Centre for Internet and Society

The War for India's Internet

praskrishna — 2012-06-14T09:12:34Z

Why is the world's biggest democracy cracking down on Facebook and Google? Rebecca Mackinnon's article was published in Foreign Policy on June 6, 2012.

"65 years since your independence," a new battle for freedom is under way in India -- according to a YouTube video uploaded by an Indian member of Anonymous, the global "hacktivist" movement. With popular websites like Vimeo.com blocked across India by court order, the video calls for action: "Fight for your rights. Fight for India." Over the past several weeks, the group has launched distributed denial-of-service attacks against websites belonging to Internet service providers, government departments, India's Supreme Court, and two political parties.

Street protests are being planned for this coming Saturday, June 9, in as many as 18 cities to protest laws and other government actions that a growing number of Indian Internet users believe have violated their right to free expression and privacy online. A lively national Internet freedom movement has grown rapidly across India since the beginning of this year. The most colorful highlight so far was a seven-day Gandhian hunger strike, otherwise known as a "freedom fast," held in early May on a New Delhi sidewalk by political cartoonist Aseem Trivedi and activist-journalist Alok Dixit. Trivedi's website was shut down this year in response to a police complaint by a Mumbai-based advocate who alleged that some of Trivedi's works "ridicule the Indian Parliament, the national emblem, and the national flag."

Escalating political and legal battles over Internet regulation in India are the latest front in a global struggle for online freedom -- not only in countries like China and Iran where the Internet is heavily censored and monitored by autocratic regimes, but also in democracies where the political motivations for control are much more complicated. Democratically elected governments all over the world are failing to find the right balance between demands from constituents to fight crime, control hate speech, keep children safe, and protect intellectual property, and their duty to ensure and respect all citizens' rights to free expression and privacy. Popular online movements -- many of them globally interconnected -- are arising in response to these failures.

Only about 10 percent of India's population uses the web, making it unlikely that Internet freedom will be a decisive ballot-box issue anytime soon. Yet activists are determined to punish New Delhi's "humorless babus," as one columnist recently called India's censorious politicians and bureaucrats, in the country's media. Grassroots organizers are bringing a new generation of white-collar protesters to the streets to defend the right to use a technology that remains alien to the majority of India's people.

The trouble started with the 2008 passage of the Information Technology (Amendment) Act, whose Section 69 empowers the government to direct any Internet service to block, intercept, monitor, or decrypt any information through any computer resource. Company officials who fail to comply with government requests can face fines and up to seven years in jail. Then, in April 2011, the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology issued new rules under which Internet companies are expected to remove within 36 hours any content that regulators designate as "grossly harmful," "harassing," or "ethnically objectionable" -- designations that are open to a wide variety of interpretations and that free speech advocates argue have opened the door to abuse. It is thanks to these rules that the website of the hunger-striking cartoonist, Trivedi, was taken offline. Also thanks to the 2011 rules, Facebook and Google are facing trial for having failed to remove objectionable content. If found guilty, the companies could face fines, and executives could be sentenced to jail time.

Saturday's protesters are calling for annulment of the 2011 rules and the repeal of part of the 2008 act. They are also calling for Internet service companies to reverse the wholesale blocking of hundreds of websites, including the file-sharing services isoHunt and The Pirate Bay, as well as the video-sharing site Vimeo and Pastebin, which is primarily used for the sharing of text and links. Internet service providers were responding to a court order from the Madras High Court demanding the blockage, which is aimed at preventing the online distribution of pirated versions of one particular film. The Internet companies, fearing that they would not be able to catch every individual instance on every possible site they host, instead chose to block entire services along with all of their content -- which had nothing to do with the film in question.

Such "John Doe" orders, named because they are directed against unknown potential offenders in the present and future, are characterized "by their overly broad and sweeping nature," argue lawyer Lawrence Liang and researcher Achal Prabhala, which extends "to a range of non-infringing activities as well, thus catching a whole range of legal acts in their net." More broadly, as Delhi-based journalist Shivam Vij wrote in a recent essay: "The current mechanisms of internet censorship in India -- blocking, direct removal requests to websites, intermediary rules -- are draconian and unconstitutional. They need to be replaced with a new set of rules that are fair, transparent and accessible for public scrutiny. They should not be amenable to misuse by the powers-that-be for their own private interests."

Not only are the rules abused, but researchers find that they are causing extralegal censorship by companies that overcompensate in order to err on the side of caution. Last year, the Bangalore-based Centre for Internet and Society performed an experiment in which it sent "legally flawed" takedown demands to seven companies that provide a range of online services, including search, online shopping, and news with user-generated comments. The legal flaws in the notices were such that the companies could have rejected them without being in breach of the law. Yet "of the 7 intermediaries to which takedown notices were sent, 6 intermediaries over-complied with the notices, despite the apparent flaws in them," reads the Centre for Internet and Society report.

Despite the growing public opposition, a motion to annul the 2011 rules was defeated by voice vote in the upper house of Parliament last month. Yet the criticism was sufficiently sharp that Communications Minister Kapil Sibal announced that he will hold consultations with all members of Parliament, representatives of industry, and other "stakeholders" to discuss the law's problems and how it might be revised. Many of the law's critics, however, are skeptical that this will eliminate the law's deep flaws and loopholes for abuse, especially given the government's failure to listen so far. Comments on the 2011 rules submitted last year by the Centre for Internet and Society were not even acknowledged as having been received by the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology. "Sibal uses the excuse of national security and hate speech," says the center's director, Sunil Abraham, "but that is not what is happening."

Abraham worries that what is really happening is a government effort at Internet "behavior modification" through a process akin to an experiment involving caged monkeys, bananas, and ice water. Put four monkeys in a cage and hang a bunch of bananas on the ceiling. Every time one of them climbs up to reach the bananas, you drench all of them with ice water. Soon enough, the monkeys will start policing themselves -- attacking anybody who tries to reach the bananas, making it unnecessary for their masters to deploy the ice water. "This is why the government is being so aggressive so early on, with only 10 percent of India's population online," says Abraham. "If you start the drenching early on, by the time you get to 50 percent [Internet penetration], every one will be well-behaved monkeys." Companies will act as private Internet police for fear of legal punishment before the government is called upon to step in and enforce the law. If it works, Indian politicians could have fewer reasons to worry about online critiques or mockery, because companies fearing prosecution will proactively delete speech that could potentially be designated "harassing" or "grossly harmful."

