Development and Democracy/Advocacy

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…

The Draft Data Accessibility and Use Policy is silent on the norms, rules, and mechanisms to bring to fruition its vision.

In February 2022, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY) released the draft India Data Accessibility and Use Policy 2022 (or Draft Policy) for…

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…

IT for Change inputted to the public consultation on the Draft National Geospatial Policy, 2021 put out by the Department of Science and Technology.

Our submission emphasized on the fact that physical locations are a shared public resource and the policy supporting wider democratization…

The Just Net Coalition (JNC) made a submission with comments and text suggestions to the Zero Draft of the Doha Programme of Action for Least Developed Countries. The Zero Draft was released by the co-chairs of the Fifth United Nations Conference on the Least Developed Countries (LDC5),…

Anita Gurumurthy participated in a session on Technology and Surveillance for the Janta Parliament, a virtual peoples' Parliament, on Tuesday, August 18, 2020. Some of the participant organisations and individuals presented resolutions before the parliament that were voted on at the end of the…

India and the US are close to signing a limited trade deal that includes some key agricultural and dairy products, medical devices and some issues of digital trade. However a more ambitious Free Trade Agreement (FTA) is being discussed between the two countries and talks may be launched soon.…

The Indian Parliament is currently in the process of overhauling the country’s labour laws. Unfortunately, this exercise has sidestepped platform workers, a constituency whose needs and challenges have become…

The Government of India, through the National Health Authority, released the draft Health Data Management Policy on August 26, 2020. As stated in its objectives, the Policy is meant to act as a guidance document across the National Digital Health Ecosystem (NDHE) and…

IT for Change provided feedback for the EU Consultation for the New Competition Tool and the Digital Services Act Package.

This was followed up with a questionnaire that included our inputs.

The EU proposal for a New Competition Tool is one of the measures aimed at addressing gaps…

The Political Economy of Data

Data and data governance are hotly contested issues in the 21st century. Typically, they have been perceived as questions of policy and political economy. Data is attributed multiple characterizations…

Working closely with the trade unions All India Gig Workers Union & Indian Federation of App-based Transport Workers, and the civil society organisations Aapti Institute, the Centre for Internet and Society, Tandem Research and TWN Trust, IT for Change co-drafted an input from the standpoint…

Technology is often heralded as the ultimate answer to all developmental issues, although it is a mere tool. Through its flagship programs like Digital India, Smart Cities, and Startup India, India is gearing up for a technological revolution, but it holds as many threats as promises for our…

A steady stream of public commentary is flowing in about the implications of the draft Rules on Social Security Code, 2020, and the Motor Vehicle Aggregators Guidelines, 2020, for the rights of platform workers. We interrogate these developments from a data rights standpoint. The draft Rules on…

IT for Change is excited to be a member of the Fair, Green and Global Alliance (FGG) – a consortium of eight global organizations – whose goal is to expand civil society voices to make trade and global supply chains just and fair in Global South contexts.

As part of this five year program…