik and senior members Sarojkanta Choudhury and Shisira Ranjan Dash.

11 books of eminent Odia writer Dr. Jagannath Mohanty were released in Creative Commons 3.0 license that will allow anyone to reuse and even make commercial use of the content with attribution. KISS will be digitizing these books by training their students. Allhadmohini Mohanty formally gave written permission to Odia Wikimedia community for releasing and digitizing these books. Dr. Debiprasanna Pattanayak and Subrat Prusty from the Institute of Odia Studies and Research also fomally released three books in Creative Commons licenses: Two Odia ones-”Bhasa O Jatiyata” and “Jati, Jagruti O Pragati” and an English book “Classical Odia”. Guests released a DVD containing a new Odia Unicode free font, “Odia OT Jagannatha” designed by Sujata Patel from OdiaLanguage.com, a new Odia input tool, free softwares and offline Wikipedia. It was declared that the Odia WikiSource project will be active soon and would be available at wikisource.org.

Odia Wikipedia administrator Mrutyunjaya Kar gave the inaugural speech and hosted the event. Subhashish Panigrahi from the Centre for Internet and Society read the annual report and shared the vision for the Wikimedia movement. Active Odia Wikipedians Ansuman Giri, Diptiman Panigrahi, Dr. Subas Chandra Rout, Jnanaranjan Sahu, Sasanka Dash, Aditya Mahar and Srikant Kedia coordinated the event.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/brokenscooter-april-4-2014-odia-wikipedia-celebrates-odisha-day-brings-14-copyright-free-odia-books-and-free-odia-font

Wikipedia Edit-a-thon workshop & Talks on Gender Gap in Wikipedia

praskrishna — 2014-04-04T07:33:32Z

Open Minds (a student group advocating free and open movement) in association with the Centre for Internet and Society's Access to Knowledge team is holding a workshop at Chaitanya Bharathi Institute of Science and Technology, Gandipet, Serilingampalle, Andhra Pradesh on March 8, 10.00 a.m. to 1.30 p.m.

Certificaton: All the participants will be awarded by "participation certificate from Wikipedia"
Come meet your fellow editors and help improve Wikipedia articles related to women. Don't know how to edit Wikipedia? That's ok, friendly, experienced editors will be here to help! Everyone is welcome to come edit Wikipedia with us at this event. New editors, those who want to learn how to edit or can teach others how.
Speakers :
T. Vishnu Vardhan,Programme Director, Access To Knowledge, Centre for Internet and Society,Wikipedia.
--Muzammi,Programme Officer, Access To Knowledge, Centre for Internet and Society, Wikipedia.
Shedule :
Timing Activity
10:00 to 10:30 am Registration
10:30 to 11:00 am The Politics of Gendered Knowledge . Production in the Age of Internet
11:00 t0 11:30 am Wikipedia demonstration + Basics of Wikipedia . Editing (hands on activity)
11.30 to 01:30 pm International Women's Day Edit-a-thon
01:30 to 02:15 pm Lunch Break
02:15 to 05:00 pm International Women's Day Edit-a-thon . . continues
What to Bring :
Anything! Bring your laptops, smart phones, tablets etc. but above all, your energy and your brains!
We’re trying to make this event very hands on, so feel free to bring all your wacky geektronics so that you can participate in all the fun.
==Don’t worry if you don’t bring anything since there will still be tons of stuff to do.==

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/events/wikipedia-edit-a-thon-workshop-talks-on-gender-gap-in-wikipedia

Who governs the Internet? (Yojana Article)

praskrishna — 2014-04-04T06:11:27Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/yojana-april-2014-who-governs-the-internet.pdf

Should Nandan Nilekani's Aadhaar project, for identity proof and welfare delivery, exist at all?

praskrishna — 2014-04-14T10:27:57Z

The foundation of Aadhaar—a Congress flagship project to give every Indian a unique identity number and then use it to deliver services—has been under assault in the past three months.

The article by M. Rajshekhar was published in the Economic Times on April 3, 2014. Sunil Abraham is quoted.

Political, legal, reputational.

The political backlash is coming from leaders of BJP, the Congress' principal rival. Meenakshi Lekhi and Ananth Kumar are not, by any stretch of the imagination, the first or the last word on policy matters in the BJP, but they mince no words when they say that if their party forms a government, it will trash Aadhaar —a project that has delivered a unique ID to half of India and on which Rs 3,800 crore has been spent.

