Centre for Internet and Society

Issue of duplication of identities of users under control: Nilekani

praskrishna — 2013-07-02T10:13:10Z

Nandan Nilekani says UIDAI system almost completely accurate, duplication of identities virtually negligible.

The article by Anirban Sen was published in Livemint on June 29, 2013. Sunil Abraham is quoted.

The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) chief Nandan Nilekani said the government agency was in preliminary discussions with some embassies to use the Aadhaar project to simplify visa application procedures and that the issue of duplication of identities of users was well under control.

In March, a UIDAI spokesperson told Mint that it had detected 34,015 cases where one person had been issued two Aadhaar numbers. The figures represented a little over 0.01% of the 290 million people who had been enrolled at the time.

Nilekani, who was delivering a keynote address at a three-day conference on the success and failures of information technology (IT) in the public and private sector at the Indian Institute of Management in Bangalore, said the UIDAI system was almost completely accurate and duplication of identities was virtually negligible.

“Knowing what we know now, we believe we have accuracy of upto 99.99%,” said Nilekani, chairman of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI).

Nilekani, on Saturday, assured that the project was completely secure and user data and biometrics were safe in the hands of the agencies it works with and brushed aside any concerns on security of user data that have been widely raised by Internet security groups and activists.

“We’re not giving any access to data, except when it is resident authorized. It is shared only when a resident participates in a transaction and authorizes the data which is shared,” said Nilekani, who was one of the seven co-founders of India’s second largest software exporter Infosys Ltd. He served as CEO of Infosys from 2002 to 2007.

“The system is also not open to the internet—the system has rings of authentications of service agencies. There are lots of concentric rings of security,” he added. “The biometric data is not used except for enrolment, re-duplication and authentication.”

Internet rights groups and activists such as Sunil Abraham of the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), a research thinktank that focuses on issues of Internet governance, have often raised concerns over UID’s overtly broad scope and privacy issues in the project.

“We don’t need Aadhaar because we already have a much more robust identity management and authentication system based on digital signatures that has a proven track record of working at a “billions-of-users” scale on the Internet with reasonable security. The Unique Identification (UID) project based on the so-called “infallibility of biometrics” is deeply flawed in design. These design disasters waiting to happen cannot be permanently thwarted by band-aid policies,” Abraham wrote in a blog post on the CIS website last year.

Nilekani also acknowledged that the department had faced several challenges, due to the sheer scale of the project that aims to cover the country’s entire population of 1.2 billion.

“We have had lots of challenges on this project—we have backlogs of enrolment because we have more packets than we can process, we backlogs of letter deliveries because we cannot handle so many letters…but fundamentally notwithstanding those challenges, we believe we are on the right track,” said Nilekani.

Both UIDAI and the census department under the National Population Register project are recording biometric data, which includes fingerprint and iris data. Even though both the agencies reached a truce after a cabinet decision in January 2012 and were allowed to co-exist, there have been several reports of duplication between the two agencies in biometric collection.

UIDAI is not just being used as the main platform for rolling out the government’s direct cash transfer scheme, but is also being regarded as an important authentication scheme for financial transactions and other security measures.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/livemint-anirban-sen-june-29-2013-issue-of-duplication-of-identities-of-users-under-control

The Pervert in the Cubicle: Of Pornographers, Pirates and Terrorists: A Talk by Nishant Shah

praskrishna — 2013-08-28T10:10:34Z

Dr. Nishant Shah was a speaker at the 2013 Annenberg - Oxford Media Policy Summer Institute organized by Center for Global Communication Studies at the Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania and the Programme for Comparative Media Law and Policy at the University of Oxford from June 24 to July 5, 2013 at the University of Oxford.

Click to read the schedule published by the University of Oxford

The Center for Global Communication Studies at the Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania and the Programme for Comparative Media Law and Policy at the University of Oxford (PCMLP) are pleased to invite applications to the 15th annual Annenberg-Oxford Media Policy Summer Institute, to be held from Monday, June 24 to Friday, July 5, 2013 at the University of Oxford.

