News and Media Coverage

Converting Indian Slacktivists Takes (Offline) Time

praskrishna — 2011-08-04T09:07:16Z

No matter how much attention an online protest campaign might appear to be getting in terms of likes, fans or retweets, it’s rarely likely to be able to draw even a fraction of its Internet supporters to a street protest. That’s as true in India as anywhere else in the world, it appears.

The New Delhi Slut Walk, also known as Besharmi Morcha (Shameless Protest), publicized itself in good part through websites that generated a lot of media coverage, including on this site, as well as through debates. But it apparently didn’t live up to expectations, some Indian news reports said.

A story in the business daily Mint said over 2,000 people pledged on Facebook to show up. Police put the turnout at 700 people, including 400 police and 200 reporters, but protest organizers put the number of people who were there, including cops and the press, at around 1,000. Mishika Singh, a coordinator for the demonstration, said perhaps 500 people actually did the walk. The campaign said that they got about as many people as they were expecting.

So what does it take to turn "slacktivism" — as some call online support that extends largely to clicking on a petition, forwarding an e-mail or “liking” something on Facebook—into activism?

Sunil Abraham, executive director of the Bangalore-based Center for Internet and Society, says "conversion" — getting passive online supporters to graduate to the next step, such as customizing an email to an MP — takes additional time and organizing, and at least some of this must happen offline.

He said the perception among many that the Arab uprisings earlier this year were Twitter-driven was oversimplified and happened in part because it was harder for reporters outside the country to be aware of on-the-ground organizing efforts.

"Social media organizing was more by the diaspora population in order to keep international attention on the issue," he said. “If the Internet was so important, when they blocked Internet sites it would have seriously undermined the offline organizing but it didn't."

With causes that are viewed as more difficult—or that have a higher personal cost to the participant perhaps—conversion can be even more difficult, Mr. Abraham said, saying he wasn’t surprised by the numbers reported at Slut Walk.

"It’s a new cause. It’s not an established organization," he said. "They didn’t have a lot of time."

Mr. Abraham offered the Anna Hazare-guided Indian Against Corruption campaign as one of India’s better online organizing efforts.

"I think the Anna Hazare campaign is so far the most effective” online, said Mr. Abraham. “If you notice they are much more organized in terms of designing the funnel of incremental actions."

He said they had laid out obvious next steps for those willing to do a bit more, like calling an Indian Against Corruption cellphone number to register for updates and information.

"They also have offline activities and meetings in other cities as well," he said.

Yet even on days in April when the India Against Corruption protest Facebook page was racking up 100,000 members, the number of people at the sit-in site in Jantar Mantar in New Delhi during Mr. Hazare’s fast against corruption were roughly a twentieth of that each day.

Still, Mr. Abraham said that politicians probably shouldn’t dismiss online activists, even if they can’t muster the numbers that traditional protesters like farmers groups or trade unions can.

Mr. Abraham suggested that while India’s broadband users may number less than 10% of the population, many of them are probably well-connected—both technologically and politically speaking—and influential on others they communicate with.

"Even a small number on the streets should count as an important political signal,” said Mr. Abraham. “Some of us are more connected than others."

He also said India’s slacktivists didn’t appear to be greater slackers than their counterparts in other countries, noting that getting a person to graduate from thought to action is extremely difficult in most cases.

"If 1,000 people read your newspaper, 100 will say I should write to the editor because I really disagree with the columnist, and one person will actually write," said Mr. Abraham. "Conversion is very low for these kinds of altruistic activities. For a discount sale perhaps you would get more people."

Note: Correcting the statistics about broadband penetration.

This article by Tripti Lahiri was published in the Wall Street Journal on August 2, 2011. The original can be read here.

Photo courtesy Manan Vatsyayana/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

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Better Understanding of the Idea of Privacy Sought

praskrishna — 2011-08-08T07:40:18Z

Understanding the ways in which an individual's privacy is violated will help provide a better definition of privacy in India. At a public conference called ‘Privacy Matters' held at the Madras Institute of Development Studies (MIDS) here on Saturday, speakers underscored the need for discussions surrounding the privacy bill.

Prashant Iyengar from Privacy India said, "In India, we do not have a set view on privacy. There is a lot of articulation around privacy in law, yet we do not have an omnibus concept." He stressed the importance of bringing about discussions around the adequacy of safeguards.

Post 26/11 terror attacks, the country has seen an enhancement of electronic surveillance and the proliferation of databases that collect information from individuals, said Santhosh Babu, Secretary, Information Technology Department.

"The problem arises when these databases are misused for political or other reasons. In a legal framework, we have to figure out what information can be given out, what cannot and what can be misused," he said. He stressed the importance of databases going through a software development lifecycle to make them more secure.

Speaking from a media practitioner's perspective, Sashi Kumar, Chairman, Media Development Foundation, said it is the business of the media to conduct sting operations especially when people in power are obfuscating information. “Sting operations are legitimate when larger public good is at stake. We have to be aware of this when we discuss the privacy bill. It should not protect people in power and keep exposure at bay,” he said. He also stressed that privacy is closely linked with the dignity of the person. R. Ramamurthy, Chairman, Cyber Society of India said, “The definition of privacy varies from what it was twenty years ago to what it is today. A lot has changed since the internet came to India.” The statutes that govern all forms of communication in India should be revamped, he said. Discussions around privacy in relation to telecommunications, financial transactions, consumer rights and basic rights followed. The conference was a collaborative effort between Privacy India, Citizen Consumer and Civic Action Group, Chennai and MIDS.

A staff reporter from the Hindu covered the event. The original can be read here

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Indian super-cops now patrol the www highway

praskrishna — 2011-08-19T06:48:48Z

There's discontent brewing in the Indian cyberspace. And it has to do with the government blocking content that it deems "objectionable". What has raised hackles of Internet freedom activists is a new set of rules that allow Internet service providers (ISPs) and blogging sites to remove "objectionable" content from the Web.

This Wednesday, in a written reply, minister of state for information and technology Sachin Pilot told the Lok Sabha that the recently notified rules under the IT Act to regulate the use of Internet, "don't give any power to the government to regulate the content"? Pilot added that the rules did not raise issues "pertaining to privacy and violation of freedom of speech and expression."

Are the rules likely to affect you and I? They may have already begun do so. Last fortnight, when surfers went on to popular file-sharing sites to download clips of a new Bollywood release, what they got instead was a screen with the message: This site has been blocked as per instructions of the Department of Telecom.

The fine print

The new rules demand that the intermediary notify users not to publish or use information that is derogatory, abusive, insulting or which violates intellectual property rights or impacts the sovereignty of the nation. In a country that has 81 million Internet users, this can never be easy.

The rules put the onus of intercepting, blocking and removing objectionable content on intermediaries — telecom service providers, search engines, social networking sites and online payment sites — turning them into super-cops of the Web. "Although the Act is an improvement on the previous one, the rules put too much onus on intermediaries," says Dr Subo Ray, President, Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI). "The intermediaries have become the judge, the jury and the executioner," says Ray.

