The Centre for Internet and Society
http://editors.cis-india.org
These are the search results for the query, showing results 11 to 18.
Internet, Society and Space in Indian City: First Report
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/blogs/internet-society-and-space-in-indian-cities/internet-society-space
<b>This is the first report on the progress of the research on Internet, Society and Space in Indian City. The post is a collection of some of the initial focus of these studies. I have started simultaneously exploring and testing various arguments and have listed some key observations from the ones that are nearing completion. </b>
<p><img class="image-inline" src="../../city-poster-10/image_preview" alt="City Poster 10" /></p>
<p>The idea of the relationship of Internet with space throws interesting challenges from the perspective of both the theoretical premises and actual research methods followed to tease out the issue. I have been exploring the following line of inquiry in the first month and a half of the research:</p>
<ol><li>To understand the broad patterns of representation of cities in Indian from both a historical (classical) traditions and contemporary popular practices</li><li>To derive the key hypothesis for the narrative research of the different persons leading to rendering of characteristics of the target group to be interviewed</li><li>To develop the method for researching issues of spacial transformations as related to mobility and change in land-use patterns<br /></li></ol>
<h3>Notes from Field Studies</h3>
<p>Representation of space in various mediums was of special interest to me, as it reveals a lot about our cities, both in terms of what physically exists and is imagined. The aim was to capture the ideas of such representations both in popular as well as formal/ classical mediums. The search started with the old part of Ahmedabad, which is the centre of trade and commerce for not only the city but also the region at large. A wholesale seller of books on medicine, the Navneet school textbook, the Anchor electrical switches, the Tullu pump motor and the Taparia screwdriver are all here in the old city. This part of the city is the heart, which supports life way beyond its own space.</p>
<p>The book wholesalers were of special interest to me as I was looking for the front page of the notebooks that kids use in schools. Unlike the time when I studied, the long notebooks these days are full of illustrations in the front and back cover. The bullet trains of Japan superimposed on the Eiffel tower of Paris, the natural environment and the deer chewing grass in strange oblivion, the view of the skyscraper of Singapore or a globe with a tree on top are all seemingly inconsequential images on textbooks these days. I was particularly interested in the ones that make a statement on the city and its parts or rather literally had a whiff of 'space'.</p>
<p align="center"> <img class="image-inline" src="../../city-poster-7/image_preview" alt="City Poster 7" /></p>
<p> The wall posters that are sold on the streets were also analyzed for the content and focus. The cheaply printed bright coloured posters are a wonderful reflection of our society and by virtue of their content, have a pan-Indian appeal. Salman Khan soaked in blood, Katrina Kaif with pouted lips, the solitary rural lady sitting below a pine tree with her head down and singing “When will you come back my love”, a idyllic rural street with bullock carts or the view of fort area of Mumbai are some such illustrations on these posters.</p>
<p>This particular study of popular modes of representation raises interesting questions from the point of view of perception of space both in terms of the actual lived in experience and the meanings attached to the same.</p>
<p align="center"><img class="image-inline" src="../../city-poster-1/image_preview" alt="City Poster 1" /></p>
<h3>The Nature and the Cities</h3>
<p>The yearning for nature or rather an apparent moral quest for some kind of a harmony seems to be a prevailing attitude in lot of the popular representation that I studied. The intensity of development is often proportionate to the 'prestineness' of the nature that surrounds it. Development is seen as a clean activity in the lap of nature! But on further examination one observes a consistent effort to juxtapose nature and city life in a binary relationship. Even though mixed up together to suggest a kind of romantic co-existence, the treatment makes it obviously as two different realms.</p>
<p align="center"> <img class="image-inline" src="../../city-poster-6/image_preview" alt="City Poster 6" /></p>
<p>The imagination of cities and nature as two different realms is an important concept and will be explored further.</p>
<p align="center"><img class="image-inline" src="../../city-poster-11/image_preview" alt="City Poster 11" /></p>
<p>I will return to it while describing similar city representation patterns in the historical classical traditions such as Miniature paintings.</p>
<h3>The Made-Up Context</h3>
<p>The range of representation needs further examination from the point of view of the perception of cities and its spaces. Large numbers of posters were actually an interesting collage that somehow brought together picturesque images of iconic building from around the world in a kind of new juxtapositions. </p>
<p align="center"><img class="image-inline" src="../../city-poster-9/image_preview" alt="City Poster 9" /></p>
<p>Authenticity does not matter, nor does context as long as it is reflective of the ‘developed’ countries. Iconic buildings like the Eiffel Tower, Sydney Opera House or Mumbai VT terminal capture the imagination of the people as symbols of human habitation. But what is more important is the fact that these symbols almost purposefully are far removed from the context in which they are produced and consumed. This is interesting as by the virtue of its cultural, spatial and contextual differences, the representations have a dream or unreal aspects to its existence. This feeling of disconnect and the unreal is important in this form of representation as it floats as an imagination that should never ever come anywhere close to reality; A space which is so fictitious that it hardy needs to connect at all with the physical world. Similarly, many posters tried to portray the romance of the rural life of India.</p>
<p align="center"><img class="image-inline" src="../../city-poster-8/image_preview" alt="City Poster 8" /></p>
<p align="center"><img class="image-inline" src="../../city-poster-4/image_preview" alt="City Poster 4" /></p>
<p>The lady waiting for her lover, the village hut and the bullock cart drawn not as a reality but as symbols, juxtaposed to remind its viewers the virtues of the rural living. The caricatured symbols of rural life that are shown in these illustrations elevate the production into a fictional and surreal space that is far removed from cities where it is consumed and also very different from the vast hinterland of the country that they pretend to represent. This hyper and almost mythical representation of space is a very important condition to all these illustrations leading to interesting questions of how our city spaces are imagined. It seems that this fiction or rather the surrealist attitude is very important aspect in popular imagination of space in the Indian context.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/blogs/internet-society-and-space-in-indian-cities/internet-society-space'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/blogs/internet-society-and-space-in-indian-cities/internet-society-space</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnainternet and societycybercultures2011-08-02T06:06:25ZBlog EntryInquilab 2.0? Reflections on Online Activism in India*
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/blogs/revolution-2.0/digiactivprop
<b>Research and activism on the Internet in India remain fledgling in spite the media hype, says Anja Kovacs in her blog post that charts online activism in India as it has emerged. </b>
<p>Since the late 1990s when protesters against the WTO in Seattle used a variety of new technologies to revolutionize their ways of protesting so as to further their old goals in the information age, much has been made of the possibilities that new technologies seem to offer social movements. The emergence of Web 2.0 seems to have only multiplied the possibilities of building on the Internet's democratising potentials, so widely heralded since the rise of the commercial Internet in the 1990s, and since then, the use of social media for social change has received widespread media attention worldwide. From Spain to Mexico, activists used the Internet as a central tool in their efforts to organise and mobilise – be it to express their stand against a war in Iraq, against a Costa Rican Free Trade Agreement with the United States, to mobilise support for the Zapatistas of Chiapas, or more recently, to push for a change of guard in Iran.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>In 2009, when Nisha Susan launched the Pink Chaddi campaign, the 'ICT for Revolution' buzz finally seemed to have reached India as well. Phenomenally successful in terms of the attention it generated for the issue it sought to address, the campaign sought to protest in a humorous fashion against attacks on women pub-goers in Karnataka by Hindu right wing elements. In only a matter of weeks, Facebook associated with the campaign – 'The Consortium of Pub-going, Loose and Forward Women', which gathered tens of thousands of members. It was ultimately killed off when Susan's Facebook account was cracked by rivals. The campaign was perhaps the singular most successful account of ‘digital activism’ in India so far, and an impressive one by all measures.</p>
<p>The creativity of the campaign should not come as a surprise to those familiar with the long and rich history of activism for social change in India. Organised social actors have been critical influences in the emergence of new social identities as well as on critical policy junctures from colonial times onwards, developing a fascinating and unmistakably Indian language of protest in the process (see Kumar 1997 and Zubaan 2006 for examples from feminist movement).</p>
<p> </p>
