Centre for Internet and Society

Elite Capture of Governance in Bangalore

praskrishna — 2016-01-12T16:28:20Z

Vanya Rakesh participated in the event held in Bangalore on December 16, 2015.

This was a public consultation on the TENDER Sure Road project, discussing elite capture of Governance in Bangalore by way of this project. The panel comprised of experts to lead the consultation, followed by views of the society members on this issue. The panel discussion was organised by the Forum for Urban Governance and Commons. For more info click here.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/elite-capture-of-governance-in-bangalore

Elida

praskrishna — 2012-04-15T14:02:06Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/Elida.JPG

Electronication: Ragas and the Future

praskrishna — 2011-04-04T07:18:29Z

What more is better than listening to music and later on getting into a discursive conversation with its composers to better understand the transformative power of high-energy music. CIS is pleased to invite you to an evening conference followed by a concert by Charanjit Singh, Samrat B. and Imaad Shah playing improvised versions of Charanjit Singh's “Ten Ragas to a Disco Beat”.

About the Music

In 1982, seasoned Bollywood composer and arranger Charanjit Singh visited Singapore and got his hands on the now holy trinity of a Roland 303, 808, and Jupiter 8 - the core of acid house and the gear that forged the genesis of electronic dance music as we know it today.

Later that year, EMI India releases an album limited to a few thousand copies: "Synthesizing: Ten Ragas to A Disco Beat". It presents Charanjit's effort at using what was then an entirely new technology to bridge the gap between programmed beats, synth lines, and classical Indian music motifs.

It essentially sinks without a trace.

In 2008, Dutch label Bollywood Connection re-released this LP to an unsuspecting and wholly ignorant public, convinced that these beats were established in the clubs of Chicago and Detroit in 1986, except they never were.

Since the re-release, this album has been raising eyebrows worldwide.

About the Musicians

Charanjit Singh is a seasoned Bollywood composer and arranger who lives in Bombay. We recently met him, and we are now working with him to bring his work back into the twenty-first century and into the public eye, where it belongs. On March 6, he will give a performance from this landmark album for the first time in nearly 30 years.

Samrat B. performs under the name Teddy Boy Kill along with another musician. Streaming from continuous transmutation of music & audio-emotive desires, the sound of Teddy Boy Kill stems out of Psychedelic, Dub, Electro, Rock & Funk. The music is an attempt to revive the dance & groove mentality.

Imaad Shah is a musician, writer, and actor based in Mumbai. An avid enthusiast of music and pop history, he has dug deep into the Bollywood sound culture and is part of Pulp Society, a funk jazz act from Mumbai.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/events/electronication

Election panel rejects Google’s proposal for electoral services tie-up

praskrishna — 2014-01-31T08:58:01Z

EC had earlier signed a non-disclosure agreement with Google but had not shared or handed over any data to the Internet giant so far.

The article by Anuja and Moulishree Srivastava was published in Livemint on January 9, 2014. Lawrence Liang is quoted.

The Election Commission (EC) on Thursday rejected a proposal by Internet search engine operator Google Inc. to provide electoral information services to EC ahead of the general election due later this year. Google’s proposal, made earlier this week, was criticized by experts and political parties on the grounds of security.

Google, which deals with Internet-related services and products, had made a presentation at EC where it proposed to deliver voter facilitation services through a tie-up with the Commission.

“Google made a presentation to the Commission for electoral hook up services for citizens to help in efforts of the Commission for better electoral information services. However, after due consideration, the Commission has decided not to pursue the proposal any further,” EC said in a statement.

Its decision came at a meeting of senior EC officials on Thursday, called to discuss the proposal. Security was one of the main issues before it.

“Security and controlling the data were the main points which were considered. By ways of such a tie-up all the data would have been up for access. It was always a question of whether Indian laws would apply to it or not, so we decided against it,” a senior official from EC said.

PTI reported that the meeting was attended by the chief election commissioner V.S. Sampath and election commissioners H.S. Brahma and S. N. A. Zaidi.

The Times of India in a report on Sunday said there were concerns over the EC move to tie up with Google for voter registration.

EC had earlier signed a non-disclosure agreement with Google but it had not shared any data with it. The move was criticised by the ruling Congress party as well as the main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party. The legal cell of the Congress had written to EC raising concerns over national security and asking whether the tie-up would affect the electoral process. The BJP’s complaint was that stakeholders, including political parties, should have been consulted.

Experts say that in the event of such a tie-up, concerns about protection of privacy would have outweighed national security fears.

