Rohini Lakshané of The Bachchao Project spoke with Salil Tripathi, Senior Advisor, Global Issues, Institute of Human Rights and Business, about intentional Internet shutdowns in India, corporate responsibility, and some of the findings from our 2018 research report “Of Sieges and Shutdowns“: https://www.ihrb.org/focus-areas/information-communication-technology/podcast-rohini-lakshane
Rohini Lakshané (Director, Emerging Research, The Bachchao Project) spoke with Srinivas Kodali (Interdisciplinary researcher) on an episode of Cyber Democracy about the efficacy of technological interventions for public safety. Rohini spoke about CCTVs, mobile phone apps, mobile device-based panic buttons, and the preliminary research report “Evaluating Safety Buttons on Mobile Devices (2017)“, jointly published by the Centre for Internet and Society and The Bachchao Project.
Podcast:
The Bachchao Project invites volunteers for The Glass Room exhibition scheduled to be held in Bengaluru from November 22 to 24, 2019 at UB City. The Glass Room is a global pop-up exhibition that is generating a conversation about data and privacy. This will be the first-ever edition of the exhibition to be held in India.
Individuals who:
All volunteers will receive a daily allowance for covering expenses towards meals and conveyance to and from the exhibition venue.
Email theteam@thebachchaoproject.org with this information:
(For media inquiries, contact Rohini Lakshané: rohini@thebachchaoproject.org)
The Glass Room is a public intervention that provides an interactive, fun, and challenging experience, bringing to life the most pressing challenges facing people and the tech industry today. As technology reaches a global scale and becomes embedded in every part of our lives and our environments, The Glass Room examines its impacts and helps visitors explore practical solutions to mitigate them. The consequences of a “move fast and break things” industry are catching up with us and now we must examine what has been lost and gained along the way. (Text from: https://theglassroom.org/about-us)
The Glass Room is curated by Tactical Tech, an international NGO based in Berlin.
The Bachchao Project is a techno-feminist collective that undertakes community-centric efforts to develop and support open source technologies and technical frameworks with the goals of mitigating gender-based violence and working towards equal rights for women, LGBTQIA people, and gender non-conforming groups. We conduct research and advocacy in all the above areas and guide communities in determining appropriate technological interventions for themselves. http://thebachchaoproject.org
Twitter: @bachchaoproject
Venue
UB City mall, Vittal Mallya Road, Ashok Nagar, Bengaluru 560001. The exhibition is a part of the art gallery event Art Bengaluru 2019.
3 November 2019, Bengaluru, India
The first-ever edition of the global pop-up exhibition “The Glass Room” to be held in India has been organised by The Bachchao Project in Bengaluru from 22 to 24 November, 2019. The exhibition is a part of the art gallery event Art Bengaluru 2019. Entry is free and open to the public.
The Glass Room is a public intervention that provides an interactive, fun, and challenging experience, bringing to life the most pressing challenges facing people and the tech industry today. As technology reaches a global scale and becomes embedded in every part of our lives and our environments, The Glass Room examines its impacts and helps visitors explore practical solutions to mitigate them. The consequences of a “move fast and break things” industry are catching up with us and now we must examine what has been lost and gained along the way.
The Glass Room is curated by Tactical Tech, an international NGO based in Berlin. More at: https://theglassroom.org
The three-day exhibition invites volunteers: http://thebachchaoproject.org/call-for-volunteers-the-glass-room-exhibition-bengaluru-22-to-24-november-2019
The Bachchao Project is a techno-feminist collective that undertakes community-centric efforts to develop and support open source technologies and technical frameworks with the goals of mitigating gender-based violence and working towards equal rights for women, LGBTQIA people, and gender non-conforming groups. We conduct research and advocacy in all the above areas and guide communities in determining appropriate technological interventions for themselves.
Website: http://thebachchaoproject.org
Twitter: @bachchaoproject
For media inquiries, Rohini Lakshané: rohini@thebachchaoproject.org. For everything else, email Chinmayi S K: chinmayi@thebachchaoproject.org
UB City mall, Vittal Mallya Road, Ashok Nagar, Bengaluru 560001
2nd floor, Near lift lobby
11 a.m. to 9 p.m. on all days. Last entry: 8.30 p.m. on all days
Members of The Bachchao Project spoke at two sessions at RightsCon held in Tunis, Tunisia from June 11 to 14, 2019.
We are publishing the plan for our Rightscon session entitled “Studying the impact of shutdowns from the lens of gender, conflict and ethnicity”.
Details: https://rightscon2019.sched.com/event/Pvrh/studying-the-impact-of-shutdowns-from-the-lens-of-gender-conflict-and-ethnicity, Thursday, 13 June 2019, 5.15 pm to 6.30 pm, Hannibal, Laico Hotel, Tunis.
Speakers: Rohini Lakshané (also facilitator), Jan Rydzak, Unnamed speaker
Chatham House rules apply.
Main goal of the session: To equip the audience with skills and knowledge about devising studies on intentional Internet shutdowns while factoring in the intersections of gender, conflict-strained geographies and ethnicity. We would like the audience to be able to modify and adapt the study for their contexts and employ the lessons for the workshop for research or advocacy or both.
