Centre for Internet and Society

Kapil Sibal & Co shoot down motion to kill IT Rules: cite terrorism, drugs

praskrishna — 2012-05-24T09:45:43Z

The Information Technology (Intermediaries Guidelines) Rules 2011 (The Rules) continue to breathe after the statutory motion to annul them moved by member of parliament (MP) from Kerala P Rajeeve was defeated by voice vote in the Rajya Sabha yesterday.

This blog post by Prachi Shrivastava was published in Legally India on May 18, 2012

Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal was heard on Rajya Sabha TV saying: “We are more liberal than US and Europe but let’s not cut our arms.”

Sibal countered Rajeeve’s annulment motion arguing that the government needs to be armed to meet the “new challenges” posed by “new media”, according to Mint.

"Kapil Sibal reminds me of badly briefed counsels fumbling in the High Court" tweeted Pranesh Prakash of the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) as Sibal was mid-delivery in contending that online media not registered in India escaped the ambit of Indian legislation and thus created the peril of terrorism and increased drug peddling.

Another person tweeted: "The gist of Sibal’s argument was that we need to censor the internet because people are doing drugs."

Sibal’s answer to MP Ram Yadav’s attack on The Rules for being inconsistent with their parent act – the Information Technology Act 2000 (IT Act) – was that Rule 3(2) which prescribes “due diligence” to be observed by an internet intermediary, originates from Section 66A of the IT Act, thus making the rules consistent with the parent act.

Section 3(2) obligates the intermediary to take down content posted on a website, on the basis of several undefined criteria.

"Minister you have created perverse incentives for censoring speech through law. That is regulation, not merely a definition of due diligence” proclaimed Supreme Court advocate Apar Gupta in a tweet posted during Sibal’s defense of the rules.

Prakash tweeted: "The IT Rules don’t just prescribe ‘due diligence’ but create a takedown mechanism. That’s not the same thing Mr. Sibal."

Sibal went on to establish that the government’s motive was not censorious by stating: “It is your choice, you are free to work with the user who complains to an intermediary. Where does the government come in?”

To which quipped Prakash: “Government is not censoring. It has created a system by which anyone can censor with impunity.”

Jaitley in-perspective

Leader of the opposition senior advocate Arun Jaitley objected to The Rules holding that terms such as “disparaging”, ”libellous”, “defamatory” not defined in the Act or the Rules but enabling take-down of content, could be misused, according to Times of India.

IBN Live reported him as urging Sibal to "reconsider the language of restraints".

Sibal addressed the house inviting objections from MPs on specific “words” contained in The Rules which provide for control of speech over the internet, according to PTI.

He further proposed to call a meeting of “stakeholders” to discuss the MPs’ objections, and assured that the consensus that emerges from the meeting will be implemented.

Draconian Censorious Rules

Legally India reported last month how Rajeeve was trying to spread awareness among MPs about the draconian effect of the Rules which censor free speech and expression, by over-scrutinising users of the internet, over-authorising intermediaries to monitor content posted over the internet, and letting the government, individuals and institutions by-pass the due process of law.

The Rules in their present form require intermediaries - providers of internet, telecom, e-mail or blogging services, including cyber cafes - to publish terms of use prohibiting users from publishing content of the nature specified in the Rules.

Once the intermediaries have knowledge of posted content that is in violation of such terms of use, they are liable for compensation if they fail to initiate action for removal of the posted content.

Some of the categories of prohibited content specified in the Rules are undefined, are not an offence under existing law, and are claimed to be in violation of article 19(1) of the Constitution guaranteeing the freedom of speech and expression.

CIS uncovered an additional problem the rules pose - that of “over-complying” intermediaries who in order to minimize the risk of liability may block more content than required, adversely impacting the fundamental right guaranteed under article 19(1).

"By and large, the impression is that India is going in the direction of censorship," Mint reported cyber law expert and supreme court lawyer Pavan Duggal as saying, yesterday.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/sibal-shoot-down-motion-to-kill-it-rules

Vimeo Ban: More Web Censorship

praskrishna — 2012-05-24T09:19:38Z

When Indian users logged on to Vimeo and some other video-sharing websites Thursday morning, they were greeted by a rather unusual message: "Access to this site has been blocked as per Court Orders."

This article by Preetika Rana published in the Wall Street Journal on May 18, 2012. Pranesh Prakash is quoted in it.

When Indian users logged on to Vimeo and some other video-sharing websites Thursday morning, they were greeted by a rather unusual message: "Access to this site has been blocked as per Court Orders."

The websites were blocked by private telecom operators following a ruling by Chennai’s High Court in March.

The story began when Chennai-based Copyrights Labs, a firm specializing in copyright infringement, petitioned the High Court to take pre-emptive action against people who might illegally upload two Tamil-language films: "3" and "Dammu."

The court ruled that Internet service providers, or ISPs, could block video-sharing sites where those films were illegally available.

The court named 15 prominent ISPs who were covered by the order.

But the court did not name any particular video-sharing websites to be taken down. And it remains unclear if any of those affected this week even carried the two films in question.

Two major Indian ISPs, Bharti Airtel and Reliance Communications, blocked content sharing websites including U.S.-based Vimeo and France-based Dailymotion and Pastebin.

They cited the court order as a reason but without proof the sites were carrying the movies. Other ISPs named in the court order did not attempt to block any websites.

The two telecom giants offered little further clarity on why these websites were blocked. “Access to certain sites has been blocked by Airtel pursuant to and in compliance with Court orders,” Bharti Airtel said in a statement.

Reliance Communication’s statement said: "Under Section 79 of the IT Act, an ISP has to adhere to any copyright infringement notice and court orders."

Responding to reports of the ban, Harish Ram, chief executive of Copyrights Labs said Thursday: "We have been fighting for this for long and it seems the ISPs are finally responding."

By Friday, the ISPs had restored services for Vimeo, Dailymotion and Pastebin, although some users still reported access problems.

It is still unclear why the March order came into effect only now or why Reliance and Airtel decied to unblock the websites. The telecom firms did not immediately respond to request for comment.

Experts attacked ISPs for clamping down on free speech on the web.

"Why and how did telecom giants target select websites," said Pranesh Prakash, a program manager at Bangalore based-Centre for Internet and Society, a non-profit group advocating free speech on the web. He pointed out that the High Court did not spell out the names of websites that should be blocked.

"Shutting websites merely on the basis of suspicion amounts to private crackdown on free speech of the web," he said. "Why didn’t the telecom ministry repeal or object to the move, knowing that the court didn’t spell out the websites to be blocked?"

Bhupendra Kainthola, a spokesman for the telecom ministry, noted that the "government or the telecom ministry had nothing to do with the high court ruling.” When asked why the ministry did not intervene, Mr. Kainthola responded: “What can we do? If an order has been passed, we have to follow it… that is the law of the land."

The move comes only a few months after the central government issued an official sanction to prosecute internet giants Facebook Inc. and Google Inc., alleging that they host "blasphemous" content on their websites. A criminal case against the two companies is ongoing.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/vimeo-ban

Taming the Web, are we?

praskrishna — 2012-05-24T09:01:28Z

Two decades after its advent changed our lives, the world wide web - as we know it - faces a grave threat. Not from governments alone, but also from tech companies seeking to play gatekeepers.

Sunil Abraham is quoted in this article by Javed Anwer published in the Economic Times on May 13, 2012

The /b/ section at www.4chan.org is so extreme in nature that even web veterans squirm at the thought of going through it. Anyone can post virtually any picture here. Anonymously. It doesn't matter if the pictures are obscene , graphic or gory.

Yet, 4Chan, which was started by a 15-year-old in 2003, is an integral part of the world wide web. The large community at 4Chan mirrors the virtual world - lawless and anarchic in the traditional sense, highly innovative, funny and sometimes disturbing. Barry Newstead, chief global development officer of Wikimedia that manages Wikipedia, puts it succinctly. "The internet has been giving ordinary people the voice and the ability to contribute content and ideas and opinions. Sometimes we use it to create pictures of funny cats and sometimes it's the world's largest encyclopedia ," he says.

