Centre for Internet and Society

Bobby Kuhnu

praskrishna — 2011-03-31T09:52:12Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/publications/it-act/copy_of_bobby.jpg

Bobby Kuhnu

praskrishna — 2011-03-31T08:45:37Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/publications/it-act/bobby.jpg

Board and Society Members

praskrishna — 2024-06-26T08:11:38Z

The Centre for Internet and Society was established in 2008 with Sunil Abraham, Nishant Shah, Achal Prabhala, Lawrence Liang, Atul Ramachandra, Subbiah Arunachalam, and Vibodh Parthasarathi as the founding Society members; and Sunil Abraham, Achal Prabhala, Lawrence Liang, and Atul Ramachandra as the founding Board members. Please find below the lists of the members who have served on the CIS Society and Board since. The information in this page reflects the membership status, of Society and Board, as of March 31, 2024.

Members of Board and Society during 2023-24

Members of Board and Society during 2022-23

Members of Board and Society during 2021-22

Members of Board and Society during 2020-21

Members of Board and Society during 2019-20

Members of Board and Society during 2018-19

Members of Board and Society during 2017-18

Members of Board and Society during 2016-17

Members of Board and Society during 2015-16

Members of Board and Society during 2014-15

Members of Board and Society during 2013-14

Members of Board and Society during 2012-13

Members of Board and Society during 2011-12

Members of Board and Society during 2010-11

Members of Board and Society during 2009-10

Members of Board and Society during 2008-09

Members of Board and Society during 2023-24

Members of Board	Position	Members of Society	Position
Nikhil Narendran	President	T. Vishnu Vardhan	Chief Functionary
Vikram Hegde	Secretary	Nikhil Narendran	Member
T. Vishnu Vardhan	Treasurer	Vikram Hegde	Member
Prof. Lakshmi Arya	Member	Anubha Sinha	Member
Prof. Radhika Mamidi	Member	Arindrajit Basu	Member
		Pranav M B	Member
		Dr. Rekha Jain	Member
		Shyam Ponnappa	Member
		Prof. Subbaiah Arunachalam	Member
		Dr. Suchitra Balasubrahmanyan	Member
		Sunil Abraham	Member
		Tanveer Hasan	Member
		Pranesh Prakash	Member

Members of Board and Society during 2022-23

Members of Board	Position	Members of Society	Position
Dr. Asha Achuthan	Member	Dr. Asha Achuthan	Member
Nikhil Narendran	Member	Nikhil Narendran	Member
Vikram Hegde	Member	Vikram Hegde	Member
		Anubha Sinha	Member
		Arindrajit Basu	Member
		Pranav M B	Member
		Dr. Rekha Jain	Member
		Shyam Ponnappa	Member
		Prof. Subbaiah Arunachalam	Member
		Dr. Suchitra Balasubrahmanyan	Member
		Sunil Abraham	Member
		T. Vishnu Vardhan	Chief Functionary
		Pranesh Prakash	Member

Members of Board and Society during 2021-22

Members of Board	Position	Members of Society	Position
Dr. Rekha Jain	Chairperson	Dr. Rekha Jain	President
Mr. Amber Sinha	Secretary	Dr. Amit Mitra	Member
Dr. Amit Mitra	Member	Dr. Suchitra Balasubrahmanyan	Member
Dr. Suchitra Balasubrahmanyan	Member	Mr. Amber Sinha	Member
Mr. Vibodh Parthasarathi	Member	Mr. Arindrajit Basu	Member
		Mr. Shyam Ponnappa	Member
		Mr. Sunil Abraham	Member
		Mr. T. Vishnu Vardhan	Member
		Mr. Vibodh Parthasarathi	Member
		Prof. Subbaiah Arunachalam	Member

Members of Board and Society during 2020-21

Members of Board	Position	Members of Society	Position
Dr. Rekha Jain	Chairperson	Dr. Rekha Jain	President
Mr. Amber Sinha	Secretary	Dr. Amit Mitra	Member
Dr. Amit Mitra	Member	Dr. Suchitra Balasubrahmanyan	Member
Dr. Suchitra Balasubrahmanyan	Member	Mr. Amber Sinha	Member
Mr. Vibodh Parthasarathi	Member	Mr. Arindrajit Basu	Member
		Mr. Shyam Ponnappa	Member
		Mr. Sunil Abraham	Member
		Mr. T. Vishnu Vardhan	Member
		Mr. Vibodh Parthasarathi	Member
		Prof. Subbaiah Arunachalam	Member

