Net Neutrality in India : Equal Choice , Equal Voice

Let’s imagine a scenario. One day your milkman knocks on your door and you buy your daily share of milk. If you are part of a typical middle class household then you would most likely be buying one liter of milk, as I always do. As you start to pay the milkman, he stops you and hands out a questionnaire to fill up before he can accept the payment. You are slightly puzzled at this moment.

Why this sudden change in the way I am supposed to pay for my milk?

You choose to not argue and fill up the survey instead to get along with your other activities quickly. You take a look at the questionnaire. Now you are even more confused. Questions in the survey ask you about how you are planning to use the one Liter milk. Are you planning to make Ghee out of the milk? You will have to pay extra since his brother runs a Ghee business and your plan will hurt his brother’s business. This is outrageous – you think. When you are anyway paying for one liter of milk what right does this milkman have to ask you how you are going to use the milk?

You are getting uncomfortable now.

This milkman should just mind his milk business and make sure I get delivered my share of milk daily – thoughts ring in your head. He shouldn’t ask me at all what am I going to do with the milk afterwards and even to think that he will charge you based on what you do with the milk is unsettling you. But you don’t fight, there are other milkmen and you’d rather buy from them now. Time to change your milk vendor. Problem solved. You get along with rest of your day.

Now imagine that milk vendor to be your internet provider – firm which hosts the internet service your phone or laptop is connected to currently. And imagine that internet provider asking what you are planning to do with the internet you have bought from them. Are you going to use Whatsapp? You will have to pay extra to have a quality experience. Are you going to use a video streaming site?  But they have a partnership with one particular site and you will either have to pay extra to use any other site or live with a frustratingly low speed. And it’s not just one Internet Service Provider (ISP), imagine every ISP doing so. Now you have no choice. No changing the milkman just because you don’t like his deal!

source (indiatimes.com)

This example is at the heart of net neutrality debate and how it can affect all of our lives.

The debate on network neutrality in India started after Airtel, a mobile service provider, announced in December 2014 that they will charge additional rates for making voice calls (VoIP) from its network using apps like WhatsApp, Skype, etc.

What is Internet Neutrality (also known as Net Neutrality) and why should we care about it?

Explaining Net Neutrality is really very simple. It’s basically these three points:

All websites must be equally accessible

The same access speed at the Internet Service Provider level for each website (independent of ISP selection)

The same data cost for access to each site (per KB/MB).

Net neutrality is based on a simple principle that all content on the internet is equal and all sites should be equally accessible. It means that as long as a content and site is legal to access over the internet, you shouldn't really have to think whether you are going to access a music video, chat with your friends over the weekend, or browse news websites. Service providers shouldn't inspect how you are using your internet data plan.

source (reddit.com) 

It also means that irrespective of what Internet Service Provider you are with, you should have equal access to all the websites and services. Meaning a particular service provider, just because it has some hypothetical deal with an E-commerce company (let’s name in abc.com) can't slow down the speed of other competitive services. Making it virtually impossible for you to shop from any other website than abc.com.

So ISPs are trying to divide internet as we know it into different sections - and you need to pay for individual section based on what type of data and service you end up using.

And this is just the half of the story.

It also has another dimension through which it hurts new and fledgling internet based companies. Any large company can tie up with an ISP and make sure that services offered by the competitors are slow or additionally charged. This is a huge blow to aspiring entrepreneurs working relentlessly on their ideas from small dorm rooms or a makeshift workspace. Deep pocketed enterprises will practically have the power of blocking out any new entrant in their business by striking a deal with the ISP that only suits them.

Internet used to be a luxury item accessed only by high tech professional or people with unnecessary money.

It used to be so.

In today’s age Internet has transformed itself into a utility that’s as basic as any other government subsidized commodity.

source (digit.in)

People in farfetched places use e-banking to send and receive money from their relatives. Students use Internet to complete their course work and project. Government Babus use internet for all types of work they do. Every person can now aspire to be a part of open and transparent ecosystem that internet has come to be. This is also serving as a great equalizer. Access to knowledge is no longer a subject to privileges of geography or money. Anybody can stream a great educational video and watch it just the same way any other person at the far end of the world will do.

This is only true as long as Internet is fair and open - its speed and quality not being subjected to the whims of self-serving conglomerates.

