Centre for Internet and Society

Access to Knowledge Bulletin — July 2014

praskrishna — 2014-10-04T14:46:22Z

The Access to Knowledge (Wikipedia) newsletter for the month of July 2014:

University of Mysore Re-releases Kannada Vishwakosha (Encyclopaedia) under Creative Commons Free License

The University of Mysore and the Centre for Internet and Society co-organized the Open Knowledge Day in Mysore on July 15, 2014. On this occasion Mysore University released six volumes of Kannada Vishwakosha under the Creative Commons (CC) license. Kannada Vishwakosha brought out by the University of Mysore can easily be termed as the best encyclopaedia in Kannada. It has been modelled after the famous Britannica encyclopaedia. Mysore University Vishwakosha has 14 volumes having a total of 13802 pages. The very first volume was brought out in the year 1969 and the final volume was released in 2004. Many famous Kannada authors, scientists, academicians and stalwarts from other fields have worked on creating this encyclopaedia.

Leading English and Kannada dailies like Andolana Kannada, City Today, Deccan Herald, Hosa Diganta, Kannada Jana Mana, Kannada Prabha, Rajya Dharma, Samyukta Karnataka, The Hindu, The New Indian Express, Udayavani, Vijaya Karnataka, and Vijaya Vani published about this. Scanned versions of the published articles can be downloaded here.

Announcement

Our grant application to the Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC) of the Wikimedia Foundation was approved by its board which met in Frankfurt from May 21 to 24, 2014. CIS had requested a grant of Rs. 18,406,454 and were awarded Rs. 12,000,000 for the next one year.

Articles / Blog Entries

Aircel & Wikimedia Foundation announce Wikipedia Zero (by Dr. U.B.Pavanaja, Prajavani, July 3, 2014). As per this, users of Aircel need not pay for data for accessing Wikipedia.
ଇଣ୍ଟରନେଟରେ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଅକ୍ଷରସଜ୍ଜା (by Subhashish Panigrahi, Samaja, July 4, 2014).
State of Odia Language in Computing and Future Steps (by Subhashish Panigrahi, Sovereign for national Level Seminar on "Computer Application and Odia Language", July 7, 2014).
ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଭାଷା ବିକାଶର ରାସ୍ତା (by Subhashish Panigrahi, The Sambad, July 23, 2014).
Wiki Loves Pride 2014 and Adding Diversity to Wikipedia (by Dorothy Howard, Wikimedia Blog, July 25, 2014).
Doctors and Translators Are Working Together to Bridge Wikipedia's Medical Language Gap (by Subhashish Panigrahi, Global Voices, July 27, 2014). This was re-published on the Wikimedia Blog, July 30, 2014.
Classical Odia Language in the Digital Age (by Subhashish Panigrahi, Odisha Review, posted on July 28, 2014). The essay was published in the magazine’s June edition.

Event Organized

Open Knowledge Day (co-organized by Mysore University and CIS-A2K, Kuvempu Institute of Kannada Studies, University of Mysore, July 15, 2014). The event coincided with the Open Knowledge Festival in Berlin from July 15 to 17. Dr. U.B.Pavanaja conducted the event.
Wikipedia orientation for Christ University UG students, Bangalore

Participation in Events

National Level Seminar on Computer Application and Odia Language (organized by Institute of Odia Studies and Research, July 6, 2014). Subhashish Panigrahi was a panelist.
Open Knowledge Festival 2014 (organized by Google, Omidyar, et.al., Berlin, July 15 – 17, 2014). Subhashish Panigrahi represented India as the India Ambassador of OpenGLAM local and made a presentation.
# NAMA: The Future of Indic Languages (organized by Medianama, The Oberoi Hotel, Bangalore, July 24, 2014). Subhashish Panigrahi participated in the event.
Kannada Wikipedia Presentation for Kannada Science Writers (organized by Karnataka Rajya Vijnana Parishath at PDA College of Engineering, Gulbarga, July 29, 2014). Dr. U.B. Pavanaja gave the presentation and demo. Thirty-two participants attended the workshop.
Kannada Wikipedia Presentation for Students and Research Scholars (organized by Central University of Karnataka, Gulbarga, July 30, 2014). Dr. U. B. Pavanaja gave the presentation and demo. 37 participants attended the presentation.
Talk about Kannada Wikipedia (organized by District Kannada Sahithya Parishath, S.M. Pandit Auditorium, Gulbarga, July 30, 2014). Dr. U.B. Pavanaja gave a talk as inaugurator of the first session of the Jilla Sahithya Sammelana (district literary festival). About 600 people attended this talk.

News and Media Coverage

CIS-A2K team gave its inputs to the following media coverage:

Wikipedia edit-a-thons to add content on LGBTs (by Renuka Phadnis, The Hindu, July 7, 2014).
Font problem hits Odia (by Bibhuti Barik, The Telegraph, July 7, 2014).
Four volumes of Kannada Encyclopaedia digitised (by R. Krishna Kumar, The Hindu, July 12, 2014).
‘ಕನ್ನಡ ವಿಶ್ವಕೋಶ’ಕ್ಕೆ ಇನ್ನು ಲೈಸೆನ್ಸ್ ಹಂಗಿಲ್ಲ (Prajavani, July 14, 2014).
Soon, all 14 volumes of Kannada encyclopaedia to be online (by R. Krishna Kumar, The Hindu, July 15, 2014).
ವಿಕಿಪಿಡಿಯಾಗೆ ಕನ್ನಡ ವಿಶ್ವಕೋಶ (Kannada Prabha, July 15, 2014).
ಕನ್ನಡ ವಿಶ್ವಕೋಶದ ಆರು ಸಂಪುಟ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯಾಗೆ (Udayavani, July 15, 2014).
ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯಾದಲ್ಲಿ kannada ವಿಶ್ವಕೋಶ : ಈಗ ಆನ್ ಲೈನ್ ನಲ್ಲಿ 6 ಸಂಪುಟಗಳು ಮುಕ್ತ…ಮುಕ್ತ……(Just Kannada, July 15, 2014).
Six Kannada encyclopaedias released (Webindia 123, July 15, 2014).
150 Rare Books Get New Lease of Life Online, Courtesy Students (by Anila Backer, New Indian Express, July 15, 2014).
Open Access: Students help revive and digitize rare books for Malayalam Wiki Library (Spicy IP, July 15, 2014).
'Trolled' from US Congress, Wikipedia bans edits (by Narayan Lakshman, The Hindu, July 25, 2014).
Telugu Wikipedia struggles to stay afloat (by Renuka Phadnis, The Hindu, July 27, 2014).
The joys of being a Wikipedian (by Svetlana Lasrado, New Indian Express, July 29, 2014).
Kannada Wikipedia Presentation (Vijayavani, July 30, 2014).
Kannada Wikipedia Presentation for Kannada Science Writers (Prajavani, July 31, 2014).

