Centre for Internet and Society

Celebrating the success of Wikipedia in Wikipedia Summit Pune 2013

subha — 2013-04-16T12:48:40Z

Wikipedia Club Pune, a local community based outreach user group in Pune has recently organized Wikipedia Summit Pune 2013 to spread words about “Spoken Wikipedia”, a project to add recorded audio for Indic language Wikipedia articles which will help the disabled to access Wikipedia and “Bridging Editor Gender Gap.”

On January 12 and 13, 2013, I was in Pune to participate in the Wikipedia Summit Pune 2013, a two day event organized by Wikipedia Club Pune to promote Wikipedia as an effective means of education, to empower and reach out to India, to bring the country under a spotlight through Spoken Wikipedia, and to bridge the gender gap of Wikipedia editors. Here is a summary of the activities.

Day 1

On the first day, January 12, more than 100 people including students from almost 10 different schools, housewives, working professionals and free and open source activists participated. The opening ceremony began with talks from Abhishek Suryawanshi, founder member of Wikipedia Club Pune, Sudhanwa Jogelkar, President of Wikimedia India Chapter, Rishi Aacharya, Principal, PAI International Learning Solutions, and social activist Ms. Vibha.

Before the formal opening Abhishek spoke for a while about the Spoken Wikipedia project which is one main agenda of the two days event. He explained about the need of spoken wikipedia, especially for people with disabilities and how effective it would be when it spreads in 20 Indic languages. In the past wikipedians in Pune gathered and recorded articles in various Indian and international languages.

Sudhanwa Jogelkar, President, Wikimedia India Chapter introduced the chapter's role for Wikimedia movement to the audience. He spoke about the chapters' in few of the national events/projects like Wiki Loves Monument, GLAM project in Crafts Museum, Delhi and many other outreach events. There were few announcements about the chapter on the MoU to be signed from the chapter with district collector of Kanyakumari, the India Chapter being partner to Springfest, IIT, Kharagpur, Commons day celebration in February and GNUnify 2013, Pune.

Vibha, a social activist based in Delhi spoke about gender discrimination in many aspects of our social and professional life. Access to knowledge for free could bridge this and Wikipedia, being so known universally and accessed by millions of people every day could be the best platform for this.' says Vibha.

Rishi Aacharya, Principal of PAI International brought the vedic saying "Ya vidya sa vimuktaye" to explain the real meaning of knowledge which is free of its existence in an Indian context. He spoke about open source movement and Wikipedia's part in it.

After the formal opening there was a Q&A session for the participants to clarify various questions they had about Wikipedia. Then they were explained about the three parallel sessions: An Open Discussion about Gender Gap, Workshop for Indic Languages, and Spoken Wikipedia. The session on gender gap was attended by many school students. Vibha and some activists coordinated this event. In the Workshop for Indic languages and Spoken Wikipedia, wikipedians helped participants for the workshop with basic editing and the participants edited Marathi and Hindi Wikipedia. Articles from various medical subjects of common interest were chosen. There were three medical professionals to support with the medical terminologies for editors contributing to Marathi and Hindi Wikipedia.

At the end of the day there were separate wrap up tracks to summarize the learning of whole session. All of the participants gathered together to educate each other about the work they have done. Many of the participants spoke about their experience and learnings. Plans for the next day was announced. Wikipedians gathered for a group photo and socialized after the closing talks.

Day 2

The second day, January 13, of the Wikipedia Summit in Pune was a sequel of the activities which happened on the first day. More than 40 students took part in this session. Vibha, Srishti and team were coordinating the gender gap track. Many topics related to Gender Gap, gender based discrimination, Role of gender gap in occupation, Gender gap in Wikipedia, Participation of Woman editors on Wikipedia were discussed.

One of the participating Wikipedians recording his voice for a Marathi article	Spoken Wikipedia is a project to bring out editors who are willing to contribute to Wikipedia by reading the Wikipedia articles, recording them and the uploading them to WikiCommons. These recorded audio could be used for articles on various Indic Wikipedias and would be really useful for users with disabilities. The first workshop was aimed for contribution for articles related to common diseases. "Those who are blind and unable to read can listen to the articles and get information. This will be beneficial to a lot of people", says Atharva, a school student who has contributed to an article about Rabies on Marathi Wikipedia.

Participants of the Spoken Wikipedia session worked on the articles on Hindi and Marathi Wikipedia and moved them from sandboxes to article namespaces. After all of the articles were created they recorded them. They formed groups of 3-4 members and worked together. One of them would search information mainly from the English Wikipedia articles and some of the available Marathi (or Hindi), some others would translate and the other member would record it using a mobile phone. That was a great team effort.

Over 25 voluntary organizers joined hands for making this a success. There were about 120 participants. At the end of the day participants from both the sessions gathered. Many of the participants and organizers shared their experiences and learnings. The program was concluded with socializing, taking group pictures, promises to stay in touch and taking active part in more Wikipedia activities.

This event was co-hosted by Centre for Internet and Society with a financial support of ₹ 21,600 granted by Kusuma Foundation.

Also see:

Wikipedia Summit Pune: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Summit_Pune
Wikipedia Club Pune: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Club_Pune
Pictures: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikipedia_Summit_Pune
Spoken Wikipedia Project: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Spoken_Wikipedia_-_India
Pune Club facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/groups/WikipediaClubPune

Video

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/celebrating-the-success-of-wikipedia-in-wikipedia-summit-pune-2013

Celebrating the 13th anniversary of Kannada Wikipedia

subha — 2016-05-23T09:08:23Z

The Kannada-language Wikipedia, arguably the largest online encyclopedia in Kannada language, celebrated its 13th anniversary on February 14, 2016 in Mangalore.

To celebrate the journey of the project and the community, Kannada Wikipedians gathered at St. Aloysius College Mangalore, Karnataka. The larger Kannada Wikimedia community including long time Wikipedians and new members like the students, faculty involved in Wikipedia Education Programs gathered, participated in a day long edit-a-thon and chalked out plans for the future. The event is organised by the Kannada Wikimedia community and Dr. Vishwanatha Badikana, Wikipedian and Assistant Professor of Kannada department at St. Aloysius College coordinated the event locally.

117 people gathered in the event out of which 96 were active editors of the Kannada Wikipedia community. Noted Kannada-computing researcher Kinnikambla Padmanabha Rao (widely known as KP Rao) addressed the public event and engaged with the audience about defining Kannada Wikipedia’s role a large role in widening Kannada’s presence on the Internet. The local organisers also took the event participants through a heritage walk in the heritage village of Pilikula Nisarga Dhama, an open library of the rich cultural heritage of Karnataka. The heritage walk resulted in over 300 image uploads on Wikimedia Commons ranging from the life and culture of coastal Karnataka to select rich heritage of the state. 20 new editors also participated in the event and they were oriented on basics of Wikipedia editing and Creative Commons licenses.

Triveni.K, one of the participants who is now pursuing her MSc. at Christ University, explains this event as a great learning platform for even core Wikipedia policies in details apart from many other Wikipedia policies she learnt here. “I’m little occupied for my exams but when it is over, I will be back on Wikipedia”, shares Triveni.

Prior to the event, four edit-a-thons were organised in four different cities of Karnataka. Themes chosen for the cities were Kannada literature in Mysore, Mechanical Engineering in Sagara, Science-related articles in Bangalore and article on notable female of the coastal Karnataka region in Mangalore. Follow up edit-a-thons were organised after the anniversary celebration with the same themes that were there in the previous session for the first three places where the follow up edit-a-thons in St. Aloysius College and St. Agnes College were both on medicinal plants.

The first ever edit on Kannada Wikipedia was made on 12 June 2003 with a message “Kannada Vishwa Koshakke Suswaagatha!” (meaning “Welcome to the Kannada encyclopedia” in Kannada). However it took over a year -- on July 12, 2004 the first article about a city Shimoga was created. Over the last decade Kannada Wikipedia has been a great gamechanger for the Kannada language where the Wikipedians have played a great role in making it a household name -- needless to say that 705,199 unique visitors read the articles every month as per the December 2015 statistics. The annual average of active editors for last year was 48, 91 (February) being the highest and 22 (May) the lowest and 80 being the count in last December. The peaks and valleys also signify that major outreach like Wikipedia Education Program at Christ University Bengaluru could have boosted the total number of editors during the months when the program was being rolled out. The project since its inception has gone through many ups and downs over time, the major one being a small community to edit and curate such a high level task of creating new articles in Kannada, editing and enriching them with more information and citations, and cleaning up many articles. The biggest hurdle, as explained by Wikimedian Hari Prasad Nadig, has been cleaning up the articles created by paid translations of Google when Kannada Wikipedia along with many other Indian language Wikipedias were used as testing grounds for improving Google Translate, a multilingual machine translation tool. Vasanth S.N., a Kannada Wikipedian who has cleaned up over 60 such articles prefers to use an existing good quality encyclopedia like the 14 volume Kannada Vishwakosha, published by Mysore University and relicensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0 by the university, as a resource to create and improve articles.

The 14th anniversary of Kannada Wikipedia was another milestone in the long journey of Kannada language and there are many more to come. More about the event could be read on the event page on Kannada Wikipedia.

Ananth Subray, Programme Associate, CIS-A2K contributed to this blog.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/kannada-wikipedias-13-year-old-journey-of-knowledge-sharing

Celebrating 13 Years of the Kannada-language Wikipedia

subha — 2016-06-18T16:20:37Z

The Kannada-language Wikipedia celebrated its 13th anniversary on February 14 in Mangalore. To celebrate the journey of the project and the community, Kannada Wikipedians gathered at Saint Aloysius College, Mangaluru on May 14.

The article was published in DNA on May 22, 2016.

The larger community including long-time Wikipedians and new members like the students faculty involved in Wikipedia Education Programs gathered to participate in a day long edit-a-thon and chalk out plans for the future. The event was organised by the Kannada Wikimedia community and Dr. Vishwanatha Badikana, Wikipedian and Assistant Professor of Kannada department at St. Aloysius College, who coordinated the event locally.

Prior to the event, four edit-a-thons were organised in four different cities of Karnataka. The local organisers also took the participants through a heritage walk in the village of Pilikula Nisarga Dhama, an open library of the rich cultural heritage of Karnataka. Prior to the event, four edit-a-thons were organised in four different cities of Karnataka. The local organisers also took the participants through a heritage walk in the village of Pilikula Nisarga Dhama, an open library of the rich cultural heritage of Karnataka.

117 people gathered at the event out of which 96 were active editors of the Kannada Wikipedia to celebrate thirteen years of Kannada Wikipedia, arguably the largest online encyclopedia in Kannada language. Noted Kannada-computing researcher Kinnikambla Padmanabha Rao (widely known as KP Rao) addressed the public event and engaged with the audience about defining Kannada Wikipedia’s large role in widening the language’s presence on the internet. The heritage walk resulted in over 300 image uploads on Wikimedia Commons ranging from the life and culture of coastal Karnataka to select rich heritage of the state. 20 new editors also participated in the event and they were oriented on basics of Wikipedia editing and Creative Commons licenses.

Much before the event, preparation was begun to organise four different thematic edit-a-thons; Kannada literature in Mysore, Mechanical Engineering in Sagara, Science-related articles in Bengaluru and article on notable women of the coastal Karnataka region in Mangaluru. Follow up edit-a-thons were organised after the anniversary celebration, based on the same themes in the first three places.

Triveni K, one of the participants who is now pursuing her M.Sc at Christ University, called this event a great learning platform for learning core Wikipedia policies in detail. “I’m little occupied for my exams but when it is over, I will be back on Wikipedia”, shares Triveni.

