With time running out, Indians furiously campaign not to get left out of Govt in cyberspace

With time running out, Indians furiously campaign not to get left out of Govt in cyberspace
Ramakrishnan G

CHENNAI, JULY 30: If you are over 16 years of age and have an e-mail account, you can make a difference to India's access to the Internet. But you need to move right now because there are only 48 hours to go. Log in and register at icann.com before July 31, 2000. This will give you a say in the world's Internet government.

At stake is India's representation in the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a non-profit organisation, which handles the management of the Internet. This little known umbrella body, which governs allotment of domain names, IP addresses (the Net's equivalent of the door number of your house), and parameter assignment (such as .com for commercial sites, .gov for government sites and .in for Indian sites), is going to polls in October to elect its governing board. This board will be a virtual internet government, and its decisions will shape Internet's future.

The election slated for October is already becoming a high voltage affair with e-mails being dashed across the net to muster votes. Since ICANN's objective is to let the Internet community as a whole have a say in the decision-making, anyone who is over 16 years and has an e-mail account can vote. Currently, the majority of registered voters are from the West.

To make sure that India's interests are protected a group of Internet professionals aware of the high stakes involved has been lobbying furiously with all Indians to become an ICANN voter. Ideally, the group would like an Indian elected on to the ICANN board and guard India's interest on the world wide web.

And why not? With India making rapid strides in information technology, experts feel the country should have more say in the working of the Internet. If India does not climb on to the bandwagon now, it may find all the seats taken by the developed world.

Prof Ashok Jhunjhunwala, head of the electrical engineering dept of IIT, Madras, says India will face a severe crunch in domain names as there is at least one domain name registered per person in more Net-proliferated countries. This means we will be at their mercy to navigate and access the net.

Adds Akash Kapur, who is part of the Oxford Programme in Comparative Media Law and Policy, "Even though the scope of ICANN authority remains unclear, they will certainly set a range of technical standards, including the allocation of new top-level domain names. And controlling the technical architecture of the Internet can have several important consequences for access to Internet."

Besides Kapur, the other names who have signed the e-mail, for spreading awareness about ICANN's elections are S Sadagopan, Director, Indian Institute of Information Technology, Bangalore; Vijay Chandru, Prof, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore; Arun Mehta, President, Society for Telecom Empowerment and Sevanti Ninan, columnist. The group is also posting newsletters on the Net and pasting posters in cybercafes.

The group's message is: If you are over 16 and have an e-mail account then you must register at icann.com before July 31, 2000. The group has also set up a bulletin board at the following address: ICANNIndia-subscribe@egroups.com. Its members can also be reached at the following e-mail box: ICANNelections@india.com.