[governance] Re: [bestbits] Letters from Indian Civil Society organisations to the Chair of NetMundial regarding appointment of civil society co-chair

Fri Apr 11 17:58:31 EDT 2014

The Indian Civil Society letter makes me uncomfortable because it makes
such a strong allegation against two individuals.

One individual targeted is Virat Bhatia, about whom I heard a good opinion
concerning his interest in getting our Government to pay better attention
to Internet Governance issues. This opinion came from someone who is quite
capable of judging people. Months later I met him during the India Internet
Conference, which was an initiative that he led and did very well (In that
Conference organized by him, I saw some of the the signatories of this
letter or representatives from their organization as invitees, seated
equally in panel discussions);

The other person targeted, Subi, struck me as a very resourceful organizer
who could have been a source of strength for that Conference, this was
visible, she brought in student participation, and the Conference, despite
some shortcomings, was a well organized event with a good quality of
participation.

During the India Internet Conference and in the Internet Governance Forum,
Subi Chaturvedi was quite noticeable by the strength of the quality of her
interventions. Many noticed her for the way she participated even as a new
comer to Internet Governance, and a few would have felt that a participant
like her should be encouraged. If Virat Bhatia had recommended her to
positions, and he happens to be working for a Telecom Company, I would
still look at it as a Grey situation:  a Telecom Company, an Executive with
the usual functions of promoting a company's interests in Business
situations, The same Indian Executive with a possibly individual interest
in Internet Governance, possibly wanting to improve India's participation
in Internet Governance,  a successful College Teacher who is noticed in a
new environment and encouraged, a not-so-exhaustive effort to find Civil
Society candidates for MAG or NETmundial, some possible flaws on the part
of one of the individuals, all conveniently brought together and
sensationally interpreted with a bias possibly out of misunderstanding and
an inclination to rush to a conclusion.

Positive judgements could be rushed, not much harm done if the positive
judgement goes wrong, but such a strong negative judgement should wait,
because of its potential to do irreparable damage to the person. If the
signatories wanted a change, with or without a compelling reason, they
could have handled it in so many other subtle ways.

Sivasubramanian M

On Sat, Apr 12, 2014 at 2:28 AM, Mwendwa Kivuva <Kivuva at transworldafrica.com
> wrote:

> If Civil Society does not get a favourable outcome in the meeting,
> will civil society conclude that "powerful lobbies" planted a mole to
> steer their agenda as the co-chair and that is why they lost?
>
> Can we say with confidence that Chaturvedi will(not) represent the
> interests of the Civil Society?
>
> On 11/04/2014, michael gurstein <gurstein at gmail.com> wrote:
> > The issue of "personal" vs. "political" still stands.
> >
> > The question is who put her on/nominated her for the MAG and for what
> > purpose... It clearly wasn't CS as she wasn't nominated by any of the
> > conventional CS processes and to the best of my knowledge no alternative
> CS
> > process has come forward to acknowledge them having nominated her...
> >
> > M
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: governance-request at lists.igcaucus.org
> > [mailto:governance-request at lists.igcaucus.org] On Behalf Of Norbert
> Bollow
> > Sent: Friday, April 11, 2014 9:16 AM
> > To: governance at lists.igcaucus.org
> > Subject: Re: [governance] Re: [bestbits] Letters from Indian Civil
> Society
> > organisations to the Chair of NetMundial regarding appointment of civil
> > society co-chair
> >
> > Am Fri, 11 Apr 2014 09:47:03 -0400
> > schrieb McTim <dogwallah at gmail.com>:
> >
> >> On Fri, Apr 11, 2014 at 8:35 AM, Norbert Bollow <nb at bollow.ch> wrote:
> >> > McTim <dogwallah at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> >
> >> <snip>
> >> >
> >> > Hence my conclusion is that the lack of any obvious track-record of
> >> > the kind of work outlined above is pretty damning evidence in
> >> > itself.
> >>
> >> and being on the MAG isn't a 'track record"?
> >>
> >> Seriously?
> >
> > Last I checked the "M" in "MAG" stood for "Multistakeholder", so why
> would
> > being on the MAG qualify someone to represent civil society at the
> > "stakeholder group co-chair" level of Netmundial???
> >
> > Well if Subi had been proposed/nominated by a reputable civil society
> body
> > to serve there as a "civil society representative", that'd be something
> > that
> > could be considered as part of the kind of track record that I was
> talking
> > about. But to my best knowledge that wasn't the case.
> >
> > Greetings,
> > Norbert
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
>
> --
> ______________________
> Mwendwa Kivuva, Nairobi, Kenya
> twitter.com/lordmwesh
>
>
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-- 
Sivasubramanian Muthusamy
India +91 99524 03099
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