Meity Chair for Internet Policy: Value, Security and Governance

As the Internet governance landscape continues to grow both in complexity and size, India’s engagement in this space has been a growing challenge with domestic and international implications of policy decisions. The Internet continues to alter the structure of the economy; more fundamentally, it has altered how people and institutions relate to each other: It has contributed tremendously to GDP disruptions in businesses while also creating socio-political tensions, which demand nuanced governance responses. Moreover, the pervasive use of the internet in the daily organisation of social lives, and its global reach raise issues of security and privacy of individuals and communities, which warrants an understanding of how to manage and govern the Internet, both in the national and international contexts. The MeitY Chair for Internet Policy at ICRIER primarily aims to support policy based research on aspects of Internet openness, security and governance. The objective is to undertake evidence based research that will build capacity for India’s participation in international fora while strengthening domestic policy. In the first year, the focus is on the domain name market in India, and the performance of the country code top-level domain (ccTLD) in particular, in addition to research on data flows and data localisation. A fortnightly news digest on internet policy related news is being prepared and widely disseminated along with the development of a data hub that will curate Internet infrastructure and policy related datasets on the dedicated website www.internetpolicy.in.