“The concern is not so much about national security as it is about privacy issues. This kind of database is too important and too powerful to be controlled by a private company. There have been too many instances of this kind of data being skewed and riots happening during the election process. Privately owned databases could lead to potential misuse of the data,” said Lawrence Liang, co-founder of Alternative Law Forum and chairman of the board at the Bangalore-based Centre for Internet and Society.

“It is not a question of how and what service Google could have provided for elections, but how the state can bring itself to provide that kind of service,” he said.

In the US, when George W. Bush was re-elected president in 2004, the company that manufactured the voting machines was accused of rigging the polls, Liang added.

Google called the EC’s rejection “unfortunate”, pointing out that the company has already helped governments with such services in countries like the Philippines, Egypt, Mexico and Kenya.

“It is unfortunate that our discussions with the Election Commission of India to change the way users access their electoral information, that is publicly available, through an online voter look up tool, were not fruitful,” Google said in a statement.

“Google will continue to develop tools and resources to make civic information universally accessible and useful, help drive more informed citizen participation, and open up new avenues for engagement for politicians, citizens, and civic leaders,” it added.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/livemint-january-31-2014-anuja-moulishree-srivastava-election-panel-rejects-google-proposal-for-electoral-services-tie-up

Election Commission to monitor conduct of political parties on Facebook, Twitter and Google

praskrishna — 2013-12-30T07:02:06Z

With Congress and BJP hammering away at each other in the ongoing assembly contests that will set the stage for national polls next year, the Election Commission wants to make sure social media and online platforms run by Google, Facebook and Twitter are not used to breach the code of conduct that governs candidates and parties. The commission's key concerns relate to malicious content and exceeding the campaign expense limit.

The article by Ajmer Singh was published in the Economic Times on November 25, 2013. Sunil Abraham is quoted.

The Election Commission, which summoned the social media companies to a meeting last Monday, directed them to cooperate in monitoring content. They were asked to set up a mechanism that would help prevent posting of material that could vitiate the election atmosphere, according to Election Commission officials who are aware of the development and didn't want to be named. If such content is posted, the mechanism should also allow for its speedy removal, they said.

"It is difficult to monitor and track content on social media or Internet sites, since the servers are based out of the US," said one of the officials cited above. "EC has asked social media giants to cooperate for compliance with the code of conduct, pre-certification of advertisement on the web and monitoring malicious content."

The companies declined to comment and referred ET to the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) for a response. "It was a sensitising meeting on the code of conduct with some legal and corporate affairs representatives of Internet firms which are members of IAMAI," said Subho Roy, president of the grouping.

"The Election Commission representatives explained to us the model code of conduct, its importance during the last 48 hours of the election, the pre-certified advertisements and why they were important in accounting of the candidate's expenses. They also wanted to understand from us what are the current methods of removing illegal content from websites under existing laws. The Election Commission also assured us that at no point there would be any attempt to censor social media," said Subho Roy, IAMAI president and one of those present at the November 18 meeting.

The commission has classified social media into five types - collaborative projects such as Wikipedia; blogs and micro blogs such as Twitter; content communities such as Google-owned YouTube; social networking sites such as Facebook; and games and apps.

"We have received many complaints about misuse of social media platforms, and it is becoming unmanageable. So all these sites shall now be strictly monitored and asked to comply with EC's instructions," an official said.

According to Election Commission guidelines, "Legal provisions relating to election campaigning apply to social media in the same manner in which they apply to any other form of election campaigning using any other media."

The social media companies will also need to make sure that any advertising they carry conforms to the rules.

An official said social media companies have been asked to "keep an eye on any breach of model code of conduct, in respect of any party or candidate who posts hate messages or creates hatred or tension between different castes, communities, religions, etc. The social media giants have been directed to ensure pre-certification of advertisement on web/social media (clearance of political advertisement by a committee before being displayed in social media/web by any registered party or by any group or association)".

An executive at one of the companies said it would be difficult to keep a check on what was being posted as this may count as a breach of privacy, besides being impinging on other rules.
"It is a highly contentious issue and (it's) impossible to monitor malicious content," said this person who didn't want to be named. "The diktat issued by EC can't be implemented since it overrides the Information Technology Act. We all comply with the IT Act, and the model code of conduct is not for us but for political parties and candidates."

A privacy advocate pointed out the difficulties that the social media companies may face when it comes to implementing the Election Commission guidelines.

"This is what we call proactive censorship or proactive monitoring and may interfere with the intermediary's immunity from liability, when they have no actual knowledge of content. It may be in conflict with provisions of the IT Act (Section 79) and could have serious privacy implications," said Sunil Abraham of the Centre for Internet Society, and an expert on privacy laws. "Pre-censorship is required by Indian law and courts only for cinema that is exhibited in theatres. In the case of books, this type of censorship has been held to be unconstitutional. This case is worse because it is private pre-censorship of user-generated content that is not subject to judicial review."