Wikimedia Foundation has funded A2K to anchor the growth of Wikimedia movement in India. The A2K team consists of six members, four based in Bangalore: T. Vishnu Vardhan, Dr. U.B. Pavanaja, Subhashish Panigrahi and Rahmanuddin Shaikh. One team member Nitika Tandon is based in Delhi. We also have one Advisor Dr. Tejaswini Niranjana working with us. Archives of our newsletters can be accessed here. Wikipedians from various communities can request for outreach programs, technical bugs, logistics-merchandize and media, public relations and communications here.

About CIS

The Centre for Internet and Society is a non-profit research organization that works on policy issues relating to freedom of expression, privacy, accessibility for persons with disabilities, access to knowledge and IPR reform, and openness (including open government, FOSS, open standards, etc.), and engages in academic research on digital natives and digital humanities.

Follow us elsewhere

Twitter: https://twitter.com/CISA2K
CIS group on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/cis.india
Visit us at: https://cis-india.org

Request for Collaboration:

We invite researchers, practitioners, and theoreticians, both organisationally and as individuals, to collaboratively engage with Internet and society and improve our understanding of this new field. To discuss the research collaborations, write to Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, at sunil@cis-india.org or Nishant Shah, Director – Research, at nishant@cis-india.org. To discuss collaborations on Indic language wikipedia, write to T. Vishnu Vardhan, Programme Director, A2K, at vishnu@cis-india.org.

CIS is grateful to its primary donor the Kusuma Trust founded by Anurag Dikshit and Soma Pujari, philanthropists of Indian origin for its core funding and support for most of its projects. CIS is also grateful to its other donors, Wikimedia Foundation, Ford Foundation, Privacy International, UK, Hans Foundation, MacArthur Foundation, and IDRC for funding its various projects.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/access-to-knowledge-bulletin-july-2014

Access to Knowledge Bulletin — January 2014

praskrishna — 2014-07-04T05:55:18Z

The Access to Knowledge (Wikipedia) newsletter for the month of January 2014:

We from the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS-A2K) thank you all for your support and collaboration and wish you a very Happy New Year. We bring you the details of our work for the month of January 2014:

CIS-A2K, KIIT University and Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences sign MoUs
KIIT University, Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences and the Centre for Internet and Society's Access to Knowledge team (CIS-A2K) have entered into a memorandum of understanding (MoUs) for furthering Odia Wikipedia. Dr.Achyuta Samanta, Founder-Chairman of KIIT and KISS inaugurated both the collaborations formally. Dr. Sasmitarani Samanta, Registrar, KIIT and Surjya Kanta Mohanty, Chief Operating Officer, KISS signed the MoUs of KIIT and KISS respectively whereas T. Vishnuvardhan, Programme Director, CIS-A2K was there to sign in both the MoUs on behalf of CIS along with Subhashish Panigrahi, Programme Officer, CIS-A2K: http://bit.ly/1j1qtFv.

Article

Odia Wikipedia: Three Years of Active Contributions Gives Life to a Ten Year Old Project (by Subhashish Panigrahi, HASTAC, January 31, 2014): http://bit.ly/1jvxD8r.
WikiSangamotsavam 2013 brings Indian Wikimedians together (by Netha Hussain and Subhashish Panigrahi, DNA, January 14, 2014). The article was edited by Rohini Lakshane: http://bit.ly/1jvynKP.

Blog Entries

Wikipedia Editing as Assessment Tool in the Indian Higher Education Classroom (by Dr. Tejaswini Niranjana, Ashwin Kumar A.P. and T. Vishnu Vardhan, January 30, 2014): http://bit.ly/1m5QHMD.
Wikipedia at Forefront in Christ University (by Syed Muzamiluddin, January 29, 2014): http://bit.ly/LTFA8E.

Events Organised

Odia WikiMeetup (Bhubaneswar, January 11, 2014): http://bit.ly/NBkFJi.
Introductory talk about "Wikipedia in Academics" (KIIT School of Technology, Bhubaneswar, January 12, 2014): http://bit.ly/1j1yv1f.
Wikipedia Editing Demonstration at NIE (Nirmala Institue of Education, Goa, January 15, 2014): http://bit.ly/1fmYkKK
Odia Wikipedia's 10th anniversary @ KISS (Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences, Bhubaneswar, January 28, 2014): http://bit.ly/1gsqkJC.
Odia Wikipedia 10th anniversary (Indian Institute of Mass Communication, Dhenkanal, January 29, 2014): http://bit.ly/1dGRBoy.

Event Participated In

The Dynamics of Education to Employment Journey: Opportunities and Challenges (organized by KIIT School of Management, KIIT University, Bhubaneswar, February 21-22, 2014). T. Vishnu Vardhan gave a talk: http://bit.ly/1ePwqHc.

Media Coverage

CIS gave its inputs for the following media coverage:

Digitising contest to preserve rare books in Malayalam (The Hindu, January 4, 2014): http://bit.ly/NBtVgz.
‘With Internet in every pocket, power to the people’ (by Shubhadeep Chaudhury, The Tribune, January 12, 2014): http://bit.ly/1ojb1IZ. Shubhadeep interviews T. Vishnu Vardhan on internet and social media.
ଆଦିବାସୀ ଭାଷାର ଉନ୍ନତିକଳ୍ପେ ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆ (Odishan.com, January 12, 2014): http://bit.ly/1kAWJmG.
KIIT University to lead building free knowledge repository initiative (India Education Diary.com, January 20, 2014): http://bit.ly/1j1Rzwk.
Odisha: KISS to create tribal languages and heritage repository (Odisha Diary Bureau, January 20, 2014): http://bit.ly/1bLBhmB.
FDC recognition for the Centre for the Internet and Society (Wikimedia Foundation, January 30, 2014): http://bit.ly/1fYdxOz. Wikimedia Foundation published a resolution declaring CIS eligible for funding through the Annual Plan Grants program.
Tech-savvy students given tips to enter IT field (The Times of India, January 31, 2014): http://bit.ly/1j1QvIX.
Odia Wikipedia (Sanchar, January 31, 2014): http://bit.ly/1ePwAON.