For the past fifteen years, the Annenberg- Oxford Media Policy Summer Institute has brought together researchers, academics, and practitioners for two weeks of scholarship on a range of media issues. A partnership between the Center for Global Communication Studies at the Annenberg School, University of Pennsylvania and the Programme for Comparative Media Law and Policy at the University of Oxford, the program brings together a diverse range of participants from across the world.

The annual summer institute brings together young scholars and regulators for two weeks to discuss important recent trends in technology, international politics and development and its influence on media policy. Participants come from around the world; countries represented at previous summer institutes include Myanmar, Bosnia and Herzegonia, Iran, Kenya, China, Brazil, Egypt, Nigeria, Jordan, Italy, Iran, Colombia, El Salvador, among others.

This year the summer institute seeks, as part of the cohort, researchers and academics (PhD candidates and early career academics, for example), who will come with a research project related to the general subject of the seminar. We welcome applications from emerging scholars and practitioners working on topics such as media and democracy, public service broadcasting, Internet policy and politics, monitoring and evaluation of media development programs, the media’s role in conflict and post-conflict environments, strategic communications, as well as other topics. For full application instructions please visit our Frequently Asked Questions page . The application is available here. Please note, applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis until April 1, 2013.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/annenberg-oxford-media-policy-summer-institute

Privacy Round Table, Kolkata

praskrishna — 2013-07-10T06:11:59Z

The Centre for Internet and Society, the Federation for Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, and the Data Security Council of India cordially invite you to attend the "Privacy Round Table" in Kolkata on July 13, 2013, 10.30 a.m. to 4.00 p.m., to discuss the "Report of the Group of Experts on Privacy" by the Justice A.P. Shah Committee, the text of the "Citizen's Privacy (Protection) Bill, 2013, drafted by the Centre for Internet and Society, and "Strengthening Privacy Protection through Co-Regulation" by DSCI.

Reijo Aarino, Data Protection Ombudsman of Finland will be the featured guest for this event. The discussions and recommendations from the meeting will be published into a compilation, and presented at the Internet Governance meeting planned for October 2013.

Click below to download the documents:

Draft Agenda

Time	Detail
10.30	Introduction to privacy frameworks for India: The Draft 2011 Right to Privacy Bill, the Report of the Group of Experts on Privacy, and Strengthening Privacy Protection through Co-regulation.
11.30	Overview, explanation, and discussion: The Privacy Protection Bill 2013
13.00	Lunch
14.00	Open Discussion: Reijo Aarnio, Data Protection Ombudsman of Finland
16.15	Tea

Please send your confirmations for attending the Kolkata Roundtable Privacy on July 13, 2013, to Maria Xynou at maria@cis-india.org

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/events/privacy-round-table-kolkata

Privacy Round Table Kolkata

praskrishna — 2013-07-10T06:08:35Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/privacy-round-table-kolkata.pdf

A Treat for the Blind

praskrishna — 2013-07-11T06:02:27Z

The WIPO treaty will provide copyright exceptions on books making them available to blind people in formats they can use.

The article by Chitra Narayanan was published in Business World on June 26, 2013. Pranesh Prakash is quoted.

For millions of visually impaired people around the globe, it’s a landmark treaty that could open up the kingdom of books for them. After days of intense deliberations at Marrakesh in Morrocco, about 600 World Intellectual Property Organisation (Wipo) negotiators, including delegates from India, reached a consensus on a treaty that will provide copyright exceptions on books making them available to blind people in formats they can use.

Wipo, a United Nations agency, is dedicated to the use of intellectual property as a means of stimulating innovation and creativity. The agency has 186 member states.

Sure, content is king. But for the visually impaired, the right platform for accessing content is what makes the difference. Thanks to audio books, a host of apps, and digital platforms such as Bookshare, which provides content in accessible formats, the technology is already there to bring the rich world of 'hardcovers' and 'paperbacks' alive for those who cannot see. What’s more, these books are compatible with all kinds of devices from mobile phones to tablets to PCs.