<p>As Raka Ray and Mary Faizod Katzenstein (2006) have pointed out, in the post-independence period, such organised activism for long was connected by at least verbal – if not actual – commitment to the common master frame of poverty alleviation and the ending of inequality and injustice, and this irrespective of the particular issues groups were working on. Since the late 1980s, however, a number of far-reaching changes have taken place in India. This period has been marked by the definite demise of secular democratic socialism as the dominant script of the Indian state and its simultaneous replacement by neo-liberalism. Moreover, in the same period, Hindu nationalism as an ideology too has gone from strength to strength, with only in the last five years a slowdown in its ascendancy. While for many traditional social movements of the Left the commitment to social justice remains, in this context a space has undeniably been created for groups with a very different agenda. The considerable popularity of organisations such as Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, both Hindu nationalist organisations, are prime indications of these transformations. However, the fragmentation of the activist space did not only benefit reactionary elements of society. The final emergence into visibility of a well-articulated middle class queer politics, for example, too, may well in many ways have been facilitated by the evolutions of the past 20 years. Although this point has been mostly elaborated in the context of the US (Hennessey 2000), in India, too, this seems to ring true at least in some senses.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The general shape-shifting of activism in India since the 1990s is not the only contextual factor that deserves obvious consideration in a study like this. In addition, since independence a close link has been forged in policy and people's imagination alike between science and technology on the one hand and development paradigms in India on the other. Not everyone agrees on the benefits of this association: all too frequently, the struggles of grassroots social movements are directed precisely against the outcomes or consequences of a supposedly 'scientifically' inspired development policy. The neo-liberal era is no exception to this: as Carol Upadhya (2004) has shown quite convincingly, the economic reform policies that are at the heart of neo-liberalism have been inspired first and foremost by the information technology sector in India, which has also in turn been their first beneficiary. And today as earlier, Asha Achuthan (2009) has pointed out, in the resistance to these policies, the subaltern who is the agent of grassroots social movements is frequently associated with a pre-technological purity that needs to be maintained in order to resist discourses and material consequences of technological change themselves. In popular discourses, at least, attitudes towards technology inevitably come in a binary mode.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Seeing the context in which digital activism in India has emerged, a number of pressing questions regarding the new forms that even progressive activism takes as it adopts new tools and methods, then, immediately offer themselves. Leaving aside the activities of right wing groups in India, who are the actors that occupy this space for activism and what are their relationship with offline activists groups? Which are the issues online activism seeks to address, and what are its master narratives, goals and audiences? Where does it locate problems in today's society, and what kind of solutions does it propose? How does it posit its relation to the global/international and to the offline-local; to dominant understandings of science and technology, development, or desirable social change? How are these understandings reflected in online activism, including in the choice and use of technologies but also in the discourses that are deployed and the audiences that are targeted? What are its methods, its strategies, its ways of organising? What role is played by organisations, collectives, networks, individuals? In what ways is the field marked by the conjuncture at which it emerged? Do those who first occupy (most of) it also set the parameters? Or do its tools fashion online activism's very conditions of existence?</p>
<p>The value of greater insight into these issues is not immediately apparent to all. For one thing, some would argue that, as connectivity in the emerging IT superpower remains limited, the importance of these questions to those concerned with social justice in India is really marginal. It is true that while commercial Internet services have been available in the country since 1995, for long the number of connections remained abysmally low. Even today, the number of subscriptions has only just crossed the 14 million mark, and barely half of these are broadband subscriptions, severely limiting the usefulness of a wide range of potential online activism tools (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India 2009 – figures are for the second quarter of 2009). According to I-Cube 2008 report (IMRB and Internet and Mobile Association of India 2008), there were an estimated 57 million claimed urban Internet users in the country in September 2008 and an estimated 42 million active urban Internet users. Corresponding figures for Internet users in rural areas in March 2008 were 5.5 million and 3.3 million respectively. Almost 88 million Indians were believed to be computer-literate at the time. Clearly, then, online activists are a tiny section of an already fairly small, privileged group, and at least in a direct sense, the availability of new tools is thus indeed unlikely to affect all activists or activism in the country.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Some of my own starting points while embarking on this study may seem to further give fuel to arguments against the value of this research. The idea of investigating online activism in India as it emerges followed from my observation – and a troubling one at that for me – that so far, and despite all the hype internationally, more traditional grassroots movements in India seem to have been slow to embrace the Internet as an integral part of their awareness raising and mobilisation strategies. Although they may attract the largest numbers of activists offline, the many so-called 'new' social movements that have emerged since the 1970s and that remain important actors pushing for social change seem most conspicuous by their relative absence online. This is especially true of those critical of current development paradigms and practices: movements fighting against dams, special economic zones or land acquisitions for “development” purposes seem visible only in relatively fragmented and generally marginal ways. Instead, middle-class actors addressing middle class audiences on middle class issues seem to be the flag bearers of Internet activism in India – the Pink Chaddi campaign or VoteReport India, a “collaborative citizen-driven election monitoring platform for the 2009 Indian general elections” (see votereport.in/blog/about) perhaps among the most well-known illustrations of this argument.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Both points are valid, and yet, while inquilab it may not be, to conclude from this that the study of online activism automatically is of only very limited value would be short-sighted. Indeed, even if the hypothesis that Internet activism is dominated by middle class actors who address middle class concerns is validated (note that in any case considerable segments of the leadership and cadre of grassroots movements, too, tend to come from middle class backgrounds), this is likely to affect all those interested in affecting social change, even if perhaps in varying degrees. For one thing, it would mean that as the public sphere is reshaped, important new quarters of its landscape are inhabited only be the elite, contradicting the still widely popular and even cherished belief (at least among those who are familiar with the Internet) that the Internet is a democratising force. Instead, the proportional visibility in the public sphere of dissenting viewpoints on development, science, neo-liberalism, progress, the state will only decrease. In addition, then, it may also indicate a further refracting of the activism landscape and its master narratives and methods, where different segments of activists increasingly need to vie with each other for recognition and validation of their respective understandings of political processes and of appropriate forms of engaging with these. As such battles intensify it is not too risky to make a prognosis on who will be the main losers. If, in an era in which the old activist master narrative of justice for all remains under strident attack, civil society has come to occupy at the expense of political society (a useful distinction first made by Parth Chatterjee in Chatterjee 2004) a whole arena of activism, this would indeed need to be a cause of concern for all. In order to gauge its ramifications, it is however, crucial to first of all understand in which ways and to what extent this statement rings true.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The current study may well not be able to fully develop all the above and other theoretical strands as they emerge in the course of this research. But what it does promise to do is to outline the breaks and continuities that mark the make-up, strategies, audiences and goals of those who embrace the new possibilities that the Internet provides at the same time as the information age so fundamentally reconstitutes our society. As a starting point for the analysis, this research will therefore, attempt to map the online activism that has taken place in India so far, focusing more specifically on the forms of activism that leave a public record on the Internet (a more extensive debate of various definitional issues is in order – I will take this up in a separate blog post, to follow later, however). At the core of the research will be the construction of a database pertaining to online activism in India with links to email lists, blogs, Facebook groups, popular hash tags and the like. Although much of the activism I will be looking at will be centred around what has come to be known as 'social media', my focus is thus broader than that, as older tools such as e-petitions, discussion boards and list servs, too, will be included in this study. The aim is to be as comprehensive as possible, although for the database to ever be complete will, of course, be an impossibility. Moreover, since only data available in the English language will be collected, the database will automatically have its limitations. The database will be further complemented by interviews with activists who have been involved in key online campaigns and, where appropriate, case studies. It is the data thus gathered that will form the basis of our analysis.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>While the scope of the study is thus admittedly ambitious, the fact that online activism in India is a fairly recent affair – little happened before 2002, and it has only really taken off in the past three years or so – makes this venture not an impossible one. The contribution I hope to make through this research is not simply to work on the Indian context, however. Despite the media hype surrounding the possibilities of the Internet for social change, research on the Internet and activism more generally remains limited so far. The paucity is perhaps particularly acute where activism and social media are concerned (Postill 2009). Moreover, the work that does exist, I argue, tends to look mostly at activists' use of one particular tool, for example YouTube, or Facebook. Sight is thus generally lost of the larger cyberecology of communication in which this use must be located, preventing an opportunity for genuine insight into the ways in which activism is reconfigured from materialising. By using a much wider lens, this research hopes to make a beginning to correcting this lacuna. It is in this way that the importance of the changes that are underway in the Indian activist landscape as elsewhere can be appropriately assessed.</p>
<p> </p>
<p align="JUSTIFY"><em><strong>*
Inquilab means revolution</strong></em></p>
<p align="JUSTIFY"> </p>
<p align="JUSTIFY"><strong>References</strong></p>
<p align="JUSTIFY"> </p>
<p align="JUSTIFY">Achuthan, Asha (2009).
