Centre for Internet and Society

February 2014 Bulletin

praskrishna — 2014-04-07T07:27:46Z

The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) welcomes you to the second issue of its newsletter (February) for the year 2014:

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Highlights
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We published revised chapters for the states of Mizoram, Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Himachal Pradesh and Haryana, as part of our National Resource Kit project.
In the concluding blog post of a three-part study Ananth Padmanabhan looks at the Indian law in the Copyright Act and the Information Technology Act, and concludes that both those laws restrain courts and private companies from ordering an ISP to block a website for copyright infringement.
Telugu Wikipedia celebrated its 10^th anniversary. An event was co-organized in Vijaywada to celebrate the same.
The second Institute on Internet and Society was held in Pune from February 11 to 17. The proceedings from the workshop are captured in a blog post.
CIS announced an Open Call for Comments for the latest draft of the Privacy Bill, 2013 prepared by Bhairav Acharya.
Forbes India published its “30 Under 30 List”. Pranesh Prakash is featured in the list.
As part of the Making Change Project, Denisse Albornoz wrote a blog post that compares the production behind a performance with the process of storytelling.
Beli gives an introduction to spectrum sharing. The post looks at GSM and CDMA, and touches upon LTE, and how they might share spectrum.

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Jobs
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CIS is seeking applications for the post of Program Officer (Access to Knowledge): http://bit.ly/1fnydB0. There are two vacancies for this post and it is full-time based in Delhi. To apply, please send your resume to Sunil Abraham (sunil@cis-india.org), Nirmita Narasimhan (nirmita@cis-india.org) and Pranesh Prakash (pranesh@cis-india.org) with three writing samples of which at least one demonstrates your analytic skills, and one that shows your ability to simplify complex policy issues.

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Accessibility and Inclusion
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As part of our project (under a grant from the Hans Foundation) on creating a national resource kit of state-wise laws, policies and programmes on issues relating to persons with disabilities in India, we bring you draft chapters for the states of Mizoram, Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Himachal Pradesh and Haryana. With this we have completed compilation of draft chapters for 35 states.

Based upon discussion with the office of the Chief Commissioner for Persons with Disabilities (CCPD) the following chapters were revised:

► National Resource Kit Chapter

The Mizoram Chapter (by CLPR, February 5, 2014): http://bit.ly/1eUSvxW
The Dadra & Nagar Haveli Chapter (by CLPR, February 6, 2014): http://bit.ly/1mv3YhJ
The Haryana Chapter (by Anandhi Viswanathan, February 10, 2014): http://bit.ly/1dVOiKI
The Himachal Pradesh Chapter (by Anandhi Viswanathan, February 12, 2014): http://bit.ly/1jSk03x

► Other

# Participation in Events

National Consultation on Inclusion of Persons with Disabilities in Development Process (organized by CBM India in collaboration with United Nations Solution Exchange for Gender Community, WHO Regional office for South-East Asia, New Delhi, February 12, 2014). Anandhi Viswanathan participated in a panel discussion. She made a presentation on the National Resource Kit project: http://bit.ly/OlkHVq.
Zero Project Conference on Accessibility: Innovative Policies and Practices for Persons with Disabilities (organized by Essl Foundation, the World Future Council and the European Foundation Centre, United Nations Office, Vienna, February 27 and 28, 2014). Pranesh Prakash spoke on Affordable Text-to-Speech Software from India: http://bit.ly/1czo32s. Nominations on e-speak were recognised as examples of innovative practices and policies from India. Pranesh Prakash was also a speaker on Copyright Exception for Accessible Formats: http://bit.ly/1l8HRth.

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Access to Knowledge
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The Access to Knowledge programme addresses the harms caused to consumers and human rights, and critically examines Open Government Data, Open Access to Scholarly Literature, and Open Access to Law, Open Content, Open Standards, and Free/Libre/Open Source Software.

# Analyses

Can Judges Order ISPs to Block Websites for Copyright Infringement? (Part 2) (by Ananth Padmanabhan, February 5, 2014): http://bit.ly/1cddoKm. Analyses the law laid down by the U.S. Supreme Court and the Delhi High Court on secondary and contributory copyright infringement.
Can Judges Order ISPs to Block Websites for Copyright Infringement? (Part 3) (by Ananth Padmanabhan, February 5, 2014): http://bit.ly/1g35mDg. Analyses the Indian law in the Copyright Act and the Information Technology Act.

# Participation in Events

2nd International Conference on Managing Intellectual Property Rights and Strategy (MIPS 2014) (organized by Shailesh J. Mehta School of Management, IIT Bombay with support from the Ministry of Human Resources Development IPR Chair Project, Government of India): http://bit.ly/PsPEbq.
Consultation on Institutional Arrangements for IP management under MHRD (organized by the Planning Commission and Ministry of Human Resource Development, New Delhi, February 21, 2014). Nehaa Chaudhari participated in this consultation: http://bit.ly/1fTCoar.
National Conference on Use of Technology in Higher Education (organized by the Ministry of Human Resource and Development and Planning Commission in partnership with Microsoft Research and British Council, Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, February 25, 2014): http://bit.ly/P6u78i. Nehaa Chaudhari participated in the event as a panelist in the session on "Future of Content Creation".

