Centre for Internet & Society

Odia Language Classics could Now be Read from Phones, Tablets and of course from Computers!

by Prasad Krishna

Odia Wikisource, a sister project of Odia Wikipedia and a free online Odia-language library is celebrating its first anniversary in Bhubaneswar tomorrow. Available online at or.wikisource.org, the project finally went live in last year on October 20 after being incubated over two years. In a nutshell, it not just provides free and open access to readers to access text that are out of copyright or available under free license, but also allows them to contribute in either digitizing copyright-free text or correcting mistakes made by others.

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Open Access Week Round-Up

by Prasad Krishna

Here is a round-up of events held at the University of Otago over Open Access Week. Subhashish Panigrahi made a presentation for the staff members of libraries across New Zealand. The event was organised by the University of Otago.

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CIS brings Nadustunna Charithra magazine under by CC BY SA licence

by Tanveer Hasan

As a part of its content donation initiative, the Centre for Internet & Society's Access to Knowledge team (CIS-A2K) has brought all issues of Nadustunna Charithra magazine under Creative Common Licence.

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Heads I Win, Tails You Lose: The Intransigenc of STM Publishers

by Subbiah Arunachalam

A few commercial publishers dominate provision of access to scientific and technical information sought after by researchers around the world. Increasing subscription prices of journals at rates higher than general inflation caused librarians to think of forming consortia, but publishers started selling online journals as bundles, and libraries ended up with many journals their researchers have very little use for. Scientists and librarians adopted open access, but publishers came up with hybrid journals and article processing charges to beat any adverse effect on their profits caused by the fast-spreading open access movement. We compare the steps taken by scientists and librarians in the West to reclaim ease of access to research findings with what is happening in India. We end with a few suggestions.

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Privacy vs. Transparency: An Attempt at Resolving the Dichotomy

by Sunil Abraham

The right to privacy has been articulated in international law and in some national laws. In a few countries where the constitution does not explicitly guarantee such a right, courts have read the right to privacy into other rights (e.g., the right to life, the right to equal treatment under law and also the right to freedom of speech and expression).

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Second Draft of Open Access Policy of the Department of Biotechnology and Department of Science released

by Anubha Sinha

The Department of Biotechnology and the Department of Science, Ministry of Science and Technology, Government of India drafted an Open Access Policy (“Policy”) in consultation with several open access experts, government officials and CIS. The second draft of the Policy released last week and is open for comments till 17th November, 2014.

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Ministry of Science makes open access to research mandatory

by Prasad Krishna

Researchers who fail to meet the requirements would not considered for promotions, fellowships, future grants or appointments.

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Indian Govt looks to provide free access to publicly-funded research works

by Prasad Krishna

Sunil Abraham gave his inputs to the blog entry published in Medianama on July 23, 2014.

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Department of Biotechnology and Department of Science, Ministry of Science and Technology, Government of India, release first draft of Open Access Policy

by Anubha Sinha

The Department of Biotechnology and the Department of Science, Ministry of Science and Technology, Government of India, recently published a draft Open Access Policy in consultation with several open access experts, government officials and CIS. This post discusses open access and the exercise undertaken to draft this policy.

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Openness

by Subbiah Arunachalam and Anirudh Sridhar

The philosophy of openness is one that concerns itself with shifting power from centralized authorities of knowledge like owners to the community with its varied components like users, producers or contributors.

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