Net Neutrality debate is not just an Indian phenomena. This debate is taking place across the globe as you read this piece. United States of America being home to biggest Internet Service Provider is witnessing this debate rom up close. ISPs like Comcast are engaged in a fierce debate with United States public and federal government to ensure that laws protecting Net Neutrality are not enforced.

At this juncture, it’s only incumbent that we show the impact of ISPs on other websites if laws protecting Net Neutrality are not put in place.

Comcast is one of the many Service Providers in the USA. The image below shows the speed offered to Netflix – a popular video and movie streaming website by different ISPs over a few months. The image shows a very interesting trend. After September 2013 many ISPs started to reduce the speed they offered for Netflix considerably and it hurt Netflix financially. Comcast is an especially effluent ISP and commands a major share of internet traffic in the US. Around Dec 2013 Netflix caved in to this pressure and struck a deal with Comcast to share a part of their earning (read full story here).

Notice how after the deal was struck, Netflix’s speed went up several notches. Imagine this happening for services that you use in your daily lives and those services having to pay extra just to make sure they get a minimum quality from an ISP.

That would invariably lead you to pay extra to use that service.

As of now, India has no laws governing net neutrality and there have been violations of net neutrality principles by several internet service providers. While the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) guidelines ‘promote’ net neutrality, these guidelines are not enforced legally. The Information Technology Act, 2000 does not prohibit companies from throttling their service in accordance with their business interests.

In March 2015, the TRAI released a formal consultation paper on Regulatory Framework and invited comments from general public. More than a million responses were received and the subject matter is under active consideration currently.

To give your voice on net neutrality, please follow the TRAI link here.

(Written by Manish Jha, an Alumnus of IIIT Hyderabad and currently working with Microsoft as Program Manager. He is also associated with a social initiative 'Joy of Reading')

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Make in India : Just a Campaign or a Big Manufacturing Revolution to be ?

Prime Minister Narendra Modi unveiled his dream campaign Make in India on Independence Day, 2014. Further he launched this campaign by September 25^th, 2014 at New Delhi among the diplomats and industrial heavyweights of India. The campaign was designed by Wieden & Kennedy Group. This campaign is solely aimed to make India a manufacturing hub in the near future & to create millions of jobs. A whole new website http://www.makeinindia.com/ has been created for this purpose. Wherein people can view the diverse sectors, Investment opportunities, FDI policy and a lot more.

There are about 25 diverse sectors under Make in India campaign. The FDI limits vary with sectors. The FDI caps are also emphasized for some sectors. The details are given under FDI policy in the Make in India website. PM Modi has assured the world investors that he would change the red tape tag in India to red carpet for better investments. Foreign investors fear to invest in India because of the stringent laws, Poor infrastructure, Corruption and the delay process in getting authorisations. To date to start a business in India, an entrepreneur has to follow 12 procedures which may take up to 27 days. To solve all this hurdles, the DIPP in association with FICCI has created an auto response mechanism where the things can be done within 72 hours. This resolution is a part of Make in India campaign and will be effective in the upcoming days.

The campaign is perceived very well by the virtual world and is a smashing hit too. But when coming to the reality, the success of this campaign can only be witnessed in a time span of few years. Manufacturing in India has only contributed to 15% till last year to the total GDP. Boosting the manufacturing sector will definitely result in improving the Growth rates. To enable investments lot of policy changes are to be done but without affecting the labour rights. Growth in manufacturing sector is vital to move India from developing to developed stage.

What stalls manufacturing in India?

At first Infrastructure is to be improved; Connectivity to major ports or stations from the manufacturing area needs to be addressed. The supply chain is complex in India. Then Tax regimes are to be corrected so that future disputes can be avoided between the IT department and the companies. With better understanding of the taxes prevailing the companies can be in friend zone with the IT dept. Thirdly Corruption, this to be removed at the roots. Power shortage also affects the manufacturing at times.  The legal laws are to be updated to the current scenario so that it makes an easy path for the investors. Even in the recent Hannover Fair didn’t make up the expectations following just six B2B agreements and 3 G2G MOU’s.

