Advocacy

2021

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), Bangladesh and Canada, on July 12, 2021.

The…

2021

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 of geospatial data should allow for equal digital…

2021

School closures since March 2020 have allowed students limited opportunities for structured learning, causing learning loss, and aggravating malnutrition, child abuse, child labour, school dropout and early marriage.

Online education is seen as a solution to the education emergency. A survey conducted by Karnataka Education Department…

2021

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…
2021

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…

2021

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…

2021

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…

2021

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…

2021

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…

2021

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…