The first ever edit on Kannada Wikipedia was made on June 12, 2003 with a message saying “Kannada Vishwa Koshakke Suswaagatha!” (meaning ‘Welcome to the Kannada encyclopedia’). However it took over a year, July 12, 2004, before the first article, about a city Shimoga, was created. Over the last decade, Kannada Wikipedia has been a great gamechanger for theKannada language where the Wikipedians have played a great role in making it a household name. 7,05,199 unique visitors read the articles every month as per the December 2015 statistics. The annual average of active editors for last year was 48, 91 (in February) being the highest, 22 (in May) the lowest and 80 being the count in December 2015. The peaks and valleys also signify that major outreach like Wikipedia Education Program at Christ University, Bengaluru could have boosted the total number of editors during the months when the program was being rolled out. The project since its inception has gone through many ups and downs over time, the major one being a small community to edit and curate such a high level task of creating new articles in Kannada, editing and enriching them with more information and citations, and cleaning up many articles. The biggest hurdle, as explained by Wikimedian Hari Prasad Nadig, has been cleaning up the articles created by paid translations of Google when Kannada Wikipedia along with many other Indian language Wikipedias was used as testing ground for improving Google Translate, a multilingual machine translation tool. Vasanth SN, a Kannada Wikipedian who has cleaned up over 60 such articles, prefers to use an existing good quality encyclopedia like the 14 volume Kannada Vishwakosha published by Mysore University and relicensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0 by the university, as a resource to create and improve articles.

The 14th anniversary was another milestone in the journey and there are many more to come. You can read more about it here on Kannada Wikipedia.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/dna-may-22-2016-subhashish-panigrahi-celebrating-13-years-of-kannada-language-wikipedia

Celebrating 5 Years of CIS

praskrishna — 2014-02-25T09:15:58Z

The Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) is celebrating 5 years of its existence with an exhibition showcasing its activities and accomplishments. The exhibition will be held at its offices in Bangalore and Delhi from May 20 to 23, 2013.

Download all the posters exhibited during the recent exhibition here.

As a move to promote transparency, CIS is inviting the general public to be its auditors by throwing open its account books and contracts which show how it has spent the Rs. 13.13 crores received from its donors. The four-day event will see renowned artists like Kiran Subbaiah, Tara Kelton, Navin Thomas and Abhishek Hazra featuring their work and also giving live demonstrations.

Agenda

Open exhibition on all the 4 days from 10.00 a.m. to 8.00 p.m., in Bangalore and Delhi. The evening programmes will be held in Bangalore. Dinner will be served right afterwards.

Evening Programmes

May 20, 2013

18.00 19.00	Why did I buy a set-top box?: What we know, don't know and need to know about Digitalisation — A Talk by Vibodh Parthasarathi Why are we being asked to install set-top boxes? How will this change what we want, and pay for, on TV? Grappling with these questions, the talk will evaluate the rationale of the digital migration in cable currently underway, and the less talked about digital migration being planned for the public broadcaster. These scarcely debated and often contentious issues form the core of a recent Country Report on the Media in India, anchored by the speaker. The India Country Report, the first inter-sectoral and policy oriented study of our electronic media landscape, finds the ongoing digitalisation of cable, the infusion of digital tools in the press and the proposed digital switchover of the public broadcaster, posing varied challenges not only to journalism but to public interest at large. This report is part of a global initiative, Mapping Digital Media, examining opportunities and risks amidst the transitions to a digital media ecology across 50 countries. Video
19.00 19.30	Film Screening on Cyber Cafes of Rural India by Video Volunteers Video Volunteers in partnership with CIS have been documenting the cyber cafes of rural India. Kamini Menon and Christy Raj will do the screening of seven 2-minute films: Cyber Cafe Trends Slowly Changing in Imphal by Achungmei Kamei (Manipur) Transgender Interaction with Cyber Cafes by Christy Raj (Karnataka) Cyber Cafes Prevail Over Mobile Phones in Nagaland by Meribeni Kikon (Nagaland) Mobile Technology Threatens Cyber Cafes in HP by Avdhesh Negi (Himachal Pradesh) Cyber Cafe Visit - A Day's Journey by Saroj Paraste (Madhya Pradesh) The Challenges of Establishing Cyber Cafes by Rohini Pawar (Maharashtra) The Community Service Centre - Myth or Reality? by Neeru Rathod (Gujarat) Video
19.30 20.00	Hindustani Classical Performance by Aditya Dipankar
20.00	Dinner
RSVP: Bernadette Längle (bernadette@cis-india.org), Ph: +91 80 4092 6283 Prasad Krishna (prasad@cis-india.org).

May 21, 2013

18.00 19.00	Screening of Sabaka A young elephant trainer in India vows revenge against the cult that killed his family. He seeks help from the local Maharajah who refuses, and he sets out alone to battle the enemy... Sabaka is a 1954 film produced and directed by Frank Ferrin starring Boris Karloff, Reginald Denny, June Foray, et.al.
19.00 20.00	Slouching towards Tlön: An Encyclopedia for the 2nd century of Indian cinema — A Talk by Lawrence Liang Ashish Rajadhyaksha and Paul Willemen’s Encyclopedia of Indian cinema (1994) marked an important moment for the study of Indian film history. In the two decades since its publication we have seen a rise in the academic community working on Indian film history along with the rise of various new archival initiatives online. Materials that were hitherto unavailable have also made their way into the public domain via the efforts of film historians, cinephiles and other enthusiasts. It is perhaps fitting to think about what a collaborative encyclopedia of Indian cinema for the 21st century may look like. Using Rajadhayksha and Willemen’s Encyclopedia as a base, Lawrence has been working on an online version that incorporates moving images, photographs and archival materials and his presentation will open up questions of how one thinks of an online encyclopedia as well as larger conceptual questions of the relationship between the encyclopedias, the internet and moving image archives. Video
20.00	Dinner
RSVP: Bernadette Längle (bernadette@cis-india.org), Ph: +91 80 4092 6283, Prasad Krishna (prasad@cis-india.org).

May 22, 2013

Cybersecurity, Privacy and Surveillance

18.00 18.30	“The Indian Surveillance State”— A Talk by Maria Xynou The Central Monitoring System confirms that, starting from last month ‘Big Brother’ is a reality in India. But how do authorities get the tech to spy on us? Maria has started investigating surveillance technology companies operating in India. So far, 76 companies have been detected which are producing and selling different types of surveillance gear to Indian law enforcement agencies. Join us to see India´s first investigation of who is aiding our watchers! Video
18.30 19.00	Why Privacy and How? A Talk by Bernadette Langle "But I have nothing to hide!" That's what most people think. Are you sure? What about all the services you use for free, don't you think the service provider has to spend money on that, and that he needs to earn it somehow? Bernadette will show some alternatives and also how easy it can be, to put your messages in a virtual private envelope as you use to do with messages on paper. Video
19.00 19.45	Cyber Security Preview — Presentation by Laird Brown and Purba Sarkar CIS in cooperation with Citizen Lab, Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto, is developing a film project on cyber security in India from a civil society perspective. Laird will show the preview of the project. The preview will include an overview of the project along with a video footage from the first series of interviews. Video
19.45 20.00	Faking of Fingerprints: A Presentation by Bernadette Langle Bernadette will give a brief presentation on how easy it is to fake a fingerprint. Afterwards you can get hands-on. Fake a fingerprint yourself and take it with you to your home. Video Video
20.00	Dinner
RSVP: Bernadette Längle (bernadette@cis-india.org), Ph: +91 80 4092 6283, Prasad Krishna (prasad@cis-india.org).

May 23, 2013

Kannada Language and IT

18.00 18.15	Kannada in Modern Era: A Guest Talk by Dr. Chandrashekhara Kambara Dr. Chandrashekhara will be the chief guest for this session and will give a guest lecture. Video
18.15 19.30	From Palm Leaf to Tablet – Journey of Kannada: A Talk by Dr. U.B. Pavanaja Kannada language which has a history of 2000 years and quite rich in literature started on palm leaves. Kannada advanced with modern times adopting the marvels of Information Technology. This is accomplished by successfully implementing Kannada in various facets of IT. It is being used everywhere from data driven applications to websites to hand held devices like tablets. These aspects will be brought out during the talk. Summary in Kannada: ತಾಳೆಗರಿಯಿಂದ ಟ್ಯಾಬ್ಲೆಟ್ ತನಕ ಕನ್ನಡದ ಪಯಣ ಸುಮಾರು ಎರಡು ಸಾವಿರ ವರ್ಷಗಳ ಭವ್ಯ ಇತಿಹಾಸವಿರುವ ಕನ್ನಡ ಸಾಹಿತ್ಯದ ಉಗಮ ತಾಳೆಗರಿಗಳ ಮೇಲೆ ಆಯಿತು. ಕನ್ನಡ ಭಾಷೆಯು ಆಧುನಿಕ ಮಾಹಿತಿ ತಂತ್ರಜ್ಞಾನದ ಅದ್ಭುತ ಕೊಡುಗೆಗಳನ್ನು ತನ್ನದಾಗಿಸಿಕೊಂಡು ಬೆಳೆಯಿತು. ಮಾಹಿತಿ ತಂತ್ರಜ್ಞಾನದ ಎಲ್ಲ ಅಂಗಗಳಲ್ಲಿ ಕನ್ನಡವನ್ನು ಅಳವಡಿಸಿ ಬಳಸಿಕೊಳ್ಳುವುದರ ಮೂಲಕ ಇದು ಸಾಧ್ಯವಾಯಿತು. ಆನ್ವಯಿಕ ತಂತ್ರಾಂಶವಿರಲಿ, ಪ್ರತಿಸ್ಪಂದನಾತ್ಮಕ ಜಾಲತಾಣವಿರಲಿ, ಕೈಯಲ್ಲಿ ಹಿಡಿದು ಕೆಲಸ ಮಾಡುವ ಟ್ಯಾಬ್ಲೆಟ್ ಇರಲಿ –ಎಲ್ಲ ಕಡೆ ಕನ್ನಡದ ಬಳಕೆ ಆಗುತ್ತಿದೆ. ಈ ಎಲ್ಲ ವಿಷಯಗಳ ಕಡೆ ಒಂದು ಪಕ್ಷಿನೋಟವನ್ನು ಈ ಭಾಷಣದಲ್ಲಿ ನೀಡಲಾಗುವುದು. Video
19.30 20.00	Carnatic Music Performance by Nirmita Narasimhan Video
20.00	Dinner
RSVP: Bernadette Längle (bernadette@cis-india.org), Ph: +91 80 4092 6283 Prasad Krishna (prasad@cis-india.org).

