April 2017 Newsletter
Welcome to the CIS newsletter for April 2017.
Dear readers,
Previous issues of the newsletters can be accessed here.
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CIS in the news:
- NGOs, individuals urge state CMs to curb Internet shutdown (The Times of India; April 4, 2017).
- India’s National ID Program May Be Turning The Country Into A Surveillance State (Pranav Dixit; BuzzFeed News; April 4, 2017).
- Privacy, what? Bengaluru police leaks 46,000 phone numbers on Twitter (Neha Vashishth; India Today; April 6, 2017).
- Bengaluru cops' twitter handle in ethical storm (Umesh Yadav; The Times of India; April 6, 2017).
- Opposition questions govt move to make Aadhaar must (Komal Gupta; Livemint; April 12, 2017).
- Aadhaar: A widening net (Komal Gupta, Apurva Vishwanath and Suranjana Roy; Livemint; April 21, 2017).
- Chemistry research in India 'still not in big league' (IANS and India Online News Portal; April 24, 2017).
- Stop the Haphazard Internet Shutdown Says MP Jay Panda (Regina Mihindukulasuriya; Businessworld; April 26, 2017).
- Now, Aadhaar details displayed in Mizoram too (Sebastian P.T.; National Herald; April 26, 2017).
- After SPB-Ilaiyaraaja, Sony Music and Sun Network lock horns over copyrights (Priyanka Thirumurthy; Newsminute; April 26, 2017).
- Analysis: Data Protection in India - Getting It Right (Suparna Goswami and Varun Haran; Info Risk Today; April 26, 2017).
- India bans social media in Kashmir for one month (Telegraph; April 27, 2017).
- J&K social media ban: Use of 132-year-old Act can’t stand judicial scrutiny, say experts (Shruti Dhapola; Indian Express; April 28, 2017).
CIS members wrote the following articles:
- How Aadhaar compromises privacy? And how to fix it? (Sunil Abraham; Hindu; April 1, 2017).
- Digital native: You can check out, you can never leave (Nishant Shah; Indian Express; April 2, 2017).
- Aadhaar marks a fundamental shift in citizen-state relations: From ‘We the People’ to ‘We the Government’ (Pranesh Prakash; Hindustan Times; April 3, 2017).
- It’s the technology, stupid (Sunil Abraham; Hindu Businessline; April 7, 2017).
- Privacy in the Age of Big Data (Amber Sinha; Asian Age; April 10, 2017).
- Digital native: Are You Still Having Fun? (Nishant Shah; Indian Express; April 17, 2017).
- Digital native: Snap out of outrage mode (Nishant Shah; Indian Express; April 30, 2017).
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Accessibility & Inclusion
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India has an estimated 70 million persons with disabilities who don't have access to read printed materials due to some form of physical, sensory, cognitive or other disability. As part of our endeavour to make available accessible content for persons with disabilities, we are developing a text-to-speech software in 15 languages with support from the Hans Foundation. The progress made so far in the project can be accessed here.
Submission
- Mobile Accessibility Practices (Nirmita Narasimhan; April 12, 2017).
Event
- Global Accessibility Awareness Day 2017 (Organized by Prakat Solutions, Mithra Jyothi and CIS; Bengaluru; May 18, 2017).
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Access to Knowledge
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Our Access to Knowledge programme currently consists of two projects. The Pervasive Technologies project, conducted under a grant from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), aims to conduct research on the complex interplay between low-cost pervasive technologies and intellectual property, in order to encourage the proliferation and development of such technologies as a social good. The Wikipedia project, which is under a grant from the Wikimedia Foundation, is for the growth of Indic language communities and projects by designing community collaborations and partnerships that recruit and cultivate new editors and explore innovative approaches to building projects.
►Wikipedia
As part of the project grant from the Wikimedia Foundation we have reached out to more than 3500 people across India by organizing more than 100 outreach events and catalysed the release of encyclopaedic and other content under the Creative Commons (CC-BY-3.0) license in four Indian languages (21 books in Telugu, 13 in Odia, 4 volumes of encyclopaedia in Konkani and 6 volumes in Kannada, and 1 book on Odia language history in English).
Blog Entries
Note: All the following events were held earlier but the reports were published in the month of April:
- Women's Day Edit-a-thon at Jeewan Jyoti Women's Empowerment Centre, Pune (Subodh Kulkarni; April 10, 2017).
- Marathi Wikipedia Edit-a-thon at Savitribai Phule Mahila Ekatma Samaj Mandal, Aurangabad (Subodh Kulkarni; April 13, 2017).
- Google-translated Telugu articles prioritisation exercise: January iteration (Pavan Santhosh; April 15, 2017).
- Telugu Wikipedia stall at Vijayawada Book Festival (Pavan Santhosh; April 15, 2017).
- Women's Day Edit-a-thon at Jnana Prabodhini (Subodh Kulkarni; April 15, 2017).
- Bargarh Manuscript Digitisation Project (Sailesh Patnaik; April 16, 2017).
- Imperial College Orientation Program, Bargarh (Sailesh Patnaik; April 16, 2017).
- Orientation & Training session for Environmental Activists in Satara (Subodh Kulkarni; April 16, 2017).
- Marathi Wikipedia Edit-a-thon at Rajarshi Chhatrapati Shahu College, Kolhapur (Subodh Kulkarni; April 16, 2017).
- Marathi Wikipedia Edit-a-thon at Shivaji University, Kolhapur (Subodh Kulkarni; April 16, 2017).
- Marathi Wikipedia Edit-a-thon at Sangli, Maharashtra (Subodh Kulkarni; April 16, 2017).
