Internet Governance : December 2008 Issue by i4d magazine

Vol. VI No. 12

The first monthly magazine on ICT4D

December 2008

Special Features on Information for development

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Internet Governance

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Nitin Desai Exclusive Interview

Internet Governance

Markus Kummer Exclusive Interview

Jainder Singh Message

Ravi Shanker Exclusive Interview

knowledge for change

Contents

Vol. VI No. 12

Features 5

Editorial

Message from Secretary, DIT,GoI

Governing the interwoven networks

December 2008

Mail box Interviews 10

Nitin Desai, Special Adviser to the UN Secretary General for Internet Governance Towards a global agreement on Internet governance

Markus Kummer, Executive Coordinator, Secretariat of IGF, Geneva IGF: Multistakeholder space for dialogue

Jainder Singh

Internet Governance Forum, Hyderabad, India, Internet for all: A curtain raiser

Global perspectives in Internet governance IGF 2008: What, Why, How and for Whom Dr Govind

Position Paper, Association for Progressive Communications (APC), Melville, South Africa

Access - connecting the next billion Abiodon Jagun, Willie Currie

Association for Progressive Communications (APC) Internet Governance: Information and Participation David Souter

ICANN, Marina Del Rey, CA, USA

Opinion

Capacity building in Internet Governance

Aggarwal, 21 Rajesh Additional CEO, NIXI Managing networks: The NIXI way Ajwani, 23 Naresh Secretary, ISPAI, & NRO – Member Council (APNIC), India Managing the networks

Imagining the future of the Internet Roberto Gaetano

Internet governance: Role of public policy Deepak Maheswari

Ravi Shanker, Jt Secretary, Department of Information Technology, Government of India Will Internet foster sustainability?

Raju Vegesna, CEO and Managaing Director, Sify Technologies Limited, Chennai, India Keeping you ahead!

Plan now for an informed future Dhrupad Mathur

CSDMS workshops in IGF Hyderabad

Books received •

Capacity building Interpol for Internet

Columns 42 45 46

•

Bytes for All What’s on In Fact The network readiness index

SMART 2020: Enabling the low carbon economy in the information age ICTs and Climate Change: ITU background report

I am writing to acknowledge receipt of your October Issue of the magazine (hard copy version) which I received a couple of days ago. Thanks for sending me the hard copy version. Your magazine is very attractively produced and has interesting articles of general interest. With your new ‘GREEN IT’ section, I would like to make following comments for your consideration. The science of global warming and various strategies for reducing GHGs ( Greenhouse Gases) world-wide are extensively discussed at present. Unfortunately the present state of the earth’s climate is rarely being debated in this discussion. I believe it is important to take a close look at the earth’s mean temperature trend before various GHG reduction strategies are discussed for possible implementation. Madhav L Khandekar Climate Consultant & Expert Reviewer for IPCC Climate Change Documents 2007 Markham Ontario CANADA mkhandekar@rogers.com I am going to be very short but would like to offer my perspective on Social Networking issue pages of Netgovspeak published in September 2008 1. It is actually eating away social time and we are thinking of socialising using the net medium. Globally, the mixture of people socialising is cutting across boundaries and views and ideas are travelling across the world at warp speed. Islands of friendship are popping up. It is making people psychologically motivated to go into the net space and see how social digital friends are doing. While it is giving personal freedom, it is also eating valuable time and it is like becoming the chatting instruments, albeit at a much fanciful nature. 2. Global business contacts are mostly coming through LI while facebook and many others are being used for friendly chats. 3. I am not sure if serious, long-term professional relations are coming or not. Perhaps, it is helping the people who are more net focused to organise teams of professionals. Ziaur Rahman CEO, International Institute of Technology & Management, Dhaka & CEO, IITM Software

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Internet Governance i4d | December 2008

Editorial Governing the interwoven networks ADVISORY BOARD M P Narayanan, Chairman, i4d Chin Saik Yoon Southbound Publications, Malaysia Karl Harmsen United Nations University Kenneth Keniston Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA Mohammed Yunus Grameen Bank, Bangladesh Nagy Hanna e-Leadership Academy, University of Maryland, USA Richard Fuchs IDRC, Singapore Rinalia Abdul Rahim Global Knowledge Partnership, Malaysia Walter Fust Global Humanitarian Forum, Switzerland Wijayananda Jayaweera UNESCO, France

Resources available at different nodes of the cyber networks are important and require consistent monitoring, filtering and update. In order to manage the increasing amount and diversity of critical resources available on the cyber space, proper checks and balances are required. Infact, the entire purpose of promoting security, openness, diversity and access on the Internet will be defeated if interwoven networks are not managed, administered and governed properly. According to the Internet Governance Project report (www.InternetGovernance.org) published on September 9, 2004, the three major Internet governance functions are, technical Standardisation, resource allocation and assignment, policy formulation, enforcement and dispute resolution. Since the last couple of years, Internet administrators, computer professionals and telecommunications personnel have made efforts to provide for better technical and administrative standards in cyber networking. The migration from IPv4 to IPv6 has extended the cyberspace to a billion more users.

EDITORIAL BOARD Akhtar Badshah, Frederick Noronha GROUP DIRECTORS Maneesh Prasad, Sanjay Kumar EDITORIAL TEAM Editor-in-Chief Ravi Gupta Programme Co-ordinator Jayalakshmi Chittoor Content Editor Rajat Banerjee Sr. Research Associates Ritu Srivastava, Ajitha Saravanan Research Assistant Subir Dey

The issue of Internet governance and administration has been highly debated and discussed, more so recently in different platforms and forums including Internet Governance Forum (IGF) â&#x20AC;&#x201C; a governance body formed in 2006 to streamline critical Internet issues and concerns like content management, technical administration of websites, cyber security, multilingualism on the Internet, Internet viruses, spamming etc. Infact, critical discussions on governing the interwoven networks owe their genesis to WSIS (World Summit on the Information Society) which organised the first round of talks on Internet governance in 2003.

Sr. Graphic Designer Bishwajeet Kumar Singh Graphic Designers Om Prakash Thakur, Shyam Kishore, Chandrakesh Bihari Lal (James) Web Programmer Zia Salahuddin i4d G-4 Sector 39, NOIDA, UP, 201 301, India Phone +91 120 250 2181-85 Fax +91 120 250 0060 Email info@i4donline.net Web www.i4donline.net Printed at R P Printers, Noida, India i4d is a monthly publication. It is intended for those interested and involved in the use of Information and Commnication Technologies for development of underserved communities. It is hoped that it will serve to foster a growing network by keeping the community up to date on many activities in this wide and exciting field. i4d does not necessarily subscribe to the views expressed in this publication. All views expressed in this magazine are those of the contributors. i4d is not responsible or accountable for any loss incurred directly or indirectly as a result of the information provided.

Centre for Science, Development and Media Studies, 2008 Except where otherwise noted, this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License

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The Internet Governance Forum (IGF) 2008, scheduled between 3rd and 6th of December 2008 and the third in a row, will provide for a unique platform to debate, discuss and deliberate upon critical Internet issues ranging from Internet administration to cyber crime and cyber terrorism to administrative management of DNS (Domain Name System) and IP (Internet Protocol) addresses. IGF is slated to organise five main sessions and around 91 workshops (including open forums). CSDMS would be actively participating in the main sessions and workshops and would be convening one main session and two workshops in IGF 2008. The December 2008 issue of i4d magazine, the last issue of the current year, is on Internet governance and is a lead to IGF 2008. The December issue of i4d is a special issue on Internet Governance which primarily addresses issues concerning cyber laws and acts that are in place in different parts of the world; the requirements of promotion of standardisation, testing and quality in the Internet; content monitoring and content filtering on the Internet etc. In this issue, we have tried to portray perspectives and opinions of key people working on Internet governance and administration. This time, in view of space constraints, we couldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t incorporate the 4-pager special section on Gender and ICTs. The pending article(s) on Gender and ICTs will be published in subsequent issue(s). We would be happy to know from our readers, their opinions on Internet governance, cyber fraud, child pornography, multilingualism etc., that they would like to share with us in the coming issues.

Ravi Gupta Ravi.Gupta@csdms.in December 2008 | www.i4donline.net

THIRD INTERNET GOVERNANCE FORUM, HICC, HYDERABAD, DECEMBER 3-6, 2008

Photo Credit: CSDMS

Internet for all: A curtain raiser

Curtain-raiser Press Conference on the upcoming INTERNET GOVERNANCE FORUM 2008 organised by The Press Information Bureau in association with The United Nations Information Centre at 3 p.m. on Thursday, 27 November at the National Media Centre, Conference Hall, Press Information Bureau, Shastri Bhawan, New Delhi Nitin Desai, Special Adviser to the UN Secretary- General on Internet Governance, in his inaugural speech gave a brief review on previous meetings of the IGF held in Athens and Rio in 2006 and 2007 respectively and thereafter focused on the Hyderabad issue. He mentioned that the IGF is a scientific, collaborative platform for discussing Internet Governance issues and not a decision-making body. He mentioned that the only structured body in the IGF is the Multi-stakeholder Advisory Group (MAG) of the IGF. The group is responsible for charting out an agenda of the forum in its open consultations and meetings held before and after each IGF. He also spoke briefly on the themes to be addressed in the IGF Hyderabad December 2008 | www.i4donline.net

including, Access, Diversity, Critical Internet Resources etc. Desai, in particular, mentioned about the spread of the usage of mobiles as a part of Critical Internet Resources - core resources that could possibly be used as a vehicle for reaching the Internet to the masses in future. Markus Kummer in his speech mentioned that it was a very encouraging sign for them as the number of participants registered for the workshop has already exceeded 1300 which is close to the expected number of 1500. He also stressed on the point that the IGF is not a decision-making body but a platform for multi-stakeholder policy dialogue where the pivotal issues related to Internet Government are discussed among all. Efforts are made to determine

the direction in which these issues can be resolved. He dwelt on the main themes of the previous forums and emphasized how dynamic coalitions were emerging as strong collaborative efforts for attaining a specific objective. In this regard, the Dynamic Coalition formed in Rio to fight against child abuse is worth mentioning. Since Internet for all is the prime theme of the IGF, Hyderabad, therefore discussions on making Internet available to people with disabilities is of great significance. Efforts have been made to achieve the right mix of societal themes and themes related to technology including Access and Security as well as Diversity and Openness. There is a need for a comprehensive policy on Internet not only at the global level but

i4d | December 2008

Photo Credit: CSDMS

Photo Credit: CSDMS Photo Credit: CSDMS

honour for India to be able to among the UN, Government of India host the IGF meeting. He also and Government of Andhra Pradesh. It stressed on the multi-stakeholder was only after a series of discussions that nature of participation in the Cyberabad in Hyderabad was decided IGF conference with over 500 upon as the most suitable venue. NGOs, 300 private business This was followed by an interactive enterprises, around 1 5 0 In t e r n a t i o n a l organisations which would meet to discuss the key issues of Internet Governance. He emphasized on how efforts were being made by the Government to make the theme Nitin Desai, Special Adviser to the UN Secretary- General on ‘Internet for all’ a Internet Governance success. Thereafter N. also at the national and regional levels. The failures and achievements of the forum Ravi Shanker, Joint Secretary, would be evaluated in the stock taking Ministry of Communication and IT mainly spoke about the Markus Kummer, Executive Coordinator, sessions post IGF forum. Jainder Singh, Secretary, Ministry of background preparations that IGF Secretariat Communication and IT, Government had taken place prior to the IGF of India mainly spoke on the Indian forum. He pointed out that security was session with panelists responding to the perspective in The IGF. He mentioned of prime concern while hosting the IGF, queries of media persons. Nitin Desai, when asked by a participant that it was an occasion of pride and which led to forging of security agreements as to how IGF set about to resolve issues on cyber-crime, responded that efforts were being made to identify the gap areas in Internet Governance, plug the loopholes and develop a relevant comprehensive policy framework. But as mentioned earlier, since the IGF was not a decision making body, there was only scope for open deliberations and not for decision making and negotiations. He also mentioned that more funds were needed to be there to tackle cyber-crime and enable participation of various stakeholders. Another participant wanted to know how malpractices in cyber-banking would be tackled to which he replied that there was a need for greater authentication; but at the same time there was a need to maintain the right balance between freedom of expression and security issues regarding the Internet. Jainder Singh, responding to another query on how India was planning to provide Internet to the masses, replied that common services centres were being made functional which could go a long way in making Internet available to the rural masses. Therefore, discussions and debates on the issue of Multilingualism in the IGF Jainder Singh, Secretary, Ministry of Communication and IT, Government of India was an obvious implication.

INTERVIEW : NITIN DESAI, SPECIAL ADVISER TO THE UNITED NATIONS SECRETRY-GENERAL FOR INTERNET

Towards a global agreement on Internet governance

In conversation with Nitin Desai, Special Adviser to the United Nations Secretary-General for Internet Governance 10

i4d | December 2008

What is the main thrust of IGF? How is it different from the other two forums? The basic themes in the IGF at Hyderabad are the same as at the other two IGFs. But, now that we have had two rounds of broad-based discussions, at Hyderabad we are tunneling down to more specific questions within each of the five themes. The overall theme of the Hyderabad meeting is the implications of a universalised Internet for governance. Describe in brief the functions and roles of the Multistakeholder Advisory Group (MAG)? The MAG involves all stakeholders who have an interest in the management of the Internet. It advises the Secretary-General of the UN, who convenes the IGF, on all matters relating to the organisation of the IGF - its agenda and themes, its mode of working, session structure and so on. The MAG also assists the small IGF Secretariat in the actual management of the meeting. Do you think that the widespread use of the Internet is going to buttress e-infrastructure and e-governance programmes? Yes of course it will. In fact these programmes are impossible without the spread of the net and that is why we have made an Internet for All the motif of this IGF.

Is there a global consensus emerging on cyber-crime issues? A crime is a crime and every government and, for that matter all stake-holders, want to stop it. That is the consensus. The real issue is how and on that there may be differences, particularly on the extent of official intrusion into privacy.

How is IGF going to expedite administrative management of the Domain Name System (DNS) and Internet Protocol (IP address under IPv6)? The measures required to expedite the introduction of IPv6 are going to be discussed at IGF Hyderabad as part of the theme on Critical Internet Resources, which is also where issues relating to the DNS will be discussed.

What is the need of content monitoring, content management and content filtering on the Internet? In my opinion none, except for crime prevention. Stopping the use of the net for pornography, child abuse, hate, extortion, cheating etc., all fall within this head of crime prevention since all of these are illegal activities. Security is a major theme in the work of the IGF and its meetings provide a useful space for exchange of views and best practices. One example is the exchange of views on preventing child pornography which was discussed in Brazil and will also be discussed in Hyderabad.

What do you think are the challenges that Internet operators from the developing countries face? I would place access costs as a key issue for developing countries. Another issue of great salience for developing countries is diversity - the capacity of the net to handle languages other than English and scripts other than the Latin. Of course, developing countries, like all others, also have their own view on the other issues dealing with security, openness and critical Internet resources.

On the governance and management of Internet, are there still debates, and what position favours global agreement? Yes there are, which is why the IGF continues to attract wide participation. The Internet is a very new and unique part of the global infrastructure. It is inherently global and therefore has to operate on the basis of a global agreement. The issues that animate the debate are about who should be parties to this global agreement and who should provide the umbrella of legitimacy for it. What technical arrangements are available to reduce bandwidth costs and promote better security for Internet traffic? Broadband costs in India have come down substantially with the growth in traffic. As for Internet security, this will remain a cat and mouse game with the malefactors discovering new ways of getting around protective walls. What are your own expectations from this year’s IGF? I hope this year’s IGF sensitises the online community to the concerns of the users from developing countries, the implications of the Internet’s rapid growth and the new ways in which this medium can be used for Internet Governance.