Members of Board and Society during 2019-20

Members of Board	Position	Members of Society	Position
Sunil Abraham	President	Amber Sinha	President
T. Vishnu Vardhan	Treasurer	T. Vishnu Vardhan	Treasurer
Pranesh Prakash	Member	Sunil Abraham	Secretary
Shyam Ponnappa	Member	Shyam Ponnappa	Member
		Dr. Rekha Jain	Member
		Dr. Suchitra Balasubrahmanyan	Member
		Vibodh Parthasarathi	Member
		Arindrajit Basu	Member

Members of Board and Society during 2018-19

Members of Board	Position	Members of Society	Position
Sunil Abraham	President	Sunil Abraham	President
Pranesh Prakash	Treasurer	Pranesh Prakash	Treasurer
Shyam Ponnappa	Member	Shyam Ponnappa	Member
T. Vishnu Vardhan	Member	T. Vishnu Vardhan	Member
		Jayna Kothari	Member
		Hans Varghese Mathew	Member
		Subbiah Arunachalam	Member
		Vibodh Parthasarathi	Member
		Kavita Philip	Member

Members of Board and Society during 2017-18

Members of Board	Position	Members of Society	Position
Jayna Kothari	President	Jayna Kothari	President
Nirmita Narasimhan	Secretary	Nirmita Narasimhan	Secretary
Pranesh Prakash	Treasurer	Pranesh Prakash	Treasurer
Shyam Ponnappa	Member	Shyam Ponnappa	Member
Sunil Abraham	Member	Sunil Abraham	Member
T. Vishnu Vardhan	Member	T. Vishnu Vardhan	Member
		Hans Varghese Mathew	Member
		Kavita Philip	Member
		Lawrence Liang	Member
		Nishant Shah	Member
		Subbiah Arunachalam	Member
		Sumandro Chattapadhyay	Member
		Vibodh Parthasarathi	Member

Members of Board and Society during 2016-17

Members of Board	Position	Members of Society	Position
Sunil Abraham	President	Sunil Abraham	President
Nirmita Narasimhan	Secretary	Nirmita Narasimhan	Member
T. Vishnu Vardhan	Treasurer	T. Vishnu Vardhan	Treasurer
Kavita Philip	Member	Kavita Philip	Member
Nishant Shah	Member	Nishant Shah	Member
Shyam Ponnappa	Member	Shyam Ponnappa	Member
		Hans Varghese Mathew	Member
		Jayna Kothari	Member
		Lawrence Liang	Member
		Pranesh Prakash	Treasurer
		Subbiah Arunachalam	Member
		Vibodh Parthasarathi	Member

Members of Board and Society during 2015-16

Members of Board	Position	Members of Society	Position
Sunil Abraham	President	Sunil Abraham	President
Nirmita Narasimhan	Secretary	Nirmita Narasimhan	Member
T. Vishnu Vardhan	Treasurer	T. Vishnu Vardhan	Treasurer
Kavita Philip	Member	Kavita Philip	Member
Nishant Shah	Member	Nishant Shah	Member
Shyam Ponnappa	Member	Shyam Ponnappa	Member
		Hans Varghese Mathew	Member
		Jayna Kothari	Member
		Lawrence Liang	Member
		Pranesh Prakash	Treasurer
		Subbiah Arunachalam	Member
		Vibodh Parthasarathi	Member

Members of Board and Society during 2014-15

Members of Board	Position	Members of Society	Position
Sunil Abraham	President	Sunil Abraham	President
Nirmita Narasimhan	Secretary	Nirmita Narasimhan	Member
T. Vishnu Vardhan	Treasurer	T. Vishnu Vardhan	Treasurer
Kavita Philip	Member	Kavita Philip	Member
Nishant Shah	Member	Nishant Shah	Member
Shyam Ponnappa	Member	Shyam Ponnappa	Member
		Hans Varghese Mathew	Member
		Jayna Kothari	Member
		Lawrence Liang	Member
		Pranesh Prakash	Treasurer
		Subbiah Arunachalam	Member
		Vibodh Parthasarathi	Member

Members of Board and Society during 2013-14

Members of Board	Position	Members of Society	Position
Lawrence Liang	Chairman	Lawrence Liang	Member
		Sunil Abraham	President
		Nishant Shah	Treasurer
Jayna Kothari	Member	Jayna Kothari	Member
Kavita Philip	Member	Kavita Philip	Member
Subbiah Arunachalam	Member	Subbiah Arunachalam	Member
Vibodh Parthasarathi	Member	Vibodh Parthasarathi	Member

