--- layout: default title: "Centre for Internet and Society: Annual Report 2012–13" description: "A narrative account of the Centre for Internet and Society's annual report for the year 1 April 2012 to 31 March 2013, covering its research, advocacy, events, publications, and organisational details." permalink: /cis/annual-report-2012-13/ categories: [Centre for Internet and Society] created: 2026-05-05 --- The **Annual Report 2012–13** of the [Centre for Internet and Society](/cis/) (CIS) documents the organisation's work for the financial year from 1 April 2012 to 31 March 2013. It marked CIS's fifth year of operation since its founding in July 2008, and the report reflects an expanded organisation, with the opening of a second office in New Delhi, a two-year grant from the Wikimedia Foundation, and continued work across accessibility, access to knowledge, internet governance, and digital culture. The report is organised into seven thematic sections: Accessibility, Access to Knowledge, Openness, Internet Governance, Telecom, Digital Natives, and Researchers at Work. It also includes a Credibility Alliance Norms Compliance section providing organisational and financial data, and an International Travel record. ## Contents 1. [Accessibility](#accessibility) 2. [Access to Knowledge](#access-to-knowledge) 3. [Openness](#openness) 4. [Internet Governance](#internet-governance) 5. [Telecom](#telecom) 6. [Digital Natives](#digital-natives) 7. [Researchers at Work](#researchers-at-work) 8. [Organisation and Governance](#organisation-and-governance) 9. [Full Report](#full-report) ## Accessibility CIS pursued two major projects in partnership with the Hans Foundation during 2012–13: one to develop an open source screen reader for Indian languages, and another to create a national resource kit of state-wise laws, policies, and programmes for persons with disabilities. ### Publications Three reports were published under this theme: - *Accessibility of Government Websites in India: A Report* (by Nirmita Narasimhan, Mukesh Sharma, and Dinesh Kaushal): Summarised the findings of a test conducted to measure the accessibility of 7,800 websites of the Government of India against the WCAG 2.0 standard. - *Banking and Accessibility in India* (by Vrinda Maheshwari, 30 October 2012): Found that adoption of accessible features and technologies by banks in India was low despite legislative and executive mandates. - *Accessible Broadcasting in India* (by Srividya Vaidyanathan, 11 January 2013): An abridged and broadened version of the ITU's *Making Television Accessible* report, originally published for comment in October 2012. ### NVDA Project CIS worked on developing an open source screen reading software solution, NVDA (NonVisual Desktop Access), to handle Indian languages and text-to-speech software in 15 Indian languages, as a two-and-a-half-year project from 2012 to 2015. A seven-member steering committee was constituted, comprising Dipendra Manocha, Deepesh, Charu Datta Jadhav, Manish Agarwal, Avneesh Singh, Sunil Abraham, and Nirmita Narasimhan. The NVDA team in Australia agreed to mirror development work done in India on their main page. Project Manager Manish Agarwal supervised bugs and testing; Suman Dogra wrote test scripts and validated bugs; Yogesh Kumar coordinated with Mahiti. The team was working on bug 2047, which addressed NVDA not recognising languages automatically in MS Word. Two interns, Krishna Kant Kumar and Rameshwar Nagar, worked on bugs 1641 and 1353. The Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi agreed to have three professors involved and allow students to work on the project. ### National Resource Kit Project CIS and the Hans Foundation undertook the creation of a national resource kit of state-wise laws, policies, and programmes for persons with disabilities over 30 months (2012–2015). CIS hired Anandhi Vishwanathan and signed a memorandum of understanding with the Centre for Law and Policy Research (CLPR); Shruti Ramakrishna and later Manojna Yeluri worked on the project under Jayna Kothari, Senior Partner at CLPR and Board Member at CIS. RTI applications were sent to 15 states and 3 union territories. Draft chapters were published for Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Haryana, Bihar, West Bengal, Lakshadweep, Meghalaya, and Uttar Pradesh between December 2012 and March 2013. ### WIPO Pranesh Prakash participated in the 24th meeting of the WIPO Standing Committee for Copyright and Related Rights in Geneva, where CIS presented statements on the Treaty for the Visually Impaired, the WIPO Broadcast Treaty, and Exceptions and Limitations for Libraries and Archives. ### Memorial: Rahul Cherian Rahul Cherian, an expert and policy activist in disability law, intellectual property, and technology law, passed away on 7 February 2013 following an illness while on a visit to Goa. Rahul was the founder of the Inclusive Planet Centre for Disability and Policy and a Fellow at CIS. He was also a partner at IndoJuris Law Offices in Chennai and was one of the experts who drafted the Treaty for the Visually Impaired being negotiated at WIPO. Lawrence