Nitin Desai at the first IGF in Athens, 2006 December 2008 | www.i4donline.net

INTERVIEW : MARKUS KUMMER, EXECUTIVE COORDINATOR, SECRETARIAT OF IGF, GENEVA

IGF: Multistakeholder space for dialogue Markus Kummer, IGF Executive Coordinator in the Secretariat in Geneva has been facilitating the Internet Governance Forum’s processes since 2006. In an exclusive interview with Jayalakshmi Chittoor of the i4d magazine, he shares his ideas and thoughts on the issues under deliberation, and the processes of IGF The overall theme for this year’s IGF is Internet for All. What in your opinion are the key challenges to achieving this vision? First of all, it is an enormous challenge to bring the Internet to all the world’s six billion people. We are really not there yet. The IGF is not an operational organisation that will achieve this aim. However, the IGF is a platform where all stakeholders can discuss what are the right policies, what are the right frameworks that help to develop and to deploy the Internet. And of course, access is only one thing, once you do have access, you want to have access in your own language. This is a very important issue to be dealt with by the IGF. The Internet developed predominantly as an English-speaking medium and now I think it is important to recognise that to make sure that people who gain access, gain access to the Internet in their own language, and also generate their own content in their own languages; which is again a huge challenge. And last, but not the least, there is also the question of access for people with disabilities, this is also dealt with under the heading diversity in the IGF. Once again, we deal with the policy issues; we are not an operational organisation that can bring this about. But we can provide guidance to people who can then translate that into action. Which means, basically you’re enabling a whole lot of people from diverse interests to participate and deliberate on the

various issues. So could you talk a little more about how the Secretariat has engaged with various stakeholders to ensure that these processes are set in motion? Basically, we have provided an open and welcoming space where people can gather and voice their concerns, signal issues they feel that need to be addressed without imposing any agenda. At the very first meeting, four priority themes emerged i.e., access and diversity (I developed a little bit on that in my answer to the first question), and then security and openness. They also go hand-in-hand as there is a balance to strike between measures that guarantee the security and safety of the Internet at the same time maintaining the openness of the Internet both in terms of architecture and content as a vehicle that allows unprecedented exchange of information without borders as the exchange of information is at the heart of this concept. Could you talk a little bit about the Dynamic Coalitions that are forming? Yes, this is basically as I said, the IGF is not an organisation, it is not an operational body. However, it provides space, it provides the framework where people can meet who then want to translate into action with other partners, that they can do, and have the competence to do. And out of this concept, the very first meeting that emerged was then termed as ‘Dynamic Coalitions’, i.e., i4d | December 2008

coalitions of different stakeholders that gather around one idea to promote the agenda. This happened at the very first meeting in Athens, and various coalitions emerged: one of them was to promote the issue of privacy, the other one, open standard. We have now more of them, some of the new coalitions that emerged are to deal with the Internet and Climate Change but also the protection of children on the Internet against child pornography etc. and also to promote accessibility for people with disabilities. So, they operate within the framework of the IGF but they are not, in that sense the main IGF itself. They are just likeminded people who find themselves a space to dialogue in this framework and explore matters of common interest. You have been involved right from the Athens forum, how were the past forums and the preparations for the Hyderabad ? The IGF is certainly evolving. It is an experiment in international co-operation as we have governments participating with civil society, with private sector, with academic and technical communities, or the Internet community as we prefer to call it, on an equal footing. Normally in international co-operation you have a very strict hierarchical order where governments are the first and the others can speak when the governments have spoken but we here have created a space where we don’t make distinctions between the various actors and we also accept individuals to participate. So in a way we ask a lot of governments to give away their prerogatives, but that was part of the mandate the Heads of States and Governments had given to the Secretary-General of United Nations. In Rio, we realised maybe we have to be a little bit more conservative in the sense that we had a more formal opening session where we allowed more actors to speak in a traditional way. In Athens, we had wanted to promote just the interactive dialogue. Now again in Hyderabad, I think we are a little bit more structured, we have morning sessions which are more classical with panel discussions where each panellist can develop his/her ideas in a format that is very familiar with most meetings of this kind. We did not have that in the two previous editions, where we just had panels where panellists were not given much time, the panels were very big, so we are a little bit more conservative now with our morning sessions, but we’ve maintained still a very open format in the afternoon sessions will in essence be open microphone sessions, town hall meetings where everybody can take the floor and they are deliberately designed so that they will have a maximum possibility for participation to take the floor and to say what they want to say. So, each edition of the IGF varies a little bit. We adapt and we evolve, we try to learn from what was criticised as not being so good in the past and try to improve on that. In Hyderabad, the big challenge will be to manage the afternoon sessions which, like town hall meetings, will be very open, fairly unstructured, so we will see how that works out. Again, it is an experiment, we may repeat it next year or we may move forward to other possibilities or in a sense that we may have many more speakers one after the other as in a classical international meeting. We have seen that governments are on the whole, maybe a little less comfortable with the unstructured exchange of views whereas civil society are fairly happy with. But we have to take December 2008 | www.i4donline.net

each stakeholder group equally seriously and governments are certainly very important if not the most important stakeholder group as they are the ones who take the decisions. So we certainly don’t want to alienate governments. I am just going to come back to one of the key themes of the IGF which is, ‘Internet for the next billion(s)’ and you talked a little bit about the people with disabilities. Could you talk about Special Interest Groups and what are some of the issues? How do we ensure that people with disabilities can be connected and how do we really reach Internet to the next billion? So it’s really an access question. Well, I think according to United Nations studies, nearly 10% of the world’s people are people with disabilities. So, in terms of numbers, it is a very important and very big group, but it is not just a question of numbers, I think it is ensuring access to the society as a whole, I think society gets measured by how it deals with its very weakest members and in the same way, I think the Internet in the future will be judged by how it deals with people with disabilities. And the Internet can be a marvellous tool to make life easier for people with disabilities, for people with limited vision for instance, you can have voice recognition that allows them to read newspapers as they are out, they don’t need to have to wait for a translation in Braille. So, it is indeed a valuable tool. And a lot of work has been done to make the Internet accessible. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), for instance, has developed standards to make the Internet more accessible and here, what we can do is basically to put this issue on the agenda to show it to policy-makers, what it can do. My feeling is that, and I learnt about this only three or four years ago that physically what difference it can make. So, as a meeting we will again, we will not find any new solutions; as the technology is available in existing institutions. But what we can do is show people how important it is, show people what solutions exist, and to inform them that they actually adopt these solutions for their own websites. Governments, first and foremost, are usually one of the biggest users of the Internet, the governments are also a model user, normally they adopt the guidelines on how to deal with it but then again quite often it trickles down and sometimes people are not aware of what can be done and what should be done. And if we can put the issue on the map to signal to policy-makers who have the possibility to go home and change their own websites to go through and look at the accessibility standards set by the W3C, to test their own website, to improve their own website to make it more accessible for people with disabilities, then we have already, I think achieved quite a lot. Just the aim would be to make people think, to raise awareness of participants and hopefully to give them the motivation to go home and to change whatever that they can change within their own competence. Could you talk about the concerns of the security of the critical Internet resources? So we really need a new mechanism? Is this an issue where we still have to build a consensus? There is a lot of it in place already also at the national level and a lot needs to and can be done at the national level. In theory, yes, it would be nice to have a new global mechanism. You all know we can take a lot of time to develop global instruments so, ‘act

locally and think globally’ can very much be a response to these challenges. To learn from each other, to share best practices, what works at the local level can that be adapted elsewhere, does it need to be adapted to different local needs. Quite often, one of the key elements is that no actor can do so alone. It is very much an area where multi-stakeholder co-operation is essential. Governments are important, law enforcement is important. They need to work with the industry, with Internet Service Providers. Civil society can be extremely important and helpful by setting up watchdog foundations that work in co-operation with the governments and the industry. And civil society can also be an important watchdog over the tendency law enforcements may have to rate security higher than openness. Civil society usually has an advocacy group to make sure that freedom of expression and opinion remains on the agenda of policy-makers. And there are never easy answers, it is always a question of balance and balances need to be found between openness and security. We, at our meeting in Hyderabad, will address these issues and will also address these questions of balance and to promote the one should not be done at the cost of the other. I think, we can foster and promote security and openness at the same time but it is important that we do it in a dialogue with the different actors concerned. Could you let us know how IGF is deliberating or planning to expedite administrative management of the Domain Name System and the Internet Protocol Address as more and more countries and regions come under the IPv6 regime? You rightly said, ‘deliberate’, yes, we don’t have an operational role in this, but one of the sessions will be devoted to the transition from IPv4 to IPv6 which is an extremely important issue and it is an issue that is on the horizon and here, we can again raise awareness among policy-makers about the importance of and the necessity to take the right measures to plan this transition so that, not all of a sudden they run out of IPv4 addresses and then, ‘what do we do next?’ No, they have to plan this transition now, but we cannot do more than that. Raising awareness, showing the technical issues involved, showing the challenges, but we can also point to the opportunities from this unlimited number of IPv6 addresses that will be available. How does that affect the developing countries? Probably the transition is going to be quite a challenge for developing countries. Well, I think it is a challenge for everyone and it will not be a clean break from the IPv4 regime. It will not be that when IPv6 is rolled out, IPv4 will be out. The co-existence between two systems will be there. You rightly point out that it may be more acute for developing countries because the newcomers to the Internet will essentially be from the developing countries. The next billion and the billion after that will be users in developing countries, and they will want Internet addresses when we will run out of IPv4 addresses. So, you’re right in saying that the challenge is felt more by developing countries but it has also been argued that in a way this can lead to a leap-frogging system in a sense as the developing countries will have the latest technologies available because they would have invested in IPv6 whereas large address

spaces in Europe and North America will still be there and they will be functioning on IPv4 technologies so, once you are on IPv6, you can consider yourself advantaged but the challenge is to get into the new address space. So, in a sense, there will be co-existence for some time? That’s as far as I understand it, yes. IPv4 will not be just going away and will co-exist. On the Governance and Management of the Internet, do we actually see a kind of a global consensus emerging? This is a difficult question, not easy to answer. I mean, there may be consensus on certain matters but a global consensus on the very broad range of policy issues we are dealing with, I think, will be too optimistic, but the fact that we are talking, that we are gathered together, there is interest in discussing these issues, is, I think a step in the right direction towards a global consensus. Let us put it that way, we do not have a global consensus on what is the best architecture. Some people clearly feel the government should be in-charge in the same way as governments are in-charge of most other policy areas whereas others feel that the development should be left to the technical community and the private sector with governments participating but not being in-charge, there I think are clearly different views. We may obviously find common denominators on certain aspects. Everybody agrees that cyber-criminality is bad, issues such as child pornography are illegal under any kind of legislation. But already, when we come to Spam, there are different interpretations, different definitions of what is Spam. Then it gets already more complicated so the devil is very much in the details but here, I think, the important thing is that the IGF provides a platform where all the key actors get together and have the possibility to share experiences, to exchange views of the information, share best practices, to learn from each other, that I think in the long run can build a basis where a consensus in certain areas will be possible. What are your own expectations from this year’s IGF? I hope very much to have a good meeting. What are the characteristics of a good meeting? We have good attendance in terms of the quality of people attending, be that the quality of experts, be that the political level of people, be that the quality of the discussions of course, that we have interesting discussions and I expect quite a strong interest of the participants to look a little bit at India, to learn, to hear from the host country how they manage to bring about these exciting developments of the past 20 years where India emerged as a power in the ICT sector. And of course, at Hyderabad, as a venue is very exciting in this regard, it is palpable, the development of the whole region has taken through the ICT sector, and I think this will be in itself a very strong message to all other countries. If the right policy mix is in place, if the right environment is in place, then you allow the talent of the people to develop and to develop the industry which can really change lives and the technology which is really something that has changed our lives already and will change our lives even more so in the future. So, all in all, I think I look forward to an exciting meeting here in Hyderabad. i4d | December 2008

INTERVIEW: RAVI SHANKER, JT SECRETARY, DEPARTMENT OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY, GOVERNMENT OF INDIA

Will Internet foster sustainability? i4d team spoke to N Ravi Shanker, Joint Secretary, Department of Information Technology, Ministry of Information Technology, Government of India. N Ravi Shankerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s insights on Internet sustainability are reflected.

Could you please share your perspectives on the issues of Internet Governance from a developing country point of view? Internet and the usage and deployment of ICTs are benefiting all aspects of our life. The Internet Governance Forum (IGF) is evolved to support the United Nations Secretary General in carrying out the mandate from the World Summit on Information Society (WSIS) which was held in two phases in Geneva, 1012 December 2003 and in Tunis, 16-18 November 2005. The working and function of the IGF is multilateral, multi-stakeholder, democratic and transparent. The mandate of IGF is to discuss the main public policy issues related to Internet proliferation and its governance to foster sustainability. The IGF 2008 focuses on the theme of Internet for all. The various sessions include reaching the next billion, promoting cyber security interest, managing critical December 2008 | www.i4donline.net

Internet resources, emerging issues (Internet for tomorrow), etc. The issues from the perspective of the developing countries is affordable access, safe Internet, availability of Internet in local language and content, child pornography, etc. What are the key issues that have remained un-resolved in the past two Internet Governance Forums? IGF is an open Forum and is not a decision making body. The Internet Governance Forum provides a space for dialogue for all those involved to discuss Internet Governance issues, where all participants attend as equals. The participants are from Governments, private sector, civil society, Academicians, Inter-Governmental Organisations. There will be no negotiated outcome, but the meeting will seek to create an open and inclusive dialogue among all participants on public policy issues relating to

the Internet and create new dynamics between participating institutions. As such the issues pertaining to Access, Openness, Diversity, Security and Critical Internet Resources keep emerging in new avatars and are deliberated in these IGFs. ‘These are a continuous process and is aimed to evolve a consensus. Will India be preparing a position paper on some of the key issues like Cybercrime, standardisation, IPv4 to IPv6 transition etc.? India is continuously contributing in all the forum meetings. This is complemented by various reports which are prepared from time to time in the areas concerned. For example, in the area of cyber crime, there is the existence of IT Act 2000, which is in the process of being amended to meet the emerging challenges in the cyber security. Similarly a report on a transition plan on IPv4-IPv6 is prepared by Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI). In a country as vast as India, with diverse languages and levels of understanding, what is the role of multilingualism on the Internet? Ability to use Internet in one’s own language and script and increasing use of local language in various services and applications will drive multilingualism on the Internet. This will help in empowering all segments of the society leading to socio-economic development irrespective of linguistic barriers. India has taken proactive measures towards the development of technology in Indian languages. The work on linguistic data resources, content creation, language processing tools, optical character recognition, text speech recognition and machine translation in multilingual environment is in progress. Government is also working towards Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs) to enable country code Top Level Domain(ccTLDs) .IN is also supposed to be expressed in local languages in a few months from now and to ensure operationalisation of .IN in local languages, C-DAC has developed the variant and character tables for Indian languages. Is cybercrime on the rise? Does this make the government agencies look for more control and monitoring? Which departments are responsible for the ensuring compliance? Looking at the increasing applications of IT in different sectors of the economy such as banking, commerce, health, education, it is not right to say that cyber crime is on the rise. Department of Information Technology, Government of India is actively engaged in the prevention and detection of cyber crime. Some of the initiatives which have been taken are: IT Act and its amendments, setting up of Computer Emergency Response Team (CERTin), setting up of Cyber Forensic Lab, etc. Government is also imparting training and awareness programme

on ‘Information Security’. There are private sector initiatives also toward information security awareness. Is the issue of Internet Governance consensus building and if so, how is this process initiated? The WSIS summits achieved a common understanding that determined the ability to harness the potential of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs). In the first summit in Geneva in 2003, world leaders shared the vision of a peoplecentered, development-oriented and inclusive information society. In the second summit in 2005 in Tunis, Governments reaffirmed their dedication to the foundations of the Information Society. The ICTs for development and Internet Governance emerged as the basic action points. During this phase a new Internet Governance Forum was created to continue the dialogue and consensus building process. The Summit has been notable in its adoption of a multi-stakeholder approach, and this is carried out in the implementation phase with the involvement of civil society, private sector alongside Governments and international organisations in all such forums and meetings to evolve the consensus. What is the role of capacity building? Capacity building requires, each person should have the opportunity to acquire the necessary skills and knowledge to understand, participate and benefit fully from the information society and knowledge economy. The use of ICTs in all stages of education, training and human resource development should be promoted, taking into account the special needs of persons with disabilities and disadvantaged and vulnerable groups. Capacity building can be initiated for IG through massive awareness campaign that gives the initial feeler to the stakeholders i4d | December 2008

covering all these themes. The IGF Agenda is organised as per the following themes, with ‘Capacity Building’ running across all the themes: • • • • •

Access Diversity Openness Security Critical Internet Resources

How do we ensure that access to the next billion and ultimately ubiquitous access is achieved? What are some of the initiatives of the Government of India in this regard? The exponential growth of information technology and Internet has transformed business, commerce, economic activities, education, health care, entertainment and other services such as railways, airways booking, etc. All these activities are dependent upon access to the Internet. At present of the six billion global population, Internet is available only to a little over a billion. In this connection, The theme of the IGF at Hyderabad is ‘Internet For All’ and reaching the next billion is opt appropriate. Growth towards the next billion(s) will primarily be driven by the developing countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Ensuring access to the Internet will revolve around finding solutions in the main areas of ICT infrastructure, application and demand, cost of access and CPE. These are as follows:• Infrastructure: Availability of Internet infrastructure needs to be considered hand-in-hand with the affordability of the infrastructure. This calls for the consistent implementation of competitive regimes and the creation of incentives that facilitate the co-existence of competitive and collaborative models for providing and/or improving access. • Application/Development: Promoting Internet with the existing integrating access infrastructure to meet the basic needs of the society will drive the growth of Internet. The ICT regulation conducive to promote such innovative applications needs to be encouraged. Policy with local development strategies, as well as the exploitation of complementarities between different types of development infrastructure need to be explored. • Demand: Demand is to driven through innovative. ICT and Telecom policies and regulation constituting the user needs. Identification of killer applications, promotion of local language content and value proposition will drive the demand. Public Private Partnership is the order of the day. A conducive policy, regulatory, commercial and legal environment will help move forward. • Cost of access: Dependent as cost of last mile access charges, long distance bandwidth changes and International December 2008 | www.i4donline.net

Bandwidth charges. It also depends on cost of costumer premises equipment. All these cost can be reduced through promotion of competition and increase in volumes. India has a liberal telecom ICT policy, geared to use IT and Internet as a medium to take development to poor/remote area and communities. We have Internet-enabled Community Service Centre to reach 600,000 villages in the country. What would you say are the three most key issues that must be debated widely for global consensus to build? However, three most important issues in my opinion should be: 1. Accessing Internet to All and reach at least next billion. 2. Making Internet Secure from the fraud and other crimes 3. Making Internet available in one’s own language and script. In times to come, will agencies like ICANN and NRO continue to have a role? I will put it this way. Growing use of the Internet will require it to be stable and secure. Any individual using the Internet has to be uniquely identifiable. What ever be the underlying technology, protocols etc. required there will have to be a coordination mechanism to maintain this stability and security. Presently, it is done by ICANN and NRO. In future, if any agency comes, they will should able to continue to honour the basic principles of Internet. As hosts of the upcoming IGF, would you share with us some of the efforts made by your department to ensure a smooth and effective conference? Department of Information Technology, Government of India is hosting the event. There is a Coordination committee under the Chairmanship of The Secretary, DIT with Members from concerned Government agencies like, Information and Broadcasting, Department of Telecommunications, Ministry of Home Affairs, Ministry of External Affairs, Industry Associations like CII, FICCI, ASSOCHAM, NASSCOM, ISPAI, NIXI. There are DIT societies like C-DAC, STPI, ERNET, CERT-in, who are also involved. There is a core team of four persons working round the clock consisting of myself, Govind, Senior Director, Rajesh Aggarwal, ACEO, NIXI and Tulika Pandey, Additional Director. As this is a UN IGF meeting we have to abide by the UN rules and regulations which calls for stringent norms and stipulations for each and every item of delegate facilitation. It starts from giving gratis visas to all the delegates. The actions have been taken in all dimensions of the preparations to make IGF a smooth and successful meeting. These cover logistic arrangements like venue and hotel arrangements, audio-visual.

