 So, Himadri does Repair Cafe Bangalore Foundation, and Himadri is part of a team of volunteers who help spread the message of repairing and reusing domestic items to organising pop-up workshops in communities. So, Himadri graduated from the Master in Human Settlements from Catholic universities in Loven in Belgium in 2012. And today, Himadri is presenting a preview of Right to Repair in India. So really looking forward to your presentation, Himadri. Thank you so much for joining us today. And yes, please go ahead. Welcome. Thank you, Brigitte, and thank you, James, for having me here to speak. So, I just, yeah, so I, I mean, this, it's something which everybody knows, so I'm not really going to spend much time, but the idea is meaning of repair. I mean, for a moment, just looking back into what this repair really means because we tend to get lost in a lot of, there's a lot of discussions and debates which are around repair and they pull us in different directions. And I think from here, this definition which Dennis we get has put together in a paper, and it says basically repair is something that helps to bring something back to its original function. So, that's how it was important. Now, so, while there is discussion about right to repair, there have been some draft rules which have been formulated in India as well. The fact of the matter is that in India, specifically talking about India, we do not have a statutory right to repair, it is in process, and it will take some time to get there. We know that the consumer is frustrated by controls, which are exercised by manufacturing manufacturers, acting through limitations on tools on the knowledge or manuals which allow repairs to third party repairs to conduct repairs. And also on technology and hardware, so hardware and software. So, these are some of the ways by which the controls are exercised. And what's interesting also at the same time, we are talking about repair and right to repair, which is sort of trying to open the whole arena to allow for repair to happen. At the same time, there is something called informal repair, which, as you can see, there are markets in cities, and they literally work like, you know, shops which are selling spares. And you could probably find a spare over here that would, the original would be found in an OEM, which is the original equipment manufacturer. So the informal sector is, you know, sort of has, I would say, I would not say that informal sector has filled up the gap, which is there because of all the restrictions from the manufacturers, but to certain extent, the informal repairers are doing a good job. And they are, they are sort of taking advantage of the restrictions which are there because of the restrictions which are there because of the manufacturers to sort of explore the market. Now, so, with that background, what is, how would right to repair, you know, how would it be relevant, and how would it be relevant for an individual such as you or me, who is basically has is a consumer and has a product, and they want to get it so that they can extend its life, you know, and that's the basic thing. So it's, on one hand, it's sort of, if you talk about the legislation, it is looking like a struggle between, you know, the OEMs, and there are some antitrust regulators. So, you know, what we are talking about here is something, for example, which is called a competition commission of India. So what this body does is, it's sort of like a watchdog that presides over the industry in trying to figure out that is anybody having an unfair position of advantage. And therefore the name, the competition commission, so there is an unfair competition that has to be called out by these guys. And so, there is a sort of like a legal struggle which is happening between the original manufacturers, which may be in case of cars, it may be Honda or Fiat or Toyota or whatever. And on the other hand, these kind of regulators who are there to make sure that individual manufacturers don't enjoy unfair competition. So that's where we are today. There is already this kind of struggle, which is there between the OEM and the antitrust regulators. So, the regulators argue that the consumers are only aware of, so the regulators say that there are two markets, there's primary market and there is a secondary market. And the secondary market is where if you go to buy a car, it's where you buy the car. And the secondary market is where you'll find tools, spares and other things to repair the repair and refurbish or whatever to extend the life of the product which is brought from the primary market. Now, the argument here that the commission or this watchdog is making is that when I as a consumer go to buy such a product, I do not have a good perspective of the secondary market. So, which means that when I'm going to spend money to get some product, I am not able to assess how much money am I going to spend in the total life cycle of that product. So, based on that there have been cases which have, and manufacturers have been told that look, you have to make this transparency so that people of the consumers are able to have a good perspective of not only the primary market when you buy the cars or any other electrical equipment, but also the secondary market, which is where all the repair and other things So that's where it's sort of going on and there is what's interesting is, there is, there has been already some precedence by which cases have been one. So, there is something called the consumer act. If you can see. So, I don't have it here but there is something called the consumer protection act, based on which cases have been for and one. So, it's in the absence of a proper statutory regulation. The consumer protection act, which is able to give some protection to the individuals, like myself, or like everybody else. Now that's when you have a brick and mortar industry in the case of software, it goes further because this whole concept of planned obsolescence. It can be programmed by writing the code. And, you know, it turns out that there is something called the copyright act of 1957, which is an Indian act, and apparently that says that it's legal to write such a code. So that means that if you're talking about right to repair, and that means would have to be made to that act as well. Then, like, I want to sort of, I mean this is the last slide so we can just go back to discussions. It's a little bit too much of layers of information here but what I want to say is that if the right to it does come in, we need to empower a large majority of the informal repairs or third party repairs by supplying them manual tools, training and all that so right to repair cannot ignore this huge informal sector economy, which exists in this country, and