Wikimedia Foundation has funded A2K to anchor the growth of Wikimedia movement in India. The A2K team consists of six members, four based in Bangalore: T. Vishnu Vardhan, Dr. U.B. Pavanaja, Subhashish Panigrahi and Muzammiluddin Syed, one member Nitika Tandon in Delhi and one Advisor Dr. Tejaswini Niranjana. Archives of our newsletters can be accessed here (http://cis-india.org/about/newsletters). Wikipedians from various communities can request for outreach programs, technical bugs, logistics-merchandize and media, public relations and communications at http://bit.ly/TOcXId.

About CIS
The Centre for Internet and Society is a non-profit research organization that works on policy issues relating to freedom of expression, privacy, accessibility for persons with disabilities, access to knowledge and IPR reform, and openness (including open government, FOSS, open standards, etc.), and engages in academic research on digital natives and digital humanities.

Twitter: https://twitter.com/CISA2K
CIS group on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/cis.india
Visit us at: https://cis-india.org

Support Us
Please help us defend consumer / citizen rights on the Internet! Write a cheque in favour of ‘The Centre for Internet and Society’ and mail it to us at No. 194, 2nd ‘C’ Cross, Domlur, 2nd Stage, Bengaluru – 5600 71.

Request for Collaboration:
We invite researchers, practitioners, and theoreticians, both organisationally and as individuals, to collaboratively engage with Internet and society and improve our understanding of this new field. To discuss the research collaborations, write to Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, at sunil@cis-india.org or Nishant Shah, Director – Research, at nishant@cis-india.org. To discuss collaborations on Indic language wikipedia, write to T. Vishnu Vardhan, Programme Director, A2K, at vishnu@cis-india.org

CIS is grateful to its donors, Wikimedia Foundation, Ford Foundation, Privacy International, UK, Hans Foundation and the Kusuma Trust which was founded by Anurag Dikshit and Soma Pujari, philanthropists of Indian origin, for its core funding and support for most of its projects.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/access-to-knowledge-bulletin-january-2014

Access to Knowledge Bulletin — August 2014

praskrishna — 2014-10-04T15:51:15Z

The Access to Knowledge (Wikipedia) newsletter for the month of August 2014:

India Access to Knowledge/Newsletter/August 2014 - Meta

Andhra Loyola College and the Centre for Internet & Society sign MoU for Better Net Access

Andhra Loyola College (ALC) and the Centre for Internet and Society's Access to Knowledge team (CIS-A2K) have entered into a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to steward the growth of Telugu Wikipedia and to make available free knowledge in Telugu to all Telugus across the globe.
Highlights

Ten theosophical books authored by Rev. Fr. P. Jojaiah, SJ released under free license (CC-BY-SA-4.0)
For the first time an educational institution in the state of Andhra Pradesh is signing an MoU with CIS-A2K to work collaboratively to qualitatively improve Telugu Wikipedia.
ALC faculty and students to create free e-content in Telugu on Telugu Wikipedia.
Digital content from the fields of Botany, Physics, Chemistry, Telugu, Statistics, Ethics and Religion, Music and Dance to be produced on Telugu Wikipedia.

Blog Entries

We are Wikipedia (by Subhashish Panigrahi, Global Voices Online, June 18, 2014)
OpenGLAM at Wikimania 2014 (by Subhashish Panigrahi, OpenGlam, August 27, 2014)

News and Media Coverage

CIS-A2K team gave its inputs to the following media coverage:

Now, Christ students will contribute to Wikipedia (by H.M.Shruthi, Deccan Herald, August 5, 2014).
CIS-A2K Signs MoU with Andhra Loyola College in Vijayawada (Eenadu, August 15, 2014).
ALC signs MoU for better net access (The Hindu, August 15, 2014).

Wikimedia Foundation has funded A2K to anchor the growth of Wikimedia movement in India. The A2K team consists of six members, four based in Bangalore: T. Vishnu Vardhan, Dr. U.B. Pavanaja, Subhashish Panigrahi and Rahmanuddin Shaikh. One team member Nitika Tandon has left from the organisation -- We wish Nitika all the best for her career. We also have one Advisor Dr. Tejaswini Niranjana working with us. Archives of our newsletters can be accessed here. Wikipedians from various communities can request for outreach programs, technical bugs, logistics-merchandize and media, public relations and communications here.

About CIS

Follow us elsewhere

Twitter: https://twitter.com/CISA2K
CIS group on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/cis.india
Visit us at: https://cis-india.org

Request for Collaboration:

Retrieved from "http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=India_Access_to_Knowledge/Newsletter/August_2014&oldid=9929126"

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/access-to-knowledge-bulletin-august-2014

Access to Knowledge Bulletin — August 2013

praskrishna — 2013-10-04T10:49:51Z

The Access to Knowledge (Wikipedia) newsletter for the month of August 2013:

Updates from Konkani Wikipedia

The CIS-A2K programme organised a four-day workshop in collaboration with the Goa University for students of M.A. (Konkani) at the Central State Library, Konkani Department, University of Goa from August 21 to 24, 2013. Nitika Tandon and Subhashish Panigrahi conducted this workshop. The event saw 38 students creating 43 new articles on Konkani Wikipedia, which is incubation. The main objective is to bring this seven-year-old project out of incubation into a live Wikipedia project. Event reports, blog entries, videos, guest column and media coverage arising from the workshop can be accessed by clicking on the links below:

Event Reports

Konkani Wikipedia — Climbing up the Indian Language Ladder? (by Subhashish Panigrahi, August 31, 2013):
Konkani Wikipedia Advances in 4 Days — From 90 Articles to 130 Articles! (by Nitika Tandon, August 31, 2013):

Guest Columns

Konkani Wikipedia climbing up the Indian language ladder (by Subhashish Panigrahi, DNA, September 6, 2013).
Recap on Konkani Wikipedia Workshop (by Subhashish Panigrahi, Startup Goa Blog, September 9, 2013).