Internet has changed the modes of communications and our lifestyles. Free access to, as also dissemination of, information is wrought with many unforeseen issues. This paper looks at the issues of the Internet medium, the need for a forum of multistakeholders, and other related public policy issues under the aegis of IGF

Introduction If we have to choose one word that describes this age, this century that is barely a decade old, it would be ‘network.’ The decade has spawned a plethora of terms beginning with ‘inter,’ the ‘Internet’ being the most prominent and pervasive of them. Interwoven with interconnections, interrelations and interdependencies, the world is becoming progressively small. The disappearance of distances, literally and metaphorically has offered us unprecedented opportunities to graduate from citizens of our respective nations to ‘netizens’ with no geographical borders. We are fast becoming part of a community that chooses to overlook geographical boundaries and linguistic distinctions. Connectivity is pulling down walls, and bridging gaps. Despite its localized origin, the Internet has become a global network with tremendous potentials. The Internet is characterized by a dynamism that finds quick solutions to urgent issues. The Internet can be a tool to build on an Information Society which is, or ought to be, inclusive, human-centered, and geared to progress and development, promoting a global communications environment. But what is essential for this is a spirit of sharing, of connectivity, of mutual respect and support. Its successful functioning is predicated on equality and global confidence. It is for this purpose that IGF has been instituted.

Digital Revolution and Information Society Dr Govind Sr Director MoCIT, Department of Information Technology, Government of India drgovind@nic.in

The digital revolution, fired by the engines of Information and Communication Te c h n o l o g i e s , h a s f u n d a m e n t a l l y changed the way people think, behave, communicate, learn and disseminate information. It has changed the world’s economic and business practices, changed

the way governments function and engage politically. As access to information and knowledge is a prerequisite to achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), it has the capacity to improve living standards for millions of people around the world. Moreover better communication between peoples helps resolve conflicts and attain world peace. However, while the digital revolution has extended the frontiers of the global village, the vast majority of the world remains untouched by this phenomenon. With the ever-widening gulf between knowledge and ignorance, the development gap between the rich and the poor among and within countries has also increased. It has therefore, become imperative for the international community to bridge this digital divide and place the MDGs on the ICT-accelerated speedway to achievement. WSIS and IGF The UN General Assembly Resolution 56/183 (http://www.itu.int/wsis/docs/ background/resolutions/56_183_unga_ 2002.pdf) dated 21 December 2001 endorsed the holding of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in two phases. The first phase took place in Geneva from 10 to 12 December 2003 and the second phase took place in Tunis, from 16 to 18 November 2005. Geneva Phase: 10-12 December 2003 The objective of the first phase was to develop and foster a clear statement of political will and take concrete steps to establish the foundations for an Information Society for all, reflecting on all the different interests at stake. Nearly 50 Heads of State/Governments, Vice-Presidents, 82 Ministers, and 26 Vicei4d | December 2008

Ministers from 175 countries as well as high-level representatives from international organisations, private sector, and civil society attended the Geneva Phase of WSIS and gave political support to the Geneva Declaration of Principles and Geneva Plan of Action that were adopted on 12 December 2003. More than 11,000 participants from 175 countries attended the Summit and related events. Tunis Phase: 16-18 November 2005 The objective of the second phase was to put the Geneva Plan of Action into motion as well as to find solutions and reach agreements in the fields of Internet Governance, financing mechanisms, and follow-up and implementation of the Geneva and Tunis documents. The Tunis Phas of WSIS generated the Tunis Commitment and Tunis Agenda for the Information Society that were adopted on 18 November 2005. More than 19,000 participants from 174 countries attended the Summit and related events. The summit has been notable in its adoption of a multistakeholder approach and with the involvement of civil society, private sector along with Governments and international organisation. Tunis agenda gave birth to the creation of Internet Governance Forum (IGF). The IGF implies the development and application by Governments, the private sector and civil society, in their respective roles, of shared principles, norms, rules, decisionmaking procedures, and programmes that shape the evolution and use of the Internet. It recognizes that Internet governance includes more than Internet naming and addressing. It also includes other significant public policy issues such as critical Internet resources, security and safety of the Internet, developmental aspects and issues pertaining to the use of the Internet. Besides, it recognises the effectiveness of the existing Internet governance arrangements, and the need to initiate a process for spurring the evolution of the current arrangements. The IGF’s mandate is to: • Discuss public policy issues • Facilitate exchange of information and best practices • Facilitate discourse between international bodies dealing with international public policies • Enhance engagement of various stakeholders particularly those from developing countries • Identify emerging issues, bring them to the attention of the relevant bodies and, where appropriate, make recommendations • Contribute to capacity building for Internet governance in developing countries The first IGF Meeting was held in Athens, Greece from October 30th to November 2nd, 2006. A 40 Member Advisory Group (Multistakeholder Advisory Group) helped in developing the meeting agenda, structure, themes, etc. The Advisory Group was drawn from Private sector, Government, Civil Society, academic, etc. The themes were: • Access • Diversity • Openness • Security December 2008 | www.i4donline.net

The second IGF Meeting was held in Rio de Janeiro form 12-15 November 2007. Building on and learning from Athens the meeting maintained the same themes of Athens, adding in a new theme on ‘Critical Internet Resources’. Access One of the foremost issues is the Access to the Internet. The main theme of IGF at Hyderabad is Internet for All - reaching the next billion. Growth towards the next billion(s) will primarily be driven by the developing countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. There are access challenges in rural areas and low cost access solutions. Skills development, training and capacity building in the use of technology is another dimension to the overall theme. Access will involve mobile wireless platform. It will address issues like: • International infrastructure reliability, connectivity policy and costs • Local and regional interconnection and cross-border regulation • Economic impact of access • Issues related to net neutrality • Innovative business models, made possible by the Internet, for dealing with digital content and their application in development • Open source software, proprietary software and open standards • The challenges of access to information and knowledge and what can be done to overcome them • Maximizing access to content Diversity Tomorrow’s Internet is going to be multi-lingual. The present Internet is mainly dominated by English language content and script. The stakeholders need to develop a working mechanism for further cooperation to transform it into a multilingual Internet. The focus will be on solutions and means to encourage greater stakeholder participation in the activities and processes attempting to achieve a truly multilingual Internet. Diversity will involve the issues like the following:

Building support and stimulating demand for locally developed content. This includes content that is not commercially viable, software support and the role of audiovisual communication The role of open standards in promoting diversity The involvement of language communities in developing internationalized domain names (IDN) and in developing multi-lingual content, including content in indigenous and minority languages Technologies, policies, and capacity building to reduce illiteracy and to provide access and accessible content for marginalized and vulnerable groups of society, including older persons and people with disabilities Public policies concerned with User Generated Content (UGC)

•

• •

•

Openness

• • • • • •

•

This is concerned with: Freedom of expression and the role of governments to protect that freedom Protection of privacy and its relation to freedom of expression The relationship between national regulations on freedom of expression and the border-free Internet The relationship between private enterprise, human rights, and compliance with national laws The balance between citizens’ rights, and the rights of IPR holders Innovative business models made possible by the Internet, for dealing with digital content and their application in development Open source software, proprietary software and open standards

Security A problem that should engage our serious attention is the security of the Internet. In today’s context, ensuring safety and security of cyber space throws up new challenges and opportunities. It is quite a daunting task to simultaneously ensure IT-enabled growth and development and at the same time prevent fraudsters and criminals from exploiting the weaknesses in IT systems & networks. There

are many avenues for development/ creation of new products, processes & services that can help us strike a balance between productive growth and adequate security. • The definition of security threats, international security cooperation, including such issues as cybercrime, cyber terrorism and cyber warfare need to be attended to. • The relationship between national implementation and international cooperation has to be crystallized. • Cooperation across national boundaries, taking into account different legal policies on privacy, combating crime and promoting security has to be promoted. • The role of all stakeholders in the implementation of security measures • Security of Internet resources • Authentication and identification of bonafide users • Authentication and identification and their role in fostering trust online and its relation to the protection of privacy • Challenges to privacy in a secure environment • Respecting freedom of expression • Security issues related to the protection of children • Protecting children from abuse and exploitation in the online environment Emerging issues in IGF include: • Emerging pervasive nature of the Internet in the political, economic, and social context • Policy implication of the rapid roll out of wireless and mobile Internet • Policy implications of user generated content • Implications of competition policy

Conclusion The issues to be tackled are multifarious, which include the legal aspects as we work towards an Internet Governance structure. Also, the need to make the Internet truly global, by achieving the dissemination of as well as access to information in multiple languages is imperative to ensure equal development of all communities and regions IGF is a continuous process of engaging all stakeholders to discuss the issues emerging from time to time in the area of Internet and its policy matters. This is the platform which provides open dialogue on the main issues like access, diversity, openness and security and critical Internet resources. Though the perceptions and the level of discussions may vary from one IGF to another, depending upon the global socio-economic and political scenario, this forum is expected to bring a better understanding of the issues. i4d | December 2008

INTERVIEW : RAJESH AGGARWAL, ADDITIONAL CEO, NIXI

Managing networks: The NIXI way In the context of IGF 2008, Ritu Srivastava and Rajat Banerjee of CSDMS spoke to Rajesh Agarwal, Additional CEO, National Internet Exchange of India (NIXI). In this exclusive interview, Rajesh’s opinions and views on NIXI’s role in Internet governance and administration are discussed.

Could you briefly explain to our readers, the role and functioning of NIXI? NIXI (National Internet exchange of India (NIXI) was set up in 2003 by joint association with Internet Service Providers Association of India (ISPAI) and the Department of Information Technolgy (DIT), Government of India. It was set up as a neutral exchange point in the country. The basic fundamental idea behind an Internet exchange point like NIXI is that different ISPs come to a neutral location – one location, in which only one router is set up and a number of ISPs connect to it thus reducing the number of bilateral peering required. Moreover, this kind of multilateral peering is more commercially viable. A single Internet exchange point has other benefits also. One is, having a number of exchange points within a country helps in keeping Internet traffic with source and target within that country. This saves international bandwidth. A few years ago, the international bandwidth cost was too high though it is not so critical now. For example, if a packet December 2008 | www.i4donline.net

from Bombay to Delhi takes a circuitous route and comes through US, Singapore, Australia etc, - it may take 600-700 milliseconds. But if it takes a shorter path within India, it may come in 60-70 milliseconds. In many applications like VoIP (Voice on Internet Protocol) or video transmission, etc, a difference of anything beyond 100 milliseconds can cause breaks in the service. So having a latency of 30-50 milliseconds through setting up more and more exchange points, helps in these kinds of applications. There is a security angle also. If our packet remains within India, other people cannot really sniff it. Presently, we have seven functional exchange points in Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Kolkata, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Ahmedabad. We are handling about five GBPS of traffic which is about 10% of the country’s traffic. We have about 30 ISPs connected to various exchange points and practically all the major functional ISPs are connected to us. Another thing which NIXI has been doing since January 2005, is running dotIN registry.

We started with a base of about 5000 names and only last week we have crossed five lakh mark. We have user-friendly policies in dotIN and we are also in the process of bringing further policy changes to help the Indian users. There are also many initiatives in which NIXI is engaged. Foremost among these is NIXI’s involvement in IPv6 awareness campaigns. We have organised various IPv6 awareness workshops with the help of Asia Pacific Network Information Centre (APNIC) and other organisations. We have also encouraged engineers and other staff of ISP to take online courses in IPv6. We have also set up test beds in Mumbai and Delhi for ISPs to share IPv6 packets on an experimental basis. We hope that we will remain the forefront of IPv6 transition in the country. Another effort we are enthusiastic about is talking to Linux community to encourage open source solutions in Indian languages and other areas. We are also involved in various Internet-related forums like Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), Internet Governance Forum (IGF), Internet Society (ISOC), APNIC, Asia Pacific Top Level Domain Association (APTLD), South Asian Network Operators’ Group (SANOG), etc. How is NIXI involved in the IGF 2008? What are some of the issues that you would like to address in this year’s forum? IGF is a forum where people of all shades come and we hope that people from diverse walks of life will attend IGF and share their issues and experiences. Some major issues that will be discussed in IGF 2008 include spam, child pornography cyber safety, phishing of banking accounts, multilingualism , diversity of content, censorship etc. The issue of access is also extremely important and needs to be deliberated upon. The rural-urban divide, the income-divide, gender issues etc., broadly come under access. On access, we in India, somehow give more focus on hard issues like bandwidth provisioning, spectrum allocation and forget software issues related to access. Is there a realistic possibility of routing the Internet traffic, generated from India and destined for India, to be routed through Indian servers without sending them outside the country? Internet packets originating in the country and destined for the country remain in India due to very effective bilateral peering between ISPs and due to seven exchange points of NIXI where multilateral peering is done. Practically this ensures domestic traffic remaining domestic. However, while in developed countries about 2/3rd traffic is domestic and 1/3rd international, in India it is the reverse. This is mainly because of two main reasons. First, despite having local content, many sites are hosted outside India as web hosting in India is still expensive. Secondly, we don’t have sufficient content and people are still dependent upon foreign content and foreign websites for various applications, news and entertainment. That is why a majority of our traffic is still international. What is the current number of IDN registrations in Indian languages since it was launched in March 2008 in India? Presently, we give dotIN domain names in what is called LDH (Letters A-Z, Digits 0-9 and the Hyphen). So the domain

names are still ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange) or English alphabet. We have been participating in ICANN discussions in various forums like Country Code Names Supporting Organisation (CCNSO) in a very effective manner in the issue of introduction of Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs). Our various stakeholders and industry partners are all very active in the process of policy-making within ICANN for new IDNs in various languages. We have been able to convince the international community that we have 22 official languages and we must be able to get domain names in all the languages. We hope that ICANN will complete various procedures and policies required for the introduction of IDNs in the next 4-5 months and by the mid of 2009, we should be able to introduce IDNs in our languages both in country name extensions like dotBharat in various languages as well as a few generic domain names. The crux of the matter in multilingualism is not really IDN but it is the availability of operating systems, applications, easy keyboards and local content. Just having the domain names in local languages will only be icing on the cake. For the Internet community and for the domain name community, IDN is quite important and we will not waste even a day after the application process is opened in ICANN. NIXI and the government are fully ready with basic preparatory work for introduction of IDNs and as soon as the application process is open sometimes in early next year, we will be ready to file applications and actually quickly launch a few domain names in Indian languages. Is there any body to govern the local content? Local content is no different from English content. Internet is an open democratic word and we don’t have an Internet censorship in India. It is not really controlled by anybody and is a force in itself. Only when something is too offensive or wrong, various stakeholders come together to ask for blocking it. We see interventions in the rarest of rare cases. The free flow of information is the key to the growth of Internet and the same principles should apply to content in any other languages also. So the law or procedures will not be different for local content. Has India acceded to the Council of Europe’s Convention on Cybercrime? What are the various steps for India to get on board? There are a number of forums and conventions for countries to cooperate on various matters concerning cybercrime. Council of Europe’s Convention on cybercrime is comprehensive – though many countries have different viewpoints on the convention. Sometimes, not all the clauses are agreeable to many countries in a legal sense and sometimes the clauses don’t really fit into the existing legal system of different countries. While India still hasn’t signed the convention, there have been interactions with the European counterpart in a large number of forums at different levels. India is pretty well-placed as far as cooperation on cybercrime with other countries has been till now. The interactions through various mechanisms till now have been effective. But again Internet is a dynamic world with new types of technologies and crimes creeping in with every passing hour. i4d | December 2008