In a nation where social mores are in a flux, interpretation of what is objectionable under the new rules is wide and subjective, says technology lawyer Rodney D Ryder. "Content deemed 'disparaging', 'harassing', 'blasphemous' or 'hateful' can be blocked. But who will decide what is disparaging?"

The worst bit about such censorship, says Nikhil Pahwa, editor of Medianama, a portal that discusses issues related to digital media, is its opacity. "It is a distress signal for civil liberties and India's version of Egypt's kill-switch. With the UID, the government would know who I am. With the help of telecom operators, they can track me within 50 metres and with my mobile number, snoop in on my conversations. On top of that, do we need Internet rules that don't have a provision of appeal?"

Ryder concurs: "The regulations do not even provide a way for content producers to defend their work or appeal a decision to remove content. This is against the principles of natural justice."

The rules are a case of deceptive legislative drafting says cyber lawyer Pawan Duggal, chairman of Assocham's cyber law committee. "The provisions hide more than what they disclose. Cosmetically, the new rules says that if you are an intermediary, then you shall not be liable for any third-party data, information or communication link made available or hosted by you. Provided, and this is crucial, you follow a number of stringent conditions."

Duggal says many intermediaries in India are not aware of these conditions. "An intermediary will not be liable for any third-party data made available or hosted by it, provided it complies with the law, exercises due diligence, does not abet, conspire or play an active role in a criminal activity and further, provided that once it is notified of any offending activity, removes or disables access of the said offending content expeditiously. If it fails to fulfil one of the conditions, it is open to criminal exposure and civil exposure upto unlimited damages by way of compensation."

Is it gagging net freedom?

In China and Saudi Arabia, governments routinely censor content and redirect search requests to error pages. In Vietnam, bloggers who criticise the government are sometimes arrested. And in Cuba, there is talk of creating "a national Internet". Still, any talk of comparing India with these restrictive regimes is alarmist and stupid, says Ray of IAMAI.

But over the past few years, the government has been gradually building censorship muscle over the Internet, say activists. In 2006, it blocked Typepad, the blog hosting service and a bulk SMS site.

A right to information plea filed by the Bangalore-based Centre for Internet and Society reveals the government blocked 11 sites between 2008 and 2011 (see box). These range from sites hosting the predictable girl wallpapers and Kamasutra to blogs discussing the freedom of speech.

Yet, in his written reply to the Lok Sabha, Pilot insisted that the rules "do not give any power to the government to regulate the content".

If this sparks any discontent in you about privacy, freedom of speech and civil liberties, think twice before sharing the content on the Internet.

This article by Aasheesh Sharma was published in the Hindustan Times on August 6, 2011. The original can be read here.

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When Knowledge Isn’t Written, Does It Still Count?

praskrishna — 2011-08-09T08:53:23Z

“MAKING fun of Wikipedia is so 2007,” a French journalist said recently to Sue Gardner, the executive director of the foundation that runs the Wikipedia project.

And so Ms. Gardner, in turn, told an auditorium full of Wikipedia contributors and supporters on Thursday in Haifa, Israel, the host city for the seventh annual Wikimania conference, where meetings and presentations focus on the world’s most used, and perhaps least understood, online reference work.

Once routinely questioned about its reliability — what do you mean, anyone can edit it? — the site is now used every month by upwards of 400 million people worldwide. But with influence and respect come responsibility, and lately Wikipedia has been criticized from without and within for reflecting a Western, male-dominated mindset similar to the perspective behind the encyclopedias it has replaced.

Seeing Wikipedia as The Man, in so many words, is so 2011.

And that’s a problem for an encyclopedia that wants to grow. Some critics of Wikipedia believe that the whole Western tradition of footnotes and sourced articles needs to be rethought if Wikipedia is going to continue to gather converts beyond its current borders. And that, in turn, invites an entirely new debate about what constitutes knowledge in different parts of the world and how a Western institution like Wikipedia can capitalize on it.

Achal Prabhala, an adviser to Ms. Gardner’s Wikimedia Foundation who lives and writes in Bangalore, India, has made perhaps the most trenchant criticism in a video project, “People are Knowledge,” that he presented in Haifa (along with its clunky subtitle, “Exploring alternative methods of citation for Wikipedia”).

The film, which was made largely with a $20,000 grant from the Wikimedia Foundation, spends time showing what has been lost to Wikipedia because of stickling rules of citation and verification. If Wikipedia purports to collect the “sum of all human knowledge,” in the words of one of its founders, Jimmy Wales, that, by definition, means more than printed knowledge, Mr. Prabhala said.

In the case of dabba kali, a children’s game played in the Kerala state of India, there was a Wikipedia article in the local language, Malayalam, that included photos, a drawing and a detailed description of the rules, but no sources to back up what was written. Other than, of course, the 40 million people who played it as children.

There is no doubt, he said, that the article would have been deleted from English Wikipedia if it didn’t have any sources to cite. Those are the rules of the game, and those are the rules he would like to change, or at least bend, or, if all else fails, work around.

“There is this desire to grow Wikipedia in parts of the world,” he said, adding that “if we don’t have a more generous and expansive citation policy, the current one will prove to be a massive roadblock that you literally can’t get past. There is a very finite amount of citable material, which means a very finite number of articles, and there will be no more.”

Mr. Prabhala, 38, who grew up in India and then attended American universities, has been an activist on issues of intellectual property, starting with the efforts in South Africa to free up drugs that treat H.I.V. In the film, he gives other examples of subjects — an alcohol produced in a village, Ga-Sabotlane, in Limpopo, South Africa, and a popular hopscotch-type children’s game, tshere-tshere — beyond print documentation and therefore beyond Wikipedia’s true-and-tried method.

There are whole cultures, he said, that have little to no printed material to cite as proof about the way life is lived.

“Publishing is a system of power and I mean that in a completely pleasant, accepting sense,” he said mischievously. “But it leaves out people.”

But Mr. Prabhala offers a solution: he and the video’s directors, Priya Sen and Zen Marie, spoke with people in African and Indian villages either in person or over the phone and had them describe basic activities. These recordings were then uploaded and linked to the article as sources, and suddenly an article that seems like it could be a personal riff looks a bit more academic.

For example, in his interview with a South African villager who explained how to make the alcoholic drink, morula, she repeatedly says that it is best if she demonstrates the process. When the fruit is ready, said the villager, Philipine Moremi, according to the project’s transcript of her phone conversation, “we pry them open. We are going to show you how it is done. Once they are peeled, we seal them to ferment and then we drink.” The idea of treating personal testimony as a source for Wikipedia is still controversial, and reflects the concerns that dominated the encyclopedia project six years ago, when arguably its very existence was threatened.