Mr. Raghuram Rajan, Governor RBI has said that:

“We have to make it sure that there is enough demand. Certainly exports are important. World is growing slowly. Year after year it is not picking up. We have to focus on making industry competitive with rest of world and we have to carefully manage our domestic demand.”

Sounding a note of caution earlier in December last year, Rajan had said that Make in India should not focus only on manufacturing.

“I am…cautioning against picking a particular sector such as manufacturing for encouragement, simply because it has worked well for China. India is different, and developing at a different time, and we should be agnostic about what will work,” he had said.

Since India is an agrarian country Make in India can focus on agrarian businesses which further improve other sections of manufacturing too. Deploying agriculture for other businesses will be of no use to a country like India. And Make in India should help promote Indian start-ups. MUDRA bank has been established to help MSME sector. The farming community should be trained with MSME business ideas so as to take agriculture to next level. Effective planning has to be done prior to any new business start-up. So that the society is not affected in the name of development, proper rehabilitation should be provided to people who are forced to move for industrialisation. The proper utilization of Indian resources will benefit investors, consumers and the government.

In total Make in India is a late but needy wake from the developing area of India. The lion is ready to roar, but the formation of jungle will take some time. The safari route is on the mark. Hope the journey will be pleasant.

(Written by Atshaya Gunasekaran, a freelance writer, nature lover and an IAS aspirant )

References:

     · http://www.makeinindia.com/

     · http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Make_in_India

         http://www.economist.com/blogs/banyan/2014/09/india-s-big-manufacturing-push

          http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/how-modi-can-deliver-on-make-in-india/

   http://indianexpress.com/article/business/economy/make-in-india-hurdles-to-be-resolved-in-72-hours/ 

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DRDO (Defence Research and Development Organisation) : Backbone of Indian Defence !

Defence is one of the most important functions of nation-state. It has remained so for countries since time immortal though the challenges before the army, their technology, forms of war and forms of government have been changing continuously. In today’s environment security related challenges before nation-states are becoming complex due to external (foreign nation), internal (like Naxals in India), environmental (like floods in Himalaya and other places) and other factors.

Pic courtesy : drdo.gov.in

Technological edge has become too crucial in coping with these challenges. So in India DRDO comes in the forefront of its development. The DRDO (Defence Research and Development Organisation) is responsible for developing key defence technologies for armed forces. (Head quartered at New Delhi, established in 1958 and is under administrative control of the Ministry of Defence, Government of India)

DRDO Office ( Pic courtesy : dailymail.co.uk )

The manufacturing is done by nine defence PSUs (public sector undertakings) and the Ordnance Factory Board, which runs 41 ordnance factories around the country.

Pic courtesy : ofdr.gov.in

State Police are also getting benefitted by using DRDO developed systems/technologies. Some of them are Less Lethal Plastic Bullets, Grenades, Riot Control Vehicle, Light weight Unmanned Aerial Vehicle for surveillance purpose etc.

Many of the soldier support systems have found civil applications. These are Bio-toilets, variety of packaged ready to eat food, agro-animal technologies for high altitudes and explosive detection kit etc.

Pic courtesy : elections.in 

Few days ago DRDO was in news due to controversy when its Chief Avinash Chandar was removed from his post by the Govt. He was holding the post of Secretary, Defence Research and Development-cum-Director General of DRDO and Scientific Advisor to the Defence Minister, GOI.

   

Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar told to media that (After removal, Jan 2015)

        · He (Defence Minister) had given recommendation to Appointment Committee of the Cabinet for removal but was not aware of removal.  

        ·  He did not want a senior position to be held by a person on contract.  

      · Services of the DRDO chief were being abruptly terminated since the government wanted to induct someone younger from within the organisation “with an urge for development.”

       ·  More power will be given to the cluster heads of DRDO. This will give them higher flexibility in financial matters and also enable better synergy

Prime Minister Narendra Modi (Before removal, Aug 2014)

        · Criticised DRDO's focus on high-tech equipment while jawans hankered for better personal kit, including lighter boots and water bottles.  

        · Made a strong pitch for promoting young talent in the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), asking it to earmark five laboratories for scientists “below 35 years”.

         · Asked the DRDO, which is often criticised for time and cost overruns to “develop before time”.