# Media Coverage

Pranesh Prakash: Influencing India's IP Laws (by Samar Srivastava, Forbes India, February 15, 2014): http://bit.ly/1kBzLMq.

The following has been done under grant from the Wikimedia Foundation (http://bit.ly/SPqFOl). As part this project (http://bit.ly/X80ELd), we organised 4 workshops in the month of January, published an article in DNA, and signed a memorandum of understanding with KIIT University and Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences to further the development of Odia Wikipedia:

►Wikipedia

# Articles / Blog Entries

Odia Language's Presence in Digital Media and Wikipedia's Role (by Subhashish Panigrahi, The Samaja, March 2, 2014): http://bit.ly/1ieF3sC.
Indian Wikimedia community coordinates Women’s History Month (by Netha Hussain and Jeph Paul, Wikimedia Foundation, March 6, 2014): http://bit.ly/1cyRfqf,

# Events Co-organized

Cinemathon2014 Bangalore (organized by Pad.ma and CIS-A2K, CIS, Bangalore, February 8-9, 2014): http://bit.ly/MRRkZz.
Tewiki 10th Anniversary (organized by CIS-A2K and Telugu Wikipedia community, February 15, 2014): http://bit.ly/1iI2Pxs. T. Vishnu Vardhan and Rahmanuddin Shaikh were speakers at the event.
Cinemathon2014 Mumbai (organized by Pad.ma and CIS-A2K, CAMP Studio, Mumbai, February 15-16, 2014): http://bit.ly/P5YGL8.
Wikipedia Mangalore Workshop (organized by Roshini Nilaya and CIS-A2K, Mangalore, February 26, 2014). Dr. U.B.Pavanaja gave a presentation on Wikipedia with a special focus on students and women.

CIS gave its inputs to the following media coverage:

# Media Coverage

Father-son duo promote Punjabi online (by Jatinder Preet, Sunday Guardian, February 1, 2014): http://bit.ly/1l87b2h.
୧୦ ବର୍ଷରେ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ୱିକିପିଡିଆ (Rabibara Sambad (Sunday supplement of Odia newspaper The Sambad), February 9, 2014): http://bit.ly/1igMynn. This is a feature about Odia Wikipedia's 10th anniversary and the story of a dead volunteer community reviving after 8 years.
Wikipedia Mangalore Workshop (Prajavani, February 27, 2014): http://bit.ly/1gVMG6f.

# Participation in Event

The Dynamics of Education to Employment Journey: Opportunities and Challenges (organized by KIIT School of Management, KIIT University, Bhubaneswar, February 21-22, 2014). T. Vishnu Vardhan gave a talk: http://bit.ly/1ePwqHc.

Event Organized

Wiki Women's Workshop (ICG – Dona Paula, Goa, March 9, 2014): http://bit.ly/MRRJLy. The event is being organized as part of the commemoration of the International Women's Day.

Openness

# Event Organised

Bitcoin & Open Source with Aaron Koenig (CIS, Bangalore, February 7, 2014): http://bit.ly/1fbN6mP.

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Internet Governance
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CIS is doing a project (under a grant from Privacy International and International Development Research Centre (IDRC)) on conducting research on surveillance and freedom of expression (SAFEGUARDS). So far we have organised seven privacy round-tables and drafted the Privacy (Protection) Bill. Gautam Bhatia gives an analysis of the right to privacy from a constitutional perspective. Bhairav Acharya prepared an updated version of the Privacy Protection Bill which was published for comments.

# Call for Comments

The Privacy Protection Bill, 2013 (by Bhairav Acharya, February 25, 2014): http://bit.ly/1g3TwIX. CIS announced an Open Call for Comments to the latest version of the bill.

# Articles

The Internet Way (by Nishant Shah, Biblio Vol. 19 No.8 (1&2), January – February 2014): http://bit.ly/1kBp9gJ. Dr. Nishant Shah's review of the book “The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon” by Bantam Press/Random House Group, London can be found on page 16.
Surveillance and the Indian Constitution - Part 3: The Public/Private Distinction and the Supreme Court’s Wrong Turn (by Gautam Bhatia, Indian Constitutional Law and Philosophy Blog, February 25, 2014): http://bit.ly/1kBosnw. This was originally published on Indian Constitutional Law and Philosophy Blog.
Big Democracy, Big Surveillance: India's Surveillance State (by Maria Xynou, Open Democracy, February 28, 2014): http://bit.ly/1nkg8Ho.
Will You be Paid to Post a Picture? (by Nishant Shah, Indian Express, February 18, 2014): http://bit.ly/P65d8L.

# Blog Entries

February 11: The Day We Fight Back Against Mass Surveillance (by Divij Joshi, February 14, 2014): http://bit.ly/1e7drCV.
Calcutta High Court Strengthens Whistle Blower Protection (by Divij Joshi, February 24, 2014): http://bit.ly/1cG8v7t.
CIS Welcomes 52nd Report on Cyber Crime, Cyber Security, and Right to Privacy (by Elonnai Hickok, February 24, 2014): http://bit.ly/1oviMJ4.
UIDAI Practices and the Information Technology Act, Section 43A and Subsequent Rules (by Elonnai Hickok, February 25, 2014): http://bit.ly/1fbSfep.