Media Coverage

Wikipedia writes a new script (by Joyce Dias, August 24, 2013, The Goan). CIS-A2K workshop held in Goa is mentioned extensively. Nitika Tandon and Subhashish Panigrahi are quoted.
Konkani Wikipedia makes headway (by Diana Fernandes, OHeraldO, August 24, 2013). Nitika Tandon is quoted.
Konkani Wikipedians Speak (Goan Voice Daily Newsletter, September 4, 2013). Konkani Wikipedia workshop organized in Goa from August 21 to 24, 2013 is mentioned in this newsletter.

Blog Entries

Voices from Goa: Frania Pereira tells Why She Writes Articles on Konkani Wikipedia (by Subhashish Panigrahi, August 27, 2013).
Voices from Goa: Wikipedia Editor Rusita Paryekar (by Subhashish Panigrahi, August 27, 2013)

Other Wikipedia Updates

Event Reports

A Kannada Wikipedia Workshop at Krishnarajapet (by Dr. U.B. Pavanaja, August 14, 2013). The workshop was co-organized by the CIS-A2K team along with Kannada Sahitya Parishat of KR Pet.
Wikimania 2013: Wikipedians represent Indian Languages in Hong Kong (by Subhashish Panigrahi, August 19, 2013). The event was organised by Wikimedia Foundation. Subhashish participated in the event.
An Odia Wikipedia Workshop at Sambalpur (by Gorvachove Pothal, August 27, 2013). This workshop was held at Veer Surendra Sai University of Technology, Burla, Sambalpur on July 26 and 27, 2013. Odia Wikipedian Gorvachove Pothal organized this workshop with financial support from the CIS-A2K programme.

Events Co-organised

Digitization of Books for Indic Language WikiSource (co-organised by Wikimedia India and CIS-A2K, CIS, Bangalore, August 18, 2013).
A Workshop on Editing Wikipedia in Mumbai (organised by the Centre for Indian Languages in Higher Education and CIS-A2K, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, August 24, 2013). The workshop was aimed at assisting students to take part in the Indian Languages Mela at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (September 20-21, 2013) which is hosting a competition for best Indian language entries on Wikipedia.

Event Organised

Mobile Training Workshop @ CIS (CIS, Bangalore, August 29, 2013). Rachita and Keerthana Chandrashekar gave a talk on mobile campaigns.
Wikipedia Training in Telugu for Dr. B.R. Ambedkar Open University, Hyderabad (Dr. B.R. Ambedkar Open University, Hyderabad, September 5-6, 2013). T. Vishnu Vardhan taught a module on "Knowledge and Openness in the Digital Era".

Events Participated

Wikimania 2013: The International Wikimedia Conference (organised by Wikimedia Foundation, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, August 7 – 11, 2013). T. Vishnu Vardhan and Subhashish Panigrahi participated in the event.
Wikimedia Asia Meeting (organised by Wikimedia community, Hong Kong, August 10, 2013). T. Vishnu Vardhan and Subhashish Panigrahi participated in the meeting. Unedited transcript of the entire conversation is posted online.
వికీపీడియా:సమావేశం/హైదరాబాద్/ఆగష్టు (Hyderabad, August 25, 2013). T.Vishnu Vardhan participated in the meeting through Skype.

Media Coverage

Wikipedia Gains Massive Traffic Thanks To Vernacular Languages (Before It’s News, August 1, 2013). T. Vishnu Vardhan is quoted.
Wikipedia boom in Marathi, Malayalam and other desi languages (by Sandhya Soman, The Times of India, August 1, 2013). T. Vishnu Vardhan is quoted.
Wikipedia boom in vernacular languages (by Divya Saboo, DNA, August 1, 2013). The Centre for Internet and Society is mentioned.
Stress on posting articles on Kannada Wikipedia (by R. Krishna Kumar, Hindu, August 2, 2013). Dr. U.B.Pavanaja is quoted.
India’s Indigenous Languages Drive Wikipedia’s Growth (by Mahesh Sharma, TechCrunch, August 6, 2013). T. Vishnu Vardhan is quoted.
Krishnarajapet Wikipedia Workshop Coverage (Prajavani, August 12, 2013).
Krishnarajapet Wikipedia Workshop Coverage (Vijaya Vani, August 12, 2013).
Krishnarajapet Wikipedia Workshop Coverage (Suvarna Times of Karnataka, August 12, 2013).

Other guest columns:

ଅବସର ପରର ଦ୍ବିତୀୟ ଜୀବନ, ଅବସର ପରେ ସକ୍ରିୟ ଭାବେ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆରେ ଲେଖାଲେଖି ଜାରୀ ରଖିଥିବା ଜଣେ ଡାକ୍ତରଙ୍କ ସ‌ହ ଭାବାଲୋଚନା (by Subhashish Panigrahi, Odiapua, September 10, 2013).

Ongoing / Upcoming Events

Digital Resources in Telugu: A Workshop for Research Scholars (co-organised by the Department of Cultural Studies, English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad and CIS-A2K, September 13, 2013).
Train the Trainer — Four-day long Residential Training Workshop in Bangalore (organised by CIS-A2K, Bangalore, October 1 – 5, 2013). The programme will be held in the first week of October.

Wikimedia Foundation has funded A2K to anchor the growth of Wikimedia movement in India. The A2K team consists of three members based in Bangalore: T. Vishnu Vardhan, Dr. U.B. Pavanaja and Subhashish Panigrahi and one member Nitika Tandon in Delhi.

Archives of our newsletters can be accessed here (http://cis-india.org/about/newsletters). Wikipedians from various communities can request for outreach programs, technical bugs, logistics-merchandize and media, public relations and communications at http://bit.ly/TOcXId.

About CIS

Follow us elsewhere

Twitter: https://twitter.com/CISA2K
CIS group on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/cis.india
Visit us at: https://cis-india.org

Request for Collaboration
We invite researchers, practitioners, and theoreticians, both organisationally and as individuals, to collaboratively engage with Internet and society and improve our understanding of this new field.

To discuss the research collaborations, write to Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, at sunil@cis-india.org or Nishant Shah, Director – Research, at nishant@cis-india.org.