Re-Wiring Bodies. Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore.
<a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/rewiring/review">http://www.cis-india.org/research/cis-raw/histories/rewiring/review</a>,
last accessed on 15 January 2010.</p>
<p align="JUSTIFY"> </p>
<p align="JUSTIFY">Chatterjee, Partha
(2004). <em>The Politics of the Governed: Reflections on Popular
Politics in Most of the World</em>. Delhi: Permanent Black.</p>
<p align="JUSTIFY"> </p>
<p align="JUSTIFY">Hennessy, Rosemary
(2000). <em>Profit and Pleasure: Sexual Identities in Late Capitalism</em>.
London: Routledge.</p>
<p align="JUSTIFY"> </p>
<p align="JUSTIFY">IMRB and Internet and
Mobile Association of India (2008). I-Cube 2008: Facilitating Citins,
Altins, Fortins (Faster, Higher, Stronger) Internet in India. IMRB
and Internet and Mobile Association of India, Mumbai. <a href="http://www.iamai.in/">www.iamai.in/</a>,
last accessed on 15 January 2010.</p>
<p align="JUSTIFY"> </p>
<p align="JUSTIFY">Kumar, Radha (1997). <em>The
History of Doing: An Illustrated Account of Movements for Women's
Rights and Feminism in India 1800-1990</em>. New Delhi: Zubaan.</p>
<p align="JUSTIFY"> </p>
<p align="JUSTIFY">Postill, John (2009).
Thoughts on Anthropology and Social Media Activism.
<em>Media/Anthropology</em>,
<a href="http://johnpostill.wordpress.com/2009/11/14/thoughts-on-anthropology-and-social-media-activism/">http://johnpostill.wordpress.com/2009/11/14/thoughts-on-anthropology-and-social-media-activism/</a><a href="http://johnpostill.wordpress.com/2009/11/14/thoughts-on-anthropology-and-social-media-activism/">,
</a>last accessed on 15 January 2010.</p>
<p align="JUSTIFY"> </p>
<p align="JUSTIFY">Ray, Raka and Mary
Fainsod Katzenstein (2006). Introduction: In the Beginning, There Was
the Nehruvian State. In Raka Ray and Mary Fainsod Katzenstein
(eds.). <em>Social Movements in India: Poverty, Power, and Politics.</em>
New Delhi: Oxford University Press.</p>
<p align="JUSTIFY"> </p>
<p align="JUSTIFY">Telecom Regulatory
Authority of India (2009). The Indian Telecom Services Performance
Indicators, April-June 2009. Telecom Regulatory Authority of India,
New Delhi. <a href="http://www.trai.gov.in/">www.trai.gov.in</a><a href="http://www.trai.gov.in/">,
</a>last accessed on 15 January 2010.</p>
<p align="JUSTIFY"> </p>
<p align="JUSTIFY">Upadhya, Carol (2004). A
New Transnational Capitalist Class: Capital Flows, Business Networks
and Entrepreneurs in the Indian Software Industry. <em>Economic and
Political Weekly</em>, 39(48): 5141-5151.</p>
<p align="JUSTIFY"> </p>
<p align="JUSTIFY">Zubaan (2006). <em>Poster
Women: A Visual History of the Women's Movement in India</em>. New
Delhi: Zubaan.</p>
<p align="JUSTIFY"> </p>
<p align="JUSTIFY"> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/blogs/revolution-2.0/digiactivprop'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/blogs/revolution-2.0/digiactivprop</a>
</p>
No publishernishanthistories of internet in IndiaSocial mediaDigital ActivismCyberspaceAccess to Medicineinternet and societyResearchCybercultures2011-08-02T09:25:30ZBlog EntryHistories of the Internet
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/histories-of-the-internets-main
<b>For the first two years, the CIS-RAW Programme shall focus on producing diverse multidisciplinary histories of the internet in India.</b>
<p><strong>Histories of internets in India</strong></p>
<p align="justify">The CIS-RAW programme is designed around two-year thematics. Every two years, we shall, looking at our engagement and the questions that are emerging around us, come up with new themes that we would like to commission, enable and encourage research on.</p>
<p align="justify">The selection of the theme of the History of Internet and Society is a unanimous decision made by our researchers in-house, the members of the Society, distinguished fellows, supporters, and peers who all gathered for a launch workshop for the CIS. There is a severe dearth of material on the histories of Internet and Society in India and we find it necessary to contextualise and historicise the contemporary in order to fruitfully and critically engage with the questions and concerns we are committed to. In the first two years of its programme, the CIS-RAW hopes to come up with alternative histories of the Internet and Society, which chart a wide terrain of the field that we are engaging with and produce one of the first such resources for researchers working in this field.</p>
<p align="justify"><strong>Scope of the Theme:</strong></p>
<p align="justify">We are looking at a wide range of accounts of the different forms, imaginations, materialities and interactions of the internets in India. As we excavate its three-decade growth in India, it becomes increasingly clear that there is no homogenised Internet that has evolved in the country; Instead, what we have is a technology, which, through its interactions and intersections with various objects, people, contexts and regulation, has emerged in many different ways. The theme of 'Histories of internets in India' hopes to address these pluralities of the internets and how they have been shaped in the unfolding of these technologies.</p>
<p align="justify">We have collaborated on the following histories with different researchers in India:</p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<ol>
<li> <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/rewiring-bodies/" class="external-link">Rewiring Bodies</a> - Asha Achuthan, Centre for Contemporary Studies, Indian Institute of Sciences, Bangalore.</li>
<li><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/archives-and-access/" class="external-link">Archive and Access</a> - Rochelle Pinto (Centre for the Study of Culture and Society, Bangalore; Aparna Balachandran, Centre for the Study of Culture and Society, Bangalore; and Abhijit Bhattacharya, Centre for Sudies in Social Sciences, Calcutta.</li>
<li><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/blogs/law-video-technology/law-video-and-technology" class="external-link">Porn: Law, Video & Technology</a> - Namita Malhotra, Alternative Law Forum, Bangalore</li>
<li><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/blogs/transparency-and-politics/transparency-and-politics-blog" class="external-link">Transparency and Politics</a> - Zainab Bawa, Centre for the Study of Culture and Society</li>
<li><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/blogs/the-last-cultural-mile/the-last-cultural-mile-blog" class="external-link">The Last Cultural Mile</a> - Ashish Rajadhyaksha, Centre for the Study of Culture and Society, Bangalore</li>
<li><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/blogs/revolution-2.0/revolution-2.0-blog" class="external-link">Using the Net for Social Change</a> - Anja Kovacs, (Research) Fellow, Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore</li>
<li><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/blogs/queer-histories-of-the-internet/queer-histories-of-the-internet-blog" class="external-link">Queer Histories of the Internet</a> - Nitya Vasudevan, Centre for Study of Culture and Society and Nithin Manayath, Mount Carmel College</li><li><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/blogs/internet-society-and-space-in-indian-cities/internet-society-and-space-in-indian-cities-blog" class="external-link">Internet, Society and Space in Indian Cities</a> - Pratyush Shankar, Center for Environmental Planning and Technology University, Ahmedabad</li><li><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/blogs/gaming-and-gold/gaming-and-gold-blog" class="external-link">Gaming and Gold</a> - Arun Menon, Centre for Internet & Society<br /></li></ol>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/histories-of-the-internets-main'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/histories-of-the-internets-main</a>
</p>
No publishernishanthistories of internet in Indiainternet and societygeeksdigital subjectivescyborgscyberculturesarchivescyberspacespedagogyresearchwomen and internete-governance2015-03-30T14:15:10ZPageFrom the Stock Market to Neighbourhood Mohalla
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/blogs/internet-society-and-space-in-indian-cities/stock-market-neighbourhood-mohalla
<b>The stock markets have been the symbol of trade and commerce of the city and the region. In this post I will analyze the stock market; an important commercial institution and try and articulate its changing architectural configuration and its impact on neighborhoods and other public domain of the city. The change in information technology has had a profound effect on the business methodologies of the stock brokers and traders in the last few years with possibilities for buying and selling during the market hours from any internet enabled device. The pundits have announced that the “market is in your pocket or at the comfort of your home”. Is it really so or is the change more subtle? Moreover how will our cities and their public place transform from such shift?</b>
<p>The market refers to a system, institution or arrangement by which certain transactions are executed. The stock market space (building or group of buildings) is usually unique to a larger space (city, region or country) and indicative of the economic interest of corporates, organizations, government and individual investors. The stock market space itself, is one that has traditionally been highly networked node, collapsing together communications with other global markets, financial institutions, agents, investors and government bodies. Communication technology in the form of telecommunication, fax and telegram have been the lifeline to support transactions in the stock market space.</p>
<p>The floor of the stock market is the physical manifestation (both of symbolic and utilitarian value) of the institution of stock trade. It has been the place where the agents using information, negotiate and transact on shares for their respective clients. The space of the floor with information being displayed on the sides has been the image that is used in many movies to symbolize trade and commerce. The floor is projected and perceived as the center sanctum of the stock trading activity at large.</p>