Now, at last, there is legal sanction as well to content that was not being made available in accessible formats by the copyrights holders. For the 15 million people who are blind in India, the treaty is expected to open education doors as well as provide entertainment needs. India has the world’s largest number of blind people.

Bangalore-based Centre for Internet Society, a policy research organisation, has been at the forefront of negotiations at WIPO to get the treaty through. Minutes after the session concluded, Pranesh Prakash, policy Director at CIS and his colleague Sunil Abraham were tweeting ecstatically about the “win”.

For five long years, this Wipo treaty has witnessed contentious discussions on issues such as including exports of copyrighted works, translations of copyrighted works and so on. According to Prakash, who responded over twitter, “On Exports we won, but re-exports which was earlier permitted has become much more difficult.”

There are also other grainy areas such as commercial availability of the books. According to a post on the Intellectual Property Watch website, soon after the agreement was reached, commercial availability still stands under Article 4 (National Law Limitations and Exceptions on Accessible Format Copies) but has disappeared from Article 5 (cross border exchange of accessible format copies).

Although blind music legend Stevie Wonder, one of the most ardent supporters of the treaty, must be crooning Signed, Sealed, Delivered... it’s early days yet. The draft of the treaty has to be ratified by governments before being adopted.

But for five long years, it has been a long hard battle between copyright owners and those fighting for human rights of the visually impaired. Finally, as one observer, put it: 'a rare victory is in sight for human rights'.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/business-world-june-26-2013-chitra-narayanan-a-treat-for-the-blind

Indian govt blocks 40 smut sites, forgets to give reason

praskrishna — 2013-07-01T09:04:26Z

Don't mind us, we're just censoring your content for you...

The article by Phil Muncaster was published in "The Register" on June 27, 2013. Sunil Abraham is quoted.

The Indian government has ordered ISPs to block 39 smut flick web sites hosted outside the country without giving any explanation, stoking further fears of online censorship by the back door.

Most of the sites are web forums and so allow for the uploading of naughty images and URLs where smut-seekers can download their grumble flicks, according to Times of India.

However, the sites claim to operate under the 18 USC 2257 rule, meaning actors are (supposedly) over 18 years of age, and there is apparently no indication from the Department of Telecom's order why ISPs are being asked to comply.

The message greeting web users who try to visit a blocked site now reads as follows:

This website has been blocked until further notice either pursuant to court orders or on the directions issued by the Department of Telecommunications.

While the law, updated in 2011, does forbid production, transmission and sharing of smutty content in India - therefore requiring internet cafes, for example, to block such content - there is no ban on consumption, especially from sites hosted outside India.

Sunil Abraham, director of Indian not-for-profit the Centre for Internet and Society, told ToI that the government is probably interpreting the law to serve its own ends, and that its ISP order “is a clear overreach”.

The Union government has certainly been quick in the past to order blocks on any content deemed inappropriate.

Facebook and Google were forced to remove “objectionable content” from their Indian sites last year after complaints it was offensive to Muslims, Hindus and Christians.

The government was also one of many across the globe to force Google to block notorious YouTube video Innocence of Muslims.

A controversial anti-piracy ruling last June, meanwhile, led to a clumsy, large-scale block on a number of legitimate sites in the country – drawing the ire of hacktivist group Anonymous.

The government also closed hundreds of sites and social media accounts in August last year in a bid to prevent the escalation of sectarian violence across the country.

In fact, the number of content removal requests received by Google increased by 90 per cent from July-December 2012 compared with the previous six months.

For these reasons, India only enjoys “Partly Free” status, according to the Freedom on the Net 2012 report from not-for-profit Freedom House.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/the-register-phil-muncaster-june-27-2013-indian-govt-blocks-40-smut-sites-forgets-to-give-reason

Pervasive Technologies: Patent Pools

praskrishna — 2013-06-27T07:16:31Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/pervasive-technologies-patent-pools.pdf

Data Security Laws in India and Data Protection

praskrishna — 2013-06-27T02:50:44Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/data-security-laws-india.pdf

Govt goes after porn, makes ISPs ban sites

praskrishna — 2013-07-01T10:11:29Z

The government has decided to put a blanket ban on several websites that allow users to share pornographic content.

