Centre for Internet and Society

(IMDEC) 2013

praskrishna — 2013-10-25T06:09:40Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/internet-mobile-digital-economy-conference.pdf

Wikipedia in Indian Languages on Mobile Phones

praskrishna — 2013-10-25T06:00:28Z

Wikipedia in India's regional languages and accessible over mobile phones is revolutionising the way Internet content is used in this multi-lingual country, say information technology (IT) experts.

This post by Megha Prakash was published in Sci Dev Net on October 15, 2013. T. Vishnu Vardhan is quoted.

"Developing Wikipedia and other content in regional languages is a way forward to bridge the knowledge gap," says T. Vishnu Vardhan, programme director of the Access to Knowledge project at the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), Bangalore.

In September, CIS signed an agreement with Goa University to train students and foster collaborative content development with Wikipedia libraries and archives in view. A similar agreement was signed in August with the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, while a third is due to be signed this month with Christ University, Bangalore.

India's 28 states and seven union territories are organised on a linguistic basis and three of its vernaculars — Hindi, Bengali and Punjabi — rate among the world's ten most widely spoken languages, each with its own script.

With 70 mobile phone subscriptions per 100 people and the market flooded with affordable feature phones, the majority of India's 1.2 billion people potentially have access to IT. Current usage, however, is limited to downloading entertainment content and to such applications as mobile banking.

Vardhan tells SciDev.Net that attention is now being paid to developing knowledge repositories in India's regional languages.

M. Sampath Kumar, who heads the Telugu department at the University of Madras in Chennai, says the Telugu Wikipedia is regularly used by students and researchers and is a resource for speakers of the language living abroad but eager to maintain community links.

Kumar tells SciDev.Net that literary content is popular and that there is a future for regional Wikipedia in educating the younger generation and serving as a free repository for traditional knowledge in the vernacular.

Subbiah Arunachalam, a Chennai-based IT consultant, says the effort will benefit non-English speaking rural youth at school and college levels and help bring them on par with their urban counterparts in terms of knowledge.

A programme funded by the Wikimedia Foundation and due to end in June 2014 covers the Telugu, Kannada, Oriya, Bengali and Konkani languages. A Hindi version already has 100,000 articles and recorded eight million views.

'Lilavati's Daughters', a book on Indian women scientists published by the Bangalore-based Indian Academy of Sciences, is currently being translated into the regional languages with a view to engaging women content developers and editors.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/sci-dev-net-megha-prakash-wikipedia-in-indian-languages-on-mobile-phones

Bouquets & brickbats for Google's new privacy policy

praskrishna — 2013-10-25T05:40:56Z

Google's recent privacy policy change that allows the internet search company to use names, photographs and endorsements by its users in online advertisements is getting mixed reviews in India - advertisers love it, and activists love to hate it.

This article by Indu Nandakumar was published in the Economic Times on October 18, 2013. Sunil Abraham is quoted.

Internet rights activists called it another incursion into individual privacy by the California-based company that uses 'Don't be evil' as an informal corporate motto. Brand advisers and marketers praised the ingenuity of personalisation that can make advertising much more effective.

"From a user perspective, there is a higher chance of them buying a product if it is endorsed by a friend," said Kunal Jeswani, chief digital officer at Ogilvy & Mather India. To his mind, the argument about user privacy is "naive" because when a user enters a social network, he/she should know his/her personal information, such as profile photographs and names, is already on the web.

Google announced its policy change regarding user information will be effective on November 11, giving the company the right to use profile names, photos and comments alongside advertisements by clients who use its online advertising network of over 2 million websites.

For instance, if a user has endorsed a product by giving it a "+1" or rated a product on the Google Play app store, his/her image will appear next to the ad when it is displayed to people who are part of his/her social circle on the social networking service Google Plus. The move is seen as Google's attempt to catch up with rival Facebook, which first introduced the concept of 'social ads' that let corporations use the power of influence of people within a person's social network to sell products.

Internet rights activists said such practices raise privacy concerns as they do not take prior consent of users.

"We are not comfortable with user information being used without their permission, especially since Google's privacy standards are not very high," said Uday Mehta, associate director at Consumer Unity and Trust Society (CUTS International).

Last year, the agency complained to Competition Commission of India to investigate Google's alleged anti-competitive practices here. An investigation is ongoing.

In an emailed response, Google said it is notifying users about the change in policy, so that if a user does not like it, he/she can turn it off.

"Since we're updating an existing setting, we will continue to respect the choice you made about the old setting. That means if you already told us that you didn't want your +1s to appear in ads, none of your other shared endorsements will appear in ads," a Google spokesman said.

For example, Google said, if a user reviewed a restaurant, people who aren't in his/her Google Plus Circles of friends would not see that review in an ad that the restaurant might run through Google.

