Pradip Ninan Thomas delivered the keynote lecture on ‘Data Ownership, Data Sovereignty & Data Alternatives’. It was chaired by Ravi Sundaram.
ZOOM ID: 83825006213 PASSCODE: csdsdelhi
It is instructive to use examples from the past to understand the nature of data ownership in contemporary India. Using the example of the czar of telecommunications during the age of Empire, John Pender, the presentation will deal with issues related to data ownership and data sovereignty. While the question Who Owns Data in India? remains contentious, the latter is also a complex issue precisely because the stated ambitions of the GoI to keep data local is difficult to implement in a context in which hyperscale cloud and data centres are owned by Big Tech and whose embrace of Data India is both wide and deep. The presentation will conclude by looking at the possibility of data alternatives, in particular community networking initiatives.
Pradip Ninan Thomas is at the School of Communications and Arts, University of Queensland. He has written extensively on the political economy of communications in India, more recently a series of books published by Oxford University Press, most recently on Platform Regulation (2023). A forthcoming book is The Gig Economy in India: Start-Ups, Infrastructure and Resistance (Routledge, 2024).
Ravi Sundaram is Professor at Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi.
Tuesday, 9 April 2024, 4 pm, Zoom https://bit.ly/3VIo5yT
