India must influence Internet Governance Policy: Ajay Kumar

Thiruvananthapuram: India must project the voices of its 400 million present Internet users as well as the future users, to influence Internet Governance Policy for the benefit of its 1.2 billion population, said Dr. Ajay Kumar, Additional Secretary, Union Department of Information Technology here on Wednesday.

Dr. Ajay Kumar was speaking at the formal inauguration of the Trivandrum Chapter of Internet Society (ISOC).

While the Internet has become a common infrastructure for many kinds of interactions, much more awareness has to be created in civil society about the different institutions available today such as ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Numbers and Names), ISOC and IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force), he said. Also, information dissemination has to take place about the Multi Stake-holder Model, which provides a new and contrasting governance model compared to the multilateral model that was in existence for many years through the UN system.

He said that the Internet Society was an excellent platform that provided room for interactions among the diverse stakeholders of the Internet, ranging from governments, business, academia, technical community, and civil society.

He called upon ISOC Trivandrum to use the ISOC platform to bring in more professionals and interested users into the domain of Internet governance, so that India's contributions could be made stronger. Given the fact that the US was disengaging from the direct governance of the Internet and was in the process of handing over charge to a multi stake-holder body made it even more important that the civil society in India strengthened its presence in these organisations.

Dr. Govind, CEO, NIXI, who presided, said that India must outline a set of priorities for enhancing participation in Internet Governance.

Satish Babu, Chair, ISOC Trivandrum Chapter, who welcomed the gathering, said that there were several initiatives in imparting information about Internet governance world-wide, but given the size of India, it was imperative to organise a School of Internet Governance in India.

He also suggested a meeting amongst ISOC Chapters in India to discuss and formulate a common India-level policy.

R. Srinivasan, Vice Chair, ISOC-Trivandrum proposed a Vote of Thanks. About 45 members and guests took part in the inaugural ceremony.

ISOC is the international not-for-profit Society set up in 1992 by Internet pioneers that brings together technical and engineering professionals, Internet policy institutions, and individual Internet users. ISOC-TRV is the fifth ISOC Chapter in India after Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai and Bangalore.