Liang wrote an obituary, *A Lightness of Spirit* (*The Hindu*, 9 February 2013), and Nishant Shah wrote a column, *One For All* (*Indian Express*, 17 February 2013). CIS organised a memorial function at TERI Southern Regional Centre, Bangalore on 28 February 2013. ## Access to Knowledge The Access to Knowledge programme addressed harms caused by excessive regimes of copyright, patents, and other monopolistic rights over knowledge. During 2012–13, CIS prepared the India Report for the Consumers International IP Watchlist 2012, analysed the Copyright Amendment Bill, 2012, and worked on a Pervasive Technologies project examining the relationship between pervasive technologies and intellectual property. ### Copyright - *Consumers International IP Watchlist 2012 — India Report* (by Pranesh Prakash, 16 August 2012): Found that India's Copyright Act was a relatively balanced instrument, recognising the interests of consumers through its broad private use exception and facilitating compulsory licensing of otherwise unavailable works. - *Analysis of Copyright Amendment Bill 2012* (by Pranesh Prakash, 23 May 2012): Examined five positive changes, four negative ones, and several missed opportunities in the Bill published in the Gazette of India on 8 June 2012. - *Analysis of Super Cassettes v. MySpace* (by Ujjwala Uppaluri, 31 October 2012): Critiqued the Delhi High Court's judgment as failing to appreciate the working of online intermediaries, with unfavourable consequences for free expression and file sharing. Op-eds and columns were published by Lawrence Liang, Achal Prabhala, and Sunil Abraham in the *Indian Express*, *The Hindu*, *Open Magazine*, *Prajavani*, and *Business Standard*. CIS co-organised the 2012 Global Congress on Intellectual Property and the Public Interest (FGV Law School, Rio de Janeiro, 15–17 December 2012) with Fundação Getulio Vargas, American University Washington College of Law, Columbia University, Open AIR, and ICSTD. Pranesh Prakash also attended the Max Planck Institute international copyright conference in Munich (14–15 May 2012) and attended a meeting with representatives of Twitter, the EFF, and Google's policy team in California in June 2012 as an Internet Freedom Fellow. ### Pervasive Technologies CIS initiated a project on Pervasive Technologies to examine the relationship between new types of digital media devices, content, and services in China and India. A one-day workshop on *Exploring the Internals of Mobile Technologies* was held at TERI Southern Regional Centre, Bangalore on 27 October 2012, with more than 140 registrants, of whom approximately 40 attended. Sunil Abraham presented preliminary findings at the International Conference on Contours of Media Governance at Jamia Millia Islamia University, New Delhi (25–27 February 2013). ## Openness The Openness programme critically examined alternatives to existing intellectual property regimes and studied open government data, open access to scholarly literature, open access to law, open content, open standards, and free and open source software. ### Wikipedia Project The Wikimedia Foundation awarded CIS a two-year grant to support the growth of Indian language Wikipedia communities by designing collaborations and partnerships to recruit and cultivate new editors. CIS opened a Delhi office to host the Access to Knowledge team, which worked simultaneously from Delhi and Bangalore. CIS hired Vishnu Vardhan as Programme Director (Access to Knowledge), Tejaswini Niranjana as Distinguished Fellow, and Dr. U.B. Pavanaja as Programme Officer (Indian Language Initiatives). Other team members included Nitika Tandon (Programme Manager), Noopur Raval (Programme Officer), and Subhashish Panigrahi (Programme Officer). Shiju Alex, Programme Officer for Indic Language Initiatives, left in November 2012. Wikipedia workshops and education programmes were conducted across multiple states and universities. Selected events included: - Kannada Wiki Workshop, Tumkur University (15 September 2012) - Wikipedia workshop, Inmantec College, Ghaziabad (19 October 2012) — over 120 participants - Launch of Assamese Wikipedia Education Programme, Guwahati University (October 2012) - Gujarati Wikipedia Article Competition involving 10 schools and 200 students (October 2012) - Odia Wikipedia Workshop, Academy of Media Learning, Bhubaneswar (10 November 2012) - Wikipedia: State of Tech — talk by Erik Moeller, Vice President of Engineering and Product Development at Wikimedia Foundation, at CIS Bangalore (12 November 2012) - Two-day Wiki Workshop, Goa University (January 2013) - Promoting GLAM in Goa — attended by 45 people from over 10 institutions (24 January 2013) - Digital Literacy Workshop, Department of Arts, Delhi University — about 30 students and 4 faculty members (5 February 2013) - Kannada Wikipedia Workshop, Institution of Engineers, Mysore, led by Dr. U.B. Pavanaja (24 March 2013) - Wiki Women's Day, Nirmala Institute of Education, Panaji, Goa (8 March 2013), co-organised with Wikimedia India Chapter Co-organised workshops included events at BITS Hyderabad, KMBB College Bhubaneswar, TISS Mumbai, SRM University