After a series of hoaxes, culminating in a Wikipedia article in 2005 that maligned the newspaper editor John Seigenthaler for no discernible reason other than because a Wikipedia contributor could, the site tried to ensure that every statement could be traced to a source.

Then there is the rule “no original research,” which was meant to say that Wikipedia doesn’t care if you are writing about the subway station you visit every day, find someone who has written reliably on the color of the walls there.

"The natural thing is getting more and more accurate, locking down articles, raising the bar on sources," said Andrew Lih, an associate professor of journalism at the University of Southern California, who was an early contributor to Wikipedia and has written a history of its rise. “Isn’t it great we have so many texts online?"

But what works for the most developed societies, he said, won’t necessarily work for others. “Lots of knowledge is not Googleable,” he said, “and is not in a digital form.”

Mr. Lih said that he could see the Wikipedia project suddenly becoming energized by the process of documenting cultural practices around the world, or down the street.

Perhaps Mr. Prabhala’s most challenging argument is that by being text-focused, and being locked into the Encyclopedia Britannica model, Wikipedia risks being behind the times.

An 18-year-old is comfortable using “objects of trust that have been created on the Internet," he said, and "Wikipedia isn’t taking advantage of that." And, he added, "it is quite possible that for the 18-year-old of today that Wikipedia looks like his father’s project. Or the kind of thing his father might be interested in."

Ouch.

A version of this article appeared in print on August 8, 2011, on page B4 of the New York edition with the headline: When Knowledge Isn’t Written, Does It Still Count?.

This article by Noam Cohen was published in the New York Times on August 7, 2011, the original can be read here

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Tired of tele-marketing calls? Act on privacy right: Experts

praskrishna — 2011-08-09T09:00:58Z

Annoyed with unsolicited calls from insurance and banking companies? Under the proposed Right to Privacy Act, such calls would be considered a violation and the company responsible penalised up to Rs 5 lakh. The draft Right to Privacy Bill says that no person with a business in the country can collect or disclose any data relating to any individual without his/her consent.

Doing so will be a punishable offence. Speakers at a seminar here on Saturday organised by the Citizen consumer and civic Action Group (CAG), were unanimous in their call for the Right to Privacy Act coming into force soon. R Revathi, an associate professor at Dr Ambedkar Law University, said the matter of privacy was very tricky. "Recently, a man who came to donate blood for a friend tested positive for HIV. The hospital got to know he was going to be engaged soon and told his fiance? after which the marriage was called off," she said. "The man was not a patient at the hospital but his personal information was made public in the interest of a larger good. These are some of the challenges expected while implementing the bill," she added.

Others said there was no specific law in the Constitution to safeguard the individual's privacy. Privacy, they said, could be classified into physical and informational privacy. While the former was about the intrusion of physical space, the latter included digital and non-digital data that is personal in nature.

The article was published by the Times of India on August 7, 2011. The original can be read here

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Nothing unique about this identity

praskrishna — 2011-08-09T09:12:55Z

Relying on the government to protect your privacy is like asking peeping tom to install your window blinds, opined, not long ago, the American poet and novelist John Perry Barlow once. The statement attains significance in the context of Unique Identification (UID) project which is being touted as a milepost in inclusive politics. Liberalisation evangelists see UID project as the most virtuous thing that can ever happen to the Indian people who find themselves excluded from the system.

So, their ingenious solution is a 12-digit Aadhaar number — a super identity — to help the common man in opening a bank account or ordering a cylinder refill. This is, besides, the existing identities like ration card, the driving license, PAN card and passport to mention a few.

Prima facie, it may all appear euphemistic initiative; for some even very bright and attractive. For, its proclaimed purpose supposedly is to deepen the democratic process.

However, when one talks to civil rights activists who’ve gone hammer and tongs against the project, one will realise the truthfulness of Shakespeare’s observation that ‘a fair exterior may hide a corrupt mind!’

This becomes evident from the fact that the UID project has become the biggest industrial collector of personal information which should frighten up any person still in sensibilities.

The project has already proved disastrous since the unfolding events prove its advocates have not applied much thought to the dangers posed by centralised data collection considering India’s heterogenic population.

In fact, head of Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) Nandan Nilekani had maintained UID enrolment was voluntary.

However, Chief Minister Oommen Chandy some two months back asserted his government would make UID mandatory unlike his predecessor V.S. Achuthanandan.

"Even in this basic thing, there’s so much confusion. But, the truth is that it’s voluntary. You can’t be coerced into it", confirms a prominent anti-UID campaigner Usha Ramanathan.

She alleged personal information passed onto UIDAI passes through various outsourcing layers compromising safety. It recently happened in Bangalore where a delivery boy demanded a customer’s fingerprint while delivering gas refill!

"Why should anyone give it to an unknown person? It shows the level to which your personal information could get disseminated", she says.

UID, in fact, is supposed to be foolproof. However, again in Bangalore, miscreants could easily fake an Aadhar number in the name of none other than Nandan Nilekani himself!

The fraud came to light when miscreants offered franchisee for UID enrolment for `2.5 lakh.

"Fake UIDs rackets confirm there’s no monitoring. So, how can UIDAI protect your information?" wonders Usha. Nandan Nilekani wants to enroll 60 per cent Indian population by 2014 into UID. However, it’s fast proving a chimerical target as the process involving agency-UIDAI-de-duplicating agency has started taking its toll.

"Initially, Aadhaar number was promised within a week. Now, it’s taking anywhere between three to six months", pointed out executive director, Bangalore-based Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) Sunil Abraham.

The project faces problems on cash transfer whose aim is to dismantle public distribution shops (PDS) which once done would put the farmer and customer at the mercy of market for their selling/procurement needs.

For, the farmer won’t be assured of a minimum support price (MSP) while for the customer there is no guarantee that the price would hold good till such time his account gets credited. Further, experts warn the Aadhar number-linked cash transfer will compromise safety. “Cash transfer using bio-metric is not safe. If it were otherwise, ATMs would’ve gone for it. Why didn’t they do it?” asks Sunil Abraham.

Interestingly, a group of students recently did a research on the efficacy of PDS. The research covering nine States cautioned prime minister Manmohan Singh that PDS was better than cash, except in Bihar.

Professor Sridhar Krishnaswamy W.B. University of Jurisdical Sciences fears the Corproates could link one’s Aadhar number to bank account to judge his or her behavioural pattern.

"It’s not right. Instead of resorting to blanket surveillance, government should go in for targeted surveillance," Sunil said.

This article by T. S. Sreenivasa Raghavan was published in the Deccan Chronicle on August 5, 2011. The original can be read here.

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Govt wants to monitor Facebook, Twitter

praskrishna — 2011-08-09T09:21:55Z

The Union home ministry has written to the department of telecom asking it to "ensure effective monitoring of Twitter and Facebook".

