Pathways to Higher Education

National Resource Kit : The West Bengal Chapter (Call for Comments)

anandi — 2013-11-07T06:19:34Z

The National Resource Kit team is pleased to bring you its research on the state of laws, policies and programmes for persons with disabilities in the state of West Bengal.

Note: The chapter is an early draft and will undergo subsequent modifications. We welcome comments and feedback from our readers.

Executive Summary

The state of West Bengal has issued the West Bengal Persons with Disabilities (Equal Opportunities, Protection of Rights and Full Participation) Rules 1999 to implement the provisions under the central Persons with Disabilities (Protection of Rights, Equal Opportunities and Full Participation) Act 1995.

The Department of Women and Child Development and Social Welfare is primarily responsible for the welfare of persons with disabilities in the state. The government of West Bengal has issued six notifications in education, ten notifications in employment and training, ten notifications in health and rehabilitation, ten notifications in social protection and two notifications in transport for persons with disabilities.

Capital: Kolkata

Population: 91,347,736

Population of persons with disabilities: 1,847,184

Literacy: 77.08%

HDI: 0.625 Ranked: 19th (2005 status)

Department: Department of Women and Child Development and Social Welfare

Other authorities: Office of the Chief Commissioner for Persons with Disabilities

Click to download the West Bengal chapter (PDF, 344 Kb)

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/the-west-bengal-chapter

Celebrating Odia Wikipedia's Ninth Anniversary

subha — 2013-02-28T04:32:29Z

Odia Wikipedia saw its first edit on January 29, 2004. After a dormancy of many years it got revived in 2011. To commemorate the effort of many volunteer wikipedians, a celebratory event was organized on January 29, 2013 in Bhubaneswar. Subhashish Panigrahi participated in this event.

Odia Wikipedia recently has celebrated its 9 ^th anniversary. January 29 is considered to be that day when someone made a first edit on it. Communities from Bhubaneswar, Cuttack and Nalconagar joined hands to celebrate this event with a panel discussion on "Application of Odia language in e-media". The discussion was coordinated by Nilambar Rath, Director of Academy for Media Learning. The event was organized by the Odia Wiki Community with support from The Centre for Internet and Society in collaboration with Academy for Media Learning. Panelists who took part in the discussion were Prasanna Kumar Mohanty, Director of "Odia Bhasa Pratisthan", Dr. Prafulla Tripathy, Odia linguist and writer, Dr. Dhanada Mishra, Academician and Director-Academics, KMBB College of Engineering, Subhashish Panigrahi, Programme Officer, Centre for Internet and Society, Jatindra Das, Senior journalist and founder, Odisha.com and Subhransu Panda, Senior journalist, Sambad. Wikipedians, students and journalists took active part in the discussion.

To celebrate the success of Odia Wikipedia, wikipedians joined the guest to cut a “Chhenapoda” and light Deepam as an integral part of the Odia culture.

The discussion began with Nilambar Rath speaking briefly about the agenda of the meeting and about the current scenario of the use of Odia language in media especially in the web. Prasanna Kumar Mohanty spoke about how the true form of the language should be taken to public via media. He also emphasized about the need to sacrifice our conventional way of approach and adopt new technologies like Wikipedia. Many such efforts are not rewarded because of the lack of support from the government even though funding is available for such development. Odia linguist Prafulla Tripathy explained about the lack of public interest to pledge for declaring Odia as a classical language even though Odia holds the 31^st position among 6500 world languages. "The language of our personal lives, social interaction and verbal communication never gets documented. The confusion among various linguists is another obstacle to take Odia to a global level. If the script grammar is kept in focus and script and eventually the fonts are simplified then they would be easier to be used online", he expressed. Dr. Tripathy also shared his experience of his interaction with other Indian language experts at places where he worked such as on OCR (Optical character reading) software which could be a great tool to digitize many precious resources. He offered his support for helping with OCR in Odia. Few other aspects of simpler approaches of scripts discussed were glossary, Odia-English and English-Odia lexicon, spell check feature for typing and interactive e-learning which could boost the effort of the wikipedians.

Prof. Dhanada Mishra took the audience through the free and open source culture and Linux and future role of Odia Wikipedia to tackle the problems of primary education. He thanked the wikipedians for their noble effort and showed his interest in promoting it more in academics. Subhashish Panigrahi discussed about the role of Odia Wikipedia in documenting various resources in Odia Wikipedia. He brought various technical problems that common men face while typing, contributing to Wikipedia and how they could be handled. He also proposed a plan for bringing more language experts and museum curators to the community which would increase the spectrum of resource and capacity for the Odia Wikimedia community.

Jatindra Das, founder of the first online Odia newspaper Odisha.com discussed about the hurdles of using Odia Unicode and acceptance level in the society for it. Senior journalist Subhransu Panda discussed about the usage of various fonts and how adopting Unicode could bring a lot of information to the public.

Nilambar Rath, Director, Academy for Media Learning talked about the future efforts of Odia Wikipedia community. He elaborated how media could be used as an essential tool for taking Wikipedia to more people. Mrutyunjaya Kar, one of the very active Wikipedians closed the ceremony with a brief talk about the achievements, education program and impact of Odia Wikipedia in the recent past and community building plans.

There was a press meet in the afternoon. Wikipedians interacted with the media about future prospects of Odia Wikipedia and its current state.


Odia wikipedians being felicitated by the guests

Few glimpses of the event Audio Podcast

Press coverage:

ଓଡ଼ିଶାନ୍: ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆର ନବମ ଜନ୍ମତିଥି ଅବସରରେ କର୍ମଶାଳା : ଇମିଡ଼ିଆରେ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଭାଷାର ପ୍ର‌ୟୋଗ.
ସମ୍ବାଦ: ଲିପି ବ୍ୟାକରଣ ଓ ମାନକ ଭାଷାର ପ୍ରୟୋଗ ଜରୁରୀ.
eindiadiary.com:Odisha: Workshop organized on 9th Anniversary of Odia language: Application of Odia language in e-media.
Fullorissa.com: Odia Wikipedia’s 9th anniversary. Fullorissa.com
orissadiary.com:Odisha: Workshop organized on 9th Anniversary of Odia language: Application of Odia language in e-media.
Indiaeducationdiary.in:Odisha: Workshop organized on 9th Anniversary of Odia language: Application of Odia language in e-media.
Odishaviews.com:Odia language workshop organized on 9th Anniversary of Odia Wikipedia: Application of Odia language in e-media. Subhashish Panigrahi is quoted.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/celebrating-odia-wikipedias-ninth-anniversary

Analyzing the Latest List of Blocked URLs by Department of Telecommunications (IIPM Edition)

snehashish — 2013-02-17T07:35:25Z

The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) in its order dated February 14, 2013 has issued directions to the Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to block seventy eight URLs. The block order has been issued as a result of a court order. Snehashish Ghosh does a preliminary analysis of the list of websites blocked as per the DoT order.

Medianama has published the DoT order, dated February 14, 2013, on its website.

What has been blocked?

The block order contains seventy eight URLs. Seventy three URLs are related to the Indian Institute of Planning and Management (IIPM). The other five URLs contain the term “highcourt”. The order also contains links from reputed news websites and news blogs including The Indian Express, Firstpost, Outlook, Times of India, Economic Times, Kafila and Caravan Magazine, and satire news websites Faking News and Unreal Times. The order also directs blocking of a public notice issued by the University Grants Commission (UGC).

The block order does not contain links to any social media website. However, some content related to IIPM has been removed but it finds no mention in the block order. Pursuant to which order or direction such content has been removed remains unclear. For example, Google has removed search results for the terms <Fake IIPM> pursuant to Court orders and it carries the following notice:

"In response to a legal request submitted to Google, we have removed 1 result(s) from this page. If you wish, you may read more about the request at ChillingEffects.org."

Are there any mistakes in the order?

The direction issued by the DoT is once again inaccurate and mired with errors. In effect, the DoT has blocked sixty one unique URLs and the block order contains numerous repetitions. By its order the DoT has directed the ISPs to block an entire blog [http://iipmexposed.blogspot.in] along with URLs to various posts in the same blog.

Reasons for Blocking Websites

According to news reports, the main reason for blocking of websites by the DoT is a Court order issued by a Court in Gwalior. The reason for issuing such a block order might have been a court proceeding with respect to defamation and removal of defamatory content thereof. However, the reasons for blocking of domain names containing the term ‘high court’, which is not at all related to the IIPM Court case is unclear. The DoT by its order has also blocked a link in the website of a internet domain registrar which carried advertisement for the domain name [www.highcourt.com].

Are the blocks legitimate?

The block order may have been issued by the DoT under Rule 10 of the Information Technology (Procedure and Safeguards for Blocking for Access of Information by Public) Rules, 2009.

The Court order seems to be an interim injunction in a defamation suit. Generally, Courts exercise utmost caution while granting interim injunction in defamation cases. According to the Bonnard Rule (Bonnard v. Perryman, [1891] 2 Ch 269) in a defamation case, “interim injunction should not be awarded unless a defence of justification by the defendant was certain to fail at trial level.” Moreover, in the case of Woodward and Frasier, Lord Denning noted “that it would be unjust to fetter the freedom of expression, when actually a full trial had not taken place, and that if during trial it is proved that the defendant had defamed the plaintiff, then should they be liable to pay the damages.” The Delhi High Court in Tata Sons Ltd. v. Green Peace International followed the Bonnard Rule and the Lord Denning’s judgements and ruled against the award of interim injunction for removal of defamatory content and stated:

“The Court notes that the rule in Bonnard is as applicable in regulating grant of injunctions in claims against defamation, as it was when the judgment was rendered more than a century ago. This is because the Courts, the world over, have set a great value to free speech and its salutary catalyzing effect on public debate and discussion on issues that concern people at large. The issue, which the defendant’s game seeks to address, is also one of public concern. The Court cannot also sit in value judgment over the medium (of expression) chosen by the defendant since in a democracy, speech can include forms such as caricature, lampoon, mime parody and other manifestations of wit.”

Therefore, it appears that the Court order has moved away from the settled principles of law while awarding an interim injunction for blocking of content related to IIPM. It is also interesting to note that in Green Peace International, the Court also answered the question as to whether there should be different standard for posting or publication of defamatory content on the internet. It was observed by the Court that publication is a comprehensive term, ‘embracing all forms and medium – including the Internet’.

Blocking a Public Notice issued by a Statutory Body of Government of India

The block order mentions a URL which contains a public notice issued by University Grants Commission (UGC) related to the derecognition of IIPM as a University. The blocking of a public notice issued by the statutory body of the Government of India is unprecedented. A public notice issued by a statutory body is a function of the State. It can only be blocked or removed by a writ order issued by the High Court or the Supreme Court and only if it offends the Constitution. However, so far, ISPs such as BSNL have not enforced the blocking of this URL.

Implementation of the order by the ISPs

As pointed out in my previous blog post on blocking of websites, the ISPs have again failed to notify their consumers the reasons for the blocking of the URLs. This lack of transparency in the implementation of the block order has a chilling effect on freedom of speech.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/analyzing-latest-list-of-blocked-urls-by-dot

Back When the Past had a Future: Being Precarious in a Network Society

nishant — 2013-02-12T06:16:12Z

We live in Network Societies. This phrase has been so bastardised to refer to the new information turn mediated by digital technologies, that we have stopped paying attention to what the Network has become. Networks are everywhere. They have become the default metaphor of our times, where everything from infrastructure assemblies to collectives of people, are all described through the lens of a network.

This article by Nishant Shah was published in a peer-reviewed newspaper Researching BWPWAP. The write-up is on Page 3.

We are no longer just human beings living in socially connected, politically identified communities. Instead, we have become actors, creating archives of traces and transactions, generating traffic and working as connectors in the ever expanding fold of the network.

The network is an opaque metaphor, conflating description and explanation. So it becomes the object to be studied, the originary context that produces itself, and the explanatory framework that accounts for itself. In other words, the network was our past – it gives us an account of who we were, it is our present – it defines the context of all our activities, and it is our future – where we do everything to support the network because it is the only future that we can imagine for ourselves. It is this flattening characteristic of networks that are diagrammatically mapped, cartographically reproduced, and presented outside of and oblivious to temporality, that produces a condition of the future that can no longer be imagined through our everyday lives.

Networks neither promise nor deliver a flattened utopia of coexistence and decentralised power. Networks are, in fact, quite aware of the structures of inequity and conditions of privilege they create and perpetuate: the only way to recognise the existence of a network is to be outside of it, the only aspiration to belong to a network is to be kept outside of it when you recognise it. Networks create themselves as simultaneously ubiquitous and scarce, of everpresent and ephemeral, creating a new ontology for our being human – an ontology of precariousness, contingent upon erasure of our histories, archives of our present, and unimaginable futures; futures we are not ready for, and don’t have strategies to occupy.

I remember the times, before networks became the default conditions of being human, when kids, negotiating the variegated temporalities of their past-present-futures, would often begin their speculations on future, by saying, "When I grow up...". In that hope of growing up, was the potential for radical political action, the possibility of social reconstruction. In network societies, though, time has no currency. It has been replaced by attentions, flows of information and actions, and do not offer a tomorrow to grow into.

There is no future to help mitigate the exigencies of the present. And with the overwhelming emphasis on archiving the present, there is no more a coherent future that can be accounted for in the vocabulary that the network develops to explain itself, and the hypothetical world outside it.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-humanities/blogs/habits-of-living/aprja-net-researching-bwpwap-nishant-shah-back-when-the-past-had-a-future

Pervasive Technologies: Access to Knowledge in the Market Place — A Presentation by Sunil Abraham

sunil — 2013-02-13T07:05:15Z

The 2012 Global Congress on Intellectual Property and the Public Interest was organized in Rio de Janeiro from December 15 to 17, 2012. The Centre for Internet & Society partnered FGV, Washington College of Law, the American Embassy, African Information Research and Training and International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development in this event. Sunil Abraham made a presentation on Pervasive Technologies on the opening day, December 15, 2012.

