Centre for Internet and Society

Amnesty International calls for review of 66A of IT act

praskrishna — 2012-11-30T06:19:45Z

The review seeks to bring the Act in line with international human rights law standards on freedom of expression.

This article by Nirmalya Behera was published in the Business Standard on November 28, 2012.

Joining in the row over arrest of two girls in Maharastra for Facebook comments, the human rights group, Amnesty International, has called for review of the Section 66A of the Information Technology Act, 2000.

In a letter to Kapil Sibal, Union minister for Communications and Information Technology, the London based human right watchdog has asked for reviewing the section and bringing it in line with international human rights law standards on freedom of expression.

The human rights group and the Centre for Internet and Society believe that Section 66A, which was amended in 2008, is not in line with the constitution of India and internationally accepted standards on freedom of expression. They termed the section as imprecise and over board.

Amnesty has also called for laying down clear and comprehensive explanations of the restrictions on free speech either in the IT act or in the rules in order to prevent the abuse of the provision by various state law enforcement officials and frame the explanations after consulting it with the public.

“The Internet should be a force for political freedom, not repression. People have the right to seek and receive information and to express their peaceful beliefs without fear, or interference. But under Section 66A, even a peaceful posting could lead to a prison sentence of up to three years”, it said in its letter.

It may be noted that two girls- Shaheen Dhada and her friend Renu Srinivasan were arrested on November 19, after Dhada had lamented in a Facebook post about the shutdown in Mumbai due to Bal Thackeray's funeral and were later released on bail.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/business-standard-november-28-2012-nirmalya-behera-amnesty-international-calls-for-review-of-66a-of-it-act

AML Workshop

praskrishna — 2012-12-07T09:27:00Z

AML

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Amitabh

praskrishna — 2013-10-23T10:51:38Z

Amitabh

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American Bar Association Comments

praskrishna — 2016-04-23T11:52:57Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/aba-comments.pdf

Ambika

praskrishna — 2018-08-12T07:02:40Z

Ambika Tandon

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Amber S

praskrishna — 2017-06-15T15:48:38Z

Amber Sinha

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Alternative Approaches to Social Change

praskrishna — 2012-01-30T06:04:23Z

Review of Maesy Angelina’s essay, "Digital Natives’ Alternative Approach to Social Change", in Digital Alternatives with a Cause Book 2: To Think, pp.64-76 by Nuraini Juliastuti.

Dominant assumptions about social movements need a redefinition. They are not compatible with youth movements, which are mainly operated within the framework of contemporary technology development.

Although being acknowledged as ‘the potential future directions of activism’, the capability of digital-based movements to bring about concrete changes has been in doubt. It has been associated with degrading terms such as ‘slacktivism’ or ‘click activist’. Some scholars consider it a quasi-movement, and argue that it needs to be accompanied with “real” activism.

Each movement calls for a different analytical lens. The source of predicaments of the digital movement opponents revolves around the persistence of focusing on concrete aspects of a movement. Unless we consider the tangible aspects, a proper understanding of a digital movement cannot be realized.

Observations about intangible aspects of a movement will keep a research from clinging to activism with a capital A, and start seeing a gradation in the social movement practices. It is constructive and opens the door to analyses of multi-dimensional movements such as the Blank Noise initiative (India). Drawing on methods of identifying new developments to the field of social movement, Maesy examines some aspects of it: the issue, strategy, site of action, and internal mode of organization.

First, a straightforward summary of Blank Noise. It is a movement to address sexual harassment against women in public spaces in India. Sexual harassment includes staring, catcalls, groping, and is usually disregarded as a one-off, casual incident. It also takes under purview ‘eve teasing’, generally considered soft sexual harassment. Established in 2003, the main workspaces of the collective are a combination of street interventions and online campaigns mediated on social media sites such as blogs, YouTube, Flickr, Facebook, and Twitter.

Blank Noise attempts to subvert populist notions of what activism is within culture. Artistic approaches are regarded not as merely illustrational, but integrated into the methods of drawing attention to sexual harassment.

It chooses not to see things through a simple black and white perspective, but from a more complex view; loose, not rigid, is an instructive term to explain the character of the movement that is held together by two stakeholders: youth and technology.

In the antecedent period—this essay provides little space for it and hence lacks a historical explanation—social movements were carried out by non-governmental organizations (NGOs). The keyword ‘society empowerment’ was in application then; embedded within is the idea of power relations. The NGO activists are powerful agencies and therefore have the authority to empower others.

In the case of Blank Noise, it consciously disrupts the mainstream notion of what a social movement entails and at the same time, displays coherencies within the accepted movement’s principles: the collective thus offers alternative approaches. An alternative movement however, is indicative of a classic pattern within the trajectory of social movements - it is a natural occurrence in response to a static state of affairs. Negotiations of the appropriate ways to confront circumstances are accelerating, putting old concepts of voluntarism, political participation, social contribution, and the meaning of being an activist into fragile categorizations. They are all subject to constant reinterpretations.