India is not China or Iran, however. Its politicians may be corrupt, and most of its voters may not understand why Internet freedom matters because they've never used the Internet. But it still has an independent press and boisterous civil society that are not going to give up their critiques and protests anytime soon. India also has a strong, independent judiciary, with a record of ruling against censorship and surveillance measures when a strong case can be made that they conflict with constitutional protections of individual rights. "On free speech I have high faith in the Indian judiciary," says Abraham. "There is a good chance to launch a constitutional challenge."

If Google and Facebook lose at their impending trial -- now scheduled for July -- they will most certainly appeal, which activists hope could provide just such an opportunity to prevent the sort of "behavior modification" process that Abraham warns against. Now India's burgeoning Internet freedom movement needs its own reverse "behavior modification" strategy -- imposing consistent and regular doses of political and legal ice water upon India's bureaucrats, politicians, and companies whenever they do things that threaten to corrode the rights of India's Internet users. Saturday's protest is just the beginning.

Sunil Abraham is quoted in this article. Read the original here

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/war-of-india-internet

Meeting of the two Sub-Groups on Privacy Issues under the Chairmanship of Justice AP Shah in Delhi

praskrishna — 2012-06-14T08:31:39Z

The next meeting of the two Sub-Groups on privacy issues under the Chairmanship of Justice A.P. Shah, former Chief Justice of Delhi High Court is scheduled to be held on June 27, 2012 at 11.00 a.m. in the Committee Room No. 228, Yojana Bhawan, Planning Commission.

Members of both the Sub-Groups are requested to send their final write-ups as decided in the last meeting, by June 20, 2012 so that those could be circulated to all concerned for obtaining feedback and for discussions/ deliberations on June 27, 2012.

Shri S. Bose, Under Secretary (CIT & I) communicated this through notice No. M-13040/47/2011-CIT&I.

The notice was e-mailed to the following individuals:

Justice A.P.Shah, Chairman
Dr. Kamlesh Bajaj
Usha Ramanathan
Sunil Abraham
Prashant Reddy
Prof. Arghya Sengupta
Som Mittal
Shri Gulshan Rai
Mala Dutt

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/meeting-of-two-sub-groups-in-delhi

Internet opens doors to trillions more Net addresses with IPv6

praskrishna — 2012-06-14T05:12:25Z

The global Internet industry reached a key milestone on June 6 when a group of Web sites, Internet service providers (ISPs) and router manufacturers banded together to participate in the World IPv6 Launch.

This blog post by Aaron Tan was published in techgoondu. Nishant Shah is quoted in this.

Google, Facebook and Yahoo have flipped the switch to the new Internet addressing system, while ISPs such as Japan’s KDDI and India’s HNS will permanently enable IPv6 for a significant portion of their residential wireline subscribers. Home networking equipment manufacturers will also turn on IPv6 by default in home router products.

The World IPv6 Launch was organised by the Internet Society as part of its mission to ensure that the Internet remains open and accessible for everyone, including five billion people who have yet to connect to the Internet.

“The support of IPv6 from these thousands of organizations delivers a critical message to the world: IPv6 is not just a ‘nice to have’; it is ready for business today and will very soon be a ‘must have’,” said Leslie Daigle, chief Internet technology officer of Internet Society in a statement Wednesday.

Last April, Asia-Pacific became the first region in the world to run out of IPv4 addresses. Europe will deplete its allocation of IPv4 addresses later this year, followed by the U.S. in 2013, and Latin America and Africa in 2014. With IPv6, the Internet can now support over 340 trillion, trillion, trillion addresses compared with 4.3 billion addresses for IPv4.

“Understanding the importance of IPv6, some governments in Asia Pacific have committed to enable IPv6 in their internal networks with set deadlines and, given that they run such large networks, having them on IPv6 is a big step in itself,” said Rajnesh Singh, regional director of the Internet Society’s Asia-Pacific bureau.

The Singapore Government, for instance, has spearheaded an initiative to make e-government services accessible via IPv6. The Infocomm Development Authority (IDA) has also started an IPv6 transition programme that offers grants and information for companies that intend to implement IPv6 on their networks.

With the launch of IPv6, consumers can expect to see applications and services that take advantage of IPv6′s features. Microsoft’s upcoming Windows 8 operating system will also favour IPv6 connectivity over IPv4.

According to Nishant Shah, research director at the Bangalore-based Centre for Internet and Society, IPv6 has an in-built security protocol called IPSec, which authenticates and secures all IP data. The data carrying capacity of IPv6 networks is also going to be higher.

“This means that more devices with more features will be able to work seamlessly through these networks. Despite the larger load of information, IPv6 packets are easier to handle and route, just like postcards with pincodes in their addresses are easier to deliver than those without”, Shah said in a joint statement with Tata Communications.

As an example, every aspect of the Beijing Olympics – from security surveillance to managing vehicles and media coverage – was done over IPv6. “The Chinese government, in fact, has already launched a ‘China Next Generation Internet’ project to build IPv6 networks which are going to radically change the face of high-speed internet in the country,” Shah revealed.

With all these benefits, why does IPv6 only command two percent of the world’s Internet traffic? Shah offers two clear reasons:

The first one is that of costs and infrastructure. The IPv6 platforms do not communicate easily with the IPv4 networks. We have the choice of a mammoth transition of all IPv4 websites and networks to new IPv6 protocols. This idea of abandoning IPv4 and moving to a new protocol is not only redundant; it is also futile, because IPv4 is already running the largest network in human history quite efficiently.

What we need are translators which will be able to speak to both the different versions and help our devices work through them seamlessly. Older, more successful technologies have been able to do this. So, television, for instance, whether it receives terrestrial data, satellite images or data transferred via cable, is able to translate and render them into images and sounds which we can consume with ease. However, the translators for the IPv4 – IPv6 are still expensive and we need more resources diverted towards making them affordable.

The second reason is linked to the first. In order for IPv6 to become popular, it needs a minimum threshold of service providers and users riding that network. As long as the deployment remains nascent, there will be no concentrated energy to actually try and make the bridges between versions 4 and 6. While global technology organisations like Tata Communications are ready for the transition, we are going to need a systemic change among all stakeholders to make IPv6 a reality, towards a faster, safer and more robust Internet.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/internet-opens-doors-to-trillions-more-net-addresses

Biz moving to IPv6 but lower costs, support needed

praskrishna — 2012-06-14T05:01:34Z

Organisations such as Cisco Systems, Equinix and Singapore Internet Exchange are all gearing up for migration to IPv6 in time for the World IPv6 Launch day slated on Jun. 6,which involved everything from redesigning their backend infrastructure to assessing their systems’ readiness.

Published in intellasia.net on June 8, 2012

However, one industry player noted that the costs and effort in doing so is one key reason why more companies are not making the transition.