Sunil Abraham presented on 13 different smartphones from the Indian market such as: The Classroom in a Box, The Supercharger, The Networker, The Linguist, TV on the Go, The Spy, The Semi-Smartphone, The Trendy, The Boombox, 3D, The Mighty Mini, The Pianist, and the Indian Experience.

Most of the above devices are manufactured in China and imported into India through local companies for domestic consumption and made available for its 900 million mobile subscribers.

Download the presentation [PDF, 4.61 Mb]

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/access-to-knowledge-in-market-place

Five Frequently Asked Questions about the Amended ITRs

chinmayi — 2013-01-30T05:36:26Z

This piece discusses the five major questions that have been the subject of debate after the World Conference on International Telecommunications 2012 (WCIT). The politics surrounding the WCIT are not discussed here but it must be kept in mind that they have played a significant role in the outcome of the conference and in some of the debates about it.

Each question is discussed with reference to the text of the treaty, to the minutes of the plenary sessions (which are available via the ITU website), a little international law and a few references to other people’s comments on the treaty.

1. Do the ITRs apply to content on the internet?

Article 1.1 (a) has been amended to add the sentence “These Regulations do not address the content-related aspects of telecommunications”. Although some discussions about the International Telecommunication Regulations (ITRs) and content have ignored this altogether, others seem concerned about its interpretation.

The ITU Secretary General has issued a statement in which he has clarified that “The new ITR treaty does NOT cover content issues and explicitly states in the first article that content-related issues are not covered by the treaty”.

Commentators like Chuan-Zheng Lee however, continue to view the treaty with suspicion, on the basis that it is necessary to examine content in order to tell whether it is spam (Lee and Chaparro differ on this question). However, others like Eric Pfanner have pointed to this paragraph in their skepticism about the US refusal to sign.

Some highlights from the plenary session discussions

The Chairman proposed the addition to Article 1.1(a) at the tenth plenary session. He did this to address concerns that the ITRs text could be interpreted to apply to content on the Internet. The original formulation that he proposed was ‘These regulations do not address and cannot be interpreted as addressing content’. This text was suggested in the middle of an extended discussion on Article 5A.

Many countries were skeptical of this insertion. Sudan argued that content could not be avoided in telecommunication networks “because it will always be in transit.” The United Arab Emirates seemed concerned about international interference in states’ existing regulation of content, and said “maybe we could actually say this in the minutes of the meeting that this regulation should not be interpreted as on alteration to Member States content regulation”.

Concerns about what the term ‘content’ means and whether it would apply broadly were raised by more than one country, including Saudi Arabia. For instance, it was argued that the text proposed by the Chairman might interfere with parts of the treaty that require operators to send tariff information correspondence. More than one country that felt that the insertion of this text would impact several parts of the treaty, and that it would be difficult to determine what amounted to dealing with content. The primary issue appeared to be that the term ‘content’ was not defined, and it therefore remained unclear what was being excluded. In response to these concerns, the Chairman withdrew his proposal for the amendment excluding content.

However, several states then spoke up in favour of the Chairman’s proposal, suggesting that the proposed amendment to Article 1.1 influenced their acceptance of Article 5A (on security and robustness of networks – discussed in detail below). Brazil suggested that an answer to the definitional concerns may be found in the work by Study Group 17, which had a definition available.

Following this, the next day, at the twelfth plenary, the Chairman brought back the Article 1.1 amendment excluding content. He stated explicitly that this amendment might be the way to get Articles 5A and 5B approved. The text he read out was insertion of the words “to the exclusion of their content”, after ‘’services’ at the end of 1.1A. Interestingly however, the term ‘content’ was never defined.

At the next plenary session, Iran raised the objection that this phrase was overbroad, and proposed the following formulation instead: “These Regulations do not address the content-related aspects of telecommunications”. This formulation found its way into the amended ITRs as the treaty stands today.

2. Does Article 5A on network security legitimize surveillance of Internet content?

Article 5A deals with ‘security and robustness of networks’ and requires member states to “individually and collectively endeavour to ensure the security and robustness of international telecommunication networks...”. This may have given rise to concerns about interpretations that may extend the security of networks to malware or viruses, and therefore to content on the Internet. However, Article 5A has to be read with Article 1.1(a), and therefore must be interpreted such that it does not ‘address the content-related aspects of telecommunications’.

Some commentators continue to see Article 5A as problematic. Avri Doria has argued that the use of the word ‘security’ in addition to ‘robustness’ of telecommunication infrastructure suggests that it means Internet security. However Emma Llansó of the Centre for Democracy and Technology has noted that the language used in this paragraph is “ far too vague to be interpreted as a requirement or even a recommendation that countries surveil users on their networks in order to maintain security”. Llansó has suggested that civil society advocates make it clear to countries which attempt to use this article to justify surveillance, that it does not lend itself to such practices.

Some highlights from the plenary session discussions

Article 5A was one of the most controversial parts of the ITRs and was the subject of much debate.

On December 11^th, in the Chairman’s draft that was being discussed, Article 5A was titled ‘security of networks’, and required members to endeavour to ensure the “security and robustness of international telecommunication networks”. The Chairman announced that this was the language that came out of Committee 5’s deliberations, and that ‘robustness’ was inserted at the suggestion of CEPT.

Several countries like Poland, Australia, Germany and the United States of America were keen on explicitly stating that Article 5A was confined to the physical or technical infrastructure, and either wanted a clarification that to this effect or use of the term ‘robustness’ instead of security. Many other countries, such as Russia and China, were strongly opposed to this suggestion and insisted that the term security must remain in the document (India was one of the countries that preferred to have the document use the term ‘security’).

It was in the course of this disagreement, during the tenth plenary session, that the Chairman suggested his global solution for Article 1.1 – a clarification that this would not apply to content. This solution was contested by several countries, withdrawn and then reinstated (in the eleventh plenary) after many countries explained that their assent to Article 5A was dependant on the existence of the Article 1 clarification about content (see above for details).

There was also some debate about whether Article 5A should use the term ‘robustness’ or the term ‘security’ (eg. The United States clarified that its preference was for the use of ‘resilience and robustness’ rather than security). The Secretary General referred to this disagreement, and said that he was therefore using both terms in the draft. The title of Article 5A was changed, in the eleventh plenary, to use both terms, instead of only referring to security.

3. Does Article 5B apply to spam content on the Internet?

The text of the amended treaty talks of ‘unsolicited bulk electronic communications’ and does not use the term ‘spam’[Article 5B says that ‘Members should endeavour to take necessary measures to prevent the propagation of unsolicited bulk electronic communications and minimize its impact on international telecommunication services’].If this phrase is read in isolation, it may certainly be interpreted as being applicable to spam. Commentators like Avri Doria have pointed to sources like Resolution 130 of the Plenipotentiary Conference of the International Telecommunication Union (Guadalajara, 2010) to demonstrate that ‘unsolicited bulk electronic communications’ ordinarily means spam. However, others like Enrique A. Chaparro argue that it cannot possibly extend to content on the Internet given the language used in Article 1.1(a). Chapparo has explained, that given the exclusion of content, Article 5B it authorizes anti-spam mechanisms that do not work on content.

Article 5B, which discusses ‘unsolicited bulk electronic communications’, must be read with Article 1, which is the section on purpose and scope of the ITRS. Article 1.1 (a) specifies that the ITRs “do not address the content-related aspects of telecommunications”. Therefore it may be argued that ‘unsolicited bulk electronic communications’ cannot be read as being applicable to content on the Internet.

However, many continue to be concerned about Article 5B’s applicability to spam on the Internet. Although some of them that their fear is that some states may interpret Article 5B as applying to content, despite the contents of Article 1.1(a), many have failed to engage with the issue in the context of Article 1.1(a).

Some highlights from the plenary session discussions

Article 5B is inextricably linked with the amendment to Article 1.1. Mexico asked specifically about what the proposed amendment to Article 1.1 would mean for Article 5B: “I’m referring to the item which we’ll deal with later, namely unsolicited bulk electronic communications. Could that be referred to as content, perhaps?”. The Chairman responded saying, “This is exactly will solve the second Article 5B, that we are not dealing with content here. We are dealing with measures to prevent propagation of unsolicited bulk electronic messages”.

The amendment to Article 1.1 was withdrawn soon after it was introduced. Before it was reintroduced, Sweden said (at the eleventh plenary) that it could not see how Article 5B could apply without looking into the content of messages. The United States agreed with this and went on state that the issue of spam was being addressed at the WTSA level, as well as by other organisations. It argued that the spam issue was better addressed at the technical level than by introducing it in treaty text.

The amendment excluding content was reintroduced during the twelfth plenary. The Chairman explicitly stated that it might be the way to get Articles 5A and 5B approved.

The word ‘spam’ was dropped from the ITRs in the eight plenary, and “unsolicited bulk electronic communications” was used instead. However, in the eleventh plenary, as they listed their reasons for not signing the newly-amended ITRs, Canada and the United States of America referred to ‘spam’ which suggests that they may have viewed the change as purely semantic.

4. Does the resolution on Internet Governance indicate that the ITU plans to take over the Internet?

Much controversy has arisen over the plenary resolution ‘to foster an enabling environment for the greater growth of the Internet’. This controversy has arisen partly thanks to the manner in which it was decided to include the resolution, and partly over the text of the resolution. The discussion here focuses on the text of the resolution and then describes the proceedings that have been (correctly) criticized.

The history of this resolution, as Wolfgang Kleinwächter has explained, is that it was part of a compromise to appease the countries which were taking positions on the ITU’s role in Internet governance, that were similar to the controversial Russian proposal. The controversial suggestions about Internet governance were excluded from the actual treaty and included instead in a non-binding resolution.

The text of the resolution instructs the Secretary General to “to continue to take the necessary steps for ITU to play an active and constructive role in the development of broadband and the multi-stakeholder model of the Internet as expressed in § 35 of the Tunis Agenda”. This paragraph is particularly controversial since of paragraph 35 of the Tunis Agenda says “Policy authority for Internet-related public policy issues is the sovereign right of States. They have rights and responsibilities for international Internet-related public policy issues.” Kleinwächter has pointed out that this selection leaves out later additions that have taken place with progression towards a multi-stakeholder model.

The resolution also resolves to invite member states to “to elaborate on their respective positions on international Internet-related technical, development and public-policy issues within the mandate of ITU at various ITU forums including, inter alia, the World Telecommunication/ICT Policy Forum, the Broadband Commission for Digital Development and ITU study groups”.

A little after its introduction, people began expressing concerns such as the Secretary General may treat the resolution as binding, While the language may raise cause for concern, it is important to note that resolutions of this nature are not binding and countries are free to opt out of them. Opinions vary about the intentions that have driven the inclusion of this resolution, and what it may mean for the future. However commentators like Milton Mueller have scoffed at these concerns, pointing out that the resolution is harmless and may have been a clever political maneuver to resolve the basic conflict haunting the WCIT, and that mere discussion of the Internet in the ITU harms no one.

Some highlights from the plenary session discussions

Egypt and Bulgaria suggested that the resolution refer to paragraph 55 of the Tunis agenda instead of paragraph 35, by inserted the following text “”Recognizing that the existing arrangements for Internet Governance have worked effectively to make the Internet the highly robust, dynamic and geographically diverse medium it is today, with the private sector taking the lead in day-to-day operations and with innovation and value creation at the edges.” The US was also quite insistent on this language (although it did also argue that this was the wrong forum to discuss these issues).

The Chairman was willing to include paragraph 55 in addition to paragraph 35 but Saudi Arabia objected to this inclusion. Finland suggested that the resolution should be removed since it was not supported by all the countries present and was therefore against the spirit of consensus. The Secretary General defended the resolution, suggesting both that it was harmless and that since it was a key component of the compromise, eliminating it would threaten the compromise. South Africa and Nigeria supported this stand.

It was during this debate that the procedural controversy arose. Late into the night, the Chairman said there was a long list of countries that wished to speak and said “I just wanted to have the feel of the room on who will accept the draft resolution”. He proceeded to have countries indicate whether they would accept the draft resolution or not, and then announced that the majority of the countries in the room were in favour of retaining the resolution. The resolution was then retained. Upon Spain’s raising the question, the Chairman clarified that this was not a vote. The next day, other countries raised the same question and the Chairman, while agreeing that the resolution was adopted on the basis of the ‘taking of temperature’ insisted that it was not a vote so much as an effort to see what majority of the countries wanted.

5. Does the human rights language used in the preamble, especially the part about states’ access to the Internet, threaten the Internet in any way?

The preamble says “Member States affirm their commitment to implement these Regulations in a manner that respects and upholds their human rights obligations”, and “These Regulations recognize the right of access of Member States to international telecommunication services”. The text of the preamble can be used as an interpretation aid since it is recognized as providing context to, and detailing the object and purpose of, a treaty. However if the meaning resulting from this appears to be ambiguous, obscure, absurd or unreasonable, then supplementary means such as the preparatory work for the treaty and the circumstances for its conclusion may also be taken into account.

Therefore anyone who is concerned about the impact of the text inserted in the preamble must (a) identify text within the main treaty that could be interpreted in an undesirable manner using the text in the preamble; and (b) consider preparatory work for the treaty and see whether it supports this worrying interpretation. For example, if there were concerns about countries choosing to interpret the term ‘human rights’ as subordinating political rights to economic rights, it would be important to take note of the Secretary General’s emphasis on the UDHR being applicable to all member states.

Initially, only the first insertion about ‘human rights obligations’ was part of the draft treaty. The second insertion, recognizing states’ rights followed after the discussion about human rights language. Some states argued that it was inconsistent to place human rights obligations on states towards their citizens, but to leave out their cross-border obligations. It was immediately after this text was voted into the draft, that the United States, the United Kingdom and other countries refused to sign the ITRs. This particular insertion is phrased as a right of states rather than that of individuals or citizens, which does not align with the language of international human rights. While it may not be strictly accurate to say that human rights have traditionally been individual centric (since collective rights are also recognized in certain contexts), it is certainly very unusual to treat the rights of states or governments as human rights.