# Events Organized

Nullcon Goa Feb 2014 — International Security Conference (organised by Nullcon, Bogmallo Beach Resort, Goa, February 12 – 15, 2014). CIS is one of the sponsors for this event: http://bit.ly/1lrBu5I.
Counter Surveillance Panel: DiscoTech & Hackathon (co-organized by CIS, MIT Centre for Civic Media Co-Design Lab, Tactical Technology Collective, Hackteria.org, and Shristi School of Art, Design and Technology, Bangalore, March 1, 2014): http://bit.ly/NCGMyH

# Participation in Events

First Meeting of the Multistakeholder Advisory Group for India Internet Governance Forum (organized by the Department of Electronics and Information Technology, New Delhi, February 10, 2014). Sunil Abraham participated in this meeting: http://bit.ly/1fKu5xz.
Internet Intermediary Liability: Towards Evidence-based Policy and Regulatory Reform to Secure Human Rights on the internet (organized by Association for Progressive Communications, The Wedgewood, Melville, Johannesburg, February 10-11, 2014): http://bit.ly/1fMAEK2. Elonnai Hickok was a speaker.
Towards an Equitable and Just Internet (organized by IT for Change, New Delhi, February 14-15, 2014). Bhairav Acharya was a speaker: http://bit.ly/1cz9EDt.
Workshop on Media Law & Policy Curriculum Development (organized by the Centre for Communication Governance, National Law University, Delhi and University of Oxford in support with the International Higher Education-Knowledge Economy Partnerships Programme of the British Council, February 16, 2014, National Law University, Delhi): http://bit.ly/1ovoT00. Bhairav Acharya was a speaker.
The Changing Role of the Media in India: Constitutional Perspectives (organized by School of Law, Christ University, February 28, 2014): http://bit.ly/1lB2nTO. Snehashish Ghosh moderated a session at this conference.

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News & Media Coverage
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CIS gave its inputs to the following recent media coverage:

The Dangers of Birdsong (by Namrata Joshi, Outlook, January 25, 2014): http://bit.ly/1kB8J7L.
A Tale of Two Internet Campaigns (by Deepa Kurup, The Hindu, February 11, 2014): http://bit.ly/1lDdRZy.
Dark days for the creative class in India: Siddiqui (by Haroon Siddiqui, thestar.com, February 16, 2014): http://bit.ly/1gdtgbC.
The Forbes India 30 Under 30 List (by Abhilasha Khaitan, Forbes India, February 21, 2014): http://bit.ly/1ovnvKM. Pranesh Prakash features in the list.
India ‘tea parties’ enable politicians to woo urban youth with technology (by Avantika Chilkoti, Financial Times, February 26, 2014): http://bit.ly/1cGfOMm.

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Digital Humanities
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CIS is building research clusters in the field of Digital Humanities. The Digital will be used as a way of unpacking the debates in humanities and social sciences and look at the new frameworks, concepts and ideas that emerge in our engagement with the digital. The clusters aim to produce and document new conversations and debates that shape the contours of Digital Humanities in Asia:

# Blog Entries

Defending the Humanities in the Digital Age (by Nishant Shah, DML Central, February 24, 2014): http://bit.ly/1czdZqg.
Digital Humanities in India- Mapping Changes at the Intersection of Youth, Technology and Higher Education (by Sneha PP, February 21, 2014): http://bit.ly/1qd6xo4.

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Digital Natives
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CIS is doing a research project titled “Making Change”. The project will explore new ways of defining, locating, and understanding change in network societies. Having the thought piece 'Whose Change is it Anyway' as an entry point for discussion and reflection, the project will feature profiles, interviews and responses of change-makers to questions around current mechanisms and practices of change in South Asia and South East Asia:

►Making Change Project

# Blog Entries

Storytelling as Performance: The Ugly Indian and Blank Noise 1 (by Denisse Albornoz, February 24, 2014): http://bit.ly/1jX4qBb.
Storytelling as Performance: The Ugly Indian and Blank Noise 2 (by Denisse Albornoz, February 27, 2014): http://bit.ly/1fKwQil.

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Telecom
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Shyam Ponappa, a Distinguished Fellow at CIS is a regular columnist with the Business Standard. The articles published on his blog Organizing India Blogspot is mirrored on our website:

# Newspaper Column

Centre- or State-Driven Development? (by Shyam Ponappa, Business Standard, February 5, 2014, Observer India Blogspot, February 7, 2014): http://bit.ly/1ceuWFS.

# Blog Entry

An Introduction to Spectrum Sharing (by Beli, February 24, 2014): http://bit.ly/NZlknd.

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Knowledge Repository on Internet Access
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CIS in partnership with the Ford Foundation is executing a project to create a knowledge repository on Internet and society. This repository will comprise content targeted primarily at civil society with a view to enabling their informed participation in the Indian Internet and ICT policy space. The repository is available at the Internet Institute website: http://bit.ly/1iQT2UB.