Until recently, it seems governments just noticed the funny cats. They left the web to its own devices. At the same time, the egalitarian ethos on which the web was founded - Tim Berners-Lee developed it and gave it away for free - kept realworld barriers, which corporations and people often put around their environment, away from it. In 2012, it looks like the honeymoon is over.

'Civilizing' the Net

Perhaps the problem is that, for all its perceived flaws, the internet has worked wonderfully well."Too well," says Jeff Jarvis, author of 'Public Parts' , a book on internet culture. It has allowed people to create Google, Facebook, Hotmail, WikiLeaks, Wikipedia and thousands of other websites and services that have changed lives. Last year Jarvis was in Paris, participating in e-G 8 called by then French president Nicholas Sarkozy. He heard the Frenchman's plans to"civilize" the web. "Nobody should forget governments are the only legitimate representatives of the will of the people in our democracies," said Sarkozy.

His sentiments are shared by politicians across the world, including in India. Just three days ago, Congress MP Shantaram Naik, aghast at the "filthy" comments on a website, said in the Rajya Sabha that the internet needs to be "purified" . Different politicians and governments have different reasons. But regulation is growing. In the last few years, governments across the world have proposed or enacted laws (see box) that aim to "civilize" the web.

Why the urgency? Is the internet broken? Jarvis says it is not. "The net is operating no differently today than it was a decade ago. But we see so many efforts to fix it - to regulate it under the cloak of privacy, piracy, decency, security, and even civility," he says. "I believe legacy institutions, including governments, are waking up to the extent of the net's disruptive force... they are trying to control the net and govern the change it causes."

Sunil Abraham, director of Centre for Internet and Society, says that in the last two years governments have doubled their efforts to control the web. "During the revolutions in Arab countries last year, protesters mobilized themselves through Twitter and Facebook. Then there are Wikileaks and Anonymous. This has made governments and politicians jittery," says Abraham.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/taming-the-web

Cordon tightens: Rajya Sabha nod to harsh IT rules

praskrishna — 2012-05-24T08:49:10Z

Sunil Abraham and Pranesh Prakash are quoted in this article by Anil Sharma & Aishhwariya Subramanian published in Daily News & Analysis on May 18, 2012.

The draconian intermediaries rules of the Information Technology Act that allows the government to aggressively police the internet and social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter will continue for some more time as a motion to annul them in the Rajya Sabha was defeated by the treasury benches on Thursday.

The rules that came into effect last year almost became annulled after a determined push from MPs cutting across party lines in the Rajya Sabha on Thursday. However, the government barely managed to scrape through but union communications and IT minister Kapil Sibal conceded that there were problems and promised to call for a meeting to address the concerns of the MPs.

CPI(M) Rajya Sabha member from Kerala P Rajeeve had moved a statutory motion demanding that these rules be annulled as they violated the constitutionally guaranteed right to freedom of expression. Rajeeve received enthusiastic support from the leader of the opposition in the Rajya Sabha, Arun Jaitley, who made a detailed argument against the existing rules. An impressed Jaitley commended Rajeeve for involving Parliament in the process of framing the rules. Jaitley also slammed the government for trying to police the internet but stressed that like other media this could not be controlled. "In fact, if the internet had been there at that time even the Emergency would have been a fiasco," he said.

The members were keen that the motion be put to vote and the numbers in the Rajya Sabha were loaded against the government.

However, responding to Jaitley's suggestion, Sibal assured the house that the concerns of the members would be taken on board. "I request the members to write to me with their specific suggestions. I will take up the matter at a joint meeting with all the stakeholders and arrive at a solution," he said.

This pacified the members and the government ducked a potentially embarrassing situation.

Expressing his dissatisfaction with the minister's reply, Rajeeve stressed that just as there is a provision for withdrawing objectionable content from the internet within 36 hours, there should be scope for restoring it if the original author can justify it.

The debate was keenly followed by free speech activists who have been lobbying for months to get these draconian rules annulled. The Bangalore-based Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) also conducted a major sting operation to prove how absurd these rules are. They sent several fake "take-down notices" to several companies hosting internet sites. The companies went ahead and shut down some blogs and web sites without even bothering to check if the complaints had any merit.

"The trouble with Indian government's proposal to address issues such as network neutrality, privacy and freedom of expression, is top-down. Unlike other countries where internet policies have always been developed with consultation with other stakeholders, here the government imposes its will," said Sunil Abraham, executive director, CIS.

Netizens are concerned about India's bad track record when it comes to censorship and a policy for the internet. Delhi-based Anja Kovacks, from the Internet Democracy Project, feels that many of the concerns voiced by Indian government are justified. "Undoubtedly the internet presents a range of new challenges, in India as elsewhere, that need to be addressed. Many of the concerns the Indian government expresses are therefore also completely justified. But the ways in which it seeks to tackle these problems are not appropriate for a democratic nation." Kovacks believes that the current policy will impair the freedom of speech.

Ironically, while the UPA government is busy clamping down on domestic opinion, it is planning to take a far more liberal stand at an upcoming international conference on running the internet in Geneva later this year. "It is an ironical situation where India is not following domestically what it is proposing internationally," said Pranesh Prakash of CIS.

With the government holding on to its draconian rules, citizens using social networks like Twitter and Facebook or writing blogs will now have to worry about big brother watching over their shoulders.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/rajya-sabha-nod-to-harsh-it-rules

Empires: Individuals in Search of Society

praskrishna — 2012-05-24T08:35:46Z

In their 2000 bestseller Empire, Michael Hardt and Toni Negri announced a new international condition no longer built on the imperialist model of the superpowers of old but on the new condition of globalization. This new and emerging networked world held with it the opportunity for politics to bring forward a 21st century of interconnectedness, openness and a shared sense of planetary responsibility.

This article by Marc Lafia was published in Huffington Post on May 18, 2012

What we've discovered since is that the new empire still plays by the games of the old empires: of nation states, of divisiveness, of scarcity, of might, control and fear, even while we have never had such enormous abundance and innovation.

It is this paradox that Empires -- our documentary film and online project, currently raising funds through Kickstarter -- sets out to unravel. The title works on multiple levels. It says that the nationalist empires are back. It also suggests that the empires of law, money, science, speed, nation states, and food are, in fact, complex networks that are inter-related and interdependent.

It is said that you know there is a network when you're excluded from it.

To be included is to have a voice, to participate, to have agency. These things drive the histories of political and philosophical thought. They are not abstract concepts but the very real struggles of networked relations, of powers, peoples, flows of energies and technologies.

How these networks work and how they interact is what Empires sets out to explicate.

We've sat down with an extraordinary group of historians, scientists, network technologists, sociologists, political organizers and artists to construct a conversation that describes the forces that shape our contemporary world. The list includes Manuel Delanda, Saskia Sassen, Florian Cramer, Natalie Jeremijenko, Kazys Varnelis, Geert Lovink, Alex Galloway, Michael Hardt, Anthony Pagden, Cathy Davidson, Greg Lindsay, Nishant Shah, James Delbourgo, Jon Protevi, Wendy Hui Kyong Chun, and soon Paul D. Miller and Douglas Rushkoff.

What we've heard is that our managerial and government elites are dysfunctional and that the new order of things is every man for himself, that things find their own order, from the ground up. Our desires are expressed in our purchasing power. Money is how we vote and the market will continually adjust to accommodate the desires we express. We can all be winners using the network effects to scale up to success, a success each of us has agency to produce. There are no larger structures to trump agency. If you can make it you will make it.

In this ethos of the elevation of our uniqueness to the exclusion of our commonalities, we have become blind to any possible collective power. We now, in the West, are a society of individuals in search of society.