The latest ad strategy comes at a time when companies such as Google and Facebook have been attempting to increase their ad revenues by personalising advertisements to attract user attention. Over 90% of Google's $46-billion revenue in 2012 came from advertisements.

Sunil Abraham, executive director of the Center for Internet and Society said the issue highlights the need for a stronger internet privacy statute in India. The absence of clear privacy laws makes it impossible for government officials to understand the harm caused to personal rights because of the default settings of Google, he observed.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/economic-times-october-18-2013-indu-nandakumar-bouquets-brickbats-google-new-privacy-policy

'Free Speech and Media in South Asia: Human Rights Concerns in a Globalizing World'

praskrishna — 2013-11-08T05:33:22Z

A seminar organized by the Programme in Comparative Media Law and Policy, Centre for Socio-Legal Studies, University of Oxford, in collaboration with the Centre for Media and Governance, National Law University, Delhi. Chinmayi Arun is one of the speakers.

Click to read the original published by Oxford University Press here

Speakers:

Salil Tripathi, English PEN

Defending Freedom of Expression in India

Emrys Shoemaker, London School of Economics

Mobile Communication and Internet Regulation in Pakistan: Mapping Social Implications

Chinmayi Arun, National Law University, Delhi

Privacy and Surveillance

Kumaravadivel Guruparan, University College London

Digital Media as Part of the Sri Lankan State's 'Counter-insurgency' Programme

Chair: Nicole Stremlau, PCMLP

This panel discussion will explore contemporary issues that envelop both the digital and the traditional media in South Asia. It will look at the effects of surveillance, prior restraints on speech, intermediaries and other key factors on the public sphere. It will also consider, in this context, the relationship of the traditional media with the Internet. This discussion will take place in the backdrop of evolving democratic engagement in India, and the constitutional jurisprudence that attempts to keep pace with it and with developments in communication technology. It will offer comparative perspectives from other countries grappling with similar concerns.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/university-of-oxford-october-25-2013-free-speech-and-media-in-south-asia

Mobile Phone Patents Prior Art Survey

praskrishna — 2013-10-24T10:30:32Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/mobile-patents.xls

CIS Completed Searches

praskrishna — 2013-10-24T10:26:42Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/completed-searches.pdf

Re-sourcing Indian Cinema: Humanities Research, New Archives and Collaborative Knowledge Production

praskrishna — 2013-10-29T05:16:52Z

The Centre for Contemporary Studies and the Centre for Study of Culture and Society invites you to a symposium on "Re-sourcing Indian Cinema" and a launch of a book titled "Politics as Performance: A Social History of the Telugu Cinema" by S.V. Srinivas on October 29, 4 p.m. to 6 p.m., at the CCS Seminar Hall, Indian Institute of Science. T. Vishnu Vardhan will speak on “Let Cinephiles Collaborate: Pleasures and Perils of Indian Film History on Wikipedia”.

Click to read more about the event published on the website of Indian Institute of Science.

Agenda

Welcome: Raghavendra Gadagkar (CCS) & Tejaswini Niranjana (CSCS)
S.V. Srinivas (Senior Fellow, Centre for the Study of Culture and Society and Visiting Professor, Centre for Contemporary Studies): “Film, History and Politics: Looking beyond Bollywood”
M.V. Rayudu (Professor of Electronics, Atria Institute of Technology; industrialist, publisher and archivist): “Archiving Telugu Cinema”
T. Vishnu Vardhan (Centre for Internet and Society): “Let Cinephiles Collaborate: Pleasures and Perils of Indian Film History on Wikipedia”

About the book

Politics as Performance examines the deep connection between cinema and politics in India. It provides a picture of the Telugu cinema, as both industry and cultural form, over fifty formative years. It argues that films are directly related both to the rise of an elite which dominates Andhra Pradesh and other parts of India, and to the emergence of a new idiom of mass politics.

Download the Invite

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/re-sourcing-indian-cinema

Re-sourcing Indian Cinema

praskrishna — 2013-10-24T09:04:26Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/re-sourcing-indian-cinema.pdf

Beyond the Searchlight

praskrishna — 2013-10-23T11:15:27Z

Should we be wary of Google’s all-pervasiveness?

This article Debarshi Dasgupta was published in the Outlook on October 23, 2013. Sunil Abraham is quoted.

Search Google

Some queries to type in the window

Is what is good for Google good for India, especially after Brazil and the EU question its actions?
Are politicians sending out the right signals by associating with Google’s initiatives?
Is Google directing the internet intellectual discourse in a way that will benefit it?
Does Google initiate the kind of offline activities it does here in other democracies?
Is Google shutting out potential competition by obtaining a stranglehold on the internet?

Google’s policy, its CEO Eric Schmidt had once said, was to get right up to the creepy line, but not cross it. It has generated contentious debate about the firm’s activities and products, whether it’s accessing your e-mails to feed you targeted ads, something we have now come to accept grudgingly, or its soon-to-be-released Google Glass that comes fitted with miniature cameras and has advocates all worried about the next big breach on the privacy frontier.