Cisco, for one, told ZDNet Asia that is had been preparing for the migration on Wednesday since the test run was conducted last year. Joshua Soh, managing director for Cisco Singapore and Brunei, pointed out that switching IPv6 on permanently demanded a certain level of production quality and this required a lengthy preparation time.

The first step was to work on its backend IT architecture and design, Soh revealed, adding that their primary goals were to leverage network infrastructure already in place to avoid spending on parallel networks, as well as to ensure production quality and ability to maintain overall service levels.

To meet these goals, the networking giant redesigned their data centre based on the reverse proxy model, in which the proxy server retrieves resources from the server to deliver to a client before returning these resources to the original server.

It also used its Application Control Engine (ACE) load-balancing platform to configure incoming IPv6 sessions to be proxied to the IPv4 tier so that the network will be dual-stacked to include existing ISP (Internet service provider) connections, the managing director explained.

The Singapore Internet Exchange did likewise. According to Yeo See Kiat, its sales and marketing director, the organisation enabled dual-stack networks on their servers for public-facing services, which would enable it to obtain IPv6 streams and turn on the service permanently.

“Meet in the middle” saves cost

Another company making a similar transition to the new Web protocol is Equinix. Its director of network engineering & operations for the Asia-Pacific office, Raphael Ho, told ZDNet Asia that the migration would require existing networks to be upgraded and expanded to support the additional bandwidth and power.

This is especially so for facilities such as the company’s International Business Exchange (IBX) data centers where the volume of interconnection is consistently high, he added.

In order to facilitate the switch, the company used its IPv6 Exchange to simplify the process for its networks to enhance traffic within an IPv6 environment, Ho stated. The central switching capability also helped create a “unicast” peering virtual local area network (LAN).

This “meet in the middle” approach helped reduce costs as it enabled its servers to more efficiently establish IPv6 peering, he explained.

Assess systems’ readiness

Cisco’s Soh noted that after the redesigning of the data centre is complete, the company performed an assessment to determine if existing devices in its demilitarised zone (DMZ) and datacenter networks were capable of supporting the new protocol. It also enhanced its network management systems to support network, devices and application monitoring over IPv6, he added.

At this late stage, the company is conducting system-level testing and quality assurance engineers are going about the functional and performance checks, the executive pointed out. Its last test will be a practice run in which it will switch on the IPv6 service for a few hours to make sure everything works fine, including the content delivery network and ISP services, he said.

Beyond the technical preparations, it also put together a training programme to ensure employees, from the frontline to the network engineers, were equipped with knowledge of the new protocol and skills appropriate for their roles, the executive stated.

No impetus for change

The amount of time and costs reflected in these companies’ migration efforts were cited as one of the main reasons why there are not more companies considering making the switch.

According to a statement issued by Tata Communications and India-based centre for Internet and Society on Wednesday, costs and infrastructure as well as having a minimum number of service providers and users utilising the network were identified as the two main impediments for IPv6 adoption.

One the first obstacle, they said: “IPv6 platforms do not communicate easily with IPv4 networks. This idea of abandoning IPv4 and moving to a new protocol is not only redundant, it is also futile because IPv4 is already running the largest network in human history quite efficiently.”

To make the transition more palatable, they believed “translators”, or technologies able to “speak” in both protocols, are needed. However, these translators are still expensive and there is a need to divert more resources to make these technologies more affordable, the statement noted.

As for the second reason, both Tata and the centre for Internet and Society stated that as long as the deployment of IPv6 remains nascent, there will be no concentrated energy to bridge both protocol versions.

“We are going to need a systemic change among all stakeholders to make IPv6 a reality, toward a faster, safer and more robust Internet,” they said.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/biz-moving-to-ip-v-6

An Interview with Nishant Shah

praskrishna — 2012-07-06T05:05:36Z

Jamillah Knowles from BBC Radio interviewed Nishant Shah about Indian Internet issues.

"I think what we need to do is perhaps say that there is something happening with the internet in India and then maybe we can move on to figuring out what is happening to the anonymous because we had a series of challenges on freedom of speech and expression and online space in the country. Just around the end of 2011, the Information and Broadcasting Minister was summoning social networks like Facebook and MySpace and Google and asking for a regime of pre-censorship so that everything you and I write from what we had to breakfast to which lunch and video we like the most ... that all the info needs to be first reviewed by somebody to make sure that it doesn't commute the larger moral thinkabilities of the nation."

Listen to the full interview here

Originally published by Outriders, a BBC Radio 5 live's programme dedicated to exploring the frontiers of the Web.

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

Govt websites to get new addresses

praskrishna — 2012-06-11T03:27:19Z

The government today said by December all its websites would switch over to IPv6 — the next generation Web standard that enables the creation of trillions of new Internet addresses and provides higher levels of security.

Click to read the original published by the Telegraph on June 7, 2012. Nishant Shah is quoted.

Internet protocol version 6 (IPv6) went live across the globe today, with leading online giants, including Google, Facebook, Yahoo! and Microsoft (Bing), introducing the new standard on their products and services.

Experts said Internet users would not feel any impact because of the shift.

At present, websites run on IPv4, a 27 year-old standard that allows just over four billion unique IP addresses, which are the sequence of numbers used to identify a device.

Each Internet-enabled device — computer, tablet or smartphone — needs its own IP address to connect to the Internet. However, because of the shortage of addresses, many devices have to share them, limiting the ability of the security agencies to track the exact device involved in a security breach.

Networking giant Cisco has predicted that 18.9 billion devices will be online by 2016.

Switching to IPv6 will ensure a unique IP address for each device.

“IPv6 is designed to handle security issues better... All government websites will be IPv6-compatible by December. For the country as a whole, the road map for transitioning to IPv6 is by 2020,” telecom secretary R. Chandrashekhar said.

Internet traffic that moves over to the new protocol is encrypted. Systems in IPv6 ensure that the traffic gets to the correct destination without being intercepted, analysts said.

To ensure a smooth transition and avert an abrupt disruption, both systems (IPv4 and IPv6) will work simultaneously for the next few years.

“The future of our connected networks is IPv6. Not only is it more efficient and faster than IPv4, which we are currently working with, it is also more reliable and secure,” said Nishant Shah, director (research) at the Bangalore-based Centre for Internet and Society.

India has 35 million IPv4 addresses against a data user base of about 360 million.

In addition, with the government targeting 160 million and 600 million broadband customers by the year 2017 and 2020, respectively, the need to move to IPv6 becomes more crucial. Moreover, there is a strong security requirement to provide unique IP address to each individual user.

The IT department has taken various steps, including organising workshops, to encourage state governments to hold pilot projects.