INTERVIEW : NARESH AJWANI, SECRETARY, ISPAI AND NRO - MEMBER COUNCIL (APNIC) INDIA

Managing the networks What is your opinion on the current status of Internet Governance and Internet Management in India? Good Internet Management would facilitate Good Internet Governance but it’s not the other way round as Governance is just one of many stakeholders to ensure good management Naresh Ajwani, Secretary, Internet Service Providers Association of India of the Internet. In (ISPAI) talks on Internet governance India, National Internet E xc h a n g e o f In d i a (NIXI)/Internet Service Providers (ISPs) are playing a constructive role in managing Internet and similarly Department of Information Technology (DIT), Government of India, under the leadership of Jainder Singh and R Chandrashekhar, vide the National eGovernance Plan being driven by them, is making all Government services accessible to the common man in his locality through common service delivery outlets and ensuring efficiency, transparency and reliability of such services at affordable costs to realise their basic needs. of the common man. Undoubtedly, both the stakeholders are evenly guided by Thiru A Raja, Hon’ble Minister for Communications and Information Technology. Could you briefly explain to our readers, the role and functioning of ISPAI? The Internet Service Providers Association of India (ISPAI) was set up in 1998 with a mission to ‘Promote Internet for the benefit of all’. ISPAI started activities in 1994 as (EISPAI), when e-mail licensees such as Sprint RPG Ltd, Global Telecom Services Ltd, Wipro Ltd, Datapro Information Technology Ltd, Crompton Greaves Ltd, Satyam Infoway Ltd (Sify), etc. came together with the purpose of initiating continuous dialogues with the Department of Telecommunications and seeking remedy for various shortcomings in the License Conditions, impress upon the licensor to review, change and add new guidelines, last but not the least, exercise the right to obtain timely and quality infrastructure and resources to enable High Quality Services to be delivered by the licensees/operators. ISPAI works closely with Department of Telecommunications (DoT), DIT, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) and Industry Associations such as Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI), Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), Assocham, etc. It is our constant endeavour to take up and resolve various issues that affect implementation of the ISPs’ projects. December 2008 | www.i4donline.net

What steps have been taken by ISPAI to promote Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and entrepreneurs in the business of Internet? The forward-looking Internet Service Providers (ISP) policy in late 1998 was the result of the pro-active approach of the ISPAI. It encouraged lot of professionals and young entrepreneurs to start an ISP and/or related business such as website design and development, web site hosting, domain names registration, etc. Several Telecom and IT professionals working in foreign countries quit their jobs and joined the Internet revolution in the country. Initially Internet Industry grew about 200% for the first 2-3 years. Tell us some of the achievements of ISPAI in terms of bandwidth regulation and regulation of ISPs. Despite authors of ISP policy having a mission to benefit the common man, shortage of bandwidth became one of the key challenge. ISPAI worked closely with Government and played a vital role in privatisation of International Gateways within the laid security constraints. At the same time ISPAI worked closely with TRAI to put a cap on International Private Leased Circuit (IPLC)/Internet Bandwidth as well as Lease Line tariff. How is ISPAI providing a platform for hardware, software and ISP Solution Vendors? ISPAI is as association of Internet Service Providers which uses hardware, software and other solutions provided by various vendors. It helps in providing a platform wherein Vendors and ISPs can discuss their requirement, issues and share experiences which will help the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM)/vendors in improving the products/services. Do you think that the shift from IPv4 to IPv6 is going to increase the number of Internet users substantially? Well, it is about Capacity and thereby, it may be getting connected to numbers/volume and lower costs, etc. Having said that, it goes without saying that both, the IPv4 and IPv6 have to co-exist so it is not a ‘shift’ even, it’s a transition - natural and mandatory for growth! What are your expectations from IGF2008? While the terminology IGF may give an impression that it is a Government space but under the leadership of Nitin Desai and Markus Kummer it has become the ecosystem of Internet. All the four main stake holders - government, business, society and academics have debated and triggered what is right for Internet! Yes, we also wish that they shall cover challenges being faced by Cybercafés/Shared PCs which is the way for ‘next billion’ in developing countries.

CLIMATE CHANGE NEWS “Decisive action and global solidarity” needed to combat climate change: UNSG in Beijing The Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao has urged developed nations to take responsibility and obligations to address climate change. He further stressed on the importance of adopting a more sustainable way of life during the ‘High-level Conference on Climate Technology Development and Technology Transfer’ that started in Beijing, China on 7th November, 2008. The conference, co-organised by China and the UN, was attended by more than 600 people from nearly 100 countries including 30 ministerial officials and four UN agency heads apart from representatives of other governments, international and non-governmental organisations. The conference ended on the 8th of November with the UN announcing the Beijing Declaration on Climate Change, calling for strengthened international co-operation and improved technology transfers to battle climate change. UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, in an address delivered by Sha Zukang, Under Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs, stressed on the need for increased funding for clean technology, given that global energy demand is estimated to surge by over 50 percent by 2030. Emphasising on the need for ‘decisive action and global solidarity’, Mr Ban stated that the poorest and most vulnerable, who have contributed least to global warming, face the greatest challenge in adapting to its impact. He also reminded the participants to ensure that the next round of climate change talks in Poznan, Poland, next month is successful and to also make certain that when the talks wrap up in December 2009 in Copenhagen, the world has ushered in a successor pact to the Kyoto Protocol. Source: UN News Centre and China Daily

World Food Day links hunger with climate change and bioenergy T h e Fo o d a n d A g r i c u l t u r e Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) celebrates World Food Day every year on the 16th of October, the day when the organisation was founded in 1945. This year, the focus was on climate change and bioenergy. Explaining the relevance of the theme, Alexander Mueller, FAO Assistant Director-General for Natural Resources Management and Environment Department, said, “Global warming is already underway and adaptation strategies are now a matter of urgency, especially for the most vulnerable poor countries. Hundreds of millions of small-scale farmers, fishers and forest-dependent people will be worst hit by climate change. Adaptation strategies, especially for the most vulnerable poor countries, where most of the over 920 million hungry people live, need to be urgently developed, reviewing land use plans, food security programmes, fisheries and forestry policies to protect the poor from climate change.”

Speaking during the ceremony, former US President Bill Clinton urged the international community to stop using the global financial crisis ‘as an excuse’ to avoid dealing with escalating hunger, adding that over the long term, only agricultural selfsufficiency could take a significant bite out of world hunger and stave off future financial woes. Source: FAO Newsroom

UNDP unveils initiative to help governments tackle climate change The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has launched a new initiative to help both national governments and local regions strengthen their capacity to deal with the challenges posed by climate change. The initiative was unveiled at the World Summit of Regions on Climate Change held between 29-30 October, 2008 at Saint Malo, France. Christophe Nuttall, Director of UNDP’s HUB for Innovative Partnerships, said the current approach to dealing with global warming challenges favoured the development of numerous small, dispersed and fragmented projects. “We believe it would be useful to develop a complementary (and) yet comprehensive integrated local planning framework that involves sub-national governments in the search for solutions,” he said. Under the initiative, developing and emerging economies will receive extra resources to deal with climate change through collaborations with regional authorities in developing countries, and from carbon trading mechanisms. Yannick Glemarec, UNDP Director for Environment Finance, said the new initiative will help poor communities in developing countries access new funding sources, such as carbon finance, special insurance products and innovative funds for adaptation. Source: UN News Centre

Wind power can prevent climate change According to a report published by the Global Wind Energy Council and Greenpeace International titled, ‘Global Wind Energy Outlook 2008’, wind power can produce 12 percent of the world’s total energy needs and also reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 10 billion tonnes within 12 years. The report looks at the global potential of wind power up to the year 2050 and explains how wind energy can provide up to 30 per cent of the world’s electricity by the middle of the century. Wind energy has already become a mainstream power source in many parts of the world and has been deployed in around 70 countries. Apart from the obvious environmental benefits, wind energy is a sustainable source of power generation which is an answer to the ever fluctuating fossil fuel prices. Wind energy is also becoming an important tool for economic development and provides more than 3,50,000 jobs in direct and indirect employment, a figure that is projected to increase to over two million by 2020. A coalition of wind companies, associations and nongovernment organisations are slated to launch a campaign December 2008

advocating for enhanced international governmental action on wind energy. The ‘Wind Power Works’ campaign will run for a year until the round of climate change talks at Copenhagen in December 2009. Source: The Hindu

Pakistan establishes a task force on climate change The Planning Commission of Pakistan has set up a task force to study the impact of climate change on the nation’s agriculture, economy and natural resources. According to Ishfaq Ahmad, Science and Technology Advisor to the Prime Minister and Chairman of the task force, the task force will conduct research to understand the effects of climate change on the natural environment and important sectors such as agriculture, the economy, energy and water resources, and assess the resulting losses to these sectors. On the basis of this research, a policy will be formulated to undertake mitigation and adaptation efforts. Syed Arsalan from the Leadership for Environment and Development (LEAD) programme said that his organisation has already devised an adaptation strategy for climate change for Pakistan and carried out a vulnerability assessment in light of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change findings. The task force will be Co-Chaired by Shamsul Mulk, the former Chairman of the Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA), and include Shafqat Kakakhel, former Deputy Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme, and other members include the heads of WAPDA, the Pakistan Meteorological Department, the Global Change Impact Studies Centre and LEAD. Source: SciDev.Net

Dynamic Coalition on Internet and Climate Change The Internet Governance Forum to be held in Hyderabad, India between 3-6 December, 2008 will, along with the main sessions and workshops, host a number of ‘Dynamic Coalition Meetings.’ One of the meetings among them will deliberate on the impact of the Internet on Climate Change. According to some estimates, the Internet consumes about one trillion kilowatt hours of electricity every year which amounts to about 5 percent of the world’s total electricity consumption. Though the numerous computers, laptops and screens share a substantial part of this consumption, data centres are also major energy consumers. As Internet access is increased in the developing countries, (which is also on the agenda of the IGF) more electricity will be consumed. Hence, there is a genuine need to create and use more energy efficient systems and networks as also increasing awareness about the issue among people and communities. The ‘Dynamic Coalition on Internet and Climate Change’ (DCICC), is an open body which is committed to the moderation of the environmental impact of the Internet and intends to seek new ways to utilise the powers of the Internet for reducing greenhouse gas emissions worldwide in line with the objectives set and to be set under the UNFCCC. Founding members of the DCICC are International Telecommunication Union (ITU), Global December 2008 | www.i4donline.net

e-Sustainability Initiative (GeSI), Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC Japan), British Telecom (UK), Deutsche Telekom (Germany). The first meeting of the DCICC is scheduled for 4 th December 2008 at the Hyderabad edition of the Internet Governance Forum to deliberate upon the objectives and activities of the Coalition and to consider key issues concerning the relation between the Internet and climate change, indicating the Internet’s impact on climate change and pointing out its potential for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions The draft programme of the first meeting is available at http://www.intgovforum.org/cms/dc_workshops_08/igf_dcicc_ MEETING.pdf

Declaration to combat climate change in APEC meeting Leaders from Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation member economies vowed to boost regional economic integration and food security, and to combat climate change and corruption, in a declaration issued after a two-day APEC Economic Leaders’ Meeting in Lima, Peru. Nineteen leaders from the APEC member economies attended the summit, part of the Leaders’ Week on Nov. 16-23. Established in 1989, APEC groups Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, China, China’s Hong Kong, Chinese Taipei, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Peru, the Philippines, Russia, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand, the United States and Vietnam. ‘A New Commitment to Asia-Pacific Development,’ highlighted the importance of reducing the gap between developed and developing member economies, said the document, adopted at the 16th edition of the APEC meeting. On climate change, the leaders called for comprehensive plans to address the issue through international cooperation under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 2009. “We support decisive and effective long term cooperation now, up to and beyond 2012 to address climate change under the UNFCCC, in accordance with the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities,” they said. The leaders also recognised the economic diversity and different domestic circumstances of individual APEC economies in addressing climate change and welcomed the establishment of the Asia-Pacific Network for sustainable Forest Management and Rehabilitation, and voiced their appreciation towards China’s commitment to further financial support for this initiative. They strongly supported international cooperation and capacity building for mitigation and adaptation. The leaders reaffirmed their commitment to supporting the energy needs of regional economies by promoting open energy markets and free energy trade and investment. Source: http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-11/24/content_ 10401934.htm

POSITION PAPER, ASSOCIATION FOR PROGRESSIVE COMMUNICATIONS (APC), MELVILLE, SOUTH AFRICA

Access - connecting the next billion This article is based on the Association for Progressive Communications (APC) Issue Paper ‘Building Consensus on Internet Access at the IGF’ by Abiodon Jagun. Abiodun Jagun is a Research Fellow in the Department of Management Science at the University of Strathclyde Business School, Glasgow. Her research interests lie in the impact of technology on society, and issues on communication technology policy in sub-Saharan Africa. http://www.apc.org/en/system/ files/APCIssuePaper_200805_IGF_EN.pdf. Willie Currie, Communication and Information Policy Programme Manager, APC has also commented on the article.

Introduction At the end of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Tunis in November 2005, just over a billion people were connected to the Internet. Three years later in November 2008, there are 1.5 billion people connected.1 It is possible that the WSIS goal of connecting half the world’s population to the Internet by 2015 will be reached. The importance attached to this goal is reflected in the main theme of the Internet Governance Forum in Hyderabad in 2008 - ‘Internet for all’ and one of the main sessions is focusing on ‘Reaching the next billion(s)’. However, the goalposts are continually moving when it comes to access and the question that arises is that as the next billion Internet users will primarily come from developing countries, will they have broadband access to the Internet or not? According to EU Telecom Commissioner, Viviane Reding, “High speed Internet is the passport to the Information Society and an essential condition for economic growth”.2 However there are significant challenges in developing the policy and infrastructure that would achieve this form of access in developing countries. There is a broad recognition that while the digital divide has closed dramatically with regard to voice telephony, driven by the spread of mobile, a new access gap is emerging with respect to access to broadband Internet infrastructure and services. In this decade, the rapid increase in user-generated content and interactivity

on the Internet, sometimes known as Web 2.03, has transformed the digital environment. This process was facilitated by the expansion of broadband Internet access and the eclipse of narrowband Internet access through dial-up connectivity. In 2004, the number of broadband subscribers in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries surpassed the number of dialup subscribers. At the end of 2003, there were 83 million broadband subscribers in the OECD. By June 2007, there were 221 million - an increase of 165%4. In 2006, about 70% of broadband subscribers world-wide were located in OECD countries, which accounted for 16% of the world’s population, with 30% of broadband subscribers in developing countries with 84% of the world’s population. The situation in Least Developed Countries (LDCs) is much worse – there were 46,000 broadband subscribers in the 22 out of 50 LDCs with broadband service in 2006.5

In search of solutions The IGF has sought to achieve this through the workshops and plenary sessions devoted to access issues that were held during its inaugural meeting in Athens, Greece and at its second meeting in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Whilst the IGF has contributed to an increase in understanding of the issues and challenges inhibiting access to the Internet in developing countries, it has not been explicit in ‘proposing ways and

means’ by which such issues and challenges can be addressed in order to accelerate access in the developing world. Hopefully IGF 2008 in Hyderabad can take this task forward and see whether the consensus on access that stakeholders demonstrated in the second IGF meeting in Rio de Janeiro in 2007 can be built on and developed further – perhaps by working towards a multi-stakeholder manifesto on achieving affordable universal broadband access to the Internet.6 Elements of such a manifesto are contained in Mike Jensen’s input to the IGF in Rio de Janeiro, where he proposed that the goal of affordable universal broadband could be met by: • More competition and innovation in the Internet and telecom sector, with effective regulation • Much more backbone fibre, national and international, with effective regulation of non-discriminatory access to the bandwidth by operators and service providers • More effort to build demand, especially by national governments to build useful local applications • Improved availability of electric power • Better indicators for measuring progress

Access: The APC perspective T h e A s s o c i a t i o n f o r Pr o g r e s s i v e Communications (APC) believes that the limited access to the Internet that exists in the developing world is largely a function of i4d | November 2008

two factors: first the sparse deployment of broadband networks and secondly the high cost of access to existing physical Internet infrastructure7,8. APC is therefore actively involved in promoting the prioritisation of issues on access to Internet infrastructure on the global agenda, including in the Internet governance sector. APC also advocates on these issues at regional and national levels through people-centred and public-interest orientated initiatives9. A manifesto would therefore have to directly address barriers to the deployment of new infrastructure and utilisation of existing ones. Based on APC’s ongoing activities in promoting access to Internet infrastructure on the global agenda, our suggestion is for a multi-stakeholder approach that promotes telecom policy coherence, expansion of participation in network development and the adoption of a multi-sectoral approach to ICT deployment.