Even as BJP's loose cannons fired, the Supreme Court repeated on March 24 that the government cannot make Aadhaar mandatory to access welfare services like pensions and LPG subsidy. The same day, investigative journalism portal Cobrapost aired videos that allegedly showed agencies agreeing to enrol people from neighbouring countries for a bribe.

The BJP piled on. "It (Aadhaar) has served no purpose. They have issued cards to illegal migrants. We want citizenship cards," says Prakash Javadekar, spokesperson of BJP. His party does not have an official policy line on Aadhaar as yet, but another of its leaders, Yashwant Sinha, headed the Parliamentary panel that, in 2011, severely criticised and rejected the draft bill that provided the legal framework for Aadhaar. "We are for direct benefit transfer but not on the basis of Aadhaar, which is a very badly-designed scheme," Sinha told CNBC-TV18 on January 31. "We will give it to all citizens of India on the basis of NPR."

On the campaign trail in Bangalore, Nandan Nilekani, the chief architect and implementer of Aadhaar, defends his work as the chairman of Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI). "Aadhaar is a pro-development and an anti-corruption platform," says Nilekani, who was brought in by the Congress high command in 2009 and is contesting these elections on a party ticket against BJP's Kumar in Bangalore South. "It is a pity that some vested interests with narrow political and other motives are trying to stall the project."

Lost in those binaries are the objectives of Aadhaar, to universalise identity proof and to use it to plug leakages in delivery of welfare services. UIDAI, led by a hands-on Nilekani, pursued this agenda with a certain authority, great speed and an overriding emphasis on technology, all of which delivered outcomes.

But they also contributed to shortcomings that saw the project stumble on its way and for which it is now being critiqued. "This is the only way transformation takes place," says K Koshy, who was part of the team that conceptualised Aadhaar and is now with Ernst & Young. "When you know the ultimate system is workable, you sort out the problems as you go along."

Except, given the political winds blowing, it's anyone's guess what the new dispensation will feel about Aadhaar and UIDAI, from where Nilekani resigned on March 13 and which is seeing many officers who came from other parts of the government, on deputation, returning. Will the new dispensation see Aadhaar as an idea that is sound but with parts that need strengthening? Or, will they see it as an idea that is, by itself, fallacious? "I don't know where this is going," says Abhijit Sen, member, Planning Commission, under which UIDAI is housed.

At one level, it's a political question. "The next Parliament will have to decide what UIDAI can and cannot do," says Sen. At another level, even that political answer will stem from the answers to three questions that go to the core of what Aadhaar was meant to be and where it fell short.

1. Does Aadhaar Provide a Unique and Definitive Identity?

Yes and no. UIDAI collects two sets of information from an individual. The first is biometrics: prints of all 10 fingers and a scan of the iris in both eyes. Biometric data, which is supposed to be unique to every individual, is used to assign a unique number to the individual. The second set is basic personal information: name, address, father's name, date of birth and address. Individuals can show existing documents—like voter's I-card or passport —as verification. For those who did not have identification documents, UIDAI allowed certain people to attest for them.

Aadhaar is better at identifying individuals through their biometrics than ensuring the accuracy of their add-on data. This is partly due to its design. When Aadhaar was being conceptualised, says Shrikant Nadhamuni, who headed technology for UIDAI: "We wanted to move the ID game—from a state where some people had no ID and others had paper ID to something beyond even what Singapore had, in the form of smart cards, to online. Like biometric. Which is the future.

Here, your presence is enough to vet your ID." This is also partly due to how UIDAI did its enrolments. Shortly after taking charge, Nilekani announced UIDAI would issue 600 million Aadhaar numbers by March 2014. The initial plan was that the National Population Register (NPR), which conducts the decadal Census and which is housed under the ministry of home, would do the enrolments— capturing biometrics and information— and UIDAI would only issue the numbers.

Soon after, Nilekani decided he could not meet his 600 million target if he waited for NPR to give him biometric packets, and offered to do enrolments too. To meet the target, UIDAI wanted to outsource enrolment to multiple vendors. And compared to NPR, UIDAI collected very little demographic data. UIDAI appointed public and private companies as enrolment agencies. Quality issues arose. "90% of the larger enrolment agencies offloaded the work to local, small-time guys," says the head of a Gurgaon-based enrolment agency, not wanting to be named.