- Orientation & Training session of Jalbiradari Activists (Subodh Kulkarni; April 16, 2017).
- "Free-license Wings To Your Books" in Guntur (Pavan Santhosh; April 16, 2017).
- "Free-license Wings To Your Books" in Vijayawada (Pavan Santhosh; April 16, 2017).
- Adikavi Nannaya University Telugu Wikipedia Workshop (Pavan Santhosh; April 16, 2017).
- Odia Wikipedia Workshop in IIMC, Dhenkanal (Sailesh Patnaik; April 17, 2017).
- Sambad 100 Women Edit-a-thon (Ting Yi Chang and Sailesh Patnaik; April 18, 2017).
- Google-translated Telugu articles prioritisation exercise: February iteration (Pavan Santhosh; April 18, 2017).
►Copyright and Patent
- National Conference on Intellectual Property Rights and Public Interest (Organized by Indian Law Institute; New Delhi; April 7 - 8, 2017). Maggie Huang took part in the event.
►Openness
Our work in the Openness programme focuses on open data, especially open government data, open access, open education resources, open knowledge in Indic languages, open media, and open technologies and standards - hardware and software. We approach openness as a cross-cutting principle for knowledge production and distribution, and not as a thing-in-itself.
Publication
- Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in India: Opportunities for Advocacy in Intellectual Property (Sunil Abraham and Vidushi Marda; GIS Watch and Association for Progressive Communications; April 23, 2017). Total 4 reports: Synthesis Overview, Access to Mobile Technology, Traditional Knowledge Digital Library, and FOSS and Open Standards.
Submission
- Comments on the Right to Information Rules, 2017 (Amber Sinha; April 27, 2017).
Event Organized
- NASA Space Apps Challenge 2017 (CIS, Bengaluru, April 22, 2017).
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Internet Governance
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As part of its research on privacy and free speech, CIS is engaged with two different projects. The first one (under a grant from Privacy International and IDRC) is on surveillance and freedom of expression (SAFEGUARDS). The second one (under a grant from MacArthur Foundation) is on restrictions that the Indian government has placed on freedom of expression online.
►Privacy
Blog Entries
- Analysis of Key Provisions of the Aadhaar Act Regulations (Amber Sinha; April 3, 2017).
- Right to be Forgotten: A Tale of Two Judgements (Amber Sinha; April 7, 2017).
Blog Entries
- Killing of Yameen Rasheed Reveals Worsening Human Rights Situation in the Maldives (Pranesh Prakash; April 25, 2017).
- Internet Shutdowns in 2016 (Japreet Grewal; April 27, 2016).
►Miscellaneous
Blog Entry
- Regulating Bitcoin in India (Vipul Kharbanda; April 20, 2017).
Event
- Amutha Arunachalam - Stand Shielded of Digital Rights (CIS; New Delhi; May 5, 2017).
Participation in Event
- ISO/IEC JTC1/SC 27 Meetings (Organized by Bureau of Indian Standards; University of Waikato and Novotel; New Zealand; April 18 - 25, 2017). Udbhav Tiwari attended the meetings.
►Cyber Security
Event Organized
- Dr. Madan M. Oberoi - Digital Forensics and Cyber Investigations (CIS; New Delhi; April 7, 2017).
Participation in Event
- Brainstorming Session on the Global Conference on Cyberspace (GCCS 2017) (Organized by the Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology; New Delhi; April 12, 2017). Japreet Grewal attended the session.
About CIS
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The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) is a non-profit organisation that undertakes interdisciplinary research on internet and digital technologies from policy and academic perspectives. The areas of focus include digital accessibility for persons with disabilities, access to knowledge, intellectual property rights, openness (including open data, free and open source software, open standards, open access, open educational resources, and open video), internet governance, telecommunication reform, digital privacy, and cyber-security. The academic research at CIS seeks to understand the reconfigurations of social and cultural processes and structures as mediated through the internet and digital media technologies.
► Follow us elsewhere
- Twitter: http://twitter.com/cis_india
- Twitter - Access to Knowledge: https://twitter.com/CISA2K
- Twitter - Information Policy: https://twitter.com/CIS_InfoPolicy
- Facebook - Access to Knowledge: https://www.facebook.com/cisa2k
- E-Mail - Access to Knowledge: [email protected]
- E-Mail - Researchers at Work: [email protected]
- List - Researchers at Work: https://lists.ghserv.net/mailman/listinfo/researchers
► Support Us
Please help us defend consumer and citizen rights on the Internet! Write a cheque in favour of 'The Centre for Internet and Society' and mail it to us at No. 194, 2nd 'C' Cross, Domlur, 2nd Stage, Bengaluru - 5600 71.
► Request for Collaboration
We invite researchers, practitioners, artists, and theoreticians, both organisationally and as individuals, to engage with us on topics related internet and society, and improve our collective understanding of this field. To discuss such possibilities, please write to Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, at [email protected] (for policy research), or Sumandro Chattapadhyay, Research Director, at [email protected] (for academic research), with an indication of the form and the content of the collaboration you might be interested in. To discuss collaborations on Indic language Wikipedia projects, write to Tanveer Hasan, Programme Officer, at [email protected].
CIS is grateful to its primary donor the Kusuma Trust founded by Anurag Dikshit and Soma Pujari, philanthropists of Indian origin for its core funding and support for most of its projects. CIS is also grateful to its other donors, Wikimedia Foundation, Ford Foundation, Privacy International, UK, Hans Foundation, MacArthur Foundation, and IDRC for funding its various projects.