Fostering availability, accessibility, and affordability of the Internet Our suggestion come from observations made at the second IGF meeting, in particular the semblance of convergence of opinion and recommendations on how the availability, accessibility, and affordability of the Internet can be improved upon in the developing world. Three main areas in which opinions were seen to converge were identified: first, there appeared to be agreement that the competitive (market) model10 has been effective in increasing access in developing countries. There were calls for policy coherence in the telecom sectors of developing nations – specifically ‘for the principles of competition to be consistently and evenly applied to all areas of the telecom sector11. Second, there was recognition of the applicability of collaborative models for providing access in areas where traditional market models seem to have failed. Such areas include rural and other underserved areas where the participation of diverse network operators and providers – including municipal government authorities, cooperatives, and community operators has contributed to increasing access. There were therefore calls for the review of policy and regulation, and the establishment of incentives to facilitate increased participation by this cadre of operators. November 2008 | www.i4donline.net

Third, there continues to be conviction and consensus on the potential of ICTs as tools for development – particularly at the level of rural and local access. For example, ICTs can be used in increasing accessibility to healthcare and education; they can help in decreasing vulnerabilities and improving citizen engagement with governments and their institutions. There was a therefore a call for the promotion and adoption of a multi-sectoral approach in achieving universal, affordable and equitable access. Specifically the integration of ICT regulation and policy with local development strategies, as well as the exploitation of complementarities between different types of development infrastructure (for example transport networks, water pipes/canals, power/ electrification, communication etc). The observed convergence of views however requires further interrogation/ examination. There is for example (at least at face value) an inherent contradiction between acceptance of the ‘efficacy of competitive models and its promotion in the telecom sector, and the call for increased participation of a more diverse range of network operators and providers most of whom adopt non-market models (to achieve wider access in rural areas). Were all stakeholders at the IGF truly in agreement that in order to make universal access a reality, competitive models need to coexist (at the same period of time) with collaborative ones? Whilst recognising that the IGF operates primarily as a space for discussion, in the case of Access it is also a space in which commonality of opinion occurs to the level at which ‘recommendations’ can be made and repeatedly asserted independently/ individually in the workshops, and strategically reinforced at different levels of the IGF.

Achieving affordable universal broadband access A multi-stakeholder manifesto on achieving affordable universal broadband access to the Internet can therefore be pursued at the IGF and rests on three pillars of supply, demand and development: Supply: the enhancement of the development of and access to infrastructure - in recognising that the availability of Internet infrastructure needs to be

considered hand-in-hand with the affordability of the infrastructure, this calls for the consistent implementation of competitive regimes and the creation of incentives that facilitate the co-existence of competitive and collaborative models for providing and/or improving access. Demand: the localisation of ICT and Telecom policies and regulation – refers to calls for a review of the ways in which access issues are articulated and ICT/Telecom policy and regulation is formulated. It asks that the translation/customisation of largely urban-centric policies be challenged and that greater emphasis be given to demand-side characteristics and the needs of rural/local communities. Development: promoting the development potential of ICTs and integrating access infrastructure initiatives with other basic needs – calls for a multi-sectoral approach to infrastructure development and regulation; specifically the integration of ICT regulation and policy with local development strategies, as well as the exploitation of complementarities between different types of development infrastructure.

Conclusion The convergence in opinions about how to address the challenges of access may be a result of a maturity in understanding of the issues relating to access that has built up over time and is discussed in other related bodies and fora. However, thinking and understanding of ‘tools’ and implementation procedures/processes of solutions for resolving/addressing these well understood issues and challenges cannot be described as having attained a similar level of maturity – in fact, particularly in the case of rural/local access they can be described as embryonic. It is broadly recognised that since the next billion Internet users will come from developing countries there will have to be new approaches to connecting everyone to the Internet. The strategies that stakeholders will need to adopt to ensure that the next billion in developing countries, are connected, will need to link supply, demand and development dynamically to respond to issues of making broadband access to the Internet affordable as well as widely available in rural areas.

References: 1. 2.

3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

See AMD’s 50x15 project http://50x15.com/en-us/internet_usage.aspx BBC news: EC call for ‘universal’ broadband, 26/09/2008 – EU Commissioner Reding says ‘it is the Commission’s policies to make broadband internet for all Europeans happen by 2010’. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2.0 OECD: Broadband Growth and Policies in OECD Countries, 2008, p23 ITU: Trends in telecommunications Reform: The Road to Next-Generation Networks (NGN), 2007, p5 Abiodun Jagun: Building Consensus on Internet Access at the IGF, APC, 2008 http:// www.apc.org/en/pubs/issue/openaccess/all/building-consensus-internet-access-igf See Esterhuysen, A. and W. Currie (2007). Open, universal, and affordable access to

10. 11.

the Internet. The Power of Ideas: Internet Governance in a Global Multi-Stakeholder Environment. W. Kleinwächter. Berlin, Marketing für Deutschland GmbH: 60-67 The Tunis Agenda also highlights the importance of physical infrastructure to the Internet and recognised the need for more (financial) resources to be investment in its development See the experience of the Catalysing Access to ICTs in Africa (CATIA) programme in Lishan Adam, Tina James and Alice Munyua Wanjira: Frequently Asked Questions about Multi-Stakeholder Partnerships in ICTs for Development, CATIA/APC, September 2007 One in which consumers are able to select from a range of providers, the product that best matches their needs at a price they feel is acceptable. See Press Release by APC: “Convergence of views on access at international internet forum.”

Internet Governance:

Information and Participation David Souter is Managing Director of ict Development Associates which provides expertise in information, communications and development issues, including Internet governance. He is also Visiting Professor in Communications Management at Strathclyde University and Visiting Senior Fellow in the London School of Economics. His book on WSIS is published by APC (http://www.apc.org/en/system/files/whose_summit_EN.pdf), and he is working with APC, the Council of Europe and UNECE on information and participation in Internet governance. He can be contacted at david.souter@runbox.com Internet governance differs from governance in almost every other important area of life. Governments and intergovernmental agencies have played almost no part in developing the standards or managing the resources that make up the Internet. As a result, it has evolved its own highly distributed governance arrangements, involving a large number of different entities with different responsibilities and different governance characteristics. This article considers briefly the implications this has for information and participation by stakeholders as the Internet continues to grow and extend its reach into social, economic, cultural and political life. The Internet’s essentially non-governmental governance structures are the result of its technical origins and its very rapid pace of growth. When the Internet was confined to scientific and academic communities, it had relatively little impact on society as a whole, intersected little with other areas of governance, and so attracted little government involvement. Its extraordinary growth in the 1990s and the present decade, however, means that it now has immense impact in many areas of society (at least, at present, in industrial countries) and intersects very substantially with other areas of governance, from crime to intellectual property rights, from trade to tax. Some of these profoundly affect the relationship between the citizen and the state, notably in areas such as privacy and security. This has changed the nature of what is considered Internet governance. The simplest way of differentiating between Internet governance issues and entities is to see them as a spectrum or continuum between two end-points: At one of these, “narrow” Internet governance deals with those issues that are concerned with the internal workings of the Internet – particularly technical issues such as the design of protocols. Narrower Internet governance issues are dealt with by (largely non-governmental) entities which are specific to the

Internet, such as the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). At the other end-point, “broad” Internet governance is concerned with issues where the Internet intersects with other, mainstream areas of governance – for example, with the telecommunications industry, with intellectual property rights, with trade and tax, with crime and security. These are not Internet-specific issues and are dealt with primarily by agencies (largely inter-governmental) who’s roots lie in conventional international governance, such as the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO). This is, of course, a simplification. Most issues (for example, the Domain Name System and spam) and entities (for example, ICANN and those concerned with crime or fraud) can be found not at the end-points but at some other point along this continuum. The implication of this from a governance point of view, however, is that – because the Internet is now of great importance in society – most issues of Internet governance have both Internet-specific and broad social/economic impacts. It is the Internet’s reach and significance today – achieved so quickly that established non-Internet governance entities affected by it had very little time to respond – that underlies many of the current controversies in Internet governance, in particular about who should be responsible for what and who should they be answerable to. The clash of cultures that is sometimes seen, between (at their extremes) a libertarian ethos which would exclude governments from the Internet, on the one hand, and an authoritarian ethos which implies that only governments have rule-making legitimacy, on the other, is an expression of this. More important, however, is the growing recognition within all entities concerned with the Internet (broad and narrow) that its disruptive impact on established international and national governments requires new paradigms of decision-making and i4d | November 2008

new structures that move from conflicts between governance regimes where the Internet intersects with other areas of social, economic, cultural and political life towards consensus about how these should be handled. What does all this mean for information and participation? Mainstream international governance agencies - including many of those that handle broad Internet governance issues - are mostly made up of governments, although some - within the UN system and beyond - have arrangements for private sector and civil society participation (for example, sector membership in the ITU and civil society representation in the UN ECOSOC). Some governments also involve private sector and civil society representatives in national delegations. Nevertheless, the root principle of most international governance is multilateral (equality between states) rather than multi-stakeholder (shared national representation). This has been a point of issue, in particular, for civil society. Narrow Internet governance entities which have their roots in the Internet’s own development, are very different, not just from this model but from one another. Their participation arrangements are highly diverse and some, such as ICANN, have experimented with a variety of options to balance the real and perceived requirements of their various stakeholders. Perhaps, the sharpest contrast with the mainstream governance model can be seen in the IETF, essentially an open association of individuals which develops standards and other technical instruments in the process of open debate and testing of ideas known as ‘rough consensus and running code’. This is markedly different from the standardisation processes led by the private sector and/or governments in other fields, from telecommunications to food safety. Many ‘narrow’ Internet governance bodies are, therefore, more informal and more open in principle to participation by anyone from any stakeholder community who wishes to participate than are ‘broad’ governance bodies which have more formal rules for participation and which channel representation through governments and associations. Most in the Internet community, and outside, think that this openness has done much to foster innovation in the Internet. Though open in principle, participation is dependent in practice on two factors: capacity (information and knowledge to engage effectively in governance processes) and peer group acceptance (which is related but not identical). As the Internet becomes more important, it has become more necessary for entities based within the Internet community and those in mainstream governance to work together, in order to develop common standards (e.g. at the interface between Internet and telecommunications, IETF and ITU) or to address common problems (such as spam). This area of intersection represents a challenge, but also an opportunity. It represents a challenge if the concerns of Internet and mainstream entities are seen as antithetical, i.e. as a contest between the experimental culture of the Internet and the more precautionary culture of standardisation and governance in other areas. Multi-stakeholder fora such as the IGF offer a space for resolving cultural differences of this kind, but only if the large majority of participants from governments and other stakeholder perspectives enter them with the object of identifying ways forward November 2008 | www.i4donline.net

rather than preferring to see them as arenas for conflict. A key issue here is the value of different communities with different cultural assumptions understanding why other stakeholders think the way they do and recognising the validity of different perspectives. Whatever the outcome of current debates, the interface between the Internet and mainstream governance requires adjustment of the relationships between stakeholders, and most participants feel that this requires more engagement by all stakeholder communities, which in turn requires greater information and participation rights. The 2002 Louder Voices study, for the G8 Digital Opportunities Task Force, identified the lack of usable information as a major constraint on developing country participation in international ICT decision-making, and it is just as much a constraint on civil society stakeholders and others with limited resources. It is, to a large extent, an issue of transparency. In the case of the Internet governance entities - both broad and narrow - could do much more to make information about their processes, issues under debate and conclusions more transparent, thereby encouraging inclusiveness which would have value not just in terms of the technical issues under consideration but of illuminating likely impacts of those issues on wider social, economic and cultural spheres. There has been a good deal of debate, since the World Summit on the Information Society adopted multi-stakeholder principles in 2003/5, about how information and participation can be encouraged and reach beyond the ‘discussion only’ format of the IGF. A nascent sense of frustration can already been discerned at the pace of multi-stakeholder development along these lines. One way of addressing this has been put forward, in the IGF framework, by three agencies concerned to develop dialogue and address policy issues across stakeholder boundaries. The Council of Europe, the UN Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) and the civil society Association for Progressive Communications (APC) have suggested that it would be worth drawing experience here from both the existing Internet governance bodies (particularly those “narrow” Internet governance bodies that have evolved their own governance procedures) and from what might be described as “best practice” on information and participation rights within mainstream governance. This best practice, they suggest, might be found in the Aarhus Convention, a UNECE agreement which establishes information and participation rights for citizens, private sector and civil society bodies in policy frameworks and decisions of environmental significance in Europe. The Aarhus Convention is an intergovernmental agreement, and so distinct from much narrow Internet governance experience. However, it includes a set of principles – as far-reaching as any agreed by governments to date in any policy context – to establish rights, structures and capacities for participation by nongovernmental stakeholders in policymaking and implementation. This could provide a sound starting-point for informal and, subsequently, more structured thinking about the best ways in which Internet governance bodies of all kinds could adapt to meet the new contexts for decision-making which result from the Internet’s growing importance in social and economic life. A report on these issues was produced for the three agencies during 2008 and will be discussed at a workshop to be held during the Hyderabad IGF.

ICANN, MARINA DEL REY, CA, USA

Imagining the future of the Internet In this era of online communications, IDNs, new gTLDs, and IPv6 will all play a major part in the expansion of the Internet thereby allowing billions of users to access and upload diverse resources in diverse languages

Roberto Gaetano Vice-Chair, Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) Board roberto@icann.org

The Internet is an amazing tool for human communication. It is global. It is interoperable. It is unique. And it is all accomplished on the basis of co-operation. No single entity decides on its own, the rules of the Internet. Those rules and the very operation of the Internet come about through co-operation among people from across the globe who share their ideas and share an interest in making sure the Internet works. It has been a decade since people from around the globe came together in the unique ICANN model. Those people came together from governments, the private sector, the technical community, business, academia, and civil society.

Creating the Domain Name System The unique model they helped create to look after the backbone of the Internet the Domain Name System (DNS) - was as unique as the Internet itself. The ICANN model means decisions are driven from the bottom-up. Decisions come from extensive public input and then move forward on the basis of consensus. Most importantly, ICANN’s role is about co-ordination rather than control. This model has accomplished a lot over the past decade. There has been increased competitiveness and availability of wider choices to consumers, both of which serve the Internet users better. That has happened through the registrar system for domain names that was implemented. It’s also come about because of new top-level domains that have been created. ICANN is right now nearing the final stages of two of the biggest changes to the Domain Name System since the Internet began - Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs) and an expansion of new generic TopLevel Domains (gTLDs).

The IDN programme ICANN’s IDNs programme has been an ongoing project to bring the characters of the languages of the world online and available for domain names. This is a large task - both in terms of technical challenges and in terms of policy. Right now, in the part of the domain name, after the dot, only 26 characters can be used: the letters A through Z from the Roman character set. Or what looks like the English alphabet to most people. When the IDNs programme is complete, close to 100,000 characters and graphic signs used in different languages will be available. People will be able to create toplevel domains in characters from diverse languages of the world - from Arabic, from Chinese, from Hindi, from Greek. Imagine the innovation that this will unleash. People will see opportunities to reach out to their language communities, to build new online tools, to connect in new ways, to build new businesses, to create new economic and social tools in the towns, cities, countries, and regions. And people who have no knowledge of the Roman character set will be able to finally cross the digital divide, and gain full access to the Internet. One of the first steps in launching IDNs is our fast-track programme for IDN country code top-level domains. The goal is to create the logical equivalent of two-letter country codes in the official languages of those countries. We have just released our draft implementation programme for this and discussions in our recent meeting in Egypt have helped us move forward. Just imagine what this will do. Imagine the number of people in India who, instead of having to type dot IN, will be able to type something like dot India in the Devanagari script. And just imagine the role Internationalized Domain Names will i4d | December 2008

play when ICANN launches its next big change to the Internet later in 2009 - the new application round for generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs). ICANN has just released the Draft Applicant Guidebook for new top-level domains. This hugely detailed book is the product of the ICANN model. Thousands of people have shared ideas and commented on the ideas of others in helping laying down what will be the framework for creating new top-level domains.

