Internet governance

Statement issued by 8 Indian civil society organisations, supported by two key global networks, involved with Internet governance issues, to the meeting of ICANN in Hyderabad, India, from 3 rd to 9 th November, 2016

The article critically examines US government's withdrawal from direct oversight over ICANN, and argues that the jurisdictional controls over ICANN that the US retains means that ICANN can hardly be said to have become independent of the US state.

The article suggest that a good interim measure for getting such…

Article 19 called for a public consultation on Principles on Privacy and Freedom of Expression. IT for Change submitted comments to the Draft Principles. Our inputs emphasized: the need to re-formulate the concept of personal data in times of Big Data analysis, algorithms and interlinking of databases; safeguards to protect…

IT for Change made a submission to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India(TRAI) in response to the call for comments on the Consultation Paper on Proliferation of Broadband through Public Wi-Fi Networks. The submission pointed out the need for adopting last mile connectivity approaches that encourage community based…

By allowing content providers to subsidize access to their sites, using the logic of Internet exceptionalism, India’s telecom provider is weakening its previous stance on net neutrality. Read more in Parminder Jeet Singh's piece for The Hindu.

The Internet has now become an enabler of rights and an essential precondition for full participation in the information society. However, issues of corporate and state surveillance, and the enormous influence that corporate policies have on the way our fundamental rights are exercised, exhorts us to embark on an urgent…

ITfC has made submissions to Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) in response to the two consultation papers it released, one on free data and another a more general pre-consultation on net neutrality.

On the consultation paper on free data TRAI sought comments on alternate models of providing access to the Internet which did…

Parminder Jeet Singh discusses how the digital has triggered a transformation where digital companies are taking over traditional sectors and established a monopoly in those sectors, one that is powerful enough to challenge traditional state controls. Read his article in The Hindu here.

Following TRAI's historic ruling that prohibits the discriminatory tariffs for data services, Parminder Jeet Singh, in this op-ed in the Deccan Herald, discusses how TRAI has asserted its regulatory control over the Internet by ensuring data services are not discriminated based on content and are provided as a regulated public utility. 

Following Face book’s aggressive campaign to gain public support for Free Basics, Parminder Jeet Singh in this article in The Hindu argues how while the campaign utterly failed in its intended purpose, its unintended consequences may have done a lot of good to India in shaping a new level of consciousness around digital rights in India.