Instances of incomplete addresses, spelling mistakes, people bribing enrolment staff to obtain numbers, emerged. "There is always a trade off between inclusion and accuracy," says Nilekani. "And the fact that these errors happened only shows that the gates were kept wide enough to ensure there would be no exclusion." "The Aadhaar database is based on very weak data," says Sunil Abraham, the head of Bangalore-based Centre for Internet and Society, an Internet and governance think-tank. "It is basically linking biometrics to a person and the name/address he claims as his." This weakness started showing up as the government began to deliver welfare services by transferring money directly into bank accounts of beneficiaries, using Aadhaar. The first step was to add the Aadhaar number to the department and bank databases.

Reddy Subramanyam, joint secretary of NREGA, tried to seed Aadhaar numbers into his database of NREGA workers. "The current matching is just 25-30%." The mismatch arises because, say, the name will be S Kumar in one and Sunil Kumar in another. Aadhaar is "less ID project and more identification project," says legal researcher Usha Ramanathan. "The onus for ensuring the demographic information is correct falls on the number-holder."

2. Are Aadhaar-enabled Cash Transfers Delivering?

If giving every Indian a unique ID was Aadhaar's main mandate, revamping welfare delivery became its second. In 2011, Nilekani headed a committee to create a roadmap to move to a system of welfare delivery where money was transferred directly into bank accounts of beneficiaries—or direct benefit transfers (DBTs). The architectures it proposed pivoted around Aadhaar and online, realtime biometric authentication. This was to replace the existing smart-card architecture, which can work even in areas even without connectivity.

UIDAI saw the cloud as the future. "We were not very taken with the smart-card solution," says Nadhamuni. "Farmers have to carry multiple smart cards around. And then, there is the cost of the card." Smart-card companies, staring at the prospect of their investments going waste, protested. "Customers and service providers deserve the right to make a convenient choice. Can someone building a public highway insist that only a certain sort of a vehicle can ply on it?" Abhishek Sinha, CEO of Eko India, a mobile-banking start-up told ET in November 2011.

"The question is whether the model is working better now than what existed before," defends Koshy. It's a question that has not been answered conclusively and credibly: there have been no independent evaluations by the government of Aadhaarbased DBTs till now. "Aadhaar should not have been rolled out on a mission mode till it was tested on some scale," says MS Sriram, visiting faculty at IIM Bangalore's Centre for Public Policy. When asked about this, Sen says: "There was no independent evaluation. Everyone was rushing." From the field came reports about manual labourers and the aged struggling to authenticate using biometrics.

Nor were comparative studies conducted to check alternative ways to improve welfare delivery. Economist Reetika Khera argues that Chhattisgarh has removed corruption from its PDS programme through a mix of computerisation and community supervision. This echoes an observation made by the Parliamentary panel while rejecting the UIDAI bill: the government had not considered comparative costs of Aadhaar and other existing ID documents.

Yet, in November 2012, the Congress decided to make DBTs its calling card for the 2014 elections. At a rally in Dudu, Rajasthan, attended by Congress leaders and Nilekani, it announced DBT rollout in the state. A year later, after a patchy rollout, the Congress lost power in the state. And on January 30, the UPA pressed pause on DBTs for cooking gas.

3. Are there Strong Safeguards to Protect a Person's Privacy?

On February 26, the Mumbai High Court directed UIDAI to share its Goa biometrics with the CBI to help it solve a rape case in the state the agency was struggling to solve. UIDAI refused, saying this would violate the privacy of its number holders. The High Court agreed with the CBI. UIDAI went to the Supreme Court, which ruled that its biometric information cannot be shared with any government agency without the consent of number holders.

But the CBI request had shown what could go wrong. "Once you create an ID system, other things happen," says Sen. "The most inevitable one is that government departments—like the police—want to access it. A database exists and I want to use it." Says a Supreme Court lawyer, not wanting to be named: "You innocently give your fingerprints to UIDAI because you want your scholarship or gas subsidy or something. You volunteer this information and then you realise this can be used as evidence against you in a criminal trial?" In time, more agencies will use Aadhaar. "The moment you start putting the Aadhaar number into multiple databases, you make them comparable," says Abraham. "Land registry, tax records, etc, all become comparable." Adds Sen: "We need to think about who can use the authentication service."

He cites the example of banks using Aadhaar to judge a borrower's credit record as a good thing. Conversely, he adds, an insurer using a customer's Aadhaar to access hospital records, and take a call on premiums or policy issuance, is a bad outcome. "Insurance is supposed to work by pooling risk. Should they (insurers) even have the right to ask for authentication?" asks Sen. UIDAI officials say three things in their defence. One, they collect innocuous information, which they don't share. Two, for authentication queries, they only give 'yes/no' answers. Three, they have safeguards.