<p>Trading of stocks of all possible kind is possible from a computer connected to internet using real time information of the market. Stock market building space as well as the floor do continue function as central places of trade but immense volume of trade is being done through internet enabled devices across the country. Moreover the program and structure of stock brokers office has radically changed in the last few years. The stock broking office has now become the mini floor of the trade where decisions are taken about buying and selling. The stock broking offices are now the decentralized units that are everywhere, like the ATM machines in the city. They are the neighbourhood investing space.</p>
<h3>Story: Where to Kanti bhai?</h3>
<p>Kanti bhai was worried that morning. He was running late and was driving swiftly to beat the railway crossing. His old bajaj was holding well competing with the jazzy Japanese collaboration bikes as he raced towards the crossing. He could never understand why youngster spend that kind of money on bikes when it cannot even hold the vegetable pack or for that matter even their wife in the pillion seat that well. He was rather proud of his bajaj chetak 2-stroke smoke spewing machine and it had served him well for the last 17 years. As he wriggled past the traffic coming from the right side (well he was on the wrong lane) and swiftly crossed before the crossing gates closed, he slowed down on the turning and signaled with a shake of his head to the kid on the street. To a stranger the nod of the head was perhaps just an empty gesture but Raju the kid was the code breaker! He knew Kantibhai wanted the masala tea real quick delivered on the first floor office of Om Shanti Stock Brokers. Raju also understood that Kantibhai was going for a big kill; bottom fishing since the market fell real hard yesterday. Raju was barely eight when he came from Dungarpur (Rajasthan) to help his uncle at the road side tea shop at Maninagar. Now the road side stall, the commercial complex in front and the shop shack besides the temple were his foster home. The masala tea that his uncle made was the fuel of most office goers in the area and it was a local institution that not only provided tea but also information on real estate, family problems of residents and mobile number of the bootlegger.</p>
<p>Raju with all the tea cups in his hands moved swiftly from the tailor shop below the stair to the picture framer besides it to the Raymond shop in the semi basement to the lady selling the toys on the pavement. He resembled a bee moving from one flower to another in a garden and he quickly climbed the awkward spiral stair to the first floor stock broking office. This was always the place he enjoyed most and it was always teeming with boisterous characters that were perpetually excited; laughing aloud, shouting to be heard, making fun of the other and generally having a good times. These were the stock traders whose baithak (regular sit-out) was the Om Shanti broking office. The office itself was nothing but a room, with a swanky air conditioner and four terminals (simple computers that are connected to BSE) where people took turns to sit and execute their order. But the space of the office spread way beyond this room. They sat in the corridor in front, at the travel agent shop besides, below the hoarding for a commanding view of the traffic snarls in front. The place oozed with people like Kanti bhai’s, and resonated with animated interaction about the stock market, discussions about son’s marriage or rising price of petrol.</p>
<p>The place has in the recent years, come to be associated with share trade and had given rise to a whole eco-sytem that supported it; The stock broking office -Pan Shop- Tea Stall-Bhajia Center- ATM- Photo copiers- Stationary Shop and the Newspaper stall. Raju the tea boy knew much about “circuits” and “stop loss” these days as much he understood the right ingredients of the tea</p>
<p>All of a sudden in the last few years since terminals (internet accessible computers used for transactions) have become common, trade can practically occur anywhere in the city. This phenomenon has also led to creation of the decentralized stock brokers/ investors community as they do not need to be at the main stock exchange building anymore. Due to presence of small and medium sized stock broking firms in the city, the stock market space is now a decentralized neighborhood units.</p>
<p>These are not only spaces for carrying out transaction but have become “places” for trader community to meet and connect. The place itself is small and allows the local neighborhood stock traders or investors to meet. This decentralized community public place characteristics of the space is an interesting development which have been made possible due to the internet based on-line trading activities in market places. Moreover this new program of online stock broking has integrated well with the various processes of the Indian bazaar like informal food, roadside vendors, service sector and active retail. This is also the sign of the strength and vitality of our contemporary markets that have evolved over the years and are the mainstay of the Indian retail.</p>
<p>The association of Information Technology with the Malls and the super blocks of the Call center is only one side of the story. The malls and IT complexes by turning inwards and showing off only a pretty facade have failed to offer anything to the city and do not seem to hold any promise of “public” good to its citizens or user. I will hopefully write more about this in my next posts.</p>
<p>It is actually these little markets where person like Kanti bhai’s rush every morning and the little Raju’s run around serving cutting chai, that small stock broking office, ATM’s and Travel agents (all program that use IT for work) are slowly transforming and complimenting the very nature of the public places in India.</p>
<p>Read the original <a class="external-link" href="http://www.pratyushshankar.net/blog/internet/">here</a></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/blogs/internet-society-and-space-in-indian-cities/stock-market-neighbourhood-mohalla'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/blogs/internet-society-and-space-in-indian-cities/stock-market-neighbourhood-mohalla</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnainternet and societyIT Cities2011-08-02T06:05:59ZBlog EntryEmerging Bit Torrent Trends in India
http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/emerging-bit-torrrent-trends-in-india
<b>Internet has been a revelation ever since its introduction. The writer in this blog examines how the progress made by Internet based technologies could never be reversed.</b>
<h2>From Kazaa to The Pirate Bay</h2>
<p>Little did the world of the VHS era realize in its time where the future of pirate technologies were heading to. The world's favourite music and films were quickly transferred onto optical discs as magnetic tapes went obsolete a few years before the end of the last century. Internet was soon to become the nemesis of discs, which were bulky to store and scratched easily. The first tryst with peer to peer technologies on networks sent shivers down the spine of Jack Valenti and the Motion Pictures Association of America. The speed of dissemination and distribution of content over the Internet was something the world had never seen before. The lawsuits against peer to peer networks such as Kaaza and Limewire ran into millions of dollars. Websites were shut down, but time and progress of technology could never be reversed. BitTorrent soon became the most common protocol to transfer content over the Internet. BitTorrent metafiles themselves do not store copyrighted data. Hence, BitTorrent itself is not illegal. However, its use to make copies of copyrighted material that contravenes laws in many countries has created many controversies, including the now famous Pirate Bay Trial in Sweden. The popularity of torrents though
is not specific to the Western world. The strength of the Internet lies in its ability to generate content from any corner of the world
which is then spread across the world through a web of distribution reaching many computers and granting them access to the content simultaneously.<strong><br /></strong></p>
<h2><strong>Desi content on Torrent Networks</strong></h2>
<p><strong>Desi : A term derived from Sanskrit, meaning region, province or country. It now refers to the people and culture of South Asian Diaspora.</strong></p>
<p><strong>On the most popular BitTorrent search engines, <a href="http://torrentz.com/" target="_blank">torrentz.com</a>, Hindi and Hindi movies are permanent search tags. Often, one would even see the names of popular Bollywood releases such as Dev D, or at the time of writing this blog entry, Telegu Films, prominently displayed on the site. Bollywood and other content created in India and the rest of the subcontinent is driving the cyberspace. With a huge diaspora spread across every part of the world and increasing Internet penetration alongside rising broadband speeds in urban India, the demand for desi content on torrent networks is on the rise. Websites such as <a href="http://desitorrents.com/" target="_blank">desitorrents.com</a> and <a href="http://dctorrent.com/" target="_blank">dctorrent.com</a> are two torrent search engines that are popular amongst Internet users and cater exclusively to desi content. A closer look at the content on these sites reveal that the most popular content on these torrent networks are television shows, cricket matches, Bollywood movies, music and regional cinema. Torrent scenes such as aXXo are not unique to Hollywood uploads alone. Desi content has its own torrent scenes, responsible for uploading torrent trackers, as soon as the content is out in the public. Users identifying themselves as Jay, Captain Jack or Gunga Din are busy uploading these files on the desi networks.
