Talk by / Rajesh Hanbal & Janaki Srinivasan

Discussant / Noopur Raval

The increased digitisation of government information systems, as well as emerging data analytics and visualisation techniques, have led lately to a surge in interest in the role of data in governance and development. The latest buzzwords in governance now include data-driven governance, data-for-development, evidence-based policy-making, and open government data. However, not much attention has been paid to understand the process of the production of data in government information systems. Our findings are based on six months of an ethnographic study of India's livelihood program- Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) in a rural district of Karnataka.

Rajesh is a Ph.D. student at the International Institute of Information Technology, Bangalore(IIITB). His research explores the role of digital technologies in shaping the state's transparency to citizens, especially in their everyday interactions.

Janaki is Assistant Professor, International Institute of Information Technology Bangalore (IIITB), and an affiliate of the Institute's Centre for Information Technology and Public Policy (CITAPP). Her research examines the politics of information technology-based development.

Noopur is currently a postdoctoral research fellow at the AINow Institute at New York University. Her focus is at the intersection of Information Science, Anthropology and Science Studies. She has received her PhD in Informatics from the University of California Irvine where her doctoral research studied the transformations that gig economy platforms bring about in how we work, live and relate to each other ethically.

This talk was hosted by Tandem Research, the former home of the Responsible Technology Initiative.