GTLDs: Changing the face of the Internet The introduction of new gTLDs is literally going to change the face of the Internet, not only in terms of new local applications, but also new identities, new ideas, and new branding opportunities for global businesses. And we’re hoping with that introduction to see applications for new gTLDs and characters from all the languages of the world. Imagine the possibilities of a new toplevel domain that could become the domain of choice for Hindi speakers here in India and across the globe. Imagine the barriers to communication that will come down. The world can expect huge innovation around applications for names that are in non-Roman characters, or IDNs. Right now the Internet has 21 generic top-level names and they are all in characters that look like English. When the process gets up to full speed, when people apply for and launch new gTLDs in new character sets, non-English speakers will have the opportunity to express the whole of a domain name in the characters and graphic signs used in their own language. This global programme will help make the Internet more a part of daily life in the local communities across the globe. Taken together, IDNs and new gTLDs are fantastic expansions that truly represent the spirit of the Internet. No central body is saying you will do this, or you have to do that. What these two changes represent are new tools for the global Internet community.

IPv6: A new platform in the offing There is a solution - IPv6 or Internet Protocol version 6. This new numbering system was created more than a decade ago to get around the very problem of IPv4 depletion. IPv6 has more than 340 trillion trillion trillion separate addresses as compared to the four billion plus defined by IPv4. To get an ideal of scale, if all four billion IPv4 addresses were contained inside a mobile phone, IPv6 would fill a container the size of the earth. That should provide sufficient IP addresses for a long time to come. While the technical solution exists, the challenge lies in the adoption of IPv6 and the global upgrades to equipment and software that will be required. That’s why ICANN takes every opportunity to encourage Internet Service Providers (ISPs), businesses, and government to make the shift and adopt IPv6. It is something that will ensure connectivity and expansion.

Conclusion Taken together, IDNs, new gTLDs, and IPv6 will all play a part in the next major expansion of the Internet. It is hard to say what the Internet will look like a decade down the road. But you can imagine what kind of spirit will drive the changes we will see. If you can imagine a new extension that people will want, you can do it. If you can imagine a new way of connecting people with each other, with products, or with information, you can do it. If you have a vision for reaching out to a language community, you can do it. This spirit of the Internet has served as a platform for entrepreneurs and visionaries to build their own ideas upon. And that spirit lives on. And while ICANN has helped co-ordinate that platform over an exciting decade, it can expect an even more exciting, and even more global decade ahead.

Call for News Articles/Press Releases Expanding the platform for IP addresses In addition, ICANN is working with partners across the global Internet community to expand the platform for IP (Internet Protocol) address. IP version 4, or IPv4, was defined back in 1977 and was designed to allow for over four billion separate addresses. At the time, it was imagined that this would be more than enough addresses for the lifetime of the protocol. But the incredible popularity and growth of the Internet since then, has meant fewer and fewer IPv4 addresses remain unassigned. Think about it this way - every computer, every mobile, every printer, even every Internet-enabled household appliance needs at least one address. Over the next five years it is expected that the ‘free pool’ of IPv4 addresses - those that have not yet been used or assigned – will have been allocated. When that happens, the Internet will still work but it will become increasingly difficult to attach new devices, effectively constraining growth. Many people today talk about an Internet of things - an Internet that connects devices that can help us conserve energy, remotely monitor weather or household conditions, and connect with each other in new and possibly unimagined ways. But each and every point of contact with the Internet will require an IP address. December 2008 | www.i4donline.net

Readers/authors/development enthusiasts are invited to send briefings of news/press releases on e-Agriculture, climate change, international development, telecommunications, e-Governance, e-Commerce, etc. News articles should be of contemporary relevance and must relate to the use and applications of Information and Communication Tools (ICTs). An ideal news article/press release should be neatly typed in ‘Times New Roman’, 12 font size, at double space between 750-800 words based on the above-mentioned topics. Please send your news piece/article: info@i4donline.net

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netgov Speak: Lead up to IGF 2008

Part VIII: Deliberating on networking issues Genesis of netgov Speak In order to give the issue of Internet governance a new dimension, i4d team decided to incorporate a new section called netgov Speak in collaboration with National Internet Excahnge of India (NIXI). The National Internet Exchange of India is the neutral meeting point of the ISPs in India. Its main purpose is to facilitate exchange of domestic Internet traffic between the peering ISP members. The main purpose of bringing out this special section is to provide the Internet administrators, academics, media professionals, corporate communicators and telecommunications personnel, a platform to discuss and debate the issue of Internet Governance – its nuances and implications. netgov Speak, as a special section, featured first in May 2008 issue of i4d magazine. Since then till the now, ‘netgov Speak’ has dealt with various critical ssues like access, registration of domain names, social networking, cyber crime, content monitoring, etc.

“... In managing, promoting, and protecting its [the Internet] presence in our lives, we need to be no less creative than those who created it. Clearly, there is a need for governance, but that does not necessarily mean that it has to be done in the traditional way, for something that is so very different” Kofi Annan, Former UN Secretary-General

www.nixi.in

In Collaboration with:

Part I: Introduction to Internet Governance Issues

In the May 2008 issue of i4d, the special section ‘netgov Speak’ introduced the readers to the basics of Internet governance. The section focused on the effectiveness of Domain Name System (DNS) and Internet Protocol (IP) addresses and the role of Internet Corporation for

Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) in managing and controlling DNS and IP addresses. The segment ‘netgov Speak’ also provided for a historical description of how the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) emerged and the conspicuous role of IGF in tackling infrastructure, cyber security, IPR, trade and copyright issues. The section emphasised on the agenda of IGF 2008.

Part II: Internet Governance Issues – Access T h e n e t g o v Sp e a k section of the June 2008 issue of i4d focused on the issues of Internet access and digital divide. The section tried to find out why despite Internet being used by so many people in India and in other developing countries, many people are unable to access Internet and its services. The section tried to underscore the relevance of Internet deployment cost, infrastructure, regulatory issues, content etc., in improving access to Internet. While refering to the status of Internet accessibilty in India, the section delineated a couple of success stories like Project Akshaya and e-Choupal to showcase initiatives undertaken in India to bridge the digital divide. The section regarded per capita public sector IT spending as a major measurement indicator of IT and Internet penetration in India.

Part III: Internet Governance Issues – Critical Internet Resources In the netgov Speak section of the the July issue of i4d, a special issue on Gender and ICTs, the author discussed about the critical Internet resources like i4d | December 2008

“India has a light regulatory framework, with independent Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) and positive court rulings, which has resulted in a vibrant telecom sector. Prices are market- driven and competitive when compared with global scenario. As compared to the developed countries the broadband availability in India is still largely limited to a 256k connection, whereas for the developed world, 1-2MB lines are becoming commonplace.” Rajesh Aggarwal Additional CEO of National Internet Exchange of India (NIXI)

applications, infrastructure, administration and environment. The section asserted that management, security and administration of the various critical resources lie with multiple stakeholders. netgov Speak in July 2008 tried to underline the migration from IPv4 to IPv6 and reiterated the need of managing and administering DNS properly.

Part IV: Internet Governance Issues – Cybercrime in India “Cybercrime cases highlight our increasing vulnerability to the theft of personal information. Criminals can now operate from almost anywhere on the globe to steal personal information.” Michael Mukasey the US Attorney General

There is no denying the fact that e-mails and usage of credit cards etc., have made our life easier but it has also made our private virtual space susceptible to spams, hacking and fraud. Cybercrimes have escalated and spam, credit card frauds and identity thefts are on an exponential rise. The situation is made worse by an atmosphere of ambiguity and a lack of effective regulatory mechanism to address and monitor these issues. The netgov Speak section of the August issue of i4d discussed the intrusion of privacy and security in virtual space which netizens face all over the globe. This issue especially shed light on the aspect of e-Security threat in the Indian scenario. December 2008 | www.i4donline.net

Part V: Social Networking and Internet Governance “Social networking sites are very useful social tools but we must make recommendations for how to better protect people from the risks these sites create.” Andreas Pirotti, Executive Director European Network and Information Security Agency (ENISA)

Social networking, the most happening phenomenon on the Internet in the recent times, has captured the fancies of the Global Internet community at large. Social networking sites like Orkut, Facebook, Myspace and Linkedln are extremely popular with the youth and has given a whole new dimension to the culture of the use of Internet. The netgov Speak section of the September 2008 issue of i4d highlighted the ongoing debate on governing social networking sites. The interactive tools on social networking sites like polls, comment sharing etc., have resulted in a free flow of knowledge and information and is completely in syncronisation with the ethos of ICT-accelerated development objective upheld by the United Nations. The article spoke about a would-be debate among two opposing schools of thought – one advocating an open, ‘no holds barred’ sharing exercise in social networking sites, whereas the the other calling for a regulatory mechanism on social networking to ensure safe, secure and conducive interaction – that might emerge in the future.

Part VI: What are the advantages and disadvantages of migrating to IPv6? The Internet Protocol, or IP is one of the pillars which supports the Internet. It is over 20 years old. In 1991, the IPv4 as the original version was called, was up for review as it had outlived its design. The Next Generation IP, called IPng or IPv6 (version 6) was the result of a longdrawn process and took almost three years to shape up. The IPv6 has been designed to enable a structured and possible migration and transition plan. The netgov Speak section of the October 2008 issue of i4d focused on the advantages and disadvantages of migrating to IPv6. IPv4 uses 32-bit addresses, and with the growth of the Internet, IPv6 addresses move up to 128-bits. This means that the IP addresses will be longer, but the numbers will not get so scarce as the IPv4

“A major challenge is the lack of business case for IPv6, because there is no immediate return on investment by ISPs in IPv6 deployment. IPv6 is designed to be a ‘plug-in replacement’ for IPv4 which means that there is no immediate difference to the Internet user, and hence no user demand. Without user demand this is no demand from ISPs, and thus little demand on equipment vendors for commercial grade IPv6 infrastructure products. As IPv4 address space is consumed over the next 2-3 years, this is expected to change rapidly, as service providers begin to plan and roll out services.” Paul Wilson, Director General Asia Pacific Network Information Centre (APNIC)

“Given our aspiration of using the Internet to be the engine of bringing eGovernment to our billion strong population the address space that IPv6 makes available natively will be of crucial importance as we go about building our national network infrastructure. Also, as ‘connectedness’ becomes a way of life with the ability to connect becoming an integral part of a new generation of devices and household gadget, IPv6 is going to be a crucial enabler for a whole new set of business and consumer scenarios. While - to catalyse this.” Vijay Kapur, National Technology Officer Microsoft India

has become. This will ensure that every IP device can have a unique address, whether its behind a firewall or not. The move to IPv6 will improve total connectivity, reliability and flexibility besides re-establishing transparency and end-to-end traffic across the Internet. Another major goal of the IPv6 is to speed up the network, both from a performance and from a deployment point of view. IPv6 is also expected to be capable of setting up far more secure and easier networks to build and deploy.

Part VII: Content Monitoring: The Debate Continues “ISPs are not Police but the facilitators of content flow on the Internet. It’s like saying that the TV manufacturers like LG/Samsung shall be responsible for channels’ content...Having said that, ISPs must act over any advised information from the law enforcement agencies to check on any content provider.” Naresh Ajwani, Secretary Internet Service Providers Association of India (ISPAI)

Internet makes it possible for communities to interact and share knowledge, information, audio and visual content freely, leading to creative social reorganisation. Internet is thus as much a social phenomenon as it is technological. With the advent of Web2.0, cyber communities and social access to Internet has been enhanced. The netgov Speak section of the November 2008 edition tried to understand the nuances of the various aspects of content monitoring. There is wide ranging agreement that content like child pornography, genocide, hate speech, etc. should be removed from the Internet, but there is not a consensus on how to interpret these. Another group of issues centres on content that is sensitive to different countries, ethnic minorities, or regions, due to their specific cultural contexts or values. There is a third group of issues revolving around political and ideologically sensitive content (Internet Censorship). The article goes on to offer a few examples of how various organisations/countries/websites monitor and censor online content through router-based Internet Protocol (IP) blocking, proxy servers, Domain Name System (DNS) redirection, national filtering systems, self-censorships, content moderation and polling tools where users can flag objectionable content.

netgov Speak Series This series of development perspectives of Internet Governance has been published in co-operation with NIXI. Two more issues of this series will be published after the conclusion of the third Internet Governance Forum to be held in Hyderabad from December 3-6, 2008. Past archives of the various issues which have been summarised in this editions can be accessed by clicking on the following: Part I: Introduction to Internet Governance Issues http://i4donline.net/May08/1922.pdf Part II: Internet Governance Issues – Access http://i4donline.net/June08/1993.pdf Part III: Internet Governance Issues – Critical Internet Resources http://i4donline.net/July08/2055.pdf Part IV: Internet Governance Issues – Cybercrime in India http://i4donline.net/August08/2127.pdf Part V: Social Networking and Internet Governance http://i4donline.net/September08/2169.pdf Part VI: What are the advantages and disadvantages of migrating to IPV6? http://i4donline.net/October08/2186.pdf Part VII: Content Monitoring: The Debate Continues http://i4donline.net/November08/2204.pdf i4d | December 2008

OPINION

Internet Governance: Role of Public Policy Towards a better governance framework ‘Internet for all’, the theme of the 3rd IGF at Hyderabad reflects the unique role of the Internet for achieving inclusive, equitable and sustainable growth as the Internet is all set to revolutionise the socio-economic prospects for the diverse and dispersed population globally. Halfway through the course of five scheduled meetings of IGF, Hyderabad offers an apt opportunity to look at the role of public policy and the institutional framework for Internet Governance in the context of the overarching ongoing themes.

Access Access to the government services, education and healthcare can be facilitated through proper Internet access for a significant population of the world, mostly living in rural and remote areas in the developing countries. As the Internet presents the gateway to (rest of ) the world and no one size fits all, appropriate technologies should be used that work best for specific target communities. Beyond just physical access, we need to invest in capacity building so that people actually connect and use the Internet. For some people, it would be an exhilaration just to see and hear an acquaintance - thanks to Internet video or telephony!

Diversity ‘Unity in Diversity’ is a deep-rooted concept in India: Likewise, we should celebrate diversity on and through the Internet. Linguistic diversity is only one of the several dimensions but there are many more such as culture, ideas, etc. In fact, to get a flavour of different views on a subject, one of the best ways is to just search for it online! All the same, even as we progress December 2008 | www.i4donline.net

towards development of tools and resources for different languages we should leverage all that we already have. Diversity is also reflected in the plurality of standards that are used in, on and through the Internet.

Openness The Internet is open in two different ways firstly, at the physical level one can connect and expand the network of the Internet at any point and secondly, it is a platform that is open for all to join, connect and share their views and ideas. However, we must respect privileges of others - including but not limited to privacy, while enjoying our own respective freedom.

Security As our dependence on the Internet continues to grow, Internet must remain secure by itself as well as provide a secure environment for all its users and inhabitants. Recent years have seen emergence of organised crimes on the Internet as a major menace, much of that being abetted by the apparent anonymity on the Internet couple with the inability of the disparate and uncoordinated investigations under country-specific legislations. To this end, the guidelines for cooperation between law enforcement agencies and service providers adopted in early 2008 by the Council of Europe offer a pragmatic framework even for the countries that have not ratified the Cybercrime Convention. Steps to fight spam, phishing and a host of other security challenges require collaborative approach.

Autonomous System Numbers) to aspects like radio spectrum and numbering system (including Electronic Number Mapping System, ENUM), etc. Many new technologies are evolving to address lack of last mile fiber/copper; e.g. can we derive Digital Dividend by using the hitherto unused slivers of spectrum (White Spaces) in the 700 MHz TV broadcast band as we increasingly move towards satellite and digital broadcast?

Role of Public Policy Against this backdrop, importance of pro-competition Technology Neutral ICT Policy Framework cannot be overemphasised as it fosters innovation and attracts investment. We need independent, empowered and forward-looking regulator that has a light-touch approach and is supported by a strong and predictable legal framework that engenders respect for Intellectual Property Rights and celebrates and rewards entrepreneurship even as it empowers the users in novel ways such as ‘User Generated Content’ (UGC).

Institutional Mechanism Multistakeholder Advisor y Group (MAG) helps the UN Secretary General in convening the IGF. Despite its global reach, the Internet has profound local impact and relevance: Hence, it is but natural that similar approach should be followed at regional, national and even at local level. Truly, a Public-Private Partnership in all its facets! Disclaimer: Views expressed herein are personal

Critical Internet Resources To provide a holistic framework, we need to broaden our world-view beyond the Internet Protocol (IP) addresses and domain names (and, perhaps the

Deepak Maheshwari Director, Corporate Affairs, Microsoft Corporation (India) Private Limited

CAPACITY BUILDING IN INTERNET GOVERNANCE

Plan now for an informed future! The author, with extensive experience in the domain of capacity building shares the complexities of dealing with the subject of Internet Governance and reflects on existing initiatives, and the challenges to deal with a dynamically evolving subject

Dhrupad Mathur Director (Industry Interface Program) at S P Jain Centre of Management, Dubai, UAE Dhrupad.Mathur@gmail.com

Internet governance in retrospect Since my days with the Working Group on Internet Governance (WGIG) secretariat at Geneva, in 2005, I always use to wonder how the currents of Internet Governance (IG) and global thought process will impact the lives of my fellow countrymen in India. Most fascinating dimension was the ability of the IG phenomena to impact diverse clusters of people and organisations in a number of possible ways. Since then, I have thought, discussed, debated and strived to create some noise about this. While I still don’t have discrete answer to this, there have been efforts by various agencies including National Internet Exchange of India (NIXI), Centre for Science Development and Media Studies (CSDMS), Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI), etc. to involve people going ahead with the IG issues.