What is missing is a legal framework that governs collection, use and retention of biometrics. "India has not passed a data privacy law," says Nadhamuni. "This is a very important legislation we need to draft and enact for projects that use large-scale IT systems, be it Aadhaar, NREGA, voter card, income tax, etc. In the absence of such laws, UIDAI came up with rigorous data privacy and security policies to secure resident data." However, the Parliamentary panel, while rejecting the bill, noted that UIDAI began collecting biometric data even as the government worked on a privacy bill and a data protection bill. "The idea that databases can be used by anyone makes people vulnerable, especially in a state where there is neither law nor much respect for law," says Ramanathan.

Aadhaar stands at an uncomfortable junction. A new government, eager to ensure only citizens have unique numbers, could ask all Aadhaar holders to provide address proof and delete the others. Events of the past three months have framed the issues concerning Aadhaar, sometimes with a touch of rhetoric. "This is a good time to open the regulation issue," says Sen.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/economic-times-april-3-2014-m-rajshekhar-should-nandan-nilekani-aadhar-project-for-identity-proof-and-welfare-delivery-exist

AIKWO to organize Wikipedia Workshop

praskrishna — 2014-05-05T03:49:36Z

All India Konkani Writers’ Organisation (AIKWO) in association with Wikipedia is organising a one-day Wikipedia Workshop for Konkani writers writing in the Kannada script on Sunday, April 6 at Kalaangann, Mangalore.

The report was published in Udayavani on April 3, 2014.

The workshop is organised to popularise Konkani literature in the Kannada script, on the internet (in Wikipedia) and to increase the presence of Konkani information on the internet.

The workshop will be conducted by Dr U. B. Pavanaja, Programme Officer, Indian Languages, Access to Knowledge Programme, The Centre for Internet and Society. He will be assisted by Harriet Vidyasagar, a Wikipedia volunteer.

Those interested, may call 0824-2232377 and register their names.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/udayavani-april-3-2014-aikwo-to-organize-wikipedia-workshop

The politics of Facebook

praskrishna — 2014-04-03T11:30:51Z

With the social media becoming an important political battleground, is Facebook affecting friendships and trying to influence our political leanings?

The article by Shweta Tiwari was published in Livemint on April 1, 2014. Dr. Nishant Shah is quoted.

When social activist Uthara Narayanan, 32, posted an innocuous article link on the Gujarat riots on Facebook in January, she was in for a surprise. An old friend from college fiercely defended Gujarat chief minister and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi, getting abrasive and personal in the post. “I had known her for more than 14 years and yet hadn’t seen this side to her,” says Narayanan. “I didn’t realize when she had gone off and gotten such strong views on the debate.”

From then on Narayanan decided to stay away from her friend though they live in the same city. “It left a bad taste in my mouth and marred our friendship for me, though I am still Facebook friends with her.” Almost as if agreeing with her, Facebook’s wall automatically started keeping her friend’s posts away from her wall—thanks to the EdgeRank algorithm.

Like-like stick together

EdgeRank, the Facebook algorithm that decides which posts to show in your newsfeed, bases its decision on three factors: an affinity score between the user and the one who’s created the post, the type of post (comment, like, create or tag), and time lapsed since it was created. The first basically means that you will see posts from friends you have interacted with and like to interact with on the social network.

In January, Catherine Grevet, a PhD student at the Georgia Institute of Technology in the US, studied this algorithm in the light of politics and concluded that people tend to get attracted to circles of friends who affirm to their own political leanings, all because of Facebook’s algorithms. “People are mainly friends with those who share similar values and interests,” Grevet wrote in the study. “As a result, they aren’t exposed to opposing viewpoints.” Grevet presented the study at the 17th ACM Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing in the US in February.

Alok Sharma, a Mumbai-based creative writer who used to be a political cartoonist, says social media has led to Indians opening up. “We are taught to be a little politically correct, especially in face-to-face conversations. But when it comes to social networking sites, Indians express their views like fanatics,” he says. He blocked a couple of Facebook friends after a spate of personal comments on one of his posts. “My friends know me and get the crux of what I might be trying to say in a thread but there are others who are on my Friends list but don’t understand the context and take it all wrong.”

