[At-Large] India proposes Government controlled Internet

[William Drake]

Hi Siva

If I may be allowed a brief intervention from the NC-ALAC liaison peanut gallery: As you know, some of us are having heated debates on this on the governance list and did in Nairobi as well.  One aspect that hasn't gotten much attention in these contexts is whether the Indian government undertook domestic level consultations with relevant business, technical community, and civil society actors.  In Nairobi I asked several Indians, including the delegation from Tata, whether they had any idea what their government was advocating in their name, and the answer was no.  So one really helpful step you could take here is to get the word out nationally and see whether any sort of shared position either way can be stated.  You may recall that amidst the Nairobi debates some Brazilian CS people came out against what their government was doing in IBSA, and this had a significant effect in softening the Brazilian position, which resulted in an Indian rather than an IBSA proposal to the UNGA.

Just a thought,

Bill

On Oct 28, 2011, at 12:15 PM, Sivasubramanian M wrote:

> Dear Carlton
> 
> 
> Thank you. It would be of ample help if there are more opinions on this
> development, especially by those from developing countries.
> 
> This is what I wrote to our Government earlier on the IBSA proposal:
> 
> --- begin quote from what I wrote earlier --- The proposal to "establish a
> new Global body "located within the UN system", "tasked to develop ...
> policies" and to "oversee bodies responsible for the technical and
> operational functioning of the Internet including standards setting",
> "undertake arbitration and dispute resolution" and "be responsible for
> crisis management" is a proposal to offer the Internet bundled with the IETF
> to the ITU or an ITU-controlled or an ITU-friendly new global body within
> the UN system where ITU is comfortable. It is perhaps with these
> apprehensions that the draft has been criticized as "unimaginative,
> backward-looking, and authoritarian and ... very destructive" and has
> generated a loud discussion among Civil Society participants. --- end of
> quote
> 
> 
> Sivasubramanian M
> 
> 
> 
> On Fri, Oct 28, 2011 at 3:24 PM, Carlton Samuels
> <carlton.samuels at gmail.com>wrote:
> 
>> Thanks for sharing, Siva.   Helluva thing to be the canary in the mine.
>> 
>> Carlton
>> 
>> ==============================
>> Carlton A Samuels
>> Mobile: 876-818-1799
>> *Strategy, Planning, Governance, Assessment & Turnaround*
>> =============================
>> 
>> 
>> On Fri, Oct 28, 2011 at 4:21 AM, Sivasubramanian M <isolatedn at gmail.com
>>> wrote:
>> 
>>> Hello,
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>> http://news.dot-nxt.com/2011/10/27/india-proposes-government-control-internet
>>> 
>>> This is from Kieren MacCarthy's article:
>>> 
>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> "In a statement<
>>> http://news.dot-nxt.com/2011/10/27/un-ga-india-cirp-proposal> sent
>>>> yesterday, India argued for the creation of a new body to be called the
>>>> United Nations Committee for Internet-Related Policies (CIRP) which
>> would
>>>> develop Internet policies, oversee all Internet standards bodies and
>>> policy
>>>> organizations, negotiate Internet-related treaties, and act as an
>>> arbitrator
>>>> in Internet-related disputes.
>>>> The CIRP would exist under the United Nations, comprise of 50 Member
>>>> States, be funded by the United Nations, run by staff from the UN’s
>>>> Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) arm, and report directly
>> to
>>> the
>>>> UN General Assembly."
>>> 
>>> 
>>> #  And the Government spokesperson argued that this “should not be viewed
>>> as
>>> an attempt by governments to ‘take over’ or ‘regulate and circumscribe’
>> the
>>> Internet.” !!
>>> 
>>> #  The IBSA proposal was badly criticized by the Civil Society in the
>> lists
>>> and at the Nairobi Internet Governance Forum, it appeared that India
>> wasn't
>>> the prime contributor to that imaginative proposal, but those of us who
>>> believed that India couldn't have proposed or fully endorsed the first
>> IBSA
>>> proposal --- we were wrong.
>>> 
>>> Sivasubramanian M
>>> ISOC India Chennai
>>> http://isocindiachennai.org
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