Some highlights from the plenary session discussions

The United States of America and the Netherlands wanted to include language to state explicitly that states’ international human rights obligations are not altered in anyway. This was to clarify that the inclusion of human rights language was not setting the ITU up as a forum in which human rights obligations are debated. Malaysia objected to the use of human rights language in the preamble right at the outset, on the grounds that the ITRs are the wrong place for this, and that the right place is the ITU Constitution. It even pointed to the fact that jurisprudence is ever-evolving, to suggest that the meaning of human rights obligations might change over time. These were the two major perspectives offered towards the beginning of the discussion.

The Chairman underlined the fact that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is already applicable to all UN countries. He argued that reflection of these principles in the ITRs would help build universal public faith in the conference.

The first traces of the states’ access rights can be seen in Cuba’s intervention at the ninth plenary – Cuba argued that limiting states’ access to public information networks amounted to infringement of human rights. At the fourteenth plenary, Nigeria proposed on behalf of the African group that the following text be added to the preamble “And recognize the right of access of all Member States to international telecommunication networks and services." Countries like China which had been ambivalent about the human rights language in the preamble, were happy with this move away from an individual-centric understanding of human rights, to one that sees states as representative of people.

The United States was express in its dissent, and said “human rights obligations go to the individual”. Sweden was also not happy with the proposal and argued that it moved away from well-established human rights language that affirmed existing commitments to drafting new human rights language.

It was an amended version of the African group proposal that finally found its way into the preamble. It was supported by many countries such as China, Nigeria and Sudan, who took the position that group rights are included within human rights, and that governments represent their citizens and therefore have rights on their behalf. This position was strenuously disputed by states like the USA, Switzerland, United Kingdom and Canada.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/five-faqs-on-amended-itrs

Making Public Libraries Accessible to People with Disabilities

Rahul Cherian — 2013-01-24T11:10:18Z

The Centre for Internet & Society was one of the 20 disability rights groups that wrote to the Ministry of Culture on January 23, 2013 seeking remedial action on the barriers faced by persons with disabilities in accessing public libraries in India.

To,
Hon’ble Ministers of Culture, HRD, Social Welfare
Secretaries of the above Ministries/Departments
January 23, 2013

Dear Sir/Madam

Sub: Making Public Libraries Accessible for Persons with Disabilities

We, the organizations representing persons with disabilities listed at the end of this document would like to bring to your attention for your urgent remedial action on the barriers faced by persons with disabilities in accessing public libraries in the country.

As you are aware, India has approximately 150 million persons with disabilities[1]who have the inalienable fundamental right to life as enshrined in the Constitution including the right to seek knowledge and education. Public libraries play a critical role in creating an enabling environment for citizens to gain knowledge, information and education. This is particularly true in the case of persons with disabilities who have limited access to purchase books through mainstream shops due to various barriers including lack of physical access to shops, lack of availability of books in accessible formats like Braille, etc. India has signed and ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and therefore India is required to "to take all appropriate measures, including legislation, to modify or abolish existing laws, regulations, customs and practices that constitute discrimination against persons with disabilities[2], "to develop, promulgate and monitor the implementation of minimum standards and guidelines for the accessibility of facilities and services open or provided to the public[3]” and take all appropriate measures to ensure that persons with disabilities enjoy access to libraries[4]

The recent copyright amendments enabling libraries to convert their collections into accessible formats free of cost for the benefit of persons with disabilities coupled with technological developments in the form of cost effective screen reading software have created an unprecedented opportunity to make libraries accessible to persons with visual impairment and dyslexia. Additionally increased clarity on standards for physical access also now enables libraries to be made physically accessible without expensive modifications to enable wheelchair users and those with limited mobility access the libraries.

We understand that the Ministry of Culture has constituted a high powered committee as part of the National Mission on Libraries to look into revamping the library system in the country. We urge that the issue relating to making public libraries accessible to persons with disabilities is taken up by the government on a fast track basis, a separate budget is allocated for this exercise and libraries are made accessible on a priority basis. Please find attached a brief note on the steps to be taken to make libraries accessible to persons with disabilities.

We recommend that regional consultations are conducted through which additional data can be gathered on regional/language/types of communication/availability of power and related issues. We also urge you take steps to extend library services to rural areas across the country. We are happy to assist the government in this initiative. Do let us know how we can contribute to this effort.

Thank you and best regards,

Inclusive Planet Centre for Disability Law and Policy (www.inclusiveplanet.org.in)
Rahul Cherian
+91 98403 57991
rahul.cherian@inclusiveplanet.org.in
AccessAbility (www.accessability.co.in)
Shivani Gupta+91 93102 45743
shewany@gmail.com
Xavier’s Resource Centre for the Visually Challenged (www.xrcvc.org)
Sam Taraporevala
+91 99670 28769
sam@xrcvc.org
Saksham Charitable Trust (www.saksham.org)
Dipendra Manocha
+91 98180 94781
dipendra.manocha@gmail.com
National Platform for the Rights of the Disabled
Murali Alathur
+91 98687 68543
nprd.in@gmail.com
National Institute of Speech and Hearing (www.nish.ac.in)
Samuel Mathew
+91 99615 68443
snm@nish.ac.in
Centre for Internet and Society (www.cis-india.org)
Nirmita Narasimhan
+91 98458 68078
nirmita@cis-india.org
Indian Institute of Cerebral Palsy (www.iicpindia.org)
Jeeja Ghosh
+91 94330 45340
jeeja.ankur@gmail.com
National Centre for Autism (www.autism-india.org)
Merry Barua
+91 98102 25923
merry.barua@gmail.com
Ability Foundation (www.abilityfoundation.org)
Janaki Pillai
ability@abilityfoundation.org
Nilesh Singit, Disability Rights Activist
+9199205 58867
contact@nileshsingit.org
Andhjan Kalyan Trust (www.aktrust.org)
Praful Vyas
+9194282 61878
aktrust.drj@gmail.com
AccessIndia
Harish Kotian
hpkotian@rbi.org.in
Blind Graduates Forum of India
Harish Kotian
hpkotian@rbi.org.in
Tamilnadu Handicapped Federation Charitable Trust
T.M.N Deepak
+91 98406 46953
deepaknathan@gmail.com
Human Rights Law Network AP Unit
M.A. Shakeel
mashakeel2000@gmail.com
Global Ability in Disability
Sai Padma
+91 9052627070
saipadma@gmail.com
Mitra Jyothi
Madhu Singhal
mj.tblibrary@gmail.com
Vaishnavi Jayakumar, Human Rights Activist
jayakumar.vaishnavi@gmail.com
Swadhikaar
Pavan Muntha
pavanmuntha@gmail.com
Samarthyam (www.samarthyam.org)
Anjlee Agarwal
+91 98105 58321
samarthyaindia@yahoo.com

With inputs from:

Stephen M. Shore, Ed.D.
Assistant Professor of Special Education, Adelphi University
International consultant, presenter, and author
Person on the autism spectrum
USA
Tania Meinyczuk
Director, Autistic Strategies Network
Autistic Consultant
South Africa
Shellique Carby
Self-Advocate
South Africa
Fazli Azeem
South Asian Self-Advocate for the Autism Spectrum
Fulbright Scholar @ MassArt Boston, USA
www.fazliazeem.com
Pakistan
Michael Vestergaard Drejer
IT Consultant
Denmark

Making Public Libraries Inclusive For Persons With Disabilities – An Overview

Problem Statement

It is estimated that India has approximately 150 million persons with disabilities[5] (“PWDs”). Depending on their disability, PWDs have varying degrees of problems in accessing libraries and the material available at libraries. PWDs cannot access the premises of libraries since the buildings themselves are not accessible. People who are blind or have low vision cannot access reading material in libraries since the reading materials are not in formats that are accessible. It is estimated that less than 0.5% of books are available in formats that are accessible by people who are blind or have low vision. It is therefore critical that libraries in India are made inclusive so as to become accessible by PWDs.

Suggestions For Improvement

Given below are suggestions to make the public library system inclusive to PWDs based on internationally recognized best practices:

Accessibility
Structural modifications must be made to the library to ensure that PWDs can use the library building easily and safely, without any barriers or obstructions. Some of the modifications required include accessible parking, clear paths of travel to and throughout the facility, entrances with adequate, clear openings or automatic doors, handrails, ramps and elevators, accessible tables and public service desks, and accessible public conveniences such as toilets, and drinking fountains. Other reasonable modifications may include visible alarms in toilets and general usage areas and signs that have Braille and easily visible character size, font, contrast and finish.
For further information see Annexure 1 and http://socialjustice.nic.in/glinecpwd.php
Accessible Formats and Library as a Distribution Centre
People, who are blind, have low vision, dyslexia and other print disabilities cannot access reading materials in printed formats. They require reading material in “accessible formats” such as Braille, large print, audio recordings and electronic formats including digital talking books. In addition, people with some disabilities may find it difficult to come to the library. Under the recently amended Copyright Act libraries can convert books into the accessible formats specified above free of cost and without requiring permission from publishers and can distribute them in physical form and in electronic form including over the Internet to persons with disabilities.

Libraries now have the unprecedented opportunity to create an extensive collection of reading material in the accessible formats mentioned above in English and all Indian languages and make them available at the library in the form of physical copies, on CDs and other media, as well as over the Internet. The catalog of the collection must be in accessible formats. For digitization of books State Level Focal Points to be created for this purpose possibly at State level libraries. For further information on the standards to be adhered to when the library undertakes digitization see Annexure 2. State Level Focal Points will get production done through outsourcing or with some inhouse facilities for production of digital content. A National Level Focal point with full time staff will be required for standardization and networking between the State Level Focal Points and maintaining the central server as mentioned below. The central server will have a database containing digital copies of works in accessible formats created by the State Focal Points and other organizations that undertake the conversion of material into accessible formats such as the National Federation of the Blind[6], All India Confederation of the Blind[7], Daisy Forum of India[8] and the Indian Institute of Cerebral Palsy.[9] Requests for books in accessible formats can be sent to these organizations as well. The central server will also be connected to the Braille presses. Each public library at the district level will act as a distribution point for accessible formats and will be connected to the central server so that requests for books at each of the libraries can be sourced from the database on the central server. This is advantageous as the list of books available at each library will be constantly updated once they are added to the database. In addition, persons with disabilities must be able to download books in accessible formats from the database without coming to the library.

The website of each library must contain the catalog of material available in accessible formats and the services provided for persons with disabilities. The website of the libraries and the centralized database must adhere to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 as outlined by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) so that persons with print disabilities can access the websites and the database. Each library must take orders for accessible books from library users over the internet and over the telephone and source the books from other libraries. Libraries must work together to enable interlibrary exchange of books in accessible formats including hard copy Braille books.

All existing books published in India must be digitized over a period 7 years and all new books must be digitized within 60 days of their first publication in India. Special efforts must be made to provide accessible formats in Indian languages as these are extremely limited. An advisory committee consisting of specialist representatives from disability organizations, among others, may be constituted to oversee the implementation of this project. The expert committee will be associated with both the National Level Focal Points and the State Level Focal Points.
Assistive Aids and Equipment
PWDs require certain assistive aids and equipment to be able to fully utilize the services of the library and the information available therein. Some forms of accessible formats specified above can only be accessed using assistive aids. Libraries must provide the assistive aids/equipment specified in Annexure 3.
Training and sensitization
Adequate training and sensitization must be given to library staff to ensure that they are able to interact with PWDs. This training can be in the nature of a short refresher course and the training and sensitization programs must be evolved in consultation with the disability sector and must be conducted with the assistance of experts in the disability space.
Specialized personnel and services
The library should have a dedicated person to interact with persons with disabilities. This person should have a background in disability, highly motivated, familiar with sign language and also be responsible for providing specific assistance required by persons with disabilities such as guiding them to print out books in Braille, procuring books from the online database etc. The library should offer specialized services to PWDs including a telephonic help line and home delivery of books ordered online or over the phone and reading service at designated times at the library. It is pertinent to note that literature for the blind has no postal fees. Each library must have a specific section on disability related reading material. It is also essential to cooperate with other libraries around the world to share learning.