With reluctance today to accept such universalisms as global citizenship, rights to a living wage, to mobility, to social ownership of information channels and planetary resources, we are left with a notion that society, like nature, will be chaotic and disruptive, and that through this new 'natural law' of volatility, of self organization, a new politics will emerge and find its shape.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/individuals-in-search-of-society

Cyber Appellate Tribunal in Bengaluru

praskrishna — 2012-05-30T05:47:48Z

Bengaluru will be home to the southern chapter of the Cyber Appellate Tribunal (CAT), which will reach out to victims of cyber crime, the state government announced at the Cyber Security Summit here on Tuesday.

Pranesh Prakash is quoted in this article published in the Deccan Herald on May 9, 2012.

But on the other hand, the IT Secretary, who is the state adjudicator, has held in all the cases that he has no jurisdiction to pass orders against the banks and that no complaint can be admitted under Section 43 of the IT Act against any corporate entity.

"The state IT secretary has passed more than 80 orders. They include both cases of phishing and orders against cyber cafes for not adhering to rules under the IT Act. The Adjudicator has held that ‘section 43 of IT Act is not applicable to a body or Corporate’, after the amended IT Act came into force in 2008," said Pranesh Prakash of the Centre for Internet Society "I feel Section 43 has been mis used . The definition given in this section cannot be understood either by lawyers or technical people. If there is a genuine case of phishing and a user has suffered losses over the internet then there should be no ambiguity in passing the order," he said.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/cyber-appellate-tribunal-bengaluru

What’s your gadget update?

praskrishna — 2012-05-23T09:15:28Z

Techie socialist or flighty fashionista? The gadgets you carry say a lot about you, writes Shweta Taneja in this article published in LiveMint on May 22, 2012.

Cellphones, laptops and all the other stylish electronic paraphernalia are fast becoming like jewellery and clothes—a personality statement. “I stereotype people and their gadgets,” says Nilofar Ansher, 28, a communications analyst from Hyderabad. “If someone sports a flashy, brand new gadget as soon as it’s released, then I would mentally tick off tags like rich, brand slave, or show-off.” Even the brand name matters. “If his brand turns out to be an Apple product, then I feel ticked off as I do not subscribe to the Apple code of ethics,” says Ansher.

She’s not alone. According to a September 2010 study Gadget Census, conducted by Retrevo Labs, a US-based gadgets company researcher, the gadgets you use help people form opinions about you.

"The prestige associated with brands offers an experience of a ‘class’," says Girishwar Misra, 61, a professor of psychology at Delhi University. “The hierarchically structured Indian mindset has found it another space for enacting and expressing power differential." He says people’s notion of self-worth and sense of belonging rest on the opinions of others in their community or society. "Technology has become yet another aspect of reflecting and conveying one’s identity to others around them."

"What isn’t a status symbol?” asks Nishant Shah, director—research, Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore. "In the commodified world, where everything is mass-produced, the consumer has to be made to believe that everything they are buying is a part of their expression and personality, and even though this wasn’t created keeping them in mind, it is specially made only for them."

This is also the reason, according to him, why most people like to own the most cutting-edge gadgets but end up using them like any other low-end gadget. After all, how many smartphone owners go beyond making calls, sending SMSes and updating their social networks? "This is where you start wondering what then propels people to buy that new gadget," says Shah.

We present a tongue-in-cheek analysis of gadget-owner camps in India. Which camp do you belong to?

iBragger

There are better gadgets out there than iPhones, iPads and iPods, but it doesn’t matter. Every time there’s a new update or a new gadget from Apple, you have to shell out the money and grab it. A day in your life begins on the iCloud, hanging out with friends who belong to the “iEcosystem”. You don’t know how you would survive if iTunes stopped working for even half a day. You love to flaunt your shiny gadgets and smile when someone asks you about them. You don’t necessarily know how the iGadget works, but can still talk about it with pride.

In your bag

: iPhones, iPads, and any other gadget that begins with an ‘i’.

Your personality: You are slightly egotistical and love attention. You also like to get compliments on everything, whether it’s your attire or your gadget.

Your fashion fix: iPhone 5 is going to be released in a few months. If you don’t want to wait that long for a rumoured 4-inch screen, go for iPhone 4S, the one with that sexy “iSecretary”, Siri.

Retro relic

You believe that overuse of gadgets is responsible for all the diseases in society, from the common cold to cancer. You don’t use Internet on your phone, and have an old desktop on which you might check email once a week. You think that GPS stands for “Going Perfectly Straight” and stay safely away from the time wasters of modern living.

In your bag

: Nothing. You have a landline and an old desktop that needs to be upgraded urgently.

Your personality: You prefer talking face-to-face instead of emailing people. You would rather discuss things in the middle of the street instead of shooting off a text message.

Your fashion fix: Turn your cellphone into a landline with the retro phone handset. So even the most modern devices will feel comfortably old.

Beg, borrow, buy techie

You love gadgets. You always need to know what makes things tick. Every time a new gadget comes around, you start saving and stop buying anything unnecessary, such as clothes, or food, and go buy the new shiny devices. Brands don’t matter, just so long as you can see innovation.
You can go on and on about retina display on the latest iPad and how enhanced eBooks are the future. You probably have a blog where you review each gadget, which only other techies read.

In your bag: A pile of new devices that you used once and then discarded for the new big thing.

Your personality: You are an introvert who doesn’t notice the world around you, because your nose is glued to your phone or laptop. You would rather send a text message than talk, even if it is to wish your mother on her birthday.

Your fashion fix: A Raspberry Pi. It’s a full-fledged credit-card-sized computer if you plug in a TV and keyboard, and can be used in a number of ingenious ways by people willing to think creatively.

Paisa pincher

It’s not about whether you like a gadget or not. It’s always about how much it costs and what all it can do for you. If it’s a phone you are planning to buy, you want it to be a flashlight, a radio, an Internet browser and also, if possible, a serving tray. You do weeks of research before you buy any device. The more uses you get for a certain amount of money, the more you might buy it, even if you won’t use those functions.

In your bag: You tend to keep cheap, hardy mobile phones which have multitasking abilities.

Personality: You are a practical, conservative person and like to gauge the value of anything offered to you. You love the word “free” and “offer”.

Your fashion fix: A Micromax Funbook. The Android 4.0 tablet comes with 4 GB internal storage, a multi-touch capacitative display and has a VGA camera for video calls. It’s Wi-Fi only, so you don’t need to spend on 3G either.

Techie socialist

You consciously want to protest against the elite ecosystem that the iBraggers create. You tend to stick to the more “open” ecosystem of Linux and Android. You sit on the high horse of open source and loudly preach how people should buy gadgets and software that is open to all and doesn’t end up enriching giant corporations. Secretly, you want to buy the iPhone 4S.

In your bag: An Android-based mobile phone and Linux-based laptop.

Your personality: You call yourself a liberal and want equality for everyone in society. You like to protest against institutions—be it the government or companies.

Your fashion fix: A new Kickstarter is the product of your dreams. Playsurface is a multi-touch computing table, which can be used as a table and as a touch-screen to share the experience with all present.

Fodder hoarder

You have so many old gadgets that you can open a gadget museum someday. You have never ever thrown any electronic/electrical thing that you have owned. You are a recycler and are convinced that everything can be used in some way. You might even dig out stuff that less knowledgeable neighbours have thrown away.

In your bag (or cupboard): Mixers, ovens, VCRs, phone devices, pagers, big fat cellphones, even devices you’ve forgotten the function of and which are now gathering dust.

Personality: You are a penny-pincher and very innovative in strategies for reusing things.

Your fashion fix: Find people who love to reuse and recycle like you on The Freecycle Network (www.freecycle.org). The network is a worldwide group of people who give (and get) gadgets for free in their own towns. If you have true junk or e-waste, give it off to an e-waste recycling plant. To check if your city has an e-waste recycling plant, visit WEEE Recycle (www.weeerecycle.in).

