Nayantara Ranganathan – The Internet Democracy Project

NEW VIDEO: Trusting on the Internet - Remixed Proverbs

“Don’t take icecream from a stranger.” Children from many parts of the world hear versions of this. Depending on the context, it can be a message honing trust, a message encouraging suspicion of people who are different from oneself, and so on. Whether or not we agree with these messages, one thing is certain: we have a lot of language that teaches us about trust: how to not trust too much, or too little. What does the equivalent on the Internet look like? We created a new video to help you answer this question. More

13 September

Translated videos: Kannada and Hindi translations of using Rangoli to understand internet infrastructure

Last year, we released a video explaining networking concepts through Rangoli. We looked at what is the internet, the Internet Protocol and routing through the internet. We are now thrilled to present translated versions of the video in Kannada and Hindi! More

12 September

Submission in response to the draft e-commerce policy

The Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade released a draft national e-commerce policy and invited public comments. The Internet Democracy Project submitted comments highlighting why the policy is dangerous in its framing of data as a resource to extract for national development.

Report 01 April

Online Gods Podcast, featuring our work on Gendering Surveillance

Listen to episode #15 of Online Gods podcast, on News Images and Surveillance, where Nayantara speaks to Ian M. Cook about the Internet Democracy Project’s work, specifically in regards to our research and workshops on gender and surveillance. About Online Gods: Online Gods is a monthly podcast on digital cultures and their political ramifications, featuring lively conversations with scholars and activists. More

22 March

Deciphering the Aadhaar verdict

Alternative Law Forum, the Internet Democracy Project and the Right to Food campaign of Karnataka organised a public meeting on the Aadhaar verdict, which was delivered in September this year. The meeting was intended to be a forum to discuss the 1448 pages long judgment, which deals with the issues in the batch of 38 … More

24 Nov 2018

Solving for data justice: A response to the draft Personal Data Protection Bill

Instead of understanding ‘data’ as a resource to be tapped, what if we employ other metaphors around data? How does that change our reading of the draft Personal Data Protection Bill? Data as bodies, data as labour, data as exhaust, data as distraction - so much turns on which metaphor we choose to give precedence to! Taking this as a starting point, a group of activists and researchers got together to understand what the draft Personal Data Protection Bill means for social movements and issues they might be embedded in, and in turn, how different movements can contribute their wisdom to strengthen the bill. This was jointly drafted by participants following two workshops organised in Bangalore and Delhi by the Internet Democracy Project in September 2018.

Report 18 Oct 2018

Dots and connections - Internet explained through rangoli

Remember we had begun to use rangoli as a way to explain networking concepts? We have turned that exercise into a video now! Well, some parts of it - watch it here. With the support of Greenhost and the Totem Project, we made an explainer video that goes into what ‘internet’ means, how information travels … More

25 Aug 2018

India’s data protection draft ignores key next-generation rights

(This article was first published in Asia Times. You can find the link to the original article here.) In the last week of July, two events happened in rapid succession: the release of India’s much-awaited draft data-protection legislation, and a breaking news story that Watson, IBM’s computing system that helps physicians recommend individualized cancer treatments, … More

21 Aug 2018

Submission in response to the White Paper of the Committee of Experts on Data Protection Framework for India

The Government of India constituted a committee of experts to draft a data protection bill that would be put in place the data protection framework for India. The committee published a white paper and invited comments and feedback. The Internet Democracy Project made recommendations to the committee, drawing from the Report of the Committee of Experts headed by Justice AP Shah, and highlighting the need to center the data subjects, incorporate new articulation of rights and have strong implementation mechanisms. Read our submission here.

Report 13 Feb 2018

India takes the lead in shaping global Net Neutrality principles

(Originally published on Asia Times. Link here.) While the US seems to be busy unraveling progressive net neutrality protections passed during the Obama administration, India’s Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) is putting down roots for one of the strongest net neutrality frameworks in the world. In a detailed set of recommendations released earlier this … More

29 Dec 2017