Media articles

The ubiquity and pervasiveness of data based decision making in a neo-liberal society has converted even acts of love and care into a site of capitalist expropriation. How can we recover the power of big data for transformative feminist politics? – this is the question that the article addresses.

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Gurumurthy Kasinathan, Director of IT for Change, expresses concern over the increasing trend of government schools being adopted by CSR initiatives, on the basis of introducing ‘efficient’ practices and improving infrastructure. This, he argues, changes the fundamental nature of government schooling, which ideally should be steered through community guardianship.
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The article discusses how the digital has triggered a transformation where digital companies are taking over traditional sectors and have established a monopoly in those sectors, becoming powerful enough to challenge traditional state controls.

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Gurumurthy, Director of IT for Change discusses the work and vision of IT for Change in an interview on All India Radio.

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ಐಟಿ ಫಾರ್ ಚೇಂಜ್‌ನ ನಿರ್ದೇಶಕರಾದ ಶ್ರೀ ಗುರುಮೂರ್ತಿಯವರು ಆಕಾಶವಾಣಿಯ ಸಂದರ್ಶನದಲ್ಲಿ ಐಟಿ ಫಾರ್ ಚೇಂಜ್‌ ಸಂಸ್ಥೆಯ ಕೆಲಸ ಹಾಗೂ ಉದ್ದೇಶದ ಬಗ್ಗೆ ಚರ್ಚಿಸಿದರು.

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 regulated public utility.

Following Face book’s aggressive campaign to gain public support for Free Basics, Parminder Jeet Singh, in this article, "What Free Basics Did Not Intend To Do" argues how while the campaign utterly failed in its intended purpose, its unintended consequences may have done a lot of good to India. Firstly, it helped make a case for governments providing a basic data package as an entitlement to everyone.

In the light of the growing media focus on Facebook's 'Free Basics' and the overwhelming response to the TRAI consultation paper on differential pricing, Parminder Jeet Singh argued how differntial pricing will invert the basic egalitarian design of the Internet with very harful consequences to the society in this article in Deccan Herald.

In 2015, WWW Foundation in partnership with Sida conducted a 10-country research study across Asia, Africa and Latin America to explore the potential of the Internet for the empowerment of urban poor women. IT for Change was the country partner for the India component of the project. The research findings clearly indicate the need to refine our understanding of digital empowerment as much more than minimising the access gap between women and men.

Parminder Jeet Singh wrote an op-ed in The Hindu about entrenchment of power and control with regard to the global Internet in the hands of a few economic and political elites, overwhelming based in the US, leading to what may be called as a unipolar networked-digital complex. India needs to work in a BRICS framework for cooperation on digital economy to challange this hegemony. Read the article here.

In this QnA, Parminder Jeet Singh talks about the social underpinnings of the Net Neutrality discussion and the principles that should guide any regulation in this area. The segment was a part of the cover story Net Equality, published on June 1, 2015, in Down to Earth, a science and environment fortnightly.