[Governance] India

[Murali Shanmugavelan]

"India has a non aligned background..."?!?!?

On Sat, 11 Dec 2021 at 14:16, parminder via Governance <
governance at lists.igcaucus.org> wrote:

> Dear Wolfgang,
>
> Thanks for the quotes about the Putin -- Modi meeting. Indeed in most
> mainstream coverage in India the ICT side hardly got mentioned. They were
> the less important part of the summit.
>
> I am not sure what kind of comments you are looking for from me.
>
> India has a non aligned background and it is normal for such a large
> country like India to hedge its bets and not get caught in one
> geo-techno-enclosure or the other, in the old cold war like sense, but now
> with digital tech dependencies which are even deeper, stronger and largely
> irreversible. It therefore makes complete sense that India is exploring ICT
> relationships with Russia, to* inter alia* diversify from the deep
> embeddedness that India has in the US centric techno-sphere. Do you
> disapprove of it?  See my article of a few years back India should aim
> for digital non alignment
> <https://www.hindustantimes.com/analysis/india-should-aim-for-a-digital-non-alignment/story-ViT3PTiuo5j6dKUvt94YpO.html>
>
> BTW, one of the key current issues in India-Russia relationship (also
> highlighted around the summit)  is that India is buying S 400 missiles from
> Russia, despite strong warnings from the US that this may lead to India
> being excluded from US military supplies.
>
> Perhaps that would put in good perspective Russia-India techno
> relationships that seem to so rent your mind.
>
> From your quoted text, you seem to have issues or questions about Russia
> and India deciding to work together on the proposed UN cyber crime
> treaty...
>
> Do you think there should NOT be any such UN treaty?
>
> Does that mean countries should rather sign on Europe's Budapest
> Convention on Cybercrime, or wait for new ones to come from OECD's CDEP
> (committee on digital economy policy) or from the CoE? You know why India
> and other countries refuse to sign on the Budapest Convention -- actually
> they find nothing wrong with its substance, but they refuse to be governed
> by rules that they were not a part of developing... Makes any democratic
> sense to you?
>
> If not Budapest Convention,  what is the option .. The world stay without
> a cyber crime framework? Why should not all countries sit together to make
> a cyber crime convention? Happy to hear your reasons either way.
>
> About multistakeholder participation in such a UN cyber crime convention,
> which seems to be one major concern of yours:
>
> I have been arguing long for a horizontal UN digital policy body, with the
> SAME multistakeholder participation model as OECD's CDEP (and of CoE where
> the Budapest Convention was made)  ... If we had that UN body , we could
> have employed its structure for MS participation for developing the
> proposed UN convention on cyber crime ... But, THE PROBLEM IS, you have
> consistently opposed it, including as part of the UN WG on enhanced
> cooperation which had the precise mandate to develop institutional
> structures for UN based digital policy making. We both were members of that
> WG and we know what went on there, right. How developing countries proposed
> the exact same OECD model for UN level digital policy making -- along with
> all its MS components/ characteristics -- AND YOU ALL TURNED IT DOWN. Am
> I making any mis-statement here? Happy to be corrected in that case.
>
> So, perhaps now it is your turn to answer some questions:
>
> 1. Do you think that there should be no UN cyber crime convention, and all
> non Europeans too should simply sign Europe's Budapest Convention, and
> further wait for more cyber governance frameworks from OECD's CDEP, or
> CoE's digital policy mechanisms?
>
> 2. Why and how you call OECD's CDEP and CoE's digital policy making
> processes as multistakeholder, and those are acceptable to you, but the
> EXACT SAME model at the UN becomes multi-lateral and NOT multistakeholder -
> -and, apparently for that reason, not acceptable to you ?
>
> thanks and look forward to your responses
>
> parminder
>
> PS: You raise concerns about India-Russia parleys and digital rights
> issues (internet shutdowns). Last year India signed this with US led five
> eyes against eend-to-end encryption
> https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/international-statement-end-end-encryption-and-public-safety
> .. Just seeking a better balance of geo-political concerns from you.
>
>
>
> On 08/12/21 4:46 pm, Wolfgang Kleinwächter wrote:
>
> Wolfgang:
> Is the Putin/Modi Summit related to the Indian Internet Shutdowns?
>
> Parminder:
>
> I have seen and heard of no connection of that kind. In any case, nations
> nowadays need no external assistance to control their respective Internets.
> As for foreign alliances, if anything India is certainly bending much more
> towards US led alliances, that claim some western values of democracy, HR,
> etc ( all of which is of course a lot of BS, and simply good old-fashioned
> geopolitics and geo- economics under new garbs -- one significant
> manifestation and result of which kind of geo-politics/ geoeconomics is
> neo-colonisation) ..
>
> Wolfgang:
> As I can see, Internet Governance (cybersecurity and digital economny) was
> part of the discussions.
>
> This is from the Putin-Modi Meeting: "The Sides appreciated close
> cooperation in the field of security in the use of Information and
> Communication Technologies (ICT) through inter-agency cooperation under
> bilateral mechanisms and at multilateral platforms. They highlighted the
> leading role of the United Nations in the decision-making process on
> security in the use of ICTs. The Sides also recognized the need for further
> work on rules, norms and principles of responsible behavior of State aimed
> at preventing conflicts and promoting peaceful use of ICTs. The Sides
> reaffirmed the importance of international cooperation against criminal use
> of ICTs and in this regard they welcome the establishment of an open- ended
> Ad hoc intergovernmental committee of experts to elaborate a comprehensive
> international convention on countering the use of ICTs for criminal
> purposes as stipulated in the UN GA resolutions 74/247 and 75/282." ...
> "The Sides intend to focus particularly on increasing the effectiveness of
> countering terrorism, extremism, drug trafficking, cross-border organized
> crime, and information security threats,"  ... "The Sides agreed that
> safeguarding of global commons including our oceans, outer space and
> information space should be based on the principles of transparency,
> accessibility and upholding international law."
>
> And they discussed also digital economy: " The Sides also agreed to
> facilitate collaboration between government and private sector
> organizations to find ways of joint development of software products,
> platforms and services as well as in the area of electronics manufacturing.
> The Sides confirmed their interest in further developing cooperation in the
> sphere of digital technologies, including those related to information
> protection, security of critical infrastructure and law enforcement."
>
> Any comment? BTW, no references to civil society or a multistakeholder
> approach.
>
> see: http://en.kremlin.ru/supplement/5745
>
> --
> Governance mailing list
> Governance at lists.igcaucus.org
> https://lists.igcaucus.org/mailman/listinfo/governance
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.igcaucus.org/pipermail/governance/attachments/20211213/2556a063/attachment.htm>