Ex-Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in 2012 said (Before appointment)

·   Indigenous content in defence procurement was “low” and asked DRDO to focus on areas where it has the capacity to deliver within reasonable time.(The remarks came at the time when several of the key DRDO projects including the development of the Light Combat Aircraft and Kaveri engine for it had been delayed resulting in cost and time overruns.)

·   In the longer term, the country will have to build domestic defence industry including both the public and private sectors which can compete with global players in developing state-of-the-art technologies and on commercial parameters and customer satisfaction.

From the comments of these leaders we can identify few problems as well as solutions for strengthening DRDO. We will look in to this issue in greater detail but we should first understand the present controversy.

Avinash Chander, Ex DRDO Chief (Pic courtesy : indianexpress.com)

Avinash Chander was appointed as DRDO chief in June 2013. He was due to retire on 30.11.2014. But as per the original contract, Chander’s appointment was for three years and appointment beyond his date of retirement would be on contract basis. Modi govt. extended his service as per contract in Nov 2014 but terminated him without even informing him in Jan 2015.

  

Chander is a highly respected for his contribution in Agni Missiles because he developed key technologies which were denied to India after it tested its nuclear capability in 1974. His track record in his personal capability is impeccable. ( http://www.drdo.gov.in/drdo/English/index.jsp?pg=scientificadvisior.jsp )  

                                                                                                           

There are many problems with DRDO which needs to be rectified but his removal in such a haphazard manner may impact morale of senior scientists working at DRDO. Hope govt. will take steps to minimize its negative impact and coordinate in a better way to boost the scientific environment.

Let us discuss challenges and solution.

1. Talent Acquisition:  There is difficulty in attracting and retaining high-quality scientific manpower and retaining them for long. There are many reasons like better opportunities in foreign universities, better pay in corporate management etc. It is the biggest stumbling block in the development of high-technology sector. Better HR Practices, transparency in promotion etc. may be helpful.

2. Bureaucratic Interference: Current bureaucratic system of administering scientific and technical departments particularly are not providing good atmosphere for scientific work. It is also one of the key reasons why many young brilliant scientists do not want to work in India. It is difficult to change, however govt need to focus on this.

3. Prioritisation of Development of Technology: There is minimal interaction between user (armed forces) and (Developers) DRDO. That is why there is mismatch between need and supply of technology. PM Modi too had raised this issue.  So a mechanism for such interaction should be developed so as to prioritise the technology development process well and utilize country’s resources effectively. 

4. Delay: There have been delays in some of the DRDO projects due to some genuine difficulties like

        a)   Technical complexities: - There are few uncertainties inherently associated with the development of any new technology. Better talent acquisitions at younger level, lateral entries for experts and bringing together few technological institutions like IITs, IISC and others may help.

       b)  Technological embargo/sanctions: - Many components are imported to India. Since defence grade components (they have properties different from the Civilian components.) like communication chips for Missiles etc. are protected by national govts. So, they require clearances from the country from which we are buying. It is time consuming and sometimes, as in case of sanctions against India after it tested nuclear power in 1998, these may even be denied. It is difficult to control because many factors decides these but better diplomacy may reduce vulnerabilities.

       c)  Non-availability of infrastructure within the country: Strong industrial base helps in development as well as demonstration of technology. Our industries in public as well as private sector have not been able to venture into critical technologies significantly. So, we are dependent too much on foreign technology for defence sector. L&T, Tatas etc are trying to make their presence felt slowly but lot needs to be done.  Govt needs to facilitate.

        d)  Extended and long lasting user trials, revision of systems specification during development phase, Lack of coordination among defence PSUs and ordinance factories and DRDO, among different departments of DRDO and among different units of DRDO etc. are other reasons. Better management practices may help improve coordination and efficiency.

        e)  Bureaucratic Control: discussed above (point 2).

      Both (1 & 2) of the above points add to the complaints that Junior DRDO scientists are denied growth opportunities. There is also argument that junior-and-mid-level DRDO scientists look to quit the organisation because promotion avenues are blocked by service extensions routinely granted to top officials.

     Manmohan Singh Government had set up a committee on February 08, 2007, chaired by Former Secretary, Department of Science and Technology, Dr. P Rama Rao to review and suggest measures to improve the functioning of DRDO. The Committee submitted its report to the Government on February 07, 2008. Govt. had taken following steps.