The article by Javed Anwer was published in the Times of India on June 26, 2013. Sunil Abraham is quoted.

In an order dated June 13, department of telecom (DoT) has directed internet service providers (ISPs) to block 39 websites. Most of them are web forums, where internet users share images and URLs to download pornographic files. But some of these websites are also image hosts and file hosts, mostly used to store and share files that are non-pornographic.

While watching or distributing child pornography is illegal in India, watching adult pornography is not banned. The blocked websites are hosted outside India and claim to operate under the 18 USC 2257 rule enforced by the US. The rule specifies that producers of pornographic material are required to retain records showing performers were over 18 years of age at the time of video or image shoot.

The DoT order doesn't specify any reason or law under which the websites have been blocked. It says, "It has been decided to immediately block the access to the following URLs... you are accordingly directed to immediately block the access to above URLs."

If a user visits the blocked website, he/she is either shown a blank page or a message telling "this website has been blocked until further notice either pursuant to court orders or on the directions issued by the Department of Telecommunications".

A senior DoT official, who pleaded anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the media, said the department was just following the orders issued by cyber security coordination committee and hence could not talk about the specific reasons behind the block.

Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), a Bangalore-based organization, says blocking of pornographic website is overreach on the part of the government.

"In the case of file hosts and image hosts, which people use for various purposes including for storing personal files, the DoT order is a clear overreach," said Sunil Abraham, director of CIS. "Even in the case of pornography, there is nothing in the IT Act that can be used to block websites hosted outside in India."

He added, "There is a possibility that government is interpreting some sections of the IT Act to suit its purpose but I feel that is wrong and should be challenged in the court by ISPs if they care about the rights of their users."

Rajesh Chharia, president of Internet Service Providers Association of India, said that it was not possible for ISPs to pushback orders from DoT. "We are the licensee and we have to operate under the laws... we can't pushback," he said.

"But I feel ideally the government should ask the people who have produced objectionable content to remove it from the web if these people are in India... If they are outside, the websites should be blocked at the international cable landing stations. Involving 150-odd ISPs to implement an order is not the right way to do it," added Chharia.

Though IT Act doesn't criminalize watching porn, the new rules notified in 2011 have certain provisions that show the government wants to dictate what people watch or do not watch on the web. For example, the rules ask an intermediary like an ISP to "inform users of computer resources not to host, display, upload, modify, publish, and transmit any information that is obscene and pornographic".

The rules meant for cyber cafe owners specify that they "shall display a board, clearly visible to the users, prohibiting them from viewing pornographic sites as well as copying or downloading information which is prohibited under the law".

Abraham says that going after pornographic websites, and that too in a non-transparent manner, serves no purpose.

"I have travelled to China and Middle East and have seen that people access pornographic websites using various web tools. In fact, by banning websites the governments have made it more alluring for users to watch and access pornography," he said. None of the western democracies have explicit ban on pornography.

Abraham added that Indian government should also be more transparent about blocking websites because the current method was prone to abuse. "They should notify owner of the blocked website, clearly tell web users why a website is getting blocked and tell public how many websites they have blocked."

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/times-of-india-javed-anwer-june-26-2013-govt-goes-after-porn-makes-isps-ban-sites

Cyber experts suggest using open source software to protect privacy

praskrishna — 2013-07-03T04:32:48Z

Big Brother is watching. With the Central Monitoring System (CMS) at home and PRISM from the US, millions of users worldwide have become vulnerable to online surveillance by state agencies without even realizing it. No surprise, several cyber security experts feel that building one's own personal firewall is a good way of fortifying online privacy.

The article by Kim Arora was published in the Times of India on June 22, 2013. Sunil Abraham is quoted.

One enterprising netizen has compiled a list of services, from social networks to email clients, and even web browsers, that offer better protection from surveillance. They are listed on a web page called prism-break.org.