About the Speakers

Vibodh Parthasarathi	Vibodh Parthasarathi works with the Centre for Culture and Media Governance, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi. He is also a Board Member at the Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore. He maintains a multidisciplinary interest in media and development policy, business history of creative industries, and governance of media infrastructure. At the Centre for Culture, Media & Governance, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi, his ongoing research addresses media policy literacy, the TV news industry and the digital switchover in India. He is the co-editor of the critically acclaimed tri-series on Communication Process (Sage).
Lawrence Liang	Lawrence Liang is the Chairman of the Board at the Centre for Internet and Society. He is a graduate of the National Law School. He subsequently pursued his Masters degree in Law and Development at Warwick, on a Chevening Scholarship. His key areas of interest are law, technology and culture, the politics of copyright and he has been working closely with Sarai, New Delhi on a joint research project Intellectual Property and the Knowledge/Culture Commons. A keen follower of the open source movement in software, Lawrence has been working on ways of translating the open source ideas into the cultural domain. He has written extensively on these issues and is the author of The Public is Watching: Sex, Laws and Videotape and A Guide to Open Content Licenses. Lawrence has taught at NLS, the Asian College of Journalism, NALSAR, etc., and is currently working on a Ph.D. on the idea of cinematic justice at Jawaharlal Nehru University.
Maria Xynou	Maria Xynou is a Policy Associate on the Privacy Project at the CIS. She has previously interned with Privacy International and with the Parliament of Greece. Maria holds a Master of Science in Security Studies from the University College London (UCL).
Bernadette Langle	Bernadette Längle recently graduated in social and cultural anthropology, philosophy and computer science. She is also a so-called hacktivist together with one of the oldest hacker associations of the world, the Chaos Computer Club, having a lot of influence in German politics. As one of the core-team organizer of Chaos Communication Congress in Germany she also has a lot of experience in organizing events.
Laird Brown	Laird Brown is a strategic planner and writer. His core competencies are brand analysis, public relations, and resource management. Laird has worked at the United Nations in New York; high-tech ventures in North America, Europe, and India; and, is a guest speaker at ICT conferences internationally. He is currently working on a film project for CIS on cyber security in India with Purba Sarkar.
Purba Sarkar	Purba Sarkar is an associate producer with the cyber security film project. She holds a Bachelor in Technology degree from West Bengal University of Technology. Purba worked as a strategic advisor in the field of SAP Retail for 4 years before joining CIS in January, 2013.
Dr.Chandrashekhara Kambara	Dr. Chandrashekhara Kambara is a prominent poet, playwriter, folklorist, film director in Kannada language. He is also the founder-vice-chancellor of Kannada University in Hampi. He is known for his effective usage of North Karnataka dialect of Kannada language in his plays and poems and is often compared with D.R. Bendre. He has been conferred with many prestigious awards including the Jnanpith Award (the highest literary honour conferred in India) in 2011 for the year 2010, the Sahitya Akademi Award, the Padma Shri by Government of India, Kabir Samman, Kalidas Samman and Pampa Award. After his retirement, Kambara was nominated Member of Karnataka Legislative Council, to which he made significant contributions through his interventions.
Dr. U.B. Pavanaja	Dr U B Pavanaja holds a Master’s degree from Mysore University and Ph.D. from Mumbai University. He was a scientist at the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Mumbai, for about 15 years. He has done advanced research in Taiwan. He resigned from BARC in 1997 and dedicated himself fully for the cause of Computer and Indian languages. He has to his credit many firsts, viz., first Kannada website, first Kannada online magazine, first Indian language (Kannada) website to receive Golden Web Award, first Indian language (Kannada) editor for Palm OS, first Indian language (Kannada) editor for WinCE device (HP Jornado 720), first Indian language version (Kannada) of universally popular Logo (programming language for children) software, etc. His Kannada logo won the Manthan Award for the year 2006. He was a member of the technical advisory committee setup by the Govt. of Karnataka for Standardization of Kannada on Computers (2000). He is also a member of the Kannada Software Committee of Govt. of Karnataka (2008-current).

The Artists

Kiran Subbaiah	Kiran Subbaiah studied sculpture at Santiniketan, MSU Baroda and the RCA London. He was an artist in residence at the Rijksakademie Amsterdam where he worked on art that incorporated informatics and electro-mechanics. He is also known for making videos using custom-built tools that enable him to perform multi-person film-making tasks single-handed. His art is shown extensively in India and abroad. Subbaiah is based in Bangalore and is represented by the Chatterjee and Lal gallery in Mumbai. Kiran will present the Spectator, a robot that can sense the presence of human beings around it. It tries to appreciate them as works of art.
Tara Kelton	Tara Kelton is an artist and designer. She has been living in Brooklyn, USA and Bangalore, India for the last three years. She received her MFA from the Yale School of Art in 2009. Kelton’s video, print, and web-based works investigate moments in which technology alters our perception of the physical world. Kelton has taught at the Srishti School of Art, Design, and Technology and has recently exhibited her work at Vox Populi (USA), Franklin Street Works (USA), GALLERYSKE (Bangalore) and the India Design Forum (Mumbai). Tara will present Trace, a surveillance camera feed drawn in real-time by anonymous online workers.
Navin Thomas	Navin Thomas is a multimedia artist and a professional scrap market junkie, he spends a good quality of his precious time looking for obscure cultural misfits... after destroying most of himself in the 90's, he now spends his time restoring your mother's brother’s tin space toys and other unusual situations.
Abhishek Hazra	Abhishek Hazra approaches his art with a particular emphasis on the study of the historiography of science. He uses videos and prints that often integrate textual fragments drawn from real and fictional scenarios. He has previously exhibited and performed at Science Gallery, Dublin, HEART Herning Museum of Contemporary Art, Denmark, Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art, Oslo, Casino Luxembourg Forum d’art Contemporain, Experiment Marathon Reykjavik, Reykjavik Art Museum and Kunstmuseum Bern. Abhishek was most recently an artist in residence at SymbioticA, the Centre for Excellence in Biological Arts, University of Western Australia, Perth. It was first performed as part of Beam Me Up, curated by Reinhard Storz and Gitanjali Dang, which was acknowledged by Pro Helvetia, New Delhi and German Book Office, New Delhi. Abhishek will be presenting #cloudrumble56 (attempted to re-animate sections of the Indian parliamentary archives — specifically, the transcripts of the scientist M.N. Saha's (1893-1956) interventions — through a performance that was transmitted only through live tweets on Twitter).
Aditya Dipankar	Aditya Dipankar started fiddling with music at the age of 4 when he started learning the tabla and then went on to play it for a long time. Years later, he discovered his strong inclination towards singing. Now, under the noble guidance of Pandit Vijay Sardeshmukh (Senior disciple of Pandit Kumar Gandharva), he is trying to understand the simplicity and spontaneity in the rich tradition of Hindustani classical music.
Nirmita Narasimhan	Nirmita Narasimhan is a Policy Director at CIS and works on accessibility for persons with disabilities. She was awarded the national award for empowerment of persons with disabilities by the President of India and also received the NIVH Excellence Award. Nirmita Narasimhan is a disciple of Dr. Radha Venkatachalam and renowned maestro Prof. T.R. Subramanyam. She began learning music at the age of 5 and went on to complete her Ph.D. in this subject from the Delhi University. Nirmita has been performing since 1995 and received several accolades such as the Sahitya Kala Parishad Scholarship and prizes in several competitions. She received the Gold medal in MA for standing first in the University and also stood first in MPhil. She has released a CD on Ponnayya Pillai compositions and also sung in an album of varnams. Nirmita has performed in different places in India such as Delhi, Chennai, Tirupathi and Bangalore as well as in Singapore and has also given several thematic concerts such as Eka Raga Sandhya and Pallavi concerts.
Sharath Chandra Ram	Sharath Chandra Ram (Sharathchandra Ramakrishnan) has interests in multimodal art, cognitive science, accessibility, digital humanities and network cultures. He is a faculty at the Centre for Experimental Media Arts at the Srishti School of Art Design and Technology. At the Centre for Internet and Society he helped set up and manage activities at the Metaculture Media Lab : an open hackerspace and alternative platform for research and exchange. His writings and musings at CIS maybe found here: http://cis-india.org/author/sharath He graduated from the University of Edinburgh with a degree in Artificial Intelligence specializing in interactive virtual environments. Previously as a Research Associate at the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences he received a special mention award at the International Conference on Consciousness (2012) held at the National Institute of Advanced Studies for his work on ‘Cross modal Integration’. As an amateur radio broadcaster, he is a proponent of the free use of airwaves for relief work, education and transmission art. He has also been a development related radio journalist (PANOS @ Nepal, Voices UNDP@Bangalore), speaker at the International Ham Radio Convention (Port Blair, 2006) and as a film enthusiast has been a Press Reviewer for the Edinburgh International Film Festival.

Locations

Bangalore

Centre for Internet and Society
No. 194, Second 'C' Cross, Domlur,
2nd Stage, Bangalore - 560071,
Karnataka, India
Ph: +91 80 4092 6283
Fax: +91 80 2535 0955

Delhi

Centre for Internet and Society
G 15, Top floor
Behind Hauz Khas, G Block Market
Hauz Khas,
New Delhi 110016
Ph: + 91 011 40503285

Event Brochure

Event Flier

Event Posters/Banners and Videos

Accessibility

National Resource Kit (PDF, PNG)
NVDA E-Speak (PDF, PNG)
International Collaborations (PDF, PNG)
Partners (PDF, PNG)
Publications (PDF, PNG)
Timeline (PDF, PNG)
Inclusive Planet (PDF, PNG)

In the below video Anandhi Viswanathan gives a demo of the National Resource Kit project and Rameshwar Nagar gives a demo of the NVDA and ESpeak (Text-to-Speech) project during the exhibition.

Access to Knowledge

Broadcast Treaty (PDF, PNG)
Copyright (PDF, PNG)
Software Patent 1 (PDF, PNG)
Software Patent 2 (PDF, PNG)
Pervasive Technologies (PDF, PNG)

Access to Knowledge (Wikipedia)

Factsheet (PDF, PNG)
Reaching Out (PDF, PNG)
Outreach (PDF, PNG)
Bridging Gender Gap (PDF, PNG)
Press Coverage (PDF, PNG)
Education Programmes (PDF, PNG)
Team Achievements (PDF, PNG)
Visualization (PDF, PNG)

Openness

Open Access to Scholarly Literature (PDF, PNG)
Open Access to Law (PDF, PNG)
Open Standards (PDF, PNG)
Free/Open Source Software (PDF, PNG)

Internet Governance (Free Speech)

Blocking of Websites (PDF, PNG)
Freedom of Speech (PDF, PNG)
Intermediary Liability (PDF, PNG)
Internet Governance Forum (PDF, PNG)

Internet Governance (Privacy)

Privacy Events (PDF, PNG)
Timeline (PDF, PNG)
UID (1) (PDF, PNG)
UID (2) (PDF, PNG)
DNA (1) (PDF, PNG)
DNA (2) (PDF, PNG)

Telecom

Institutional Framework for Indian Telecommunication (PDF, PNG)
Growth of Telecom Industry in India (PDF, PNG)
Delicensed Spectrum (PDF, PNG)
Spectrum Sharing (PDF, PNG)

RAW Monographs

Archives and Access (PDF, PNG)
Internet, Society and Space in Indian Cities (PDF, PNG)
The Last Cultural Mile (PDF, PNG)
Porn, Law, Video Technology (PDF, PNG)
Re:Wiring Bodies (PDF, PNG)
Community Informatics and Open Government Data (Special Issue) (PDF, PNG)

News and Media

Media Coverage (PDF, PNG)
Organizational Chart (PDF)

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/events/celebrating-5-years-of-cis

CDT Provides Answers to Questions on Internet Neutrality

pranesh — 2012-06-04T05:56:46Z

Pranesh Prakash of CIS asked David Sohn of CDT a few pointed questions on the emerging hot topic of 'Internet neutrality', and received very useful responses. Those questions and Mr. Sohn's responses are documented in this blog post.

As part of the Centre for Democracy and Technology's (CDT's) excellent "Ask CDT" initiative, we were provided the opportunity to clear up some of our doubts around "net neutrality" (which CDT prefers referring to as Internet neutrality rather than network neutrality) by asking an expert: David Sohn, CDT's Senior Policy Counsel. Reproduced below are the questions that I asked (inset and in gray), and David's replies (provided below each question). Some of the questions I asked below were doubts that I had, while some others are instances of donning the roles of devil's advocate. We hope this will be helpful in clarifying doubts that some of the readers of this blog have had as well.

1a. "As far as I can understand, content distribution networks (CDNs) such as Akamai, don't really fall within your understanding of violations of Internet neutrality. Why not? In what cases is 'spending more to get faster speeds' permitted for content hosts? Since not only specialised companies like Akamai, but regular Tier 1 companies like Level3 and AT&T also engage in CDN-like behaviour, does it make it more liable to illicit/underhand/non-transparent service differentiation techniques?"

1a. That's correct, CDNs don't violate either Internet neutrality principles or the FCC's recent rules. I talked about this at some length in a blog post a couple years ago. The short answer is that Internet neutrality does not aim to guarantee that all online content and services will work equally well, but rather to prevent ISPs from exercising "gatekeeper" control with respect to their subscribers. Thus, content providers who have money can purchase various advantages -- for example, more or better servers, upgraded software, or caching services from a CDN such as Akamai. Significantly, things like servers and caching are available from competitive sources; no supplier has gatekeeper control. In contrast, priority treatment on the transmission facilities serving any given Internet user is an advantage that only that user's ISP could provide. Another difference is that when one content provider purchases caching, it doesn't slow anybody else's traffic (indeed, it could speed it up, since it may help reduce overall network congestion). By contrast, when an ISP designates favoured traffic for priority transmission, non-favoured traffic by definition is de-prioritized. Think about a line of "bits" waiting in a router queue -- if you let some bits "cut in line," it inevitably lengthens the wait for those who don't get to cut. Given CDT's general comfort level with CDNs and the existence of competitive offerings in the marketplace, I'm not too concerned about who provides the service (Akamai, Level3, AT&T, etc.). It doesn't seem to be a case of the ISP leveraging its unique control over access to subscribers.

