Internet governance

Progress towards every single sustainable development goal (SDG) of Agenda 2030 also hinges on the effective deployment of digital technologies. In Global Governance Spotlight 4|2019, Anita Gurumurthy and Nandini Chami from IT for Change explain the importance of so-called digital ecosystems to catalyse inclusive sustainable development. In…

Last week, Facebook announced Libra, its new currency based on blockchain technology.

This development that has been met with mixed reactions. Unlike Bitcoin, Libra will be backed by a reserve of a basket of currencies. Both the technology and the reserve are governed by the Libra Association, which includes a host of technology…

Digital data and the pervasive intelligence it provides about people and artefactual and natural phenomenon, is the very basis of a digital economy. With the industrial revolution, machines soon became practically unavoidable everywhere. The same will be true of much of digital intelligence-based economic processes and systems as a digital…

Going by the chapter on data in the Economic Survey released on July 4, it seemed that the government’s new Budget would carry new thinking on the digital economy. If data of, for, and by, the people was going to be an important digital mantra, then the Budget had to build on this. However, the BJP government’s digital imaginary, read in the…

Earlier this week, Facebook deleted over 700 pages in India for “coordinated inauthentic behaviour” and “spam”. Most of these pages were related to the Congress and the BJP. The action, evidently with an eye on the upcoming elections, targeted what Facebook described as deliberate attempts to mislead. Facebook’s role in cleaning up mala fide…

There are two ways to look at the digital economy.  One is just as progressive automation of production processes that has been going on for many years, now hitting a whole new level.  Another is to see it as a distinct discontinuity, much like the industrial revolution was.  The latter, within a few decades of some rapid techno-economic…

In October and November 2018, during the Great Indian Festival season in India, online retail giants — Amazon, Flipkart and Paytm Mall — sold goods worth $4.3 billion (Rs 29,947 crore), 43% higher than the last year.

Traders in physical retail must now reckon with the rather disconcerting reality of e-commerce. The press note issued by…

Reorienting "data for development"

"Data for development" enjoys high currency in global policy circles. It has come to stand for the idea that developing countries need to acquire the capacity to produce "quality, accessible, timely and reliable disaggregated data" and use the promise of big data to…

This report presents emerging insights from the research studies being undertaken under the project. Covering 14 countries and a range of domains and sectors, it examines the current trends in platformization, mapping the emerging policy responses and challenges.

Read more from the 'Policy Frameworks for Digital Platforms' research…

On December 20, 2018, the Union Ministry of Home Affairs issued an order authorizing ten central agencies to intercept, monitor and decrypt any information generated from any computer, drawing legitimacy from the Information Technology Act (2000) and associated rules. It is not clear if the order intends to be an executive fiat for blanket…