Milind Deora, minister of state for communications and information technology, said in written reply to a question on Friday in the Rajya Sabha that DoT has received a letter from MHA to ensure monitoring of social networking websites like Facebook and Twitter in order to "strengthen cyber security paraphernalia".

He said that in cases where the data is encrypted, the department works with all concerned parties to obtain lawful access to it.

Citing security a reason, India in the recent months has sought more surveillance and monitoring from internet service providers as well as companies like Research In Motion, which sells BlackBerry phones capable of encrypted emails and messaging.

In April the government notified a new set of IT rules, virtually making intermediaries like internet service providers and web hosts and websites like Facebook and Twitter responsible for any wrongdoings on their networks. The rules were widely criticized by privacy activists.

Sunil Abraham, executive director of Centre for Internet and Society said these "blanket surveillance practices" are counterproductive.

"People advocating greater surveillance don't understand how the web works. In some cases, if there is evidence, targeted monitoring can be done but if governments wants to go through each tweet and every status update, it's just waste of money and resources. Agencies involved in monitoring can do better work by focusing on core issues. This will also save ordinary law-abiding citizens from unnecessary harassment," said Abraham.

According to their policies, Twitter and Facebook don't share any private information available on their servers without valid court order or subpoena. Twitter had said in the past that even if there was a court order, it would first inform the users in question before sharing information related to them.

This article was published in the Times of India on August 8, 2011. The original can be read here.

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Hazare 'clicks' with city techies

praskrishna — 2011-08-19T06:48:14Z

These days revolutionaries, crusaders and even rioters use social networking to further their cause. After the Arab Spring and the London riots, social networking is now playing a key role in Anna Hazare's ongoing anti-corruption campaign. Bangalore techies are in demand to run the show.

Amid a demonstration on Wednesday in support of Anna at Bangalore's Freedom Park - a jail converted into a public space - a bunch of techies were seen busy working.

They were giving a blow-by-blow account of the local show online. India Against Corruption (IAC), the citizen's movement of Anna Hazare has one of its hubs in this city. Five techies with corporate jobs are the local contact points. They belong to a group of "like-minded people", who in December 2010 started 'Saaku' (meaning 'enough' in Kannada), a state-wide campaign against corruption.

True to Bangalore style, a main activity of Saaku is a website - one that exposes acts of corruption. "We wanted to do something in the face of mounting corruption," said Anand Yadwad, 38, a member of the core team.

Now it is part of IAC. It is a California-based NRI who handles the main IAC web page, activists said.

Their main Facebook page has been 'liked' by over 320,000 people. A Google email group, pages in local languages - including in Kannada - and a Twitter feed are slowly gaining ground too. Bangalore is a hub for similar initiatives that are not necessarily part of the Anna Hazare bandwagon. A website launched by the NGO Janaagraha - ipaidabribe. com aims to "uncover the market price of corruption". People post stories about their close encounters with the corrupt kind - paying GBP 50 for customs clearance, Rs 900 to a broker for getting a learners' driving licence and so on.

There is yet another website that actually deals with issues concerning far-away Chhattisgarh.

CGNet Swara is dubbed as a mobile community radio. Adivasis and landless labourers of Chattisgarh can dial in their stories onto a server based in Bangalore. The users can dial and listen to them in local dialects - health workers demanding bribe, labour contractors withholding part of the minimum wages and so on. Though it is not envisaged as an anti-corruption platform, stories of anomalies, including in the implementation of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act feature frequently on Swara. "We get such complaints maybe once in two days," said Shubhranshu Choudhary, a former BBC journalist based in Delhi who runs the show.

In effect, these three initiatives take three distinct approaches.

"Saaku takes an approach of incremental engagement in a campaign," said Sunil Abraham, the head of the Centre for Internet and Society, a Bangalorebased research group. First you can 'like' them on their Facebook page, then give a missed call, engage in local meetings and become a volunteer. "It means using the technology selectively, but driven by the people's needs and limitations," Abraham said.

Meanwhile ipaidabribe. com takes a more quantitative approach to understand the extent of bribery. CGNet Swara involves definite political risks as the complaints tend to be specific and sometimes connected with human rights issues - especially in a state like Chhattisgarh, Abraham said.

Meanwhile Bangaloreans who designed earlier campaigns call for a mix of media. "With India's infrastructure divide, unless we combine spaces like community radio with social network, campaigns cannot be successful," said Ashish Sen, president of AMARC Asia Pacific, a community broadcast forum. Namma Dhwani, a community radio project in Bangalore's neighbouring district Kolar, has gone live on local protests against corruption five years ago - with good impact. "Now with the spread of mobile telephony, the use of radio and audio becomes more meaningful," Sen said.

Maybe Delhites can look forward to listening to Anna FM!

Watch out! Private security is is the new booming industry

The new sunrise industry in Bangalore is private security. Morning trains bring thousands of athletic men, including former defence personnel, from nearby towns like Kolar Gold Fields for security duty.

And they are not just involved in watch-and-ward. These days the police teach them basics of disaster management and some of them moonlight (or sunlight after a night job) as receptionists for a while.

To celebrate their work, Karnataka Security Services Association (KSSA) plans to celebrate August 21 as ' Security Day'. There will be a procession by 1500 security guards and awards will be given for outstanding service. Central Association of Private Security Industry will follow up with a national day from next year, said Flight Lieutenant (retired) K P Nagesh, the president of KSSA. According to KSSA figures there are seven million private security guards in India with five lakh in Karnataka, mostly in Bangalore.

And the industry is growing at 35 to 40 per cent annually. Still there are issues, such as ensuring minimum wages, job security and insurance, according to the association.

The late-running Bangalore Metro rail project has recently displayed a notice outside one of its stations: "Press and Photography not allowed." A local reporter was stopped by the security guard last week and promptly shown the notice.

While photography might be prohibited at sensitive installations, even defence and space establishments never specifically stop reporters. They stop everybody! They say it is just a way to keep media glare away while the metro work is running late.

Chief Minister D V Sadananda Gowda has assured the aggrieved local media personnel that he would look into the matter. "Give me a week's time," he said on Monday.

Local chappals that are now travelling the world

Kolhapuri chappals, the ethnic footwear patronised by the erstwhile royalty of Kolhapur in Maharashtra are largely made in north Karnataka villages. In border villages like Athani in Belgaum district, many families are engaged in their production using traditional methods.

Tanned with vegetable dyes and handcrafted, the sandals have a certain macho appeal. The low-end models are affordable at Rs 250 a pair or even less. So apart from the royalty, the local wrestlers and farmers also wore them.

However, there is no record of them being used as a tool for political protests. (Don't get ideas now!) Recently a team of local women visited an international shoe fair in Dusseldorf, Germany. As local reports suggest, the chappals were a runaway hit. Toehold Artisan's Collaborative that organises local women's groups made $ 85,000 last fiscal from exports. The figure is set to rise - to a projected figure of $ 150,000.

Flying high indeed.