Twenty-seven government websites have been brought under IPv6 platform.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/govt-websites-to-get-new-addresses

Anonymous India’s Takedowns Could Be Counterproductive

praskrishna — 2012-06-18T06:05:13Z

Nikhil Pahwa's blog post was published in Medianama on June 6, 2012.

As I write this, Anonymous India has apparently taken down MTNL’s website, citing the ISPs decision to block sites, without apparently being quite aware why it is doing that. Last night, the collective claimed to have taken down the website of the ISPAI, India’s ISP Association. Last Saturday, there were discussions on the groups IRC to take down the website for the Ministry of Company Affairs. So far, it has taken down websites for the Andhra Pradesh Power Generation Corporation Limited, All Indian Trinamool Congress (AITMC), as well as several websites related to the Mizoram government, apart from accessing and publishing server logs from Reliance Communications.

Anonymous India’s activities do help: they increase awareness of India’s war on the Internet, both by the government through legislation and censorship, and by movie producers and copyright owners through takedown notices and John Doe orders. There still remain citizens online who aren’t aware of why they aren’t able to access legitimate content – last night, someone from the books publishing industry asked me why she wasn’t able to access the video in this post on ‘Designing for the Future Book‘ on her Airtel connection. The video is hosted on Vimeo, which remains blocked in India. Now she knows why.

Anonymous India has also shed light on what all is being blocked by sharing what are allegedly Reliance Communications’ logs on blocks. These logs suggest that ISPs were going beyond the mandate given to them by the courts and the government. It’s also clear that ISPs aren’t protecting the rights of their customers, and are implementing blocks either in a ham-handed manner, or in a manner that suits them or their related companies. They are as much to blame as those getting the orders issued, and so there is undoubtedly some schadenfreude in seeing both government and ISP websites taken down by Anonymous India.

Still, you have to wonder about how the powers that be will react to this situation: no government will show that it is bucking under what it perceives to be cyber terrorism: it’s not just an ego thing; there is also a legitimate fear that if the government is seen as buckling under such attacks, it would lead to cyber attacks whenever there is something that warrants a protest. The attacks by Anonymous could be counterproductive for two other reasons: firstly, because the natural reaction to any kind of attack is to increase spending and changes in laws. While India is already spending on surveillance and identification, cyberattacks will justify these spends, make the case for more, and lead to more changes in government policy.

The second reason is that these attacks could lead to the undoing of a lot of work done by activists for Internet freedom. The Software Freedom Law Center, Centre For Internet and Society, Avaaz, Change.org, The Internet Democracy Project, and many many others have spent many months reaching out to and educating parliamentarians and the lawmakers of the country on issues related to the draconian IT Rules. The IT Rules have resulted in websites and ISPs censoring content online when they have been send unfair and flawed takedown notices, and they need to be changed. The cyberattacks could once again be used by the Home Ministry and those at CERT-IN to justify continuing with such draconian rules, and especially since many MP’s are not aware of the nuances of the potential for misuse; some MPs (I’ve observed) appear to be choosing to be on the fence on this, either on account of lack of interest or lack of depth of understanding.

Activities that bring more information on the blocks to light help strengthen the case for more specificity in court orders by highlighting misuse by copyright owners and ISPs, and also for modification in the IT Rules. Taking down sites weakens it.

Click to read the original here

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/anonymous-indias-takedowns-could-be-counterproductive

Watch out for cyber bullies

praskrishna — 2012-06-05T06:08:19Z

It's time to take a closer look at this form of cyber crime in India, writes KV Kurmanath in an article published in the Hindu Business Line on June 4, 2012.

The suicide of Tyler Clementi, the 18-year-old New Jersey student in 2010, had triggered a strong debate on invasion of privacy in the cyber age.

His roommate, an Indian student, captured the boy kissing another man in their hostel using his web camera.

The boy jumped into a river unable to take the humiliation, when the former tried to circulate the clip. Though the court refused to link the recording with the death, it sentenced the Indian youth to 30 days in prison last month.

What Clementi was subjected to is cyber bullying, argued those who campaigned for the Indian student's deportation.

Along with other cyber crimes, cyber bullying is on the rise in India too. The fledgling cyber police wings in different states are being flooded with complaints of invasion of privacy, blackmail and circulating electronic messages that cause annoyance.

Ms Aparna (name changed) was aghast when a close friend called her up about a nude picture of her being circulated on the web. A quick check pointed the needle of suspicion at a friend who she had just spurned. Angered by her rejection, the boy morphed her picture, checked into her email account and sent it to all the people in the contact list.

After finding Facebook not so amusing, Sujatha (name changed) decided to close her account and discussed this with a few friends too. A few days later, she found both her FB and gmail accounts compromised. She also found obscene pictures posted on the same.

Legal Issues

Incidents like these are growing sharply with poor knowledge among users abut how to protect accounts. Sharing one's passwords with others too is proving dangerous.

Prof. Madabhushi Sridhar, a cyber laws expert at NALSAR University, says the crimes cited above come under the bracket of invasion of privacy.

He says Section 66A in the amended IT Act deals with these crimes. Sending any message (through a computer or a communication device) that is grossly offensive or has menacing character; any communication which he knows to be false, but for the purpose of causing insult, annoyance, criminal intimidation comes under this section. This crime, he says, is punishable up to three years with a fine.

Prof. Sridhar, who has just completed a book on cyber laws, feels that punishments under the IT Act are insufficient. "They should be read with the Indian Penal Code. This will be an effective method to check cyber crimes," he says.

Prof. Sridhar also represents the Institute of Global Internet Governance and Advocacy (GIGA) at the Law University. GIGA conducts research on the Internet and takes up advocacy and training programmes on Internet Governance.

"We already have anti-voyeurism provisions in the IT Act under Sec. 66E," Mr Sunil Abraham, Executive Director of Centre for Internet and Security, says.

This offence is punishable with ‘imprisonment which may extend to three years or with fine not exceeding two lakh rupees, or with both.'

Repeated harassment aka cyber bullying can be addressed using the already over-broad provisions under Sec. 66A. Unfortunately this Section goes too far and can be used to censor legitimate speech.

"Security and privacy awareness in India is very poor. It would be very useful if both the government and civil society was more aggressive in awareness raising and triggering change in behaviour. Unfortunately this is a bit like smoking - even though people are aware of the issues - they engage in risky behaviour online," he says.

Lack of Data

Mr.Pavan Duggal, Chairman of Cyber Law Committee and Cyber laws expert, said there is no specific data on cyber crime in India and the data available with the NCRB (National Crimes Records Bureau) of around 900 cases for overall cybercrime is also doubtful.