Chennai, NMAIT Karnataka, and RKGIT Ghaziabad, among others. Monthly Wikipedia meet-ups continued at the CIS Bangalore office from April 2012 through March 2013; notable attendees included Barry Newstead, Global Development Officer of the Wikimedia Foundation (29 April 2012), and Lydia Pintscher, who presented the Wikidata project (2 December 2012). Sajjad Anwar and Sumandro Chattapadhyay published the first post in the Indic Wikipedia Visualisation Project (26 March 2013). ### HasGeek HasGeek, a Bangalore-based organisation supported by CIS, organised a series of developer events jointly with CIS, including: - *The Fifth Elephant* (NIMHANS Convention Centre, Bangalore, 27–28 July 2012) - *Cartonama Conference* on geospatial data and mapping (TERI Complex, Bangalore, 22 September 2012) - *Aaron Swartz Memorial Hacknight* (CIS Bangalore, 19–20 January 2013) ### Metaculture Lab CIS opened the Metaculture Lab in its Bangalore office as a space for exhibitions, workshops, presentations, and film screenings. A software-defined radio receiver and 7 MHz antenna were installed. The lab was registered as part of Columbia University, New York's DORKBOT global collective. Events included a *Braitenberg Cybernetic Vehicles* workshop (14 April 2012) and the *International Space Apps Challenge* (CIS Bangalore, 21–22 April 2012). ### Other Openness Activities - *Design!PubliC* (New Delhi, 19–20 April 2012): Co-organised with the Centre for Knowledge Societies, IBM, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Google, and others. Sunil Abraham was a panelist. - *Data-Driven Journalism, Data Literacy & Open Government* talk at CIS (1 August 2012): Lucy Chambers and Laura Newman of the Open Knowledge Foundation spoke. - *Second International e-Governance Conference* (Baghdad, 2 December 2012): Sunil Abraham presented on the legal environment in Iraq for effective e-governance. - An *Openness Book* covering open access to scholarly literature, free access to law, open content, open standards, free and open source software, and open government data was being compiled, authored by Vinay Arvind, Gautam John, Nisha Thompson, Madhan Muthu, Prof. Subbiah Arunachalam, and Pranesh Prakash. ## Internet Governance The Internet Governance programme conducted research on the social, technical, and political underpinnings of global and national internet governance, including online privacy, freedom of expression, and intermediary liability. ### Free Speech and Expression - *Intermediary Liability in India: Chilling Effects on Free Expression on the Internet* (by Rishabh Dara, Google Policy Fellow, 27 April 2012): Demonstrated that the Information Technology (Intermediaries Guidelines) Rules 2011 had a chilling effect on free expression. - *Constitutional Analysis of the Information Technology (Intermediaries' Guidelines) Rules, 2011* (by Ujwala Uppaluri, 16 July 2012): Examined its compatibility with Articles 14, 19, and 21 of the Constitution of India. - *Analysing Latest List of Blocked Sites (Communalism and Rioting Edition)* (by Pranesh Prakash, 22 August 2012): Analysed 309 specific items blocked by the Indian government from 18 to 21 August 2012. The analysis was cross-posted or quoted in the *Wall Street Journal*, *The Hindu*, *LiveMint*, *Global Voices*, *Outlook*, *FirstPost.India*, *IBN Live*, *News Click*, *Medianama*, and *KAFILA*, all on 23–25 August 2012. A follow-up analysis was published by Snehashish Ghosh on 25 September 2012. - *An Introduction to the Issues in Internet Governance* (by Smarika Kumar, 26 September 2012). Events organised included *Resisting Internet Censorship: Strategies for Furthering Freedom of Expression in India* (co-organised with the Foundation for Media Professionals, TERI Complex, Domlur, 21 April 2012), where Members of Parliament P. Rajeeve and Rajeev Chandrashekar and MLC V.R. Sudarshan participated. A *Freedom of Expression and Privacy Roundtable Discussion* was held at the University of Goa on 2 June 2012. CIS also organised a screening of the documentary *Freedom Song* at IIHS Bangalore City Campus on 21 March 2013. Events participated in included *Internet at Liberty 2012* in Washington, D.C. (23–24 May 2012), the *Second Freedom Online Conference* in Nairobi (6–7 September 2012), the *7th Internet Governance Forum* in Baku, Azerbaijan (3–9 November 2012, where CIS staff spoke on 12 panels), a *Third South Asian Meeting on the Internet and Freedom of Expression* in Dhaka (14–15 January 2013), and the *9th International Asian Conference* organised by ITechLaw (14–15 February 2013). Amba Kak was selected as Google Policy Fellow for 2012. Pranesh Prakash was selected as a 2012 Internet Freedom Fellow by the US State Department. ### Privacy CIS completed its two-year research on *Privacy in Asia* in partnership with Privacy International, UK, and the Society in Action Group, Gurgaon. In January 2013, a new agreement was entered with Privacy International to work on surveillance and freedom of speech and expression. DNA profiling events were organised: *UK DNA Database and the European Court of Human Rights: Lessons that India can Learn from Its Mistakes* (CIS