</strong></p>
<p><strong>Online since January 2004 and an Internet traffic rank of 7,302, an average visitor spends 8.3 minutes on the Desi Torrents site everyday. Relative to the general Internet population, the website has the highest number of male visitors in the age group of 18 to 34.<br /></strong></p>
<p><strong>Most users are college graduates who prefer to access the website from home. In comparison, Desi Club Torrents, which is a free website has
a younger representative web demographic with males between 18 to 24 years of age being the most prominent visitors. According to the
data, it is also revealed that the website has a higher ratio of visitors who have not attended Graduate School but still have attended some college for education</strong></p>
<h2><strong>Impact on the Traditional Markets</strong></h2>
<strong>
</strong>
<p><strong>In most cases, the popularity of Bollywood films in cinema halls and
on torrent sites seems to be linked. For example, the most successful
Bollywood film of 2008, Ghajini, which ended up raking Rs. 200 crores
on the box office, is also one of the most downloaded films on Bit
Torrent Networks. However, for the Pirate selling DVD's of latest
films, this is not great news. A majority of their customers have migrated to
downloading films on the Internet using Peer to Peer technologies.
The upper middle-class niche film watching audiences, have been the
fastest to acquire computers and get on the Internet. Increasing
broadband speeds have ensured that this segment of consumer
transitions away from the traditional 'on the corner' pirate shop. </strong></p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/emerging-bit-torrrent-trends-in-india'>http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/emerging-bit-torrrent-trends-in-india</a>
</p>
No publishersiddharthCyberspaceinternet and societyPiracyIntellectual Property Rightscyberculturescyberspaces2011-08-04T04:44:48ZBlog EntryCity in the Internet 1: Geography Imagined (Part 2)
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/blogs/internet-society-and-space-in-indian-cities/geography-imagined
<b>In the last post, I have articulated the nature of understanding and imagination of our urban and rural geography. As mentioned, the understanding of the land, its water and people is an essentially one, that comes through living and experiencing. In this post I will be posing issues around the historical legacy of maps in the Indian context. The issues of imagination of our cities is very much related to this legacy along with the shift that we are witnessing in geographical representation of maps on the Internet.</b>
<h3>Story: The elusive government maps</h3>
<p>The Survey of India office on the first floor of the Janpath Office and Shopping complex is a curious location for an outlet distributing maps of all the parts of India. Right in the middle of the capital city’s colonial pride (Cannought Place), the Survey of India office is perched in one of the first floor rooms of the complex. Paritosh Mukherjee had been going around the building for ten minutes to find the elusive office, but like all things “<em>Dilli</em>” and “<em>sarkari</em>”, you got to be a man to find it. When he asked the person selling the “imported” shoes in the shop below, he got a rude answer “age chalta ban. yeh enquiry office nahi hai bhai”. Somehow Paritosh was always reluctant to ask directions in this city. Maybe it was his small stature or perhaps his accented hindi he picked while at Doon that made him stand out. He knew being so self conscious in this big city doesn’t help, but deep inside he feared the public places and would rather prefer the comfort of his office or his barsati in Greater Kailash. The pan stain in the stair was a relief, and its aroma immediately alerted his neuro-sensors on the right side of his brain that intuitively told him a government department is very near.</p>
<p>“<em>Aap kaha se aarehe hai</em>?” (Where are you coming from?) asked the lady at the counter wearing the red lipstick. Paritosh was about to say Saath; the NGO where he was doing his research project but some of his Delhi training took over, and he said “Madam <em>sirji ne kutch map mangaye hai</em>; Department of Agriculture, Delhi University. <em>Main unke leye research kar raha hoon</em>” (Sir has asked me to get some maps. I am doing research for the Department of Agriculture, Delhi University) . The red lipstick warmed up and gave him the catalog of Maps. Wow! he said to himself; he just crossed the first hurdle to reach the circle of bureaucratic trust. He remembered how his local friend had once explained the nine concentric circles of babus trust that need to be crossed to reach the inner sanctuary of the Indian government bureaucracy. He called it the Garba Graha (the sanctum of a Hindu temple), where all the prayers are answered. Being a son of a Lajpat Nagar contractor, he knew the value of being in the center!</p>
<p>“<em>Bhiaya yeh to</em> out of print <em>hai, aur koi chaiye to bataiyee</em>?” (They are out of print. If you need anything else, let me know?) said the thin bespectacled man at the payment counter, who reminded him of Ritwik Ghatag’s film characters. He sat behind the heavy wooden counter with glass partition separating the rowdy public from the sacred babus space. The counter was the symbolic physical manifestation of the 8th circle of trust. The bespectacled babu looked surreal in the inner circle; as if he had always been there, since India became independent from the Bristish Raj. Piles of files behind him, ashtray that came as a gift from a Karol baug stationary trader, the <em>dak-dak</em> of the fan above, the filtered sunlight from the concrete <em>jali </em>exposing the dusty layer on the counter where Paritosh stood trying to make sense of the situation. Of late he had begun to enjoy these excursions in these old government departments. Even though things got done at its own pace, he found them more honest than the new corporates offices that pretended to be clean and efficient.</p>
<p>The exercise was becoming frustrating now. The maps were either out of print, or out of stock or restricted. He tried hard explaining to the clerk that the maps are important for his research but he was not moved at all. Moreover the the clerk was getting more and more irritated by him and in a second snapped; “the Government is not making maps for you. Moreover with the security concern these days, do you think we will give all these to the terrorists on a silver plate. Do you know these maps were measured by the British and Indian engineers for years together and are some of the finest maps in the world? Do you know that we have details in 1: 5,000 where you spot the difference between a cow and a buffalo. Sir <em>aap naye lagto ho yaha pe</em>. <em>Yeh map jo aap ko chaiye restricted hain</em>. <em>Appne</em> department <em>walo ko bolo ki</em> letter <em>likhe</em> Director saheb <em>ko</em>. <em>Aesai nahi melete yeh </em>maps. Proper channel se <em>aaiye</em>!” (Sir, it seems you are new. These maps are restricted. Tell your department people to write a letter to our director. You cannot get these maps like this. Please come through proper channel)</p>
<p>The clerk was merely following orders, Paritosh said to himself. “Maps of a cities are very informative and important and hence the secrecy around it. They are perhaps the instruments that can be used by some evil minds to blow up our cities or worse occupy India or perhaps these guys are just purely <em>sarkari </em>and hence do not want to help. Maps are not my right, are they? Maybe I am being too naive in thinking they will give them to me”. Soon enough though, he discovered the “proper channel” to get them.</p>
<p>The state is the proprietor of the “scientific” and “authentic” imagery of the space. It is perceived to be so important and authentic that it is denied to common citizens. The accuracy of the documentation is in fact an important condition that becomes the reason why the state is perceived to be in the position to decide future development, present taxation and other policies applicable to various parcels of land. The claim to scientific accuracy coupled with secrecy is a potent combination that a state perhaps deploys to control space. Maps are the perfect instruments of such control, not to forget many others like Census data, Archaeological information, Geological data, etc.</p>
<h3>The map as a state function</h3>
<p>Maps have traditionally been associated with the state in the form of local government bodies, its survey departments and scientific arms. The initial mapping exercises in India for example were efforts as part of the larger objective to control and rule over the colonized territory by the East India company and then the British empire. The first survey of India during the 18th century was carried out by the Army of the East India Company. The survey themselves were done under various categories such as revenue survey, topographical surveys, economic survey, The reliance on the correct scientific methods for accuracy and speed were important considerations. For example the use of geodetic survey by Colonel William Lambton while initiating the “Great Trigonometric Survey of India”. The British took extreme pride in their work, as evident by the words of A. S Waugh the Survey General of India, “This magnificent Geodetic understanding, which at present times extends from Cape of Camorin to Tibet and from meridian of Calcutta to that of Kashmir…”. The survey amongst other activities of documenting was in some sense concerned with the efficient management and utilization of all the resources. This was also the means by which the “native” population was dominated both at economic and cultural realm. The idea of the superior western scientific culture that is extremely accurate, precise and understands the geography of a place (unlike the uneducated locals) got further reinforced in the process of surveying and production of maps. In the process the rich history of the Indian traditions of geographical representation was perhaps seen as inaccurate and not scientific and hence not of much use. The older traditions of maps making were perhaps almost forgotten and relegated to background.</p>
<p><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/map_susan_sawai300x213.jpg/image_preview" alt="Fig 1: Historic Map: Sawai Madhavpur" class="image-inline image-inline" title="Fig 1: Historic Map: Sawai Madhavpur" /></p>