1b. "A large part of the claims of Internet neutrality supporters are founded on the basis of 'dumb networks', which can also be seen as a reformulation of the end-to-end principle. A question arises, which is often posed by the likes of Dave Farber, Bob Kahn and Robert Pepper: why should we stick dogmatically to the end-to-end principle when embedding 'intelligence' in the core is/will soon be a viable option *without* jeopardising the simplicity of the Internet? If you are fine with CDNs, then are you fine with a partial supplanting of the dogmatism of the end-to-end principle (because, after all, CDNs are in a sense, intelligence in the core rather than in the edges)?"

1b. I don't think that supporting Internet neutrality requires a dogmatic opposition to any and all built-in "intelligence" in the network. Certainly a strong case can be made for handling certain network management matters, such as some cyber security issues, at the network level. I get concerned on neutrality grounds not by the mere existence of "intelligence" in the core, but by the use of that intelligence to make judgments and decisions about which applications and services are most important or most in need of special treatment -- as opposed to remaining application-agnositic or, in the alternative, leaving the decision to end users. Intelligence that is put in the service of end users, allowing the users themselves to make judgments about what to prioritize, does not concern me at all. But if the network-level intelligence results in broader reliance on centralized evaluation and categorization of the type or content of Internet communications, and centralized decisions about what to favor or disfavor, then I think it poses a neutrality problem. The bottom line is, the idea that networks could benefit from some built-in intelligence does not argue for giving ISPs unbounded discretion to discriminate among traffic. Indeed, a network that empowered users themselves to determine the relative priority levels of their traffic based on their individual needs would be far "smarter" than on in which ISPs make broad, across-the-board choices.

2. "What is the bright-line rule that separates some IP-based networks that are 'private' (and hence free to do as they please), and others that are part of the 'Internet' (and hence need to follow Internet neutrality)? Where does IPTV fall? (While answering that question, think not only of present-day IPTV, but keep in mind its potential applications.) Where do 'walled gardens' of the WWW fall?"

2. In CDT's view, Internet access service provides a general-purpose ability to send and receive data communications across the Internet. Other services could be exempt from neutrality rules if they serve specific and limited functional purposes and have limited impact on the technical performance of Internet traffic. CDT's comments to the FCC went into considerable detail -- see, for example, the comments we filed in October. The FCC rules took a similar but not identical tack, saying that Internet access services are services that provide the capability to send and receive data "from all or substantially all Internet endpoints" or that provide a functional equivalent of such a service. In any event, the question of how clear the line is between Internet access services that are subject to neutrality rules and other services that are not is an important one that will bear close watching over time. As for IPTV, it offers a specific function -- access to video programming -- rather than general purpose access to the entire Internet. So IPTV can be distinguished from Internet service. As for "walled gardens," it likely would depend how large the garden is. If the garden seeks to offer a wide enough variety of sites that it can be used as a substitute for Internet access, then the FCC could choose to apply neutrality rules. At some point, a garden can become big and general-purpose enough that it is effectively serving as a non-neutral version of an Internet access service. That kind of end-run around neutrality rules shouldn't be allowed.

3a. "Should Internet neutrality be kept at the level of non-enforceable (but still important) enunciation of principles, or should they be enforceable laws? In either case, who has the authority to regulate Internet neutrality, given the non-territoriality of the 'Internet' (and especially keeping in mind the direction that ICANN's been taking with things like the Affirmation of Commitments). Why should the FCC have such powers? Why should any American governmental body have such powers?"

3a. It is important to have some enforceable rules. The FCC enunciated principles back in its 2005 broadband Policy Statement -- but when the agency tried to act after Comcast violated those principles, a court ruled that the FCC had no ability to do so. Enunciated principles are of little value if ISPs are free to violate them without consequence. For U.S. Internet users, I think the FCC is an appropriate agency in which to lodge the authority to police neutrality violations; the FCC has a long history of working to ensure that providers of physical communications infrastructure do not abuse their position. And since the focus is on the provisions of physical communications connections, I don't the the territoriality issue you raise is a major problem. The United States has the authority to establish rules for companies providing last-mile communications links to U.S.-based subscribers. The Internet is of course a global medium, but the endpoint connections have a clear geographic location.

3b. "If Internet neutrality is really about ensuring fair competition (so an ISP doesn't promote one company's content), then why not just allow competition law / anti-trust law to ensure that fair competition? What are the lacunae in global competition laws that necessitate the separate articulation of 'Internet neutrality' principles/rules?"

3b. The ability of antitrust law to protect Internet openness is pretty limited. Absent a clear anticompetitive motive, network operators likely could curtail Internet openness in a variety of ways without running afoul of antitrust law. Antitrust’s prohibition against anticompetitive conduct is a far cry from any kind of affirmative policy to preserve the Internet’s uniquely open network structure. Nor can antitrust law take into account the major non-economic reasons for maintaining an open Internet, such as the impact on independent speech and civic empowerment. Finally, as a practical matter, antitrust cases tend to drag on for many years. Individual innovators and small startup companies – key beneficiaries of Internet openness – are unlikely to be in a position to bring antitrust cases against major network operators.

4a. "One of the strongest arguments of anti-Internet neutrality folks is that adoption of Internet neutrality principles/rules will ensure that it is only the consumers who foot the bill for bandwidth consumption, and bandwidth hogs (like NetFlix) don't ever pay. This, they say, is unfair on consumers. How do you respond to this?"

4a. First, I question the statement that "bandwidth hogs like NetFlix don't ever pay." For starters, NetFlix buys a huge amount of bandwidth connecting its servers to the Internet. Once on the Internet, its traffic is carried onward pursuant to peering agreements between the ISPs and backbone providers. When NetFlix traffic volume grows, it may trigger new payment demands between carriers, as we've seen in the recent dispute between Comcast and Level3. But the bottom line is, nobody is forced to carry any traffic they haven't contractually agreed to handle. Of course, it is true that NetFlix doesn't make payments to (for example) AT&T for delivering NetFlix traffic to AT&T's customers. That might seem unfair if you think of NetFlix as a "bandwidth hog" eating up AT&T's capacity. I believe that is the wrong way to think about it. NetFlix has no ability to forcefeed traffic onto AT&T's network. Every bit it sends was requested by an AT&T subscriber. So if there are "bandwidth hogs" here, they are the end users -- they are the ones that pull all those bits onto AT&T's network. And they have already paid AT&T for the ability to get those bits. I would add that when individual users choose to download huge volumes, I have no problem with the ISP charging them more. Second, you suggest that it may be unfair to ask consumers to foot the full bill for their connectivity. But the Internet is such an open and innovation-friendly platform precisely because it is so user-driven. This user-centric focus could change if ISPs start thinking of themselves as providing services not just to end user subscribers, but also to non-subscribers such as large online content providers to whom the ISPs do not directly provide bandwidth. The ISPs would then have divided loyalties; rather than just focusing on empowering users, they would be collecting fees to steer users in particular directions. Sure, in other contexts there are examples of "two-sided markets" in which end users foot only part of the bill. Newspapers are often cited. But including paid advertising in newspapers doesn't have much impact in how the overall product is perceived or presented to users. In contrast, ISPs charging content providers for special transmission priority would be akin to a newspaper in which advertisers pay not just to place ads, but also to influence where the substantive articles appear -- which ones go on the front page and which on the interior, for example. In turn, content providers of all stripes would need to think about striking deals with multiple ISPs -- something that is not necessary today. In the end, turning the Internet into a two-sided market would make the medium dramatically less open, less innovative, and less empowering of users.

4b. "If a consumer wants a faster connection (to access content faster), she can get that by paying the ISP more and getting more bandwidth. If a business wants a faster connection (to deliver content faster), it can get that by paying the ISP more bandwidth. However, certain kinds of paying for faster delivery of content are sought to be curbed. Where should we draw that line? And Why should we hold on so dearly to a certain model of accounting for costs?"

4b. Consumers and businesses should be able to pay their respective ISPs for more bandwidth. I think that is very different from paying other people's ISPs for preferential treatment. The latter arrangement turns ISPs into gatekeepers with respect to their subscribers -- because once the quality of delivery depends on which content providers have struck a deal with the subscribers' ISP, every content provider needs to negotiate with that ISP in order to keep up with its competitors. We hold on to the Internet's model of accounting for costs because it is part of what makes the Internet such an open, innovative environment: content providers and innovators don't face the hurdle of having to negotiate deals with all their users' ISPs.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/cdt-internet-neutrality

CCI Workshop on Competition Law and Policy

praskrishna — 2016-10-23T01:50:02Z

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/cci-workshop-on-competition-law-and-policy.pdf

CBGA - Consultation on Opening Up Access to Budget Data in India (Delhi, January 27)

sumandro — 2017-01-27T05:45:30Z

Open Budgets India, a comprehensive and user-friendly open data portal to provide free, easy, and timely access to relevant data on budgets, has been developed by the Centre for Budget and Governance Accountability (CBGA) in collaboration with a number of other organisations. CBGA is organising a Consultation on “Opening Up the Access to Budget Data in India” on Friday, January 27, 2017, to launch the beta version of the portal. Sumandro Chattapadhyay will be a speaker in the panel discussion that will follow the launch.

Venue and time: Juniper Hall, India Habitat Centre (IHC), Lodhi Road, New Delhi, 1:30 pm to 5:00 pm

Event details: Link (External)

Event agenda: Download (PDF)

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/news/cbga-consultation-on-opening-up-access-to-budget-data-in-india-delhi-jan-27-2017

CBGA - Consultation on Opening Up Access to Budget Data in India (Delhi, January 27) - Agenda

sumandro — 2017-01-27T05:10:29Z

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/files/cbga-consultation-on-opening-up-access-to-budget-data-in-india-delhi-january-27-agenda

ವಿಕಿಪಿಡಿಯಾಗೆ ಕನ್ನಡ ವಿಶ್ವಕೋಶ

praskrishna — 2014-07-16T11:14:16Z

ಮೈಸೂರು ವಿಶ್ವವಿದ್ಯಾನಿಲಯವು ಇದೀಗ ವಿಕಿಪಿಡಿಯಾದಲ್ಲೂ ಹೆಸರು ಮಾಡುತ್ತಿದೆ. ಹಲವಾರು ವಿದ್ವಾಂಸರ ಅವಿರತ ಶ್ರಮದಿಂದ ರೂಪುಗೊಂಡಿರುವ ವಿಶ್ವಕೋಶಗಳು ವಿಕಿಪಿಡಿಯಾದಲ್ಲಿ ಲಭ್ಯವಾಗುವಂತೆ ಮಾಡುವಲ್ಲಿ ವಿವಿ ಯಶಸ್ವಿಯಾಗಿದೆ.

The article was published in Kannada Prabha on July 15, 2014.

