By Gangesh Varma** The ‘control-of-the-Internet’ rhetoric never lost its appeal. The domestic politics in United States, particularly the opposition from Republican Senators, is not a new obstacle to the IANA Transition. The Republican Party Platform for 2016 captures the key policy positions of the Republican Party for… Read More

By Gangesh Varma Last week, on 18th April, 2016, a Joint Communique of the 14th Meeting of the Foreign Ministers of Russia, India and China (RIC) raised a few eyebrows. The subject of discussion is paragraph 12 of the Communique which deals with the use of… Read More

By Gangesh Varma Global Public Interest is a difficult term to define. Any attempt to define it has always been met with resistance, or dissatisfaction. Yet, it features prominently in ICANN’s universe – through its bylaws, documents and contracts. In this post, I recapitulate the discussions surrounding… Read More

By Gangesh Varma Recommendation #5: The next post in our series tracking the development of the CCWG Accountability Proposal is on Recommendation #5: Changing Aspects of ICANN’s Mission, Commitment and Core Values.  The CCWG Accountability through Recommendation 5, proposed changes… Read More

As ICANN 55 approaches, the spotlight returns to the IANA Transition. The Cross-Community Working Group on Enhancing ICANN Accountability (CCWG-Accountability) has finalised its proposal and awaits endorsements from the chartering organizations. My colleague Aarti Bhavana, and I at the Centre for Communication Governance have begun a… Read More

By Gangesh Varma Recommendation 7 Continuing our series on tracking the CCWG Accountability Process, in our fifth post, we look at Recommendation 7 which concerns ICANN’s Independent Review Process. This post examines the key changes and developments since the 3rd Draft Proposal was opened… Read More

By Gangesh Varma Recommendation 4 In the weeks leading up to the ICANN 55 Meeting at Marrakech, we are doing a series of posts tracking the CCWG-Accountability process. The first and second posts by Aarti Bhavana analyze Recommendations 1 & 2 and Recommendation 6  & 12 respectively. This… Read More

By Gangesh Varma The World Economic Forum (WEF) held its annual meeting at Davos from 20-23 January, 2016. The theme of the meeting was ‘The Fourth Industrial Revolution’ which referred to advent of new technologies that converge “the physical, digital and biological worlds” to… Read More

By Gangesh Varma The last quarter of 2015 alone witnessed three key events that displayed the diversity of views on internet governance. Namely, the 10th Internet Governance Forum (IGF), the United Nations WSIS+10 High Level Meeting, and the 2nd World Internet Conference (WIC) in… Read More

The agreed text draft of the outcome document of the WSIS+10 Review has been released. The agreed text is a product of the final negotiations between Member States over the past few days. This draft will be adopted at the High Level Meeting of the General… Read More