A new question then arises: as local people acknowledge Blank Noise as an outstanding example of citizen activism in India, does this youth initiative differentiate itself from other youth movements of its kind?

Online spaces formerly built to showcase the profile of movement organizers have now transformed into collaborative workspaces to archive and advocate women’s right movement. Interactivity has permeated through online spaces, replacing the static nature which was earlier associated with activism-related websites. The distance between the initiators and the participants is disappearing. The initiators and the participants are no longer two separate entities and are now joint content producers.

Some literatures characterize a social movement as a form of intellectual intervention. It is the practice of social intervention where the power is arranged in a relatively clear intellectual hierarchy. The dynamics of the action spaces has blurred such a hierarchy. Nonetheless, the question of class is still worth asking.

The issues of the ideologies of technologies being used in a movement, how they are operated, the actors behind them, what discourses are being developed, whose interests do they speak on behalf of, are important matters to be further explored to bring forth a reflection on power dynamics.

An undemanding way to value a social movement is through impact examination. A common way to assess impact is by observing the tangible aspects of the movement or campaign: the number of participants in activities conducted (do men and women participate equally in them?); the number of meetings; the organization’s coverage; public response to the campaign; statistics of crime. It asserts that a significant impact can be achieved through concrete goals and demands.

The question of impact meets its philosophical turn when dealing with a grey issue such as normalization of street sexual violence. The meaning of street sexual violence is hard to pin down. One of the possible ways to cope with it is through a micro-movement. It is a strategy, which aims to create changes at the personal level. The meaning of empowerment is shifting. In the case of Blank Noise, as the author puts it, “they empower people through their experience with the collective”.

Blank Noise differs from other types of movements in their inability to identify the opponent. Or, rather, they live a situation where it is impossible to establish who and what the opponent is. Rather than merely seeing it as a representation of the faltering state, as many scholars usually do, the author sees it as a ‘grey productive gesture’. It directs the course of the movement to a constant dialogue with the meaning of participation. Often unintentionally, it engages in the search of the meaning of what one can contribute to the others, without having the need to incorporate in, or being absorbed into, old society empowerment jargon. It attempts to remake the language of a movement.

But how should an opponent be defined? And how should change be defined? Although indirectly, the discussion on ways of organizing the movement as well as articulating the issue—the uncertainty about their values included, points to the base of the debate on the concept of activism. As each context is walking its own social-technological life path, and the division between the debatable terms ‘quasi-activism’ and ‘real activism’ requires an elaborate explanation, what changes should social movements bring (and how ‘real’ should they be), is still a difficult question to answer.

Changes function both as the foundation and goal of the digital native movement. Much as they indicate hopefulness, changes often turn out to be grim and lead to frustrating facts. As alternative ways of social movements are developing and being performed in various contexts, in particular historical junctures many things remain the same. Instead of progress, a series of setbacks become apparent.

It is as if each new movement’s strategy would bring back the possibilities of reversals and stagnancies, putting causes and choices in question. It is not about the seemingly clear separation between decisiveness and indecisiveness. This is the time when being decisive offers clichéd, predictable acts, which are often twisted into an intense, conservative attitude. This is the time when being indecisive is promisingly progressive and demonstrating the signs of thinking critically. It may seem indefinite, but it provides spaces for resiliency, an important character to develop amid the chaotic situation.

Nuraini Juliastuti is the co-founder of KUNCI Cultural Studies Center (http://kunci.or.id/) established in 1999 in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. She is currently a PhD student at Universiteit Leiden, Netherlands, focusing on popular music in Southeast Asia.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/media-coverage/alternative-approaches-to-social-change-1

Alphatots

praskrishna — 2012-02-28T09:05:27Z

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Alone Together

praskrishna — 2012-07-04T16:06:38Z

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Alok

praskrishna — 2012-01-19T12:37:14Z

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Alliance aimed at reducing internet cost launched

praskrishna — 2013-10-29T09:08:10Z

A number of government bodies, non-government organizations and private players have joined hands to create a coalition aimed at reducing the cost of internet access worldwide. The coalition -- Alliance for Affordable Internet (A4AI) -- will advocate policy and regulatory reforms to push down the cost of bandwidth in developing and poor countries, where cost of internet access remains very high.

This article was published in the Times of India on October 7, 2013. Sunil Abraham is quoted.

"By advocating for open, competitive and innovative broadband markets, A4AI aims to help access prices fall to below 5% of monthly income worldwide, a target set by the UN Broadband Commission. Reaching this goal can help to connect the two-thirds of the world that is presently not connected to the internet and make universal access a reality," the alliance said in a press note, citing figures provided International Telecommunication Union (ITU).

According to ITU, by 2012, fixed-broadband prices represented 1.7% of monthly gross national income in developed countries. In developing countries, the cost of broadband connection accounts for 30.1% of average monthly income.

