Policy briefs

2019

The percentage enrolment of children in government schools overall, is declining every year and that of private schools increasing, as the statistics collected by the Government of India indicate. ‘Private’ has become a buzzword for ‘quality education’, or at least to making a claim to be better than ‘government’.

 

Privatisation of…
2019

Technologies that map women’s bodies and reproductive choices are a site of patriarchal control and surveillance while simultaneously creating an illusion of choice or autonomy for users. This report recognizes and examines the ways in which the absence of safeguards for sensitive and personal data and information disproportionately targets…

2018

….. The second type of education system ties the teacher to the prescribed textbook. She is given no choice in the organization of curriculum, pacing, and the mode of final assessment. Textbooks are prescribed for each subject, and the teacher is expected to elucidate the text, lesson by lesson in the given order. She must ensure that children…

2018

A global Internet with unrestrained global flow of data has been held up as the ideal. However, while there is great value in it, there are also other, often competing, imperatives of ensuring rule of law over the internet and data, and using local and national data for encouraging domestic digital industry and for policy making and governance…

2018

E-commerce platforms have radically reorganized economic activity, given rise to new structures of intermediation and changed the conception of global trade altogether. And yet structural inequities in opportunities and access between actors in developed and developing nations continue to persist. The possibilities for the Internet to be the…

2017

This paper examines the nature of e-governance in India, presents the implications of the changing nature of governance and state-citizen engagement particularly for groups at the margins, and makes suggestions for a digitalisation that strengthens participatory democracy in the country.

2017

The starting point of this paper is that efforts to bridge the gender digital divide or use ICTs towards women’s empowerment in the current digitalised socio-economic paradigm must be more than just about women’s access to connectivity. They must focus on the design of institutional frameworks that can guarantee the democratic distribution of…

2017

These resources were produced as part of the Mahiti Manthana project, a joint initiative of Prakriye and Mahila Samakhya Karnataka, undertaken between 2005 and 2009. Since its inception in 2005, the project primarily aimed at exploring the possibilities offered by community informatics practice, for…

2017

Based on its experiences from research, curriculum design and field projects over the last decade, IT for Change made a submission to the National Education Policy 2017 Committee, on ICT integration in school education.

As general purpose technologies that affect basic processes of knowledge and communication, digital technologies (…

2017

This background paper developed for South Centre, Geneva, highlights how developing countries need to develop competencies and skills in global diplomacy around digital trade, and shape new geopolitical strategies, moving beyond narrow lenses of IT industry concerns or ICTs for development. Data is the new raw material that…