"The solution is to make cyber laws more strict as current law under IT Act 2000 is a bailable offence with three years imprisonment and a fine," he points out.

"IT Act 2000 has to be re-amended to specific provisions pertaining to cyber bullying. Further, cyber bullying needs to be made a serious offence with minimum five years imprisonment and a fine of Rs 10 lakh. Unless you have deterrence in law it will be a continuing offence," he observes.

Fortunately, there are some safeguards which can help prevent such acts of cyber offences. In most cases, the acts of bullying or blackmailing are done by someone close to the victims. People should make it a point to keep their Internet identities very safe.

One should not disclose their identities such as passwords or hint questions to anyone – no matter how close they are. Parents should keep an eye on their children who are addicted to the Internet. They should inform and educate their children on the clear and present dangers that lurk on the Net.

They should also teach the importance of respecting others' privacy apart from taking precautions to keep their private space very safe.

(with inputs from Ronendra Singh)

Click to read the original published in the Hindu Business Line. Sunil Abraham is qouted in this article.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/watch-out-for-cyber-bullies

Scared by a spoof? You’ve got to be kidding me!

praskrishna — 2012-06-05T05:24:09Z

Whether it is Mamata Banerjee's recent crackdown on a comic strip or the new legal guidelines that allow touchy readers to have objectionable content taken down, what you say online is under scrutiny. What, then, will happen to news satire websites?

The article by Dhamini Ratnam was published in the Times of India on June 3, 2012

"Meri site www.cartoonsagainstcorruption.com kabse band ho chuki hai (...) Humara sabse bada hathiyar humse chheena ja raha hai (...) Aaj chup rahe toh phir bolne ke liye zubaan bhi nahin bachegi." (My site www.cartoonsagainstcorruption.com has been shut down (...) Our biggest weapon is being taken away from us (...) If we remain silent, we won't be left with anything to articulate with").

That's the first thing you read on Kanpur-based blogger Aseem Trivedi's new site, www.cartoonsagainstcorruption.blogspot.in, on which he transferred all his satirical cartoons earlier this year, after he found that his website had been arbitrarily blocked based on a complaint lodged with the Mumbai Crime Branch last December.

In May, Trivedi went on a hunger strike. His point was simple. The police had no right to have his website taken down, under the Information Technology (Amendment) Act 2008, or even under the new Information Technology (intermediary guidelines) Rules, 2011. These rules came into effect last April, and give 36 hours to the intermediary (read Internet Service Provider) to take down content deemed 'objectionable'.

At the face of it, this may seem like a handing over of power to Internet users. But what does this hold out for news satire websites that routinely critique public figures, spoof politics and play an important role in raising public awareness through humour?

For one, in a surprising move, the editors are giving up being anonymous. Says Rahul Roushan, editor, Faking News, "I began this site under the pseudonym Pagal Patrakar in 2008. By the end of 2009, I didn't want to remain anonymous anymore."

Roushan, who is based in Gurgaon, felt readers weren't taking him seriously. "Unless there's a face to such sites, people will think you're spreading lies," says the 33-year-old former television news anchor. Yet, coming out wasn't a cakewalk. "A post I wrote about on the anti-people policy of Mr Thackeray received a comment that I am a Bihari, and therefore against Marathi manoos. Had he not known my name, the reader would never have written such a comment," says Roushan.

Yet, Roushan would rather have his readers - his blog gets 10 lakh page views a month - trust his judgement.

However, recent events, including Pashimbanga Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's crackdown on a comic strip, and Union human resource development, communications and IT minister Kapil Sibal's suggestion to Internet giants to "regulate themselves" has left Roushan and other news satire website editors wary.The new IT guidelines, fears Roushan, will create an army of self-righteous people with "a lot of hurt sentiments".

"I'm scared of sentiments," he says, wryly.

T S Sudhir, editor of Tenali Rama Reports, a news spoof site that was started in September 2011, feels the trick to safeguard against such "sentiments" is to maintain a rigorous editorial policy. "No obscene, lewd or toilet humour," says the Hyderabadbased former journalist.

The recent fracas over Mamata's 'Maoist' concerns, for instance, elicited a light-hearted piece that said all dosa-eaters are Maoists, because 'mao' in Tamil means 'batter'. "India has a long-standing political tradition of satire, and readers are used to political cartoons with biting humour."

Mangalore-based political cartoonist Satish Acharya, however, has faced the brunt for his biting humour. In September 2011, a Mumbai Crime Branch officer asked him to take down a cartoon depicting Sharad Pawar in a red gown that Acharya had posted on his blog, after it was published in a Mumbaibased tabloid. "In political cartoons, what is the yardstick to measure what is objectionable," asks Acharya. "Can a policeman decide whether a political cartoon is objectionable and have it taken down?"

Programme manager at The Centre for Internet and Society, Bengaluru, Pranesh Prakash has a one word reply: No. Together with his teammates, Prakash is working on a set of guidelines that counters the Intermediary Rules and offers checks and balances without trampling on fundamental rights. For instance, says Prakash, after a complaint is made, the content owner - say the website editor, or cartoonist - should be allowed to reply. If the problem persists, the complainant can go to court.

If cartoons are an effective vehicle of critique online, so are videos. The UnReal Times, run by New Delhi-based IIM graduates C S Krishna and Karthik Laxman, shot to online fame last year after they released a video depicting the Prime Minister as Singham, the heroic character played by Ajay Devgn in a film.

"The best sort of satire," says Krishna, "is when you can't prove in the court of law that the piece is insulting." Krishna and Laxman, who do policy research work for BJP MP Uday Singh, insist that they are not card-holders for the party, and have taken pot-shots at the BJP, too. "Since political satire focuses on mocking the establishment, the UPA government is the subject of most our (satirical) pieces on politics," says Krishna. Tanay Sukumar, editor of News That Matters Not, feels that the content should be directed at a problematic policy, not person. Engineering students Sukumar and Sugandha, who founded the site in 2009, feel that a satirist needs to distinguish between what is necessary and what isn't. "Portraying a political figure using sexual innuendo might be funny for several readers, but would be "unnecessary" in most cases. Our job is to to critique governance." In the case of a crackdown, however, they are clear about what they'd do: they'll take down the 'offending' piece, and then write about having done so. "We will not offend them; we will wear them out," they say.

Want to start a news satire website? here's how:

Have a disclaimer page. Apologise in advance for "hurt sentiments", offer readers a chance to get in touch with you directly for redressal, explain why you're using satire as a tool to critique. If your ISP is asked to remove content, the current IT guidelines are such that they would need to obey. However, since the law doesn't require ISPs to keep track of content that has been removed, make noise about it. There'll be enough people online who will fight for your freedom of expression. Study satire - it's an effective tool - but learn to distinguish it from slander and falsehood. Keep the post grounded in a real event or phenomenon. Critique the agenda, not the person. Consult an IT lawyer if you are in doubt about a piece. It's always good to know your legal argument beforehand.