The Election Commission had, on October 25, asked candidates to provide information about social media accounts and expenditure on online campaigns. It had clarified that the provisions of the code of conduct would apply to the Internet, including social media websites.

A Congress member said social media accounts would be difficult to police as these may be in the name of individuals and have no direct links to parties or candidates.

"The biggest problem is that candidates or political parties may not be operating their Twitter handles or posting advertisements on Facebook or the web, but (through) an unknown Internet army, which builds up a social media campaign and posts hate messages," the person said. A senior Congress MP, who didn't want to be named, suggested that such efforts were extensive on behalf of BJP prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi, the chief minister of Gujarat.

"More than 90% of Twitter traffic is emanating from Rajkot, Ahmedabad and Baroda, all in Gujarat," this person said. "Who are these people, campaigning and managing an obnoxious campaign?"

BJP denied that its Internet campaigns were in violation of any Election Commission guidelines.
"There is no truth in these allegations and Congress has little understanding of this," said Arvind Gupta, who heads BJP's IT cell. "Narendra Modi has a pan-India presence and is a popular leader, they are just jealous of him. We have a social media cell, which acts responsibly and complies with guidelines."

Election Commission officials said social media companies have been asked to resolve issues related to malicious content and provide details of serious infringements. The ministry of communications and information technology has also been asked to suggest ways of tackling the matter.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/economic-times-november-25-2013-ajmer-singh-election-commission-to-monitor-conduct-of-political-parties-on-facebook-twitter-google

Election campaign: parties draw battle lines on media platforms

praskrishna — 2013-09-05T10:23:41Z

In the run-up to the 2014 polls, parties are drawing up media strategies that have a focus on young voters.

This article by Venkatesh Upadhyay was published in Livemint on August 26, 2013. Sunil Abraham is quoted.

Major national political parties have begun to sharpen and tweak their tools of public relations and media engagement in the run-up to the 2014 general election, with an eager nod towards a voters list that is expected to be packed by the young.

National parties currently in the process of shortlisting their advertising, public relations and mobile marketing agencies declined to share details.

“The advertising strategy will crystalize by January. We will go for multiple agencies,” said Manish Tewari, spokesperson for the Congress as well as minister for information and broadcasting.

According to people familiar with the selection process, JWT, Crayons Communications and Dentsu India, among others, are all in the race for the Congress business. Home-grown Crayons has worked closely with the Delhi government and Congress in the past.

Refusing to confirm the names on the shortlist, Tewari said it was a line-up of the “usual suspects”.

For social media, the Congress has engaged Delhi-based OMLogic, an online media marketing company, which helped create the website fekuexpress.com that seeks to highlight the supposedly braggart nature of the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party’s chief campaigner Narendra Modi.

The website ran contests in which winners received film tickets. OMLogic was among three shortlisted agencies from 22 that competed for the same account, a person familiar with the bid said. According to others aware of the developments, senior Congress leaders such as Digvijay Singh and Deepender Singh Hooda helped select the agencies.

OMLogic helps clients enhance their brands across platforms and creates social media applications for them. The company declined to comment for this story.

“I believe these elections will represent the first time that political parties will have a conscious media strategy,” said Sanjaya Baru, communications advisor to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh from 2004 to 2008.

	“By conscious I mean that political parties have acknowledged the role of mass media in getting their message across to voters. TV has taken the space of political rallies.” Baru said the media strategy for the coming elections was essentially focused on TV and social media as “both these platforms allow parties to reach out to large parts of the urban and semi-urban demographic”. Close to 60 million new voters have been enrolled for the 2014 election, of whom 17.6 million are 18-19 year-old first-timers. A study by the Iris Knowledge Foundation and Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) estimates the number of urban social media users to be around 78 million. The main users were in the age groups of 18-24 and 25-34 years.

“By conscious I mean that political parties have acknowledged the role of mass media in getting their message across to voters. TV has taken the space of political rallies.”

Baru said the media strategy for the coming elections was essentially focused on TV and social media as “both these platforms allow parties to reach out to large parts of the urban and semi-urban demographic”.

Close to 60 million new voters have been enrolled for the 2014 election, of whom 17.6 million are 18-19 year-old first-timers. A study by the Iris Knowledge Foundation and Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) estimates the number of urban social media users to be around 78 million. The main users were in the age groups of 18-24 and 25-34 years.