Annexure 1[10]

Accessibility

a. Outside the library

The main gate of the entrance of the library must be made accessible in accordance with applicable accessibility standards. If the main entrance cannot be made accessible, a secondary accessible entrance should be provided.
At least covered three parking spaces marked with the international symbol of Accessibility (wheelchair symbol) close to the library entrance must be provided.
Clear and easy to read signposting must be provided.
Unobstructed and well lit access paths from the main gate to the entrance of the library must be provided. All steps must be replaced/complimented with ramps having less than 5% gradient, with railings on both sides.
Smooth and non-slip surface must be used throughout.

b. Getting into the library

A person using any kinds of support such as wheelchair, crutches or walker, cane, or guide dog, should be able to enter through the door and pass through security check points, if any, without encountering obstacles.
All mobility aids and assistive devices including wheelchairs, walkers, communicators among others must be able to pass through security checkpoints, if any.
Applicable accessibility standards must be adhered to.
Sufficient space must be provided in front of the door to allow a wheelchair to turn around.
Entrance door should be wide enough to allow a wheelchair to enter.
Non-automatic doors should be operable using one hand.
Glass doors, if any, must be highlighted with contrast colour band at eye level to prevent persons with low vision banging into these.
Stairs and steps edges must be marked with a contrasting color band.
Pictogram signs must be provided for services and amenities such as toilets, elevators, stairways.
Elevators, if any, must be well lit with buttons and signs in Braille and synthetic speech.
Elevator buttons reachable from a wheelchair.
At least 5 wheelchairs (preferably motorized) or mobility scooters must be made available for use by persons with physical disabilities

c. Inside the library

All parts of the library should be accessible.
The catalogs must be available in accessible formats.
Clear and easy-to-read signs with pictograms must be provided.
Service desks should be located close to the entrance.
A certain number of tables and computer workstations should be adapted for persons in wheelchairs.
Shelves must ideally be reachable from a wheelchair
Chairs with sturdy armrests must be provided
Unobstructed aisles between bookcases must be provided and wide enough to accommodate wheelchairs and one person not on a wheelchair.
Visible and audible fire alarms must be provided.
Non-fluorescent lighting. In case fluorescent lighting is used there must be an area free of visual clutter and sharp light contrasts, with plain walls and cubicles.
Printers must be kept in areas away from reading areas to reduce sound in the reading areas.
Suitable sound insulation to be used to minimize sound in the reading areas.
Stack area should have clear aisle space for wheelchair and bi-lateral crutch users (3ft. min.). Where book stacking is in shelves and areas beyond reach of persons with disabilities using mobility aids, human assistance should be available to access books.
Plants inside the space can help with air filtering, which can make a huge difference to the level of comfort.

d. Toilets

The library should have at least one toilet for PWDs, equipped with the following:

Clear signs with pictogram indicating the location of the toilets
Door wide enough for a wheelchair to enter and sufficient space for a wheelchair to turn around
Room enough for a wheelchair to pull up next to the toilet seat
Toilet with handles and flushing lever reachable for persons in wheelchairs
Alarm button reachable for persons in a wheelchairs
Washbasin, mirror at the appropriate height

e. Information Desk and Circulation desk

The desks must be of adjustable height to enable persons in wheelchair to be able access the desk
Chairs must be provided at the desk
Induction loop system for hearing impaired persons

Annexure 2

Standards for material converted into digital formats by libraries

Master Digital Documents of converted material must be maintained in DAISY XML format.
All Master Digital Documents in Indic Languages must be encoded in Unicode [UTF8/16] and formatted using a royalty-free Open Type Font.
All Master Digital Documents must be tagged according to DAISY standards to capture semantic information for parts, units, chapter headings, subsections, pagination, ordered and un-ordered list, tables, images along with their alternative text, math equations, title, author, footnote, end-note, text box, abbreviation, acronym, etc.
Metadata information about the publication as prescribed in the DAISY Standards must be added to all Master Digital Documents.
Distribution of digital copies of the Master Digital Documents through web sites or otherwise must be done in epub format.
If other standards are used for different target populations those standards must be compliant with the National Open Standards Policy and the Interoperability Framework for E-Governance in India.
DAISY audio format for Indic languages.

Annexure 3

Assistance Aids/Equipment

For assisting persons with Visual Impairment or blindness or autism spectrum disorders:

Persons with vision impairments or blindness or autism spectrum disorders would benefit from software and hardware for enlarging displays on the monitor or reading material through a speech synthesizer.

Some of the most common assistive aids/equipment are:

For magnification

Screen-magnification software. This program allows people with low vision to access computer information by enlarging the screen display or tailoring the display to accommodate their disability.

Large magnification devices such as closed-circuit television magnifiers (CCTV). This system employs a video camera lens to enlarge text from three to thirty times normal text size

Handheld magnifiers

For Screen reading

Screen reader software programs enables individuals who are blind or visually impaired to access the information on a computer screen through voice output. Some examples are NVDA (an open source software) or Dolphin or Jaws (proprietary software). Screen reading software with Indian language support must be provided. Scanning and reading software helps those with low or no vision. Scans printed text and verbalizes the text via synthetic speech using optical character recognition technology.

At least one computer must face outward and not against the wall since people with autism spectrum disorders find it disturbing to have people walking behind them.

For Braille support -

Braille Translating Software - To produce correctly formatted and coded Braille one needs a Braille Translation Software. A document prepared by a word processing program is loaded into the translation software. The final document may be printed in Braille by a Braille embosser.
Braille Embosser - Braille embossers print Braille output from a computer by punching dots onto paper and enable users to make hard copies of documents.
Refreshable Braille displays and DAISY players.

All multimedia content to have audio descriptions

For Assisting people with Hearing Impairment or Deafness

Users with deafness or have hearing impairments do not have problems using the computer except problems will arise from programs and websites that have audio cues.

Sound Sentry This option directs the operating system to display a visual signal when a sound is generated by a Windows application. Sound sentry in built into Windows and Apple operating systems.
All multimedia content to have captions

For Assisting people with Learning Disabilities

Specialized software programs and hardware for people who have learning differences will display print as well as provide auditory reading of the text simultaneously.

For Assisting people with Physical Disabilities

Persons with physical disabilities may need assistance in using the computer apart from having physical accessibility. The following items increase computer usability and safety:

Special input devices such as trackballs, joysticks, switches, touch pads, and augmented keyboards (micro keyboards or oversize keyboards with enlarged keys)
A computer camera/tracker allows users to manipulate the cursor through head movement.
Software utilities that replaces the functionality of a standard keyboard with a full-featured, onscreen keyboard.
Speech to text software such as Dragon Naturally Speaking
Motorized wheelchairs to be used by physically impaired users especially motorized chairs whose seat can raise so that users can reach books on higher shelves on the rack.
Availability of reachers to access books that may be placed too low or too high on the book rack.
Page turners

Useful Links

American Library Association: http://www.ala.org/ascla/asclaissues/libraryservices
International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions: http://archive.ifla.org/VII/s9/nd1/iflapr-89e.pdf
World Wide Web Consortium: http://www.w3.org/WAI/

[1]. The World Health Organization estimates that 15% of the population is disabled. http://www.who.int/disabilities/world_report/2011/factsheet.pdf
[2]. Article 4.1 (b) of the UNCRPD
[3]. Article 9.2 (a) of the UNCRPD
[4]. Article 30. 1 (c) of the UNCRPD
[5]. The World Health Organization estimates that 15% of every population is disabled. http://www.who.int/disabilities/world_report/2011/factsheet.pdf
[6]. For more information see www.nabindia.org
[7]. For more information see www.aicb.org.in
[8]. For more information see www.daisyindia.org
[9]. For more information see www.iicpindia.org
[10]. Based on checklist prepared by the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions available at http://archive.ifla.org/VII/s9/nd1/iflapr-89e.pdf. These should be over above the guidelines prescribed here http://socialjustice.nic.in/glinecpwd.php

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/making-public-libraries-accessible-to-people-with-disabilities

Indic Language Wikipedias — Statistical Report — 2012

shiju — 2013-02-03T02:40:48Z

I have compiled the statistical update of the Indic language Wikipedias for the year 2012. As usual, in this report, my aim is to provide my perspectives on the health of various Indic language communities as well as the state of various Indic language wikipedias.

(The period of analysis is editor contributions between December 1, 2011 to December 31, 2012. December to December data is taken to account for the seasonal variations). Read the 2011 report here and the 2010 report here. The data for this report and analysis is based on the statistical data published at http://stats.wikimedia.org. A special thanks to Erik Zachte for compiling all this information.

Here is my executive summary after analyzing the data for 2012 and my experince with building some wiki communities:

Steady and sustainable growth is available for communities which focus on community building.
Small languages with guidance and support are making huge progress than many big languages.
Lack of support from proper channels at the much needed time had affected the community growth of some communities.
Even though many outreach programs had happened across country, that is not showing up in terms of number of active editors.
Still many language communities (especially big languages) are not open to the idea of reaching out to the speakers of the respective language.
Pageviews of Indic projects continues to increase.

This report is presented in the following sequence. This is done so because I believe that community is central to the Wikimedia movement. Community will give us content which will drive readership.

Community
Content
Readership

Community

As mentioned above, according to me, community is the backbone of Wikimedia movement. But still many communities are not understanding the importance of this. It is important that all language wiki communities give adequate importance to community building to build the free knowledge repository in their language. The following table gives information based on two important parameters about the community. The first parameter shows the highly active editors (more than 100 edits per month) in wiki. The second parameter shows the active editors (more than 5 edits per month).

Like last year, Malayalam continues to show an upward growth in terms of the number of active users. It has close to 120 active editors now. The graphical summary shows that mean number of editors is around 100. Malayalam is the biggest wiki community among Indic languages even though Malayalam is only the 11th biggest spoken language in India. The sincere efforts put by Malayalam wikipedians to build its community is the only reason for this. The programs like Malayalam Wiki conference, Education program, CD project, wiki workshops, photo events, Wikimeetups, and many other outreach events started showing its result. If the community continues with these type of efforts then I am sure that the community strength in Malayalam Wikipedia will cross 150 in 2013. Apart from Wikipedia, the importance given to Malayalam Wikisource, Wiktionary, and more recently to Wikivoyage (in incubator) will attract more Malayalam speakers to the Malayalam wiki projects.
Tamil comes second with close to 80 active editors. However, the number of active editors has gone down from last year. The graphical summary shows that number of active users was around 70-75 especially during the last two quarters.
Bengali comes third with around 60 active editors. This is a slight increase from the last year’s number of active editors. The involvement of editors from India in Bengali Wikipedia is less. That needs to be changed. Bangladeshi wikipedians are having many outreach programs to build Bengali wiki community. It will be nice if they extend their support to Indian Bengali speakers also as Indian Bengali wikipedians are not growing.
Telugu, Urdu, Gujarati, and Punjabi are the wikipedia languages that show notable increase in the number of active editors. But it will be be a mistake from my part if I am not mentioning that these numbers are not encouraging and the current number of active users is not showing justice to the number of speakers these languages have. This statement is more significant when we consider the fact that some smaller languages are showing a better progress.
We have seen that last year (2011) the success stories were Odia and Assamese wikipedias. In 2012, the shining star is Punjabi. The community has grown from one active editor from last year to almost 15 active editors now. As mentioned in my blog posts (post 1, post 2, post 3, and post 4) about building Punjabi wikipedia community, the task of building community for Punjabi was very challenging. Initiated in 2002 along with Assamese, Punjabi is one of the first Indic language wikipedia. But nothing much had happened in that wiki until deliberate efforts to build community initiated. The news is now we have an active community in Punjabi Wikipedia. From the just one person last year (Guglani – who took lots of pain to travel to multiple locations to introduce Punjabi wikipedia), now Punjabi wikipedia has close to 15 active editors. Unlike Odia and Assamese, I have faced so many issues during Punjabi wikipedia community building (mostly conflicts between editors). But I am happy to see that community is slowly coming out of all that. The technical team has fixed some of the bugs related to typing tool which was very important for Punjabi wikipedia. Punjabi wikipedians require lot support from other wikipedians to sustain the current momentum and grow the community further. My best wishes to Punjabi wikipedians.
Gujarati and Urdu are the two other communities that made considerable progress in community growth. The efforts put by Gujarati wikipedians to reach out to Gujarati speakers started showing the results. I am sure with the significant attention also given to Gujarati Wikisource (which was created last year), more Gujarati speakers will be attracted to Gujarati wiki projects. The involvement of Indians in Urdu Wikipedia is very less. But it is good to notice that Urdu wiki community slowly started growing. May be Wikipedia is one place where Indians and Pakistanis can work together.
The wikipedia languages that haven't shown significant change in number of active editors are Marathi, Odia, Assamese, and Nepali. The respective communities need to start putting efforts to build community by taking lessons from other Indic language wiki communities.
The languages that have considerable reduction in number of editors are Hindi, Kannada, and Sanskrit. Among this, except Sanskrit, all are spoken by at least five crore people. It is not good to see that speakers of these languages are not giving any attention to the wiki projects in their respective language. The case of Hindi is very strange considering the fact that it has support of the central government and many state governments of India.
The dormant language communities are Sindhi, Bhojpuri, Kashmiri, and some other small languages. Considering the fact that Odia, Assamese, and Punjabi were also dormant two years before, I am sure if someone is putting effort to build communities for these now dormant communities, these language wiki communities will also grow like it happened for Odia, Assamese, and Punjabi. Now there are multiple entities to support wikimedia movement in India and I hope that someone will take care of this apart from concentrating on the bigger languages.
In short, the point I want to emphasis is, conscious efforts are required from different stakeholders to grow communities and to sustain that growth for all Indic language wikipedias.

Content

Number of articles is an important parameter, but it has misguided some wiki communities in the past. Fortunately that trend is coming down.

With more than 1,04,000 articles, Hindi continues to be the biggest Indic language wikipedia in terms of the number of articles. Almost 3500 articles were added to Hindi wikipedia in the year 2013.
Tamil and Malayalam had added around 7000 articles which is the "biggest growth" in terms of number of articles. Urdu and Nepali added close to 5000 articles.
If we consider percentage of increase then Assamese language has shown more than 100 per cent increase in the number of articles.
Some of the important milestones are, Tamil and Telugu crossing 50,000 articles, Malayalam crossing 25,000 articles, and Assamese crossing 1,000 article milestones.
The languages that have shown very slow growth in terms of number of articles are Gujarati, Telugu and Kannada. I assume at least for few of these languages the focus went into enhancing the existing articles and building the community rather than creating thousands of stub articles.
As mentioned in the past reports, communities don’t need to worry about the number of articles. Also the examples of Bishnupriya Manipuri and Newari Wikipedias shows the after effect of increasing the article count without focusing on building the community.

Readership (page views)

Unlike the number of editors, the number of page views in wiki is showing an upward trend irrespective of the language.(Please note that the information available in the below table is the total visits (page views) for a language wikipedia for a month from all the platforms combined. It includes visits by readers and editors. This is NOT the list of Number of Unique Visitors to the website).

This is the one parameter where the figures are showing relative justice to the number of speakers.
Hindi with 78 lakh page views is in the top position.
The page views for Tamil had increased by more than 50 per cent.
Assamese has more than 100 per cent growth in page views.
Since the support for Indic languages is increasing for smart phone operating systems, I am sure the page views are going to increase further.

Conclusion

I am concluding this report with the following thoughts:

Being the biggest language (or number of speakers) does not automatically build community for an Indic language wikipedia. Efforts from respective language speakers are necessary to build community.
Most Indians who have access to internet and computer still don’t know their respective language typing. This is the biggest road block to build Indic language wiki community.
Do not get obsessed by article counts or readership. These are natural outcomes of community building.
Focus on community building through community interaction (through meetups, talk pages, village pumps, and mailing lists).
Focus on community building through community collaboration (WikiProjects or planning outreach efforts or advocacy).
Focus on community building through doing more outreach, better outreach, and being supportive of newbies.
Stay away from bots and translation tools for article creation as they do more harm than good. Use bots in such a way that it is not affecting the growth of the community.