        The following recommendations of the Committee have been implemented: 

    (i) Nomination of nodal officers for structured interaction between DRDO and Services. 

      (ii) Integrated Financial Advice Scheme for financial decentralization. 

     (iii) Appointment of a dedicated Chief Controller for Human Resources (HR).

Cabinet Note had been initiated for:

(i) Creation of Defence Technology Commission (DTC)- It will be vested with the powers to issue orders to the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) to make available technologies for military use within time-frames and costs, and to fix the responsibility if such decisions were not complied with. 

(ii) Creation of a Commercial Arm of DRDO. 

(iii) Renaming DG, DRDO as Chairman, DRDO. 

The following recommendations are in various stages of implementation:

(i) Decentralisation of DRDO Management: Creation of technology domain based 7 clusters and appointments of Director Generals (DGs). Directors of the laboratories will be empowered and a mechanism will be in place to ensure the accountability of the laboratory Directors. 

(ii) Appointment of an HR Consultant and review of HR policies. 

(iii) Increase of budget for Extramural Research to 5% of DRDO Budget in a period of 3 years. 

(iv) Restructuring of DRDO Headquarters, Creation of System Analysis Centre (SAC), and Directorate of Quality, Reliability and Safety (QR & S).

A, B and C was reported in media in April 2013.

Naresh Chandra Committee was set up in 2011 to review the National Security System and suggest measures to improve National security apparatus. It also suggested for revamping DRDO.

Vijay Kelkar Committee 2005 report on defence production batted for greater involvement of Private Sector to bring synergy in defence production. 

The present government is considering the possibility of bifurcating the portfolio of DRDO chief as well as Scientific Advisor to the Defence Minister, which at present rests with a single person. 

Thus we can see that lot of work is already available. Defence Minister should take initiatives to implement them in the greater interest of national security. Prime Minister Modi and Defence Minister should ensure greater coordination among their domain of work. Reforms should not be brought in haste without full proof plans and background work.

Pic courtesy : reuters.com

We need experiences of older scientists to guide younger scientists. Engineering is not only a matter of brain but of experiences too. Diamond shines only after getting polished. Old scientists are like diamond. They should be used to generate more technological wealth.

What is your opinion regarding Indian manufacturing sector? How much important to produce high tech equipment to become self-reliant? How it can be done? 

How PM Modi’s child project “Make in India” can do wonders for making India a global leader in manufacturing? 

Are our government companies like DRDO etc are equipped enough to produce world class high tech products? Is there any big/small room for improvement? What improvements are needed on ground to high level?

(Written by Sujit Bharti, an alumnus of IIT Bhubaneshwar)

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Internet and Information : Is Social Media Making Us Dumb?

One of the fundamental tenets of human life is to constantly evolve – to tirelessly and purposefully push the boundaries of knowledge. This means challenging your beliefs and attitude towards people and situations by thinking more critically than you did previously and gathering more facts than you cared about earlier.

Ask anyone whether they believe this is the right approach to live by, and the response will be an emphatic yes!

This course of evolution, however, often needs to be balanced with a person’s desire to feel smart. Impression management theory says that we feel a deep urge to always remain on the right side of intellectual divide. We despise being corrected and so love ‘safeguarding’ what we believe is true.

It is this conflict that forces us to clutch on to our convictions – even in the face of contradicting evidences. A medical research has shown through experiments that blood flow in the highest part of cortex in our brain reduces substantially when we are presented with an opinion or fact that contradicts with our own. This part of the brain does our thinking for us. So, in other words, our brain literally starts to shut down when we are exposed to information that makes us feel ‘incorrect’ or ‘insufficient’. Ever tried listening to the arguments of a politician you hate? Ever tried listening to your parents when they tried correcting you on certain actions you believed were right? We quickly start to feel low on energy and high on anxiety. That’s our Cortex which is troubled by the Cognitive speed breaker.

Carl Sagan, an Adroit on human psychology, has warned against this seemingly trivial but spectacular limitation of our evolutionary curve.  He puts it crisply by saying that “Try not to get overly attached to a hypothesis just because it’s yours.” This is a quote from his much more holistic critique of human frailties titled ‘Baloney Detection Kit’.

