Notes of meeting of the Multistakeholder Forum

From: S Moonesamy <sm+mu_at_elandsys.com>
Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 02:56:45 -0700

Hello,

I attended a meeting of the Multistakeholder Forum at 10:00 a.m
today. I am sending my personal notes of that meeting.

The meeting was chaired by the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of
Technology, Communication and Innovation. I gave a presentation of
the work of the .mu Select Committee. There was a discussion about
what legal form the not-for-profit entity should have. Mr A.
Radhakissoon commented that it could be an association or a society,
or a company. I commented that a company would look the same as the
current .mu entity. There were comments about examples of
associations, e.g. the Mauritius Turf Club. After discussion, there
was agreement about having an association. Mr A. Radhakissoon and
two other members of the forum were chosen to work on the by-laws of
the association.

There were a question about whether the technical proposal would
work. I commented that the .mu Select Committee evaluated the
technical aspect to see whether it would work and it is up to the
not-for-profit entity to see how to implement the technical
part. This was followed by a question about whether there was the
technical expertise in Mauritius to implement a .mu registry. Mr T.
Dabeesing proposed hiring Mr Chris Disspain as he is from auDA
(Australia) and he is an ICANN board member. I commented that it was
up to the not-for-profit entity to decide about whether it needs a
consultant. I asked for my objection to be put in the minutes. The
Chair suggested that the ICTA hires and pays for the consultant. I
did not raise any objection about that as it would be a decision of the ICTA.

The Chair mentioned that there has been some discussions with the
current .mu entity and the amount of fifteen million rupees was
proposed as arrears for gov.mu and eighteen million ruppees to buy
gov.mu. Mr J. Lim asked whether it was even possible to buy
gov.mu. Mr G. Ramalingum commented that it would be cheaper to buy a
generic Top-Level Domain.

The Chair mentioned that the Ministry will be changing the section of
ICT Act where the Internet Management Committee is mentioned. I
asked for not having anything in the act about .mu domain names as it
was better not to cover that through that act or through (government)
regulations. The Chair commented that there will provision in the
next budget to finance a not-for-profit entity.

I commented that there isn't any alternative if something went wrong
with .mu and suggested implementing the technical aspect as a
safeguard. It was mentioned that ICANN would help to get access to
the .mu zone. I preferred not to make a formal comment about this matter.

The meeting ended around 11:30.

Regards,
S. Moonesamy
Received on Wed Apr 22 2015 - 09:57:14 PST