Not just online, where privacy violations and anti-competitive practices have raised concerns globally, some of Google’s offline activities in India too should have us asking questions based on conflict of interest and lack of transparency. Here too, the company seems to have placed itself right next to the creepy line. Especially the way it has gone about sponsoring research at key think-tanks and academia on areas that directly concern its business interests.

Nothing illustrates this better than the work of PRS Legislative Research, which Google has funded in the past. PRS produces policy briefings that are sent out to lawmakers and the media, including on internet governance. PRS hasn’t got a clearance to receive foreign funds since it became independent of the Centre for Policy Research in 2010, where it was launched, and has since then been largely funded by domestic sources.

Prashant Reddy, Blogger

“That an Indian user seeking arbitration
with Google has to do so in a California
court reeks of double standards.”

Does this growing network mean Google is having a say in shaping internet governance laws? Maybe yes. They should have a say by all means, just as other interested parties must get theirs. But given its influence and the certain opaqueness that marks its activities, some more transparency can only boost the credentials of a firm whose informal motto is—“Don’t be evil”. Google may have helped you find that bit of information from the googol tera bytes of online data but it has so far largely evaded discussion on how it has gone on to become big and influential in India.

But while it may have been forced to back out from funding PRS directly, Google’s web of research fellows in this country is growing. In August this year, the Asia Internet Coalition, of which Google is a founding member, selected its two inaugural India fellows—Shehla Rashid Shora and Astik Sinha, both of whom will analyse policies concerning the internet environment here. Sinha also happens to be a social media advisor for BJP MP Anurag Thakur.

So big that it hobnobs with Narendra Modi in the first of its Hangout series and, quite contrary to its espousal of free speech, has comfortable questions pitched to him. Or so influential that it has telecom minister Kapil Sibal, its bete noire from 2011 when his ministry was forcing them to pull down content, to attend the launch of chandnichowkonline.in, a business directory of Sibal’s constituency. Outlook made several attempts to get a reaction from Google but received none by the time this article had to go to the press.


Blurred lines Paid ads seem no different from search results for cameras

Google, since 2011, has also placed three fellows so far under its annual Google Public Policy Fellowship programme at the Bangalore-based Centre for Internet and Society (CIS). The research is supposed to focus on “access to knowledge, openness in India, freedom of expression, privacy, and telecom”. Yet another crucial funding in May 2013 went to the Centre for Communication Governance at the National Law University in New Delhi, which does research on areas directly linked to its business interests. The agreement contains a clause that says “Google will not be excluded from any future business opportunities”. Its research director Chinmayi Arun did not respond to Outlook’s e-mail and said she was too busy to speak when Outlook called her up.

A third institution Google has funded is the media watch website The Hoot. After the 26/11 attacks in Mumbai when the government hastily amended the IT Act, clamping down in a restrictive spirit, noted journalist and the website’s editor Sevanti Ninan was one of the many criticising the government publicly in her articles. Google, she says, contacted her somewhere around mid-2009 seeking a proposal on how they could help with what she was working on. Ninan sent one proposing a Free Speech Hub and received a grant of $22,000 in January 2010 (approximately Rs 10 lakh at 2010 exchange rates) from Google to do so. The hub is an online forum to track free speech violation and highlight problems surrounding freedom of speech and expression and regulation of media.

The commitment was renewed in February 2012 with another grant of Rs 42 lakh. Ninan says that while Google was “not interested in media ethics but free speech”, its approach was entirely “hands-off” to what the site could include on the hub. “I think it’s entirely up to the organisation being funded to decide how it handles a grant. At the same time, anything Google does should be under scrutiny just like other corporations.”

“More transparency
and accountability
can only be good,
both for Google and for the organisation
it funds.”
Anja Kovacs, Internet Democracy Project

So just as it is necessary to publicise that Shell has ties with the India chapter of Brookings Institution or that Reliance sponsors the Observer Research Foundation, it is important that people know where Google is putting its money and for what gains. In fact, more so in the case of Google, a firm that touches our lives in so many more ways that Shell or Reliance does. Yet, a lot of what Google has been doing has gone without adequate publicity and scrutiny. Should we be any less sceptical of Google funding research that helps formulate policies on internet governance than we should be of, let’s say, the Tatas and Jindals on mining? “Google has huge money and its funding of research can be a very contentious issue, especially if it seeks to influence research. Therefore, parties who swear by full disclosure and transparency must adhere to it,” says senior journalist Paranjoy Guha Thakurta. “More transparency and accountability can only be good, both for Google and the organisations it funds,” adds Anja Kovacs, who works with the Internet Democracy Project.


