India
The process of setting up an e-waste management system in Bangladesh has begun but has been slow to develop. By identifying gaps, reviewing manufacturer compliance and engaging in public awareness campaigns, VOICE mobilises collective action for environmental justice and sustainability.
In this third part of our special series on Our Circular Future, Syed Kazi of Digital Empowerment Foundation (DEF) in India talks to us about how one of the highest-consuming regions of the world needs to urgently adopt circular economy approaches across all sectors.
With mounting global pressure to keep up with the latest technology, the scale of our digital demand is resulting in staggering amounts of environmental waste. DEF responded with an inspiring pilot project to tackle the problem of e-waste in two communities in India.
India imposed 84 internet shutdowns in 2022, the highest number globally for the fifth year in a row. APC joins a global civil society coalition to urgently ask the Indian government to create meaningful safeguards for citizens' digital rights and ensure unfettered access to an open, secure and reliable internet.
Last year saw the highest number of internet shutdowns ever recorded. Such enforced digital darkness is a slippery slope of easy authoritarianism that we see spreading globally, one that countries like India, with the world's highest number of shutdowns, are using to gain undemocratic compliance from their citizens.
India’s focus on a deterministic and ideological usage of technology to manage the COVID-19 health crisis has not only mismanaged the pandemic, but has pushed the country to contend with Orwellian realities.
APC and the other signatories of this open letter urge the Department of Telecommunications to withdraw the Draft Indian Telecommunication Bill and to prepare a new rights-respecting version, in consultation with stakeholders.
APC and the other signatories of this open letter stress that India – as the world’s largest democracy, and second largest base of internet users – has an opportunity to draft an exemplary legislation that ensures the protection of human rights in the digital age.
This report explores how workers and customers navigate the introduction of technology into the domestic and personal services work sector in India, which has historically functioned through informal word-of-mouth networks and employs people largely belonging to marginalised communities.
The push for digitisation during the pandemic – whether for health management or to keep daily activities going amid lockdowns – deepened the digital divide in India, since escalated digital adoption without adequate policy protections can exclude the already marginalised even more.

Association for Progressive Communications (APC) 2022
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