[governance] cast a wider net (and catch the US industry masqueraders in MS clothes)

[parminder]

he below explains the phenomenon of sudden rise of US industry led 
advocacy within India on IG issues, including through the use of the 
multi stakeholder cover. This is not unconnected to the incursions that 
US industry was able to make into civil society representational space 
as well, like recently witnessed at NetMundial... parminder


from the Indian Express 
http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/cast-a-wider-net/


  Cast a wider Net

Hardeep S Puri 
<http://indianexpress.com/profile/columnist/hardeep-s-puri/> | July 17, 
2014 12:32 am

/**//*The revelation explains a phenomenon that earlier appeared 
inscrutable, that of employees of multinational internet and telecom 
majors masquerading as spokespersons of the Indian telecom and internet 
industry. */
/**/
/**/


      Summary

India needs to break out of the status quo on internet governance.


          _The summoning of the US charge d’affaires to South Block on
          July 2 on the issue of snooping by the US’s National Security
          Agency (NSA) was a welcome step. The revelation that the BJP
          was targeted for snooping as long ago as 2010 is not at all
          surprising. It can now be mentioned that immediately after
          India was elected to the United Nations Security Council in
          2010, a request was made by the permanent mission of India in
          New York to South Block, asking for safeguards against
          precisely such an eventuality._

By no stretch of definition can the then main opposition party in India 
or, for that matter, the Indian delegation to the UN, be regarded as 
requiring surveillance by the NSA if the concern is anchored in the 
desire to counter terrorism.  Equally, to try to defend the sweeping 
collection of phone and internet records on the grounds that it was only 
gathering “metadata” is profoundly misleading.

The radio silence from the UPA government on revelations by Edward 
Snowden almost two years ago that the NSA engaged in massive snooping 
operations at a global level, including telephone conversations of 
leaders of other countries, was in marked contrast to reactions from 
other countries. Brazil’s cancellation of a state visit to Washington DC 
at the invitation of President Barack Obama and the public expression of 
outrage, including the recent expulsion of the senior-most intelligence 
operative by Germany, a close ally of the US and Nato partner, stand out 
in contrast. The Indian protest under the UPA was low-level, belated, 
feeble and pro forma.

It would have been embarrassing for the government of India to condemn 
such a practice by the US if, for example, Vodafone and/ or AT&T were to 
come out with a public assertion in response that they were extending 
similar services to India at the request of the then government. Recent 
revelations by Vodafone that India was among the governments which asked 
it to snoop/ wire-tap calls, e-mails and text messages going into and 
out of the country have surprisingly not received the attention they 
should have.

The revelation explains yet another phenomenon that earlier appeared 
inscrutable, that of employees of multinational internet and telecom 
majors masquerading as spokespersons of the Indian telecom and internet 
industry. When questions relating to global internet governance acquired 
salience, this particular group cornered the space for discussion and, 
through motivated writings, sought to propagate the thesis that the 
“multi-stakeholder” model advocated globally by the multinational 
internet and telecom majors resonated in India as well, with little or 
scant regard for the long-term interests of India and Indian internet 
and telecom majors.

The NETmundial conference in Sao Paulo, Brazil, in April this year 
produced an outcome that fell far short of the expectations of most 
observers and sought to preserve the status quo. The US administration’s 
generous offer to make adjustments to its authority over ICANN has come 
with conditionalities and time-frames which have made them meaningless, 
if not impossible to achieve.

India’s principal concerns and long-term interests with regard to global 
internet governance require the renewal of our commitment to protect and 
promote the internet as an unprecedented tool of innovation and 
empowerment. India should reaffirm our adherence to all obligations 
under the various treaties on human rights to which we are a party, in 
particular to those relating to freedom of expression. We should also 
commit ourselves to all measures to bridge the “digital divide”, both 
nationally and internationally. India and Indian IT enterprises will no 
doubt need to preserve and enhance the interests of Indian users of the 
internet, whose numbers have been growing greatly in recent years.

Indian IT companies need to preserve the global competitive edge secured 
over the years. They also need to assess the possible evolution of the 
IT industry over the next 20 years or so and orient themselves to the 
changing demands of the global industry. They can thus seek to build on 
the comparative advantages that they have enjoyed till now. This will 
require encouraging creativity and innovation as well as setting up 
enterprises tailored to the next generation. India has to move up the 
value chain in the global IT industry in the long term. This would imply 
a much-needed transition from providing IT skills and back-room services 
to making its own branded services and products and leading global 
innovation in IT.

Several international public policy issues pertaining to the internet, 
including, among others, the infrastructure and management of critical 
internet resources, already stand identified by the World Summit on the 
Information Society (WSIS). These include issues of considerable 
interest and relevance to developing countries, such as the bridging of 
the digital divide, interconnection costs and participation in global 
policy development. Several new public policy issues have emerged since 
the WSIS, such as cloud computing, mass surveillance and the collection 
of metadata, the use of cyber weapons and jurisdiction.

Plurilateral agreements among developed countries on substantive policy 
issues and treaties negotiated among them have remained the dominant 
global governance model in the internet arena. The inclusion of 
developing countries in global norm-setting and design of digital 
architecture will continue to pose an important challenge in the coming 
years. Without such inclusion, the inherently global nature of the 
internet will be threatened —  there is the danger of fragmentation of 
the internet through disparate national policies.

The principal challenge before Indian policymakers is to move away from 
the short term and the cacophony organised by the status quoists, 
forcefully articulate the long-term interests of the Indian internet and 
telecom majors, and design and put in place the necessary eco-system and 
policy framework for the purpose. We should aim at building the 
next-generation editions of TCS, Infosys and Wipro, and move up the 
value chain. The Vodafone revelation has come not a day too soon, and 
will hopefully serve as yet another wake-up call.

This will require not only rejigging domestic policy, but also making 
necessary changes in articulating India’s position in international 
forums on issues relating to global internet governance. Over the last 
four years, the UPA government had allowed itself to be led by the 
spokespersons of global industry; it is high time that this was 
challenged. The government under Prime Minister Narendra Modi has an 
excellent opportunity to reverse this trend, make the necessary and 
imperative course corrections, and move in the right direction.

The author, a retired diplomat and BJP member, is non-resident senior 
advisor, International Peace Institute, New York.
Views are personal

***



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