The great connector Hangout with Narendra Modi

But there has been little of that transparency online. For instance, the Rules and Regulations Review of The Information Technology Rules, 2011, put out and sent to MPs by PRS Legislative Research has no mention that an interested party (Google) has funded its work. Similarly, The Hoot has no mention of Google funding it on the ‘About the Hub’ page even though it has details of Google’s funding on the ‘Support The Hoot’ page. Google has also funded numerous ngos, in areas such as health and education, and has sought to promote the use of technology (often theirs, such as in the ongoing Google Impact Challenge Award).

“Because there is
no privacy
commissioner,
Indian citizens are
left vulnerable to
Google when it comes to
privacy.”
Sunil Abraham, CIS, Bangalore

This offline influence apart, Google’s hold online is worrying enough to call for action. The way it manipulates search results to favour clients of its AdSense programme is a global concern. For instance, a search for a popular phone model throws up matches of Google’s clients and features them more prominently than the actual site of the product. The Jaipur-based Consumer Unity and Trust Society (CUTS) conducted a survey that found most internet users could not tell an ad from an organic search result from Google. Says Madhav Dar, an independent anti-trust economist, “Given its financial clout and dominance of e-commerce, Google can directly deny traffic to downstream sites. And because the internet ecosystem is still in a formative stage here, this is something that requires intense and urgent scrutiny by the Competition Commission of India (CCI).”

CUTS filed a formal complaint with the CCI in June last year alleging anti-competitive practices and abuse of its dominant position. BharatMatrimony.com too filed a complaint with the CCI in 2012 accusing it of directing online users’ search for “Bharat+Matrimony” to its rivals.

For many, Google crossed the creepy line when it declared, in a court filing in August this year, that people sending e-mails to any of Google’s 425 million Gmail users need have no “reasonable expectation” that their communications are confidential. This is something that concerns Sunil Abraham, the executive director of CIS, which hosts Google fellows but has received no funding from the firm. “India has no omnibus horizontal statutes, neither sufficiently evolved vertical statutes in specific areas of telecommunication or the internet,” he says. “And because of that there is no office of the privacy commissioner in India and the absence of this regulator doesn’t tame the voracious appetite that Google has for personal information. This happens in other jurisdictions, but the Indian citizen is left vulnerable to Google when it comes to privacy.” “Part of Google’s practice can be absolutely abhorrent, such as the way in which it seeks to have a monopoly in digitising information and being the only one to organise it,” adds Kovacs.


Amitabh Bachchan Google maps his home at WEF in Davos

Another controversial move online has been the decision between Airtel and Google to allow the former’s subscribers free usage of Google’s service up to 1 GB. This has thrown up concerns of violation of “network neutrality”, a widely acknowledged concept that requires internet service providers to not discriminate against third party applications and service.

Journalist and blogger Shivam Vij, however, thinks concerns surrounding Google’s offline activities are misplaced. “As long as they keep coming out with transparency reports that show the majority of requests for user data and content removal are refused, I’d consider them an ally. One should be grateful that Google is funding to protect free speech and ashamed that Indian firms aren’t,” he says. “And if they really have been trying to influence MPs, they would have bribed them, not put out research.”

Nikhil Pahwa, who runs Medianama, a digital media news and analysis website, is another person who says “he won’t look a gift horse in the mouth”. “I don’t know what the motives are, but I support what they are doing, especially given the way the state and Indian firms are failing us when it comes to protecting free speech online,” he adds. The only concern he has about Google is regarding its reported unwillingness to agree to a deal between the Advertising Agencies Association of India (AAAI) and the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI). The deal seeks to ensure smaller online publishers and advertising networks are paid on time by advertisers, who, in most cases, delay payments to smaller entities but always pay bigger players like Google on time. “Smaller players are suffering due to delay in payments, which can extend up to a year, a problem that Google does not face. The IAMAI initiative is something that Google is unwilling to support because it does not impact them,” he adds.

"Anything that
Google does should
be under scrutiny
just like other corporations."
Sevanti Ninan, Editor, The Hoot


The outreach Sibal attends the launch of chandnichowkonline, a business directory of his constituency; Qutub Minar, digitised

Criticising or questioning some of Google’s policies does not amount to siding with the government on cracking down on free speech on the internet. Outlook ran a cover in December 2011 where it was severely critical of the government’s attempt to muzzle online dissent. Neither does concern about Google’s activities stem from a fear of the foreign hand. Its expansion into Indian civil society has to be seen as an attempt by a profits-driven corporation to ensure its market interests in India are protected. The country becomes all the more important given the trouble it has been having in Brazil and in Europe, where the firm has been slapped with a slew of anti-trust charges. Keeping a close watch will only help enforce Google’s policy in India—not crossing the creepy line.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/outlookindia-october-28-2013-debarshi-dasgupta-beyond-the-searchlight

Asian Video Cultures: In the Penumbra of the Global

praskrishna — 2013-11-20T09:35:13Z

Brown University organised the Asian Video Cultures event at the Granoff Center for the Creative Arts between October 24 and 26, 2013. Nishant Shah presented a paper titled “In Access: Approaches to Understand Digital and Online Video in Contemporary Asia”.