Flighty fashionista

For you, a gadget is like a pair of pretty heels. It’s an accessory to enhance your overall looks. Like everything else, you like to buy expensive, suave-looking gadgets which sparkle as brightly as your diamonds or Rolex watches. Brand names matter to you and you tend to go for the looks and the brand rather than the features.

In your bag: A Vertu mobile phone, a Rolex watch and a few diamond earrings.

Your personality: You come across as polished, suave and sophisticated. You are an impeccable dresser with a tendency to spend too much time on your grooming, and not much time with your gadgets.

Your fashion fix: Talking about inefficient maids is so passé. Now talk about your polite new cleaner, a robot which never takes an off and even takes care of the dog. Cocorobo is not just a good vacuum cleaner, it even has a voice-recognition facility and gives polite answers.

This article was originally published by LiveMint

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/what-s-your-gadget-update

Freedom of Expression (Poster)

praskrishna — 2012-05-21T13:01:54Z

The event is taking place in Goa on June 2, 2012.

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

ITU Participants List

praskrishna — 2012-05-11T10:57:38Z

The list of participants who attended the ITU event in Delhi.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/accessibility/itu-participant-list.xls

The Awesome Contracts Project (Geekup @ CIS)

praskrishna — 2012-05-11T12:17:09Z

Vivek Durai, co-founder at Awesome Contracts, a Singapore-India startup will give a public lecture on May 18, 2012 at the Centre for Internet & Society in Bangalore. Lawyer, musician, legal recruiter and entrepreneur, Amith Narayan will also participate through Skype!

The Awesome Contracts Project

Contracts are ubiquitous in our everyday life. They are also a nuisance. And they typically come attached with a bigger nuisance - lawyers! Interestingly though, contracts are a lot like code. Geek-lawyers, a very small, minuscule tribe on this planet, tend to notice a lot of similarities between the two. If this is true, it opens up a lot of possibilities, including changing the way we do business and in particular generate contracts, negotiate and seal deals.

We'll talk about some of the technology and some of the products we're working on that we think can provide power to a lot of folks.

Agenda

17:00 - 17:05	Welcome with Tea, Coffee, and Snacks
17:05 - 17:15	Lightning Talks
17:15 - 18:00	The Awesome Contracts Project
18:00 - 18:30	Q & A

Vivek Durai

Vivek Durai is a co-founder at Awesome Contracts, a Singapore-India startup that is working on interesting problems in the field of law and contracts. As with just about everyone else, he and co-founder Amith Narayan would like to change the world. Preferably, for the better. Vivek and Amith are both alumnus of the National Law School of India University.

Vivek is a lawyer by training, a geek by nature, and generally human. Most of the time. As far as ideologies go, Vivek is a Pythonista currently flirting with Node and other things. He is also incidentally a Partner at Atman Law Partners, a young three office boutique law firm.

Amith Narayan

Amith Narayan loves hats. He likes them so much in fact, he's been wearing all kinds. He has been a corporate lawyer, a musician, a record producer, a legal recruiter, and now an entrepreneur running this crazy little startup. Amith grew up in Calicut (Kozhikode) Kerala, trained in law at NLSIU, worked in the grand dame of the Indian legal world - Crawford Bayley - before moving to Singapore where he's been living for the past 10 years. Amith will join us over Skype during the talk.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/awesom-contracts-project

Building Knowledge and Capacity around Telecommunication Policy in India

praskrishna — 2012-09-11T14:54:08Z

Ford Foundation has given a grant of USD 200,000 to the Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) over a period of two years (2011-2013) to build expertise in the area of telecommunications in India.

The project involves the following key activities:

Knowledge repository: Creating a repository comprising information about telecommunications related issues and policies and online course materials designed for a multi-stakeholder audience.
Capacity building: organising interactive public lectures and workshops around the country to disseminate information on telecom issues.
Dissemination: using traditional and new forms of media to disseminate information to academia, civil society, policy makers and the general public.

Background

Access to telecommunications facilities and services is a key enabler of socio-economic development of countries in the Information Society. The rapid proliferation of internet and mobile phones as a medium of administration and governance, commerce, education, social networking and communication, has made the development of telecommunications infrastructure and policies a high priority for governments worldwide.

India’s telecommunications sector has been growing at a phenomenal rate of 45 per cent over the past few years and according to Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), has become the world’s third largest network[1] with a tele-density of 65 per cent, 785 million telephone connections (750 million mobile and 35 million fixed landline connections), and 10 million broadband subscribers as of December 2010. The growth of mobile phones has surpassed fixed line networks, making the mobile the primary means of communication.

However, despite the rapid growth and expansion of telecommunications infrastructure in India, there still remains an underserved need for access and availability of services and facilities to persons living in rural and remote areas, poor persons, disabled, illiterate and elderly persons. The rural tele density remains low at 30 per cent and the number of broadband connections is also comparatively quite low. In addition to this, there is also an overall lack of public awareness about legislative and regulatory issues, market trends, international debates and research in this area, which is essential to ensuring that regulatory and market developments promote consumer choice and interests. The imperative to educate and build capacity is one which needs to be addressed both within India and globally.

Problem Statement

The rapid growth in telecommunications infrastructure and services in India over the past decade has not been complemented by correspondingly desirable levels of public awareness and participation. The lacuna in awareness about regulation, international trends and research among stakeholders has given way to minimal representation of public and consumer groups in the policy formulation and regulation process.

There are very few courses on telecommunications which are offered online and in Indian universities and institutions. These deal primarily with technical aspects of telecommunications and do not adequately touch upon other important elements such as regulations and policies or international best practices.[2]

There is a dire need for a dedicated resource focusing on informing and training people on a wide range of issues in the telecommunications sector, as well as bringing transparency to current national developments in policy and project implementation. Such a resource is important to ensure that public interest is protected and critical national resources are deployed in an efficient, just and transparent manner. Similar initiatives such as the Link Centre offer limited support to persons living in India since they do not focus on India.

Project Description

CIS proposes to build awareness and capacity on telecom issues for a multi-stakeholder audience comprising researchers and academicians, policy makers and regulators, consumer and civil society organisations, education and library institutions and lay persons through the creation of a dedicated web based resource focusing on knowledge dissemination. This resource will comprise a repository containing articles and sample course modules on telecommunications issues and policies It will be built on an open platform and all content will be openly licensed under a creative commons license which will be made available free of charge to the users. The content will be on par with international standards and will undergo constant review and updates to keep abreast of current trends and debates. The Moodle learning management system will be used to manage the content.

Project Goals and Activities

The goals and activities of this project are given below:

Knowledge Repository

Goal: To create an on line repository of telecommunications related information and learning materials targeted at a multi stakeholder audience.
Activities:

Create and maintain open educational resources[3] on telecommunications that facilitates self directed and collaborative learning in a Multi user environment.
Provide information in a variety of audio, video, text and alternate accessible formats on telecommunications related topics,
Provide a single source for all information and documentation related to policy environment for telecommunications in India

Capacity Building

Goal: To raise levels of expertise and provide a set of comprehensive skills to interested students, bureaucrats, media personnel and members of civil society, so that they can understand, engage with and influence the development of telecommunications in India.

Activities:

Organise 6 workshops over two years in different locations to test the open education resources and solicit feedback. These will be conducted by the CIS project team and some external resource persons.
Organise 10 public talks by subject experts at the CIS office in Bangalore and different venues around India, which will be podcast live from the CIS web site. These may be more topical and relevant to current developments.

Dissemination

Goal:

To ensure the mainstreaming and sustainability of the learning materials created by CIS by partnering with academia;
To make the telecom policy process in India more scrutable to civil society and politicians; and
To create awareness amongst the Indian Diaspora and Internet users in India.