This article by Max Martin was published in India Today on August 18, 2011. The original story can be read here.

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The Unsocial Network

praskrishna — 2011-08-19T06:47:33Z

Has social media become a threat to democratic states even as it serves as a vehicle against totalitarian regimes? Its abuse during the London riots has reopened the question.

Power of the the people is a double- edged sword. Power to the people is positively divisive. Especially, when the people become a mass, masked mob on the internet, using the power of proliferation of social networking sites to support, express – and, sometimes, incite. As was evident in the recent Tottenham riots, which have cast a shadow over BlackBerry Messenger and Twitter because of the way they have been used by ‘goons in the hood’ to beat the police. While BlackBerry messages appealed people to arm themselves with hammers to loot stores and bring cars along to carry the stolen goods, many tweets were posted to unite rioters.

Have social networks become a Frankenstein’s monster, which is being abused by anti-social elements for their nefarious ends? Media reports in London said that eight people in Cheshire had been arrested as suspects for encouraging rioting via the social media. Can social networks become a real threat to democratic states, even as they serve as vehicles for revolutions against totalitarian regimes? Should they be subjected to state scrutiny? “If social media shows a negative tendency, as was evident with the riots spreading to other parts of England, then it is symptomatic of an actual problem on the ground. A problem which has not been addressed by the state. The solution lies in solving that problem, social media is only an indicator,” says Anivar Aravind, IT consultant and commentator.

When it comes to social networking media, people’s messages are conveyed without censorship – as opposed to being edited before being delivered to the public in conventional media such as newspapers, magazines and even television, Aravind points out. Which is why social networking should be treated no differently than any other form of communication, says Jonathan Crossfield, social media expert and community manager at Ninefold, a cloud platform provider in Australia.

"There are checks and balances in the legal systems of most democracies that allow appropriate investigation. For example, being able to subpoena phone records in a criminal investigation, while preserving the rights of the user as much as possible," says Crossfield. WHILE, reportedly, police in London have vowed to track down those suspected of stirring violence through Twitter, they mainly blamed BlackBerry Messenger. "Everyone watching these horrific actions will be struck by how they were organised via social media. Free flow of information can be used for good. But, it can also be used for ill,” British Prime Minister David Cameron told Parliament. But, there is no reason social networking should be treated more harshly or subdued in a graver way than any other form of communication, says Crossfield, as they these are not the real threat to the state. "It’s important to remember that social networks are neutral -- just a medium to connect people. The paper you write on is not at fault for the words you use," he says, "If any state, democratic or otherwise, decides to categorise social networks as a threat, what it really means is that they feel threatened by what people are saying and the ideas that are being discussed among them. And that leads to censorship, not democracy." But not just during civil unrest, BlackBerry encrypted messaging service was used by terrorists during 26/11 terrorist attacks in Mumbai to communicate as other services were blocked by the state. Since then, the Indian government has been urging Research-In-Motion (RIM), the maker of BlackBerry, to provide them with messages in a readable format or stop services.

"It is legal to intercept a communication made on a social media in India under the Telegraph Act and the IT Act, which is partially a limitation on privacy," says Sunil Abraham, executive director, Center for Internet and Society. But, Abraham adds, this censorship should not be generalised and the group concerned needs to be targeted and it should not target any specific ethnic group for what their peers have done.

"This has nothing to do uniquely with social networking. Any technology can be used for both good and bad purposes. Totalitarian regimes can use social networking to establish their agendas, while the same platform can be used by the protesters," says Balaji Parthasarathy, professor at International Institute of Information Technology-Bangalore. It can also be used, as was seen during the recent blasts on July 13 in Mumbai, in helping friends and family of victims when cellular networks had been jammed for security reasons. The Twitter tag ‘#here2help’ was one messaging vehicle that urged hundreds of netizens to help victims stranded after the blast. Which is why, says Parthasarathy, if social networking or even a telephony service poses serious threats to a democratic state, there should be clear-cut guidelines from the government.

This article by Ayan Pramanik and Shayan Ghosh was published in Mail Today on August 14, 2011. The original story can be read here [page 28]

For more details visit /news/unsocial-network

The Siege of Android: How Google Lost The OS War

praskrishna — 2011-08-19T06:46:24Z

In a narrative beginning in 2016 and ending today, Forbes India recalls how the once irrepressible Google lost the mobile OS war

Black Forest

August 12, 2016: In spite of glowing reviews, it may be too late for ‘Black Forest’, version 9.0 of Google’s Android operating system (OS), to turn Google’s ship around. In the last 12 months, Android’s market share among smart devices has fallen from 35.4 percent to a shade below 20 percent globally. It is now just a few percentage points ahead of BlackBerry’s BBX OS, while Microsoft Windows Phone and Apple iOS are both significantly ahead.

But as Andy Rubin, the man in charge of Android at Google, got off the phone in his office at Mountain View, California, even those percentage points seemed ephemeral. He had been talking to the head of Samsung’s mobile devices division in Suwon, South Korea. “I hate to say this to you, Andy, but it is now becoming untenable for us to support both Android and Windows at the same time,” he had said.

In less than two months, Samsung would announce that all of its smart devices would run exclusively on Windows. Though Android’s relative share vis-à-vis Microsoft Windows had been falling steadily since 2012, it still accounted for nearly 30 percent of all Samsung smart devices.

Win-kia

September 21, 2015: Research firm Gartner today announced that Microsoft Windows Phone had become the largest smart device OS globally. “Aided in large part by Nokia’s volumes in Asia and Africa, and by increasing adoption by device makers, Windows has surpassed our own expectations,” said the firm in a report.

The Microsoft-Nokia alliance, dubbed ‘Win-kia’, has surprised most analysts since its launch in late 2011. Though nowhere comparable in power to the Microsoft-Intel (‘Win-tel’) collaboration, Win-kia has been credited with upending the mobile OS playing field in just a few years.

While Nokia’s wide range of phones and deep distribution and retail experience in emerging markets allowed Windows Phone to capture a large part of the entry and mid-level smartphone market, Microsoft’s carrot-and-stick approach had done the trick with other device makers.

Each Android-run smart device meant royalties of $7-9 to Microsoft, insisted its suited, hard-nosed lawyer army. The only way to bring that down, they would say, is if the manufacturers committed to using Windows on a certain percentage of devices. The more the commitment, the less the royalty.

Already burdened under royalty payments ranging from $11-15 per device to Apple, Oracle and a bunch of other big and small companies, most manufacturers quietly acceded.

The Tipping Point

June 13, 2014: The Independent Mobile App Developers Association (I-MADA) is miffed at Google. “Google has quite clearly failed to step up and shield small developers from frivolous lawsuits, as a result of which much of our money and efforts is being spent on court cases instead of developing better apps,” said the body in a press release today. According to the statistics attached, Android developers attracted nearly 60 percent of all patent infringement lawsuits.