►Event Organized

Institute on Internet and Society (organised by Ford Foundation and CIS, Yashada, Pune, February 11-17, 2014): http://bit.ly/1fpTdDS. Bishakha Datta, Ravikiran Annaswamy, Kingsley John, Prof. G. Nagarjuna, Nisha Thompson, Prashant Naik, Nehaa Chaudhari, Bhairav Acharya, Manu Srivastav, Dr. Abhijeet Safai, Payal Malik, Nishant Shah, Laura Stein, Sunil Abraham, Madan Muthu and Chinmayi Arun taught at the institute.

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About CIS
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The Centre for Internet and Society is a non-profit research organization that works on policy issues relating to freedom of expression, privacy, accessibility for persons with disabilities, access to knowledge and IPR reform, and openness (including open government, FOSS, open standards, etc.), and engages in academic research on digital natives and digital humanities.

► Follow us elsewhere

Twitter: https://twitter.com/CISA2K
Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/cisa2k
Visit us at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge
E-mail: a2k@cis-india.org

► 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, and theoreticians, both organisationally and as individuals, to collaboratively engage with Internet and society and improve our understanding of this new field. To discuss the research collaborations, write to Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, at sunil@cis-india.org or Nishant Shah, Director – Research, at nishant@cis-india.org. To discuss collaborations on Indic language Wikipedia, write to T. Vishnu Vardhan, Programme Director, A2K, at vishnu@cis-india.org.

CIS is grateful to its donors, Wikimedia Foundation, Ford Foundation, Privacy International, UK, Hans Foundation, MacArthur Foundation, IDRC and 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.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/about/newsletters/february-2014-bulletin

Freedom of Expression and Privacy

praskrishna — 2014-02-28T04:45:52Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/freedom-of-expression-and-privacy.pdf

India ‘tea parties’ enable politicians to woo urban youth with technology

praskrishna — 2014-03-06T12:13:36Z

Babalal Patel’s tiny tea stall in southern Mumbai is a long way from Silicon Valley. It is not even that close to Bangalore, the Indian equivalent.

The article by Avantika Chilkoti was published in the Financial Times on February 26, 2014. Sunil Abraham is quoted.

But one night this month this ramshackle shop became the venue for a social media experiment that highlights the high-tech face of electioneering in India, the world’s largest democracy. A crowd gathered outside to watch two television screens showing a live broadcast with Narendra Modi, prime ministerial candidate for the opposition Bharatiya Janata party, as he answered questions the audience submitted by text message.

Similar “tea parties” were held across the country, designed to ram home Mr Modi’s humble background as a tea seller and his technological credentials. But the nationwide event, organised using mobile technology more commonly seen in US presidential campaigns, also signals a shift in Indian politics.

For decades, political campaigns in India have centred around colossal rallies and billboard advertising. But a growing population of young people, rising internet use and the ubiquity of mobile phones mean the 2014 battle is playing out equally fiercely online.

“We are moving far ahead of saying that we are building ‘likes’ on social media,” says Arvind Gupta, head of IT and social media for the BJP. “Organisation is being done using digital. So if I’m going to tell everybody there’s an event tomorrow, it can be posted on Facebook, websites, on SMS, on WhatsApp, though the real meeting is happening on the ground.”

These techniques, which became familiar during the Arab uprisings of northern Africa, are an increasingly important part of communication strategy ahead of a national election, which must be held in the next three months, and which many believe will be close.

Mr Gupta believes parties are fighting what he calls a “postmodern election” for up to 160 - largely urban - seats of the total 543. More than half the 50-strong team working on communication for the BJP are dedicated to digital campaigning.

India’s internet user base reached a point of inflection last year, passing 200m. While that is a fraction of the 1.3bn population, prompting many to question the power of social media, use is far greater among urban and young voters, millions of whom will be eligible to vote for the first time this year.

“Social media is suddenly becoming important, not for all constituencies but for urban constituencies because for the first time the urban youth and the educated class is very much glued into the election and showing interest,” says Rajeeva Karandikar, a statistician and election analyst.

Mr Modi, chief minister of Gujarat, has adapted particularly quickly to the changing environment. He captured the public imagination by using holograms to address rallies and Google Hangouts to interact with the diaspora. He has 3.4m Twitter followers and more than 10.6m “likes” on his Facebook page, thanks in part to a slick social media team led by high-profile technology entrepreneurs. Meanwhile Rahul Gandhi, the reticent, undeclared candidate for the incumbent Congress party, does not even have a verified Twitter account.

Some were disappointed by low attendance at the national “tea parties”, but the events were lauded for being interactive and, perhaps most importantly in a country where newspaper readership remains high, grabbed column inches in local media. The audience could speak directly to Mr Modi at venues with a two-way video link and the footage was immediately available on YouTube.

“While answering each question Mr Modi has a point of view,” says Pratik Patel, 28, a chartered accountant who organised the event at his grand- father’s tea shop. “He doesn’t have two ways of looking at the same thing - this helps him to be more decisive and forward thinking.”

Social media also provides swaths of information to India’s political parties, as they copy the sophisticated data analytics used by US president Barack Obama’s campaigns.

From its offices in suburban Mumbai, the digital marketing group Pinstorm tracks what social media users are discussing at the constituency level and identifies significant supporters or critics. It describes the service as an early warning system or “social radar”, which allows parties to mobilise workers rapidly to oppose or support a point of view.
Sceptics argue, however, that social media has insufficient traction in India to affect results of the forthcoming poll. But the size of the user base does not reflect its full power. It is educated influential Indians who use these digital networks and the online debate shapes views in traditional media that reach a wider audience.