Description: A skill-building and knowledge-sharing workshop for activists and researchers who are investigating the impact of intentional Internet shutdowns from the lenses of gender, ethnicity and conflict. The methodology and the complete research report are available at: http://thebachchaoproject.org/of-sieges-and-shutdowns
We would elucidate on the methodology we employed in an exploratory study in northeast India in late 2017 about the impact of shutdowns on the lives of women entrepreneurs and feminist activists belonging to India’s ethnic minorities. We carried out qualitative interviews with 16 women residing in different districts of the state of Manipur. The activists in the control group and their organisations work in different areas of empowerment of women and girls: relief for victims of domestic abuse, increasing the number of women in governance, economic independence of women, and child trafficking. Some of them also run small or medium businesses.
Awareness of digital rights, cybersecurity and online privacy in the state is little, leaving citizens vulnerable. This intersection of gender and ethnicity is further complicated due to the suspension of civil rights in the region since the 1980s. Owing to the complexity of the topic, an individual directly affected by the shutdowns in Manipur would start the session with an introduction of the demographic and the region. Rohini Lakshané of The Bachchao Project would then speak about the research methodology, its evolution through the course of the project, and the differentiators from other interdisciplinary and qualitative studies on shutdowns, while trying to achieve a level of abstraction high enough for the methodology to be applicable to other, similar demographics and regions. Jan Rydzak, Associate Director for Program, Standford Global Digital Policy Incubator, would follow by speaking about the research methodology he employed in the quantitative study “Of Blackouts and bandhs: The strategy and structure of disconnected protest in India“. The study examines how structural and strategic characteristics affect collective action responses during a network shutdown in an extreme case via statistical analysis.
Slide deck_Of Sieges and Shutdowns_ICT4DCon_2019
Rohini Lakshané of The Bachchao Project spoke at a session entitled “Impact Of Intentional Internet Shutdowns And Unreliable Mobile Connectivity On Women In Conflict-Strained Manipur” at the ICT4D Conference 2019. The session was featured under the “Humanitarian Response and Resilience” track. In the session, Rohini presented the most significant findings of the study “Of Sieges and Shutdowns“, which she conducted with Chinmayi S K in late 2017 in Manipur, India. The exploratory research project was aimed at studying the impact of intentional Internet shutdowns from the lenses of gender, conflict and the status of ethnic minority.
Read the full report of the study at: Of Sieges and Shutdowns
The conference was held from April 30 to May 2, 2019 at Kampala, Uganda. Details: https://www.ict4dconference.org
An op-ed authored by Jan Rydzak and Rohini Lakshané on the topic of intentional Internet shutdowns in India was published in the Hindustan Times on May 3, 2019. Jan Rydzak is a research scholar and Associate Director for Program, Global Digital Policy Incubator (GDPi), Stanford University. Rohini Lakshané is Director (Emerging Research), The Bachchao Project.
Shutdowns have caused billions of dollars in economic damage and deeply impacted lives and livelihoods across India. However, rarely do we hear a more fundamental question: do shutdowns achieve their intended goals? Research suggests that it doesn’t.
The social media shutdown that followed the recent terror attacks in Sri Lanka was no isolated incident. On a global level, more than 40 countries have executed more than 400 blackouts of social media or Internet access since the Arab Spring. India accounts for an overwhelming majority of this tally. Nearly half of the estimated 306 shutdowns executed in India over the last seven years occurred in 2018, amid the surge of lynchings attributed to the circulation of violent content on WhatsApp.
Shutdowns have caused billions of dollars in economic damage and deeply impacted lives and livelihoods across India. But rarely do we hear a fundamental question: do shutdowns achieve their intended goals? State governments in India routinely frame deliberate blackouts as either a public safety response to agitations or a preventive measure to restrain disinformation on social media and communication apps. Not a single time have they provided more than anecdotal evidence that a blackout successfully prevented the escalation of protest or curbed the spread of false information with the potential to stoke violence. The effectiveness of shutdowns in protecting public safety tends to be perceived as an indisputable truth, both in India and abroad.
Complete article: https://www.hindustantimes.com/analysis/internet-shutdowns-in-india-only-fuel-the-fires-of-violence/story-7Lf7o6Sq0q6xwfbWk0WoTM.html
On 24 December 2018, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), Government of India, released a draft of proposed amendments to rules pertaining to safe harbour and intermediary liability under the country’s Information Technology Act. The MeitY invited public comments and suggestions on the draft: http://meity.gov.in/content/comments-suggestions-invited-draft-%E2%80%9C-information-technology-intermediary-guidelines
The submission made by The Bachchao Project in response to the call for comments/ suggestions may be accessed here:
Comments on MeitY Intermediary Liability Draft Guidelines_The Bachchao Project_January 2019
Rohini Lakshané of The Bachchao Project was a speaker on a panel on the topic of intentional internet shutdowns at the Digital Citizen Summit held in New Delhi on November 1-2, 2018. The panel discussion entitled “Living in Digital Darkness — Internet Shutdowns in India” was organised by the Digital Empowerment Foundation (DEF) and Software Freedom Law Centre (SFLC).
Lakshané spoke about the findings from The Bachchao Project’s research report entitled “Of Sieges and Shutdowns” on the impact of intentional Internet shutdowns on the lives and livelihoods of women in Manipur, India.
The other panelists were Prashanth Sugathan (SFLC), Tripti Jain (SFLC, moderator), Nikhil Pahwa (Medianama) and Mansi Kedia (ICRIER).
View event report by the organisers [PDF].