and Alternative Law Forum, 24 September 2012) and *The DNA Profiling Bill: Developing Best Practices* (India International Centre, New Delhi, 27 September 2012), featuring international experts Helen Wallace (GeneWatch UK) and Jeremy Gruber (Council for Responsible Genetics, US). A further workshop, *Analyzing the Draft Human DNA Profiling Bill 2012*, was held in Bangalore on 1 March 2013. CIS also joined the Global Network Initiative on 25 April 2012. ### Internet Institute CIS, in partnership with the Ford Foundation, initiated a project from November 2012 on a *Knowledge Repository on Internet Access* — covering the history of the internet, technologies involved, principles and values of internet access, broadband markets, and universal access. Modules were published on the website www.internet-institute.in and mirrored on the CIS website. ### Op-eds and Columns Columns were published in the *Indian Express*, *Times of India*, *Deccan Herald*, *Deccan Chronicle*, *Economic Times*, *The Hindu*, *FirstPost*, *Tehelka*, and *Down to Earth* by Pranesh Prakash, Sunil Abraham, Nishant Shah, Chinmayi Arun, and Lawrence Liang, covering internet censorship, intermediary liability, blocked websites, and freedom of expression. ## Telecom CIS was actively involved in promoting access to and accessibility of telecommunications services. Activities included providing inputs to TRAI consultation papers, preparing a policy brief on unlicensed spectrum, and producing a report on mobile accessibility for persons with disabilities. ### Publication *Unlicensed Spectrum Policy Brief for Government of India* (by Satya N. Gupta, Sunil Abraham, and Yelena Gyulkhandanyan, 24 June 2012), funded by the Ford Foundation: Demonstrated the need for and importance of unlicensed spectrum as a medium for inexpensive connectivity in rural and remote areas and as a platform for testing new technologies. ### Newspaper Columns Shyam Ponappa, a Distinguished Fellow at CIS, continued his regular column in *Business Standard* and on his blog *Organising India*. Columns during the year covered topics including telecom monopoly, spectrum management, Super WiFi and shared spectrum, inflation control, and the Supreme Court's judgments on spectrum. One column on spectrum auctions was also contributed by Jayna Kothari (*Hindu Business Line*, 24 November 2012). ### Events The *3rd IJLT–CIS Lecture Series* was held at the National Law School of India University, Nagarbhavi, Bangalore on 27 May 2012. Prof. Rohan Samarajiva, Chairman and CEO of LIRNEasia, delivered the inaugural lecture on tariff regulation in South Asia. RTI applications on the use of Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) technology by ISPs were filed by Smiti Mujumdar on behalf of CIS with the Department of Telecommunications, TRAI, BSNL, and MTNL. ## Digital Natives The Digital Natives with a Cause? programme continued as a research initiative examining the changing landscape of social change, political participation, and the role of young people through digital and internet technologies in emerging information societies. A peer-reviewed article by Nishant Shah, *Resisting Revolutions: Questioning the Radical Potential of Citizen Action*, was published in *Development* (Vol. 55, Issue 2, May 2012). CIS and Hivos jointly organised the **Digital Natives Video Contest**, inviting video submissions on the theme "Everyday Digital Native". A panel of jurists — Shashwati Talukdar, Leon Tan, Jeroen van Loon, Becky Band Jain, and Namita A. Malhotra — shortlisted 12 participants from submissions received. The top five winners were selected through public votes: Marie Jude Bendiola, T.J. KM, Thomas Burks, John Musila, and James Mlambo. Each won a prize of EUR 500. The jury prizes for the two best videos went to John Musila and Marie Jude Bendiola. Nishant Shah's columns on digital natives were published in the *Indian Express* throughout the year, covering topics such as cyborgs, digital analogue life, online engagement, and the role of 3G. *Links in the Chain*, the Digital Natives newsletter, published three issues during the year; the third issue (December 2012) was the last. Nishant Shah gave a keynote at *Video Vortex #9: Re:assemblies of Video* (organised by the Institute of Network Cultures, Leuphana, et al., 28 February–2 March 2013) and a talk at *D:coding Digital Natives* seminar hosted by HUMlab (26 February 2013). *Habits of Living*, a workshop held in Bangalore from 26 to 29 September 2012, resulted in three columns by Nishant Shah published in October 2012. ## Researchers at Work During 2012–13, the Researchers at Work programme was winding down its second cohort of monographs. A peer-reviewed article by Nishant Shah was published and a book review by Nishant Shah of *Deconstructing Digital Natives: Young People, Technology and the New Literacies* was published in Routledge's *Journal of Children and Media* on 18 July 2012. ## Organisation and Governance ### Board The board members and staff details are drawn from the Credibility Alliance Norms Compliance section of the report (as reported in the document's compliance section).