Members of Board and Society during 2012-13

Members of Board	Position	Members of Society	Position
Lawrence Liang	Chairman	Lawrence Liang	Member
		Sunil Abraham	President
		Nishant Shah	Treasurer
Jayna Kothari	Member	Jayna Kothari	Member
Kavita Philip	Member	Kavita Philip	Member
Subbiah Arunachalam	Member	Subbiah Arunachalam	Member
Vibodh Parthasarathi	Member	Vibodh Parthasarathi	Member

Members of Board and Society during 2011-12

Members of Board	Position	Members of Society	Position
Lawrence Liang	Chairman	Lawrence Liang	Member
		Sunil Abraham	President
		Nishant Shah	Treasurer
Jayna Kothari	Member	Jayna Kothari	Member
Subbiah Arunachalam	Member	Subbiah Arunachalam	Member
Vibodh Parthasarathi	Member	Vibodh Parthasarathi	Member
		M.K. Narasimha Rao	Member

Members of Board and Society during 2010-11

Members of Board	Position	Members of Society	Position
Subbiah Arunachalam	Chairman	Subbiah Arunachalam	Member
		Sunil Abraham	President
		Nishant Shah	Treasurer
Atul Ramachandra	Member	Atul Ramachandra	Member
Lawrence Liang	Member	Lawrence Liang	Member
Vibodh Parthasarathi	Member	Vibodh Parthasarathi	Member
		Achal Prabhala	Member
		M.K. Narasimha Rao	Member

Members of Board and Society during 2009-10

Members of Board	Position	Members of Society	Position
Subbiah Arunachalam	Chairman	Subbiah Arunachalam	Member
		Sunil Abraham	President
		Nishant Shah	Treasurer
Atul Ramachandra	Member	Atul Ramachandra	Member
Lawrence Liang	Member	Lawrence Liang	Member
Vibodh Parthasarathi	Member	Vibodh Parthasarathi	Member
		Achal Prabhala	Member

Members of Board and Society during 2008-09

Members of Board	Position	Members of Society	Position
Sunil Abraham	President	Sunil Abraham	President
Achal Prabhala	Vide-President	Achal Prabhala	Member
Lawrence Liang	Secretary	Lawrence Liang	Member
		Nishant Shah	Treasurer
Atul Ramachandra	Member	Atul Ramachandra	Member
		Subbiah Arunachalam	Member
		Vibodh Parthasarathi	Member

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/about/people/board-and-society-members

Bloomberg.pdf

praskrishna — 2015-04-03T06:17:33Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/Bloomberg.pdf

BlogFest2012

praskrishna — 2012-12-04T05:03:38Z

BlogFest2012

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/Technology.png

Blog Entries of Maesy Angelina

praskrishna — 2011-11-25T08:56:06Z

Maesy works in the Blank Noise project. She has produced ten blog posts.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/maesy-angelina.pdf

Blocking Twitter: How Internet Service Providers & telcos were caught between tweets and tall egos

praskrishna — 2012-08-25T07:36:04Z

Long derided as 'dumb pipes' to the Web, Internet service providers (ISPs) are discovering these days that insult is being increasingly followed up by injury.

Joji Thomas Philip and Harsimran Julka's article was published in the Times of India on August 25, 2012. Pranesh Prakash is quoted.

In the fight between netizens who spare no effort at lampooning the powers that be and alarmingly frequent government flashes of rage at comments that can range from the mildly disrespectful to downright defamatory, telcos and ISPs find themselves much like the grass in the age-old Swahili saying "When two elephants fight, it's the grass that suffers".

The latest reminder of the hard place they find themselves in came earlier this week when news first broke that the government had asked for some accounts on social media site Twitter to also be part of websites and Internet pages it wanted blocked by ISPs. The news triggered a wave of outrage across cyberspace, with many users venting their rage at the first entity they associate the web with - their ISP, which in many cases is also their telecom operator.

"We acted immediately to the government's orders, but ended up being targetted and criticised wrongly only because we acted first," explained one official, who sought anonymity for himself and the company to avoid offending bureaucrats.

It's a common feeling. Telcos and ISPs are increasingly finding themselves in a 'Damned if you do, Damned if you don't' predicament these days, having to walk a tightrope between government orders and a restive netizenry.

And government orders can range from the super-urgent to arbitrary to sometimes ill-conceived. Very often, its 'one ban fits all' makes little allowance for differences between social networking sites and regular websites.

Executives in telecom companies recounted the instance when the government on August 18 ordered a ban on bulk SMSes and restricted text messages to five per day as part of efforts to combat the large-scale migration of people of north-eastern origins from other states to their home provinces fearing reprisal attacks.

