The digital gender divide has become “a matter of life and death,” in the words of the UN Secretary General in June 2020. Health care information (particularly about COVID-19), education, and economic activity moved online to prevent the spread of the virus. Internet services witnessed a surge in usage between 40 and 100…
Advocacy
2020
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 in the current EU competition rules and allowing…
2020
The Covid pandemic has starkly visibilized the underlying inequality and injustice of the global economic paradigm. It has not only exposed the cumulative failings of the neoliberal order, but also testified to the inevitability of crisis and catastrophe inherent to it. IT for Change participated in the project, 'A Digital New Deal: Visions of…
2020
Statement Issued by a Group of Educationists and Social Work Organizations
Concerns
Between lock-downs and relaxations, governments are trying to find the right balance between saving lives and keeping the economy going. A similar balance is essential in education as well. A very small percentage of students are able to connect to online…
2020
Schools and educational institutions have tended to use proprietary software applications: software that is not sold, but ‘licensed’, by the vendor. Here, the institution is only a ‘user’, and neither owns the software nor has any control over it. Over the last decade, however, the Indian public school and higher education systems have made…
2020
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 sets out the minimum standard for data privacy…
2020
Statement issued by an Alliance of Labour Unions and Civil Society Organisations
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 especially stark and visible during the pandemic. It is…
2020
The Gopalakrishnan Committee set up by the government on developing a governance framework for non-personal data recently put out its draft report for public consultation. The report’s main purpose is to ensure wide sharing and availability of data in society. To ensure that companies share the required data, it was found necessary to develop…
2020
A virus may be apolitical but our response to it reveals biases and inequities in our systems. As we all adapt to the new “normal”, it is critical that we look at the stated and unstated assumptions, and implicit and explicit changes being made to our social welfare systems, which impact people differently.
Millions of children have been…
2020
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 coverage of this FTA is expected to be vast with…