Wishing all of you a wonderful wiki year 2013.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/indic-language-wikipedias-statistical-report-2012

Accessible Broadcasting in India

srividya — 2013-01-28T05:28:38Z

The abridged version of International Telecommunication Union's "Making Television Accessible" Report which we published last year has been broadened in scope and is now called "Accessible Broadcasting in India" report.

This is an updated version of the draft that was first put up for comments on October 8, 2012. Read the full report published by ITU.

Executive Summary

Television and Radio are mediums to inform, educate and entertain. Sitting down at the end of the day and turning on the TV or radio is a rather involuntary task for many. They have become part of the fabric of almost every Indian’s life. However, there are a significant number of people in India who are unable to enjoy TV or Radio.

Television and Radio technologies have advanced at a rapid pace but accessibility of TV and Radio in India has been a persistent problem. Being mediums that are consumed through sight and sound, those with impairments in these two areas have found TV viewing and radio listening difficult or impossible. Not much progress has been made in the area of Accessible Broadcasting since the introduction of the TV “Weekly News Bulletin for the hearing impaired” in 1987.

The purpose of this report is to provide information to Indian policymakers about various TV and Radio Accessibility options available, best practices followed internationally and suggest recommendations for a brighter future in the area of Accessible Broadcasting.

This report is based on ITU’s “Making Television Accessible Report” (November 2011) by Peter Olaf Looms, Chairman ITU-T Focus Group on Audiovisual Media Accessibility. It has been adapted especially to cater to the needs and interests of India. We’d like to thank ITU for the use of this report and Peter Olaf Looms for his inputs to this abridged version.

This abridged report specifically covers:

TV Accessibility Options
Costs Involved & Bandwidth Requirements
Best Practices followed internationally
Radio Accessibility Options
Recommendations.

Download the abridged report

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/accessible-broadcasting-in-india

National Resource Kit : The Kerala Chapter (Call for Comments)

anandi — 2013-11-07T06:20:04Z

The National Resource Kit team is pleased to bring you its research on the state of laws, policies and programmes for persons with disabilities in the state of Kerala.

Note: The chapter is an early draft and will undergo subsequent modifications. We welcome comments and feedback from our readers.

Statistics

Capital: Tiruvananthapuram
HDI Rank: 1^st

Literacy: 1^st in India with a literacy of 93.91 per cent

Population:33,387,677
Population of Persons with Disability: 2.7 per cent. The district of Malappuram has the highest number of persons with disabilities, followed by Thiruvananthapuram and Ernakulam.[1]

Ministries and Departments

Department of Social Welfare – responsible for protection of rights of persons with disabilities.
Directorate of Social Welfare (under Department of Social Welfare) – nodal authority that implements central and state government programmes in Kerala.

Government run Organisations

The Kerala State Handicapped Persons Welfare Corporation
The Commissionerate of Persons with Disabilities
The National Institute of Speech and Hearing
The Central Social Welfare Board

Legal Provisions

Kerala does not have a legislation specifically for persons with disabilities in the state but implements the central legislation – the Persons with Disabilities (Equal Opportunities, Protection of Rights and Full Participation) Act 1995. The state also issues various schemes, policies and notifications for persons with disabilities. The Department of Social Welfare has implemented some central and state schemes for persons with disabilities in the state,[2] while some schemes are being implemented by the Kerala State Handicapped Persons Welfare Corporation (KSHPWC).[3] These are listed below under various categories as:

Accessibility
The Department of Local Self Governance vide G.O. (MS) No.41/11/LSGD, Thiruvananthapuram, dated 14/02/2011 have issued rules for housing which also include special provisions for accommodation of the requirements of persons with disabilities. These include provision of ramps, lifts, convenient parking slots and removal of architectural barriers.
Personal mobility

Persons with disabilities with a regular and reasonable income and having to travel regularly on work are given a subsidy of Rs. 2000 linked with bank loan for procuring motorised tricycles / vehicles.[4]

KSHPWC supplies aids and appliances every three years to Persons with Disabilities with annual income less than Rs. 60,000 (see note 3). These include: artificial limbs, tricycles, wheelchairs, callipers, crutches, hearing aids, white canes, colostomy bags, etc. The beneficiaries are selected at medical camps held at district, block and panchayat levels.
Subsidy of Rs.10,000 is provided by KSHPWC to each self-employed young disabled person for procuring motorized tricycle upon applying in the proper format with attested copies of original bill, registration and insurance documents, and photographs (see note 3).
Education
Through the Kerala Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Rules, 2010, the government provides free and compulsory education for children with disabilities until the age of 18. The rules also provide for inclusive education, special schools for severely disabled children, learning aids and appliances, training for special teachers and vocational training for children with disabilities.
Three seats are reserved for persons with disabilities in arts and science colleges and engineering colleges, nine seats are reserved in polytechnic colleges, five seats are reserved in ITIs, five per cent seats are reserved in junior technical colleges and 25 per cent seats are reserved for teachers in special schools (see note 4).

Scholarships are given to children with disabilities where annual income of parents is less than Rs. 24,000 at Rs. 30 per month for children in classes I – IV and Rs. 45 per month for children in classes V – VIII. For students in higher classes, scholarships are provided for day scholars and residential students with special allowance for readers. In addition to the scholarships, students with orthopaedic impairment are given Rs. 25 per month for maintenance of prosthetic / orthopaedic aids (at the recommendation of the head of the institution) and Rs. 50 per month as transportation allowance (see note 4).
Children with mental disabilities where the annual income of parents is less than Rs. 24,000 are given scholarships upto the age of 21 at the scale of Rs. 60 per month with dress allowance of Rs. 40 and school requisite allowance (see note 4).
The government runs two vocational training centres for persons with disabilities at Thiruvananthapuram and Kozhikode (see note 4).
Students with Disabilities who top their districts in the categories of Orthopaedic disability, speech and hearing impairment, visual impairment and mental retardation; in the SSLC and Higher Secondary exams are awarded Rs. 2,500 each. Awards of Rs. 5000 are given to state rank holders in the above categories (see note 3).
Health: Details of policies / schemes for health unavailable.
Rehabilitation: The state runs community based rehabilitation programmes and vocational training centres for persons with disabilities (see note 2).
Employment: The state provides three per cent reservation in classes I, II (videG.O. (RT) No. 291/2012/SWD dated, Thiruvananthapuram 20^th June 2012), III and IV (vide G.O. (P)No.20/98/P&ARd dated, Thiruvananthapuram, 14 July, 1998) of state government jobs and PSUs. Three per cent reservation is also provided on part-time contingency posts and one per cent worker class vacancies in the government, corporations and companies are reserved for persons with disabilities (see note 4).

An age relaxation of ten years on the upper age limit is provided to persons with disabilities for applying to government jobs. Upto 10 grace marks can be given to persons with disabilities at the discretion of the Public Service Commission for direct recruitment to various posts except those that are specifically excluded (see note 4).
Persons with disabilities are allowed a special casual leave of 15 days for treating an illness that is directly connected with their disability vide G.O. (P) 249/84/Fin. Dated 9–5–84.
Loans for self employment are being given to persons with disabilities by banks through KSHPWC for setting up self employment programmes. A subsidy of Rs. 2000 linked with the bank loan is given to each beneficiary (see note 4).
KSHPWC channelizes loans from the National Handicapped Finance and Development Corporation to Persons with Disabilities at low interest rates for self-employment. Applicants must have at least 40 per cent disability and their family income should not exceed Rs. 3,00,000 for rural and Rs. 5,00,000 for urban applicants (see note 3).
KSHPWC runs the following commercial units to provide employment to persons with disabilities (see note 4): Sowbhagya Department Store – Thiruvananthapuram, Sowbhagya Department Store – Kozhikode, Sowbhagya Extension Counter, MLA Quarters – Thiruvananthapuram, Photocopier Unit, MLA Quarters – Thiruvananthapuram, and Envelope Making Unit – Thiruvananthapuram.
KSHPWC together with the Kerala State Lotteries Department implements the scheme through which disabled persons are identified throughout the state for undertaking agency for Lottery tickets and are given financial assistance of Rs. 5,000 for purchase and sale of lottery tickets.

Social Protection

Persons with disabilities in the categories of vision impaired, hearing impaired and orthopaedically disabled whose annual family income does not exceed Rs.3,600 are given a disability pension of Rs.85 per month.
Conveyance allowance of Rs.100 for vision impaired and locomotor disabled employees of aided schools and government departments and Rs.50 for part time employees are given vide G.O.(P) No. 521/87/Fin, dated 15.6.87.
Free travel facility is provided to the vision impaired on buses and boats and for the locomotor disabled on buses. Persons with 50 per cent or more locomotor disabilities are given 70 per cent concession on private buses to travel upto 40 kilometres (see note 4).
A distress relief fund has been created for persons with disabilities vide G.O. (MS) No. 4/95/SWD dated 24/1/95. A maximum amount of Rs. 2000 can be given for a case in a financial year and the amount can be extended to Rs. 8000 in exceptional cases. Persons with disabilities whose annual income does not exceed Rs. 12,000 can claim financial assistance for the following reasons (see note 4): for medical treatment including surgery, disability incurred due to an accident, any other purposes not covered by existing schemes for persons with disabilities, grant by the government under the grant-in-aid to persons with disabilities under the Deendayal Disabled Scheme (see note 2).
Under the Rajiv One Million Housing Scheme (see note 4), one per cent of the houses constructed for the economically backward class have been reserved for persons with disabilities.
KSHPWC operates a scheme for children who are below 8 years of age and have 60 per cent or more disability and whose parent’s have an annual income of less than Rs.60,000, the corporation deposits an amount of Rs. 15,000 for boys and Rs.20,000 for girls. The fund under this scheme is released after the child attains the age of 18 years for self-employment or marriage or as per requests after assessing the case. (see note 3).
A scheme run by the state offers marriage assistance to women with disabilities and to daughters of Persons with Disabilities (see note 2).
KSHPWC runs an old-age home for persons with disabilities at Parassala (see note 3).

Miscellaneous

State awards of Rs. 3000 per head are given to outstanding and efficient employees among persons with disabilities (see note 4)
Persons with disabilities are exempted from professional tax and road tax. They are given an additional income tax exemption of Rs. 5000 (see note 4).
The state also gives grant-in-aid for voluntary organisations running homes for the disabled and financial assistance for advocates with orthopaedic or visual impairment (see note 2).

Government Orders

Category	Headline	Issuing Authority	Number & Date	Briefs
Employment	Public Services Reservations for Physically Handicapped Persons – three per cent reservation for Class III and Class IV posts	Personnel and Administrative Reforms (Advice) Department	G.O. (P)No.20/98/P&ARD Dated, Thiruvananthapuram, 14 July, 1998	Orders issued for a maximum of 50 appointments each in the categories of subordinate service, last grade service and part-time contingent service being set apart every year for the appointment of persons with disabilities to the public services.
Employment	Reservation of three per cent vacancies in Class I and II posts in Public Services for appointment of physically disabled persons – post of Assistant Engineer (Civil), Public Works Department – eligibility for full participation in the selection process and appointment in respect of certain categories of physically disabled persons – clarified orders	Social Welfare Department	G.O. (RT) No. 291/2012/SWD. Dated, Thiruvananthapuram 20^th June 2012	This order has been issued in clarification to earlier orders issued for identification of posts for Persons with Disabilities.
Building construction	Kerala Panchayat Building Rules 2011	Local Self Governance Department	G.O. (MS) No.41/11/LSGD Dated, Thiruvananthapuram 14/02/2011.	Notification has been issued to regulate building construction. Provides for accessibility and elimination of architectural barriers.

Special Schools and Vocational Training Centres

Centre for Training and Rehabilitation of the Mentally Retarded, Thiruvananthapuram
Adarsha Rehabilitation Institute for Spastics and Neurologically Impaired, Kochi
Asha Niketan, Kozhikode
Jagathy Government School for the Blind, Thiruvananthapuram
Jagathy Government BHSS for the Deaf, Thiruvananthapuram
Kunnamkulam GS for the Blind, Kunnamkulam, Thrissur
Kunnamkulam GS for the Deaf, Kunnamkulam, Thrissur

Non Governmental Organisations for Persons with Disabilities

National Association of the Blind, Thiruvananthapuram
Kerala Federation of the Blind, Thiruvananthapuram
Kerala Institution of the Blind, Thrissur
All Kerala Association of the Deaf, Thrissur
Kerala Government Deaf Employees Union
Association for the Welfare of the Handicapped, Kozhikode
Kerala State Physically Handicapped Employees Association

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/national-resource-kerala-chapter-call-for-comments

Non Unicode ISCII Text Can be Converted to Unicode Now!

subha — 2012-12-21T09:59:18Z

Odia Wikipedian Manoj Sahukar has designed a new tool which can convert non Unicode ISCII text to Odia Unicode text. A majority of the digitized text and web content of newspapers and books are in non unicode text which now could be used for Wikipedia and other Odia Wiki projects. This opens a new arena for digitized free license books in Odia language.

Akruti Sarala is a known name in Odisha. Every single DTP operator who knows typing uses this font. Until now thousands of books have been created using this font. Even today many mainstream newspapers and magazines use this font for typing. Sadly, no one ever realized the content they are creating would be useless when it comes to sharing and reusing, especially on internet. Because, internet accepts a universal standard called "Unicode" for all the languages. When a book is limited only for printing purpose then use of non Unicode font is absolutely of no problem. But, when one copies text from an e-book created using non Unicode fonts (e.g. Sarala) and pastes it elsewhere strange characters gets displayed instead of Odia characters. This is the same situation for all other non-Latin languages.

Why this happens?

Non Unicode fonts use a funny technique. English/Roman characters are removed and Indian (or any other Non-Latin language) language characters are inserted instead of English characters. So, when you type any key from your keyboard the corresponding Indian language character displays instead of the English character. When you have a particular non Unicode font installed this technique works effectively. But, imagine when you don't have the font in your computer! By default it will show the English characters.

How Unicode fonts work?