As the app economy has grown in value to nearly $32 billion worldwide, companies and patent trolls have increasingly gone after independent developers instead of the device or operating system makers.

But while Apple, Microsoft and BlackBerry were quick to defend their respective app developers in most cases, Google has been slow. Faced with a combined patent onslaught in areas like video encoding, touchscreens, wireless communication and email synchronisation, Google’s response has been strangely sluggish.

In March, it chose to remove significant features like mobile video and real-time email out of Android, choosing instead to let independent developers write apps for those. This strategy was similar to what many Linux distros chose. By having consumers download potentially infringing features directly from third party developers, the targets for lawsuits could be spread across millions of users. Unfortunately for Google, the lawyers went after the most successful app developers.

Google’s other strategy of forming a defensive Android patents pool with companies like HTC, Samsung and Motorola has had patchy success because the pool has, by some estimates, only between 5-12 percent of ‘essential’ patents around mobile technology. That is hardly enough ammunition to fight the likes of Apple, Nokia and Microsoft. In spite of this, Android continues to be the dominant mobile OS.

The Ghost of ‘Pi’

February 18, 2013: Android royalties bring in nearly $2.7 billion annually for Microsoft, said its worldwide head of intellectual property. In comparison, Google, after years of developing Android and building a worldwide ecosystem, earns just $4.4 billion from running ads on the platform.

This presents a serious challenge to Google CEO Larry Page who took over from Eric Schmidt in April 2011.

[Fact: In one of the most important events for Google after Page’s appointment — the June 2011 auction of over 6,000 patents and patent applications held by Nortel — Page fumbled in style.

In a hard-fought battle, Google bid confusing amounts like $1,902,160,540, $2,614,972,128 and $3.14159 billion — all mathematical constants (Brun’s constant, Meissel-Mertens constant and Pi respectively).

While Google may have retained its geek cred, it lost the patents to a consortium made up of arch-competitors Apple, Microsoft and RIM among others who bid $4.5 billion. All while it had nearly $40 billion in cash on its balance sheet.

"I have worked in the tech sector for over two decades. Microsoft and Apple have always been at each other’s throats, so when they get into bed together you have to start wondering what’s going on," said David Drummond, Google’s legal head in a blog post after losing the auction. Already the company with the fewest patents with which to defend itself against attacks, Google was forced to scramble after the loss. To compensate, it acquired 1,000 patents from IBM the very next month.]

Google acquired many more patents over the last two years but all of them are considered less critical, and hence less valuable, for mobile communication.

Where they Stand

"In areas like mobile communication, patents can mean several layers of fiction and nonsense. But somebody in the chain has to assume that risk."
Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, Center for Internet and Society

"Whenever new technologies come up where the stakes are high, people will use patents to gain a competitive advantage. Patents are not meant to be put on the shelves, but are strategic weapons in a competitive fight. When it comes to Android, I think there will be an arrangement in place between various players and peace, but that will take a few years."
Ruud Peters, Global Head of IP and Standards, Royal Philips

"In developing countries like India, every Rs.1,000 ($23) changes the dynamics. And because most Indian operators don’t subsidise smartphones, any increase in patent royalties will come directly from consumer pockets. Today, an entry level Android phone is around Rs.5,500, but if that becomes Rs.7,500, that can affect the overall smartphone and Internet ecosystem."

Rahul Sharma, co-founder and Executive Director, Micromax

Updates

Our writer adds -

A lot of our readers have been upset and confused by this article. A few additional points might make things clearer:

This article was part of our “What If” series, a section that analyses hypothetical scenarios around developing business scenarios. These articles mostly concentrate on the impact of a hypothetical event, not the likelihood of it.
That said, the article amplifies real life events(Gartner predicting Windows Phone 7’s rise to a number 2 position; Google fumbling its bid for Nortel’s patents; Android makers like HTC settling with Microsoft on royalties estimated at $5 per phone; multiple patent lawsuits against Android device makers) and quotes from individuals to manufacture a doomsday scenario.
One could argue that such a doomsday scenario has now come to pass, thanks to Motorola’s 17,000 patents in Google’s hands. But there’s now a new set of problems that will face larger Android partners like HTC and Samsung – how will Google go from being their most critical partner to being a major competitor too? Analysts and experts are already suggesting that such companies might try to hedge their risk therefore by adopting Windows Phone 7 more aggressively in their portfolio.
Because we’re a fortnightly magazine, articles can sometimes miss a major event around an issue after it has been written and published. That was true in this case because the article was written on 5th of August and appeared in the magazine which hit stands on 12th August. Google acquired Motorola on 15th August. Clearly, we (and most of the world) didn’t see Google making this rather significant and drastic move to protect Android coming.
None of this means we were right, because we weren’t aiming to be right. Instead this article was about constructing and presenting a scenario by connecting together various events affecting the Android ecosystem, in order to challenge our readers minds.

This article by Rohin Dharmakumar was published in Business.in. The original story can be read here.

For more details visit /news/siege-of-android

In the Right Circle

praskrishna — 2011-08-23T07:40:57Z

I’ve been on Google Plus for a few weeks now. In the beginning, it felt like showing up early at a much-talked-up party. There was a small scatter of people, poking around, examining the place, making preliminary conversation with the few others they knew. Most of the talk was, unsurprisingly, about Google Plus.

Unlike the crash-bang disaster of Google Buzz, its awkward attempt at social networking that alienated most users by publicly exposing their contact list, and then proceeded from error to error, Google Plus has been a low-key, careful affair.

In the first two weeks, Google calibrated entry, depending on its capacity — letting early adopters and "power users" examine the platform and tell them what’s missing, and what works.

Google Plus mimics the real world, where people interact in clusters, and relate outwards in concentric circles of trust, rather than Facebook’s megaphone model. You drag and drop people into different circles, and can either mark individual posts to specific circles and combinations (‘family’ ‘college buddies’, ‘artsy types’), or make them public to everyone. You can catch up on these circles separately, and toggle between your many worlds, or choose to read the great river of updates on your “public" stream. Google Plus shows you a civilised way of arranging your acquaintances, avoiding that playground-level, plaintive, Facebook question: "why am I in your limited profile?"

In concept, Facebook also lets you slice your social world with friend lists, but it’s a tedious labour that few have undertaken. Design is everything — and Facebook was clearly not built for such fine-grained customisation, because everything about its default settings pointed the other way. In fact, its young CEO Mark Zuckerberg seemed to think an attachment to privacy was some faintly embarrassing, vestigial trait — the sooner we accept its obsolescence, the better.

Facebook has a remarkably flat view of friendship. If your Facebook friends are too wide and various, it can make you clam up, conscious of what a few people might think. Most people, as social media scholar danah boyd has noted, tend to focus on a part of their network, mentally blocking out the rest.

