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It's September, and That Means It's Time for Software Freedom Day
Software Freedom Day (SFD), which celebrates the use of free and open software, is just around the corner on September 17. When the day first started in 2004, only 12 teams from different places joined, but it has since grown to include hundreds registered events around the world, depending on the year.
IIIT Delhi Workshop on Center for IT and Society
A workshop on the upcoming Center for IT and Society in IIIT-Delhi was organised today, September 17, in the institute. The workshop highlights on the process of establishing a center on IT and Society, which will focus on studying relationships and impact of ICTs and Internet on society and the role that society plays in shaping them, particularly in India. The center will bring together faculty in various humanities and social sciences disciplines, and would also initiate interdisciplinary taught programme in IT and Social Sciences. Sumandro Chattapadhyay was invited to participate in this workshop.
Sequoia India’s Designathon 2016
Along with their annual hackathon, Sequoia India organised a designathon in Bangalore on September 10-11, 2016. The participants picked one of three tracks - gamification, information visualisation, and smart acceleration - and developed an interface design or clickable prototype or a demo video. Sumandro Chattapadhyay was invited to participate as a mentor for the information visualisation track.
Methodology: Statements of Working (Form 27) of Indian Mobile Device Patents
In India, if a patent is not locally worked within three years of its issuance, any person may request a compulsory license, and if the patent is not adequately worked within two years of the grant of such a compulsory license, it may be revoked. In order to provide the public with information about patent working, India requires every patentee to file an annual statement on “Form 27” describing the working of each of its issued Indian patents. We conducted the first comprehensive and systematic study of all Forms 27 filed with respect to mobile devices. We tried to empirically establish the extent to which patentees and licensees comply with the statutory requirement to declare information about the working of their patents. Research assistance was provided by interns Anna Liz Thomas and Nayana Dasgupta.
Where is the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Headed?
The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) – the Asian answer to the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is still being furiously scripted.
Quarter Life Crisis: The World Wide Web turns 25 this year
With the unexplained ban on websites, the state seems to have stopped caring for the digital rights of its citizens.
Making Telugu Suitable for Internet
In brief, the article speaks of steps in making a language other than English suitable for Internet and computers, what input methods, fonts and content are available in Telugu as on date and what challenges are ahead in making language fully available on Internet and in computers.
Indians Ask: Is Visiting a Torrent Site Really A Crime?
India has banned various large-scale torrent sites for a long time — this is old news. But under a new federal policy in India, one can be jailed for three years and fined 300,000 Indian Rupees (~US $4464) for downloading content on any of these blocked websites.
IIRC: Reflections on IRC16
The first edition of the Internet Researchers' Conference (IRC) series was held on February 26-28, 2016. It was hosted by the Centre for Political Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University, and was supported by the CSCS Digitial Innovation Fund. Here we share our reflections on the Conference, albeit rather delayed, and lessons towards the next edition to be held in March 2017.
Digital India Needs These Policy Changes
Appropriate policies will increase connectivity much more than spectrum auctions.
Wikiwomen’s Meetup at St. Agnes College Explores Potentials and Plans of Women Editors in Mangalore, Karnataka
Karnataka is known for its diverse linguistic cultures. Aside from Kannada, many are native speakers of Konkani, Tulu, and other languages. A small Wikiwomen's meetup was held on Saturday, August 27th at St. Agnes College, Mangalore, to invite female Wikipedians from the region. Many of them were new to the online encyclopedia but demonstrated strong interest in learning and contributing more Indic language content online.
Submitted Comments on the Telangana State Open Data Policy 2016
Last month, the Information Technology, Electronics & Communications Department of the Government of Telangana released the first public draft of the Telangana State Open Data Policy 2016, and sought comments from various stakeholders in the state and outside. The draft policy not only aims to facilitate and provide a framework for proactive disclosure of data created by the state government agencies, but also identify the need for integrating such a mandate within the information systems operated by these agencies as well. CIS is grateful to be invited to submit its detailed comments on the same. The submission was drafted by Anubha Sinha and Sumandro Chattapadhyay.
A workshop to improve Telugu Wikipedia articles on Nobel laureates
Many articles about Nobel laureates are missing in the Telugu Wikipedia. Recently undergraduate students from four different disciplines of the Andhra Loyola College (ALC), Vijayawada gathered to create and improve articles related to Nobel laureates.
Report on Understanding Aadhaar and its New Challenges
The Trans-disciplinary Research Cluster on Sustainability Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University collaborated with the Centre for Internet and Society, and other individuals and organisations to organise a two day workshop on “Understanding Aadhaar and its New Challenges” at the Centre for Studies in Science Policy, JNU on May 26 and 27, 2016. The objective of the workshop was to bring together experts from various fields, who have been rigorously following the developments in the Unique Identification (UID) Project and align their perspectives and develop a shared understanding of the status of the UID Project and its impact. Through this exercise, it was also sought to develop a plan of action to address the welfare exclusion issues that have arisen due to implementation of the UID Project.
We Tested 18 Government Apps, and Most are not Fully Accessible to the Disabled
When you wake up in the morning, the odds are one of the first things you look at is your phone. You might check WhatsApp, review the news, look at the day’s schedule, and book a taxi to work.
We Truly are the Product being Sold
WhatsApp has announced it will begin sharing user data such as names, phone numbers, and other analytics with its parent company, Facebook, and with the Facebook family of companies. This change to its terms of service was effected in order to enable users to “communicate with businesses that matter” to them. How does this have anything to do with Facebook?
3 Copyright Tips for Students and Educators
Copyright is a really complicated topic, and when it comes to online use of creative works, accidentally crossing the line between fair use and a copyright violation is easy. How do you know what is copyrighted? Recently Frederico Morando (Creative Commons, Italy) and I presented a training session on understanding copyright policies at Wikimania 2016, which was originally proposed by Wikipedian User:Jim Carter. We covered topics such as fundamentals of copyright, exclusive rights, Berne convention, copyleft, Creative Commons licenses, Public Domain, fair use, and copyfraud.
Campaign for relicensing copyrighted books under Creative Commons licenses
A campaign has been started to relicense Telugu-language books of several noted authors from "all rights reserved" to Creative Commons Share-Alike (CC-BY-SA) license.
The Curious Incidents on Matrimonial Websites in India
This essay by Abhimanyu Roy is part of the 'Studying Internet in India' series. The author explores how the curious interplays between the arranged marriage market in India the rise of matrimonial sites such as Jeevansathi.com and Shaadi.com. The gravity of the impact that such web-based services have on the lives of users is substantially greater than most other everyday web-enabled transactions, such as an Uber ride or a Foodpanda order. From outright fraud to online harassment, newspaper back pages are filled with nightmare stories that begin on a matrimonial website. So much so that the Indian government has set up a panel to regulate matrimonial sites. The essay analyses the role of matrimonial websites in modern day India, and the challenges this awkward amalgamation of the internet and love gives rise to.
Meet the Newly Born Tulu Wikipedia, the 23rd in a South Asian Language!
The Tulu language Wikipedia became the latest entrant in the family of 294 world-language Wikipedia projects after the project went live from Wikimedia Incubator earlier this month.
