News & Media
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Copy, Left And Right
Copyright laws are becoming more rigid and anti-sharing. But copyleft has a solution.
New Kids on the Blog
Across the world, the blogosphere is shrinking. But that might not be a bad thing. Look closer, self-indulgence has found newer platforms, and only the fittest and the smartest blogs have survived. This article was published by the Indian Express on February 6, 2011. Indian Express reporter spoke with Nishant Shah.
Can the twitterati change the world?
Whether it is the Ganapati immersion in Mumbai or a labour union dharna at Jantar Mantar or a hunger strike in Kolkata, India has had a rich history of people coming out on the streets. However, as cities are reshaped in the image of a 'world-class city', public spaces are being steadily appropriated into gated communities which cater to an elite section of the population.
Procuring books in Indian libraries
Campaign to legalise parallel imports gathers steam.
Can the mouse be a tool of revolution in India?
Do you consider yourself a ‘slacktivist’?” Vikram Sengupta considers the question for a couple of seconds, and then excuses himself. “I’ll call you back. I’m in the middle of something right now,” he says, and hangs up. Being called a ‘slacktivist’ is probably not very flattering, first thing in the morning or at any other time of the day. But this writer has been at the receiving end of endless mails from him, mails which sought to impose a burning moral imperative to sign up instantly and save the grand Canadian Musk Ox or the Mexican Dumpy Frog. The question, therefore, is not unjustified.
Digital Wrongs
Protecting Intellectual Property Rights. This article by Rohin Dharmakumar was published in Forbes India on January 28, 2011.
What Are You Accused of? Find Out Online
Starting Tuesday, police authorities in the Indian capital will make many crime reports, also known as First Information Reports, publicly accessible from its Web site. The report can be attained by entering details such as the name of the accused or victim and also the area where the crime took place. So far, no crime reports have been posted on the Web site.
One among the clan of Wikipedians
In 2005, I lived in Johannesburg and worked as an activist to make knowledge more accessible. Between fighting copyright treaties in Geneva that would give corporations an even bigger stranglehold on our minds and finding ways to supply cheap textbooks to township schools, I talked about my work frequently. After one such event, organised by Nhlanhla Mabaso, the godfather of free and open source software in the country, I met two people who were particularly interested in my work. Their names were Angela Beesley and Erik Moller; they looked like college students, and said that they were helping to build an online encyclopaedia called Wikipedia. They were bright, warm and open - and I was hooked.
A Refreshing Start!
Parmesh Shahani enters the New Year inspired by the various ideas he’s been exposed to in The Hague and Lavasa.
Knowledge Warriors
Dieci anni fa, quando Jimmy "Jumbo" Wales lanciò l'idea di una piattaforma della conoscenza partecipativa e plurilingue, di tipo enciclopedico, basata sul web, pochi erano pronti a raccoglierla. L'industria della conoscenza era rigidamente divisa tra chi la produceva, chi la fruiva e chi mediava tra i due gruppi.
Digital Natives with a Cause? - Workshop in Chile seeks participants
The third and final workshop in the Digital Natives with a Cause? research project will take place in Santiago, Chile, from the 8 to 10 February. An open call for participation follows.
Getting Connected
Nishant Shah of the Centre for Internet & Society talks about the growing adoption of social media, and what can constitute a "social media network"
Nishant Shah Quoted in Livemint 2011 Tweet-out
Livemint, recently did a tweet-out which quoted people about what will be big in 2011. Nishant Shah was also quoted.
Clicktivism & a brave new world order
THE FIRST decade of this century has been one of accelerated change. The proliferation of the Internet has ushered in ubiquitous transformations in the way we live. And yet, the more things change, the more they remain the same.
Would it be a unique identity crisis ?
The UID project will centralise a humongous amount of data but the fear is that it might fall into the wrong hands.
Civic hackers seek to find their feet in India
In 2006, when Sushant Sinha,who holds a doctorate in Internet security from the University of Michigan, tried to use the Indian government’s judicial rulings website, Judis.nic.in, he found it difficult to get the data he was looking for. “Judis.nic.in didn’t have a good text search or ability to sort results by relevance,” Sinha said. The lack of these two critical functions rendered the wealth of data on the site largely unusable.
Nel suk dei nativi digitali. Perché gli studenti 2.0 hanno bisogno di una bussola per orientarsi
Addio al vecchio sapere lineare fondato sulla parola scritta e sulla trasmissione di conoscenza maestro-alunno: imparare oggi ha la forma di un suk arabo nell'ora di punta. Tra social network, video-racconti su YouTube, la musica di MySpace, il linguaggio sincopato delle chat e le bufale online, gli studenti di nuova generazione hanno bisogno di una bussola per orientarsi. Ma la scuola non c'è. O meglio, non ce la fa: a studenti 2.0 corrispondono spesso istituti scolastici da secolo scorso.
A Tweet and a poke from the CEO
The official grapevine has moved online, and Twitter is the new water-cooler.
Mothers discuss kids, music, fashions, on Net
Among the many conversations about behavioural problems seen among teenage children and the benefits of organic foods, there is one that raves about a baby-sitter who takes care of pets too, and one that reviews newly opened art classes in the city. These are not the usual face-to-face discussions among women at a gathering, but threads that run on parenting websites and ‘mommy' blogs that have captured the imagination of many mothers in Chennai.
'Pakistan' hackers target India's top police agency
Cyber-attackers who identified themselves as the "Pakistan Cyber Army" have hacked the website of India's top police agency, officials said on Saturday. The website of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) was hacked by programmers who left a message saying that the attack was in revenge for similar Indian assaults on Pakistani sites, Press Trust of India said. The hackers signed their message on the Indian police website: "Long Live Pakistan."