"I’d like to have separate interactions with my mother, my friends, my students and my university colleagues without bombarding my colleagues with my vacation pictures or boring my mother with research chatter," says Mallesh Pai, an academic who works on the economics of the internet. "Plus actually lets me do that."

Facebook works with the fiction that there is a single self you present to the world – while, in fact, you are a posse of selves. You might be the naïve seeker in some contexts, the voice of authority in others. In the real world, you read others by their voice and expression, factor in their situations, and modulate your own speech accordingly. But in Facebookland, you talk at an invisible audience. The problem of “collapsed contexts”, and the anxiety of audience is Facebook’s most obvious flaw, and Google Plus has focused squarely on that aspect. It obviously works best for those who are acutely aware of social role-play and judgment. Many people may claim not to care about finessing their personalities to different audiences, or see the point of migrating to a new platform —but once you wrap your head around the rich, real-world aspect of Google Plus, it’s hard to imagine why you’d want to stay on Facebook.

But it’s not just Facebook that Plus directly takes on — Twitter could also take a direct hit. The “following” circle lets you add people you don’t know personally, and see all their public posts. “Sometimes, it’s weird to realise you’re being followed by so many people you don’t know, but like on Twitter, it seems like too much effort to edit the list. Thankfully, there aren’t any spambots on Plus yet,” says Pranesh Prakash, a lawyer and policy advocate at the Bangalore-based Centre for Internet and Society. There’s no arbitrary 140-character limit, and there are coherent threads of conversation — in fact, the level of visible engagement on Plus makes Twitter look like “a boring RSS reader”, as someone observed.

Apart from the Facebook and Twitter-type uses, Google Plus comes with a standout feature that’s all its own: Hangouts, spontaneous video chatting with up to 10 people. You start a hangout, and anyone may drop in to talk for a bit. “It’s trying to replicate the sort of gathering you have in a coffee shop, just drop in and chat about the news or whatever,” says Pai. It’s so obviously useful that Dell is reportedly considering dropping traditional customer service calls and choosing to hang out with Google instead. Yes, Facebook has recently teamed up with Skype in a self-declared "awesome" move — but Skype still makes you pay for multi-way video conferencing, and doesn’t offer the serendipitous pleasures of Hangout yet.

Then there is Sparks, Google Plus’s attempt to push the right content at you – you pick from a variety of interests, and Google supplies a steady scroll of interesting links. Given how much info the company has on people, Sparks could become eerily spot-on.

In fact, the chief problem with Google Plus may be that it tries to cram in too much, leaving users overwhelmed. The bewildering array of buttons and options may put off some, and right now, it’s difficult to control the signal-to-noise ratio. “It’s definitely not as over-complicated as Google Wave, which nobody could really figure out” says Pai. “And honestly, it would be difficult to imagine the kind of functionality that Plus provides being delivered in any other way.” Then there are some who are sceptical of Circles — saying that greater granularity isn’t going to take away the dilemmas of talking to a group. They predict that once the novelty wears off and Google Plus expands, you’ll be struggling to edit and divide your circles, and to pitch yourself right.

So will Google Plus lure 750 million-plus Facebook and Twitter users away? "Don’t underestimate Facebook’s network benefits," says Prakash. “When I first went online in 1996, the first thing to do was to create an email address. Now the first thing that people do to mark an online entry is to create a Facebook account”.

Besides, Google may not want to supplant Facebook as much as master an arena it has so far sucked at – the social world. As Pranesh Prakash says, “it’s not about competition with Facebook, as much as trying to improve Google’s own services, bring them together into a seamless whole and better understand its users.” Making social life machine-readable would obviously be the next big jackpot for Google, and it appears determined to invest the time, resources and effort to getting it exactly right. As Shimrit Ben-Yair, product manager of the social graph at Google told Wired magazine’s Stephen Levy, Google Plus could be a revolutionary service if it hits the sweet spot between Facebook oversharing and Twitter undersharing.

Besides, most would agree that a spot of vigorous competition would be good for Facebook, which has played fast and loose with privacy policy — changing its defaults, and then reacting to the outcry that follows. "For too long, it was the only game in town. Facebook has innovated more in the three weeks that Plus has been around, than in a lon time," says Pai.

So far, Google Plus has been extra-solicitous of privacy, and adjusted on the fly to field testers’ feedback. It has jumped to attend to mistakes – like responding to complaints that a user’s gender should not be publicly available. When someone pointed out that even limited posts could be reshared by others, that technical hole was immediately plugged. "It’s very heartening to see that they’ve learnt from the mistakes of Facebook and Buzz," says Prakash. Unlike Facebook’s possessiveness about your information and pictures, Google’s Data Liberation policy is explicitly committed to letting you erase all personal traces whenever you want, and free yourself from any product.

But as Prakash cautions, "Google may not have a coherent view of privacy across all its products — for all Google Plus’s delicacy and tact, Google Street View may have different ideas about what is acceptable." There are many who find it unnerving that a revenue-driven, publicly traded company should be the master switch of our information economy. Given Google’s girth and dominance, competitors can’t realistically wrest attention away, after a certain point.

"Google is bigger because it’s better and better because it’s bigger", writes Siva Vaidyanathan in The Googlization of Everything. Google Plus, then, marks another large advance in the company’s stated mission to organise the world’s information. Even Pai admits that “if a new mail application came along, it would have to offer so much more than Google for me to consider shifting – given how Gmail does everything, syncs my calendar, knows my friends." But then again, he says, “Let’s judge Google not on what we think it is, but what it does. Everything that’s too big in a bad way, even those considered invincible, gets stopped eventually. Right now, I’m reading about Murdoch’s undoing with great glee – a few weeks back, who would have imagined that?"

This article by Amulya Gopalakrishnan was published in the Indian Express on July 24, 2011. The original story can be read here

For more details visit /news/right-circle

IISc students boycott UID, don’t want Big Brother to keep watch

praskrishna — 2011-08-23T08:24:14Z

The programme doesn’t have statutory backing. It is still in parliament

Nandan Nilekani may be Bangalore’s blue-eyed boy making waves at the national level with his Unique Identification Number (UID), but there’s one part of the city that’s not impressed: A section of students and faculty of Indian Institute of Science (IISc).

While many Bangaloreans have started enrolling for UID, the students are in boycott mode and say they will never do so.

Professor Shiv Sethi, astrophysics department, Raman Research Institute, said, “They (the authorities) have moved faster than us by starting the enrolment. It was during the discussion phase that we tried to impress upon them the loopholes of UID. Now that they have started the enrolment, it’s our turn to protest. We will meet and discuss with other like-minded people.”

IIScians say they don’t want to be under surveillance and that they are not comfortable with giving away their personal details since studies have proved how unsafe electronic data can be. The programme has been scrapped in the UK, they said.

In fact, when Nilekani visited IISc a few months back to deliver a lecture, the anti-UID group protested with placards and banners that read, ‘Beware, Big Brother is watching you’ and ‘Secure electronic archive is a myth’.