Activities:

To work with academia to develop teaching modules from the content available in the repository. These modules could be in the form of text or video lectures, podcasts, etc.
To disseminate content in the form of easy to read FAQs, posters, Primers, cheat sheets, DVDs, audio visual materials and other accessible formats to civil society organisations and policy makers.
To execute a comprehensive social media strategy for disseminating information and increasing public engagement. These could include:

Using social networking platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Orkut, My Space etc to infiltrate existing on line communities using carefully crafted tit bits from the repository to increase traffic.
Using You Tube, Blip TV etc for video uploads, web casts and podcasts.
Engaging with existing on line communities by contributing to ongoing and new discussions on mailing lists and blogs.
Building on a regular basis a data base of opinion and thought leaders on line and off line using a constituent relationship management software and using mass personalised e mail to encourage them to popularise our content repository through their communication channels.

Overall project activities:
Identify other senior experts and consultants for the project
Set up server infrastructure and the Moodle Learning Management System and training the project team to use it.
Organise six workshops and 10 public talks with live podcasts over two years to disseminate information on these topics.

Plan and Measurable Progress Indicators

For the purpose of measuring progress, the project can be divided into four phases of six months duration. The total number of learning materials to be created is 230 over two years. These are divided into 150 text lessons (Primers, FAQs, cheat sheets and posters) and 72 videos. The target for each phase will be to create approx 37 texts and 18 videos. Based on that, the project deliverables are as follows:

Phase I

Activities:

Hiring the core team, consultants and technology person to set up and manage the system.
Setting up the Moodle Learning Management System and training the team in using it. Mapping out topics for content generation and allocating work.

Milestones:

Complete the hiring of all project personnel.
Complete the Moodle Learning Management system set up and training.
Completion of 37 text lessons and 18 videos.

4. Organised one workshop and two public lectures to get feedback on the completed modules.
5. Awareness raising and inviting comments on completed modules through social media and mailing lists.

Phase II

Activities:

All relevant policies, legislations, rules and important case law will be mirrored on the web site
Another 38 text lessons and 18 videos will be added to the repository.
The next 2 Workshops and 3 public lectures will be conducted to get feedback on the learning materials and build awareness.
Awareness building, call for comments and community engagement activities will continue through social media, mailing lists and the CIS news letter

Milestones:

Half of the course content (75 text lessons and 36 videos) created and available on site.
Policy and regulatory information available on site.
Engagement with communities on social networking platforms, mailing lists and blogs continues.
A total of 3 Workshops and 5 public lectures conducted.
Engagement with academia for creating course content begins.

Phase III

Activities:

Content generation, capacity building and dissemination activities continue.

Milestones:

75 per cent of the content (112 text lessons and 54 videos) will be up on the web site.
4 workshops and 8 public lectures conducted.
Social media outreach continues with regular traffic on the web site.
Engagement with academia to create course modules continues.

Phase IV

Activities:

All the course modules will be completed and events conducted. A lot of effort will be taken for Dissemination and outreach.

Milestones:

All the content (150 text lessons and 72 videos) will be up on the web site.
All relevant policies, rules and legislations will be on line.
Data bases of course participants, media and other persons who were part of the course outreach will be prepared.
All six workshops and ten public lectures conducted.

CIS interest in the project:

CIS is committed to ensuring public access and participation in the information society through the internet. We work towards creating a policy environment which promotes consumer interests by facilitating unhindered access to web sites, digital content and technologies and fosters creation of networks for sharing knowledge and culture.

Since our engagement with telecommunications issues has been at a very nascent level, we would like to build expertise in this area through this project.

Policy

Regularly provide feedback and comments to proposals and notifications which are issued by the Department of Telecommunications and TRAI,[4] especially with respect to spectrum allocation.
We recently sent some notes to the Government of India in December 2010/January 2011: facts, assessments and suggestions and in February, we expect to meet with a Member, Planning Commission (Arun Maira) to advocate coordinated scenario.
We have initiated the Universal Service Obligation Fund of India to fund several projects for persons with disabilities. To that end, we created a framework document which is available on the USOF website.[5] these projects may come to approximately 1 million dollars.
Providing recommendations on accessibility in telecommunications for persons with disabilities and elderly persons to be included in the New Telecom Policy which is to come out in March 2011.

The International Telecommunications Union

We were contracted by the ITU to prepare a paper on Mobile best practices for Persons with Disabilities in December 2010. The report is complete and we are awaiting feedback from the ITU for finalisation
Edited and published a print version of the handbook on e-accessibility for persons with disabilities, which was sent to over 200 regulators and Ministries of ICT around the world.
Co-organised an event on Enabling Access to Education for Persons with Disabilities (Edict 2010) with ITU and other UN agencies, the Department of IT and civil society organisations in October 2010.
Presently working on a global paper with the co-operation of ITU and G3ict which will look at how the Universal Service Funds of countries are being utilised to fund projects to promote access for the disabled.

Media Intervention

Columns by Shyam Ponappa

Spectrum Auctions: 'Jhatka' or 'Halal'?, Business Standard, February 3, 2011
The Policy Langurs, Business Standard, January 6, 2011
Take 'Model T' for Telecom, Business Standard, December 2, 2010
Ideology & ICT Policies, Business Standard, November 6, 2010
Broad-basing Broadband, Business Standard, October 7, 2010
What a Highway Can Do, Business Standard, September 2, 2010
'Containing Inflation' - A Myth, Business Standard, August 7, 2010
Catching up on Broadband, Business Standard, July 1, 2010
India's Sorry Spectrum Story, Business Standard, June 3, 2010
China Club instead of Bombay Club?, Business Standard, May 13, 2010
The Right Ring Tone, Business Standard, April 1, 2010
Understanding Spectrum, Business Standard, March 4, 2010
Alternative Scenarios, Business Standard, February 4, 2010
Plan and Execute for Results, Business Standard, January 10, 210
Developments in Spectrum Sharing, Business Standard, December 3, 2009
Managing Spectrum, Business Standard, November 5, 2009

Column by Nishant Shah

3G Life, Indian Express, November 14, 2010

Association for Progressive Communication (APC)

APC Open Spectrum for Development India Case Study by Shyam Ponappa, November 2010. The report covers chapters on Spectrum Policy Regulatory Environment, the Spectrum Management Process, Spectrum Management – The Future, Access to Unlicensed/License-Exempt Spectrum, Exploiting Wireless, National Broadband Strategy, International Coordination, etc.
APC Open Spectrum for Development India Case Study by Shyam Ponappa, November 2010.
Article on spectrum policy based on APC’s Open Spectrum Project (by APC in monthly news magazine: ‘India's untapped potential: Are a billion people losing out because of spectrum?’ http://bit.ly/fFQzXj

Open Society Institute

A report on spectrum in India is to be prepared by Robert Horvitz as part of a project of Open Spectrum Foundation in collaboration with the Open Society Institute – Information Programme.
Presently preparing a report on digital media and technology in India, which is part of a larger global survey on Mapping Digital Media in collaboration with Jamia Milla Islamia - Centre Culture and Media Governance?

Academic Interventions

Organised a lecture tour for telecom expert Sagie Chetti in collaboration with the Link Centre in 2009 to share information in various universities and institutions around the country on the landscape of the telecommunications sector in South Africa. Presentations were held at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Chennai and IIT, Mumbai, the International Institute of Information Technology (IIIT), Bangalore, Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU), National Institute of Science, Technology and Development Studies (NISTADS) and Jamia Millia Islamia University – all based in Delhi. The visit concluded with meetings with officials from the Telecoms Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI).