The misunderstanding arises because many of us post on the network as we would speak among friends and not as we would say things in public. “Facebook is not a community, a clique or a group of friends,” says Nishant Shah, director of research at Bangalore-based non-profit The Centre for Internet and Society. “It is just a network,” he says. That means that not all people on your Facebook list are friends—you are just connected to them on the network. You might have a professional relationship with them, be teammates or acquaintances or colleagues, but you don’t know them personally. Given that the average Facebook user has 229 Facebook friends—according to the numbers from US think tank Pew Research Center’s Internet Project which tracks statistics about the social network—that’s just too many people to even know personally.

“The audience on the social network is much larger than the friend list, including Facebook itself, which, if it finds your comment problematic, will censor even before a complaint is produced,” says Shah. A post on Facebook or a comment or a like, can get you in trouble not just with other individuals or communities who take offence but even the law, as happened to a girl in 2012 who put up a post criticizing the shutdown of Mumbai after the death of Shiv Sena patriarch Bal Thackeray.

“Though used like it, Facebook is not a conversation,” says Shah, “Because everything you write is archived and recorded. And can be used against you if need be.”

A medium to shout in

But would you shout at a stranger on the street as you do on Facebook? Basav Biradar, a programme manager based in Bangalore, actively posts on politics and comments on Facebook. He feels most people on Facebook give strong opinions that are not well-informed. “A lot of these opinions are dependent on propaganda and campaigns rather than facts. Why don’t people do some homework before forming an opinion?” With over 100 million Indians active on the social network, however, an uninformed opinion is hardly reason to stop anyone from posting, commenting, liking, offending and getting offended through posts on Facebook.

Shah calls this phenomenon cyber-bullying in politics. “Specific vocal and passionate groups and communities have emerged who silence any voice of dissent or critique by trolling the dissident,” says Shah. “They do not need anonymity. They don’t try to hide who they are. They feel so empowered by the backing of the politicos who are either hiring or supporting them, that they have risen in hordes and are stifling the space for dissent and questioning even more effectively than they have been able to do in real life.”

It’s almost like standing in a rally and hearing a swarm of slogans. Sashi Kumar, chairman of the trust Media Development Foundation that runs the Asian College of Journalism, Chennai, gives a similar analogy. He believes that the language of communication on Facebook is not written but oral. “Writing implies a well thought through opinion, whereas speech is responsive and involved. Within the Internet, there’s a strange morphing of written form which is expressed in a way of oral communication. You speak to someone on Facebook, you respond, you hear, you react, you communicate, you talk.” He says that this morphing is leading society back to more oral forms of communication where written forms like newspapers will be a thing of the past.

Replacing traditional media

	With surprising events like the support for Jan Lokpal law, Pink Chaddi campaign and even the backlash against the December 2012 gang rape case in Delhi, social media seems to have somewhere, somehow made all of us more participative, more aware and more active in political and social spaces. Most politicians have active Twitter and Facebook accounts. Most newspapers and even news channels quote their feed as statements when summing up news. Social networks have become almost mainstream. So much so that when earlier in March Modi attacked Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar at a political rally in Muzaffarpur, Bihar, Kumar’s response was detailed, and through a Facebook post.

With surprising events like the support for Jan Lokpal law, Pink Chaddi campaign and even the backlash against the December 2012 gang rape case in Delhi, social media seems to have somewhere, somehow made all of us more participative, more aware and more active in political and social spaces.

Most politicians have active Twitter and Facebook accounts. Most newspapers and even news channels quote their feed as statements when summing up news. Social networks have become almost mainstream. So much so that when earlier in March Modi attacked Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar at a political rally in Muzaffarpur, Bihar, Kumar’s response was detailed, and through a Facebook post.

A joint study by the IRIS Knowledge Foundation, a public service initiative of business and financial information provider IRIS Business Services Pvt. Ltd, and the industry body Internet and Mobile Association of India, suggests that social media use is now sufficiently widespread to influence the outcome of the next general election and consequently government formation. The March research, which studied Facebook’s own data, claims that among the social media spaces, Facebook users have the maximum clout.

Kumar agrees and feels that news now is more user-generated: “It’s the people who want to pursue their own news, know more about their own news, create news. In a way it democratizes journalism. People are talking more about issues, giving opinions and comparing notes. Politics has shifted from the streets to these social medias.”

The future holds more participation, and a sense of being a stakeholder in the political process. An “enlarging of political participation”, as Kumar puts it. “Of course because everyone has a mike, a mouthpiece now, there will be lot of more trivial conversation and hairsplitting which might not add up to anything, but the important thing is that people are engaging themselves politically. We are on the streets. All because of technology.”

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/livemint-april-1-2014-shweta-taneja-the-politics-of-facebook