To discuss collaborations on Indic language wikipedia, write to T. Vishnu Vardhan, Programme Director, A2K, at vishnu@cis-india.org

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/access-to-knowledge-bulletin-august-2013

Access to Knowledge Bulletin — April 2014

praskrishna — 2014-07-04T05:55:10Z

The Access to Knowledge (Wikipedia) newsletter for the month of April 2014:

CIS Signs MoU with Mysore University

CIS-A2K signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the University of Mysore for converting to Unicode and re-releasing their encyclopaedia under Creative Commons License. Dr. U.B. Pavanaja on behalf of the CIS-A2K team signed the MoU. As part of the MoU CIS will convert and upload the encyclopaedia into Kannada Wikisource and then it will be moved to Kannada Wikipedia.

Articles

Vachana Sanchaya: Bringing Access to 11th century Kannada Literature (by Subhashish Panigrahi, April 3, 2014).
୭୯ ବର୍ଷରେ ସ୍ୱତନ୍ତ୍ର ଓଡ଼ିଶା: ଶାସ୍ତ୍ରୀୟ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଓ କମ୍ପ୍ୟୁଟରରେ ଏହାର ବ୍ୟବହାର (by Subhashish Panigrahi, Amalekha, April 4, 2014).
ଓଡ଼ିଅା ଭାଷାର ବିକାଶ ଓ କମ୍ପ୍ୟୁଟର (by Subhashish Panigrahi, The Kadambini, April 8, 2014).
Report from India: Relicensing books under CC (by Subhashish Panigrahi, Creative Commons Blog, April 19, 2014).
14 Odia books re-released under Creative Commons license (by Subhashish Panigrahi, DNA, April 26, 2014). The article was edited by Rohini Lakshane.

Events Organized

Tulu Wikipedia Workshop (organized by CIS-A2K, Balmatta Computer Centre, Mangalore, April 5, 2014). Dr. U.B.Pavanaja conducted the workshop.

Konkani Wikipedia Workshop (co-organized by All India Konkani Writers Organization and CIS-A2K, Kalaangann Shaktinagar, April 6, 2014). Dr. U.B.Pavanaja conducted the workshop.
Tulu Wikipedia Editathon (co-organized by Karnataka Theological College and CIS-A2K, Mangalore, April 19, 2014). Dr. U.B.Pavanaja conducted the workshop.

Participation in Events

Wikipedia Session for Trainee Journos (organized by Prajavani, Bangalore, April 28, 2014). Dr. U.B.Pavanaja took a session for the trainee journalists of Prajavani Kannada daily on Wikipedia.
World Book Day (organized by Karnataka Publishers’ Association, Indian Institute of World Culture, Basavanagudi, Bangalore, April 23, 2014). Dr. U.B.Pavanaja was a speaker.
Relevance of Bhagabat Tungi in the evolution of Odia language from Buddha era to digital age (organized by The Intellects, Shree Jagannath Mandir and Odisha Art and Cultural Center, New Delhi, April 24, 2014). Subhashish Panigrahi participated in the event.

Media Coverage

CIS gave its inputs to the following media coverage:

M'lore: Wikipedia Workshop held for Konkani writers (Daijiworld, April 6, 2014).
Odia Loves Wikipedia (Rising Voices, April 10, 2014). This was also published in Spanish and in Russian.
International Book Day (The Hindu, April 21, 2014).
Books are a bridge between generations (The Deccan Herald, April 23, 2014).
World Book Day Report (Vijaywani, April 23, 2014).
Seminar on Odia Language in New Delhi by the Intellects (Odisha Samachar, April 24, 2014).
Delhi meet focuses on Bhagabat Tungi revival (The Pionee

Wikimedia Foundation has funded A2K to anchor the growth of Wikimedia movement in India. The A2K team consists of six members, four based in Bangalore: T. Vishnu Vardhan, Dr. U.B. Pavanaja, Subhashish Panigrahi and Muzammiluddin Syed, one member Nitika Tandon in Delhi and one Advisor Dr. Tejaswini Niranjana. Archives of our newsletters can be accessed here (http://cis-india.org/about/newsletters). Wikipedians from various communities can request for outreach programs, technical bugs, logistics-merchandize and media, public relations and communications at http://bit.ly/TOcXId.

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r, April 26, 2014).

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/access-to-knowledge-bulletin-april-2014

Access To Knowledge (A2K)

kaeru — 2016-03-16T15:30:24Z

Access to Knowledge is a campaign to promote the fundamental principles of justice, freedom, and economic development. It deals with issues like copyrights, patents and trademarks, which are an important part of the digital landscape. We prepared the India report for the Consumers International IP Watchlist, made submission to the HRD Ministry on WIPO Broadcast Treaty, questioned the demonisation of pirates, and advocated against laws (such as PUPFIP Bill) that privatize public funded knowledge.