When asked about steps that a digital native can take to protect his privacy and online data, Sunil Abraham, executive director of Bangalore-based non-profit Center for Internet and Society said, "Stop using proprietary software, shift to free/open source software for your operating system and applications on your computer and phone. Android is not sufficiently free; shift to CyanogenMod. Encrypt all sensitive Internet traffic and email using software like TOR and GNU Privacy Guard. Use community based infrastructure such as Open Street Maps and Wikipedia. Opt for alternatives to mainstream services. For example, replace Google Search with DuckDuckGo."

Use of licensed or proprietary software, which bind users legally when it comes to use and distribution, seems to be losing favour among an informed niche. While alternative software cannot offer absolute protection, it is being seen as a "better-than-nothing" option. Anonymisers like TOR, though also not entirely foolproof, are also a popular option among those who wish to keep their web usage untraceable. Once installed on a browser, anonymisers can hide the route that digital traffic takes when sent from your computer over a network before emerging at an end node.

There is one caveat, though. Some websites can deny service to users operating on certain anonymising networks. Also, anonymisers are known to reduce browsing speeds. In India, where broadband speeds are already abysmally low, anything that slows one down even further would find popularity hard to come by.

Computer and network security expert Aseem Jakhar too recommends open source software since they offer the convenience of customization to suit one's encryption needs and are able to verify the source code. For laypersons, there are other tools. "One can use anonymisers like TOR which encrypt your communication and hide your identity. With these it becomes very difficult to exactly locate the source. For email clients, it is best to use ones that offer end-to-end strong encryption," he says. Jakhar, co-founder of open security community "null", also recommends the use of customized and Linux systems for more advanced users. Default Linux distributions, he points out, may have free online services which can again be analysed by the governments.

The home-bred CMS programme seeks to directly procure data pertaining to call records and internet usage for intelligence purposes without going through telecom service providers. There were fears of abuse when information about the programme, kept under strict wraps by the government, trickled in. Department of Telecom and Ministry of IT and Communication have been reticent about the state of implementation of the 400-crore rupees programme.

PRISM, a similar, international monitoring programme mounted by the US and revealed to the world by the US National Security Authority whistleblower Edward Snowden, has raised concerns of safeguarding digital information the world over.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/times-of-india-june-22-2013-kim-arora-cyber-experts-suggest-open-source-software-to-protect-privacy

Wiki donors

praskrishna — 2013-07-01T04:19:13Z

Time Out finds out what Wikipedia’s doing to turn the info mammoth Kannada friendly

The article by Akhila Seetharaman was published in TimeOut Bengaluru on June 21, 2013. T. Vishnu Vardhan and Dr. U.B. Pavanaja are quoted.

Some Wikipedia numbers: Two hundred and eighty-six languages, 42 lakh articles in English. 2.6 crore articles totally. One lakh articles in Hindi, 50,000 in Telugu and Tamil each. Forty thousand in Marathi; 30,000 in Malayalam; 14,000 articles in Kannada. Number of Kannada Wikipedia contributors: 25. Kannadaspeaking population: 47 million. “That’s half a person working to build this public knowledge repository for every million Kannada speakers,” said Vishnu Vardhan, who directs the Access for Knowledge programme in India, a programme that is anchored by the Centre for Internet and Society. “While Hindi Wikipedia gets 60 lakhs page views per month, Kannada gets nine lakh eyeballs monthly.”

Vardhan and his team do outreach programmes, training college studentsin Karnataka on Wikipedia and encouraging them to contribute to its growing body of knowledge in Kannada. So far they’ve had 16 programmes and reached out to 2,500 people. Vardhan admits that there’s a mixed response. “It’s not a labour of love for everyone. Some people are excited to contribute, others feel it’s too much work.”

But he believes it’s important to get across the main message: that Wikipedia is a public knowledge infrastructure for the future. “In our minds libraries, books, newspapers, archives are knowledge repositories,” he said. “But the book is a relatively recent phenomenon, only about a hundred years old. And now everything is becoming the Internet. What is going to happen to our language or culture in the digital era?” Vardhan explains to people that this is the gap they could be filling by taking part in Indian language Wikipedia.