Name Position Occupation / Designation Area of Competency
Lawrence Liang Chairman Lawyer IPR Reform
Subbiah Arunachalam Member Scientist (retired) Open Access and ICT4D
Vibodh Parthasarathi Member Associate Professor Media
Jayna Kothari Member Advocate NVDA
Kavita Philip Member Associate Professor Gender, Science and Technology
Sunil Abraham President Executive Director IPR Reform
Nishant Shah Treasurer Director, Research Digital Culture
### Staff The staff members as listed in the Credibility Alliance Norms Compliance section are: - Sunil Abraham, Executive Director - Nishant Shah, Director – Research - Nirmita Narasimhan, Policy Director - Pranesh Prakash, Policy Director - T. Vishnu Vardhan, Programme Director - Shiju Alex, Programme Manager - Nitika Tandon, Programme Manager - U.B. Pavanaja, Programme Officer - Subhashish Panigrahi, Programme Officer - Noopur Raval, Programme Officer - Krishna Prasad Nair, Publications Manager - Snehashish Ghosh, Policy Associate - Ajoy Kumar C., Administrator - Usha Nandini, Accounts Officer - Velankanni Royson, Office Assistant - Mithilesh, Office Assistant - Chandhussain, Housekeeper - Mohammed Hussain, Housekeeper ### Consultants - Faisal Mohammed - Nisha Thompson - Satyen Gupta - Mary Mani - Adi Narayana Vardarajan - Vipul Kharbanda - Paranjoy Guhathakurta - Dr. Surendra Pal - Dr. Rakesh Mehrotra - Ravi Kiran Annaswamy - Dr. Nadeem Akthar - Namita A. Malhotra - Sharat Chandra - Priya Kuber - Srividya Vaidyanathan - Anandhi Viswanathan - Abul Hasim - Amba Uttara Kak - Elonnai Hickok - Vikram Crishna - Laird Brown - Ayesha Rana - Bhairav Acharya - Annapoornima Koppad - Sajjad Anwar - Video Volunteers - Fantomos Design - Inigo Tech - Saksham Delhi - Centre for Law and Policy Research - Mahiti Infotech Limited ### Distinguished Fellows - Prof. Subbiah Arunachalam - Lawrence Liang - Shyam Ponappa - Tejaswini Niranjana ### Fellows - Chinmayi Arun - Rahul Cherian - Chanuka Wattegama ### Finances The salary distribution as on 31 March 2012 (as recorded in the Credibility Alliance section) was as follows:
Salary plus benefits (₹ per month) Male Female Total
<₹5,000 0 0 0
₹5,000 – ₹10,000 2 0 2
₹10,000 – ₹25,000 1 1 2
₹25,000 – ₹50,000 3 1 4
₹50,000 – ₹1,00,000 2 1 3
₹1,00,000 – ₹2,00,000 5 1 6
Total 13 4 17
The three highest monthly remunerations paid to staff were ₹2,00,000, ₹1,70,750, and ₹1,16,685, while the lowest was ₹7,000. The total staff as on 31 March 2012 comprised 13 male and 4 female employees (17 total). The organisation's primary donor was the Kusuma Trust. Other funders acknowledged include Hivos, IDRC, the Hans Foundation, Privacy International, the Wikimedia Foundation, and the Ford Foundation. The registered office was No. 194, 2nd 'C' Cross, Domlur 2nd Stage, Bangalore 560071. ## Full Report

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