ORGANISATION:
INDATA COM
Indata Com provides an institutional framework to engage in consultancy, training and software development work. It provides an avenue for its members to pursue cyber activism, consumer-friendly communications policies for rural areas and the poor, and to fight against Internet censorship. Indata also provides technology to assist the disabled in pursuing knowledge and engaging in information flows.
PROJECT:
Bidirectional Access Promotion Society (BAPSI)
What does BAPSI do? We:
- Design and make communication prostheses for mentally challenged children.
- Conduct workshops to field test these solutions, and provide appropriate training to children with autism and their caregivers.
- Work on improving policy, in particular relating to the rights of women and children with mental challenges.
- Exploit opportunities to make a significant difference in information flow to the information poor.
- Monitor Internet censorship, and work towards preserving cyberspace as a medium for the unfettered exchange of information.
- Offer hands-on training, including to the blind, in web programming based on the Skid platform developed by us.
- Make videos and seek other avenues to document and disseminate our work.
CONTACT: arun.mehta@gmail.com
LINKS: skid.org.in | bapsi.org
ORGANISATION:
IT FOR CHANGE
IT for Change is a non-profit organization located in Bangalore. ITfC envisions a society capable of, and comfortable with, innovative and effective uses of information and communication technologies to further goals of progressive social change. ITfC researches and advocates, distils best practices, and executes projects in the field.
PROJECT:
Pro-active disclosure for an Open Net
The term “Open Net” interpreted purely in a formal manner is that it should be accessible to all. In the Indian context, such formal openness has little meaning. It is substantive openness, making sure that conditions exist so that people can actually participate in this space, which is meaningful. With a Right to Information enacted in India, and given increasing digitization of critical public information, the question arises: are governments guilty of implicit censorship of the Internet in failing to proactively disclose information that citizens are entitled to know?
- Our project examines the perspectives of various stakeholders on proactive disclosure using the Internet and analyzes possible causes for ‘implicit censorship’ of crucial information.
- There is a lack of awareness among government officials of the benefits of public disclosure.
- There are inadequate capacity building efforts to help leverage investments in digital processes.
- Communities are eager to access, even by proxy, public information relevant to their welfare.
CONTACT: guru@itforchange.net
ORGANISATION:
ALTERNATIVE LAW FORUM
The Alternative Law Forum believes in an alternate practice of law. We provide legal services to marginalized groups, operate as an autonomous interdisciplinary research institution, make available public legal resources and access to information, and serve as a platform for collaborative models of knowledge production. ALF was established in 2000, by a collective of lawyers.
PROJECT:
Cyber Activism, Social Networking and Censorship in India: through the lens of the Pink Chaddi Campaign
While more and more people in India are signing up to various social networking sites and blogs, the state has promulgated recent amendments under the Information Technology Amendment Act 2008 to widen the ambit of computer related offences. It appears as if there is an inclination towards using the Internet as a tool to navigate social and political debates, to reconstitute the political and cultural within cyberspace, juxtaposed by the assaults from state and non-state actors to restrict such a ‘free hand’ of thought and expression.