would be surprised to know that 90% of the jobs in the, in the, in any sector is actually informal economy jobs in India, which means that if one is talking about informal sector that accounts for 90% of the jobs, not 90% of the amount of the gross domestic product, but the number of jobs. So that makes it a very, very significant number. And therefore a very, very significant issue to deal with this whole informal sector. I think I'll stop here if there are, if I need to explain something better, I can do that. Fantastic and fascinating. That's really amazing. Would you like to stop sharing your presentation and then we can see you. That's great. Yeah, wonderful. So, can you please have some questions for some conversation with him, maybe some ideas that he would like to share from your own experience in your own country, or what you just learned from him. Hi, hi from Nottingham. I was really interested in all the different angles that you kind of presented for, you know, looking at right to repair and the Indian frame, like the almost like framework. The one that interests me the most really is the copyright aspects because it seems like, yeah, it seems like that's kind of what holds us back the most in terms of being able to, let's say, make our own spare parts or, you know, read radically reuse stuff. And I know that China has been rather strong on enforcing copyright for the OEMs, especially even on things like chips, like computer chips. So is that the, is the enforcement as strong in India and, in other words, I know that you said that there's a debate happening, but what's the actual practice, like on the ground and is there a space for, let's say, circumventing some of these strong copyrights on spare parts and equipment. Thank you, Janet. Very good question. I think this question really addresses the situation, how it is on the ground. I can start out by saying, which I'm very clear about this, that there is a big informal sector, like I said, and there are, there are things which are happening there which is in a way circumventing this populace. That is, that is, you know, as of today, those are not the first thing that you would approach if you have to, you know, it's not something it could, I mean, if somebody have to scale it up, you couldn't make a company out of it because you would fall on the wrong side of the law. So that's, I think that that is there and the enforcement, I don't think the enforcement would be so high as, for example, maybe the case in China. But it's really a question of, you know, what scale are you working at if you're working at scale, then you're bound to come into the radar and then it becomes difficult. So does any discussion of it ultimately you need a business model to, to be, let's say, refurbishing or manufacturing spur parts you need to scale. So, I can see that. Yeah, I was quite interested to know from some of you, if you face other companies, this whole thing of informal repair. I might just share this again, you know, like, this is the situation in our country. So, yeah, it's very limiting, right. Yeah. So, and very challenging, I guess, you know, so, and we are just presenting this now, you know, in the submission so I'm not quite sure where this is going to take us but it will really take some frank and strong conversations, I guess. How are you doing this, Janet? I mean, I'd be keen to learn from you too. Well, there's a good question from Marta, but I just thought of, I'm really struggling with the name, maybe it's brain fog but the refurbisher in the US who spent time in jail for sending out CD ROMs with windows like basically, if anyone remember his name in the chat, Microsoft had, well, Dell and Microsoft had him prosecuted for sending out some software which was free, but on a CD, because he made the mistake of putting like some kind of logo on the CD. I would say that, yeah, informal efforts to rescue equipment are still criminalized for the most part and I would say here and in the US, anybody trying to circumvent those formal copyright structures will be punished for sure. And it will be good to hear from other countries as well, people who are participating. So there is a question on warranty periods. Yes, Marta, especially for electric, what's called whiteboards and brownboards, you know, electrical stuff, automobiles, warranty periods are important. And it's, people do actually go back to OEMs for doing the warranty period and primarily because during the warranty period, you know, it's more cost effective to have replacements or even repairs. I remember my personal experience and I think I'm not expert on law, but my experience of repair is what I can speak from. And so in a motorbike, I have a three year warranty period. And when you buy the motorbike, they also say that look there is extended warranty, which takes you for another couple of years. For some reason, I decided to take the extended warranty and practically one day after the three years of warranty got over, I had a problem with the sensor which detects the speed of the vehicle. And it's a very small thing, but it's somewhere inside and if it doesn't work, your speedometer doesn't work and a whole lot of other things will not work along with it. And I might say that I had an extended warranty and I went back and so I was able to get it fixed and practically. So, yeah, there is that advantage of going back to the OEM for warranties and even for extended warranties. This is probably the time we have with your imagery. I understand. Is that correct if I get this right? It's a time. It's a bit confusing. Thank you so much. This is so interesting and you're working so hard. I mean, this is just incredible. Do you have support in the work that you're doing? In the work that we are doing, we in Bengaluru, we have in sort of like people for enthusiasts, volunteers, and we have about 15 people. And actually, you know, in the previous session, Karen and Danny were there. So they were talking about having, you know, bringing in exposing children to this whole idea of repair. And we, along with Pune and others from the Pekete Bengaluru, we run this program called Tinker Tinder. And, you know, it's been, and Karen and Danny also basically accepted to be on one of the programs last year. So that was nice and provided a wider perspective. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. So I think to answer your question, yes, we do have help, but this is primarily volunteer help, but there are people who are quite passionate about it. So, you know, they come and help and you get back. Oh, beautiful. Yeah, wonderful. Thank you so much. This is fantastic and very inspiring and it would be wonderful to keep in touch. You know, also helping any way we can. Fabulous. Thank you again.