Media articles

In the light of the growing media focus on Facebook's 'Free Basics' and the overwhelming response to the TRAI consultation paper on differential pricing, Parminder Jeet Singh argued how differntial pricing will invert the basic egalitarian design of the Internet with very harful consequences to the society in this article in Deccan Herald.

In 2015, WWW Foundation in partnership with Sida conducted a 10-country research study across Asia, Africa and Latin America to explore the potential of the Internet for the empowerment of urban poor women. IT for Change was the country partner for the India component of the project. The research findings clearly indicate the need to refine our understanding of digital empowerment as much more than minimising the access gap between women and men.

Parminder Jeet Singh wrote an op-ed in The Hindu about entrenchment of power and control with regard to the global Internet in the hands of a few economic and political elites, overwhelming based in the US, leading to what may be called as a unipolar networked-digital complex. India needs to work in a BRICS framework for cooperation on digital economy to challange this hegemony. Read the article here.

In this QnA, Parminder Jeet Singh talks about the social underpinnings of the Net Neutrality discussion and the principles that should guide any regulation in this area. The segment was a part of the cover story Net Equality, published on June 1, 2015, in Down to Earth, a science and environment fortnightly.

Gurumurthy Kasinathan writes about the zero-sum game of district-wise SSLC performance ranking in Karnataka. These rankings create undue stress leading to multiple preparatory examinations which may not be the best thing for the students and the teachers. He analyses the problematic nature of these rankings and suggests alternatives in an opinion piece in Deccan Herald.

The recent public consultation by TRAI has catapulted the issue of 'net neutrality' into mainstream consciousness. In this article for the Economic and Political Weekly Parminder Jeet Singh delineates precisely what net neutrality is, and the important criteria it must meet to be truly egalitarian.

Three speakers, from the International Forum on Gender, Media, ICTs, and Journalism: 20 years after the Beijing Action Platform, Margaret Gallgher, Lucía Lagunes Huerta, and Anita Gurumurthy were invited for a discussion on the Latin American channel teleSur.

Issue No. 287 of the Third World Network's 'Resurgence' featured many an article by members of the Just Net Coalition, foregrounding global level IG issues of critical importance, during the run up to the IGF 2014, Istanbul. Parminder Jeet Singh's overview traces the International IG scene so far, emphasizes Snowden's intervention and offers a road map recommending future directions for Indian IG.

Link to the article here.

An analysis of outcomes of International Telecommunication Union’s World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT) by IT for Change, which appeared as the lead Op-Ed in The Hindu on 21 December 2012.

The article highlights important facts, incidents and debates on the regulation of the Internet.

Read the article here.