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MHRD IPR Chair Series: Information Received from IIT, Bombay
This post provides a factual description about the operation of Ministry of Human Resource Development IPR Chair’s Intellectual Property Education, Research and Public Outreach (IPERPO) scheme in IIT Bombay.
Monitoring Sustainable Development Goals in India: Availability and Openness of Data (Part I)
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are an internationally agreed upon set of developmental targets to be achieved by 2030. There are 17 SDGs with 169 targets, and each target is mapped to one or more indicators as a measure of evaluation. In this and the next blog post, Kiran AB is documenting the availability and openness of data sets in India that are relevant for monitoring the targets under the SDGs. This post offers the findings for the first 7 Goals, while the next post will cover the last 10.
MHRD IPR Chair Series: Information Received from IIT, Delhi
This post provides a factual description about the operation of Ministry of Human Resource Development IPR Chair’s Intellectual Property Education, Research and Public Outreach (IPERPO) scheme in IIT Delhi.
MHRD IPR Chair Series: Information Received from Cochin University of Science and Technology
This post provides a factual description about the operation of Ministry of Human Resource Development IPR Chair’s Intellectual Property Education, Research and Public Outreach (IPERPO) scheme in Cochin University of Science and Technology.
MHRD IPR Chair Series: Information Received from University of Madras
This post provides a factual description about the operation of Ministry of Human Resource Development IPR Chair’s Intellectual Property Education, Research and Public Outreach (IPERPO) scheme in University of Madras. The author has analysed all the data received under various heads such as income, grants from MHRD, planned and non planned expenditure, nature and frequency of programmes organised and the allocation of funds for the same. Throughout the course of observation and presentation of the analysed data, the author seeks to trace the presence of unjustified underutilisation of funds by the aforementioned university as provided by the MHRD during the period of 2001-2014.
World Trends in Freedom of Expression and Media Development
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) had published a book in 2014 that examines free speech, expression and media development. The chapter contains a Foreword by Irina Bokova, Director General, UNESCO. Pranesh Prakash contributed to Independence: Introduction - Global Media Chapter. The book was edited by Courtney C. Radsch.
Free Speech and Public Order
In this post, Gautam Bhatia has explained the law on public order as a reasonable restriction to freedom of expression under Article 19(2) of the Constitution of India.
Free Speech and the Law on Sedition
Siddharth Narrain explains how the law in India has addressed sedition.
Internet Freedom
The modern medium of the web is an open-sourced, democratic world in which equality is an ideal, which is why what is most important is Internet freedom.
A Case for Greater Privacy Paternalism?
This is the second part of a series of three articles exploring the issues with the privacy self management framework and potential alternatives.
There is No Such Thing as Free Basics
India would not see the rain of Free Basics advertisements on billboards with images of farmers and common people explaining how much they could benefit from this Firefox project. Because the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has taken a historical step by banning the differential pricing without discriminating services.
The Aakash Tablet and Technological Imaginaries of Mass Education in Contemporary India (Excerpt)
In a recently published paper, Jahnavi Phalkey and Sumandro Chattapadhyay explore public initiatives in technological solutions for educating the poor and the disadvantaged in independent India. Here is an edited excerpt from the paper that traces the recent history of technological solutions for mass education and unpacking the narrative of ‘failure’ that is associated with the Aakash experiment.
India Electronics Week 2016 & the IoT Show
The India Electronics Week 2016 was held at the Bangalore International Exhibition Centre from 11th-13th January 2016, along with Bangalore's biggest IoT Exhibition and Conference, bringing the global electronics industry together. The event also had the EFY Expo 2016, supported by the Department of Electronics and Information Technology & the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, Government of India.
Database on Big Data and Smart Cities International Standards
The Centre for Internet and Society is in the process of mapping international standards specifically around Big Data, IoT and Smart Cities. Here is a living document containing a database of some of these key globally accepted standards.
Facebook's Fall from Grace: Arab Spring to Indian Winter
Facebook’s Free Basics has been permanently banned in India! The Indian telecom regulator, TRAI has issued the world’s most stringent net neutrality regulation! To be more accurate, there is more to come from TRAI in terms of net neutrality regulations especially for throttling and blocking but if the discriminatory tariff regulation is anything to go by we can expect quite a tough regulatory stance against other net neutrality violations as well.
RAW Lectures #02: Anil Menon on 'Speculative Fiction and Freedom' - Video
Anil Menon spoke on 'Undermining the Tyrant’s Protocols: Speculative Fiction and Freedom' at the second event of the RAW Lectures series in Bangalore on January 13, 2016. Here is the video recording of the talk and the discussion that followed.
Open Data Hackathons are Great, but Address Privacy and License Concerns
This is to cross-publish a blog post from DataMeet website regarding a letter shared with the organisers of Urban Hack 2015, Bangalore, in response to a set of privacy and license concerns identified and voiced during the hackathon by DataMeet members. Sumandro Chattapadhyay co-authored and co-signed the letter. The blog post is written by Nisha Thompson.
Bottled-Up National Assets
Apply electronic toll collection systems to roads, and adapt road network concepts in organizing and managing communications networks.
This little innovation is bringing a revolution in the Odia language
Depicting human language within computing environments has always been a challenge: a given language's script and alphabet needs to be mapped to a coding system that a computer can process digitally. This is done by way of an encoding system that basically maps each character to a unique numeric code.
WikipediansSpeak: Odia Wikisourcer Shares her Journey and Goals
The most active editor on the Odia Wikisource is Pankajmala Sarangi, a native of Odisha who now lives in New Delhi, where she works at a non-profit. As a leader in a broad community that is dominated by males—indeed, she is the most active contributor to the Odia-language Wikisource—we asked her to share her journey and her goals to grow the project and community as part of the “WikipediansSpeWell, I think I would work on creating a database of all the Odia speakers living in New Delhi and the city organizations that work in propagating Odia language and culture, and plan Wikisource outreach programs for them.k” interview series.