Key Research

WIPO

Reports
WIPO Director General's Meeting with NGOs (Puneeth Nagraj, April 30, 2014). 31st Session of the Standing Committee on Trademarks (Puneeth Nagraj, April 29, 2014). CDIP-12 (Puneeth Nagraj, April 22, 2014). 26th SCCR: Consolidated Notes: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 (Nehaa Chaudhari, March 18 - 21, 2014). 9th Session of the WIPO Advisory Committee on Enforcement (Puneeth Nagraj, March 14, 2014).
Statements
29th SCCR: Statement on the Limitations and Exceptions for Education, Teaching, Research Institutions and Persons with Disabilities (Nehaa Chaudhari; December 20, 2014). 29th SCCR: 2nd (brief) Intervention on the Broadcast Treaty (Nehaa Chaudhari; December 11, 2014). 29th SCCR: Intervention on the Proposed Treaty for the Protection of Broadcasting Organizations (Nehaa Chaudhari; December 9, 2014). 28th SCCR: Limitations and Exceptions for Libraries and Archives (Nehaa Chaudhari, July 3, 2014). 28th SCCR: Proposed Treaty for the Protection of Broadcasting Organizations (Nehaa Chaudhari, July 2, 2014). 27th SCCR: Technical Measures of Protection on Limitations and Exceptions for Libraries and Archives (Nehaa Chaudhari, May 2, 2014). 27th SCCR: Orphan Works, Retracted and Withdrawn Works, and Works out of Commerce on Limitations and Exceptions for Libraries and Archives (Nehaa Chaudhari, May 1, 2014). 27th SCCR: WIPO Proposed Treaty for the Protection of Broadcasting Organizations (Nehaa Chaudhari, April 30, 2014). 26th SCCR: Limitations and Exceptions for Education, Teaching and Research Institutions and Persons with Other Disabilities (Nehaa Chaudhari, December 20, 2013). 26th SCCR: Limitations and Exceptions for Libraries and Archives (Nehaa Chaudhari, December 19, 2013). Closing Statement at Marrakesh on the Treaty for the Blind (Pranesh Prakash, June 28, 2013). Intervention on the Treaty for the Visually Impaired (Pranesh Prakash, April 25, 2013). 25th SCCR: Broadcast Treaty and Exceptions and Limitations for Libraries and Archives (Smitha Krishna Prasad, November 29, 2012). 24th SCCR: Exceptions & Limitations for Libraries and Archives (Pranesh Prakash, July 25, 2012). 23rd SCCR: WIPO Broadcasting Treaty (Pranesh Prakash, November 29, 2011). 22nd SCCR: WIPO Broadcast Treaty (Pranesh Prakash, June 22, 2011). 21st SCCR: Statement on the Work of the Committee (Nirmita Narasimhan, November 23, 2010). 19th SCCR: WIPO Broadcast Treaty (Pranesh Prakash, February 1, 2010).
Analysis / Comments / Submissions
Protection of Broadcasting Organizations: Technical Background Paper Prepared by the WIPO Secretariat (Nehaa Chaudhari; June 28, 2015). Protection of Broadcasting Organisations under the Proposed Treaty as Compared to Other International Conventions (Nehaa Chaudhari; December 21, 2014). Proposed WIPO Treaty for the Protection of Broadcasting Organizations (Nehaa Chaudhari, submitted to the Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India, December 7, 2013). Comments on the Broadcast Treaty and Exceptions and Limitations for Libraries and Archives (Smitha Krishna Prasad, November 29, 2012). Comment by CIS at ACE on Presentation on French Charter on the Fight against Cyber-Counterfeiting (Pranesh Prakash, December 1, 2011). Don't Shoot the Messenger: Speech on Intermediary Liability (Pranesh Prakash, July 8, 2011). CIS-TWN Analysis of WIPO Treaty for the Print Disabled (Pranesh Prakash, June 20, 2011). Comments to Ministry of Human Resource Development on WIPO Broadcasting Treaty (Pranesh Prakash, March 21, 2011).

Indian Law & Policies

Reports
Consumers International IP Watchlist 2012 (Pranesh Prakash, August 16, 2012). Consumers International IP Watchlist 2011 (Pranesh Prakash, May 17, 2011). Consumers International IP Watch List 2009 (Pranesh Prakash, June 5, 2009). A Guide to Key IPR Provisions of the Proposed India-European Union Free Trade Agreement (Glover Wright, July 13, 2010)
Analysis / Comments / Submissions
Can Judges Order ISPs to Block Websites for Copyright Infringement? - Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 (Ananth Padmanabhan, January 30, 2014 - February 14, 2014). Copyrights and Copywrongs Why the Government Should Embrace the Public Domain (Pranesh Prakash, Yojana, Issue: August 2013). Draft Guidelines for Computer Related Inventions (Puneeth Nagraj, submitted to the office of the Controller General of Patents Designs & Trademarks, Mumbai, July 26, 2013). Science, Technology and Innovation Policy (Draft) (Snehashish Ghosh, submitted to the Department of Science and Technology, Ministry of Science and Technology, Government of India, November 26, 2012). Super Cassettes v. MySpace (Ujwala Uppaluri, October 30, 2012). Analysis of the Copyright (Amendment) Bill 2012 (Pranesh Prakash, May 23, 2012). Analysis of Copyright Expansion in the India-EU FTA (July 2010) (Snehashish Ghosh, February 20, 2012). Calling Out the BSA on Its BS (Pranesh Prakash, September 9, 2011). Thomas Abraham's Rebuttal on Parallel Importation (Pranesh Prakash, February 10, 2011). Indian Law and "Parallel Exports" (Pranesh Prakash, February 1, 2011). Why Parallel Importation of Books Should Be Allowed (Pranesh Prakash, January 25, 2011). Problems Remain with Standing Committee's Report on Copyright Amendments (Pranesh Prakash, December 16, 2010). Draft Patent Manual 2010 (Pranesh Prakash, December 5, 2010). Analysis of the Copyright (Amendment) Bill, 2010 (Pranesh Prakash, July 18, 2010). The 2010 Special 301 Report Is More of the Same, Slightly Less Shrill (Pranesh Prakash, May 13, 2010). Technological Protection Measures in the Copyright (Amendment) Bill, 2010 (Pranesh Prakash, April 28, 2010).
Articles (Journals / Magazines)
Intellectual Property Rights — Open Access for Researchers (Nehaa Chaudhari, UNESCO, March 2015). Pirates, Plagiarisers, Publishers (Prashant Iyengar, Economic & Political Weekly, February 26, 2011, Vol XLVI No 9). Exhaustion: Imports, Exports and the Doctrine of First Sale in Indian Copyright Law (Pranesh Prakash, Manupatra Intellectual Property Reports, February 25, 2011, Volume 1, Part 2, pp. 149-160). Of Jesters, Clowns and Pranksters: YouTube and the Condition of Collaborative Authorship (Nishant Shah, Journal of Moving Images, Number 8, December 2009). We’ve All Got Some Baggage (Lawrence Liang, Tehelka Magazine Vol 7, Issue 45, November 13, 2010). Exceptions and Limitations in Indian Copyright Law for Education: An Assessment (Lawrence Liang, The Land and Development Review, Volume 3, Issue 2, 2010)

Pervasive Technologies

Research Papers
Pervasive Technologies: Patent Pools (Nehaa Chaudhari, June 27, 2013). Patent Valuation and License Fee Determination in Context of Patent Pools (Vikrant Narayan Vasudeva, July 9, 2014). Fueling the Affordable Smartphone Revolution in India (Anubha Sinha; Good Life in Asia's Digital 21st Century Essay Collection; March 16, 2016).
Research Methodologies and Literature Surveys
Patent Landscaping (Rohini Lakshané; November 10, 2014) Intellectual Property in Mobile Application Development in India (Anubha Sinha; November 17, 2014). Access to Music through the Mobile (Maggie Huang; November 18, 2014). Sub Hundred Dollar Mobile Devices and Competition Law (Nehaa Chaudhari; November 25, 2014).

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/front-page

Access to Knowledge

anirudh — 2014-05-22T04:48:41Z

Unit 4 of Module 2 discusses the right to access knowledge, patents and copyright. There is also a case study of Oxbridge Textbooks.