Read about the event on Asian Video Cultures website here.

Agenda

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 24, 2013 at 6pm (Martinos Auditorium, Granoff Center)
Screening and Q&A with director Paromita Vohra
Partners in Crime (2011) – http://www.parodevi.com/?p=323
*followed by reception

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 25 (Englander Studio, Granoff Center)

8:30-9am *Breakfast

9am Welcome – Bhaskar Sarkar

Session I: Infra-structures

9:15 Jenny Chio, “Video Documentary and Rural Public Culture in Ethnic China”

10:15 Chia-chi Wu, “Wei dianying and Xiao quexing— Technologies of ‘Small’ and Trans-Chinese Cinematic Practices”

Coffee Break

11:30 Patricia Zimmerman, “EngageMedia: The Gado Gado Tactics of Indonesia’s New Social Media”

Lunch 12:30-1:30pm (*for participants)

Session II: Circulation

1:30 Feng-Mei Heberer, “An Archive of Bad Feelings, a Site of Public Address – Experimental Video Works from Asian Germany”

2:30 Rahul Mukherjee and Abhigyan Singh, “MircoSD-ing ‘Mewati Videos’: Circulation and Regulation of a Subaltern-Popular Media Culture”

Coffee Break

3:45 Michelle Cho, “Cosmopolitics and Kpop Video Culture”

4:45-6:15pm Screening and Discussion with Paromita Vohra
Q2P (2006, 53 min) – http://www.parodevi.com/?p=254

7pm Dinner

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 26 (Englander Studio, Granoff Center)

8:30-9am Breakfast

Session III: Intimacies

9am Niranjan Sivakumar, “Minorigate: The Perils and Potentials of Global Cultural Circulation”

10am Conerly Casey, “Bollywood Banned, and the Electrifying Palmasutra: The Sensory Politics of Love and Pornography in Northern Nigeria”

Coffee Break

11:15am Nishant Shah, “In Access: Approaches to Understand Digital and Online Video in Contemporary Asia”

Lunch 12:15-1pm (*for participants)

Session IV: Occupation

1pm Mariam B. Lam, “Archival Trauma, Critical Regionalism and Southeast Asian Video Arts”

2pm Nathaniel Smith, “Vigilante Video: Japan’s New Netizens and the Wrongs of the Right”

Coffee Break

3:15pm Celina Hung, “Documenting ‘Immigrant Brides’: the Stakes of Multiculturalism in the Taiwanese Media”

4:30 Closing Roundtable: “In the Penumbra of the Global”

7pm Dinner

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/asian-video-cultures-october-24-26-2013

Bali meet to discuss Internet governance issues

praskrishna — 2013-10-23T08:29:23Z

Four-day event hosted by Internet Governance Forum to also discuss Internet access and diversity, privacy, security.

This article by Moulishree Srivastava was published in Livemint on October 22, 2013. Sunil Abraham is quoted.

Representatives of governments around the world, technology executives and activists will discuss issues such as Internet access and diversity, privacy, security, inter-governmental corporation, and Internet governance at a four-day event hosted by the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) that begins on Tuesday in Bali, Indonesia.

J. Satyanarayana, secretary, ministry of communications and information technology, confirmed India’s participation in the forum and said the country would be represented by Dr Govind, a senior director and head of department, e-infrastructure and Internet governance division, department of information technology.

“We will also be taking part in a working group on Internet governance and enhanced cooperation, which will be convened by the United Nations Commission on Science and Technology for Development in November,” said Satyanarayana.

“IGF is a valuable learning forum wherein different stakeholders can discuss Internet governance policy issues without any antagonism. Other fora for Internet policy like ICANN, WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization), ITU (International Telecommunication Union), etc., are places where international law and policy are developed, and do not allow for such learning because negotiations are always very acrimonious. Since IGF is only meant for learning, it does not directly address the global policy vacuum that exists for cyber crime, data protection and privacy,” said Sunil Abraham, executive director of Bangalore-based Centre for Internet and Society, who will be participating in the Bali event.

“Indian government, private sector, civil society, technical and academic community can become more competent and effective through such a dialogue in other multilateral and multi-stakeholder fora where international Internet standards, policies and laws are formulated. It also helps the stakeholders contribute to the development of internationally interoperable domestic policy,” he added.

In 2006, the UN secretary general established a small secretariat in Geneva to assist him in the convening of IGF. The first meeting was convened in October-November 2006 in Athens. In December 2010, IGF’s mandate was extended for five years.

In its eighth edition, IGF will have detailed discussions on issues such as free flow of information on the Internet, regulatory approaches to privacy, and protection of interests of individuals and communities in cyberspace, Internet surveillance and legal framework for cyber crime, said the forum in a statement on its website.