ಮೊದಲ ಹಂತದಲ್ಲಿ ಮೂರು ದಶಕಗಳಷ್ಟು ಹಳೆಯ ಕನ್ನಡ ವಿಶ್ವಕೋಶದ ಆರು ಸಂಪುಟಗಳನ್ನು ಕ್ರಿಯೇಟಿವ್ ಕಾಮನ್ಸ್ ಪರವಾನಗಿಯಡಿ ಗಣಕೀರಣಗೊಳಿಸಿ ವಿಕಿಪಿಡಿಯಾಗೆ ಬಿಡುಗಡೆಗೊಳಿಸಲಾಗಿದೆ. ವಿಶ್ವಕೋಶ ಪರಿವರ್ತನೆ ಯೋಜನೆಯಾದ ಡಿಡಿಠಣಣಛ್ಝಿಡಿ.ಟಣಣಟಣಡ್ಟ್ಠಜ್ಡಟ್ಝಿಢಿಠ ಅನ್ನು ಮಂಗಳವಾರ ಮಾನಸಗಂಗೋತ್ರಿಯ ಕುವೆಂಪು ಕನ್ನಡ ಅಧ್ಯಯನ ಸಂಸ್ಥೆಯ ಬಿ.ಎಂ.ಶ್ರೀ ಭವನದಲ್ಲಿ ಮೈಸೂರು ವಿವಿ ಕುಲಪತಿ ಪ್ರೊ.ಕೆ.ಎಸ್. ರಂಗಪ್ಪ ಲೋಕಾರ್ಪಣೆ ಮಾಡಿದರು. ನಂತರ ಮಾತನಾಡಿದ ಅವರು, ಇತ್ತೀಚಿನ ದಿನಗಳಲ್ಲಿ ತಂತ್ರಜ್ಞಾನದ ವೇಗೆ ಹೆಚ್ಚಾಗಿದೆ. ಮೈಸೂರು ವಿವಿಯಲ್ಲಿ ಉತ್ಕೃಷ್ಟವಾದ ಪ್ರೌಢ ಪ್ರಬಂಧಗಳಿದ್ದು ಅವುಗಳೆಲ್ಲ ಜನರಿಗೆ ತಲುಪಬೇಕೆಂಬ ನಮ್ಮ ಅಭಿಲಾಷೆಗೆ ಪೂರಕವಾಗಿ ಈ ಯೋಜನೆ ಈಡೇರಿದೆ. ನಮ್ಮ ವಿವಿಯಲ್ಲಿ ವಿಶ್ವಕೋಶದ 14 ಸಂಪುಟಗಳಿದ್ದು, ಈಗ 6 ಸಂಪುಟಗಳು ವಿಕಿಪಿಡಿಯಾಗೆ ಮಾರ್ಪಟ್ಟಾಗಿವೆ. ಇನ್ನುಳಿದ ಸಂಪುಟಗಳನ್ನು ಮಾರ್ಪಾಟುಗೊಳಿಸಲಾಗುವುದು. ವಿಷಯ ವಿಶ್ವಕೋಶದ 30 ಸಂಪುಟಗಳಿದ್ದು 5 ಸಂಪುಟಗಳನ್ನು ಮಾರ್ಪಟಿಸಲಾಗಿದೆ. ಬೆರಳ ತುದಿಯಲ್ಲಿ ಬೇಕಾದ ಮಾಹಿತಿ ಲಭ್ಯವಾಗಬೇಕೆಂಬುದು ವಿವಿಯ ಉದ್ದೇಶವಾಗಿದೆ ಎಂದರು.

ವಿಶ್ವಕೋಶ ಪರಿವರ್ತನಾ ಯೋಜನೆಯ ರೂವಾರಿ ಯು.ಬಿ. ಪವನಜ ಮಾತನಾಡಿ, ಕನ್ನಡ ಭಾಷೆ ಉಳಿಯಬೇಕೆಂದರೆ ಹೆಚ್ಚು ಹೆಚ್ಚು ಬಳಸಬೇಕು. ಭಾಷೆಯನ್ನು ತಂತ್ರಜ್ಞಾನಕ್ಕೆ ಅಳವಡಿಸಿದರೆ ನಮ್ಮ ಮುಂದಿನ ಪೀಳಿಗೆ ಬಳಸಿ, ಬೆಳೆಸಿಕೊಂಡು ಹೋಗುತ್ತಾರೆ. ಮಕ್ಕಳಿಗೆ ಓದೋಕೆ ಪಠ್ಯಪುಸ್ತಕಗಳಿವೆ. ಆದರೆ, ಬೇಕಾದ ಮಾಹಿತಿಯನ್ನು ನೀಡಬೇಕೆಂದರೆ ಪುಸ್ತಕದಲ್ಲಿರುವ ವಿಶ್ವಕೋಶವನ್ನು ನೆಚ್ಚಿಕೊಳ್ಳಬೇಕಾಗಿತ್ತು. ಈಗ ವಿಕಿಪಿಡಿಯಾಗೆ ಮಾರ್ಪಡಿಸಿರುವುದರಿಂದ ಜನರಿಗೆ ಹೆಚ್ಚು ಅನುಕೂಲವಾಗಿದೆ ಎಂದರು.

ಮಾಹಿತಿ ತುಂಬಬಹುದು: ಮಾಹಿತಿ ಕಣಜ ಎನಿಸಿರುವ ವಿಕಿಪಿಡಿಯಾದಲ್ಲಿ ಇದುವರೆಗೆ ಪ್ರಪಂಚದ 287 ಭಾಷೆಗಳು ಅಳವಡಿಕೆಯಾಗಿದ್ದು, ಭಾರತದ 20 ಭಾಷೆಗಳಿವೆ. ಮುಕ್ತವಾಗಿ, ಸ್ವತಂತ್ರ ವಿವಿ ಎಂದೆ ಕರೆಯುವ ವಿಕಿಪಿಡಿಯಾದಲ್ಲಿ ಯಾರು ಬೇಕಾದರು ಮಾಹಿತಿ ತುಂಬಬಹುದು. ಆದರೆ, ಕಾಪಿರೈಟ್ ಆಕ್ಟ್‌ನಡಿ ಬರುವ ಲೇಖನಗಳನ್ನು ಬಳಸುವಂತಿಲ್ಲ. ಅದಕ್ಕಾಗಿಯೇ ಕ್ರಿಯೇಟಿವ್ ಕಾಮನ್ಸ್ ಪರಾವನಗಿ ಲಭ್ಯವಿದ್ದು, ಇದರ ಸಹಾಯದಿಂದ ಮಾಹಿತಿ ಒದಗಿಸಬಹುದು ಎಂದರು.

ಸ್ಮರಣಿಕೆ ನೀಡಿ ಗೌರವ: ಇದೇ ವೇಳೆ ಮೈಸೂರು ವಿವಿಯ ವಿಶ್ವಕೋಶವನ್ನು ವಿಕಿಪಿಡಿಯಾಗೆ ಅಳವಡಿಸಲು ಶ್ರಮಿಸಿದ ಬೆಂಗಳೂರಿನ ಕ್ರೈಸ್ತ ವಿವಿಯ ವಿದ್ಯಾರ್ಥಿಗಳಾದ ಕೋಮಲ್, ಗೀತಾ, ಗೌತಮ್, ಪ್ರತಾಪ್, ಭರತ್, ಸ್ಮಿತಾ ಅವರಿಗೆ ಸ್ಮರಣಿಕೆ ನೀಡಿ ಗೌರವಿಸಲಾಯಿತು.

ಕುವೆಂಪು ಕನ್ನಡ ಅಧ್ಯಯನ ಸಂಸ್ಥೆಯ ನಿರ್ದೇಶಕ ಪ್ರೊ.ಆರ್. ರಾಮಕೃಷ್ಣ ಅವರು ಮೈಸೂರು ವಿವಿಯ ವಿಶ್ವಕೋಶದ ಬಗ್ಗೆ ತಿಳಿಸಿದರು. ಮೈವಿವಿ ಯೋಜನೆ, ಉಸ್ತುವಾರಿ ಮತ್ತು ಮೌಲ್ಯಮಾಪನ ಮಂಡಳಿಯ ನಿರ್ದೇಶಕ ಪ್ರೊ.ಎಸ್. ರವಿ, ಕ್ರಿಯೇಟಿವಿ ಕಾಮನ್ಸ್‌ನ ತೇಜಸ್ ಜೈನ್ ಇದ್ದರು.

ಕ್ರಿಯೇಟಿವ್ ಕಾಮನ್ಸ್ ಲೈಸನ್ಸ್ ಬಳಸಿ

ಮೈಸೂರು ಸಾಕಷ್ಟು ಪುಸ್ತಕಗಳಲ್ಲಿ ನಮಗೆ ಬೇಕಾದ ಮಾಹಿತಿ ಇದ್ದರು ಸಹ ಹಂಚಲು ಮುಂದಾದಾಗ ಕಾಡುವ ಕಾಪಿರೈಟ್ ಆಕ್ಟ್ ಭೂತದಂತೆ ಕಾಡುತ್ತದೆ. ಅದರಿಂದ ಹೊರ ಬರಲು ಇರುವ ಪರ್ಯಾಯ ಉಪಾಯವೇ ಕ್ರಿಯೇಟಿವ್ ಕಾಮನ್ಸ್ ಲೈಸನ್ಸ್. ಇದನ್ನು ಪ್ರತಿಯೊಬ್ಬರೂ ಬಳಸಬಹುದಾಗಿದೆ ಎಂದು ಸಂಸ್ಥೆಯ ತೇಜಸ್ ಜೈನ್ ಅಭಿಪ್ರಾಯಪಟ್ಟರು. ಜ್ಞಾನ ಯಾರ ಸ್ವತ್ತೂ ಅಲ್ಲ. ಅದೊಂದು ಮುಕ್ತ ಹಾಗೂ ಸುಲಭದಲ್ಲಿ ಎಲ್ಲರಿಗೂ ಸಿಗುವಂತಾಗಬೇಕು. ಇದಕ್ಕೆ ವೇದಿಕೆಯೊದಗಿಸಿಕೊಡುವ ಅಂತರ್ಜಾಲಕ್ಕೆ ಪರವಾನಗಿ ಎಂಬ ಕೊಂಕು ಕಾಡುತ್ತಿದೆ. ಇದರ ವಿರುದ್ಧ ಎಬೆನ್ ಮೊಗ್ಲೆನ್ ಎಂಬವರು ಚಳವಳಿ ನಡೆಸಿ ಕ್ರಿಯೇಟಿವ್ ಕಾಮನ್ಸ್ ಲೈಸನ್ಸ್ ಎಂಬ ಹೊಸ ಪರಿಕಲ್ಪನೆಯನ್ನು ಹುಟ್ಟುಹಾಕಿದರು. ಇದರಡಿ ಯಾರ ಬೇಕಾದರು ಮಾಹಿತಿ ಬಳಸಬಹುದು ಎಂದರು.

ಏನಿದು ವಿಶ್ವಕೋಶ?

ಜ್ಞಾನದ ವಿವಿಧ ಶಾಖೆಗಳ ವಿವೇಚನೆಯುಳ್ಳ, ಸಾಮಾನ್ಯವಾಗಿ ಬಿಡಿ ಲೇಖನಗಳನ್ನು ಅಕರಾದಿಯಾಗಿ ಒಳಗೊಂಡ ಭಂಡಾರವೇ ವಿಶ್ವಕೋಶ. ಎನ್‌ಸೈಕ್ಲೋಪಿಡಿಯಾ ಬ್ರಿಟಾನಿಕ ಮಾದರಿಯಲ್ಲಿ ಮೈಸೂರು ವಿವಿಯಲ್ಲಿ 1954 ರಲ್ಲಿ ವಿಶ್ವಕೋಶ ರಚಿಸುವ ಪ್ರಯತ್ನ ಆರಂಭವಾಯಿತು. 1968 ರವರೆಗ ಈ ಯೋಜನೆಯು ಸಾಹಿತ್ಯ ಮತ್ತು ಸಂಸ್ಕೃತಿ ಅಭಿವೃದ್ಧಿ ಇಲಾಖೆಯ ಅಧೀನದಲ್ಲಿತ್ತು. ನಾಡೋಜ ಡಾ. ದೇಜಗೌ ಮೈಸೂರು ವಿವಿಯ ಕುಲಪತಿಯಾಗಿದ್ದಾಗ ಯೋಜನೆಯನ್ನು ವಿವಿಯ ವಶಕ್ಕೆ ವಹಿಸಲಾಯಿತು. ಇದುವರೆಗೆ ಒಟ್ಟು ಕನ್ನಡ ವಿಶ್ವಕೋಶದ 14 ಸಂಪುಟಗಳನ್ನು ಹೊರತರಲಾಗಿದ್ದು, 30 ವಿಷಯ ವಿಶ್ವಕೋಶಗಳಿವೆ.