The A4AI has the backing of World Wide Web Foundation, which was started by the inventor of the web, Tim Berners-Lee. Sonia Jorge, executive director of the Alliance for Affordable Internet told TOI, "The Web Foundation hosts the A4AI's secretariat and both teams collaborate to benefit from natural synergies among the programmes."

Berners-Lee explained, "The reason for the alliance is simple - the majority of the world's people are still not online, usually because they can't afford to be. In Mozambique, for example, a recent study showed that using just 1GB of data can cost well over two months' wages for the average citizen... The real bottleneck now is anti-competitive policies that keep prices unaffordable. The alliance is about removing that barrier and helping as many as possible get online at reasonable cost."

The global sponsors of the A4AI are Google, UK Department for International Development, US Agency for International Development and Omidyar Network, an firm that often invests in non-profit entities. But Intel, Microsoft, Facebook, Cisco, Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation, the US State Department and several other regional and international bodies are also members of A4AI.

From India, Bangalore-based Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) is part of the alliance. Sunil Abraham, director of CIS, told TOI his group "hopes to learn from policy work carried out by the alliance and apply the lessons in India where access to good quality broadband services remains prohibitively expensive".

For now there are not many details on how the A4AI is going to achieve its goals. Sonia said it had two telecom companies -- Digicel and Main One - as its members and talks were going on with some other telecom firms for their involvement.

The alliance will begin in-country engagements with three to four countries by the end of 2013, expanding to at least 12 countries by the end of 2015. "We would be very glad to have the opportunity to engage and work in collaboration with the government of India," said Sonia.

A4AI will also produce an annual 'affordability report'. The first edition is expected to come out in December 2013.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/times-of-india-october-7-2013-alliance-aimed-at-reducing-internet-cost-launched

All India Privacy Symposium Webcast

praskrishna — 2012-02-08T08:20:08Z

Welcome to the Webcast of the All India Privacy Symposium at the India International Centre in New Delhi on 4 February 2012.

Welcome & Introduction to Privacy India

Elonnai Hickok, (Policy Advocate, Privacy India)

Panel I: Privacy and Transparency

Moderator:

Sunil Abraham, (Executive Director, Centre for Internet & Society)

Poster: Srishti Goyal, (Law Student)
Panelists:

Ponnurangam K, (Assistant Prof, IIIT New Delhi)

Chitra Ahanthem, (Journalist, Imphal)

Nikhil dey, (Social & Political Activist)

Deepak Maheshwari, (Director Corporate Affairs, Microsoft)

Gus Hosein, (Executive Director, Privacy International, UK)

Panel II: Privacy and E-Governance Initiatives

Moderator:

Sudhir Krishnaswamy (Professor, Azim Premji University)

Poster: Adrija Das,
Panelists:

Anant Maringanti, (Independent Social Researcher)

Usha Ramanathan, (Advocate&Social Activist)

Gus Hosein, (Executive Director, Privacy International, UK)

Apar Gupta, (Advocate, Supreme Court of India)

Elida Kristine Undrum Jacobsen (Researcher at the International Peace Research Institute, Oslo)

Panel III: Privacy and National Security

Moderator:

Sunil Abraham, (Executive Director, Centre for Internet & Society)

Poster:

Suchitra Menon, (Law Student)

Panelists:

Menaka Guruswamy, (Advocate, Supreme Court, New Delhi)
Prasanth Sugathan, (Legal Counsel, Software Freedom Law Center)
Oxblood Ruffin, (Cult of the Dead Cow Security and Publishing Collective)

Panel IV: Privacy and Banking

Moderator:

Prashant Iyengar (Associate Professor, Jindal Law University)

Poster:

Malavika Chandu

Panelists:

M R Umarji, (Chief Legal Advisor, IBA)
N A Vijayashankar, (Cyber Law Expert)
Malavika Jayaram, (Advocate, Bangalore)

Panel V: Privacy and Health

Moderator:

Ashok Row Kavi, (Journalist & LGBT Activist)

Poster:

Danish Sheikh, (Alternative Law Forum)

Panelists:

K K Abraham, (President, Indian Network for People with HIV)
Dr. B S Bedi, (Advisor, CDAC & Media Lab Asia)
Raman Chawla, (Senior Advocacy Officer, Lawyers Collective)

The Way Forward

Natasha Vaz, (Policy Advocate, Privacy India)

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/all-india-privacy-symposium-webcast

All India Privacy Symposium - Profiles & Speakers

praskrishna — 2012-04-16T12:16:40Z

The agenda and profiles of speakers of the event organised in Delhi.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/privacy-symposium-agenda.pdf

All India Privacy Symposium (File)

praskrishna — 2012-04-30T05:13:14Z

This is the file of the event organised in Delhi in February 2012.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/all-privacy-symposium.pdf

All India Privacy Symposium

praskrishna — 2012-01-24T08:43:59Z

CIS is organising this event in Delhi on February 4, 2011

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/all-india-privacy-symposium.pdf