The Congress has already highlighted the role of social media in its communication strategy. The party held a special session on the use of social media by party members on 22 August that was addressed by minister of state for human resources Shashi Tharoor, and Manish Tewari. In a similar meeting last month, party members were briefed on how to comment on key issues, including the state of the economy, and personalities like Modi, who is also Gujarat chief minister.

It also launched an intranet software called Khidki (Hindi for window) for use by Congress members. According to party politicians, another important part of last month’s exercise was to identify young members who would make up a cadre of spokespersons that would then participate across news channels.

The BJP, meanwhile, has drafted Internet entrepreneurs B.G. Mahesh and Rajesh Jain to help the party with its social media operations. Acknowledging the role of social media in the party’s media strategy, BJP spokesperson Nirmala Seetharaman said, “Our exercise has already taken on board the position which the party enjoys on various social media. We only emphasized the content that such media ought to have,” she added.

Prominent members of the party, led by Modi, have large followings on social media. Modi’s Twitter account is followed by close to 2.1 million people.

Last week, the BJP launched india272.com that would “crowd source” suggestions by the electorate. It also launched a website where its members can upload “chargesheets” on the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance. Visitors to www.bjp.org/upachargesheet can also make use of different social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Flickr to register their complaints.

Some Internet activists are sceptical about such strategies. “The average Indian netizen is not that well equipped to critically analyse the content coming from so-called crowdsourced mechanisms,” said Sunil Abraham, executive director of the Centre for Internet and Society, a Bangalore-based Internet policy research organization. “I believe that social media might be one step removed from actual voters and might be more oriented towards opinion makers. In that sense social media (in India) behaves very differently from the way it has been used in the US.”

According to an online media expert familiar with the BJP’s social media campaign, the interactive nature of social media helps build up an image of transparency while making the party more accessible to a young audience that has been switching off television news.

In addition, social media allows political leaders to gauge public response quickly.

Ajay Maken, Congress general secretary and the man who heads the party’s communication strategy, pointed out in an article published this month that subjects that become influential on Twitter during the day tend to turn into full-fledged TV debates by the evening.

But political parties are not giving up on television channels just yet.

According to a report by consulting firm KPMG, the number of Indian households with TV sets is estimated to be 154 million, and is expected to grow to 173 million by 2017. TAM Media research estimated the number of TV households to be 123 million in 2009. Meanwhile, cable- and satellite-owning TV households has in the period 2009-2012 ballooned from 90 million to 126 million, according to TAM.

The Congress has issued guidelines to its members on how to behave on television. According to individuals familiar with the move, the party has also set up a research cell that informs Congress spokespersons about subjects that they are asked to speak on.

Congress members who participate in televised debates have been given strict orders to not go on air without a thorough understanding of the nuances of issues—provided to them by Congress researchers. For instance, spokespersons have been advised to rely on facts and be data-specific when confronted with the twin issues of Gujarat’s high-growth economy and Modi’s governance record.

In order to streamline the process, the party has come up with lists of speakers who are focused on specific issues. It has also constituted media cells in each state capitals with three units—spokespersons, social media cell and research —and a social media division for every urban centre with a population of at least a million.

The BJP has devised a similar strategy. Party spokespersons have been asked to mention chief ministers other than Modi if asked about the leadership for the 2014 elections. Arun Jaitley, in a interview to The Hindu, on 19 August had spoken about the possibility of there being close to 10 prime ministerial candidates in the BJP.

The BJP, which held a closed-door media workshop for party members last week, is also keen on research. “A lot of policy requires specialized understanding which is largely domain-specific. In that regard, members of our party will need to be prepared when they speak on such issues,” said spokesperson Seetharaman.

The Congress has already begun a television ads-blitzkrieg to trumpet its record in government. Begun in May, these ads have sought to showcase the fruits of the welfare state, including schemes aimed at the poor, such as theMahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, as well a long list of rights-based laws. One well-known ad tells the story of a fictional young woman named Priya who lives in a village but makes use of opportunities in education and improved electricity connections to become a successful entrepreneur.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/livemint-august-26-2013-venkatesh-upadhyay-election-campaign

El idioma oriya ama a Wikipedia

praskrishna — 2014-05-05T05:14:26Z

Este post es de Rising Voices, un proyecto de Global Voices que ayuda a difundir los medios ciudadanos en lugares que normalmente no tienen acceso a ellos.

The following is a Spanish version of the news that was already published in English on Rising Voices. The Russian version can be read here.

El oriya (odia) es una lengua con una antigüedad de 2,500 años nativa de la región de Odisha (antes conocida como Orissa). La lengua obtuvo recientemente el estatus de lengua clásica de la India.