Pranesh Prakash is quoted in this article.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/scared-by-a-spoof

Protest@ censorship.com

praskrishna — 2012-06-05T04:23:19Z

Activism goes online as more angry young citizens decide to make their voices heard, writes Sandhya Soman in an article published in the Times of India. Pranesh Prakash is quoted in the article.

If there was a software code to ‘Invite All’, then Ashish D and friends would’ve called the world to land up at Gateway of India on June 9. The next best option for this netizen from Mumbai was to go online.

Hacktivism –– a form of activism for social change that uses computers and electronic networks –– is back. And the most recent protest is from hacker group Anonymous, which is trying to gather public support to stem internet censorship and blocking of websites in India by service providers and the government recently.

Since showing up in front of the town hall is not enough, Ashish has set up a Facebook page. Fellow netizens, irritated by the arbitrary blocking of sites and impressed by Anonymous OpIndia’s jabs at websites of political parties and corporates, are signing up to discuss the best possible venues to protest from.

Is there a better place than Marina beach in Chennai to make the maximum impact, wonders one user while another says it would be better to split up to cover more area in Mumbai. According to Pranesh Prakash, lawyer and programme manager at The Centre for Internet and Society, a Bangalore-based research organisation, a strong online presence helps protests to get publicity. A lot of the Jan Lokpal agitation happened online, he says.

“It is not enough to fast at Jantar Mantar. If you get 1,000 people to click ‘like’ or 40 people to retweet your tweet, then the site becomes the default area of protest,” he says. If those petitioners are 10 influential people, then it carries more weight with the media than a few hundred shouting slogans on the street.

“Also called electronic civil disobedience, hacktivism is geared to political ends,” writes Pramod K Nayar in his book ‘An Introduction to New Media and Cybercultures.’ Virtual sit-ins involving intellectuals and ordinary citizens and bombarding authorities with emails have been used by Mexican revolutionaries, Tamil separatists and protesters in Iran and the Middle East. “Hacktivism is clearly here to stay,” writes Nayar.

But it is not enough to collect a few digital signatures, says Nithin Manayath, one of the people behind the 2009 ‘Pink Chaddi’ campaign, which sought to protest in an irreverent manner the attacks against women by the radical Sri Ram Sena. Manayath and his friends sustained the campaign through a Facebook group, which saw thousands of pairs of pink underwear being sent to the office of the group that attacked women for what it considered ‘violations of Indian culture’.

“Marches, candlelight vigils and dharnas are something we do regularly. By the tenth dharna you will be so jaded that you go to the protest venue to meet friends,” says Manayath. After a while, this happens to online petitions also if you are not thinking about what you are doing. “What I liked about the ‘Pink Chaddi’ campaign was that we were responding to violence with a shameless act. It made me aware about many things and the novelty of the protest resonated with many people,” he says.

Though the current campaign is going the offline way on June 9, the hacking and denial of service attacks on websites by Anonymous have ensured that issue of blocking got publicity. “There is corporate and private censorship of internet and it is being done without enough proof of who is violating the copyrights of moviemakers. If these protests create awareness about the larger issues and developments in the areas of e-governance, IT Act and copyright law, then they could be helpful,” says Pranesh Prakash.

Meanwhile, Anonymous OpIndia, which is hoping for lifting of ban on websites, is already getting feelers from eager citizens on future issues. “Many people have requested us to protest other issues such gasoline price hike,” says a member. “And we always tell them that there are no strict rules, they can protest as per their needs.”

NET ANGST

Through Facebook, the ‘Pink Chaddi’ campaign of 2009 encouraged women to send undergarments to Sri Ram Sena. The right-wing group had attacked women for ‘violations of Indian culture’

Jan Lokpal campaign in 2011 had support from various online forums. They sent petitions to political parties and inundated a government website with e-mails.

Following the blocking of websites due to a court order to prevent copyright violations.

Anonymous OpIndia targeted government and corporate websites. It is mobilising people for protests in nearly 11 cities on June 9.

Read the original here

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/protest-at-censorship

India’s telecom success story turns sour

praskrishna — 2012-06-04T05:14:28Z

Over the past decade, the number of cellphones in India shot up from 6.5 million to 900 million, a prime example of how an industry could exploit the vast consumer market here to achieve breathtaking rates of growth and, in the process, help transform the country.

The article by Simon Denyer was published in the Washington Post on June 1, 2012. Shyam Ponappa is quoted in the article.

But that success story is starting to turn sour as a combination of greed, corruption and incompetence threatens to arrest that growth. Instead of being an advertisement for India’s economic potential, the telecom story has become an example for foreign investors of the perils of doing business here.

It also serves as a parable for the nation as a whole, of how India’s dysfunctional systems of governance threaten to undermine the private-sector success story of the past decade.

"There is a danger of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory," said Mohammad Chowdhury, an executive director and telecommunication specialist at consultants PwC India.

The first signs of trouble emerged in late 2008, when the boom was still at its height. In what became known as the "2G scam," an Indian journalist uncovered corruption and favoritism in the way that spectrum bandwidth — the radio frequency bands that companies use to transmit data — was being allotted to individual companies.

Accused of defrauding the Indian exchequer of billions of dollars and of accepting bribes worth hundreds of millions in return for spectrum allocation, the communications minister, A. Raja, and two senior bureaucrats were arrested in February 2011. More than a dozen business leaders also were jailed or charged.

But the slow response to the scandal has threatened the sector’s continued growth.

Last year, the Supreme Court canceled all 122 licenses that Raja had granted in 2008, even in cases in which there was no suggestion of corruption. Companies that had invested huge sums of money in India, many of them not even implicated in the scandal, suddenly found their investments under threat.

Norway’s Telenor, which is party owned by the state, stood to lose about $3 billion, probably the biggest foreign investment loss by a Norwegian company, Trade Minister Trond Giske said last month. "If it is forced to move out of the country, it would have further political implications," he warned.

Up for auction

But the biggest blow to companies came when the Supreme Court, in an attempt to foster transparency and fairness, ordered that all spectrum be put up for auction to the highest bidder.

The auction system had failed in many countries, including the United States and Britain, with companies often overreaching to bid for spectrum and ending up bankrupt.

Instead, India had decided — wisely, in the view of many experts — to sell the spectrum cheaply in return for a share in eventual revenue. That gave companies the financial headroom to invest in towers across the country and helped make calls affordable for hundreds of millions of poor people.