<p>Fig 1: Historic Map: Sawai Madhavpur</p>
<p>The above image is a historic map of Sawai Madhavpur old town indicating the water management and engineering plans for the area. Notice the qualitative visual description in the map by the use of colors, textures, text and landmarks. The visual representation techniques are consistent with the place, expressing the qualities of space.</p>
<p><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/map_2.jpg/image_preview" alt="Image 2" class="image-inline image-inline" title="Image 2" /></p>
<p>Fig 2: Historic Route Map; Shahjahanabad to Kandahar</p>
<p>Fig2 shows a more utilitarian map for finding ones way from Shahjahanabad to Kandahar; a route map. The route is abstracted as a straight line and important landmarks and rest areas are marked on the line with description as to what to expect. A very creative expression indeed; the map expresses the challenges of the journey.</p>
<p><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/map_susan_puri300x162.jpg/image_preview" alt="Image 3" class="image-inline image-inline" title="Image 3" /></p>
<p>Fig 3: Map of Puri</p>
<p>Above is a beautifully painted map of the religious town of Puri. It shows the temple complex and also expresses the context of its existence; the mythological stories, the festivals, wars and imagined position of the town in the regional geography of forest, animals and water bodies. It expresses the geography in a poetic fashion loaded with anecdotes; much the way in which common people understand it.<br /><br />All the three maps are from the book “Indian Maps and Plan: From earliest times to advent of European Surveys” by Susan Gole, Manohar Publisher, 1989, New Delhi. These maps are very different from the survey maps that the British made in India. Obviously the later is based on accurate ground survey hence claims to be true representation of the exact physical condition as it exists on the surface of the land. The older maps on the other hand, almost always told the story of the place, its people and their belief systems. They were perhaps more contextual to the place and not merely physical representations.</p>
<p><em>Interestingly enough the surveyed map of the British India also became the basis of the partition of India and Pakistan. In some sense the arbitrary line drawn on a piece of map for the partition of India leading to displacement of some 12.5 million people and perhaps a million deaths, demonstrates the power of the “scientifically measured maps” in the hand of few</em></p>
<h3>Maps for National Identity</h3>
<p>The British maps were part of the large legacy, India received apart from efficient Railways, Post and Telegraph, Census and so on. But maps were important as they were the tools for forging a new national identity at one level, but also the tool to reinforce cultural identity (especially language) through drawing up of new sate boundaries. The map was the mediator of the imagination of our territory; “The Indian subcontinent extends from the great high Himalayan mountains in the North, seen here as green undulations to the tip of the Southern coast of Kanya Kumari where the three seas meets”, as said by our school geography teacher. The good old map was the perfect companion of the children that had to be taught about the diversity of India, its flora, fauna, people and their distinct culture. We grew up imagining a lot of India through these maps. It was the tool for national integration at one level and for reinforcement of regional and state identity at another level.</p>
<p>Apart from the fact that all the maps that were available in the pre-internet era had similar visual quality (and seem to be offspring of the mother map), the information of the map was essentially the function of the state. The state was the surveyors, authenticator and producer of these maps. Access to maps is not necessarily your right. The state has the right to refuse to general public the sale of map of certain areas like restricted border zone till this date.</p>
<p>The state was central to the imagination of national, state and city spaces which as mediated through maps.</p>
<p>More often than not, maps became the medium in the hands of the state to “teach” or orient the citizen of India the wonders of India, like the uninterrupted Himalayan mountain ranges, holy rivers, western ghats and the long coastline. Maps really were seen as important means for maintaining national identity and pride. Apart from their symbolic value maps also had some practical value for navigation and locating spots.</p>
<p>Maps were essentially line drawing with or without color fills. The natural features were depicted using various graphical hatch like the grasslands, marshes, water or hills. Transportation networks depicted through different thickness or type of lines; the broken one for pedestrian trails, the toothed one for the railway line and so on. Essentially elegantly abstracted diagrams of space in the true tradition of cartographic representation as perfected by the Western World. It is obvious that depiction is abstract and refers to space that exists which you wish can visit to see, feel or touch if need be. The medium that carried this visual were also varied but the image was more or less constant. For example school textbooks, stand alone maps or maps of various government departments to name a few. The visual construct of the map had many constants like use of lines, fills, landmarks, natural and man-made features to name a few.</p>
<h3>Why in some culture people prefer asking direction than use maps?</h3>
<p>Use of map to find directions is essentially the result of the western modernist framework where the individual is the center in the imagination of the society. The individual with his preference, freedom and choices has to be preserved at all cost. The self becomes the center of existence and must never be violated. The use of map to navigate in cities or countryside is the perfect way of preserving the “self” in a public domain. Why be dependent on the advice of the person on the street when one can get the job done in a more efficient fashion? In contrast to this people in many other cultures love to ask directions and most like to give direction in most animated and excited fashion. There is no fear or shame in asking directions, and in bargain people often strike a conversation about family and kids. This chance interaction, the meeting of strangers, the conversation about life, the meeting of the eye and a shared smile is the glue that binds our cities and creates the public realm. The “public” of cities is not defined through spaces alone but how people interact on the streets. The reliance on people rather than a piece of paper for locating oneself in city space is a symptomatic case, that very much explains the nature of our cities.</p>
<p><strong>Indian cities are as much defined by community action in public places as much by their form. The conversation with strangers or casual acquaintances on the road is the glue that perhaps binds the Indian cities.</strong></p>
<p>The other issue that gets raised is about how people, their verbal description, and animated gestures are preferred to visualize a route or landmark in space of cities. So the imagination of space is not always mediated through the “top view” of a map. The personal interpretation and description are as important as the spatial triangulation.</p>
<p>The use of place-markers, text and pictures in google maps and similar such sites seems to be mimicking this aspect of the city; the opinions of people, their memory and impressions.</p>
<p><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/incometex300x212.jpg/image_preview" alt="Image 4" class="image-inline image-inline" title="Image 4" /><br />Fig 4: Users Opinions in Google Earth</p>
<p><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/Picture1300x187.png/image_preview" alt="Image 5" class="image-inline image-inline" title="Image 5" /><br />Fig 5: The users view on Google earth</p>
<p>All of a sudden we are able to hear people in maps. This is an important development and needs further examination. The fundamental attitude is towards looking at our surroundings; in this case from the top. The “gaze” is an important conceptual phenomenon that will be need to be accounted for while understanding the deployment of any such image as a way of exploring geographical space. <strong>“The gaze is outside; I am looked at, that is to say, I am a picture”</strong> (Lacan, 126).</p>
<p>These maps (Figure 4 & 5) as such show the worms eye view superimposed on the bird eye view. The individual interpretation in space which is common (Cities; belongs to all) is a consistent pattern that one finds in most of the geographical representation of space on the internet. Two conditions come together here; the representation (in this case a satellite picture) of space that claims to be accurate and neat along with individuals marking there engagement with the same.</p>
<p>In some sense it (satellite maps on internet) presently represents two extreme scales; that of a large neat space of the city and the individuals readings of the space. <strong>Maps have, after a long time broken from the clutches of the state</strong> but still do not necessarily connect with larger social cultural processes of the city like the old maps did. It is still “work in progress”, but offer immense opportunities in creating representations of space that can tell lot more stories of our cities. Like many other mediums that have transformed due to the internet (like collaborative music, videos etc), there seems to be a possibility of creative expressions in generating new maps that may represent the rich vitality of our cities.</p>
<p>Maps perhaps were never tools to find directions. Are they not the story tellers of a place?</p>
<h3>References</h3>
<p>Gole, Susan. Indian Maps and Plan: From earliest times to advent of European Surveys, Manohar Publisher, 1989, New Delhi</p>
<p>Lacan, Jacques. What is a Picture? in The Visual Culture Reader by Mirzoeff Nicholas. Routledge, 2002. New York</p>
<p>Read the article in <a class="external-link" href="http://www.pratyushshankar.net/blog/internet/">Pratyush's Blog</a></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/blogs/internet-society-and-space-in-indian-cities/geography-imagined'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/blogs/internet-society-and-space-in-indian-cities/geography-imagined</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnainternet and society2011-08-02T06:06:43ZBlog Entry City in the Internet 1: Geography Imagined (Part 1)
