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Revolving Door Analysis: IANA Stewardship Transition Coordination Group
The IANA Stewardship Coordination Group (ICG) is the body that will accept and coordinate different proposals for IANA transition. It will make the global Internet community's final proposal for transition to the NTIA. Lakshmi Venkataraman finds that a majority of the ICG's membership have had longstanding affiliations with I-star organisations. What will this mean for IANA transition?
29th Session of the WIPO SCCR: CIS Intervention on the Proposed Treaty for the Protection of Broadcasting Organizations
The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) made its intervention on the proposed treaty in the ongoing WIPO session on December 9, 2014.
Availability and Accessibility of Government Information in Public Domain
The information provided on most Government websites such as Acts, notifications, rules, orders, minutes of meetings and consultations, etc. is usually in the form of electronic documents. However, these lack authenticity and accessibility and cannot be (text) searched., This policy brief identifies the problem areas with the current work flow being used to publish documents and proposes suitable modifications to make them easy to locate, authentic and accessible.
ICANN reveals hitherto undisclosed details of domain names revenues
Following requests from CIS, ICANN has shared a detailed list of its revenues from domain names for the fiscal year ending June 2014. Such level of detail has, until now, been unavailable. Historical data is still to be made available.
Cyber bullying is a crime, but open to interpretation: Expert
The social media attack on a Doordarshan anchor who made a series of gaffes at the recent Goa film festival would qualify as cyber bullying, experts say, but hasten to add there is not much that can be done to prevent such behaviour online, given the humungous size of the virtual universe.
Odia Wikisource campus project at Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences
The Centre for Internet & Society's Access to Knowledge team organized a closing ceremony, on December 3, to conclude the three months campus project for Odia Wikisource at Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences, Bhubaneswar.
Telugu eSpeak Training with NVDA
NVDA team conducted a two-day workshop at the Hyderabad Central University (HCU) for lecturers and students for reading and writing in Telugu using eSpeak with NVDA on December 1 and 2, 2014.
Mapping Digital Humanities in India - Concluding Thoughts
This final blog post on the mapping exercise undertaken by CIS-RAW summarises some of the key concepts and terms that have emerged as significant in the discourse around Digital Humanities in India.
National IPR Policy Series : Comments on the Proposed Intellectual Property Rights Policy to the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion
On 13 November, 2014, the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion had released a Call for Suggestions for India's proposed National IPR Policy. This is the Centre for Internet and Society's (CIS) submission for the same.
Report on Training in Basic Computing with use of NVDA at NAB, Delhi
The objective of the workshop was to help the staff members understand NVDA and its functioning with the Indian languages so that they efficiently attend to the queries of the visitors and the callers at help desk.
Access to Medicines: Petition to the US Government to Stop Pressure on India
There is growing pressure on India from the US Government to change its intellectual property system. Bending to US pressure will put medicines out of reach for millions of patients in India and other developing countries.
Introduction: About the Privacy and Surveillance Roundtables
The Privacy and Surveillance Roundtables is a Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) initiative, in partnership with the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), as well as local partners. The Roundtable will be closed-door deliberation involving multiple stakeholders. Through the course of these discussions we aim to deliberate upon the current legal framework for surveillance in India, and discuss possible frameworks for surveillance in India.
Nineteen Books Published by Ama Odisha Relicensed under CC-by-SA 4.0
Odisha's most circulated newspaper Sambad has collaborated with CIS-A2K to relicense 19 books published by its sister concern "Ama Odisha".
PERVASIVE TECHNOLOGIES PROJECT WORKING DOCUMENT SERIES: DOCUMENT 1 - RESEARCH METHODOLOGY FOR A PAPER ON COMPETITION LAW + IPR + ACCESS TO < $100 MOBILE DEVICES
This blog post is the research methodology for my research paper under the Pervasive Technologies Project. This is a work in progress and is likely to be modified from time to time.
Teaching in the Age of Wikipedia
This course is conceived by CIS-A2K. It is currently envisaged as an add-on Certificate Course jointly offered by CIS-A2K and the Nirmala Institute of Education (NIE)-a premier teacher training establishment in Goa, India.
Report on Training in the Use of eSpeak Gujarati with NVDA
The training was imparted at Blind Peoples Association, Vastrapur, Ahmedabad on November 17 and 18, 2014. Thirteen delegates underwent the training. R.P.Soni was the local coordinator.
MHRD IPR Chairs — Underutilization of Funds and Lack of Information Regarding Expenditures
Funds granted to the IPR Chairs set up by the Ministry of Human Resources and Development are often left underutilized. Details regarding the expenditures that are incurred by the Chairs are also currently unavailable. CIS intern Amulya Purushothama examines this further.
The Socratic debate: Whose internet is it anyway?
In the US, President Obama recently spoke out on the seemingly arcane topic of net neutrality. What is more astounding is that the popular satire news show host John Oliver spent a 13-minute segment talking about it in June, telling Internet trolls to “focus your indiscriminate rage in a useful direction” by visiting the US Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) website and submitting comments on its weak draft proposal on net neutrality.
Methodology: Access to Music through the Mobile
Like its predecessors the vinyl, the cassette tape, the CD, and the MP3 player, the mobile phone as the most recent musical carrier have been well documented to be a disruptive technology, one which has made earlier carrier technologies virtually obsolete. The mobile phone has transformed the music industry and its supporting infrastructure — dramatically altering the roles of various intermediaries and stakeholders who enable the creation, distribution, and consumption of musical content.
Odia Wikisource, its Potential
I wrote an editorial in Odia newspaper the "Samaja" on November 17, 2014. I have written about Odia Wikisource, its potential and how people can get involved in it with a short note about the digitization done already. I have also highlighted the authors and copyright holders who kindly have donated their work under CC-by-SA license.