ಇದನ್ನು ಬಳಸುವವರ ಗಮನಕ್ಕೆ

ಯಾವುದೇ ಮಾಹಿತಿ ಪಡೆದರು ಸಹ ಅದರ ಕರ್ತೃವಿನ ಹೆಸರನ್ನು ಪ್ರಕಟಿಸುವುದು
ಕೆಲಸವನ್ನು ಬದಲಾವಣೆ ಮಾಡಿ ಅಥವಾ ಹಾಗೆ ವಿತರಿಸಬಹುದೇ ಎಂಬುದನ್ನು ಗಮನಿಸಬೇಕು
ಕೆಲವು ಸಂದರ್ಭದಲ್ಲಿ ಮಾಹಿತಿಯನ್ನು ಬದಲಾಯಿಸುವ ಅಥವಾ ಪುನರಾವರ್ತಿಸುವ ಸಂದರ್ಭ ಬಂದಲ್ಲಿ ಕ್ರಿಯೇಟಿವ್ ಕಾಮನ್ಸ್ ಲೈಸನ್ಸ್‌ನಡಿ ಮಾಡಬಹುದು

ಬಳಸುವಾಗ ಎದುರಾಗುವ ಸವಾಲುಗಳು

ಇಷ್ಟುದಿನ ಪುಸ್ತಕದಲ್ಲಿ ಮಾಹಿತಿ ದಾಖಲಿಸಿ ವ್ಯಾಪಾರ ಮಾಡುತ್ತಿದ್ದವರಿಗೆ ಆತಂಕ ಕಾಡಬಹುದು
ತಮ್ಮ ಬೌದ್ಧಿಕ ಸ್ವಾಮ್ಯತೆ ಹೋಗುತ್ತೆ ಎಂಬ ಭಯ ಕಾಡಲಿದೆ
ಅಂತರ್ಜಾಲದಲ್ಲಿ ಬಳಸಬೇಕಾದಾಗ ಗಣಕೀಕರಣಕ್ಕೆ ಒಪ್ಪುವ ಭಾಷೆಯನ್ನು ಬಳಸುವುದು
ಹೆಚ್ಚು ಅಂತರ್ಜಾಲವನ್ನು ಬಳಸುವುದರಿಂದ ಗ್ರಂಥಾಲಯಗಳ ಅವಶ್ಯಕತೆ ಬೇಕೆ ಎಂಬ ಪ್ರಶ್ನೆ ಕಾಡಲಿದೆ

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/kannada-prabha-july-15-2014-coverage-of-open-knowledge-day

Catching up on broadband

Shyam Ponappa — 2012-05-10T10:32:27Z

The govt can invest some of the Rs 1,00,000 crore from the spectrum auctions to help India catch up on broadband, says Shyam Ponappa in his latest article published in the Business Standard on July 1, 2010.

When it comes to broadband, India is “notably lagging its peers”, to quote Booz & Co, an international consulting firm.1 Its report recounts our pathetic coverage — less than half the anticipated 20 million — and recommends that both industry and government must act in concert. Spelling out the roles for both, it concludes that we need a national policy to improve fixed-line infrastructure more rapidly than the current market-based approach does, as well as satellite-based communications.

The report recommends this because advanced economies have broadband on widespread fixed-line networks, and many are pursuing strategies to further empower their citizens through state action, as before. The effects are many, but let’s start with examining costs. Figure 1 shows the relative cost of broadband in a sample of countries.

India seems favourably placed with its low purchasing power parity (PPP) cost. However, relative to costs in India, this is about 6 per cent of average monthly gross national income (GNI) per capita, ranked 78th, as shown in Figure 2. In comparison, the first 23 countries — Macao, Israel, Hong Kong, the US, Singapore, etc., Greece and Spain included — have costs below or close to 1 per cent; the next 16 have costs below 2 per cent. As the 39 countries have PPP costs of only 0.25 per cent to twice India’s cost, India’s cost as a percentage of its GNI is six times theirs, i.e. Indian users have to pay relatively more. Increasing GNI, while desirable, is harder, more complex, and will take much longer. By contrast, costs can be reduced quickly by sharing network resources and limiting government collections to a reasonable percentage of revenues, instead of auctions and arbitrary levies.

Broadband leaders

Wired Asian countries like Japan, Hong Kong and South Korea already offer broadband on the next generation of high-speed networks. Singapore’s approach especially should be of interest to India, with policies supporting a blend of public subsidies and private investment, while separating three activities: infrastructure, network operations (wholesale), and user services (retail).2

Two years ago, Singapore set out to create an environment with more open access to downstream operators by separating the building of infrastructure from the running of the network. It drew on the experience of local community networks in countries like Britain, France, the Netherlands and Sweden. Three Singapore companies partnered with Axia Netmedia, a Canadian broadband company, to form a consortium called OpenNet, the infrastructure operator. OpenNet uses one partner’s existing network (SingTel’s) as a base. With a government grant of 750 million Singapore dollars, OpenNet is building an extensive fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) grid to be completed by 2012. The second partner is a subsidiary of Singapore Power, SP Telecommunications, which leverages Singapore Power’s experience in developing infrastructure. The third, Singapore Press Holdings, is a leading media services company.

The network operator, a subsidiary of StarHub (a cable and phone operator), is Nucleus Connect. Residential services at 100 mbps have been announced, to be provided by over 10 retail service operators. While some analysts opine that increased competition may not lead to appreciable cost reduction, Singapore is already ranked fifth-lowest in cost as a percentage of average monthly GNI per capita.

Can India do some catching up?
a) Can India do something similar? Don’t we need to? How?

The answer to the first question is: only if the government decides on a concerted drive.

To the second: yes, to be competitive.

To the third: with a comprehensive, integrated systems approach. It is insufficient if only one or a few ministries and agencies are involved, because the development and execution of solutions require cutting across turf boundaries. The conventional approach of the ongoing Trai consultation followed by recommendations addressed by the DoT is simply inadequate, because their charter is too limited. Many issues concerning commercial and user decisions, particularly of government agencies and the Department of Defence, and radical changes in approach need active participation from these players as well as the private sector for resolution. Examples are Booz & Co’s recommendations of a better fixed-wire network, and satellite communications in the Ka band, or the possibility of exploiting the cable and satellite TV network of around 110 million households. The entire communications network, or at least the backbone, needs to be shared for efficiency, unlike the existing limited tower-sharing. Also, state governments need to be closely involved in issues like Rights of Way and user needs.

b) Governments at the Centre and all states need to facilitate the productivity of their citizens, instead of hamstringing them with taxes, levies, auctions and dysfunctional policies. This is more easily said than done, with our predatory history, fractious coalitions at the Centre and states, and freewheeling, combative state governments. Governments at all levels have to coordinate this problem-solving initiative for all stakeholders, adapting the experience of leading broadband countries, instead of predatory behaviour seeking personal gains. The consultative process needs to agree on goals, and then figure out practical ways to achieve them.

c) With inspired leadership and a constructive approach, half of the over Rs 1,00,000 crore from the 3G and BWA auctions could support a broadband gambit drawing on concepts like Singapore’s public-private partnership, instead of being just a damaging revenue-collection exercise. Again, easier said than done, but with result-oriented, strong leadership to elicit enlightened employee engagement, even MTNL and BSNL could be partners in a core network in a role like SingTel’s. A public-private network-builder can draw on the combined strengths of its participants to provide a platform for a number of private operators. Separating the infrastructure building and operations from wholesale network services and end-user services could make this feasible and practicable.

“Bringing mass broadband to India: Roles for government and industry”, Booz & Co, June 7, 2010: http://www.booz.com/media/uploads/Bringing_Mass_Boadband_To_India.pdf.
“Singapore gets wired for speed”, Sonia Kolesnikov-Jessop, NYT: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/15/technology/15iht-rtechbroad.html?ref=internet.

Read the original in Business Standard

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/catching-broadband

Cancel the Subscription

Subbiah Arunachalam — 2012-05-09T03:44:50Z

It has been a slow but steady move to make scholarship freely available, writes Prof. Arunachalam in an article published by the Indian Express on May 8, 2012.

Most of us spend a few hundred rupees a year on the magazines we buy for leisure reading or for keeping abreast of current affairs. But if you are a scientist, you may be shelling out a few thousand rupees for the journal your professional society publishes for its members. Of course, if you are a serious researcher, you may have to read or refer to many journals, not two or three. And you will depend on your institution’s library for those journals.

Till 20-30 years ago, most academic libraries, at least in the West, did not find it difficult to subscribe to most journals needed by the scientists in their institutions. Then things started changing and journal subscription prices started skyrocketing — some costing $20,000-40,000 — leading to what librarians call the serials crisis. Much of the price rise was caused by commercial publishers, such as Elsevier, Springer and Wiley. These three control most of the 24,000 science, technology and medicine journals and publish more than 40 per cent of all journal articles today. Elsevier reported a profit of 37 per cent of its revenue in 2011 (up from 36 per cent in 2010); the profit of the other two is no less than 30 per cent despite the recession.

A few years ago, academic librarians, even in the US, had to cut down their budgets for books and monographs to keep journal subscriptions going. Early this year, Harvard, reputed to have the richest endowment among universities, announced that it was finding it to difficult to hold on to its subscriptions and requested its faculty to publish their work in “open access journals” which would be free to read and to resign from publications that keep articles behind paywalls. The irony of it all was summed up nicely by Professor Robert Darnton, director of libraries at Harvard: “We faculty do the research, write the papers, referee papers by other researchers, serve on editorial boards, all of it for free, and then we buy back the results of our labour at outrageous prices.”

A few months ago, a Fields Medal winner, mathematician Timothy Gowers of Cambridge, made it publicly known that he had stopped publishing in, refereeing for and being on the editorial boards of journals published by Elsevier. Gowers created a website called The Cost of Knowledge and close to 11,000 scientists from around the world have signed it already, pledging to boycott Elsevier journals.

Cost, however, is only part of the issue. A more serious issue is the exclusive control enjoyed by publishers over how research gets distributed and shared. They demand that authors surrender copyright to the papers they publish and use it to throttle scholarly communication and hinder the progress of science. It is common sense that if we make scholarly information freely available it will reach a larger audience and help advance further research and lead to wider economic benefits.

The boycott had a salutary effect. Elsevier withdrew its lobbying for the rather absurd Research Works Act, which, if passed in the US Congress, would kill public access to federally funded research and reverse the mandate of the National Institutes of Health putting in one go all the 21 million freely available records in the PubMed library into a fee-to-see system.

Long before Gowers’s boycott of Elsevier and Harvard’s request to its faculty, there have been many stellar initiatives to usher in an era of open access to science and scholarship. For example, all seven research councils in the UK have mandated open access to research funded by them. So has the Wellcome Trust, the world’s largest private-sector funder of life science research. Apart from these funder mandates, there are many institutional mandates, including the ones at ICRISAT, Hyderabad, the National Institute of Oceanography, Goa, and the National Institute of Technology, Rourkela. All these developments have been meticulously chronicled by the philosophy professor, Peter Suber, in the US and the technology writer, Richard Poynder, in the UK.

Recently, the British government enlisted the cooperation of Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales to help make all taxpayer-funded academic research in Britain available online to anyone who wants to read or use it. Says David Willetts, minister for universities and science: “Giving people the right to roam freely over publicly funded research will usher in a new era of academic discovery and collaboration, and will put the UK at the very forefront of open research.”

In India, though, there appears to be very little enthusiasm among the leaders of the science establishment. Neither the office of the principal scientific adviser nor the department of science and technology seems to have shown any interest in mandating open access to taxpayer-funded research. The National Knowledge Commission has recommended mandating open access to all publicly funded research, but it is not clear who will implement the recommendation. Right now, it is left to individuals to promote open access in India.

The writer is with the Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore

Read the original article in the Indian Express

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/cancel-the-subscription

Can Wikipedia revive dying Indian languages?

subha — 2016-02-29T14:54:10Z

Yes, by encouraging content and involvement, Wikipedia language communities keep languages relevant.