Unicode fonts contain Indian language characters along with English characters. There is no character/glyph displacement. It is a global standard and fixed by The Unicode Consortium for all the languages. When one text is typed in an Indian language it displays the same character on Ubuntu, Windows or Mac operating system. As most of the operating systems come with Unicode fonts included there is nothing to be worried for installing them again.

How it got started?

Manoj Sahukar, a third year mechanical engineering student who is very enthusiast about the Odia science articles found Odia Wikipedia and realized that the volunteers are working so hard to write content which could actually be simplified rather than merely writing the same content. There are many science articles which he wanted to read on Wikipedia were not there. Then he realized the gap of the the non availability of Unicode content. This is also one more reason Google doesn't have a button for Odia unlike some of the other Indian languages. "Nothing could be such open and great platform like Odia Wikiepdia if one is searching content in Odia language. My tool is dedicated to the Odia Wikipedians who have been working hard for my language", expressed Manoj in the release note. He shared his interest and ideas with Odia Wikipedian Jnanaranjan Sahu and started working on building a tool which could convert the available science articles of Bigyana Diganta (a sciene magazine published in Odia language by Orissa Bigyana Academy) into Unicode. There are many articles which could be used for reference and some of the free content for WikiSource or WikiBooks. Finally he released his tool on internet on 12.12.12, the last one of the repeating dates of this century. It is still in its beta stage and Manoj is working on making it more user friendly. He is also keen on organizing technical events which will bring more individuals to create such open source tools. "My next target is developing OCR (Optical character recognition) software in Odia", says an excited Manoj.

What this tool does?

This tool could be used to convert text typed in non Unicode ISCII fonts to Odia Unicode text. The detailed procedure for using this tool and Unicode conversion is explained in a tutorial on Odia Wikipedia. The tool is released under GFDL license and is available for download on SourceForge.

Non Unicode text being copied from a PDF

Unicode font after conversion

Quick links:

Download from here
Project page on SourceForge: https://sourceforge.net/p/odiaconverter
Tutorial and technical description on Odia Wikipedia: http://or.wikipedia.org/s/cvm
Odia Unicode standard: Odia Unicode code chart

Manoj Sahukar talks about his ideas about the usability of Odia Unicode Converter tool

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/non-unicode-iscii-text-can-be-converted-to-unicode

Not Just Fancy Television

nishant — 2015-04-24T11:45:14Z

Nishant Shah reviews Ben Hammersley's book "64 Things You Need to Know for Then: How to Face the Digital Future Without Fear ", published by Hodder & Stoughton

The review was published in the Indian Express on December 8, 2012.

Let us begin by acknowledging that when the world was learning how to drive on the information highway, Ben Hammersley was out there, instructing us how to do it best. So it doesn’t surprise that 64 Things You Need to Know for Then: How to Face the Digital Future Without Fear, despite its untweetable title, is quite spot-on when it comes to describing our digital pasts, demystifying our interweb presents and preparing us for technosocial futures. Well-written, interspersed with illustrative anecdotes, reflective experiences and speculative ideas, the book looks at the good, the bad and the downright bizarre that the digital turn has introduced in our lives. Working through moments of nostalgia for things that have already become obsolete, and through experiences that morph even before we can comprehend them, Hammersley writes (or, as he suggests in his introduction — co-writes with hundreds of anonymous contributors) a book that is readable, for those seeking to understand how the digital world moves and those who want to remember their own role in shaping forgotten trends.

The book also attempts to answer some of the troublesome tensions in our understanding of our contemporary digital lives. Hammersley’s basic intention in writing the book is to show how technological shifts are not merely about changing usage patterns. It radically (and often dramatically) restructures our domains of life, language and labour. Older structures have become redundant and the new ones have not yet found their feet. There are many who attempt to think of the internet as a mere extension of older media practices. But as he says, “The internet is absolutely not just fancy television.” It is a technology that is reshaping everything we had understood about who we are and how we relate to the world around us.

However, Hammersley suggests, the ways in which the internet is rapidly transforming the world leads to a clear divide around technology literacy. The “technologically literate” are shaping the digital turn, experimenting and exploring the possibilities, but unable to fall back upon older structures of assurance to know whether the choices they are making are sustainable. At the same time, the “technologically illiterate” are still responsible for shaping a world that they are quickly losing track of.

This book clearly explains the technological, legal, cultural, social and economic shifts of the last 20 years, and how they foretell our futures, without complicating it with geeky discourses on code or theoretical bluster.

Hammersley also ensures that the book is not merely a glossary of terms. He has the most interesting anecdotes from around the world like Harry Potter fan-fiction and crowdsourced translations in Germany challenging intellectual property rights regimes, the Human Flesh Search Engines in China, which threaten to reinforce regressive mob politics while also enabling cultural vigilantes in our societies. He also goes beyond individual concerns and reflects on the larger political concerns of censorship, control and freedom, discussing with great lucidity, the complicated nuances of hacker groups like Anonymous, political effects of collectives like WikiLeaks, etc. It is an exciting mash-up of events that will make you smile at the audacity and irreverence of the players in the digital playground, but will also make you shiver as it lays bare the new authoritarian and violent regimes that emerge with digital technologies.

Instead of taking partisan positions about something as necessarily good or bad, Hammersley documents some of the practices, effects and affects of technology, to show how our world has changed. There is no explanation of why the list stops at 64 things. But it is a well curated list of social, cultural, economic and political concerns and provides a conversational account of the present and future, speculating, like an old friend on the living room couch on a Sunday afternoon.

The only criticism against Hammersley is that he is too dependent on the rules of the internet to explain the internet. The different laws that have evolved in computing and network theory, in the sociology of the Web and the economic analysis of information societies, are accepted too easily, and used as self-evident explanatory frameworks. But then, this is not a book pretending to argue for a new conceptual framework. It is a book that has set out to educate and entertain, slowly unfolding the fractured narratives of the Web from its military origins to its Arab Spring manifestations. Of the many books that are already flooding the market, trying to decode the Web, Hammersley’s list of 64 things is going to be at the top.

The writer is Director (Research), Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/indian-express-december-8-2012-nishant-shah-not-just-fancy-television

Breaking Down Section 66A of the IT Act

pranesh — 2012-12-14T09:51:17Z

Section 66A of the Information Technology Act, which prescribes 'punishment for sending offensive messages through communication service, etc.' is widely held by lawyers and legal academics to be unconstitutional. In this post Pranesh Prakash explores why that section is unconstitutional, how it came to be, the state of the law elsewhere, and how we can move forward.

Back in February 2009 (after the IT Amendment Act, 2008 was hurriedly passed on December 22, 2008 by the Lok Sabha, and a day after by the Rajya Sabha[1] but before it was notified on October 27, 2009) I had written that s.66A is "patently in violation of Art. 19(1)(a) of the Constitution of India":

Section 66A which punishes persons for sending offensive messages is overly broad, and is patently in violation of Art. 19(1)(a) of our Constitution. The fact that some information is "grossly offensive" (s.66A(a)) or that it causes "annoyance" or "inconvenience" while being known to be false (s.66A(c)) cannot be a reason for curbing the freedom of speech unless it is directly related to decency or morality, public order, or defamation (or any of the four other grounds listed in Art. 19(2)). It must be stated here that many argue that John Stuart Mill's harm principle provides a better framework for freedom of expression than Joel Feinberg's offence principle. The latter part of s.66A(c), which talks of deception, is sufficient to combat spam and phishing, and hence the first half, talking of annoyance or inconvenience is not required. Additionally, it would be beneficial if an explanation could be added to s.66A(c) to make clear what "origin" means in that section. Because depending on the construction of that word s.66A(c) can, for instance, unintentionally prevent organisations from using proxy servers, and may prevent a person from using a sender envelope different from the "from" address in an e-mail (a feature that many e-mail providers like Gmail implement to allow people to send mails from their work account while being logged in to their personal account). Furthermore, it may also prevent remailers, tunnelling, and other forms of ensuring anonymity online. This doesn't seem to be what is intended by the legislature, but the section might end up having that effect. This should hence be clarified.

I stand by that analysis. But given that it is quite sparse, in this post I will examine s.66A in detail.

Here's what s. 66A of the IT (Amendment) Act, 2008 states:

66A. Punishment for sending offensive messages through communication service, etc.,
Any person who sends, by means of a computer resource or a communication device,—
(a) any information that is grossly offensive or has menacing character;
(b) any information which he knows to be false, but for the purpose of causing annoyance, inconvenience, danger, obstruction, insult, injury, criminal intimidation, enmity, hatred, or ill will, persistently by making use of such computer resource or a communication device,
(c) any electronic mail or electronic mail message for the purpose of causing annoyance or inconvenience or to deceive or to mislead the addressee or recipient about the origin of such messages

shall be punishable with imprisonment for a term which may extend to three years and with fine.

Explanation: For the purposes of this section, terms "electronic mail" and "electronic mail message" means a message or information created or transmitted or received on a computer, computer system, computer resource or communication device including attachments in text, images, audio, video and any other electronic record, which may be transmitted with the message.[2]

A large part of s.66A can be traced back to s.10(2) of the UK's Post Office (Amendment) Act, 1935:

If any person —
(a) sends any message by telephone which is grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene, or menacing character; or
(b) sends any message by telephone, or any telegram, which he knows to be false, for the purpose of causing annoyance, inconvenience, or needless anxiety to any other person; or
(c) persistently makes telephone calls without reasonable cause and for any such purposes as aforesaid;
he shall be liable upon summary conviction to a fine not exceeding ten pounds, or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding one month, or to both such fine and imprisonment.

Section 66A bears a striking resemblance to the three parts of this law from 1935, with clauses (b) and (c) being merged in the Indian law into a single clause (b) of s.66A, with a whole bunch of new "purposes" added. Interestingly, the Indian Post Office Act, 1898, was never amended to add this provision.

The differences between the two are worth exploring.

Term of Punishment

The first major difference is that the maximum term of imprisonment in the 1935 Act is only one month, compared to three years in s.66A of the IT Act. It seems the Indian government decided to subject the prison term to hyper-inflation to cover for the time. If this had happened for the punishment for, say, criminal defamation, then that would have a jail term of up to 72 years! The current equivalent laws in the UK are the Communications Act, 2003 (s. 127) and the Malicious Communications Act 1988 (s.1) for both of which the penalty is up to 6 months' imprisonment or to a maximum fine of £5000 or both. What's surprising is that in the Information Technology (Amendment) Bill of 2006, the penalty for section 66A was up to 2 years, and it was changed on December 16, 2008 through an amendment moved by Mr. A. Raja (the erstwhile Minister of Communications and IT) to 3 years. Given that parts of s.66A(c) resemble nuisance, it is instructive to note the term of punishment in the Indian Penal Code (IPC) for criminal nuisance: a fine of Rs. 200 with no prison term.

"Sending" vs. "Publishing"

J. Sai Deepak, a lawyer, has made an interesting point that the IT Act uses "send" as part of its wording, and not "publish". Given that, only messages specifically directed at another would be included. While this is an interesting proposition, it cannot be accepted because: (1) even blog posts are "sent", albeit to the blog servers — s.66A doesn't say who it has to be sent to; (2) in the UK the Communications Act 2003 uses similar language and that, unlike the Malicious Communication Act 1988 which says "sends to another person", has been applied to public posts to Twitter, etc.; (3) The explanation to s.66A(c) explicitly uses the word "transmitted", which is far broader than "send", and it would be difficult to reconcile them unless "send" can encompass sending to the publishing intermediary like Twitter.

Part of the narrowing down of s.66A should definitely focus on making it applicable only to directed communication (as is the case with telephones, and with the UK's Malicious Communication Act), and not be applicable to publishing.

Section 66A(c)

Section 66A(c) was also inserted through an amendment moved by Mr. Raja on December 16, 2008, which was passed by the Lok Sabha on December 22, 2008, and a day after by the Rajya Sabha. (The version introduced in Parliament in 2006 had only 66A(a) and (b).) This was done in response to the observation by the Standing Committee on Information Technology that there was no provision for spam. Hence it is clear that this is meant as an anti-spam provision. However, the careless phrasing makes it anything but an anti-spam provision. If instead of "for the purpose of causing annoyance or inconvenience or to deceive or to mislead the addressee or recipient about the origin of such messages" it was "for the purpose of causing annoyance and inconvenience and to deceive and to mislead the addressee or recipient about the origin of such messages", it would have been slightly closer to an anti-spam provision, but even then doesn't have the two core characteristics of spam: that it be unsolicited and that it be sent in bulk. (Whether only commercial messages should be regarded as spam is an open question.) That it arise from a duplicitous origin is not a requirement of spam (and in the UK, for instance, that is only an aggravating factor for what is already a fine-able activity).

Curiously, the definitional problems do not stop there, but extend to the definitions of "electronic mail" and "electronic mail message" in the 'explanation' as well. Those are so vast that more or less anything communicated electronically is counted as an e-mail, including forms of communication that aren't aimed at particular recipients the way e-mail is.

Hence, the anti-spam provision does not cover spam, but covers everything else. This provision is certainly unconstitutional.

Section 66A(b)

Section 66A(b) has three main elements: (1) that the communication be known to be false; (2) that it be for the purpose of causing annoyance, inconvenience, danger, obstruction, insult, injury, criminal intimidation, enmity, hatred or ill will; (3) that it be communicated persistently. The main problem here is, of course, (2). "Annoyance" and "inconvenience", "insult", "ill will" and "hatred" are very different from "injury", "danger", and "criminal intimidation". That a lawmaker could feel that punishment for purposes this disparate belonged together in a single clause is quite astounding and without parallel (except in the rest of the IT Act). That's akin to having a single provision providing equal punishment for calling someone a moron ("insult") and threatening to kill someone ("criminal intimidation"). While persistent false communications for the purpose of annoying, insulting, inconveniencing, or causing ill will should not be criminalised (if need be, having it as a civil offence would more than suffice), doing so for the purpose of causing danger or criminal intimidation should. However, the question arises whether you need a separate provision in the IT Act for that. Criminal intimidation is already covered by ss. 503 and 506 of the IPC. Similarly, different kinds of causing danger are taken care of in ss.188, 268, 283, 285, 289, and other provisions. Similarly with the other "purposes" listed there, if, for instance, a provision is needed to penalise hoax bomb threats, then the provision clearly should not be mentioning words like "annoyance", and should not be made "persistent". (At any rate, s. 505(1) of the IPC suffices for hoax bomb threats, so you don't need a separate provision in the IT Act).