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/blogs/internet-society-and-space-in-indian-cities/city-in-the-internet
<b>“The estuaries that flirt with the land mass before they finally perish in the vast deep blue ocean beyond were perfect in their shape and grace. And you know what; from top it appears like a surreal landscape that is so restive and peaceful, almost heaven. The countryside is actually very beautiful”, says Pratyush Shankar in his latest blog post. A random conversation between two person discovering the joys of seeing our existence through Google Earth!</b>
<p>The use of maps through the Internet has seen a many fold increase in recent times. With availability of satellite information to anyone through various websites we are witnessing a sea change in the manner in which our space (cities, countryside and landscape) is being gazed upon. This is an important time historically, as it has the potential to fundamentally alter our imagination of space; right from the scale of a country to our neighbourhood block.</p>
<p>The Internet today is perhaps right in the middle of such mediation of the city and people. The Google maps, satellite imagery, road maps, place markers, are leading to a re-imagination of our own environment. Let us try and explore some of the key concepts that gets raised in the process of such expressions of space and its mental constructs. This is the part one of the essay and by the end of the next post I will try and speculate its impact on city spaces (yes the real space!)</p>
<h2>Story 1: Geography is sensed and lived in</h2>
<p>As a child growing up in a not so small town of Kota, Shailendra and his group of friends swore allegiance of silence and if needed deceit when it came to their weekend forays outside the city; a swim in the river Chambal. The swim was a big no-no for kids, as stories of people being washed away in the strong current of the merciless river that had steep banks, were drilled into every potentially aberrant child of the town. If not the force of the water it definitely had to be the crocodiles that wait for days together, at the dark bottom of the river for that one sweet sound of a child swimming above. After that it is only gore and blood. But Shailendra and his friends could not resist the temptation of a good swim in the cool water. He often boasted about his dives and his long swims and that he saw a crocodile come his way but swam faster than that wretched creature. And some time during a leisurely mood as he and his friends sat on the banks of the river, smoking Charminar with the Chambal swiftly passing below, he spoke about his dream of leaving this small city of aunts, cousins, family festivals, marriage, river and crocodile for the “big city”; the city of lights, new friends and endless possibilities. This is how he understood his city; small, protective and the big river on its periphery. The city was compact, the river dangerous, the slopes of the city lead to a valley which had rich but soft soil; not so perfect for foundations of buildings but great for mango orchards they frequented last summer. The orchards were owned by the Garasia’s, the land owning class of the villages around, and they made good money. They could marry off their daughters to neighboring villages and throw a lavish dinner for the community. Not bad at all, he thought considering the fact that this community had small land holding and almost no access to credit . Further downstream the villagers were much richer. The Patidar community here had access to capital from their ancestral assets and strong community networks as they used the river water for intense irrigation; they grew basmati rice, export quality very much “Made in India”. Their sons studied in boarding school at Mt. Abu and would often show0ff their recent shopping booty from Mumbai or Delhi. Enough land and plenty of water can do wonders he thought!</p>
<p>Shailendra and his friends understood the geography as much as they understood the economic processes that are associated with land and water all across the length and breath of the country. The agricultural modes as linked to the geography of land is as common a knowledge, as the fact that one has to remove slippers before entering the temple premise. The geographical understanding of a place or region is necessarily one of soil, surface drainage, river, canals and how it impacts building and agriculture activity. This is true for most souls of the large number of villages and towns of India. The geography taught at the local school’s is as abstract and distant as Galelio’s invention of telescope or closer home the 1857 mutiny against the British. Land is understood through immediate examples that affect and lets us understand the structure of space around; the relationship of land, its water bodies, forest, its produce, livestock, agriculture and people. It is this web of relationship that provides the primary reading of landscape. A reading emerging from survival and dreams. An understanding that is bodily and involves all sense.</p>
<h2>Story 2: Geography is contested</h2>
<p>The push and the subsequent fall was bad, considering the fact that it was only suppose to be a friendly game of football with the boys from the municipal school. Pyjama chhap; that’s what Ajay used to call these boys. Ajay knees were badly bruised, something he had got used to since he joined the school football team. But the injuries and the resultant bandage were in fact trophies he did not mind showing off in his neighborhood. Sweet pain eh! But today his encounter with the boys from Municipal School no -32, Kandivalle in the football match left him a bit shaken. There was something about that push, something strange in the eyes of the boys who did him in. No apology, no shake of hands but a brutal look as if that bunch might kill him if he come anywhere close to them. Ignoring the skirmishes, he soon carried out with his show of bandages in the knee and slight limp in school; a typical John Travalto one. This had been a regular ritual he performed often to woo the girls of the class, a show that said “I am the Alpha male and have just returned from a battle where I proved my supremacy. I am broken here and bruised there. Some sympathy, some support, some sweet nothing talk or maybe a gentle caress might help”. And life goes on. A daily ritual of updating the facebook profile, completing the homework, sourcing the “ultimate porn”, avoiding dad, recharging the sim, football practice and girls. </p>
<p>Life rolled on till the day Ajay was again confronted with the same pyjama chaap kids of the Municipal school. This time it was beyond the security of his school compound in the market street exposed to the elements. The same dirty look and menacing stare. He tried to smile but before he could realize the one in the center with a dark face and curly hair shouted “matherchod bahut shaana ho gaya hai tu” (mother fucker you have become too smart these days). Now this one was a pure googly. Ajay was stumped, confused and more than anything else he was sweating with fear. Why me and why here in full public view. But..but what is the matter boss, he said? Matter is very clear, said the other one with a squint eye; your dads behind eviction of two shops, one house, three families and four dogs. You assholes have brought these families to street because your dad brought the municipal bulldozers to clear the plot in front of his clinic so that he can plant trees and have a nice parking for his clients. Now this was heavy… very heavy. Ajay just could not fathom why it had to be him. And.. and what is in that piece of land anyways. A large neem tree, dusty rough surface, some shanty and a nullah flowing with the exposes water pipe.</p>
<p>The encounter lasted a few seconds but it was devastating. He ran to the comfort of his house and immediately asked for hot masala maggie. Oh sweet home; it felt so good to curl up on the couch, switch the channels of the television, check the emails; all so personalized and predictable. He wanted all the familiar comforts that day…</p>
<p>Ajay soon outgrew the incident and went about planning his daily inaction’s, weekly bunks and occasional dates. But that incident also changed him. He had a keener eye now, for both sensing trouble and also to things around him he earlier had failed to notice.</p>
<p>He understood how the rivulet that flows from the ghats to the sea, actually is the life line of some twenty thousand families that stay there with their dogs, cats, shops, scooters and some even cars. He knew that the mangroves of the city are now piece of trophy used by the environmentalist to rally for protection and stop the International Airport project. He knew how the Mumbai floods were actually man-made as subsequent corrupt municipal officers choose to ignore the fundamentals of topography and water. That is how he learned about the geography of his city; from being absolutely ignorant about his surroundings, he suddenly knew how his city is the space of conflict, of emancipation, deceit, opportunity and corruption. The fractured geography of his city told the story of survival, human ingenuity and violence.</p>
<h2> The “image from top”</h2>
<blockquote>“The view of the Earth from the Moon fascinated me—a small disk, 240,000 miles away. It was hard to think that that little thing held so many problems, so many frustrations. Raging nationalistic interests, famines, wars, pestilence don’t show from that distance”<br /></blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>Frank Borman, Astronaut aboard Apollo 8, ‘A Science Fiction World—Awesome Forlorn Beauty,’ Life magazine, January 1969.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The view of the earth from moon and satellites in the late 50′s and 60′s contributed to imagination of the planet as an artifact that is small, vulnerable and alone in space. It fed a whole generation of activists, scientist and media to speak about the earth as a unique place. The image of earth with its deep blue surface, clouds and spots became the single most important symbol that fueled the the hearts and minds of the generation, that questioned the development model of the western world. It attacked the core values of modernity and growth that was drunk on technology, performance and confidence to master the elements of nature. But at the same time, it hearled a very different way of reading space. Riding on the growth of both print and visual mediums it led to an explosion of imagery that showed the “God’s view of the earth”. A fantastic collage of calm blue oceans, neat forests and swirling clouds streams. The good old map that existed in Geography- II textbooks of schools were so boring now; way too abstract and almost a diagram.</p>
