Pranay Kotasthane presents paper on radically networked societies for the SV Raju Festschrift

Takshashila's Pranay Kotasthane was on a panel discussing a paper he has co-authored with Nitin Pai at the conference Liberalism  in India — Past, Present and Future, a tribute to S.V. Raju.The paper, titled Liberty & Security in Radically Networked Societies: A Challenge for Every Generation argues that the debate of liberty versus security gains special significance in India with the emergence of Radically Networked Societies (RNS). They define a radically networked society is defined as a web of hyper connected individuals, possessing an identity (imagined or real), and motivated by a common immediate cause. The defining feature of a RNS is its scale of operation—wide reach and its ability to evade conventional national security measures.The paper tries to answer several important questions. First, how should the hierarchical Indian state respond to the challenges of a networked society? Second, how can the Indian state respond to this challenge in a way that upholds national security while also protecting individual freedoms? And third, what will be the exact nature of the trade off between liberty and security in an age of radically networked societies?The conference was held by Centre for Civil Society and Friedrich Naumann Foundation in the honour of S V Raju, one of India’s liberal giants.