On the agenda for the coming year is growing the content in five Indian language Wikipedias, including Kannada. It’s a gargantuan task. Nobody gets paid to write on Wikipedia and there are technical challenges: you need browser support, Kannada fonts, and most keyboard layouts are in English. But as Vardhan says the Kannada font can be downloaded for free.

But free knowledge communities in each language have to overcome hurdles if there’s to be a valuable repository of knowledge for the public in Indian languages. “We are all netizens. We are all educated, metro people. We’re comfortable accessing the Internet but how many of us use it in our own language? Do we type in Kannada or write in Kannada? While access to knowledge happens in English there is still a large population that does its business in Kannada,” he said. Visit kn.wikipedia.org.

Tech’s messages
UB Pavanaja was among the first eggheads to take Kannada content online. Time Out spoke to him about the city’s lingo

Could you tell us about a little about yourself?
I worked as a scientist at Bhabha Atomic Research Center (BARC) in Mumbai for 15 years before getting into the emerging field of computers and Indian languages. I started the first Kannada website, and the first Kannada online magazine. I also created the first Indian language version (Kannada) of Logo software, a popular programming language for children and advised the Government of Karnataka on standarising Kannada on computers. I now work with the Centre for Internet and Society as part of the Access to Knowledge team.

How has Kannada changed in the past two decades?
There have been lots of changes. It is mostly Kanglish now, no more Kannada. Most people have replaced common Kannada words like “appa”, “amma”, “anna”, “akka”, “chikkappa”, “atte”, with dad, mom, bro, sis, uncle, aunty. Nobody uses Kannada numbers. Go to any shop and the shopkeeper will give you the price in English and not in Kannada. Even the display boards in shops are now in English. Common vegetables and fruits names are now displayed in English. I don’t know the names of common vegetables and fruits in English so I can’t rely on the boards for information. I either know the vegetable by looking at it or I don’t. If the price board is moved slightly, then I won’t know the price of the vegetable. For example, in Reliance Fresh, they write “coccinea” for our common vegetable which we know as “tondekaayi”. Let them write coccinea in English script. But why do they write that in Kannada script?

How have information and communication technologies influenced Kannada language over the years? About ten or 15 years ago when developments in IT were rapid, the implementation of Kannada in IT was not keeping pace with time. Hence people thought it was not possible to use Kannada in IT. But that has changed now. Whatever is possible with English in IT is now possible with Kannada also. But people lack awareness and willingness to adopt it. Wherever there is computerisation, it is automatically in English and not Kannada. For, example, the online booking of tickets by KSRTC is in English only. Technically it is now possible to develop a data-driven website in Kannada. But KSRTC is not willing to do so.

Any Kannada lingo that didn’t exist two decades?
There are many. Some samples: “message maadu”, “delete maadu”, “missed call kodu”, “update maadu”, “copy maadu”. Most of them are derived from using technology.

What have been the biggest influences on the Kannada language in recent times?
Mobile phones, smart phones, FM radio, TV channels, and movies.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/timeout-bengaluru-akhila-seetharaman-june-21-2013-wiki-donors

Audit Report (2010-11)

praskrishna — 2013-06-20T11:48:08Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/audit-report-2010-11.pdf

Annual Report (2012-13)

praskrishna — 2014-10-22T00:04:39Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/annual-report-2012-13.pdf

Girls in ICT Day 2013 — Nirmita Narasimhan Felicitated

praskrishna — 2013-06-20T05:35:54Z

The ITU-APT Foundation of India with support from CMAI - Association of India Communication and Infrastructure organized the "Girls in ICT Day" to pay tribute to the contribution of young women in ICT in India on May 7, 2013 at FICCI Auditorium, Tansen Marg, New Delhi.

Nirmita Narasimhan got a felicitation on this event.