List of Topics for the Knowledge Repository

Module 1: Introduction to Telecommunications
Forms of Telecommunication

Data
Telephony
Unit 1: Fixed line telephone (Text) - 1
Unit 2: Wireless Communication: Mobiles (Text + Video)
Unit 3: Wireless Communication: PDAs and Stand alone devices (Text ) - 1
Video
Unit 1: Different forms of Video Communication (Text + Video)
Telephony networks
Unit 1: Fixed Networks and their standards (Text) – 1 + Unit 2: Mobile (Text) – 1 + 1 FAQ
Unit 3: Cable TV Networks/ Converged Networks (Text) – 1 + 1

Total = 9 E + 4 V = 13

Module 2: Telecommunications Infrastructure and Technologies

Passive Infrastructure
Active Infrastructure
Unit 1: Access – 1 +1 FAQ
Unit 2: Core - 1
Unit 3: Transport – 1 + 1
Unit 4: Network Management – 1 + 1
Transmission Technology (Text)
Unit 1: Optical Fibre - 1
Unit 2: Microwaves - 1
Unit 3: Satellites - 1
Technology
Unit 1: Fundamental Concepts and changes - 1
Unit 2: Digitalization (Text ) – 1 + 1
Unit 3: Compression (Text) – 1 + 1
Unit 4:Multiplexing and Modulation (Text) – 1 + 1
Unit 4:Packetization (Text) - 1
Customer Premises Devices
Unit 1: Different kinds of handsets available in India (Text) - 1
Unit 2: Various features in the handsets (Text) – 1 + 1FAQ + 1
Unit 3: Technology (Text) – 1 + 1
Unit 4: Standards (Text) - 1
Unit 5: Future Technology (Text) - 1
Technology for Computers Communication:Wifi,WiMax, etc
Unit 1: Internet (Protocols, Security, VoIP etc) - 1
Unit 1: Internet Protocols(Text) - 1
Unit 2: Design Principles(Text) - 1
Unit 3: QoS and Security(Text+ Audio)
Unit 4: Mobility and Nomdicity(Text) - 1
Unit 5: IPv6 (Text) - 1
Unit 6: Standards (Text) - 1
Technology for Mobiles: GSM, CDMA, GPRS etc
Unit 1: Evolution - 1 + 1Overview
Unit1: First Generation (Text)- 1
Unit 2: Second Generation (Text) - 1
Unit 3: 2.5 G – GPRS and EDGE (Text) - 1
Unit 4: Third Generation (Text) – 1 + 1FAQ
Unit 5: Standards (Text) - 1
Services
Unit1: Voice Service (Text) – 1 + 1Overview
Unit 2: Location based service (Text) - 1
Unit 3: Multimedia Service (Text) - 1
Unit 4: Corporate Service (Text) - 1
Unit 5: Mobile Internet (Text + Video) – 1+1
Unit 6: Mobi TV (Text + video) – 1+1
Unit 7: Service Providers (Text) – 1 + 1FAQ
Unit 8: Customer care services (Text) - 1
Future Technology(4G, LTE)
Unit 1: Software Defined Radio (Text) – 1+1
Unit 2: Cognitive Radio (Text) – 1 + 1
Unit 3: 4G and LTE (Text) – 1+1
Convergence
Unit 1: Telecom-Mobile Broadcast Convergence (Text) – 1+1
Unit 2: Fixed-Mobile Convergence (Text) – 1+1
Unit 3: Converged services – VOIP and IPTV(Text+ Video) – 1+1
NGN [Next Generation Networks]
Unit 1: Next Generation Core Networks (NGCN) (Text) – 1+1
Unit 2: Next Generation Access Networks (NGAN) Fixed (Text) – 1+1
Unit 3: Next Generation Access Networks (NGAN) Wireless (Text) – 1+1

Total = 30 E+ 6FAQs + 4PR+ 6 CS + 22 V + 4 PO = 72
46 T + 22V + 4PO

Module 3: Government of India Regulatory Framework for Telecom

Overview of the Indian regulatory environment and relevant legislations
Unit 1: The National Telecom Policies of 1994 and 1999 (includes amendments and sequels) (Text) – 1+1
Unit 2: Cable TV Act (Text) – 1+1
Unit 3: Indian Telegraph Act 1885 (Text) – 1+1
Unit 4: Indian Telegraph Act Amendment Act of 2003(Text) – 1+1
Unit 5: The Indian Wireless Act 1993(Text) – 1+1
Unit 6: TRAI Act of 1995, TRAI Act of 1997, TRAI Amendment Act of 2000(Text) – 1+1
Unit 7: Other relevant legislations and policies - The Indian Copyright Act 1957, privacy and data security, National Electronic Accessibility Policy, The Information Technology Act 2000, Right to Information Act 2005, Consumer Protection Act 1986, Policy on Open standards and Biometric standards, Technical standards for interoperability of E-governance infrastructure, the draft Electronic Service Delivery Bill etc. (Text) – 1+2FAQs
Government Bodies responsible for Telecommunications in India
DOT- its powers and responsibilities
Unit 1: Government Policy and Guidelines (Text) - 1
Unit 2: Regulations (Text) - 1
TRAI
Unit 1: Tariffs (Text) – 1 FAQ
Unit 2: Revenue Sharing(Text, FAQs) – 1 + 1FAQ
Unit 3: Issuance of Licenses (all kinds of licenses including VSAT) (Text) - 1
Criterion to be fulfilled(Text) – 1FAQ + 1
Terms and conditions for every license type. (Text) - 1
Unit 4: Consultation Papers: Impact of consultation papers on policies, regulations and recommendations(Text) – 1FAQ + 1
Unit 5 Mobile Number Portability(Text, FAQs) - 1
Unit 6 NDNC (Text, Faqs) - 2
Unit 7 Policy recommendations (Text) – 1+1
TDSAT
Important Judgements (Text) - 2
Centre for Excellence in Telecom Technology and Management (includes all the centres under this) (CETTM) (Text) - 1
Other Agencies
TCIL
Unit 1: Various Projects (Concentrate on SWAN) (Text) - 1
Unit 2: Role of TCIL in India (Text, FAQs) - 1
BSNL and MTNL (phone, internet and broadband, mobile phones etc)(Text) – 1+1
Services
Unit 1: Basic Telecom Services - 1
Unit 2 Captive user services (Text) – 1
Unit 3: Commercial User Services (Text) – 1
Spectrum Management
Unit 1: Auctioning and allocating process for all kinds of spectrum- 1FAQ+1
Unit 2: The initial process of auctioning (Text) – 1
Unit 3: How are the bidders selected (Text, faqs) - 1
Unit 4: Criterion for allocation (Text) - 1
Unit 5: Time taken to allocate (Text) - 1
Unit 6: Selection of band (Text) - 1
Unit 7: Interference issues (Text) - 1
Unit 8: Spectrum Refarming (Text – 1
Unit 9: Spectrum Reallocation (Text,faqs) – 1FAQ + 1
National Frequency Allocation Plan (Text) - 1
Numbering(Text)
Objectives of numbering - 1
Regulatory framework for numbering - 1
Interconnection issues (Text) - 1
Digital Dividend (Text) – 1+1FAQ

Total = 26 E +13 V +8 FAQ +3 CS+ 3 PR
40 Text+ 13 Videos= 53

Module 4: Telecommunication and the Market

Unit 1: Licensing framework for Telecom including a historical overview – 1

Unit 1: Investment and Ownership in Telecoms – 1+1
6.1.1 Market Structure levels (Text)
Kinds of Competitions (Text) - 1
Unit 1: Revenue Generation (Text) - 1
Unit 1: Taxes and other charges (Text) – 1
Unit 1: SWOT Analysis of current regime – 1+1

6 Text+ 2 Videos + 1 Poster

Module 5: Universal Access and Accessibility

Background of Universal Service regulation - 1

Universal Service Obligation Fund – 1FAQ + 1
Need for rural and remote access - 1+1
Need for accessibility(Text) - 1
Large demographic group - persons with disabilities, elderly persons and illiterate persons
Legal imperative: equality and non discrimination -1
Good business opportunity -1 +1
Accessibility key concepts and requirements(Text)
Universal design – 1+1Overview
Web accessibility – 1+1
Accessibility in services – 1+1
Organizations focusing on providing accessibility to rural areas
TeNet -1+1

Total = 9E+7V+1 FAQ+1 CS+1 PO= 19
11 Text+ 1 Poster + 7 videos

Module 6: The International Telecommunications Union and other International Bodies