Introduction

In the middle of the 16th century, Queen Mary was faced with a difficult question that was brought to her by none other than most powerful publishing house in England at the time. The Stationers, like any other craft guild in the business of printing and producing books loved a monopoly in the profits of their books and terribly feared competition.[1] Therefore, they went to Queen Mary with the request of a royal charter. This charter would allow them to seize illicit editions of their books and bar the publication of books unlicensed by the crown. The Queen suddenly thought that this could indeed be a more efficient way to squash sedition and dissent through censorship by puppeteering this craft guild than previous, perhaps less subtle means like torture and death. In 1557, she granted them this early form of a copyright. Notice how the author or the creator of the work has no place in this agreement and the origins of intellectual property in English law are based on privilege, namely power and profit. This rhetoric, however, changes with the coming of the 18^th century and the passing of the Act of Anne in 1707 to one of creativity and learning. The concern for the author has a steady positivist rise after this in the tug of war over intellectual property. In the case Miller v Taylor in 1769, the author sought to extend copyright to common law. Three judges ruled in favor of this motion and two judges ruled against.[2]

A closer examination at the reasoning provided by the three assenting judges will tell us almost all the philosophical justifications of intellectual property. The first judge called upon his notion of justice and said it is just that the author control the destiny of his work as it is a product of his labor. The second judge said that extending the copyright would encourage creativity by making the work the creator’s property. The third judge said it is the authors natural right as the work wouldn’t exist if not for the mental labor of the author. Together, justice, incentives and natural rights are the cornerstones of the justifications of intellectual property.

Although history is littered with theories on property, there have been only sparse discussions on intellectual property. The question then arises, can intellectual property be accommodated within normal property. The similarity is in the fact that intellectual property is also a relationship between people but the difference lies in the fact that the object is an abstract one.[3]

This leads many to believe that it cannot be subject to the same rules of property. The first dissenting judge in Miller v Taylor, for example, said that abstract ideas cannot be occupied like corporeal objects so they cannot be property. He said the author deserves a reward which the Act of Anne provides in the form of limited monopoly but that’s about it. In fact, an idea is almost the perfect example of a resource like the air or light that is not zero sum and inexhaustible in that my use of it doesn’t take away from your use of it. Neither air nor light can become personal property which leaves ideas in a property limbo. This leaves room for very interesting discussions and debates over the existence of intellectual property and the place it should occupy in society. This discourse has largely taken two forms: the deontological and the consequentialist. Deontological justifications for IP come from a priori reasons like rights or duties which can be established in many forms. There is the ontological basis for rights which answers questions like whether rights exist and if so, where they come from. One of the preeminent figures in this discourse has been John Locke, an English philosopher whose argument for individual property as “natural rights” remains relevant even today when applied to intellectual property. Locke’s major assumptions in his claim were:

God has given the world to people in common.
Every person owns his own personality.
A person’s labor belongs to him.
When a person mixes his labor with something in the commons he makes it his property.
The right of property is contingent upon its being good for commoners.[4]

In order to extend this argument, Locke says that exclusive ownership of a resource is a precondition for production. Ideas before labored upon by people, however, are not exclusively owned which resists the cross application of his ideas to intellectual property. Another impediment in extending the natural right to intellectual property is the 5th assumption. Intellectual labor, in annexing an idea, stops it from becoming a part of the intellectual commons. If this labor, armed with the property of becoming property is doing a disservice to society, then it may not be a natural right at all. The notion that ideas are a part of the intellectual commons is also one that needed evidence and Locke found that in scripture as Judeo-Christian philosophy clearly advocates the idea of all worldly resources being part of the commons.

Hegel, on the other hand, took the route of personality theory. He argued that if individuals have claims to anything, they had to be considered an individual first. He states that in order to be individuals, people must have a moral claim to things like their character traits, feelings, talents and experience.[5] The definition of these aspects or the process of self-actualization requires an interaction with tangible and intangible objects in the world. The external actualization process requires property that includes intellectual property for Hegel as he sees the works as an extension or an establishment of the self in the external world that embody the person’s personality in an inseparable and even immortal way.

Another form is in linguistics, where we ask questions like what we mean when we say rights and property. Skinner said that in the history of intellectual property law, the social context of its use and the matrix of assumptions involved in reference is the determining factor. This is why the history of intellectual property is as important as and to the philosophical underpinnings.

The consequentialist justifications of IP assume that the specious connection between IP and creativity is fact and warn of a chilling effect on creative activity in the absence of IP. History shows us that the relationship between IP and creativity is local and contingent rather than necessary and universal. Imperial China, for example, was a creative and inventive empire that gave rise to many technologies and artistic subcultures without any promise of IP. Indeed, Marx’s historical materialism could be seen as condemning IP as a superstructural phenomenon in the industrial development phase of capitalist societies and one that a future society can function well without.[6] If one was interested in the consequentialist debate over IP, then historical empirical data would be more important than an a priori analysis.

The lack of a definitive philosophical, ethical or normative justification for the existence of Intellectual Property rights unlike those for free expression or equal treatment under the law shows us that its application needs to be tempered with other considerations. If, as Rawls suggested, we hide behind the veil of ignorance and tried to form an ideal society, then IP may not feature within it as it tends to create social stratification and further marginalizes the least advantaged in social life and democratic culture.[7] Since IP’s are liberty intrusive privileges that do not “allow the most extensive liberty compatible with a like liberty for all.” or “benefit the least advantaged.” or are “open to all under conditions of fair equality of opportunity.”, their utilitarian claims of creativity have to answer to the injustices that manifest from them before they get a carte blanche in society.

The access to knowledge has been a yearning of society to shift and dilute the concentration of this most precious of resources because of the old adage “knowledge is power”. This concept, however, can be understood from many lenses including the sociological and the legal. At first, in order to understand the importance of the legal entities under access to knowledge, we must explore its saliency in society.

Humanity world over is at the cusp of a major shift in the production, consumption, dissemination and distribution of knowledge. This warrants changes in frameworks of looking at knowledge, information and data in the digital era at multiple levels and by multiple players including students, academics, entrepreneurs, researchers, civil society and the State. In order to understand why and how knowledge matters in the world today, we must see how it makes a difference in our world and how it materially changes the world.