The article originally published in the Hoot on February 19, 2016 was also mirrored by Pratham Books on February 22, 2016

As the world gets ready to celebrate International Mother Language Day on Feb 21, it is important ask whether Wikipedia, the free, multi-lingual online encyclopaedia that turned 15 last month, can play a role in helping not just to save some Indian languages from irrelevance but to inject new energy into them.

Indian languages that made an early entry to the Wiki-world back in 2002 - Assamese, Malayalam, Odia and Punjabi - are helping scale up the representation of Indian languages on the Internet. More languages started being added after these initial ones. Today, there are 23 South Asian language Wikipedia projects including the 20 languages listed in the 8^th schedule of the Constitution of India.

Many might not have noticed that the “en” in Wikipedia's URL en.wikipedia.org denotes that the language code of English can be replaced with “or” to visit Odia Wikipedia or “kn” for Kannada Wikipedia.

But the Indian language Wikipedias have a long way to go as compared to many other world languages. There lies a huge gap in the access to knowledge on the Internet. Of 1.26 billion people, only about 15-18% are connected online and that too largely from mobile devices.

Most Wikipedia projects in Indian languages are fairly small but are active and playing an important role. For example, the Tamil and Malayalam Wikipedia communities have played a central part in implementing Wikipedia basics learning in the state-run school syllabus along with many other free software and free knowledge projects to help students learn.

Many Indian languages are in the pipeline to become active Wikipedia projects under the scope of Incubator Wikipedia. Maithili Wikipedia and Goan Konkani Wikipedia are two that have gone live in recent years. There are many more to come and it is certain they will help to ensure that languages do not fade or become irrelevant.

Dying Indian languages mapped over map. Source: UNESCO Interactive Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger

According to UNESCO, 197 of a total of 1652 Indian languages are dying. Given that there is more and more encyclopedic content in Indian languages, Wikipedia will definitely save some from extinction by bringing more content in varied subject areas, bringing readers to Wikipedia, and attracting more contributors to bring information online in the respective language.

Two other ways that it help keep them alive is, first, the fact that the media uses freely-licensed content from Wikipedia and refers to citations on Wikipedia and secondly, the fact that more Wikipedia content also means more digital activism. Often languages become extinct because of verbal-only usage. That’s where language digital activism can help to keep going. Hebrew, for instance, has risen like a phoenix for this reason.

Apart from Wikipedia, there are many other sister projects (also known as Wikimedia projects) such as Wiktionary, a multilingual dictionary, Wikisource, a free library, Wikimedia Commons, the world’s largest media repository of freely-licensed multimedia files, and Wikidata, a big data project that connects all the Wikimedia projects.

The English Wikipedia has crossed the 5 million article mark. With a population of over 354 million online users, India still has a long way to go in increasing Indian language content on the web. The Government of India's new campaign Digital India aims at digital literacy and the availability of digital resources/services in Indian languages. This is closely aligned with the Wikimedia movement's goal to provide free access to the sum of all human knowledge.

In addition to Wikipedia, many other open educational resources and free knowledge projects that are not already a part of the Digital India campaign signal the need for the government campaign to be more collaborative and open.

Community-government collaborations like the NROER project to make NCERT books under Creative Commons licences and the IT@School project in Kerala to provide education using free and open tools, have gained massive traction and helped more Indian language content come online.

Many of the Malayalam Wikipedia editors in Kerala have worked with the IT@School project to help school children edit and enhance Wikipedia articles and digitise old public domain text. The Wikipedia Education Programme, a global pedagogic programme running in over 87 countries to use Wikipedia as a tool for academic assignment and assessment, has been able to bring a paradigm shift in several languages such as Arabic and Spanish.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/the-hoot-feburay-19-2016-subhashish-panigrahi-can-wikipedia-revive-dying-indian-languages

Can the twitterati change the world?

praskrishna — 2011-04-01T16:30:10Z

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.

Although the shrinking of public spaces is not the only reason the younger urban population is engaging with cyber space, it has certainly contributed to the shift. The recent historic transformations that have taken place in Egypt and Tunisia show that the digital sphere, which cannot be wholly regulated or shut down, has become the platform for protest.

When a 26-year old university graduate in Tunisia lost his only source of income after the police had confiscated his fruit and vegetable cart, he set himself on fire, setting into motion a nationwide protest which resonated through the internet. People poured into the streets and stood fast until the authoritarian president, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, left the country. "Without the internet, it would be possible for the massacre to happen in silence for us and for the outside world. Five years ago, without Facebook and Twitter, the same uprising would have been smothered, " says an anonymous Tunisian interviewed by @kyrah (Twitter).

In Egypt, as well, technology was harnessed to spread the word across a huge and unprecedented section of the population within a short span of time, engineering the mob gathering we saw in Tahrir Square.

In the vastly different political context of India, digital activism serves the purpose of increasing openness, access and transparency.

Nishant Shah, the Research Director for the Centre for Internet and Society in Bangalore argues that the evolution of digital activism in India in the first decade of the 21st century can be seen through the emphasis on creating open structures of arbitration, justice, policy and jurisdiction. "The effort has been to grant access to the state, its governance and resources to the citizens, " he says.

Initially, digital natives in India were considered programmers or techies who were not just web savvy but technologically aware. For example, Vote Report India, a citizen-driven electionmonitoring platform, was the brainchild of software developers, designers and other professionals. Maesy Angelina, whose research for her MA looked into understanding the involvement of youth in online campaigns in India, argues that the way in which digital natives are perceived has been changed, "Since the Pink Chaddi campaign, a new angle becomes more prominent: one that views digital natives as regular people who have grown up with the internet and are web savvy, but not necessarily techies. "

Campaigns such as Batti Bandh, Justice for Jessica, the 2008 Gateway of India rally after the Mumbai attacks, and most recently the group called "It's my Arunachal, Dream on China, " have leveraged the existing networks on social media websites.

However, digital activism when transplanted into a developing country such as India leverages its own forms of discrimination, excluding sections of the population without the cultural, economic and educational capital to gain access to these spaces. While the medium can be useful in generating public dialogue, it is not enough to sustain a movement if it cannot reach non-internet users. Though technology can be used to organise, these protests must then manifest into public gatherings.

"The digital can help us in re-appropriating and reclaiming the fast disappearing physical spaces of public engagement, gathering and participation in our cities, " says Shah. "The technology is not an alternative, but is embedded in the physical worlds we inhabit and it becomes a powerful tool to fight back and demand the spaces that are central to the imagination of a coherent, responsible and sapient public. "

Fight-Back, an online gender equality campaign launched in 2008, now has about 4, 000 members on its Facebook group, who act as a volunteer database nationally. The group uses its website and social media to create awareness and start a conversation which then translates into events such as their Music for Equality concerts and Women's Day marches. The group's founder, Zubin Driver, 41, argues that digital activism is on the rise in India, "Mobile phone penetration in India is already 700 million. Once internet via mobile phones becomes more common, digital activism will cut across class, caste and geographical boundaries. "

Parmesh Sahani, the founder of the Godrej Culture Lab and the author of Gay Bombay, says that even though the audience for digital activism is restricted to English-speaking, twittering, Facebooking people, congregating online often leads to people coming out on the streets. "There are great opportunities in the intersections between the digital medium and actual physical spaces. The overspill of the Mumbai Gay Pride parade into cafês near the official route goes to show that activism still persists in the peripheries of regulated spaces. "

Though often vilified as armchair activism or slacktivism, digital activism has a role to play in facilitating community building in a changing urban landscape. The new forms of organisation and intervention have the potential to be more inclusive than older modes of social transformation, crossing geographies and communities. "Every medium comes with a promise and possibility of change when it's introduced - television, print, radio, loud speaker, " says Patheja. "The conversations on the internet don't usually end there;the participants of the movement hopefully carry these ideas and beliefs to their other linked communities or spaces. "

However, all new platforms come with pitfalls. "The power of the internet and wireless social networks as tools of dissent is now well established, " says Rajni Bakshi, author of Bazaars, Conversations and Freedom. "What is not so well known is that the future of the internet itself is under threat - not just from dictatorships and repressive regimes, but from an assortment of private, profit-motivated entities. "

Read the original in the Times of India here

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/twitterati-change-world

Can India Trust Its Government on Privacy?

pranesh — 2013-07-15T10:35:33Z

In response to criticisms of the Centralized Monitoring System, India’s new surveillance program, the government could contend that merely having the capability to engage in mass surveillance won’t mean that it will. Officials will argue that they will still abide by the law and will ensure that each instance of interception will be authorized.

Pranesh Prakash's article was published in the New York Times on July 11, 2013.

In fact, they will argue that the program, known as C.M.S., will better safeguard citizens’ privacy: it will cut out the telecommunications companies, which can be sources of privacy leaks; it will ensure that each interception request is tracked and the recorded content duly destroyed within six months as is required under the law; and it will enable quicker interception, which will save more lives. But there are a host of reasons why the citizens of India should be skeptical of those official claims.

Cutting out telecoms will not help protect citizens from electronic snooping since these companies still have the requisite infrastructure to conduct surveillance. As long as the infrastructure exists, telecom employees will misuse it. In a 2010 report, the journalist M.A. Arun noted that “alarmingly, this correspondent also came across several instances of service providers’ employees accessing personal communication of subscribers without authorization.” Some years back, K.K. Paul, a top Delhi Police officer and now the Governor of Meghalaya, drafted a memo in which he noted mobile operators’ complaints that private individuals were misusing police contacts to tap phone calls of “opponents in trade or estranged spouses.”

India does not need to have centralized interception facilities to have centralized tracking of interception requests. To prevent unauthorized access to communications content that has been intercepted, at all points of time, the files should be encrypted using public key infrastructure. Mechanisms also exist to securely allow a chain of custody to be tracked, and to ensure the timely destruction of intercepted material after six months, as required by the law. Such technological means need to be made mandatory to prevent unauthorized access, rather than centralizing all interception capabilities.

At the moment, interception orders are given by the federal Home Secretary of India and by state home secretaries without adequate consideration. Every month at the federal level 7,000 to 9,000 phone taps are authorized or re-authorized. Even if it took just three minutes to evaluate each case, it would take 15 hours each day (without any weekends or holidays) to go through 9,000 requests. The numbers in Indian states could be worse, but one can’t be certain as statistics on surveillance across India are not available. It indicates bureaucratic callousness and indifference toward following the procedure laid down in the Telegraph Act.

In a 1975 case, the Supreme Court held that an “economic emergency” may not amount to a “public emergency.” Yet we find that of the nine central government agencies empowered to conduct interception in India, according to press reports — Central Board of Direct Taxes, Intelligence Bureau, Central Bureau of Investigation, Narcotics Control Bureau, Directorate of Revenue Intelligence, Enforcement Directorate, Research & Analysis Wing, National Investigation Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency — three are exclusively dedicated to economic offenses.

Suspicion of tax evasion cannot legally justify a wiretap, which is why the government said it had believed that Nira Radia, a corporate lobbyist, was a spy when it defended putting a wiretap on her phone in 2008 and 2009. A 2011 report by the cabinet secretary pointed out that economic offenses might not be counted as “public emergencies,” and that the Central Board of Direct Taxes should not be empowered to intercept communications. Yet the tax department continues to be on the list of agencies empowered to conduct interceptions.

India has arrived at a scary juncture, where the multiple departments of the Indian government don’t even trust each other. India’s Department of Information Technology recently complained to the National Security Advisor that the National Technical Research Organization had hacked into National Informatics Center infrastructure and extracted sensitive data connected to various ministries. The National Technical Research Organization denied it had hacked into the servers but said hundreds of e-mail accounts of top government officials were compromised in 2012, including those of “the home secretary, the naval attaché to Tehran, several Indian missions abroad, top investigators of the Central Bureau of Investigation and the armed forces,” The Mint newspaper reported. Such incidents aggravate the fear that the Indian government might not be willing and able to protect the enormous amounts of information it is about to collect through the C.M.S.

Simply put, government entities have engaged in unofficial and illegal surveillance, and the C.M.S. is not likely to change this. In a 2010 article in Outlook, the journalist Saikat Datta described how various central and state intelligence organizations across India are illegally using off-the-air interception devices. “These systems are frequently deployed in Muslim-dominated areas of cities like Delhi, Lucknow and Hyderabad,” Mr. Datta wrote. “The systems, mounted inside cars, are sent on ‘fishing expeditions,’ randomly tuning into conversations of citizens in a bid to track down terrorists.”

