IT for Change responded to the Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare public consultation white paper for the India Digital Ecosystem of Agriculture (IDEA). The key points of our submission are summarized below.
The full submission may be found here.
IDEA will prevent corporate capture of core structures of the digital…The new Intermediary Guidelines (IL Guidelines), require messaging platforms that have over 50 lakh registered users (such as WhatsApp) “enable the identification of the first originator of the information”.
The challenge from WhatsApp is that this impinges on an individual’s constitutional right to privacy and is therefore…
IT for Change is part of a coalition of NGOs and labor unions that has called on the Reserve Back of India (RBI) to not proceed with licensing corporations to run parallel financial infrastructures like Universal Payment Interface (UPI) on a for-profit basis. This coalition includes the workers' union of the State Bank of India, the largest…
On behalf of the Just Net Coalition, Anita Gurumurthy presented the following input at the Consultation of Civil Society with the Co-Chairs of the Preparatory Committee for the Fifth United Nations Conference on the Least Developed Countries (LDC5) on May 20, 2021.
Respected Co-Chairs,
Digital technologies have emerged as an…
We are pleased to announce that on May 4, 2021, the United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres appointed IT for Change's Anita Gurumurthy to a ten-member expert group that will support the development of the UN Technology Facilitation Mechanism (TFM). The group will advise on ways to harness science, technology, and innovation to…
The draft Digital Markets Act envisages the obligations of data sharing by large gatekeeper platforms along with ex-ante oversight by the regulator of such platforms, in the EU. This regulation is framed as a part of the Digital Services Act Package, being discussed by the EU to regulate the digital economy.
The feedback by IT for Change…
Just Net Coalition, along with more than 170 civil society groups addressed an Open Letter to the UN Secretary General urging him to shelve plans for a High Level Multistakeholder Body which, if set up, can be expected to become the default apex global digital governance and policy body. This body is to be privately funded, with strong hints…
The government is fiddling, as children are losing foundational literacy and numeracy. The Karnataka government has opened schools fully for grades 9-12 and partly for 6-8. However, lower primary schools (LPS) consisting of grades 1-5 remain closed and may have a zero year (a year of no school). Most states seem to favor keeping LPS closed.…
IT for Change has drafted a statement, endorsed by a group of educationists and social work organizations, about the urgent need to open all primary schools to avoid a crisis of learning. Read it below:
1. The Karnataka education department has opened schools selectively. Classes 9-12 have regular classes, and 6-8 have intermittent…
IT for Change put out a press release on January 26, 2021, about the urgent need to reopen all classes across all schools with local hygiene precautions in place. The statement, endorsed by a group of educationists and social work organizations, was covered by the New Indian Express.
The day after the release of the statement, the…