During the four-event, for instance, one of the workshops “will explore what core principles and strategies are needed to achieve a balanced and fair approach to data protection that is effective internationally and regionally”, according to IGF.

Some of the prominent speakers in the event include Jari Arkko, chairman, Internet Engineering Task Force, Finland; Virat Bhatia, president, South Asia, AT&T Inc.; Chris Painter, coordinator for cyber issues, US department of state; Karen Mulberry, policy adviser, Internet Society; and Matthew Shears, director of Internet policy and human rights, Center for Democracy and Technology.

According to industry estimates, over 2.5 billion Internet users interact in shared cross-border online spaces where they can post content potentially accessible worldwide.

“No clear frameworks exist yet to handle the tensions between these competing normative orders or values and enable peaceful cohabitation in cross-border cyberspace. This challenge constitutes a rare issue of common concern for all stakeholder groups,” said IGF on its website.

According to a UN estimate, nearly 40% of the world’s population will be online by the end of 2013. “The Internet has become an essential tool for the creation of jobs and the delivery of basic public services,” said the UN undersecretary-general for economic and social affairs, Wu Hungbo, in a statement, adding that it is also essential “for improving access to knowledge and education, for empowering women, for enhancing transparency, and for giving marginalized populations a voice in decision-making processes”.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/livemint-moulishree-srivastava-october-22-2013-bali-meet-to-discuss-internet-governance-issues

Indian politicians yet to tap voters online: CIS’s Abraham

praskrishna — 2013-10-23T05:31:34Z

Sunil Abraham talks about the role online media will play in forthcoming elections and the behaviour of online readers of news.

The interview (taken by Venkatesh Upadhyay) was published in Livemint on October 22, 2013.

Sunil Abraham, 40, is executive director of the Centre for Internet and Society, a not-for-profit research organization that works on issues related to freedom of expression and privacy. Abraham was in New Delhi to speak on the impact of media, social media and technology on governance and democracy, organized by the Observer Research Foundation together with the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung. On the sidelines of the conference, he talked about the role that online media will play in forthcoming elections as well the behaviour of online readers of news.

Edited excerpts from the interview:

How important will digital media be for the forthcoming elections?

I think the Internet in India is very different from, say, the one found in the US. So, our capacity to read from similar experience in their elections is limited. If you take the extensive exposure that the (Barack) Obama campaign had on the online space and the manner in which it supposedly helped the campaign, I don’t see that happening here.

Politicians and political parties very active on social media. You don’t think that will have an effect on elections?

I think the missing part of the equation till now is that there has not been any devising—to my knowledge—of targeting of voters through Facebook or Twitter. Our digital footprint leads to immense big-data opportunities, which I do not see politicians in India being able to exploit. Again, to give an example from the United States, there were certain instances there from where if you were member of a particular community, you could be targeted by political campaigns. Here, I don’t see that happening that easily.


Above: Sunil Abraham on the role of digital media in elections

So our politicians are wasting their time on social media?

Not entirely. In my view, one of the good things that the Internet does is that it has the capacity to democratize public opinion. One must also keep in mind that networks such as the ones available through social media are not homogenous. So nodes such as users who are opinion-makers and journalists are active on these networks, and so politicians can use these methods to reach out to more people.

Does the traditional media still have a role?
Of course. Traditional media is more likely to determine political outcomes in comparison to social media because most of the links that we see in social media are related to content that is created on traditional media. Now, of course, we can be sceptical of the role that traditional media plays in influencing the general mood of the country, but that is a different question.

Is there something peculiar about the manner in which readers interact with newspaper reports online?
I think one can usually see the comments section of some news sites littered with hurtful and hateful comments. So, some readers such as myself basically go through these comments to look at trolling and also sometimes for comic relief. But again, every news organization seems to be dealing with this differently. The Times of India, doesn’t, in my view, regulate its comments section. But one can see, say, in The Hindu, that readers’ comments are regulated and are usually very thoughtful.

Is there any particular reason why certain news readers respond the way they do?

Well, a part of the reason why people consuming news online comment and interact the way they do is that anonymity produces a level of freedom that allows people to be more brutal in their behaviour online.

At the same time, you can also see, in some instances, the chilling effects of surveillance, where people end up censuring their thoughts on issues. Of course, surveillance is not the answer. Societies need to deal with hateful threats on their own terms.

What will it take for politicians and public figures to get their message across, given the idiosyncrasies of the Indian digital media?
I think two components are crucial: trust and authenticity. For example, in the case of Wikipedia, there is an assumed amount of trust that the user has. The trust relationship between public figures who are active online and the public also is a two-way street. Politicians must also trust their common party members to use their social media presence as and when they want to. For example, why don’t they allow each and every member of the political party to man their Twitter handle for a day?

As for authenticity, the human mind can say whether an act by someone online is authentic or not.