The National Technical Research Organization, which is not even on the list of entities authorized to conduct interception, is one of the largest surveillance organizations in India. The Mint reported last year that the organization’s surveillance devices, “contrary to norms, were deployed more often in the national capital than in border areas” and that under new standard operating procedures issued in early 2012, the organization can only intercept signals at the international borders. The organization runs multiple facilities in Mumbai, Bangalore, Delhi, Hyderabad, Lucknow and Kolkata, in which monumental amounts of Internet traffic are captured. In Mumbai, all the traffic passing through the undersea cables there is captured, Mr. Datta found.

In the western state of Gujarat, a recent investigation by Amitabh Pathak, the director general of police, revealed that in a period of less than six months, more than 90,000 requests were made for call detail records, including for the phones of senior police and civil service officers. This high a number could not possibly have been generated from criminal investigations alone. Again, these do not seem to have led to any criminal charges against any of the people whose records were obtained. The information seems to have been collected for purposes other than national security.

India is struggling to keep track of the location of its proliferating interception devices. More than 73,000 devices to intercept mobile phone calls have been imported into India since 2005. In 2011, the federal government asked various state governments, private corporations, the army and intelligence agencies to surrender these to the government, noting that usage of any such equipment for surveillance was illegal. We don’t know how many devices were actually turned in.

These kinds of violations of privacy can have very dangerous consequences. According to the former Intelligence Bureau head in the western state of Gujarat, R.B. Sreekumar, the call records of a mobile number used by Haren Pandya, the former Gujarat home minister, were used to confirm that it was he who had provided secret testimony to the Citizens’ Tribunal, which was conducting an independent investigation of the 2002 sectarian riots in the state. Mr. Pandya was murdered in 2003.

The limited efforts to make India’s intelligence agencies more accountable have gone nowhere. In 2012, the Planning Commission of India formed a group of experts under Justice A.P. Shah, a retired Chief Justice of the Delhi High Court, to look into existing projects of the government and to suggest principles to guide a privacy law in light of international experience. (Centre for Internet and Society, where I work was part of the group). However, the government has yet to introduce a bill to protect citizens’ privacy, even though the governmental and private sector violations of Indian citizens’ privacy is growing at an alarming rate.

In February, after frequent calls by privacy activists and lawyers for greater accountability and parliamentary oversight of intelligence agencies, the Centre for Public Interest Litigation filed a case in the Supreme Court. This would, one hopes, lead to reform.

Citizens must also demand that a strong Privacy Act be enacted. In 1991, the leak of a Central Bureau of Investigation report titled “Tapping of Politicians’ Phones” prompted the rights groups, People’s Union of Civil Liberties to file a writ petition, which eventually led to a Supreme Court of India ruling that recognized the right to privacy of communications for all citizens as part of the fundamental rights of freedom of speech and of life and personal liberty. However, through the 2008 amendments to the Information Technology Act, the IT Rules framed in 2011 and the telecom licenses, the government has greatly weakened the right to privacy as recognized by the Supreme Court. The damage must be undone through a strong privacy law that safeguards the privacy of Indian citizens against both the state and corporations. The law should not only provide legal procedures, but also ensure that the government should not employ technologies that erode legal procedures.

A strong privacy law should provide strong grounds on which to hold the National Security Advisor’s mass surveillance of Indians (over 12.1 billion pieces of intelligence in one month) as unlawful. The law should ensure that Parliament, and Indian citizens, are regularly provided information on the scale of surveillance across India, and the convictions resulting from that surveillance. Individuals whose communications metadata or content is monitored or intercepted should be told about it after the passage of a reasonable amount of time. After all, the data should only be gathered if it is to charge a person of committing a crime. If such charges are not being brought, the person should be told of the incursion into his or her privacy.

The privacy law should ensure that all surveillance follows the following principles: legitimacy (is the surveillance for a legitimate, democratic purpose?), necessity (is this necessary to further that purpose? does a less invasive means exist?), proportionality and harm minimization (is this the minimum level of intrusion into privacy?), specificity (is this surveillance order limited to a specific case?) transparency (is this intrusion into privacy recorded and also eventually revealed to the data subject?), purpose limitation (is the data collected only used for the stated purpose?), and independent oversight (is the surveillance reported to a legislative committee or a privacy commissioner, and are statistics kept on surveillance conducted and criminal prosecution filings?). Constitutional courts such as the Supreme Court of India or the High Courts in the Indian states should make such determinations. Citizens should have a right to civil and criminal remedies for violations of surveillance laws.

Indian citizens should also take greater care of their own privacy and safeguard the security of their communications. The solution is to minimize usage of mobile phones and to use anonymizing technologies and end-to-end encryption while communicating on the Internet. Free and open-source software like OpenPGP can make e-mails secure. Technologies like off-the-record messaging used in apps like ChatSecure and Pidgin chat conversations, TextSecure for text messages, HTTPS Everywhere and Virtual Private Networks can prevent Internet service providers from being able to snoop, and make Internet communications anonymous.

Indian government, and especially our intelligence agencies, violate Indian citizens’ privacy without legal authority on a routine basis. It is time India stops itself from sleepwalking into a surveillance state.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/new-york-times-july-11-2013-can-india-trust-its-government-on-piracy

Calling Out the BSA on Its BS

pranesh — 2011-09-14T18:16:51Z

The Business Software Alliance (BSA) is trying to pull wool over government officials' eyes by equating software piracy with tax losses. Pranesh Prakash points out how that argument lacks cogency, and that tax losses would be better averted if BSA's constituent companies just decided to pay full taxes in India.

In the past we have covered the Business Software Alliance's lack of rigour in their piracy statistics, and disconnect from their constituent members when it comes to opposing free and open source software. In reaction to the criticism they have received over the years, BSA has finally stopped equating lack of sales with losses. But now, they have started equating software piracy with tax losses.

How IDC thinks tax works

In a report prepared by International Data Corporation (IDC) for the Business Software Alliance (BSA), they note:

Substantial value in form of potential industry and tax revenues is lost to software piracy: The situation in India is not healthy with a software piracy rate of 65% in 2009 (more than six out of ten PC software programs installed in 2009 were not paid for). Only one-third of the overall PC software revenues are captured by the industry incumbents and the rest are lost to software piracy. Most of the unlicensed software use occurs in otherwise legal businesses installing the programs on more PCs than allowed by the licenses they have paid for. Consequently, in 2009, the state exchequer tax receipts loss was roughly US$866 million at the current piracy and employment levels, as the industry lost its otherwise legitimate share of revenues to piracy.

For this to be true, there must be two assumptions that are satisfied. First, those who are pirating software must not spend the money that they save by doing so on any other taxable activity. Second, the companies that would get the money if the software weren't pirated must pay the Indian government taxes. As we'll see, neither of these two assumptions are warranted.

The BSA-IDC report reasons as follows: Pirates don't pay taxes on the illegal software that they sell, so that is tax evasion and consequently a tax loss. It states:

Higher demand for legal software will result in higher flow of license volume through the supply chain, resulting in increase in volume of business transactions. Each transaction adds a certain percentage of the deal or value added to the state exchequer's coffers in the form of indirect tax revenue[...] Increase in demand will also result in increased employment. Consequently, revenues from direct taxes will be increased for the government, as employees join newly created high-paying jobs.

How tax actually works

That reasoning is flawed. The majority of software piracy in India happens through two methods: violation of software licence terms by using the software on more computers than it is licensed for; and pre-loading of illegal software by computer sellers. Those 'computer seller' pirates do not sell the software separately, but bundle it with the computer as an additional service. In other words, they don't charge for it in the first place. So, quite clearly, there is no tax evasion.

Despite there being no tax evasion, there is the possibility of tax loss for the state. That would happen when instead of doing taxable activity A with with their money, they do non-taxable activity B. Putting money in special government bonds instead of spending it on software, for instance, is one such instance. However, that is a strange, unwarranted assumption. People don't always put the money that they don't spend on software into government bonds. It is a much more reasonable assumption that people would spend that money on other consumables, like food or other such tangible commodities.

Lastly, there is the unwarranted assumption that increase in demand for legal software increases employment. In fact, it is a much more reasonable assumption that increase in piracy increases employment in case of developing countries. Printing ("DTP") shops use pirated versions of Photoshop, CorelDraw and InDesign, computer education centres use pirated versions of Microsoft Windows, offices use pirated versions of Microsoft Word and Excel. If these didn't teach their employees the use of pirated software, millions of people would lose their jobs. All of these employees pay direct taxes. There is no analysis in the BSA-IDC report that accounts for this, treating all these millions of people as non-existent for purposes of their analysis.

Increasing tax: Make MNC software companies pay full taxes

Thus, there is no real tax loss to the government if the money that would have been spent on commercial software was instead spent on some other commodity. Indeed, there might even be an increase in tax collection because software companies, including leading ones such as Microsoft, are much more likely to avoid taxes than companies that deal in tangible commodities. There are well-known routes of decreasing tax liability for intangible goods such as software. Software companies normally state that they license software instead of selling it (as this suits them on issues such as customs duties), but when it comes to income tax, they try to paint the transaction as a sale of a product. (Microsoft, for instance claims that its earnings in India are 'business income' and not 'royalties' and hence is exempt under the Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement between India and the USA.) A company that deals with tangible commodities has no such 'licensing vs. sale' loop-hole that they can try to exploit. Further, many software companies are located in special economic zones that are "software exporting zones", and hence get large tax deductions.

In India, for instance, Microsoft is resisting payment of income tax for by routing all licensing to distributors in India through a shell company in Singapore and holding that Microsoft India had no income tax liabilities. Microsoft has been fined Rs. 2 crore because it tried to separate the importing of software into India from the (more valuable) granting of licences to customers and pay only nominal customs duties on the former and under-declaring the value of the latter as zero. From nine Microsoft dealers a total of Rs 255 crore was collected as tax. Of the roughly Rs. 4000 crores loss that the BSA-IDC report claims, around 6% is realizable from just a single tax (customs duties) from 9 companies dealing in the products of one company. If we multiply this by all taxes (income tax included) amongst all the dealers of all the constituent companies of BSA, then the Indian government might recover more from taxes than is supposedly lost to piracy!

Elsewhere around the globe, the 'Double Irish' arrangement, the 'Dutch Sandwich' route and other such are used by MNC software companies to evade taxes. Just as there are tax havens, there are some IPR havens that cater to companies selling/licensing software and other such intangible commodities.

If only these software companies were to stop evading taxes in the countries in which they sell software, then the government's tax collections would automatically increase.

Final idiocies, and conclusion

In the BSA-IDC report, they write: "Assessing the relationship between software piracy rates and UN Human Development Index (a measure of average achievements in a country in three basic dimensions of human development) suggests that countries with greater rates of software piracy tend to have lower levels of economic development. This further strengthens the hypothesis that IP rights (IPR) enforcement increases economic activity.".

This is as sensible as saying "countries with greater rates of industrial espionage (such as France, Germany, and USA) tend to have higher levels of economic development" strengthens the hypothesis that industrial espionage increases economic development. While it is empirically true that most countries with greater rates of software piracy have lower levels of economic development, it is equally true that countries with lower levels of economic development (being countries with poorer populations) have more software piracy. It is equally true that software piracy decreases if the cost of software decreases, as shown by the more carefully-conducted analysis in the Media Piracy in Emerging Economies report.

To use greater software piracy and lower economic development as evidence of the causal link between IPR enforcement and economic activity is to betray absolute ignorance about both economics and logic.

The startlingly poor level of analysis of the BSA-IDC report leaves no question that the conclusions were arrived at independently of the analysis. Such misleading analysis is worse than trash: it is downright dangerous as an instrument of policy setting.

To increase tax receipts, the government may as well start by making BSA's constituent companies pay all the taxes they owe.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/calling-out-the-bsa-on-bs