<p>That old maps did not inspire any spatial imagination but it did have these lines where none existed. The straight lines of longitude, the dark red meridian, the political boundary of nations, the dark circular one of the capital city. And yes the arrows; the ones showing the direction of the ocean current, swirling all around the blue waters. Maps are much maligned lot these days. Often seen as expressions of the intent to document, control and exploit the land that was colonized by them, maps were instrument of power struggle in India and elsewhere. But they do exist amongst us like many other colonial legacies. Maps are provocative, they express an opinion and engage with the user to form a dialogue of questions and answers. For example the map of Delhi metro is statement of origin-destination possibilities of the large city. A statement of the state of flows and possibilities for movement of one self in the space.</p>
<p>Maps are a statement of processes of space which may or may not express visually. For example the map showing the per-capita consumption of cereals in a district, may or may not manifest as a form. It is the story of the people, their ability to access food supplies etc.</p>
<p>The map is telling a story that made you develop an imagination of space. The satellite image leaves nothing for imagination.</p>
<p>But the view from top has often been perceived to be the real space; as it actually exists. Unlike maps that are either surveyed and drawn, Google Maps and such derivatives on the internet today use an “image from top” as a basic conceptual ground to explore space. Let us now try to deconstruct this phenomenon further.</p>
<p>The image of space below taken from top is important from the point of view of creating grounds for further information. The image pretends to be complete, authentic, accurate and real. There is no possibility for error. The camera are special, there lens accurate, the satellite is state of art and the image is not “photo-shopped”. This portrayal assumes that the visual image is the baseline reality to be recognized. The image then claims to be “the” window to reality and becomes the mediator between the person and his/ her imagination of the surrounding space. Unlike maps wherein the first cut documentation is a bodily involvement of people with space while conducting physical surveys, it is the snap of the camera in case of satellite images. Whereas it is common knowledge that ground physical survey are way too accurate in terms of their dimensional characteristics, the “image from top” are seen to be more closer to reality. This raises interesting questions from the point of view of our understanding of space be it the forests, oceans, rivers, countryside or cities.</p>
<p>Will the dependence on the image (satellite pictures) and its derivative maps that we are witnessing through the internet today for visualizing space lead to a viewer that is satisfied with the “happy” image of his surroundings? Does it mean that the visual (image) becomes more important than the “process” (be it processes of nature, human survival, achievement etc) when imagining space. In short are the meanings attached to the image limited now than before.</p>
<p>So are we headed towards a more homogeneous imagination of our space and its parts due to the mediation by the same image through the internet? The forest are dense, the plantations greens, the coastline smooth, the old city organic and water bodies are deep blue.</p>
<p><strong>Wait! The story has a new twist</strong></p>
<p>But there is something also happening to the image on the internet. There are place markers, text, suggestions, stories, links to other site and even pictures overlaid on the satellite images or its maps. The story is getting interesting now; the technological possibility of user participation is creating a new layer of information and opinions on the maps. Far from being a specialized cartographic exercise, maps are being now created by people. It expresses their impressions, choices and preferences about their space.</p>
<p><strong>This phenomenon of the individual expressions over the expanse of the vast space is new and needs to be further understood. More about it in the next post…..</strong></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/blogs/internet-society-and-space-in-indian-cities/city-in-the-internet'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/blogs/internet-society-and-space-in-indian-cities/city-in-the-internet</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnainternet and societycybercultures2012-03-13T10:43:50ZBlog EntryAt the end of the niche optical pirate
http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/at-the-end-of-the-niche-optical-pirate
<b>In this blog post, Siddharth Chaddha goes enquiring into the modus operandi of a video pirate / film lover / businessman in Bangalore's famed National Market.</b>
<h3><strong>Getting to the National Market</strong></h3>
<p>Wading through Majestic Bus Stand,
Flea Markets, Private Bus Stops and vehicles going around in circles,
you could almost miss this board outside one of the shopping plazas.
NATIONAL MARKET, the famed "pirate market" at the heart of
the city. Most of the business here is illegal and the local police
raid the thirty odd shops selling goods, which within the purview of
any multilateral agreement under WIPO or TRIPS regime would be an
infringement of copyright, at least once a
month. The shops run shutter to shutter, each one five by four feet.
Crowded with sellers and customers, all pirate markets typically
smell the same. Pirated DVDs, DVD players, Chinese mobile phones and
PDAs, even VHS players of the yore, smuggled MP3 music systems, fake
Ray-Bans and Police sunglasses, gaming consoles. You name it, and
National Market has it.</p>
<h3>Meet the Pirate</h3>
<p>Tall and sporting a stubble, Sooraj
(name changed) is a Malayali who has been in the trade for over 8
years. "Earlier, I used to have the best English Movie
collection ever. But now, its all going away. Most people have
shifted from DVD's to Digital Storage and Bit Torrents", says
Sooraj. A family comes across the counter. A middle aged man
accompanied by two women in a burqua, one of them carrying a young
baby boy in their hand. "Tom and Jerry!", says the man and
Sooraj's helper brings out a carton full of animated Hollywood films.
Finding Nemo, The Lion King, Madagascar, its all there. "No Tom
and Jerry. This doesn't have Tom and Jerry", growls the stout
customer. Sooraj jumps into the action, hunts out a DVD from a stack
and puts it on the table. "Tom and Jerry Tales - 13 episodes",
reads the the outside with a classic Tom chasing Jerry picture on the
cover. Satisfied, the family puts it aside and goes on to explore
other popular cartoon series. In the end, the man calls for
Maharathi, a recent Bollywood flick. He looks at the cover
intriguingly and I decide to butt in, "Amazing movie. Just saw
it last week. Great plot." The deal is seized and after a bout
of bargaining over the price. As the family dissolves into the market,
Sooraj turns back and says to me, "A lot of customers bargain. I
get a headache. And my shop is the first one in the market, inside
people operate on margins of 5-10 rupees. That just ruins everything
for us. They don't think of the amount of the risk involved."</p>
<h3>The Business of Piracy<strong><br /></strong></h3>
<p>Sooraj explains to me how Chennai is the biggest market of
the South. "Chennai is a sea. You will get everything there.
Once you take a dive in that ocean, it's all there." When I ask
him of the chain of distribution, he says, "No one will say that
I print the covers of fake DVDs or I copy prints. For me, I just
call my distributor and everything comes from Chennai. I don't ask
beyond that. The stock comes in the price range of 25-35-40 Rupees.
Now, there is only one quality of stock. The market is dying. No one
has good stock. Earlier, we used to sell DVDs for Rs.70-80. Now,
there is no demand. Even the wholesale business is at a low.'' I ask
him, "So what are you going to do, now that soon DVDs will be
gone?" Sooraj is not flustered. "We will shut this and start
a new business," he says. I quietly step back, as another
customer comes asking for audio CDs. He doesn't deal in those.</p>
<h3>Enforcement Threat<strong><br /></strong></h3>
<p>When the customer is gone, I ask him,
"How often does the police raid this market?" He smiles and
replies, "Not often anymore. The business is almost dead. But
yes, they come sometimes. Then you are taken away and a case ensues."
I decide to ask him candidly, "How many times have you been
booked?" He smiles again. "5-7 times. I have a few cases
pending, dates that I have to go and visit the court. They arrest you
for a day but that's all they can do. After all this is not a big
crime." He continues dealing with customers who have various
demands for music and films. Some he sells to, he guides others to
the inside shops. "I sell about a 1000 DVDs everyday. Earlier,
the figure used to be much higher. Mostly English. Hindi, Tamil and
Telugu too. No Kannada," he volunteers. I probe further, "Why
no Kannada?" He says that that he supports protection for their
own industry. "And the market price for Kannada films is
appropriate. Some are Rupees 60, 90, 110. That's reasonable. We do not
need to pirate it."</p>
I ask him for Tamil titles. He asked if
I wanted <em>Ghajani</em>. “I saw it when it released. Give me something
that's worth watching.” He picks out two. <em>Saroja</em> and <em>Subramaniya
Puram</em>. He doesn't make a profit in this deal but something tells me
that he is happy to spread the love of good films. "Can I click
a picture?" He refuses, saying it would not be a good idea. I
shake his hand. Until next time.
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/at-the-end-of-the-niche-optical-pirate'>http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/at-the-end-of-the-niche-optical-pirate</a>
</p>
No publishersiddharthIT ActConsumer RightsPiracyIntellectual Property Rightsinternet and society2011-08-04T04:44:58ZBlog Entry