“The theory is that since the elites are connected and have more time to spare on social media, let us use social media and the internet more generally to influence discourse through these elites,” says Sunil Abraham, executive director for the Bangalore-based Centre for Internet and Society. “It’s an indirect route to the vote.”

An adviser to the Obama campaign warns, however, that, given differences in funding and the local environment, India’s politicians should be wary of using the US presidential race as a model. This year a simpler technology may prove the best tool for campaigns in India: the mobile phone.

“Folks look to the Obama campaign for this sort of stuff,” says Ethan Roeder, who worked on data for the 2008 and 2012 US presidential campaigns. “But a lot of these international campaigns would do best looking elsewhere for a model . . . No campaign in the history of the world has ever spent that much money to elect a single individual to a single office.”

India’s version is, of course, markedly cheaper, thanks to the roadside chai-wallahs and armies of volunteers, pulling in the new breed of voters.

“I have never attended a political rally in my entire life,” says Mr Patel, who helped organise Mr Modi’s nationwide “tea party”.

“If people want to connect with me they need to connect with me on social media or via email.”

Modi’s digital army

The team building the digital campaign for India’s opposition Bharatiya Janata party mixes entrepreneurs and veterans from the technology industry, rather than individuals with experience of electioneering alone.

Rajesh Jain, working on electoral technology, is well known in the industry since setting up successful businesses in online news and digital marketing. These include IndiaWorld Communications, a collection of websites which was bought in 1999 by Satyam Infoway, then India’s largest internet service provider.

He has the archetypal curriculum vitae, with a degree from one of the eminent Indian institutes of technology followed by a master’s degree from Columbia University in New York.

Arvind Gupta, who heads the BJP’s IT and social media cell, has a remarkably similar educational background - with an added stint in Silicon Valley to his name.

At the last count, the party had recruited more than 2m volunteers, who are organised online and will provide support in different ways. But there is also a younger generation of advocates who have given up good jobs to join the digital effort. Citizens for Accountable Governance is a non-profit youth organisation co-ordinating nationwide “tea parties” ahead of this year’s national election, where Narendra Modi, the party’s prime ministerial candidate, interacts with audiences at tea stalls via video link.

About 100 young professionals lead the operation and all come with impressive credentials, including jobs at prominent global consulting groups such as McKinsey, and banks such as JPMorgan.

Beyond that, Mr Modi has had a team working for him personally since he took over as chief minister of Gujarat more than a decade ago.

It is a discreet IT set-up that still functions independently of the party’s operations.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/financial-times-february-26-2014-india-tea-parties-enable-politicians-to-woo-urban-youth-with-technology

National Conference on Use of Technology in Higher Education

praskrishna — 2014-03-06T07:30:32Z

The Ministry of Human Resource and Development and Planning Commission in partnership with Microsoft Research and British Council organized a conference at the Indian Institute of Technology in Bombay on February 25, 2014.

Nehaa Chaudhari participated in the event as a panelist in the session on "Future of Content Creation".

Click to download the schedule.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/iitb-february-25-26-2014-national-conference-on-use-of-technology-in-higher-education

Future of Democracy

praskrishna — 2014-02-26T08:32:42Z

The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) and Tactical Tech Collective invite you to a talk by Smari McCarthy at CIS office in Bangalore on Monday, March 3, 2014 at 6.30 p.m.

Smari McCarthy

Smari McCarthy is an information activist, free software developer and author. He has worked globally on issues of democratic participation, information security, access to information, civil liberties, and social and economic justice. He is a founder and a board member of the International Modern Media Institute (IMMI), founder of the Shadow Parliament Project, co-founder of the Icelandic Digital Freedoms Society, the Constitutional Analysis Support Project (CAST) and the Icelandic Pirate Party. He has worked on developing and spreading digital fabrication technology through Fab Labs and Hacker Spaces. As of August 2013, he lives in London where he works with Thoughtworks on decentralization of the Internet and counter surveillance measures for the public.

Click to download the brochure here

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/events/future-of-democracy

Smari McCarthy

praskrishna — 2014-02-26T08:30:08Z

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

Questions to Nishant Shah

praskrishna — 2014-03-06T08:54:21Z

Dr. Nishant Shah had a text interview with the Hybrid Publishing Lab around questions on Digital Humanities.

The interview was published on the website of Leuphana University in February 2014.

Nishant Shah is the co-founder and Director-Research at the Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore, India. He researches at Leuphana and in The Netherlands. His topics are cyborgs and cyberspaces.