"Within an hour of the directive, we started getting calls seeking compliance," said a top executive with a leading telco. But as the Centre was demanding compliance reports, operators were busy trying to decipher its notification, which read: "(a) Block bulk SMS (more than 5) for the next 15 days in the entire country across all states/UTs (b) Block bulk MMS (more than 5) and all MMS with attachment more than 25 KB for the next 15 days in the entire country across all states/UTs."

Shoot first, talk later

Telecom operators were nonplussed by the notification. Did it apply only to senders of bulk text messages who use this facility for commercial purposes? Or, did it mean customers could not send SMSes to more than five people simultaneously?

"When we sought clarification, the explanation was completely different and took a new dimension. It was five text messages per day per customer," said the regulatory head of a GSM operator, requesting anonymity as he did not want to offend the government.

Mobile phone companies then approached the department of telecom explaining that they did not have any technology with which they could impose a five SMSes a day limit for postpaid users. "The home and telecom ministries had not even realised that a facility did not exist before issuing the directive," said the marketing head of a leading telco.

In this case, the government accepted the operator's arguments and relented, but still told the companies not to highlight the limitation. "This time around, our arguments were accepted. Going by past instances, some operators had feared that the government would slap a hefty penalty for non-compliance without considering what we had to say," the marketing head said.

Industry officials say the tendency of 'shoot first, talk later' among bureaucrats and ministers long used to having their orders followed, especially when it came to the world of social networking which very few of them had any idea about, meant that it was safer to obey first and correct later.

"We don't even do any application of mind to the government's notices on requests. We wholesale block them. We can't even question the government's requests. A notice is a law in effect. Violation means a potential penalty which can go up to the cancellation of my licence and thus end to my business," said the head of a Delhi-based ISP that serves business users.

Executives with several ISPs and telcos say most often, court orders, government notifications and directives are not in public domain, and these result in angry consumers assuming that their service provider is up to some mischief.

ISPs say public clarifications by the government would go a long way in addressing the issue. "There has to be transparency. The government should have proactively disclosed the names of the websites it wanted blocked. The persons and intermediaries hosting the content should have been notified and provided with 48 hours to respond as required by the IT Act," said Pranesh Prakash of the Centre for Internet and Society, a research organisation.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/times-of-india-aug-25-2012-blocking-twitter

Blocking online content: Google gets more requests than govt

praskrishna — 2011-11-03T10:45:25Z

Allowing a peek into what kind of information is requested to be blocked online and by who, the Department of Information Technology (DIT), in response to an RTI (Right to Information) query, has provided some intriguing details, says Pallavi Polanki in this article published in Firstpost.com on 2 November 2011.

DIT lists names of bureaucrats, police officers and one politician who requested blocking content online as well as the websites they identified.

In all, 68 individual items were requested to be blocked under the Information Technology (Procedure and Safeguards for Blocking Access of Information by Public) Rules 2009, to the DIT, which is the only authority mandated by the Information Technology Act 2000, to order blocking online content.

Speaking to Firstpost, Pranesh Prakash, programme manager at the Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore, who requested for the information under the RTI Act — and has posted it on a blog analysing the information received from DIT — said, "Information from a previous RTI application uncovered what all websites were officially blocked by the DIT, while this one uncovers what all website blocking requests the DIT received."

No prizes for guessing; pornographic sites topped the list of websites requested to be blocked. Mumbai’s Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) listed 60 adult content sites in his request. However, the DIT doesn’t seem to have accepted the officer’s request. The sites remain accessible.

Haneef Ali, Andhra Pradesh State President of the Bharatiya Janata Minority Morcha, is the only politician on the list. He requested the blocking of a blogpost, the title of which translates to "insult against Islam".

Up to four requests were made for blocking of political content, two of which came from Tamil Nadu.

The secretary, Public (Law and Order) Department requested for the website tamil.net.in to be blocked and the principal secretary, IT Department, requested a blog to be shut down. Only the first request seems to have been accepted.

Also, in the line of political fire was a Wikipedia entry for Sukhbir Singh Badal. The principal secretary, IT Department, Punjab, requested the Wikipedia entry with the address ‘en.wikipedia.org/Wiki/Sukhbir Singh Badal’ to be blocked. However, Wikipedia does have an entry for the deputy chief minister of Punjab with a slightly tweaked address.

Not surprisingly, Mumbai’s Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) wanted a YouTube video ( identified in Prakash’s blog as a video of Bal Thackeray’s speech) to be blocked. Click on the link and a message from YouTube reads: "This video has been removed because its content violated YouTube’s Terms of Service. Sorry about that."