"There are very strong economic reasons for not auctioning spectrum in developing countries," said Shyam Ponappa of the Centre for Internet and Society.

To add insult to injury, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India recently recommended that the spectrum from the canceled licenses be auctioned for a minimum price many times as high as in comparable auctions all over the world.

It also recommended that spectrum now held by other companies be re-auctioned when existing licenses come up for renewal between 2014 and 2025, estimating that that could earn the cash-strapped government $50 billion in extra revenue.

A cabinet committee will meet this month to consider the regulator’s recommendations. But the industry is up in arms.

The Cellular Operators Association of India called the regulator’s recommendations "arbitrary, regressive and inconsistent" and said they would prevent the industry from delivering "on the government’s vision of affordable communications, rural penetration and rollout of data services."

Telecom entrepreneur Sunil Mittal called the recommendations "catastrophic." Mittal is the chairman and chief executive of Bharti Enterprises, which owns Airtel, one of India’s largest cellphone-service providers.

PwC India estimates that the recommendations will push up average consumer tariffs by about a third, meaning price-sensitive consumers will use their phones less. The biggest losers will be the rural poor, he said.

Indeed, investment in new telecom towers has stalled, and any attempt to squeeze more money from the industry will probably delay what could have been the next chapter in India’s telecom revolution — the rollout of mobile broadband services across a country where 85 percent of the population lacks Internet access.

"It is a huge opportunity missed," said A.S. Panneerselvan of Panos South Asia.

Vodaphone tax case

As the ripples of the 2G scam widened, a separate tax dispute with British telecom giant Vodafone also has cast a shadow over India’s image as an investment destination.

In 2007, Vodafone bought a two-thirds stake in the Indian arm of Hong Kong’s Hutchison Whampoa for $11.2 billion, without paying tax. Vodafone says that the deal was conducted abroad and is not covered under Indian tax law — and that if anyone should be liable, it would be the Chinese seller rather than the buyer.

The Indian tax man disagreed. When India’s Supreme Court sided with Vodafone, the New Delhi government retroactively changed its tax laws and served Vodafone with a bill for $3.75 billion in tax, penalties and interest.

Governments around the world, including the Obama administration, complained that India’s tax laws were deterring foreign investment.

The telecom debacle stems from the government’s failure to set up an independent, autonomous and credible regulatory authority, such as the Federal Communications Commission, said former regulator Satya N. Gupta.

Instead, India’s Communications Ministry makes policies and implements them, its bureaucrats and ministers unwilling to surrender power — power that Raja is accused of abusing by changing the rules to favor his cronies.

Some experts say the industry has to take much of the blame, because companies constantly lobby for rules to be changed or decisions to be made in their favor.

Others accuse the Supreme Court of overstepping its mandate and entering the realm of policymaking. But Gupta says that was an inevitable product of the way the system was set up, that the court stepped in only because the institutions of government had failed.

"If the regulator was an independent and empowered body with executive responsibility, this would not have happened."

Rajeev Chandrasekhar, a former information-technology and telecom entrepreneur who is now a member of Parliament, said India’s governance has simply not kept pace with the economy’s transformation.

"The government as an institution is still in the 1800s, while the private sector is in the 2100s," he said. "There is nothing in India you can do without going to the government for some kind of clearance. There is always government in your life. These two worlds keep knocking at each other."

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/telecom-success-story-turns-sour

The International Copyright System and Access to Education: Challenges, New Access Models and Prospects for New Principles

praskrishna — 2012-06-01T04:29:36Z

This event organised by Max Planck Institute was held in Munich, Germany on May 14 and 15, 2012. Pranesh Prakash participated in this event.

List of Participants

Name	Affiliation
Mr. Olatunji Babatunde Adetula	Director, Nigerian Copyright Commission
Prof. Olufunmilayo Arewa	African University for Science and Technology & University of California School of Law, Irvine
Prof. Michael W. Carroll	Professor of Law, Director, Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property, American University, Washington College of Law
Mr. Alberto Cerda Silva	S.J.D. Candidate Georgetown University Law Center, Research Associate,Knowledge Ecology International
Ms. Vera Franz	Senior Program Manager Open Society Information Program Open Society Foundations
Prof. Christophe Geiger	Associate Professor Director General Director of the Research Department CEIPI, Université de Strasbourg
Prof. Daniel Gervais	FedEx Research Professor of Law Co-Director, Vanderbilt Intellectual Property Program Vanderbilt University Law School
Ms. Cristiana Gonzalez	Senior Researcher Universidade de São Paulo
Ms. Teresa Hackett	Programme Manager EIFL
Prof. Dr. Reto M. Hilty	Managing Director Full Professor ad personam at the University of Zurich Honorary Professor at the University of Munich Max Planck Institute
Dr. Zorina Khan	Professor Department of Economics Bowdoin College
Dr. Kaya Köklü	Senior Research Fellow Intellectual Property and Competition Law Max Planck Institute
Ms. Eniko Kovacs	Program Manager Academic Fellowship Program, HESP Open Society Foundations
Mr. Ahmed Abdel Latif	Intellectual Property and Technology Senior Programme Manager International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development
Ms. Mayara Nascimento Santos Leal	Division of Intellectual Property Economic Department Ministry of External Relations, Brazil
Prof. Lydia Loren	Professor of Law Kay Kitagawa & Andy Johnson-Laird IP Faculty Scholar Lewis & Clark Law School
Ms. Viviana Munoz Tellez	Programme Officer, IAKP The South Centre
Prof. Ruth Okediji	William L. Prosser Professor of Law University of Minnesota Law School
Mr. Pranesh Prakash	Programme Manager The Center for Internet and Society
Mr. G.R. Raghavender	Registrar of Copyrights & Director (BP & CR) Copyright Office Government of India, Department of Higher Education, Ministry of Human Resources Development
Prof. Jerome H. Reichman	Bunyan S. Womble Professor of Law Duke University Law School
Dr. Manon Ress	Director of Information Society Projects Knowledge Ecology International
Ms. Carolina Rossini	Senior Fellow at GPOPAI, University of Sao Paulo
Dr. Susan Strba	Expert and Author, Copyright L&Es for Education in Africa
Mr. Luis Villaroel Villalon	Director de Investigación Corporación Innovarte
Dr. Moktar Warida	First Secretary, Permanent Mission of the Arab Republic of Egypt to the United Nations
Ms. Raquel Xalabarder Plantada	Director, Learning Resources Vice President’s Office, Faculty and Academic Organization Open University of Catalonia

Workshop Associates

Name	Affiliation
Lindsey Niznik	Senior, University of Minnesota
Peju Solarin	Doctoral Candidate International Max Planck Research School on Retaliation, Mediation, and Punishment, Max Planck Institute

See the original here

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/workshop-on-education-and-copyright

Do IT Rules 2011 indirectly leads to Censorship of Internet

praskrishna — 2012-05-31T09:00:41Z

Pranesh Prakash along with Dr. Arvind Gupta, National Convener, BJP IT Cell and Ms. Mishi Choudhary, Executive Director, SFLC participated in a panel discussion on censorship of the Internet on May 8, 2012.