I would argue that in its current form this provision is unconstitutional, since there is no countervailing interest in criminalising false and persistent "insults", etc., that will allow those parts of this provision to survive the test of 'reasonableness' under Art.19(2). Furthermore, even bits that survive are largely redundant. While this unconstitutionality could be cured by better, narrower wording, even then one would need to ensure that there is no redundancy due to other provisions in other laws.

Section 66A(a)

In s.66A(a), the question immediately arises whether the information that is "grossly offensive" or "menacing" need to be addressed at someone specific and be seen as "grossly offensive" or "menacing" by that person, or be seen by a 'reasonable man' test.

Additionally, the term "grossly offensive" will have to be read in such a heightened manner as to not include merely causing offence. The one other place where this phrase is used in Indian law is in s.20(b) of the Indian Post Office Act (prohibiting the sending by post of materials of an indecent, obscene, seditious, scurrilous, threatening, or grossly offensive character). The big difference between s.20(b) of the IPO Act and s.66A of the IT Act is that the former is clearly restricted to one-to-one communication (the way the UK's Malicious Communication Act 1988 is). Reducing the scope of s.66A to direct communications would make it less prone to challenge.

Additionally, in order to ensure constitutionality, courts will have to ensure that "grossly offensive" does not simply end up meaning "offensive", and that the maximum punishment is not disproportionately high as it currently is. Even laws specifically aimed at online bullying, such as the UK's Protection from Harassment Act 1997, can have unintended effects. As George Monbiot notes, the "first three people to be prosecuted under [the Protection from Harassment Act] were all peaceful protesters".

Constitutional Arguments in Importing Laws from the UK

The plain fact is that the Indian Constitution is stronger on free speech grounds than the (unwritten) UK Constitution, and the judiciary has wide powers of judicial review of statutes (i.e., the ability of a court to strike down a law passed by Parliament as 'unconstitutional'). Judicial review of statutes does not exist in the UK (with review under its EU obligations being the exception) as they believe that Parliament is supreme, unlike India. Putting those two aspects together, a law that is valid in the UK might well be unconstitutional in India for failing to fall within the eight octagonal walls of the reasonable restrictions allowed under Art.19(2). That raises the question of how they deal with such broad wording in the UK.

Genealogy of UK Law on Sending 'Indecent', 'Menacing', 'Grossly Offensive' Messages

Quoting from the case of DPP v. Collins [2006] UKHL 40 [6]:

The genealogy of [s. 127(1) of the Communication Act] may be traced back to s.10(2)(a) of the Post Office (Amendment) Act, 1935, which made it an offence to send any message by telephone which is grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character. That subsection was reproduced with no change save of punctuation in s.66(a) of the Post Office Act 1953. It was again reproduced in s.78 of the Post Office Act 1969, save that "by means of a public telecommunication service" was substituted for "by telephone" and "any message" was changed to "a message or other matter". Section 78 was elaborated but substantially repeated in s.49(1)(a) of the British Telecommunications Act 1981 and was re-enacted (save for the substitution of "system" for "service") in s.43(1)(a) of the Telecommunications Act 1984. Section 43(1)(a) was in the same terms as s.127(1)(a) of the 2003 Act, save that it referred to "a public telecommunication system" and not (as in s.127(1)(a)) to a "public electronic communications network". Sections 11(1)(b) of the Post Office Act 1953 and 85(3) of the Postal Services Act 2000 made it an offence to send certain proscribed articles by post.

While the above quotation talks about s.127(1) it is equally true about s.127(2) as well. In addition to that, in 1988, the Malicious Communications Act (s.1) was passed to prohibit one-to-one harassment along similar lines.

The UK's Post Office Act was eclipsed by the Telecommunications Act in 1984, which in turn was replaced in 2003 by the Communications Act. (By contrast, we still stick on to the colonial Indian Post Office Act, 1898.) Provisions from the 1935 Post Office Act were carried forward into the Telecommunications Act (s.43 on the "improper use of public telecommunication system"), and subsequently into s.127 of the Communications Act ("improper use of public electronic communications network"). Section 127 of the Communications Act states:

127. Improper use of public electronic communications network
(1) A person is guilty of an offence if he —
(a) sends by means of a public electronic communications network a message or other matter that is grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character; or
(b) causes any such message or matter to be so sent.
(2) A person is guilty of an offence if, for the purpose of causing annoyance, inconvenience or needless anxiety to another, he —
(a) sends by means of a public electronic communications network, a message that he knows to be false,
(b) causes such a message to be sent; or
(c) persistently makes use of a public electronic communications network.
(3) A person guilty of an offence under this section shall be liable, on summary conviction, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months or to a fine not exceeding level 5 on the standard scale, or to both.
(4) Subsections (1) and (2) do not apply to anything done in the course of providing a programme service (within the meaning of the Broadcasting Act 1990 (c. 42)).

Currently in the UK there are calls for repeal of s.127. In a separate blog post I will look at how the UK courts have 'read down' the provisions of s.127 and other similar laws in order to be compliant with the European Convention on Human Rights.

Comparison between S. 66A and Other Statutes

Section 144, IPC, 1860

Power to issue order in urgent cases of nuisance or apprehended danger

...obstruction, annoyance or injury to any person lawfully employed, or danger to human life, health or safety, or a disturbance of the public tranquillity

Babulal Parate v. State of Maharastra and Ors. [1961 AIR SC 884] (Magistrates order under s. 144 of the Cr. PC, 1973 was in violation of Art.19(1)(a) of the Constitution).

A special thanks is due to Snehashish Ghosh for compiling the below table.

Section	Term(s)/phrase(s) used in 66A	Term(s)/ phrase(s) used in similar sections
Section 66A (heading)	Punishment for sending offensive messages through communication service, etc	Section 127, CA, 2003, "Improper use of public electronic communications network"
Section 66A(a)	Any person who sends, by means of a computer resource or a communication device	Section 1(1), MCA 1988, "Any person who sends to another person..."
Section 66A(a)	Grossly offensive	Section 1(1)(a)(i), MCA 1988; Section 127(1)(a),CA, 2003; Section 10(2)(a), Post Office (Amendment) Act, 1935; Section 43(1)(a), Telecommunications Act 1984; Section 20, India Post Act 1898
Section 66A(a)	Menacing character	Section127(1)(a),CA, 2003
Section 66A(b)	Any information which he knows to be false	Section 1(1)(a)(iii), MCA 1988 "information which is false and known or believed to be false by the sender"; Section 127(2)(a), CA, 2003, "a message that he knows to be false"
Section 66A(b) “purpose of...”	Causing annoyance	Section127(2), CA, 2003
	Inconvenience	Section 127 (2), CA, 2003
	Danger
	Insult	Section 504, IPC, 1860
	Injury	Section 44 IPC, 1860, "The word 'injury' denotes any harm whatever illegally caused to any person, in body, mind, reputation or property."
	Criminal intimidation	Sections 503 and 505 (2), IPC, 1860
	Enmity, hatred or ill-will	Section 153A(1)(a), IPC, 1860
	Persistently by making use of such computer resource or a communication device	Section 127(2)(c), CA, 2003, "persistently makes use of a public electronic communications network."
Section 66A(c)	Deceive or to mislead	-

Notes
MCA 1988: Malicious Communications Act (s.1)
CA: Communications Act 2003 (s.127)
*Replaced by Communications Act 2003

[1]. The Information Technology (Amendment) Bill, 2008, was one amongst the eight bills that were passed in fifteen minutes on December 16, 2008.
[2]. Inserted vide Information Technology Amendment Act, 2008.

This was re-posted in Outlook (November 28, 2012)

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/breaking-down-section-66-a-of-the-it-act

Pervasive Mobile Technologies: Meet Our Mobile Devices!

jdine — 2012-12-21T07:48:40Z

As a part of the Pervasive Technologies: Access to Knowledge in the Marketplace research project, the Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) is researching 12 mobile phone devices to generate a better understanding of the intellectual property (IP) implications of pervasive mobile technologies available in the Indian market. This post is an introduction to our 12 mobile phones.

As detailed in my introductory blog on Pervasive Technologies: Access to Knowledge in the Marketplace Research Initiative, CIS will be conducting research on mobile technologies as a small off-shoot of the overall project. Pervasive technologies that can be purchased for less than USD 100 play an integral role in bringing access to knowledge to those that routinely face barriers to the consumption of information. However, their legality, particularly in terms of their use of IP, is unclear. In order to better understand the legal environment in which these technologies exist, CIS purchased 12 mobile phones to study the patent implications of their hardware, software and content.

Through examination, research, interviews and consultancies, we hope to create an in-depth documentation of each device, an extensive database or account of the patents implicated, and a number of narrower research avenues on topics related to IP, patents, and mobile technologies.

This blog post will serve as a brief introduction to our mobile devices. The information that I have compiled was discovered through shallow interaction with the phones — turning a device on and exploring the interface and content — which is why the documentation is not particularly extensive at this point. I have had difficulty identifying certain features of some of the phones, like which media formats they support or whether or not they are EDGE[2] — enable, but I am confident that I will be able to ascertain these specifications in the near future; however, certain features, like what OS (operating system) they run on and what chip set they are using, will require collaboration with experts to identify. The exploration is on-going, and more information will be posted as it is discovered.

Aside from all of the usual functions of a mobile phone (making calls, receiving calls, saving numbers, etc.), each of our mobiles devices possess what I have termed the "basics": dual GSM SIM capabilities with dual standby, the ability to connect to 2G networks, GPRS, a WAP browser (except device 011), bluetooth capabilities, a microSD slot, a dual camera (a camera that takes still photos and records video), an FM radio receiver and the ability to play .mp3 audio files and .mp4 video files, record audio and view .jpg images. Each phone also has a handful of various "utilities" and "extras" applications (such as an alarm, a calculator, a calendar, etc.) as well as at least one game. The full specifications of each phone will be provided in the near future, along with further pictures of each device.

As much of the research in this project pertains to the IP implications of the devices, we have decided to withhold the make and model of each device to shield the producers from any negative repercussions that could be the result of our research inquiries. They have been assigned the numeric code names 001 to 012.

Without further ado, I'd like to introduce you to our mobile phones:

001 - The Classroom in a Box

Price: Rs. 6,300.00 / $113.00

KEY FEATURES

Pico-Projector
Analog TV Receiver
MS Office Document Viewer


This bar-design feature phone has all of the basics with a few added bonuses: an analog TV receiver, viewer, and a built-in pico-projector that projects the mobile's screen onto any surface. Though this phone does not technically fall into our definition of pervasive technologies because of its price, it was the first mobile phone with a built-in pico-projector as well as an analog TV receiver available on the Indian market for less than Rs. 10,000 when it was purchased more than a year ago. Since then, other sub-USD100 pico-projector mobile devices have made an appearance on the Indian market, but each of those devices appear to have been discontinued and 001 continues to be the cheapest pico-projector mobile phone available for purchase.

002 - The Supercharger

Price: Rs. 2,499.00 / $45.00

KEY FEATURES

Solar Panel
Hindi Keyboard

	002 is a sleek candybar feature phone with a particularly interesting innovation. While it uses a standard lithium-ion battery that can be recharged via connection to a wall socket or electrical device (such as a laptop), it also has a built-in solar panel that can generate some charge as well. The solar panel technology is not yet very efficient—the panel would have to be placed in direct sunlight for multiple hours to fully charge the battery—but it represents an important step towards untethering mobile phones and mobile phone users from costly electricity infrastructure, a development that would have significant implications for rural populations who have unreliable access to electricity.

003 - The Networker

Price: Rs. 1,250.00 / $22.00

KEY FEATURES

Wi-Fi
Optical Trackpad
Secondary Forward-facing Camera
Support for 8 Languages


With a boxy, QWERTY-keyboard design and relatively small screen, 003 does not appear, at first glance, to be anymore than an average feature phone — but appearances can be deceiving. With a highly responsive optical trackpad, an analog TV receiver, BlackBerry-esque interface and WiFi capabilities, this mobile device packs some sophisticated technologies and features. Further, it is the only phone in our collection that can connect to the internet using WLAN networks. Considering that some of the other devices are much more complex — and expensive — than 003, the wide-spread exclusion of WiFi capabilities in our collection is intriguing. Is the choice to include or exclude mobile technology a matter of economics? Are cellular WiFi components expensive, and producers are choosing to exclude WiFi as a method of cutting costs? Is it simply a response to patterns of consumer demand? The WiFi questions will be explored in more depth in up-coming blog posts.

004 - The Linguist

Price: Rs. 2,250.00 / $40.00

KEY FEATURES

Android-like OS
Support for 14 Languages
Secondary Forward-facing Camera
Large Number of Pre-loaded Apps


Though it may be hard to believe at first glance, this mobile device was purchased for less than Rs. 2500. With its large internal memory, support for 14 different languages (including Tamil, Bengali and Hindi), and its large array of pre-loaded games and social media applications already set it apart from the less sophisticated mobiles in our collection, 004 also runs on a mysterious Android-like operating system similar to the popular MIUI Android ROM developed by the Chinese-based company Xiaomi Tech. This give it a very sophisticated interface with the look and feel of a smartphone, though the device itself lacks many of the capabilities that are often considered as smartphone criteria (GPS, high-speed internet access, push/pull email, Wi-Fi, an app store, etc.). Because this device, and others like it in our collection, have more sophisticated hardware, software and content than a generic feature phone, but are not as capable as a smartphone, I have taken to calling these devices "semi-smart".