Finally, what is your view on the role that larger Internet monopolies such as Facebook and Google are playing across the digital plane?

The Internet has also changed over the past 15 years. It used to be a decentralized network. Everybody was hopeful that it would have democratizing potential and, therefore, techno-utopianism was born. Now, it is increasingly clear that a small proportion of websites have 90% of the traffic and large corporations such as Google and Facebook play a significant role in configuring the attention economy. They are now also beginning to take this role very seriously themselves. In the case of Google, increasingly Google is using its power over the attention economy to play a role in the electoral process in India. They have been holding Google Hangouts and what they have been able to do is bring the public to the politicians.

Other concerns such as Facebook and Twitter through their walled-garden arrangements with telecom companies also play a similar role in configuring the attention economy. One is more innocuous—like the manner in which their algorithms are structured determining who shows up in their feeds.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/livemint-venkatesh-upadhyay-october-22-2013-indian-politicians-yet-to-tap-voters-online

कोंकणी विश्‍वकोश ‘विकिपीडिया’वर

praskrishna — 2013-10-23T05:11:54Z

News about digitalization of Konkani Vishwakosh, appeared in Navprabha daily on October 22, 2013 on front page.

Click to read the original published in Navprabha on October 22, 2013.

गोवा विद्यापीठाचा प्रकल्प असलेला कोंकणी विश्‍वकोश हा लवकरच विकिपीडिया या ऑनलाइन विश्‍वकोशावर संपूर्ण जगासाठी विनामूल्य उपलब्ध होणार आहे. कोंकणी विश्‍वकोशाच्या डिजिटलायझेशनची प्रक्रिया सुरू झाली असून ती येत्या दोन महिन्यात पूर्ण करण्याची योजना आहे.

क्रिएटिव्ह कॉमन्स लायसन्सखाली कोंकणी विश्‍वकोशाचे पुन:प्रकाशन करण्याचे हल्लीच गोवा विद्यापीठातर्फे जाहीर करण्यात आले होते. अशाप्रकारचा हा देशातील अनोखा प्रयोग ठरेल. यामुळे विश्‍वकोशाचा अभ्यासकांना अधिक मुक्तपणे वापर करता येईल. क्रिएटिव्ह कॉमन्स लायसन्सखाली मूळ मालकाला हक्क राखता येतातच पण वापरकर्त्यांनाही माहितीत भर टाकण्याची, ती अधिक विकसित करण्याची मुभा मिळते.

आता बंगळूरस्थित सीआयएस ही संस्था गोवा विद्यापीठाच्यावतीने कोंकणी विश्‍वकोशाचे चारही खंड डिजिटल माध्यमात परिवर्तीत करून विकिपीडियाद्वारे संपूर्ण विश्‍वात नेण्याचे काम करणार आहे. एकदा हा विश्‍वकोश डिजिटल होऊन विकिपीडिया या ऑनलाईन ज्ञानकोशावर गेल्यानंतर या विकिपीडियावर जगातील इतर भाषांप्रमाणेच कोंकणीतून ज्ञानात्मक मजकूर निर्माण करणे तसेच चटकन संदर्भ उपलब्ध करून देणे अधिक सोपे होणार आहे.

गोवा विद्यापीठासाठी डिजिटलायझेशनचे काम करत असलेल्या सेंटर फॉर इंटरनेट ऍन्ड सोसायटीच्या नितीका टंडन यांनी माहिती देताना सांगितले की, येत्या दोन महिन्यांत विश्‍वकोशाच्या चारही खंडांचे डिजिटलायझेशन पूर्ण करण्याची योजना आहे. त्यासाठी गोवा विद्यापीठातील कोंकणी विभागाच्या विद्यार्थ्यांची तसेच अन्य इच्छुकांची मदत घेतली जाणार आहे.

सीआयएस संस्था विकिपिडीयावर भारतीय भाषांतील मजकूर वाढविण्यासाठी काम करते, अशी माहितीही टंडन यांनी दिली. दिल्ली, पुणे, बेंगलोर येथे असे गट कार्यरत असल्याचे त्या म्हणाल्या. कोंकणी भाषेतून विकिपीडियावर फारच कमी मजकूर उपलब्ध असल्याचे त्यांनी सांगितले. तो वाढविण्यासाठी प्रयत्न करण्यात येत असल्याची माहिती त्यांनी दिली. त्यासाठी हल्लीच गोवा विद्यापीठाच्या कोंकणी विभागातील विद्यार्थ्यांना एक खास कार्यशाळाही घेण्यात आली होती. कोंकणी विश्‍वकोश एकुण चार छापील खंडांत असून या खंडांचे प्रकाशन गोवा विद्यापीठातर्फे ग्रंथरूपात १९९१,१९९७,१९९९ व २००० साली याप्रमाणे झाले होते. पहिल्या दोन खंडांचे संपादन मनोहरराय सरदेसाय यांनी तर खंड तीन व चारचे संपादन डॉ. तानाजी हळर्णकर यांनी केले होते. या चार छापील ग्रंथरूपातील खंडांची पृष्ठसंख्या ८६३, ९३४, ८२४ व १०११ अशी आहे.