A betting site betfair.com was sought to be shut down by a senior inspector from Mumbai’s cyber crime cell. No luck. The site remains up and running.

Finally, Maharashtra’s Commissioner sent in two requests: Both are running.

Now for the interesting part: Prakash states that the data provided by the government "seemingly conflicts with the data released by the likes of Google (via its Transparency Report)."

According to Google’s Transparency Report, released on 25 October, Google received requests for 358 individual items to be removed from its different services between January and June 2011. And 407 such requests were made in 2010.

Information provided by DIT, however, shows that only requests for 68 items (64 websites, one blog, and three specific web-pages) from eight separate requests were made to it. Of these, only three were for Google’s services (two for Blogger and one for YouTube), points out Prakash.

While only DIT has the authority to order blocks, Google data shows that requests to ‘remove content’ far outnumber the requests made to DIT, suggesting that Google is receiving these requests directly from law enforcement agencies.

"The only explanation for this is that an order to ‘block for access… or cause to be blocked for access by the public’ is taken to be different from an order for removal of content… That would mean that while blocking is regulated by the IT Act, forcible removal of content is not. Thus, it would seem that forcible removal of online content is happening without clear regulation or limits,"states Prakash. (emphasis added).

Prakash makes the case that when law enforcement agencies send requests to companies like Google to remove content they are "operating outside bounds set up by the Indian Penal Code and the Code of Criminal Procedure as also the Information Technology Act."

He adds that companies tend to comply with such ‘requests’ even when they are not under legal obligation to do so because it might appear to them to "violate their own terms of service (which generally include a wide clause about content being in accordance with all local laws), community guidelines."

"This way, the intention of Parliament in enacting Section 69A of the IT Act — to regulate government censorship of the Internet and bring it within the bounds laid down in the Constitution—is defeated," states Prakash.

This article has been republished from Firstpost.com. The original can be read here. You can read Firstpost’s continuing RTI coverage here.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/blocking-content-google-gets-more-requests

Blocking of Websites

praskrishna — 2013-06-03T09:18:32Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/blocking-websites

Blocking of Websites

praskrishna — 2013-09-24T09:11:57Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/blocking-websites.pdf

Blocked websites: Where India flawed

praskrishna — 2012-08-27T03:00:16Z

Apart from not giving 48 hours response time, the Indian government has blocked some websites which don't exist or don't have web addresses, says an analyst.

Published in CIOL on August 23, 2012. Pranesh Prakash's analysis is quoted.

India is threatening to block Twitter as the latter has allegedly failed to respond to the government's order to remove some inflammatory posts.

That has come to light as it is being widely covered in media, but there are hundreds of websites which have already been shut, apparently without due notice to the owners.

Apart from Facebook, Twitter and YouTube accounts, the blocked websites include which are sympathetic to Hindu and Muslim radical groups.

In an analysis of 309 websites blocked in the wake of exodus of North eastern people from Bangalore, Pranesh Prakash of the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), says the government has blocked these sites under the Information Technology Act, but it failed to provide the mandatory 48 hours to respond (under Rule 8 of the Information Technology Procedure and Safeguards for Blocking for Access of Information by Public, Rules 2009).

He writes in his post: "The persons and intermediaries hosting the content should have been notified. Even if the emergency provision (Rule 9) was used, the block issued on August 18, 2012, should have been introduced before the "Committee for Examination of Request" by August 20, 2012 (within 48 hours), and that committee should have notified the persons and intermediaries hosting the content.

Internet censorship is acceptable as long as it is in the purview of the law and doesn't encroach one's freedom. In this case, some people and posts debunking rumours have been blocked, says Pranesh.

He points to some discrepancies in the way the websites are blocked:

Some of the items are not even web addresses (e.g., a few HTML img tags were included). Some of the items they have tried to block do not even exist (e.g., one of the Wikipedia URLs).
An entire domain was blocked on Sunday, and a single post on that domain was blocked on Monday.
For some YouTube videos, the 'base' URL of YouTube videos is blocked, but for other the URL with various parameters (like the "&related=" parameter) is blocked. That means that even nominally 'blocked' videos will be freely accessible.

He concludes: "All in all, it is clear that the list was not compiled with sufficient care."

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/www-ciol-com-aug-23-2012-blocked-websites

blocked

praskrishna — 2015-01-03T02:42:59Z

blocked

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/blocked.png

Blank Noise

praskrishna — 2011-01-24T12:56:40Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/parmesh03.jpg

blank

praskrishna — 2012-02-15T08:44:20Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/blank.png

BK Gairola

praskrishna — 2012-11-16T15:47:17Z

BK Gairolace

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/BKGairola.png