And now, apart from not signing up, some students are even considering burning copies of UID forms, a la team Anna burning copies of the draft Lokpal bill.

Prathamesh, a scholar, said: “UID is not going to solve problems of leakages. The government should universalise the PDS system to control misuse of subsidised foodgrain that find their way to restaurants. The project is fraught with loopholes and doesn’t have statutory backing. I will burn copies of the forms.”

Prathamesh added that the UID project was the brainwave of software companies who do not have a regular stream of revenue.

Even IISc alumni are putting up a fight. One of them who participated in the protest said, “I will not register. The programme does not have statutory backing. It is still in parliament. First, they said it was voluntary. Now, they are trying to link it to banks, LPG connections and other utilities.”

Sethi added, “A few people have approached the court. We will decide the next course of action.”

There are others who have doubts. Consumer activist Chandrasekhar of Malle-swaram feels that he needs to clarify all his doubts before enrolling. “I spoke with the officials. They told me it was voluntary. But now, it looks like they are linking it with other utilities.”

Nishant Shah, director, research, Centre for Internet Society, said, "We need to check for three issues: data retention, data protection and data privacy. Only after these issues are resolved can we have a UID for every citizen."

This article by Sameer Ranjan Bakshi was published in the Bangalore Mirror on August 23, 2011. The original story can be read here.

For more details visit /news/iisc-students-boycott-uid

Net Gain

praskrishna — 2011-08-29T11:52:54Z

The draft Electronic Service Delivery Bill, 2011, is aimed at making government services available online. But there are many hurdles to bringing in effective e-governance, says Hemchhaya De

At a time when India is hotly debating the Lokpal Bill, another significant piece of legislation is about to make its way to Parliament this monsoon session. The government has mooted the draft Electronic Service Delivery Bill, 2011, to ensure that all ministries and government departments provide their services to citizens online.

The bill, drafted by the department of information technology (DIT) under the ministry of communication and information technology, could have far-reaching benefits for citizens. If implemented, one would no longer have to stand in long queues, make frequent trips to government offices and deal with red tape in order to procure even such basic documents as driving licences or land record copies.

Of course, the key question is whether the necessary infrastructure will be in place to allow citizens to access these services via the electronic mode. In a country where active Internet user penetration in rural areas is as low as 2.13 per cent, the feasibility of e-governance depends on the state providing enough number of access centres.

E-governance is not a completely new concept in India. The Centre laid down an ambitious National e-Governance Plan (NeGP) in 2006 and roped in industry bodies like Nasscom to facilitate the delivery of e-services. According to a Nasscom report, there has been substantial progress in NeGP. Of the 1,100 services targeted under the plan, over 600 services in both government-to-citizen (G2C) and government-to-business (G2B) domains across central ministries and state departments can now be accessed electronically.

However, many experts feel that the NeGP has not lived up to its promise. "Progress in NeGP has been slow," says Subhash Bhatnagar, honorary adjunct professor at IIM, Ahmedabad, and member of the steering committee of the 12th Five Year Plan (2012-17) for the communication and IT and information sector.

That said, some states have been running successful e-government projects. “Take Karnataka’s online delivery and management of land records,” says Bhatnagar. “The online system offers services to ordinary people on a first-come, first-served basis without subjecting them to the whims and fancies of babus.”

However, Karnataka is an exception rather than the rule and many states are lagging behind when it comes to extending e-governance. “IIM, Ahmedabad, carried out an e-governance impact assessment study in 12 states. West Bengal is one state which hasn’t fared well and it figures in the bottom half of the list,” reveals Bhatnagar.

The draft Electronic Service Delivery Bill aims to exert pressure on states and government departments to fully automate or computerise their services to citizens. Crucially, it sets a clear time limit for delivering online services. The bill says, “every competent authority of the appropriate Government” is required to publish or specify the services that will be digitised within six months from the commencement of the law. “If there’s any delay, departments have to explain it in writing,” says a senior official of the DIT who does not wish to be named.

The bill further mandates that all public services should be delivered in electronic modes within five years from the commencement of the law. This period may be extended by not more than three years.

In addition to a grievance redressal mechanism, the bill proposes setting up a Central Electronic Service Delivery Commission to enforce the provisions of the law. The commission should comprise a central chief commissioner and not more than two central commissioners — all of whom shall have “worked as secretary or equivalent level… either in the central government or in the state government”.

Many experts feel that the proposed legislation is a step in the right direction. “The bill will reduce red tape and promote efficient services in various government departments,” says Payal Chawla, partner, Hemant Sahai Associates, a Delhi-based law firm. “The time limit of five years with an extension of a maximum of three years to bring all the services in the purview of the legislation is well-intended.”

Agrees Sunil Abraham, executive director, Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), a Bangalore-based organisation which carries out research in IT. “The bill ensures that government departments publicly commit to Service Level Agreements (SLAs) and demonstrate compliance to these SLAs,” he says. “Like the RTI Act, there is an office of the central chief commissioner which can penalise officials who don’t provide electronic services or comply with their own SLAs.”

But others argue that the bill is too open-ended. “I’d have liked to see the services specified clearly,” says Neel Ratan, executive director, PricewaterhouseCoopers. “Just starting an e-service isn’t enough — the quality or level of performance of the service needs to be ascertained as well. The bill seems to be silent on how quality can be ensured.”

Bhatnagar too feels that the draft bill should have first clearly defined what “electronic service delivery” is all about. All it says is “electronic service delivery means the delivery of services through electronic mode including, inter alia, the receipt of forms and applications, issue or grant of any licence, permit, certificate, sanction or approval and the receipt or payment of money”.

However, electronic delivery of services should encompass all end-to-end steps necessary for delivering the service, points out Bhatnagar. “Receiving an application, receiving supporting documents, receiving payment of various fees, issue of licence/receipts/certificates/ documents such as ration cards and passports and payment of dues to citizens should be web enabled. Citizens who wish to carry out the transaction through a portal without having to visit a government office should be able to do so,” he says.

Furthermore, says Bhatnagar, government agencies should ensure that every citizen has access to a public service delivery centre (government owned or private) from where he or she can access such services. And a person shouldn’t have to travel more than 10km to access these services.

Experts say there are several hurdles to e-governance in India. “The domestic IT industry has not focussed on this important market and services have been decentralised without ensuring common standards. So different states may be using different software, which can make the whole system messy and lead to uneven and poor quality projects,” says Abraham of CIS. “We are still very far away from the sophistication of G2C and G2B systems currently deployed in many Western countries.”

In sum, enacting a law to bring in complete e-governance may not be enough. Without the necessary investment in the country’s technology infrastructure, the initiative, however well-intended, may never truly get off the ground.

Graphic by Mantashir Iqbal Shaikh

This article by Hemchhaya De was published in the Telegraph on 24 August 2011. The original can be read here

For more details visit /news/net-gain