Why do you think we are all cyborgs?
Shah: Generally, when we think of cyborgs we think of futuristic beings – things that we want to become. But that imagination pretends that we don't have an intimate and intricate relationship with different technologies. When we look at the world that we live in, we can immediately recognize that we continually live with technologies that help us live and to live together. These technologies are so natural a part of our life that we have forgotten to think of them as technologies – like electricity or think of technological products – like clothes. It is good to remind ourselves, when we think of ourselves as 'already cyborgs', that our lives are intertwined with technologies of different kinds, and that we need to think of our human, social and political conditions as mediated by the technological.
What does this knowledge mean to our society?
Shah: Thinking of ourselves as cyborgs living in cyborg societies helps us look at the role of technologies differently. We come to realize that technologies are not just something that we use in order to achieve a task. Our usage of technologies changes who we are, individually and as a society. So we need to take the politics of technology infrastructure and regulation seriously. For example, the privatization of knowledge industries, closed and proprietary publishing of research that is produced through public funding, produces societies where only a privileged elite can access this knowledge. We will have to look at questions of open access, open source, open knowledge, etc. as a part of our larger social problems instead of thinking of them as 'technology' questions. Similarly, technologies of access define how different identities and groups are shaped and consumed and we need to now start looking at intersections of technology and society rather than imagining them as separated domains.
Does the Digital Change bring about advantages or disadvantages for our society?
Shah: I feel that this is a wrong question to ask. It presumes that we actually have only these two options, and that there is a normative, universal truth that determines what the advantages and disadvantages are. Every shift in technological development comes with a bunch of possibilities. Some of these possibilities might offer us the promise of a just, open, inclusive and fair society. Some of them might portent a compromise of our basic human and social rights. The processes used for both are the same. In that case, the questions of power, or ownership, of accountability and transparency will need to be built into the conversations around digital. So the question is not to ask whether the digital in itself is good or bad. However, the digital does provide us with alternatives to some of the most endemic problems around power imbalance, abuse and discrimination. And it remains for us to see, how we are going to shape our societies to fulfill these promises. If we don't take these questions seriously, we might end up amplifying our problems through the very technologies that can otherwise be used to achieve these dreams.
Which advantages do you see, especially for students?
Students, for me, are the people who are going to live the science fiction futures that we imagine in the present. So while we can make a list of all the different tools and practices that students can use right now, for education, for collaboration, for sharing and for research, what is more important is to realize what these technologies help students in thinking about their futures. One of the biggest things that the digital produces for students, or any young people, is that it makes them think of themselves as agents of change. With the digital, with the ability to mobilize and connect resources and people together, the young are often able to make strategic interventions to correct problems in their immediate environments. And that is the future of our societies – to build an active civil society that is going to contribute to sustainable, relevant and nuanced solutions for the worlds that we want to live in.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/questions-to-nishant-shah

Organizational Chart

praskrishna — 2014-02-25T09:12:34Z

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

Pranesh Prakash: Influencing India's IP Laws

praskrishna — 2014-02-25T06:20:31Z

Pranesh Prakash believes intellectual property laws need to evolve and change with time.

Samar Srivastava's article was published in Forbes India Magazine on February 15, 2014.

At an age where his contemporaries are still junior litigators and aspiring lawyers, Pranesh Prakash, 28, is already a recognisable name in the filed of legal activism.

In 2013 he worked with the World Intellectual Property Organization to draft a treaty for the blind. It provides for an exception to copyright laws so that books can be converted into accessible formats for the blind and visually impaired, and exchanged across borders.

For Prakash the treaty capped a signal achievement in intellectual property and copyright—an area he has been working in since graduating from the National Law School, Bangalore. In his closing speech at the diplomatic conference at Marrakesh, Morocco, Prakash said: “When copyright doesn’t serve public welfare, states must intervene... Importantly, markets alone cannot be relied upon to achieve a just allocation of informational resources, as we have seen clearly from the book famine that the blind are experiencing.”

Prakash’s work on intellectual property has brought him recognition through affiliations: He is an Access to Knowledge Fellow at the Information Society Project at Yale Law School. In 2012, he was selected as an Internet Freedom Fellow by the US State Department.

“I was always interested in doing public interest work,” says Prakash. An internship with activist lawyer Rajeev Dhawan cemented his desire. Prakash is now prominent in a line of thinkers working in the area of freedom of expression, internet governance and intellectual property.

It is clear that existing laws in these areas are inadequate and a new jurisprudential setup needs to evolve. For example, the same standards often apply to print and internet media; they fail to recognise that, say, tweets have a different impact than newspapers headlines.

Prakash’s criticism of governments blocking websites stood out, but his recommendations were not accepted. He proposed that all intermediaries, like the ISP and the domain host, not be bunched, and separate standards be imposed on them, based on their editorial role in content creation.

“What distinguishes his work is the impact it has on the public at large,” says Gautam John, head, Karnataka Learning Partnership at the Akshara Foundation. “His work in the area is cutting edge. There is no one doing that work.”

Then there is his work with Section 66A of the IT Act. Under the section, anyone who sends false, offensive or inappropriate content by a computer or communication device can be punished with three years of imprisonment. This section has been misused by the police. Prakash has long argued that the law must be more specific in what it defines as offensive, and that the government needs to engage more with civil society and industry to end the antagonistic and selective manner in which the law is imposed.

Efforts of the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), Bangalore, where Prakash is policy director, have resulted in rules being amended. Now, only officers of the rank of DCP and above can make an arrest. CIS, set up in 2008, has also made representations on the copyright law to Parliamentary Standing Committees.