Anil Prakash, Secretary General, ITU-APT Foundation of India wrote a 'thank you' letter to Nirmita for participating in this event. The text of the letter by Anil Prakash is reproduced below:

Thank You for attending the Girls in ICT day 2013
Dear Ms. Narasimhan,
On behalf of ITU-APT Foundation of India and CMAI, I take this opportunity to thank you for your precious time and for participating in the panel discussion at the "Girls in ICT Day 2013", held on 7th May 2013 at FICCI Auditorium, Tansen Marg, New Delhi. Your thoughtful deliberation on the subject was well appreciated and encouraged by the participants. The opening address by...Rita Teaotia, Addl, Secretary, DoT and concluding address by ... Eun-Ju Kim, Regional Director, ITU Regional Office in Asia Pacific had added a great significance to the programme.

The programme was a great success and over 150 participants including international dignitaries, ambassadors, ministers from foreign countries, students, young professionals, civil society & government representatives and the industry acknowledged the awards given to young girls who have contributed in the development of ICT and made a difference with their untiring enthusiasm, determination and working against all odds to make a difference.

The success of the programme has encouraged us largely as this was the first time the event was celebrated in India and henceforth we plan to celebrate it on an annual basis and pay our tribute to the young women achievers in the field of ICT.

We once again thank you for your valuable contribution and look forward to your continued support in future.

Thanking You,
Anil Prakash
Secretary General
ITU-APT Foundation of India
Suite 115, Gagandeep, 12 Rajendra Place
New Delhi-110008
Tel. +91-11-2575 7128

Below is a group picture of participants at the Girls in ICT event in Delhi. The winners are seen holding on to their certificates.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/girls-in-ict-day-2013-in-delhi

Opportunities for TV White Spaces in India Workshop

praskrishna — 2013-09-18T04:51:11Z

Shyam Ponappa, a fellow at the Centre for Internet and Society is participating in a workshop on TV White Space. The workshop is being organized by the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay and sponsored by the Ford Foundation at the Royal Hotel Plaza in New Delhi on June 21, 2013.

See the original published by the Indian Institute of Technology website here

About the Workshop

This workshop will discuss the regulatory aspects of TV white space with a focus on Indian requirements. We believe that making the most efficient use of the TV white space spectrum will offer tremendous benefits to the low-income broadband users in India. It will also provide opportunities to the academia and indigenous industries for research and development, thereby creating intellectual property related to methods feasible for TV white space spectrum usage and access in India.

The workshop is intended for researchers, policy makers, and industry professionals working in the area of TV white spaces. The discussions will provide exposure to the TV white space applications and regulations across the world. The regulatory framework for TV white space present elsewhere in the world will be in focus, and we will provide suggestions for the same in India. This workshop may sow the seeds of developing a regulatory framework for TV white space operation in India.

The program consists of an overview of the TV white space regulations and standards from different countries around the world, and a discussion on the TV white space regulations necessary for the Indian context.

Time	Details
09:30 10:00	Inauguration and Introduction
10:00 10:30	WhiteSpace Applications, Regulations and Technologies, Dr. Apurva Mody, White Space Alliance
10:30 11:00	Tea Break
11:00 11:30	Geo-location Database – U.S. TV White Spaces and Beyond John Malyar, iConnective
11:30 12:00	TV White Space Detection and Spectrum Characterization in India, Prof. Vinay Ribeiro (IIT Delhi) and Prof. Animesh Kumar (IIT Bombay). Based on collective work done at IIT Delhi and IIT Bombay
12:00 12:30	White Space Opportunities in South India Prof. Zafar Ali Khan, IIT Hyderabad
12:30 14:00	Lunch
14:00 14:30	Enabling the Global Spectrum Village, Jeffery Yan, Microsoft
14:30 15:00	TI solutions for TV white space Jose Frangline, Texas Instruments
15:00 16:00	Panel Discussion
16:00 16:30	Tea Break
16:30 17:00	Regulations of Ofcom, Dr. Reza Karimi, Technical Policy Director, Ofcom
17:00 17:30	Regualtions of FCC, Dr. Julius Knapp, Chief, Office of Engineering and Technology, FCC

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/iitb-june-21-2013-opportunities-for-tv-white-spaces-in-india-workshop