Recientemente, la comunidad Wikimedia Oriya se reunió para celebrar el nuevo estatus de la lengua en Bhubaneswar.

A continuación un extracto de un artículo [en] reciente en el blog de la Fundación Wikimedia, por Subhashish Panigrahi [en], compartiendo información sobre la comunidad Wiki en Oriya:

14 libros con derechos de autor se han relicenciado bajo la licencia Creative Commons y el proyecto de digitalización en Odia WikiSource [or] fue formalmente iniciado por una institución educacional indígena, la Institución Kalinga de Ciencias Sociales (KISS por sus siglas en inglés) [...] La KISS digitalizará algunos de estos libros y los pondrá a disposición en Odia Wikisource.

Una fuente OpenType Unicode en oriya, “Odia OT Jagannatha [en]” diseñada por Sujata Patel de Odialanguage.com [en] fue publicada bajo la licencia OFL. Es la primera fuente OpenType para oriya que la comunidad ha probado activamente.

Una nueva herramienta para la escritura en oriya sin necesidad de estar en línea llamada “TypeOdia” [en], por el wikipedista Manoj Sahukar [or] también se publicó para su distribución. DVD's con la fuente, la herramienta de escritura, diccionarios en la lengua oriya, la Wikipedia oriya fuera de línea en Kiwix, la guía de edición de Wikipedia [en], un convertidor de fuentes ISCII a Unicode, varias paquetes de software libre y de fuente abierta y el sistema operativo Ubuntu [...]

Una gran mayoría de las publicaciones en oriya no se encuentran en Internet y los usuarios carecen de fácil acceso. (El dr. Debiprasanna Pattanayak) discutió el proceso de digitalización para preservar libros valiosos que ya no se imprimen y viejos manuscritos en hoja de palma [...]

Las fuentes en oriya pueden ser descargadas gratuitamente [en]. Los desarroladores de la fuente dicen [en]:

Abogamos por el uso de la lengua oriya de verdadero espíritu, en el campo de la administración diaria, en la justicia, además del campo de la educación. Además, hemos tomado el proyecto para desarrollar un léxico en oriyia, incluyendo versiones en oriya típicas de palabras técnicas, para evitar la dependencia de la lengua inglesa.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/rising-voices-april-12-2014-el-idioma-oriya-ama-a-wikipedia

Ekta Ohri

praskrishna — 2012-04-11T10:56:36Z

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egypt

praskrishna — 2011-11-21T06:16:23Z

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Egypt

praskrishna — 2011-11-15T09:04:54Z

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eGovWatch: Delhi Dialogue Commission forms WiFi task force

praskrishna — 2015-04-03T06:37:34Z

In a step towards making Delhi a WiFi city, the Delhi Dialogue Commission (DDC) has taken onboard Mahesh Murthy, Nikhil Pahwa and Pranesh Prakash who will form the DDC’s task-force on WiFi.

The article was published in the Financial Express on March 18, 2015.

While Murthy is a start-up expert with over 15 years of experience in online marketing, Pahwa is the founder of MediaNama — a digital media news and analysis portal. Prakash is the director of Centre for Internet and Society (CIS).

The Delhi government said it hopes that the move will “bolster the internet economy, spur trade and tourism, improve women’s safety and security applications, increase worker productivity, make the city more attractive to business, bridge the digital divide and make the government more accessible and responsive to its citizens.”

Invitations to be a part of the task force have also been sent to telecom experts in the Indian Telecom Service and the Indian Posts and Telecommunication Accounts and Finance Service.

The DDC has received over 400 emails and thousands of WhatsApp messages after it invited suggestions from citizens on making Delhi a WiFi city. “Presently, the DDC is studying the responses that it has received,” a DDC member said.

He also said that a preliminary consultation was held with the IT and Telecom cell at FICCI. A one-day Delhi WiFi conference will also be held with FICCI’s secretary general to involve national and international stakeholders.

“The DDC is sending out invites and collaboration requests to cities and countries across the world to study best practices of successful WiFi implementations and learn from the failures in many countries,” the member said. The government’s Department of Information Technology will hold per-consultations with stakeholders on March 24, 25 and 26, sources said.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/financial-express-march-18-2015-e-gov-watch

EGif

praskrishna — 2011-04-03T17:08:21Z

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EGif

praskrishna — 2011-04-03T17:04:33Z

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Eenadu Special

praskrishna — 2015-12-29T16:37:33Z

Eenadu Special

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Eenadu news report

praskrishna — 2015-12-29T16:42:09Z

Eenadu news report

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