Sensitising the community towards capacity building While the efforts carried out by many agencies and government towards IG capacity building have been humble but merely because of the size and complexities of the issues in India, the present outcome is far from being optimum. We are still talking about the sensitisation of various stakeholders groups; on the other hand, there are immediate issues like cyber-crime, Internet-related regulations and policies that are to be addressed quickly. On top of it, there are several layers of perceptual differences and legacy laws that are to be attuned to take on the challenges. So the pace of sensitisation has to be fairly fast. As of now, there are small pockets in industry, academia, government that are fairly aware of the IG issues either by choice or by compulsion. In 2006, I

supervised the participants of Internet Governance Capacity Building Programme on the Diplo Foundations’ IG portal and subsequently guided researchers as well. The enthusiasm in the youth of different nationalities towards various IG issues was fairly visible and commendable. Having said that, one fails to see such type of enthusiasm towards these issues expressed in various quarters here in India. One of the reasons could be that we have other more fundamental issues to deal with or we think that we are not directly affected by the IG issues? But with a great magnitude of development in IT and dependencies on areas where such initiatives and policies converge, it is high time that the stakeholders in India must be suitably sensitised. Subsequent to numerous interactions with several stakeholder groups including the representatives of industry associations, government officials, judiciary, policymakers, police etc. it is still felt that the voice of common man is missing or probably the common man even doesn’t know how he might be impacted. Quite contrasting to various nations where citizens have a very active role in the policy dialogue. This is primarily due to a limited participation of the civil society in this policy making process. There are a few good representing organizations but the mobilization at large addressing holistic issues surrounding IG seems to be missing. Traditionally this domain in India has been steered by telecommunications players, Internet Service Providers, catalyzed by industry associations or a few working groups.

The way ahead Issues like multilingualism, human rights, freedom of expression, privacy, cyber terrorism are to be addresses in the forum i4d | December 2008

and to take back some learning to be fed to the policy making process as soon as process. We all would like the nation taking on the upcoming challenges posed by the ever changing paradigms of technology world. Someone has rightly compared IG to the ‘Elephant and six blind men’ story. The whole IG debate runs around myriad such issues that are beyond the boundaries of this write-up. This is further propelled by international diplomacy, multistakeholder policy dialogues and industry forces. So in India we will have to make meaning of various diverse pieces together before it is too late. Fortunately, the local laws in India and the government has tried to bring in empowerment to the citizens by the means of Right To Information (RTI) act and the e-Governance initiatives further add towards the service-orientation for citizens. But as far as Internet Governance is concerned, one has to see and ponder as to how far are we still from the bottom of the pyramid as this transformation is more of a social phenomena rather than a secluded technology phenomena.

It is apt to mention some noteworthy initiatives are already in place: Diplo Foundation in association with NIXI launched a special online training programme directed towards Indian participants. Many of these participants are also expected to attend the proceedings of the IGF. Lately, i4d magazine of CSDMS has published a full-series of compendium on IG issues in association with NIXI. So we are on our way, the sooner this happens, the better it is. The Internet Governance Forum (IGF) 2008 (www. intgovforum.org) is going to be organised in Hyderabad, India this year. The IGF 2008 is a great opportunity to showcase the India-specific or at least region specific IG issues in front of the global community and to rope in people from varied background and have a platform where the voices are heard. We all would like the nation to take on the upcoming challenges posed by the ever changing paradigms of technology world, with an emphasis on large scale capacity building programmes.

Internet Governance Capacity Building Programme 2008: DiploFoundation The ‘Internet Governance Capacity Building Programme’ (IGCBP) was launched as a pilot in the year 2005 as a low-cost but effective training programme by DiploFoundation. The course includes an online training phase and a research phase, with fellowships being awarded to top participants. The programme not only brings people who are directly at the policy level but also students from different interest groups. . DiploFoundation is a non-profit organisation based in Malta, with offices in Geneva and Belgrade. In June 2006, Diplo was granted Special Consultative Status with the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). Diplo also plays an important role in a number of global networks. It conducts courses, offers capacity building programmes, develops software, conducts research, brings out publications on various subjects of international diplomacy including on Internet Governance. The 2008 IGCBP brings local and regional issues into focus and includes several bilingual groups (English and Arabic, French, Portuguese or Spanish), enabling the participants to map the IG domain in their native language. The advanced course and the research phase aim at reinforcing the discussions on advanced topics that are high on the global IG agenda. The programme aims to create multistakeholder-based communities from the developing world which would eventually help set up an Internet Governance framework around the world. The effects of this programme go beyond just training individuals, the course helps raise awareness and build communities through information materials like booklets, DVDs, etc. Members of the community have been instrumental in initiating programmes in their regions by conducting awareness programmes, presenting papers and also by advising respective governments for national eGovernance programmes, to give a few examples. As part of the programme, a series of fellowships and opportunities to learn through practical experience are offered to the participants. Some of them being: • fellowships at the WGIG Secretariat in Geneva • participation at WGIG meetings and PrepComms • participation at WSIS in Tunis • participation at the IG conference in Malta • internship at the IG Portal of DiploFoundation • participation in meetings of the ICANN Studienkreis • fellowships for the European Summer School on Internet Governance More details about the ‘Internet Governance Capacity Building Programme’ is available at http://www.diplomacy.edu/ig/ IGCBP/display.asp?Topic=Programme December 2008 | www.i4donline.net

INTERVIEW: RAJU VEGESNA, CEO AND MANAGING DIRECTOR, SIFY TECHNOLOGIES LTD, CHENNAI, INDIA

Keeping you ahead! Raju Vegesna, CEO and Managing Director, Sify Technologies Ltd shares his perspectives on various aspects of the emerging and future of Internet, and with a commitment to reaching the next billion.

What is the role of private sector in Internet Governance Issues? The role of the private sector has been largely to continually highlight to government the importance of making the internet available for all because of the socio-economic benefits that will accrue to the country. We have also stressed the need to have a holistic view to enable an entire ecosystem for the Internet to proliferate in the country. This includes everything from policies on security and data protection to encouraging hosting, content and applications. As well as content in multiple Indian languages that are locally relevant, along with the need to make access devices more affordable for the middle class. Yet, after ten years of the internet policy allowing private service providers to provide Internet access services, there are only ten million Internet connections in India. Whereas we add close to that number of mobile connections a month! This is because there has not been a holistic approach to make the Internet available for all. How is Sify engaged in national level advocacy activities? Sify has been engaged at multiple levels in terms of advocacy on Internet Governance at both national and international levels. We are in touch with the Department directly, as well as through Industry Associations such as the Internet Service Providers of India, Internet and Mobile Association of India, NIXI, Nasscom, FICCI and CII. We also work with the International Chamber of Commerce on Internet and associated policy issues.

What have been the challenges relating to data protection and security issues? The challenges stem from not having clarity, nor a unified approach to ensuring that we have the right data protection and security policies in place. Are ISPs in general in India ready for the move from IPv4 to IPv6? What are some of the concern areas? Most ISPs, and I refer to the pure play ISPs and not telcos who also provide Internet services, are in dire straits and struggling to survive. They are focusing on becoming financially viable, not on issues like IPv6 at this point. None of the telcos, who have vast resources at hand, have become IPv6 enabled either. Sifyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s network is the only network in the country that is IPv6 enabled at the core with dual stacks. We achieved this over three years ago. What are the technical arrangements to reduce costs of universal access? More than technical arrangements, what we need to have is clarity in terms of our goal, then work backwards to steps required to achieve that goal. This includes enabling the ecosystem I have mentioned. It includes the cost of spectrum for data connectivity. It includes unbundling of the last mile. It is about affordable devices, affordable access, relevant content and applications, capacity building, security and so on. We need a fresh approach where the common good that we are trying to achieve is the overarching concern. How do you visualise the Internet 2.0? Do you imagine that mobiles will make Internet from computers redundant? Web 2.O will enable rich graphics and multi-media applications for the consumer and enterprises, vastly increasing the scope of the kind of things we do online today. Internet access from computers or lap tops will always be a means of primary access which enable faster, more convenient and more involved use of applications over the Internet. Access over the mobile will be based on convenience on the move and will not replace working on computers. How is your company focusing on providing valuable information to rural communities? Can you share some programmes that you are active in? We have been involved with initiatives in the past, but these were individual projects. What needs to be developed is content that is relevant and easy to use for rural communities while making Internet access available to them. Experience has shown that if it is relevant and easy to use, the common man will adopt it immediately. The mass adoption of the mobile phone is a good example. However, for the private sector to develop this, it has to make commercial sense. Â&#x201E; i4d | December 2008

CSDMS WORKSHOPS IN THIRD IGF HYDERABAD, INDIA

An Interpol for the Internet? Centre for Science, Development and Media Studies will be facilitating a special workshop at the Third Internet Governance Forum entitled ‘Interpol for Internet’. The workshop will be held in Room 6, on December 5, 2008 from 11.00 am to 12.30 pm. This workshop has brought together an excellent set of four panelists.

The Panellists for this workshop are:

Stravos Lambrinidis, MEP Vice-Chairman of the Civil Liberties, home and justice affairs Committee in the European Parliament (c/o claudia.selli@ec.europa.eu)

Ala’a Al-Din J. Kadhem Al-Radhi (Jordan), who is a ISOC ambassador to IGF (alradhi2000@yahoo.ca)

Background The Internet comes closest to Jurgen Habermas’ ideal of a Public Sphere - “a discursive space in which individuals and groups congregate to discuss matters of mutual interest and, where possible, to reach a common judgment.” The Internet allows engaging in trade, entertainment, research and communication with almost no physical or geographical boundaries. Internet is facilitating the emergence of new forms of human interaction in what is becoming known as cyberspace: a computer-generated public domain which has no territorial boundaries or physical attributes and is in perpetual use. However, this utopia can become an instant dystopia of spam, fraud, identity theft and other forms of cybercrime. The governance of the internet in these cases cannot be approached from the traditional perspective since for the Internet, unlike any other form of communication, the brain does not lie at the centre but at the edges of the technology in the form of users. Everyone can create content. This is the most powerful aspect of the Internet as well as the most destructive. During the two week ‘cyber war’ against Estonia, in May 2007, the Russian Business Network shut December 2008 | www.i4donline.net

Deepak Maheshwari Director, Corporate Affairs, Microsoft Corporation India (dmahesh@microsoft.com)

Pavan Duggal, Advocate, Supreme Court of India (pduggal@gmail.com)

down the websites of banks, governments and political parties using ‘denial-of-service’ (DoS) attacks, which knock websites offline by swamping servers with page requests. Similar incidents of large scale cyber attacks which disable an entire industry or economy are becoming more common place.

Cybersecurity is a critical issue This session deals with the issue of Cyber Security. It is a broad discussion topic and we are going to focus on the emerging policies on cybercrime from various developed and developing nations. We would like to hold a consultative forum which will hopefully lead us to constructive suggestions of how the nations of the world can come together on a single platform to form a single set of laws and policies which are applicable to all. According to Dr K Subramanian, Deputy Director General of National Informatics Centre, Government of India, who has worked over three decades in informatics, Cyber Law is boundaryless. Law is country specific. The challenge is to ensure that any legal mechanism that evolves for cyber law can be practically enforced. The challenge is that national laws require evidence

to be collected and produced in court. Also, when it comes to representing the cyber law evidences, they need to be acceptable to the courts, and the evidence collecting tools needs to be trusted. Cyber law depends on ID management. The problem is that only the terminal may be identifiable and not the person who used it easily. Thus, they are not enough physical evidences to catch the culprits, as real law is based on physical evidences. The Cyber Security policies have to be integrated to IT policies and there is a need to develop common and acceptable definitions of what is legal and what is not. This is not very clearly defined in many IT policies of many countries. Cyber treaty is a good idea for implications of cyber law and applicability and uniform code. There may be international regulatory authority, but it is difficult to establish a statutory implementing body as Internet is network of networks and nobody is accountable. The workshop hopes to deliberate on these and several key challenges relating to building a consensus on the issue of Cyber Policing and effecting enforcements, while bearing in mind that

knowledge and access must be based on the principle of justice, equity and within the universal rights framework.

Key questions that will be discussed 1. 2. 3.

Where do we differentiate between cyber law and real law? What are the IT policies in various developing countries? Is it possible to have one common set of guidelines and policies for all nations? 4. If online crimes mirror offline crimes then which country’s jurisdiction prosecutes? 5. Is there a need for an international body like the Interpol for the Internet? For further details and backgrounder on the preparations by the Council of Europe, which has taken a lead in this subject, please refer to: http://www.coe.int/t/DG1/LEGALCOOPERATION/ ECONOMICCRIME/cybercrime/cy_activity_Interface2008/567_ prov-d-guidelines_provisional2_3April2008_en.pdf

CSDMS WORKSHOPS IN THIRD IGF HYDERABAD, INDIA

Global Dialogue on Capacity Building on Internet Governance Centre for Science, Development and Media Studies will be hosting a workshop entitled ‘Building a global capacity building curriculum framework and primer for Internet Governance’, on December 5, 2008. This workshop has been organised with support from several national and international institutions including ISOC, NIXI, Department of Information Technology (Government of India), IGNOU, UNGAID, etc. The workshop has been conceptualised to cover four key panelists The panelists will help initiate a dialogue to build a global curriculum framework for Internet Governance. The panelists represent a wide spectrum of implementers and experts who have direct linkages with communities and have already been engaged in capacity building activities. This workshop will address the issue of capacity building and aim to create a global network of practitioners, representing several

lead stakeholder groups, to discuss the creation of a primer/ basic learning material to be built into an undergraduate/ graduate level diploma on Internet Governance issues. This process will trigger in training modules, programmes, issues and design components for developing course content. Since IG is a global, dynamic and evolving subject, a lot of the latest content and course material would have to be constantly revised and students engaged on an ongoing learning basis. The youth are the future decision makers of tomorrow, and they need to have an orientation on this subject. CSDMS will take the lead in garnering a global network of people interested in developing the courses that can be delivered and adapted across the world, but especially in developing countries. The course modules will be available online, and may i4d | December 2008

be delivered online/offline. Online community of practitioners will also be built. Courses will need to be developed at College, University, Research and Corporate/Government (In-service) professional levels.

Key questions of the session will be - How can we develop a generic agenda for capacity building network? What lessons can be learned from the WGIG/WSIS/ GKP experiences about designing and operating multi-stakeholder processes? - How will the development of new network architectures, technologies and applications affect Internet Governance and its relationship with telecommunications and content governance?

-How can the research community derived from multiple disciplines be involved in Internet Governance processes - as stakeholders providing impartial information, analysis and advice? - How to constantly develop, maintain and revise the basic curriculum for building capacities in developing countries on the global Internet Governance debate? - How can we use new Web 2.0 technologies, NGN, ubiquitous networks, grids, future Internets, etc. to build local language content and collaborative knowledge sharing? - How do we ensure that the voices of the voiceless are heard at international dialogues and debates to ensure universality of the access to Internet and being part of Information Society?

The Panellists for this workshop are: Dr. Ravi Gupta Executive Director, CSDMS (Moderator) (ravi.gupta@csdms.in)

Prof. Rajasekharan Pillai Vice Chancellor, IGNOU, India (vc@ignou.ac.in)

Ms. Priyanthi Daluwatte ISOC Ambassador to IGF, Sri Lanka (priyanthidaluwatte@ yahoo.co.uk)

Mr. Ahmed Eisa Gedaref Digital City Organisation, Sudan (ahmed22digital@ gmail.com)

December 2008 | www.i4donline.net

Ms. Tulika Pandey Senior Director, Department of Information Technology, Government of India

Mr. Vladimir Radunovic DiploFoundation, Switzerland/Malta (vladar@diplomacy.edu)

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Bytes for All... BTRC, Rural links The telecom watchdog chief brushes aside the allegations of ‘rural unwillingness’ to adopt new technologies, saying ultimate benefits will not be achieved unless rural connectivity is ensured. “Rural and urban sections of society should readily take advantage of all technologies deployed. It is a wrong conception that rural people cannot absorb modern technology, like the urban people,” says Manzurul Alam, chairman of Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC), in a recent interview with The Daily Star. http://www.thedailystar.net/story.php?nid=60532

Laptops, mobiles Convergence has been in the news for some years. In the field of ICT-enabled development, the role played by mobile phones has been on the rise for some time. Now, The Wall Street Journal says that mobile phones may become the key technology outwitting the laptop, says Subbaiah Arunachalam, and offers this link: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122477763884262815.html

Thinking big An Indian startup thinks that the right software can make cheap phones a financial lifeline to hundreds of millions. Micro-loans have enabled Sabira Khanam to go into business in Bangalore. Technology that lets cell phones handle banking transactions could help micro-lending reach more people, writes David Talbot. http://www.technologyreview.com/business/21533/

ICT-based women enterprises Online handbooks and audio-visual materials on women’s ICTbased enterprises are available at: http://www.womenictenterprise.org/

These provide advocacy, guidance and training materials on the benefits and risks of women’s ICT enterprises in developing countries; including video case studies; enterprise creation and improvement advice; and analysis and advice tools. These are products of the DFID (Department for International Development)-funded ‘Women’s ICT-Based Enterprise for Development’ project, coordinated by the Centre for Development Informatics at the University of Manchester, and drawing particularly from field experiences in India. Materials are available in English, Bengali, Hindi, Indonesian, Kannada, Luganda, Luo, Spanish, and Tamil.