दरम्यान, विकिपीडिया संकेतस्थळ हे इंटरनेटवर सर्वाधिक भेट दिले जाणारे चौथ्या क्रमांकाचे संकेतस्थळ आहे.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/navprabha-sameer-janty-october-22-2013-konkani-vishwakosh-wikipedia

Removing Barriers to Connectivity: Connecting the Unconnected

praskrishna — 2013-11-09T03:14:43Z

The workshop was organised by Internet Society and ETNO on October 23, 2013. Pranesh Prakash was a panelist.

Click to read the details on IGF website here

In the spirit of Paragraph 50 of the Tunis Agenda, our panel aims to highlight best practices that will help in “turning the digital divide into digital opportunity”, and will look at what can be done to promote broadband penetration and access to infrastructure. By forging better Internet governance environments through dialogue and interaction, stakeholders can work together to build better local infrastructure and more efficient deployment of infrastructure. Internet technical community experts, policy-makers, and development experts know well the challenges that exist in promoting deployment of Internet infrastructure. From public-works challenges to human capacity development, each country may have their own unique challenges. Provisions and policies must be put in place to ensure that broadband connections are developed, maintained and improved to sustain the rise in Internet traffic and particularly to accommodate the fast growth of video traffic. Against this backdrop, this workshop proposes to assemble a group of experts and practitioners to discuss observations from the field (practical examples and information) about how to help encourage connectivity and to “lift” barriers to connectivity. We also will identify barriers for investment faced by the private sector and tries to define ways to improve the policy landscape and identify a sustainable economic model to foster private investment. We plan to do this by identifying connectivity challenges and by identifying best practices for working with all stakeholders to manage those challenges. The developing country perspective will be reflected, and the workshop will specifically address what is needed in practical terms to connect the unconnected – eg low-cost devices, open systems and public / private partnerships. Workshop participants will engage the audience to encourage a dialogue that seeks feed-back from participants. An output of the workshop would be a collaborative “living” list of best practices and observations identified during the workshop that can serve as a baseline to be added to given national and local dynamics.

Panelists

Raj Singh, Internet Society, Male, Technical Community, SINGAPORE, Asia-Pacific Group
Martin Levy, Hurricane Electric, Male, Private Sector, UNITED STATES, Western Europe and Others Group - WEOG
Christoph Steck, Telefonica, S.A., Male, Private Sector, SPAIN, Western Europe and Others Group - WEOG
Jennifer Haroon, Google, Female, Private Sector, UNITED STATES, Western Europe and Others Group - WEOG
Simon Milner, Facebook, Male, Private Sector, UNITED KINGDOM, Western Europe and Others Group - WEOG
Pranesh Prakash, Centre for Internet & Society India, Male, Civil Society, INDIA, Asia-Pacific Group

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/igf-2013-removing-barriers-to-connectivity

OSOD 2013: International Workshop on Open Science and Open Data

praskrishna — 2013-10-22T11:02:49Z

Nehaa Chaudhari was a panelist at the International Workshop on Open Science and Open Data, 2013, held on October 07, 2013 at the Indian Statistical Institute. She gave a presentation on "Government Copyright and the Open Access Conundrum"

Parts of this presentation draw from Pranesh Prakash's views on Government Copyright. Special thanks to Bhairav Acharya for his valuable inputs and feedback.

Documentation Research and Training Centre, Indian Statistical Institute along with Creative Commons USA held this workshop. The main objective of this workshop was to bring together international experts, practitioners and advocates of Open Access to information to discuss and contemplate on key issues contributing to Open Science. The workshop also aimed to serve as a platform for institutions, academicians, scientists and researchers interested in Open Science to exchange thoughts and processes 'How To' create Open content within legal framework.

Key Speakers

Puneet Kishor (Policy Coordinator for Science and Data, Creative Commons)
ARD Prasad (DRTC, Indian Statistical Institute, India)
Devika P. Madalli (DRTC, Indian Statistical Institute, India)
Giridhar Manepalli (CNRI, USA)
Usha Munshi (Indian Institute of Public Administartion, India)
Subbiah Arunachalam (Information Scientist, India)
Sridhar Parishetty (Centre for Inclusive Governance, Bangalore)
Nehaa Chaudhari (Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore)
R. Prabhakar (India Biodiversity Portal, Bangalore)
Nisha Thompson (Arghyam)
Yashas Shetty (Srishti, Centre For Experimental Media Arts, Bangalore)

Read the agenda here
Download Nehaa's presentation titled Government Accessibility and Copyright Conundrum here

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/international-workshop-open-science-and-open-data