Prakash’s activism has had another significant effect on intellectual property in India. By a 2008 Bill, the government had tried to privatise publicly-funded intellectual property. Prakash was part of a sustained campaign against the Bill, and in 2011 it was shelved.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/forbes-india-february-15-2014-samar-srivastava-pranesh-prakash-influencing-indias-ip-laws

Privacy Protection Bill

praskrishna — 2014-02-25T05:21:40Z

Latest version of the Privacy Protection Bill as in February 2014.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/privacy-protection-bill-february-2014.pdf

Counter Surveillance Panel: DiscoTech & Hackathon (Flyer)

praskrishna — 2014-02-24T21:29:51Z

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

Counter Surveillance Panel: DiscoTech & Hackathon

praskrishna — 2014-02-28T05:36:15Z

We invite you to a Counter Surveillance DiscoTech and Hackathon at the Centre for Internet and Society in Bangalore on Saturday, March 1, 2014 (9.00 a.m. to 5.00 p.m.). The event is being co-organized by the Centre for Internet and Society in tandem with the MIT Centre for Civic Media Co-Design Lab, with support from members of Tactical Technology Collective, Hackteria.org and Srishti School of Art Design and Technology. Registrations begin at 9.00 a.m. The event shall close with a featured talk by renown information activist and maker lab innovator Smari McCarthy, titled "Privacy for Humanity" at 5.00 p.m.

Overview

Mirroring the call by MIT Civic Media Lab Co-Design Studio, this event brings together students, technologists, designers and citizens to explore counter-surveillance strategies. The event will be held simultaneously across various locations including Boston, Palestine, Lisbon and Buenos Aires. Click here for the definition of DiscoTech.(Discovering Technology)

Agenda

We shall begin with brief contextualized introductions catalyzed by researchers in the field of privacy & surveillance, followed by workshops and hackathons led by expert practitioners. Participants are welcome from diverse backgrounds looking to be involved in designing engaging and creative ways to counter surveillance. The event shall close with a featured talk by renown information activist and maker lab innovator Smari McCarthy , titled "Privacy for Humanity" at 5.00 p.m.

Introductory Catalyst Sessions

Malavika Jayaram: Fellow at Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University and the Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore
Laird Brown: DesiSec Project at the Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore and University of Toronto
Kaustubh Srikant: Head of Technology, Tactical Technology Collective and Maya Indira Ganesh (Program Director)
Abhay Raj Naik: Assistant Professor, Azim Premji University

Design and Hackathon Lead Catalysts

Yashas Shetty:Faculty@ www.srishti.ac.in and Co-Founder Hackteria.org (DNA Spoofing, Surveillance Camera: Avoidance, Microscopic Re-Appropriation & Bacterial Discotheque)

Hari Dilip Kumar: Co, Founder, FluxGen: (Introducing data transmission protocols, Software Defined Radio (SDR) design and surveillance detection )

Sharath Chandra Ram: Researcher @ CIS Open Lab and Faculty@Srishti (Civic Media solutions using open citizen networks and the web, spectrum scanning, visual communication design strategies, finger print mash-up publishing)

Featured Talk and Interactive Closing Session by Smari McCarthy

(Executive Director, International Modern Media Institute and Founder, Icelandic Pirate Party & Icelandic Digital Freedom Society)

Title of Talk: PRIVACY for HUMANITY - 5.00 p.m.

Click to download the flyer invite
Date: Saturday, March 1, 2014
Time: 9.00 a.m. to 5.00 p.m. (Registration 9.00 a.m. sharp)
Venue: Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore
Map : http://bit.ly /1fcDDLG

Please RSVP due to limited space and logistics for lunch and refreshments

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/events/counter-surveillance-panel-disco-tech-hackathon

Consultation on Institutional Arrangements for IP managment under MHRD

praskrishna — 2014-03-12T13:17:00Z

Planning Commission and MHRD jointly are having consultations to design institutional arrangements for IP management under the MHRD between 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. on February 21, 2014 at IIC (Annexe), New Delhi 9 Lecture Hall No. 1).

Nehaa Chaudhari participated in this consultation.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/consultation-institutional-arrangements-ip-management-mhrd

The Forbes India 30 Under 30 List

praskrishna — 2014-02-21T07:59:41Z

Showcasing an enterprising new generation that dreams big and refuses to say die.

This article by Abhilasha Khaitan appeared in the Forbes India magazine of 21 February, 2014. Pranesh Prakash features in the list.

To borrow from Ayn Rand, ‘the question for this generation isn’t who is going to let them but who is going to stop them’. As a torchbearer of individualism, Rand would have approved of the first-ever Forbes India 30 Under 30 list. Sort of. The rider: This isn’t just a celebration of capitalism and profit; it is also in recognition of social value. Do-gooders, geeks, greens, musicians, sportspersons, creative-types and biz kids: The net was thrown wide to catch the best and the brightest.

As the names on the previous page will tell you, it was a worthwhile effort.

It was also an education. Generalisations, it appears, do not apply to the youth. Consider India’s reputation as nerd-land and a skew in favour of techpreneurs and IT geniuses would be expected. But while brilliant professionals dot the landscape, only a few seem to have translated an original thought into a viable, disruptive business proposition. Pallav Nadhani of FusionCharts, Rahul Yadav of Housing.com and Nischal Shetty of JustUnfollow , for instance, score high on both originality and utility.

