Development and Democracy/Advocacy

2020

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…

2018

Current trajectories of the network-data complex relying on corporate partnerships cast data and intelligence as purely market goods. Investment by state in public data architectures could show the way for new possibilities in this direction. Read more for  Anita Gurumurthy's take on 'data for…

2018

Developing countries need to recognise that in the datafying economy, any step towards creating a level playing field for local platforms must foreground and tackle the question of data in digital trade regimes. Read more in our submission to the Intergovernmental Group of Experts on E-commerce…

2018

In March 2018, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights invited all stakeholders to provide input on human rights challenges relating to the right to privacy in the digital age, including on principles, standards and best practices with regard to the promotion and protection of the…

2018

E-commerce platforms have radically reorganized economic activity, given rise to new structures of intermediation and changed the conception of global trade altogether. And yet structural inequities in opportunities and access between actors in developed and developing nations continue to…

2018
Public Statement Walmart-Flipkart Deal: Continuing attack on retailers, producers, farmers & labour, and on India’s digital sovereignty

The US based Multinational Corporation (MNC) Walmart’s acquisition of Flipkart undermines India’s economic and digital sovereignty and the livelihood of…

2017

Data protection in India is a fragile concept, heavily reliant on one sided user contracts between corporations and citizens. Read our article on First Post, to know more about how corporation defined 'Terms of Use' have come to dictate users' right to privacy in the glaring absence of…

2017

'Digital Democracy in India' is our ongoing attempt to examine the emergence of a new governance paradigm in the country, characterized by the rise of ‘governance by networks’ and ‘rule by data’, from the standpoint of inclusive citizenship. We are primarily concerned with tracing critical…

2017

We have been actively engaging with the debate on privacy and data protection in India, that has gained traction in the context of the unique citizen ID/ Aadhaar project of the government. Through our media articles, we have emphasised the public value of privacy, bringing in an agency…

2017

The nine-judge bench of India’s Supreme Court has just ruled that “privacy is intrinsic to freedom of life and personal liberty” guaranteed in Article 21 of the Constitution of India and qualifies as “a primal natural right”. In this article, Anita Gurumurthy and Nandini Chami reflect on how…

2017

Gurumurthy wrote an article 'Use of Information Technology in promoting transparency' in elections, in the Common Cause publication.

2017
Summary

At MC 11, the United States, Japan and European Union are actively pushing for a liberalised e-commerce regime that will reinforce the rules for trade set by the global North. Key to this dominant discourse is the persuasive rhetoric on free cross-…

2017

MC11 e-com battlelines drawn across three camps' gives an overview of the various positions countries have adopted on e-commerce and trade, and likely to play out at the 11th WTO Ministerial Conference from 10 to 13 December, 2017. The divergent approaches to the…

2017

IT for Change submitted comments on the draft general comment on state obligations under the ICESCR in the context of business activities. The submission asserted the need for an immediate and appropriate regulatory response to platform-companies, who have increasingly become…

2017

This article examines the new concerns for privacy emerging in the age of data-based governance, using the UID/Aadhaar scheme in India as a case in point.