ITU
ITU sectors- ITU-R, ITU-T, ITU-D and ITU Telecom. – 2+1
Regulation - 1
Radio spectrum sharing – 1FAQ+1
Standards setting - 1
WSIS
Other international agencies
South Asia Association of Regional Co-operation(SAARC) - 2+1
United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP)
Commonwealth Telecom Organisation (CTO)
International Telecommunication Satellite Organisation (UTSO)
International Mobile Satellite Organisation (IMSO)
Asia-Pacific Satellite Communication Council (APSCC)
International instruments and bi-lateral and multi-lateral trade agreements - 2
Treaty on Broadcasting and the proposed instruments on limitations and exceptions which are being negotiated at the World Intellectual Property Organisation. (Text)
International best practices for policy (Text) –2

8 E+ 3V+1 FAQ+ 1 CS + 2 PR= 15
12 Text + 3 Videos

Module 7: Broadcasting

Radio
Types of radio broadcasting in India – 1+ 2
Unit 1 AIR (Text)
Unit 2 Private Fms which include both commercial radio, campus radio and community radios (Text) – 1+3
Television
Unit 1: Cable TV (Text) – 1+1
Unit 2: IP TV (Text,Faqs) – 1+1
Unit 3: Mobile TV(Text, Faqs) – 1+1
Unit 4: DTH(Text, Faqs) – 1+1
Unit 5: Terrestrial TV(Text) – 1+1
Unit 6: Standards(Text) - 1
Associations regulating broadcasting in India(Text) – 1

Total= 7 E+ 8V+1 FAQ+1CS=17

9 text+ 8 Video

Module 8: Emerging Topics

Broadband Wireless Access
Unit 1: Standards(Text) – 1+1
Unit 2: Technology(Text) – 1+1
IPTV (Text, FAQs) –1FAQ+1
Mobile TV (Text, FAQs) – 1FAQ+1
Fibre to the home (FTTH) – 1+1
Broadband over power-lines – 1+1
Mesh networking – 1+1
FEMTO-Cell and Cable TV – 2+1
Relevant regulations and legal issues – 2+1

Total= 7E+9V+2 FAQ+2CS+2 PO= 22

11 Text +2 Posters +9 Videos

Module 9: Way Forward

Policy Reform – 1+1
Licensing Reform – 1+1FAQ
Regulation Reform – 1+1
Market Place Reform – 1+1

6 Text + 4 Videos

Grand total = 150 Text + 8 Posters + 72 Videos = 230 Lessons

Work Plan for 3 people working on the project

No. of videos in 6 months	18	6 per person
No. of articles in 6 months	26-27	9 per person
No. of videos in 1 year	36	12 per person
No. of articles in 1 year	52-54	18 per person
No. of videos in 2 years	72	24 per person
No. of articles in 2 years	105	35 per person

List of Potential Partners

Centre for Excellence in Telecom Technology and Management (CETTM), Mumbai
Centre for Development of Telematics (C-DoT), Bangalore and Kolkatta
ISRO, Bangalore
National Knowledge Network, New Delhi ( Programme implementation unit)
Telecommunication Engineering Centre, New Delhi
IITCOE at IIM Ahmedabad
AIIScCET at IISc Bangalore
BITCOE at IIT Kanpur
RITCOE at IIT Madras, Chennai
VEICET at IIT Kharagpur
AICET at IIT Delhi
TICET at IIT Bombay, Mumbai
Centre for Culture, Media and Governance, New Delhi
IEEE Bangalore Section

Key contact details

Sunil Abraham (Executive Director)
Centre for Internet and Society
194, 2nd C Cross, Domlur 2nd stage, Bengaluru: 560071
Tel: 080 25350955
Mob: + 91-9611100817
Email: sunil@cis-india.org
Nirmita Narasimhan (Programme Manager)
Centre for Internet and Society
194, 2nd C Cross, Domlur 2nd stage, Bengaluru: 560071
Tel: 080 25350955
Mob: + 91-9845868078
Email: nirmita@cis-india.org
Narasimha Rao (Administrative Officer)
Centre for Internet and Society
194, 2nd C Cross, Domlur 2nd stage, Bengaluru: 560071
Tel: 080 25350955
Mob: + 91-9886193846

[1].http://www.dot.gov.in/osp/Brochure/Brochure.htm

[2].Examples of such courses are:Telecom datacom and networking- 3 days course http://goo.gl/cvnai Telefocal Asia http://www.telefocal.com/topics.php
[3].These open educational resources should be freely shared through open licences which facilitate use, revision, translation, improvement and sharing by anyone. Resources should be published in formats that facilitate both use and editing, and that accommodate a diversity of technical platforms. Whenever possible, they should also be available in formats that are accessible to people with disabilities and people who do not yet have access to the Internet.
[4].Telecom Regulatory Authority of India
[5].http://goo.gl/t2XRs

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/telecom/knowledge-repository-on-internet-access/knowledge-and-capacity-around-telecom-policy

Knowledge Repository on Internet Access

praskrishna — 2016-07-17T03:40:18Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/telecom/knowledge-repository-on-internet-access

Should the censors tighten Savita Bhabhi’s hook?*

praskrishna — 2012-05-02T06:31:11Z

"Should the censors tighten Savita Bhabhi's hook, asks a blog entry published in Churumuri on May 1, 2012.

GAGAN KRISHNADAS writes from Bangalore: With the Information Technology (Intermediaries Guidelines) Rules, 2011 in place, internet censorship has gone high and degree of criminality has fallen down. Be it Kapil Sibal or Mamata Banerjee, the people at the helm of power are trying to gain a control over internet.

The effect of existing law: To put it in simple terms, if anybody finds a particular post on this blog illegal, he/she may bring it to the notice of the owners of this blog. If the blog owner does not take any action within 36 hours, the liability on the content immediately shifts to the owner of the blog.

If at all there are about 200 ‘take down’ requests in a day, the blog owner surely cannot ascertain the legality of the content within 36 hours. Surely, the owner will find it convenient to remove the content instead of contesting the claim.

Resistance: The resistance for the said rules was not strong until recently when Kapil Sibal became vocal on pre-censorship on internet.

On April 21, there was a press conference in New Delhi by Knowledge Commons, Software Freedom Law Center, Delhi Science Forum, Save Your Voice Campaigm, Internet Democracy Project, Center for Internet and Society, Free Software Movement India, IT for Change, and Alternative Law Forum.

Two events were organised in Bangalore on the same day to voice against Internet Censorship. Let me juxtapose how media professionals and Free Software Movement people respond on the issue.

Senior Journalist Paranjoy Guha Thakurtha said: “This is a matter of considerable concern. It is known to a relatively small section because; ordinary people do not understand the intricacies. It is a matter of freedom of speech and hence it concerns not just the netizen, but every citizen. At the legal and larger philosophy, Article 19 lays down reasonable restrictions like public order, national security and so on. But who decides these reasonable restrictions on the internet?”

Mahesh Murthy, went a step ahead to declare: “I feel there should be no censorship of any kind of information, be it Savitha Bhabi or pornography or a hate speech. All such information already exists in the society. By censoring them, you are not achieving any results. The Abhishek Manu Singhvi’s alleged sex video was removed from Youtube just within 5 hours, but if someone hosts it on Piratebay, it’s almost impossible to censor.”

Na Vijayashankar said that the internet cannot be left unregulated and at the same time the regulation should not take away the basic rights of the citizens. He recalled that right from the initial days of the internet, he advocated for an internet law made by the netizens themselves, because the lawmakers hardly understand the technology.

Soon after the meeting, I moved to the town hall to participate in a protest convened by the representatives of Free Software Movement of Karnataka (FSMK) along with Software Freedom Law Centre (SFLC). The crowd predominantly comprised of Engineers and Engineering students.

I was surprised that the Engineers also had acquired a good understanding of the rules which are in detriment of their interest. While the group of media persons was more worried about censorship and freedom of speech, the ambit of concerns was larger with the Freedom Software advocates.