If there is a slant, it is towards verticals that best suit the lone ranger: Sports, entertainment, the arts. Even there, though, we tried to separate the clichéd from the uncharted and zeroed in on Sushant Singh Rajput and Rajkummar Rao; and Suhail Yusuf Khan and Aathira Krishna; and Rahul Dravid’s purported successor Cheteshwar Pujara.

Plot this list on a heat map and the social entrepreneurship and policy dots would glow red too. Sectors with the potential for real change are drawing them in hordes. There is Rwitwika Bhattacharya who figured out the best way to get political leaders to perform is by helping them do it; Shashank Kumar who is committed to empowering farmers. Even those with different skill sets—design, in this case—are not oblivious: So a communication designer, Aditi Gupta, tries to create awareness about menstruation, a taboo subject.

Then some are in it for the happiness quotient: Pooja Dhingra for her macarons and Shivan and Narresh for their bikini sari.

This might be a good point to ask: Where is Virat Kohli? Deepika Padukone? Any sub-30 list should lead with those names. Here’s the thing: They don’t even make our consideration set. The reason is in the purpose behind this search: Forbes India was looking for a spark, for a story that is still waiting to be told and, for the most part, only starting to unfold.

To that end, individuals who are already forces in their fields—household names—will feature on another day, on another list.

As for those who are part of this list of possibility, it really is a question of who is going to stop them.

30 Under 30 list

Art & Culture
Suhail Yusuf Khan, 26
Sarangi Player / Vocalist

Aathira Krishna, 25
Carnatic Violinist

Design
Moneet Chitroda, 28
Sr Designer - Interiors, Renault Techno Centre

Aditi Gupta, 29
Co-Founder, Menstrupedia.com

Lokesh Karekar, 29
Visual Artist & Director, Locopopo

Alok Shetty, 27
Principal Architect & Founder, Bhumiputra Architecture

E-Commerce
Rahul Yadav, 24
Co-founder & CEO, Housing.com

Bhavish Aggarwal, 28
Co-Founder and CEO, Olacabs

Entertainment
Sushant Singh Rajput, 27
Actor

Rajkummar Rao, 29
Actor

Kishan SS, 18
Actor / Director

Fashion
Shivan Bhatiya & Narresh Kukreja, 29, 28
Swimwear Designers

Finance
Raghu Kumar, 28
Co-Founder, RKSV

Manju Bhatia, 27
Joint MD, Vasuli Recovery

Food & hospitality
Pooja Dhingra, 27
Founder-Chef, Le15 Patisserie

Greentech & sustainability
Abhishek Humbad, 27
Founder, NextGen PMS

Healthcare
Kabir Chadha, 27
Founder & CEO, Epoch Elder Care

Law, policy & Politics
Rwitwika Bhattacharya, 27
Founder, Swaniti Initiative

Pranesh Prakash, 28
Policy Director, Centre for Internet and Society

Apar Gupta, 29
Partner, Advani & Co.

NGOs & Social Entrepreneurship
Shashank Kumar, 28
Co-Founder, Farms n Farmers

Tarique Mohammad Quereshi, 29
Founder, Koshish

Anoj Viswanathan, 26
Co-Founder & President, Milaap

Kuldeep Dantewadia, 25
CEO & Co-Founder, Reap Benefit

Social Media / Mobile / Digital
Nischal Shetty, 28
Founder, JustUnfollow

Sports
Deepika Kumari, 19
Archer

Cheteshwar Pujara, 26
Cricketer

Gaganjeet Bhullar, 25
Golfer

Technology
Pallav Nadhani, 29
Co-Founder & CEO, FusionCharts

Paras Chopra, 26
Founder, Wingify

Methodology

Will we find 30 under-30s? That was the question that troubled when we started work on this project. The numbers are easy enough to add up but the list had to be representative, relevant and, well, not half-baked.

It was never going to be exhaustive. We knew that. The landscape was too vast, the information too sparse and spread out. But limited though it may be in geographical scope, the rigour in research—and the depth in young talent—has produced quality that satisfies the parameters we had set at the beginning. These are: Trigger: The extent of achievement and his/her impact in a short span of time and the level of disruption/innovation that has been shown; Scope: Scalability of his/her business or line of work; Sustainability: Signs of being a flash in the pan or is there enough indication of a long-run play?

The research took on two legs: One, interviews by Forbes India staffers with sources across relevant categories as well as through studies of databases and media coverage. Two, an online application on forbesindia.com inviting applications from entrepreneurs/professionals who felt they qualified. This helped us arrive at a long list which went up to over 300 names across the 14 categories. (Even this number went through an initial vetting.)

The next step was narrowing down to a ‘short long’ list—the names most likely to make it to the top 30. This pool of 75 names was decided in consultation with experts and observers—and this was the toughest leg. Consider that we had entered the ‘first among equals’ phase where separating the final 30 from the other contenders was, really, a judgment call.

But armed with expert views, the Forbes India editorial team debated, argued and vetoed for hours to finalise the 30 individuals you will read about here. There are those outside the list that couldn’t be left out. They find mention too.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/forbes-india-abhilasha-khaitan-feb-7-2014-india-under-30-list

Lakshadweep Chapter

praskrishna — 2014-02-20T09:59:57Z

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