Telecentres? Mobiles? Following the initial rush of Information and Communication Technologies for Development (ICT4D ) projects in rural Africa, many did not yield the anticipated outcomes, and interest has been dying down. People then began talking about ‘sustainable ICT’ projects, in which it was understood that projects would become self-sufficient after their initial donor-led investment and set-up

e-Tuk-Tuk Project in Sri Lanka

period. But with the use of mobile phones gaining in popularity, popular rhetoric has begun to question the need of ICTs beyond the mobile phone. While mobile phones certainly have had a great impact in rural areas, a new study by Ian Howard commissioned by APC, through the analysis of two case studies, he argues that the need for telecentres and affordable Internet connections exist, as such centres cater to rural and niche markets the way larger companies cannot. The APC study report is available herehttp://www.apc.org/en/node/7237/

Community radio? Community radio law -- lost in transmission: Article 19 of the universal declaration of human rights drafted in 1948 says, “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; the right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media regardless of frontiers.” http://www.i4donline.net/articles/current-article.asp?Title=PANOS-South-Asia&ar ticleid=2171&typ=Features

Community radio? Everywhere Some recent links to articles in i4d ‘Community Radio’: An alien word in Pakistan http://tinyurl.com/5rwmxl

Serving communities: The Holy way (community radio debate) http://tinyurl.com/5v6ef4

Role of radio in disaster management http://tinyurl.com/6y9zho

Creating awareness through CR http://tinyurl.com/5ahd4q

In search of community voices http://tinyurl.com/6jhbuo

Reaching the unreached through community radio http://tinyurl.com/6nxnad

Catalysing the CR movement i4d | December 2008

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Technologies, ICTs. Few of the NGOs are also getting corporate funds and sponsors for developing livelihood of poor with the cyber facilities. So the funds need to be spent with a right direction and transparently, and purpose of donor serving tendency must be shunned off for the growth of domestic software industry and the interest of the country, writes Shahidul K K Shuvra

http://tinyurl.com/5bjyzl

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/bytesforall_readers/message/12859

Link To i4d

Some links from Pakistan

i4d, print magazine on ICT4D is an initiative of CSDMS (Centre for Science, Development and Media Studies, (http://www.csdms. in), an NGO, based in Noida (Uttar Pradesh, India) which does advocacy and capacity building of local level organisations through training and workshops. It is also involved in grass root projects in ICTs in the rural areas in India.

Jehan Ara’s Blog:

http://www.i4donline.net

Three Pakistani companies bagged three of the 16 international awards at the Asia Pacific ICT Awards http://www.apicta.com.

Community radio law, lost in translation? http://tinyurl.com/5vgxda

BYTESFORALL earlier link

Media, for rural India Gram Vaani is a social entrepreneurial startup focused on building innovative models of media delivery for rural areas of India. http://gramvaani.org

i-Governance in Hyderabad The Third Meeting of the Internet Governance Forum will be at Hyderabad, India from Dec 3-6, 2008. Its agenda has been slotted as Reaching the next billion; Promoting cyber-security and trust; Managing critical Internet resources; Taking stock and the way forward;Emerging issues - the Internet of tomorrow. The overall theme of the meeting will be ‘internet for all’. See

http://jehanara.wordpress.com

CIO Magazine Pakistan’s Website: http://ciopakistan.com/

Winners from Pakistan

Fouad Bajwa reports that the three winning companies are: Kraysis (http://kraysis.com) - won in the Best Startup Category (More about Kraysis: http://netxpress.com.pk/2008/08/kraysis-goes-qa/) - Pixsense (http://pixsense.com) - won the award for Best in Media and Entertainment Applications - TPS (http://tpsonline.com) – won the Award for Best in Tools & Infrastructure Applications

Net and Dhaka Social Dynamics of Internet Usage in Dhaka City. Did you fill up the survey? If not, please fill it up or share the survey with others at:

http://intgovforum.org/

http://www.bytesforallinitiative.net/internetusagedhaka/index. php?sid=72945&lang=en

World Bank link

Boycott Novell

World Bank on Mobile Transformation:

Boycott Novell Protesters Man-handled at National Conference on Free Software 2008. Trouble brewed up on the second day of National Conference on Free Software 2008 in Cochin university. The activists put up posters against the Novell Corp (the main sponsor of this event) at the Free Software exhibition complex. The organisers called up Kochi police and man handled the Anivar Aravind a former student of the Cochin University and a wellknown free software activist.... SEE

www.worldbank.org/edevelopment/mgov

e-Development e-Development Thematic Group (eTG) is a global forum and community of professionals interested in the role of ICT in development, open for participation by both World Bank staff and external clients and partners. The e-TG is hosted by Global ICT Department in collaboration with many partners and it looks forward to new partnerships. See http://www.worldbank.org/edevelopment

Online local newspapers The online version of a local newspaper Chaloma Noakhali, which is published regularly from Noakhali, a remote district in Bangladesh. http://www.chalomannoakhali.com/

Telecentre’s wrong track? Some of NGOs are managing donor funds and saying in favouring of poverty alleviation by Information and Communication December 2008 | www.i4donline.net

MORE http://playingwithsid.blogspot.com/2008/11/boycott-novell-protesters-manhandled.html

Bytes for All: www.bytesforall.org or www.bytesforall.net Bytes for All Readers Discussion: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ bytesforall_readers To subscribe: bytesforall_readers-subscribe@yahoogroups.com Bytes for All Discussion summary compiled by: Frederick Noronha, India, fred@bytesforall.org

Books received SMART 2020: Enabling the low carbon economy in the information age

ICTs and Climate Change: ITU background report

Author: The Climate Group Publisher: Global eSustainability Initiative (GeSI) Pages: 87

Author/Publisher: International Telecommunication Union Pages: 25

This report compiled by The Climate Group on behalf of the Global eSustainability Initiative (GeSI) offering a clear picture of the role that ICTs can play in enabling a ‘Green Economy’ not just by reducing emissions and saving energy in the ICT sector but also by demonstrating how the adoption of ICT tools can transform our lifestyles and pave the way for a low carbon future. The report has quantified the direct emissions from ICT products and services based on the expected growth of this sector. Taking a note of the fact that one of the highest contributor of GHG emissions is power generation and the fuel used for transportation, the report states that ICTs could play a big role to improve energy efficiency in power transmission and distribution, in energy efficient buildings and factories and during transportation of goods. In total, ICTs are estimated to deliver approximately 7.8 GtCO2 of emissions savings in 2020. In economic terms, the ICT-enabled energy efficiency translates into approximately €600 billion ($946.5 billion) of cost savings. The book goes on to elaborate on the strategies which would help reduce GHG emissions and achieve energy efficiency in various socio-economic set ups (by giving examples examples from China, Europe, North America, India) and in different spheres of life (with examples from Industrial sector, transportation and logistics, energy efficient buildings, energy generation, transmission and distribution). It is interesting to note that most of the techniques suggested in the report are innovative usage of current technologies and others being technologies that are currently being researched upon and which are slated to be available in the very near future. The report ends with a set of appendices. Eg, details of commitments made by corporations that have pledged to reduce their carbon footprint. The companies include, Alcatel-Lucent, British Telecom, Cisco Systems, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Intel, Microsoft, Nokia, Sun Microsystems, Vodafone among others. The thought provoking report sets the tone for further debate and research into more energy efficient systems and lifestyles which would enable us all to move to a low carbon lifestyle.

‘ITU Symposia on ICTs and Climate Change’ convened twice, first in Kyoto, Japan between 15-16 April 2008 and in London, UK between 17-18 June 2008 used the Technology Watch Briefing Report material from the ITU Telecommunication Development and Radiocommunication Sectors. The abovementioned report starts with a reference to the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize awarded to former US Vice-President Al Gore and to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). This paper looks at the potential role of ICTs in the phenomenon of climate change, starting from the sector’s role in contributing to global warming, to monitoring it, developing long-term solutions to mitigate the impact of climate change not just in the ICT sector but also in other sectors like energy, transport, buildings, etc, and finally to help adapt to the effects of climate change. In addition, an annex to the report carries details of the work currently being carried out in ITU and the campaign for a climate-neutral UN. The paper goes on to elaborate on the technical/operational details of ICT implementation in monitoring climate change by predicting, detecting and mitigating the effects of typhoons, thunderstorms, earthquakes, tsunamis, manmade disasters etc. The paper gives examples of various measures that can and have been adopted to reduce the carbon footprint of the sector, one of the primary initiatives in this regard being the joint initiative between the European Telecommunication Network Operators’ Association (ETNO) and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), called ‘Saving the climate @ the speed of light’ which is designed to show how ICTs can be used to displace carbon emissions within the EU. One of the most important issues pertains to the use of ICTs for adapting to the local effects of climate change. The paper lists the countries which are at the highest risk from natural disasters related to climate change and offers tools that can help give advance warnings and can be used for relief operations too. Apart from this, the paper also points out how the existing advance warning systems can be optimised for more efficient functioning. A useful background material for those embarking to learn more! i4d | December 2008

Whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s on

Thailand

Africa

India

14-16 January 2009 12th Bangkok International Symposium on HIV Medicine Bangkok

10-12 January 2009 6th Conference on e-Learning Applications Cairo, Egypt

18-20 December 2008 6th International Conference on e-Governance (ICEG) 2008 New Delhi

http://www.hivnat.org/

5-7 March 2009 Education and Development Conference 2008, Bangkok

http://www.aucegypt.edu/ResearchatAUC/conferences/ elearning/Pages/default.aspx

http://www.iceg.net/2008/CallForPapers.html

http://www.tomorrowpeople.org/index. php?option=com_content&task=view&id=42&Item id=93

Australia 23- 26 March 2009 Green House 2009 Perth, Western Australia http://www.greenhouse2009.com

15-18 November 2009 2009 Asia Pacific Conference on Child Abuse and Neglect Perth, Western Australia http://www.napcan.org.au

21-23 January 2009 Second International Conference on Micro Finance Pondicherry http://www.pondiuni.edu.in/icomfi2009

3-7 March 2009 Green Energy Summit 2008 Bangalore, Karnataka http://www.greenenergysummit.com

Japan

20-23 May 2009 World Renewable Energy Congress 2009 - Asia Region (WREC) Bankok http://www.thai-exhibition.com/entech

United Arab Emirates 17-19 April 2009 3rd IEEE/ACM International Conference on ICTD2009 Doha, Qatar

http://www.wcim2010.com.au/

24-28 August 2009 The 3rd International Symposium on the Environmental Physiology of Ectotherms and Plants Tsukuba

Europe

http://www.nias.affrc.go.jp/anhydrobiosis/isepep3/ index.html

22-27 March 2009 Prevention of HIV/AIDS Keystone, Colorado

Jordan

http://www.keystonesymposia.org/9x3

22-24 April 2009 Interactive Mobile and Computer Aided Learning, IMCL2009 Amman, Jordan

28-30 October 2009 International Conference on Information Technology (ICIT 2009) Chicago

http://www.imcl-conference.org/

http://www.waset.org/wcset09/chicago/icit/

Malaysia

United Kingdom

20-25 March 2010 World Congress of Internal Medicine Melbourne, VIC

24th November 2008 6th e-Infrastructure Concertation Meeting Lyon, France http://www.beliefproject.org/events/6th-einfrastructure-concertation-meeting

28-29 November 2008 Cyberspace 2008 Brno Czech Republic http://www.cyberspace.muni.cz

9-11 March 2009 International Technology, Education and Development Conference (INTED) 2009 Valencia, Spain http://www.iated.org/inted2009

13-15 March 2009 4th Global Conference: Cybercultures - Exploring Critical Issues Salzburg, Austria http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/ci/Cyber/ cybercultures/c4/cfp.htm December 2008 | www.i4donline.net

15-17 December 2008 International Conference on Environment 2008 (ICENV 2008) Penang

http://www.ictd2009.org

United States

25-27 March 2009 Gender and Education Association International Conference London

http://chemical.eng.usm.my/ICENV2008

http://www.ioe.ac.uk/fps/genderconference09

Singapore 16-18 February 2009 Open Source Singapore-Pacific-Asia Conference & Ex5 po 2009 (OSSPAC)

29-31 March 2009 Governance of New Technologies: The Transformation of Medicine, IT and IP University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh

http://www.osspac.com

www.law.ed.ac.uk/ahrc/script-ed/conference.asp

30th March - 3rd April 2009 12th Annual Asia Power & Energy Congress Raffles City Convention Centre

29 April 2009-1 May 2009 SEBâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;09 International Conference on Sustainability in Energy and Buildings Brighton

http://www.terrapinn.com/2009/asiapower/

http://seb09.sustainedenergy.org

IN-FACT

The network readiness index The World Economic Forum has published the network readiness index in cooperation with INSEAD and sponsored by Cisco Systems. The Global Information Technology Report 2007-2008 draws several key indicators of the economy and technological of the country. The network readiness index is a comparative and benchmarking framework that captures the state of the technology readiness in the 127 countries worldwide. Source: http://www.weforum.org/pdf/gitr/2008/Rankings.pdf

Year 2008-2008 Rank 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42

Country/ Economy Denmark Sweden Switzerland United States Singapore Finland Netherlands Iceland Korea, Rep. Norway Hong Kong SAR United Kingdom Canada Australia Austria Germany Taiwan, China Israel Japan Estonia France New Zealand Ireland Luxembourg Belgium Malaysia Malta Portugal United Arab Emirates Slovenia Spain Qatar Lithuania Chile Tunisia Czech Republic Hungary Barbados Puerto Rico Thailand Cyprus Italy

Score 5.78 5.72 5.53 5.49 5.49 5.47 5.44 5.44 5.43 5.38 5.31 5.30 5.30 5.28 5.22 5.19 5.18 5.18 5.14 5.12 5.11 5.02 5.02 4.94 4.92 4.82 4.61 4.60 4.55 4.47 4.47 4.42 4.41 4.35 4.33 4.33 4.28 4.26 4.25 4.25 4.23 4.21

Rank 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84

Country/ Economy Slovak Republic Latvia Bahrain Jamaica Jordan Saudi Arabia Croatia India South Africa Kuwait Oman Mauritius Turkey Greece China Mexico Brazil Costa Rica Romania Poland Egypt Panama Uruguay El Salvador Azerbaijan Bulgaria Colombia Ukraine Kazakhstan Russian Federation Vietnam Morocco Dominican Republic Indonesia Argentina Botswana Sri Lanka Guatemala Philippines Trinidad and Tobago Macedonia, FYR Peru

Score 4.17 4.14 4.13 4.09 4.08 4.07 4.06 4.06 4.05 4.01 3.97 3.96 3.96 3.94 3.90 3.90 3.87 3.87 3.86 3.81 3.74 3.74 3.72 3.72 3.72 3.71 3.71 3.69 3.68 3.68 3.67 3.67 3.66 3.60 3.59 3.59 3.58 3.58 3.56 3.55 3.49 3.46

Rank 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127

Country/ Economy Senegal Venezuela Mongolia Algeria Pakistan Honduras Georgia Kenya Namibia Nigeria Bosnia and Herzegovina Moldova Mauritania Tajikistan Mali Tanzania Gambia, The Guyana Burkina Faso Madagascar Libya Armenia Ecuador Albania Uganda 3.06 Syria 3.06 Bolivia Zambia Benin Kyrgyz Republic Cambodia Nicaragua Suriname Cameroon Nepal Paraguay Mozambique Lesotho Ethiopia Bangladesh Zimbabwe Burundi Chad

Score 3.46 3.44 3.43 3.38 3.37 3.35 3.34 3.34 3.33 3.32 3.22 3.21 3.21 3.18 3.17 3.17 3.17 3.16 3.12 3.12 3.10 3.10 3.09 3.06 3.06 3.06 3.05 3.02 3.01 2.99 2.96 2.95 2.91 2.89 2.88 2.87 2.82 2.79 2.77 2.65 2.50 2.46 2.40

Source: The Global Information Technology Report 2007-2008 ÂŠ 2008 World Economic Forum

i4d | December 2008