005 - TV on the Go

Price: Rs. 1,450.00 / $26.00

KEY FEATURES

Analog TV receiver
Arabic Keyboard
Secondary Forward-facing Camera


Though it doesn't have any particular innovation that sets it apart from the other devices, 005 is a hardy QWERTY-design feature phone with all of the basics as well as a good collection of social media applications and an analog TV receiver. Though its keyboard can be programmed to write in English, Tamil, Arabic and Hindi script, the buttons have the Arabic abjad on them, which brings up the question of which market this mobile was originally designed for.

006 - The Spy

Price: Rs. 1,680.00 / $30.00

KEY FEATURES:

Secondary “Spy” Camera
Ability to behave as a modem via USB connection

	006 is an interesting candy bar feature phone. On initial examination, this mobile appears to be a completely generic feature phones with all of the basics, but nothing auxiliary. However, a more careful inspection will reveal a secondary camera with an unusual placement — instead of being place at the top of the screen like all of the other secondary cameras found on our devices, this camera is situated on the right hand side of the phone.

The manufacturer of this device actually refers to this secondary camera as a "spy" camera, and it is truly an appropriate name; from a distance, it looks more like a headphone jack than a camera, and its placement allows for photo and video to be taken without any suspicious movement or positioning by the user. The secondary camera has 1.3 megapixels and can take relatively high resolution photos and videos.

007 - The Semi-Smartphone

Price: Rs. 2,150.00 / $39.00

KEY FEATURES

Android-like OS (maybe MIUI)
USB Tethering
Push Email


Device 007 is a semi-smart touchscreen phone, and by far the most sophisticated device in our collection. We believe that it uses MIUI OS, which gives it a very similar look to Android and a functionality that is reminiscent of iOSx. While it doesn't have an app store, 007 is jam-packed with pre-loaded applications and can support a wide variety of file formats. Further, while the phone cannot connect to WLAN networks on its own; it can connect to WiFi by tethering to a networked device via USB connection.

008 - The Trendy

Price: Rs. 2,350.00 / $42.00

KEY FEATURES

Android-like OS
Support for 9 languages


Another mainstream look-alike, 008 runs the same unidentified OS as device 004 and has similar capabilities. Its plastic casing is a bit flimsy, but its "back", "home" and "list" buttons are touch sensitive. Its sophisticated OS and pre-loaded applications make it a semi-smart device.

009 - The Boombox

Price: Rs. 1,420.00 / $26.00

KEY FEATURES

Huge built-in speaker
Android-like OS

	Though it is less recognizable than some of the other devices, this mobile may have one of the significant smartphone qualifiers that our other devices lack: an app store — or what appears to be an app store. The app store icon itself is actually the icon for the Android app store, but the interface is completely different, and the only thing available for download is a handful of games. Interestingly enough, many of these games also make appearances on some of the other mobile devices (like fishing joy and tear clothes). Further, I would not call this phone semi-smart, as its interface is not particularly any more sophisticated than some of the other feature phones in our collection.

009 also features a large built-in speaker, the Opera Mini mobile browser and an Android-like OS, though this OS is less sophisticated than that of 004 and 008.

010 - 3D

Price: Rs. 1,440.00 / $26.00

KEY FEATURES

Android-like OS
Pre-loaded Stereoscopic (3D) videos
Support for 13 languages


This semi-smart touchscreen phone also has an Android-like operating system. Though it lacks an app store and push-email, it comes pre-loaded with a veritable smorgasbord of games and social media applications and supports 13 different languages. It also comes with a pair of 3D glasses and two short, very basic pre-loaded stereoscopic videos.

011 - The Mighty Mini

Price: Rs. 750.00 / $14.00

KEY FEATURES

Dual GSM SIM support
Best bang-for-your-buck for a basic mobile phone


At Rs. 750, this little feature phone was the least expensive phone we could find that still had almost all of the basics. Even without any extra features, it is still almost Rs. 200 cheaper than the majority of the most basic GSM dual SIM mobiles available on the formal Indian market[3]— and, in most cases, 011 has more capabilities than most of those devices. With .mp3 and .mp4 file playback, a dual camera, colour display, a WAP browser, MMS messaging support, two charging ports and Urdu and Hindi language support, this mobile phone personifies affordable accessibility to knowledge and media.

012 - The Pianist

Price: Rs. 1,550.00 / $28.00

KEY FEATURES

Touch piano
Two charging ports
Support for a multitude of audio, video and image formats

	012 is a basic candy bar feature phone with a particularly novel innovation: a touch piano. It is quite sensitive to touch and has a one octave range.

013 - The Indian Experience

Price: Rs. 2,100.00 / $38.00

KEY FEATURES

India specific content
Proprietary App Store

	This little touchscreen mobile is chockfull of “Indian-specific” content, including an application that links directly to an online portal where consumers can download “Hungama” videos, music and movies onto the phone—for a price. Many of the games also charge a monthly user fee, though interestingly enough, Angry Birds and Talking Tom Cat are pre-loaded and free to play. This phone also has a proprietary app store with a limited amount of mBounce4] applications and games available for purchase. I am not yet sure if this app store can be remotely updated with new apps, but the device can receive data vis USB connection, so it is possible that new applications can be added through direct file transfer. It also has keyboard support for English, Hindi and Tamil, but the interface cannot be set it appear in anything other than English.

[2]. Enhanced Data rates for GSM Evolution, also known as Enchanced GPRS (EGPRS) is a mobile phone technology that also improved data transmission on GSM networks. It is considered a pre-3G radio technology. Read more about it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enhanced_Data_Rates_for_GSM_Evolution
[3]. Information retrieved from www.flipkart.com. The prices shown here have been verified as being the same or very similar (though never more expensive) to the prices offered by each brand's official distributors. See Flipkart search links:

Mircomax: http://bit.ly/UW3q0U

Spice Mobility: http://bit.ly/V0DK9i

Karbonn: http://bit.ly/10DKKbz

Lava: http://bit.ly/TSxUzQ

[4] mBounce Ltd is a Hong Kong-based company that performs a variety of mobile phone application support services like proprietary in-house billing infrastructure for app stores, the pre-loading of applications and app stores, and application creation. They are MediaTek-nominated key partner in providing MRE (Maui Runtime Environment) App Store Solutions, but mBounce applications and software can also be placed on other mobile operating systems. You can read more about mBounce here: http://www.mbounce.com/?lang=eng&module=ltrbox&menu=m1&content=home and here: http://developer.mediatek.com/mre/en/partner/335

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/pervasive-mobile-technologies-meet-our-grey-market-devices

Arbitrary Arrests for Comment on Bal Thackeray's Death

pranesh — 2013-01-02T03:42:37Z

Two girls have been arbitrarily and unlawfully arrested for making comments about the late Shiv Sena supremo Bal Thackeray's death. Pranesh Prakash explores the legal angles to the arrests.

Facts of the case

This morning, there was a short report in the Mumbai Mirror about two girls having been arrested for comments one of them made, and the other 'liked', on Facebook about Bal Thackeray:

Police on Sunday arrested a 21-year-old girl for questioning the total shutdown in the city for Bal Thackeray’s funeral on her Facebook account. Another girl who ‘liked’ the comment was also arrested.

The duo were booked under Section 295 (a) of the IPC (for hurting religious sentiments) and Section 64 (a) of the Information Technology Act, 2000. Though the girl withdrew her comment and apologised, a mob of some 2,000 Shiv Sena workers attacked and ransacked her uncle’s orthopaedic clinic at Palghar.

“Her comment said people like Thackeray are born and die daily and one should not observe a bandh for that,” said PI Uttam Sonawane.

What provisions of law were used?

There's a small mistake in Mumbai Mirror's reportage as there is no section "64(a)"¹ in the Information Technology (IT) Act, nor a section "295(a)" in the Indian Penal Code (IPC). They must have meant section 295A of the IPC ("outraging religious feelings of any class") and section 66A of the IT Act ("sending offensive messages through communication service, etc."). (Update: The Wall Street Journal's Shreya Shah has confirmed that the second provision was section 66A of the IT Act.)

Section 295A of the IPC is cognizable and non-bailable, and hence the police have the powers to arrest a person accused of this without a warrant.² Section 66A of the IT Act is cognizable and bailable.

Update: Some news sources claim that section 505(2) of the IPC ("Statements creating or promoting enmity, hatred or ill-will between classes") has also been invoked.

Was the law misapplied?

This is clearly a case of misapplication of s.295A of the IPC.³ This provision has been frivolously used numerous times in Maharashtra. Even the banning of James Laine's book Shivaji: Hindu King in Islamic India happened under s.295A, and the ban was subsequently held to have been unlawful by both the Bombay High Court as well as the Supreme Court. Indeed, s.295A has not been applied in cases where it is more apparent, making this seem like a parody news report.

Interestingly, the question arises of the law under which the friend who 'liked' the Facebook status update was arrested. It would take a highly clever lawyer and a highly credulous judge to make 'liking' of a Facebook status update an act capable of being charged with electronically "sending ... any information that is grossly offensive or has menacing character" or "causing annoyance or inconvenience", or under any other provision of the IT Act (or, for that matter, the IPC).⁴ That 'liking' is protected speech under Article 19(1)(a) is not under question in India (unlike in the USA where that issue had to be adjudicated by a court), since unlike the wording present in the American Constitution, the Indian Constitution clearly protects the 'freedom of speech and expression', so even non-verbal expression is protection.

Role of bad law and the police

In this case the blame has to be shared between bad law (s.66A of the IT Act) and an abuse of powers by police. The police were derelict in their duty, as they failed to provide protection to the Dhada Orthopaedic Hospital, run by the uncle of the girl who made the Facebook posting. Then they added insult to injury by arresting Shaheen Dhada and the friend who 'liked' her post. This should not be written off as a harmless case of the police goofing up. Justice Katju is absolutely correct in demanding that such police officers should be punished.

Rule of law

Rule of law demands that laws are not applied in an arbitrary manner. When tens of thousands were making similar comments in print (Justice Katju's article in the Hindu, for instance), over the Internet (countless comments on Facebook, Rediff, Orkut, Twitter, etc.), and in person, how did the police single out Shaheen Dhada and her friend for arrest?⁵

This should not be seen merely as "social media regulation", but as a restriction on freedom of speech and expression by both the law and the police. Section 66A makes certain kinds of speech-activities ("causing annoyance") illegal if communicated online, but legal if that same speech-activity is published in a newspaper. Finally, this is similar to the Aseem Trivedi case where the police wrongly decided to press charges and to arrest.

This distinction is important as it being a Facebook status update should not grant Shaheen Dhada any special immunity; the fact of that particular update not being punishable under s.295 or s.66A (or any other law) should.

Section 64 of the IT Act is about "recovery of penalty" and the ability to suspend one's digital signature if one doesn't pay up a penalty that's been imposed.↩
The police generally cannot, without a warrant, arrest a person accused of a bailable offence unless it is a cognizable offence. A non-bailable offence is one for which a judicial magistrate needs to grant bail, and it isn't an automatic right to be enjoyed by paying a bond-surety amount set by the police.↩
Section 295A of the IPC has been held not to be unconstitutional. The first case to challenge the constitutionality of section 66A of the IT Act was filed recently in front of the Madurai bench the Madras High Court.)↩
One can imagine an exceptional case where such an act could potentially be defamatory, but that is clearly exceptional.↩
This is entirely apart from the question of how the Shiv Sena singled in on Shaheen Dhada's Facebook comment.↩

This blog entry has been re-posted in the following places

Outlook (November 19, 2012).
KAFILA (November 19, 2012).

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/bal-thackeray-comment-arbitrary-arrest-295A-66A

Pathways to Higher Education

National Resource Kit : The West Bengal Chapter (Call for Comments)

Executive Summary

Celebrating Odia Wikipedia's Ninth Anniversary

Analyzing the Latest List of Blocked URLs by Department of Telecommunications (IIPM Edition)

What has been blocked?

Are there any mistakes in the order?

Reasons for Blocking Websites

Are the blocks legitimate?

Blocking a Public Notice issued by a Statutory Body of Government of India

Implementation of the order by the ISPs

Back When the Past had a Future: Being Precarious in a Network Society

Pervasive Technologies: Access to Knowledge in the Market Place — A Presentation by Sunil Abraham

Five Frequently Asked Questions about the Amended ITRs

Making Public Libraries Accessible to People with Disabilities

Making Public Libraries Inclusive For Persons With Disabilities – An Overview

Problem Statement

Suggestions For Improvement

Annexure 1[10]

Annexure 2

Annexure 3

Assistance Aids/Equipment

For Assisting people with Hearing Impairment or Deafness

For Assisting people with Learning Disabilities

For Assisting people with Physical Disabilities

Indic Language Wikipedias — Statistical Report — 2012

Community

Content

Readership (page views)

Conclusion

Accessible Broadcasting in India

Executive Summary

National Resource Kit : The Kerala Chapter (Call for Comments)

Statistics

Ministries and Departments

Government run Organisations

Legal Provisions

Government Orders

Special Schools and Vocational Training Centres

Non Governmental Organisations for Persons with Disabilities

Non Unicode ISCII Text Can be Converted to Unicode Now!

Why this happens?

How Unicode fonts work?

How it got started?

What this tool does?

Quick links:

Not Just Fancy Television

Breaking Down Section 66A of the IT Act

Term of Punishment

"Sending" vs. "Publishing"

Section 66A(c)

Section 66A(b)

Section 66A(a)

Constitutional Arguments in Importing Laws from the UK

Genealogy of UK Law on Sending 'Indecent', 'Menacing', 'Grossly Offensive' Messages

Comparison between S. 66A and Other Statutes

Pervasive Mobile Technologies: Meet Our Mobile Devices!

001 - The Classroom in a Box

002 - The Supercharger

003 - The Networker

004 - The Linguist

005 - TV on the Go

006 - The Spy

007 - The Semi-Smartphone

008 - The Trendy

009 - The Boombox

010 - 3D

011 - The Mighty Mini

012 - The Pianist

013 - The Indian Experience

Arbitrary Arrests for Comment on Bal Thackeray's Death

Facts of the case

What provisions of law were used?

Was the law misapplied?

Role of bad law and the police

Rule of law

Social Media Regulation vs. Suppression of Freedom of Speech and Expression