Senthil from the Free Software Movement of Karnataka was skeptical about similar laws being passed in other jurisdictions. Recently, USA was on its way for passing the controversial SOPA/PIPA legislations which was halted due to public pressure.

People have used internet to question the established governments, be it wikileaks, networking during the Egypt revolution or Lokpal movement. Senthil feels that the intermediary guidelines would be a hindrance in taking technology to the people.

Member of Parliament, P. Rajeeve has introduced a motion in the Rajya Sabha calling for the Internet censorship law passed last year (“Intermediary Guidelines Rules”) to be annulled. This motion will be taken up once the Budget Session 2012 reconvenes, and will need the support of the majority of both Houses to be passed.

Until the Parliament meets again, we the netizens and citizens need to ask our MPs to support the motion when it is introduced.

(Gagan Krishnadas is a post-graduate student at the National Law School of India University, Bangalore)

Read the original post.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/should-censors-tighten-savita-bhabi

2012 Global Congress on Intellectual Property and the Public Interest: Call for Participation and Save the Date

praskrishna — 2012-05-02T05:05:57Z

The Second Global Congress on Intellectual Property and the Public Interest will take place in FGV Law School, Rio De Janeiro, Brazil from December 15 to 17, 2012. The theme for this year’s Congress will be “Setting the positive agenda in motion.” We invite applications to attend the Congress, including proposals to chair workshops or deliver a paper or presentation related to the Congress’s theme.

Application and Cost

The application form is available online . Due to generous support from our sponsors, the Congress will cover the registration fees and all on-site costs for all attendees, including lunches and dinner receptions. Limited travel grants to cover accommodation and/or travel to the Congress will be available, with priorities for those from developing countries.

Deadlines

Priority applications for travel assistance and to present or chair a workshop at the Congress will be due by August 1, 2012.
Final applications for travel grants, subject to funding availability, as well as applications to present at the Congress, will be due by September 1, 2012.
Applicants not seeking travel assistance or presentation opportunities may apply to attend the Congress by November 1, 2012.

Background and Explanation of the Theme

The first Global Congress on Intellectual Property and the Public Interest was convened in 2011 to define a positive agenda for policy reform, build a global network of scholars and advocates to promote the agenda and provide opportunities for the sharing of research and strategies. The nearly 200 inaugural participants from over 30 countries and 6 continents deliberated over three days through in-person meetings and web-based collaboration to produce the Washington Declaration on Intellectual Property and the Public Interest (http://infojustice.org/washington-declaration) -- an action agenda for promoting the public interest in intellectual property and information law reform around the world.

Sixteen months later, we come together to measure our progress and expand the positive agenda. To this end, we invite applications to attend the Congress and contribute to its deliberations identifying forums where policy is being developed, proposing policies or actions that promote public interest goals and principles, and identifying and planning to respond to research and analysis needs.

Presentation Opportunities

Because the primary purpose of the Congress is to promote deliberation and action planning, the opportunities for formal presentation will be somewhat limited. We will, however, have spaces for keynote presentations or panel discussions for each session (see below). In addition, as in the inaugural year, the Congress will host small works-in-progress workshops to allow participants to share their own work and solicit feedback from peers.

Draft Workshop Sessions

Six main tracks will include a half day workshop introduced by a lecture or panel discussion on one or more of the themes noted below. The keynote introduction will be followed by deliberation in which participants will, first, review progress and opportunity in existing or potential policy forums and, second, review the current state of research and identify policy and empirical research needs and resources. Tracks will also have opportunities to draft statements or action plans for adoption at the closing plenary of the Congress or for discussion and online after the Congress ends.

We encourage applicants to identify specific sessions in which they would like to contribute.

Regulating Intellectual Property: This session will survey recent developments and proposals to regulate uses of intellectual property through other legal doctrines that express and safeguard human values, including human rights, consumer protection, competition and privacy laws.

Valuing Openness and the Public Domain: This session will survey recent developments and proposals to ensure that creative and innovative works ultimately become free for all to use as part of the public domain, including through open licensing, open access, open educational resources, open data, open standards, open government, and related open information policies.

Strengthening Limitations and Exceptions as Enabling Tools for Innovation and Expression: This session will survey recent developments and proposals to use limitations and exceptions as positive enabling doctrines to ensure that intellectual property law fulfills its ultimate purpose of promoting essential aspects of the public interest.

Setting Public Interest Priorities for Patent and Research and Development Reform: This session will survey recent developments and proposals to ensure that patent and other research and development policies serve all segments of society, and particularly the most disadvantaged, and accommodate the diverse needs of a complex world with a more diverse structure of incentives for innovation.

Supporting Cultural Creativity: This session will survey recent developments and proposals to maximize opportunities for creativity while increasing access to creative works and helping to end disputes over practices like non-commercial file-sharing.

Checking Enforcement Excesses: This session will survey recent developments and proposals to ensure that intellectual property enforcement policies and practices respect the human rights principle of proportionality and are not used as a diversion from the difficult task of tailoring intellectual property norms to their social contexts.

Implementing Development Agendas: This session will survey recent developments and proposals to fully integrate the development dimension into intellectual property policy and norm-setting at all levels of international and national intellectual policy making. The session will have a special focus on developments in the BRICS group of emerging economies.

Targeted Research: Given the spectrum of issues described above, what are the key research needs? Given academic incentive structures, what kinds of research fall through the cracks? Given the funding crisis in this field, how can we meet research needs on the cheap? Given the international scope of many policy issues, how can we work collaboratively and comparatively? Given the Internet, how can we develop and leverage new software tools for data collection?

In addition to the above sessions, we invite presentations on other topics relevant to the positive agenda the Washington Declaration promotes, including:

the role of mobilisation and activism.
collaboration between ISPs and governments in enforcement
the ecology of access to educational materials
designing copyright from scratch
updates and lessons from specific forms, e.g. WIPO, national legislatures, trade negotiations, etc.

The application form is available here . Please forward this invitation to interested lists and individuals. For more information or questions, you may contact globalcongress2012@gmail.com.

Global Congress Planning Committee

Centro de Tecnologia e Sociedade – CTS | FGV DIREITO RIO, 2012 Chair
American Assembly, Columbia University, New York
International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development, Geneva
Centre for Internet and Society, India
Open African Innovation Research and Training (Open AIR) initiative
Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property, American University, Wash. D.C.

Click to read the original published in infojustice.org

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/global-congress-on-ip-call-for-participation

2012 Global Congress on Intellectual Property and the Public Interest

praskrishna — 2012-05-02T05:04:57Z

We are pleased to announce the Second Global Congress on Intellectual Property and the Public Interest. The theme for this year’s Congress will be “Setting the positive agenda in motion,” and will have a special focus on developments and opportunities in the so-called “BRICS” group of emerging economies. This note invites applications to attend the Congress, including proposals to chair workshops or deliver a paper or presentation related to the Congress’s theme.

Application and Cost Information

The application form is available now at http://infojustice.org/globalcongress2012/registration. Due to generous support from our sponsors, the Congress will cover the registration fees and all on-site costs for all attendees, including lunches and dinner receptions. Limited travel grants to cover accommodation and/or travel to the Congress will be available, with priorities for those from developing countries.

Deadline

Priority applications for travel assistance and to present or chair a workshop at the Congress will be due by August 1, 2012.
Final applications for travel grants, subject to funding availability, as well as applications to present at the Congress, will be due by September 1, 2012.
Applicants not seeking travel assistance or presentation opportunities may apply to attend the Congress by November 1, 2012.

Please forward this invitation to interested lists and individuals. For more information or questions, you may contact globalcongress2012@gmail.com

Global Congress Planning Committee

Centro de Tecnologia e Sociedade – CTS | FGV DIREITO RIO, 2012 Chair
American Assembly, Columbia University, New York
International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development, Geneva
Centre for Internet and Society, India
Open African Innovation Research and Training (Open AIR) initiative
Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property, American University, Wash. D.C.

Read the original published on infojustice.org

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/global-congress-on-ip