The discussion was broadcast on Yuva iTV. See the video below:

Video

Click for the video on YouTube

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/do-it-rules-indirectly-lead-to-censorship-of-internet

Towards a Multi-Stakeholder Consultation on ‘Internet Rights, Accessibility, Regulation & Ethics’

praskrishna — 2012-05-31T07:14:42Z

This event was organised by Digital Empowerment Foundation, National Internet Exchange of India and Association for Progressive Communications at Mirza Ghalib Hall, SCOPE Complex, New Delhi from 9.00 a.m. to 2.30 p.m. on May 3, 2012. Pranesh Prakash participated as a speaker in the session on Access to Internet: Right to Information.

9.00 a.m. to 9.30 a.m. (Registration)

9.30 a.m. to 11.00 a.m.

Inauguration & Plenary: Internet Rights, Accessibility, Regulation & Ethics

Introduction: Osama Manzar, Founder & Director, Digital Empowerment Foundation
Chair: Aruna Roy, Head, Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS) & Member, National Advisory Council (NAC), Govt. of India
Co-Chair: Ajay Kumar, Joint Secretary, DIT, Govt. of India
Plenary Speakers:

Honey Tan, Human Rights Lawyer, Malaysia, APC
Venkatesh Nayak, Co-convener, Secretary, National Campaign for Peoples’ Right to Information
Jitendra Kohli, Executive Member, Transparency International India Summary of the Session by the Chair

11.00 to 11.15 a.m. (Tea break)

11.15 a.m. to 12.30 p.m.

Working Session I - Access to Internet: Right to Information

Chairperson: Basheerhamad Shadrach, Development Consultant
Plenary Speakers:

Pranesh Prakash, Programme Manager, Centre for Internet & Society
NA Vijayashankar, E-Business Consultant, Founder Secretary of Cyber Society of India, Founder Trustee of International Institute of Information Technology Law
Pavan Duggal, Advocate, Supreme Court of India
Varsha Iyenger, Member, Centre for Law and Policy Research
Amitabh Singhal, Former CEO, National Internet Exchange of India (NIXI)
Prof Jagdeep Chhokar, Founding Member, Association for Democratic Reforms

12.30 p.m. to 1.30 p.m.
Working Session II - Internet Right as Human Right: Need for a Holistic Framework towards Universal Access in India

Chairperson: Dr. Govind, CEO, National Internet Exchange of India (NIXI), Govt. of India
Co-chair & Moderator: R. Sukumar , Managing Editor, Live Mint Newspaper
Panel Members:

Subho Ray, President, Internet & Mobile Association of India (IMAI)
Deepak Maheshwari, Vice President - Public Policy, South Asia, MasterCard
Ravina Agarwal, Program Officer, Ford Foundation
Honey Tan, Human Rights Lawyer, Malaysia, APC
Suhas Chakma, Director, Asian Centre for Human Rights
Anoop Saha, Co-Founder, CGNet Swara
Shivam Vij, Writer, Kafila.org

Click to see the original

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/towards-a-multi-stakeholder-consultation

Design!PubliC — Third Conclave in New Delhi

praskrishna — 2012-05-30T07:03:33Z

On the 20th of April 2012, the third Design Public Conclave, organized by the Center for Knowledge Societies in collaboration with IBM, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Google and the Centre for Internet and Society, was held at the National Museum, New Delhi. The Conclave brought together thought-leaders and decision makers from the government, the media, multinational organizations and academic institutions for a conversation about transforming India into an Innovation Society.

Sunil Abraham was a panelist along with Aditya Dev Sood, Arun Maira, Aditya Mishra, Sukumar Ranganathan, Bhairavi Jani, Ashwin Mahesh, Yamini Aiyar, Scott Burnham, Samanth Subramanian, Shanker Annaswamy, Ashok Alexander, Jeby Cherian, Pankaj Jhunja, Chakshu Roy, Ekta Ohri, James Crabtree, Theo JJ Groothuizen, Sam Pitroda, Darshana Gothi Chauhan, and spoke in the session on Participation, Collaboration and Innovation. The varied audience included representatives from the Planning Commission, the Embassies of Netherlands and Sweden, the American Center, the Ford Foundation, Premsela, DFID, PRS, Lirneasia, Sir Dorabji Tata Trust, Financial Times, Carnegie Mellon, Cambridge, NID, Asian Paints, Yes Bank, MTS, and many others.

The conclave began with three panel discussions exploring the relationship between trust, participation and innovation.

Participation, Collaboration, Innovation

The discussions touched upon different means to generate citizen participation in key decision making, including using social media, mobile phones and other technological platforms. These new networking technologies help create spaces for discourse, debate, and an opportunity for collective organization and activity. They also have the capacity to transform the agency and voices of previously remote societies. However, despite their potential to garner massive public participation, they have not really been utilized by most private, public or social institutions.

Mere participation is not enough. It is necessary to moderate the conversation and make respondents accountable for their comments, so that it does not lapse into a meaningless cacophony of anonymous voices. The challenge that remains, then, is to design a platform where both citizens and the government can engage in a meaningful way, without the barriers of language and literacy, and collaboratively arrive at meaningful, actionable solutions.

Imagining India as an Innovation Society

This conversation dove deeper into ways in which the necessary elements of trust and participation could be better incorporated in all the sectors of society in order to enable an innovation culture in India. Existing conceptions of innovation in India, including price-pointing innovation, and the need to move beyond this and create a culture that values systematic, routinizable innovation processes were discussed. When innovating in the public sector and designing systems and processes that affect the larger public, it is especially important to respond to the specific needs of the people. This is where avenues for civil society participation and the design of public spaces become especially crucial, as they function as interfaces between decision-makers and the public. Each panelist spoke about different aspects of this large challenge, touching upon user needs, education systems, intellectual property laws and methods of innovation.

It was clear, as the conversation ended, that a lot more work and planning is needed to even begin to articulate and come to a consensus on what an innovation society looks like.

Click to download the full report (published by Center for Knowledge Societies) [PDF, 2.18 MB]

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/design-public-delhi-event-report