This trait is to so permanent and effective in its manifestation that it has been given a term in the circles of evolutionary psychology – The Backfire Effect. Backfire effect is when you try to defend your opinions and beliefs, once formed, from the way of external harm. Once you truly ‘own’ an opinion and adopt it as your own, you like to defend it from the ‘aggressors’ who have a ‘contradicting’ view. You truly stick to these beliefs instead of questioning them or their veracity. And every time someone tries to dilute your allegiance to a certain view – it ‘backfires’ and makes your conviction for the belief even stronger. Over a time you start to believe that these opinions are axiomatic truths and anyone who contradicts with your view has an unhealthy design against you!

This effect is deftly used by the people in position of influence to serve various purposes. The purpose can be a mass scale data research, feeding into the web of misinformation, and fueling conspiracy theories. We leap up to the pieces of information which reinforce our own view, make them our own and try to protect them from any cognitive dissonance. Now any contradicting evidence is shrugged off as a conspiracy and lack of supporting evidence is attributed to elaborate cover-up plans.

The best demonstration of this fact is found in comment section of internet forums. The vileness of language and force of conviction is present not because we are sure we are correct, but because we are sure that ‘others’ have an evil design.

This brings us to our topic of interest – Social Media and the way it influences us.

Advent of social media came with a great promise, a promise of converged democracy. Here the access to information and facts were a great equalizer. Days of state-driven propagandas and absurdly inappropriate cover-ups were supposed to be a thing of past. Citizens gradually started evolving to ‘Netizens’. People could participate in the dialogue of democracy more directly than ever, and outrage caused by government’s apathy and incompetence suddenly found an outlet – often echoing through the conscience of the nations. Recent episodes of social media powered uprising in Egypt and anti-establishment assertion of Indians through Anna movement are proud recollections of this amazing power that is social media.

But then something, somewhere went wrong, and not many of us noticed it.

Search results and feeds from your friends and peers are no longer neutral. They are ‘customized’ according to your preferences and other variables. In a recent TED talk, one of the most revealing piece of information about internet style stereotyping was revealed by Eli Periser, founder of the public policy advocacy group, MoveOn.org. He says that Google checks as many as fifty seven (yes, that’s fifty seven!) data points before fetching your ‘customized’ search results to you. These data points include your age, gender, location, sexual orientation, profession, and many more such personal pieces of information. So a search result for the same word may throw up entirely different information based on who you are and what you like. Then we had Facebook coming ahead and saying that they manipulated feeds of nearly seven lacs users worldwide to ‘observe’ their psychological response. Some of these users included minors as well.

What this means is that we, as information workers, are increasingly being conditioned to access information that is likely to be agreeable to our views and beliefs. So if you hate a certain political party you are less likely to see any update related to it in your searches and feeds. For example, we all live in a delirium that the globally known diseases are on a down swing. But that is not to be the case as this report could bring out much more factually and much less pleasantly. So then why do all of us like to believe that all such diseases are on terminal downswing? Could it be that we only get information which we would ‘like’ to see and consume, filtering out anything that may reduce blood flow to highest part of our Cortex?

We appear to have come full circle in terms of fairness of information.

Algorithms decide for us what we should see. And our biases decide for us how we react to what we see. So now there is information being shared, but also propagandas being peddled. There is user created content, but also software managed information. And it is becoming increasingly difficult to say which is which as we enter an age of ultra-information and cheap communication technology, where every biased user with an internet device is a virtual stealth bomb - clicking with every ‘like’, and detonating with exposure to factual inconvenience.

Image Courtesy : Wikipedia

Does this mean we are being made ever more ignorant of information and views that runs tangential to our belief system? Are our chances of changing and challenging our worldview getting astronomically low with the information bubble we have learnt to live in? Are we less likely to take in stride the information or opinion which may open up our intellect and insight?

We don’t yet know the answer to these question. But one fact we do know – the fact that internet might NOT be the best place to look for these answers!

What is your view for internet online privacy?

How much ethical is internet pseudo-snooping?

     

How we can protect our personal information being leaked or misused by the internet giants?

(Written by Manish Jha, an Alumnus of IIIT Hyderabad and currently working with Microsoft as Program Manager. He is also associated with a social initiative 'Joy of Reading')

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