Many prominent economists and social theorists have sought to claim that knowledge has affected the organization of society in a manner that is different than in previous eras though knowledge has been an organizing principle of society throughout history. How the exact time of the shift and the nature of the shift are catalogued will depend on what category the basis is. From an economic perspective, Marx said that the capitalist system depends on the constant improvement and dynamism of technology. The real understanding of the role of knowledge in our economy came when Robert Solow posited that the majority of economic growth in the beginning of the 20th century was less due to labor or capital and more due to technological changes. These advances in knowledge came in the form of new machines to new production techniques that made the production process more efficient.[8]

Fritz Machlup stated that in the 1960’s the change in the knowledge intensity of the economy was marked by “an increase in the share of ‘knowledge-producing’ labor in total employment.” The Harvard historian Daniel Bell observed in his study of post-industrial societies that 1/3^rd of the US workers were employed in the service industry at the turn of the century but by the 1980’s almost 7/10^ths of the workers were employed in the service industries.[9]

People who were employed in the industrial sectors were flocking steadily to finance, education, information technology and the cultural industry. The movements of people came as a reaction to the movement of profitability from industrial sectors to finance, biotechnology and information technology. Knowledge basically is a positive feedback loop which means that as more information and communication technologies emerge, it allows more innovation. Manuel Castell categorizes this shift in the place of knowledge as a global one even though it’s concentrated in a few wealthy countries because all the economies ultimately depend on the global one. The disparity between countries is still massive but it used to be just in terms of raw materials and manufactured goods but now at a global level, there is a huge knowledge (high technology low technology, high knowledge services low knowledge services) disparity between wealthy and non-wealthy countries. This claim may seem to imply that knowledge is simply technical and scientific, but there are obviously other important kinds of knowledge like ethical and humanities knowledge. The point here is that the enhanced ability of humans to organize and employ specific kinds of technical and scientific knowledge has created a huge shift in the global economy similar to the effect of the increase in access to knowledge from the invention of printing press. This shift in the importance of knowledge has made our health better as well. The average lifespan has increased exponentially in the past half century and it is our scientific advancement in the mechanisms of disease and medicine that has aided this achievement.

When there is so much integral societal dependence on knowledge, the non market production of knowledge is essential for equality in access to this knowledge. Yochai Benkler stated that the processing power of the modern computers linked together on the internet creates a platform that allows for new kinds of collaboration. Apart from new kinds of political activism, it also leads to decentralized knowledge production like open source/ free software and Wikipedia.

Within this context of the digital turn, openness and transparency are gaining newer significance. On the one hand emerging participatory models of openness like Wikipedia[10] are increasingly pushing us to look beyond the traditional models of the bygone century;[11] on the other hand these models are being thought of to be effective even in governance and policy making. Open data,[12] for instance is becoming a key prerequisite for the State and civil society alike in imagining better governance models. This could potentially create a pre-condition for the transformation of society into a ‘Knowledge Society’, wherein the citizen is increasingly repositioned from a ‘spectator’ to ‘spect-actor’.[13] Eventually, the distinction between a knowledge society and governance could get blurred. However, this process needs strong civil society players to catalyze and cultivate an effective knowledge society. Such work happens at multiple layers of policy coupled with advocacy, research, dissemination and infrastructure creation. The larger policy debate happens in the form of a contest between understandings of knowledge. The two sides are knowledge as property versus knowledge as a common resource. This tension is explored in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The Right to Access to Knowledge

The discourse around the access to knowledge has been around for a while as it is inscribed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which was adopted in 1948. Article 27 of the charter attempts to bring about a balance between the right of access and the protection of material interests.

Article 27[14]

Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits. Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author.

Here, many academics and Access to Knowledge theorists posit that the right to access to knowledge is the more important right. This is because the right to material protection or rather the Intellectual Property (IP) right is ultimately for sale and transferrable so is not inalienable like the right to access to knowledge. Many right to knowledge theorists are of the opinion that the level of IP protection currently in place in the world is too much.

In 1996, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR)[15] was adopted by the General Assembly of the UN. As we may expect, the right to free speech has a longer history of acceptance and positivist outlook on it. Article 19 of the ICCPR reads as follows:

“Article 19.

Everyone shall have the right to hold opinions without interference.
Everyone shall have the right to freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of his choice.
The exercise of the rights provided for in paragraph 2 of this article carries with it special duties and responsibilities. It may therefore be subject to certain restrictions, but these shall only be such as are provided by law and are necessary:
- For respect of the rights or reputations of others;
- For the protection of national security or of public order (order public), or of public health or morals.” (Italics are mine)

The idea that free speech includes the right to seek and receive is something that will be discussed in the chapter on free speech but the important positive externality or reading that one can glean from this wording is that the access to knowledge becomes a right.


Above: Google books Ngram Viewer

However, as you can see in the graph, the discourse around Access to knowledge doesn’t begin to really take off until the early 1960’s when the U.S government was just starting to build a network between computers. In the early stages of the modern internet around the early 1980’s the discourse around access to knowledge becomes even more frequent. This is because intellectual property rights started to eclipse the astronomical increase in the production of knowledge and vast portions of the world’s population remained in the dark. Especially, the production of academic knowledge has increased exponentially in the recent past which has made it essential that the barriers to this knowledge are attenuated as much as possible.Now that we have explored the sociological aspect of access to knowledge and the philosophical debates around it, let us look at how it is codified in law. Specifically we will look at copyright and patents.

Patents

What are Patents?

Of all forms of intellectual property rights (IPR) patents are said to be the most restrictive, granted to inventors of devices or processes on the basis that the invention is novel, can be applied for a useful function, andinvolves an inventive step (and may not be obvious to a professional in the relevant field).

Under Indian patent law, a patent is a statutory right for an invention, giving the inventor the exclusivity to prevent others from making, using, or selling the invention—unless, of course, they are to receive permission from the right holder and pay the necessary royalty fees to do so. For this reason, a patent holder is said to have a monopoly over the invention. [16] In return for this exclusivity, the right holder must disclose a detailed, accurate and complete written description of the invention to be available for the public.[17]

A patent may be a utility patent, issued for the invention of a new and useful process, machine or product; a design patent, for a new and original design to be used in the manufacturing of a product; or a plant patent, for a new and distinct, invented or discovered type of plant.[18] Subject matter that is unpatentable in India includes an invention that is immoral, an invention which claims anything contrary to natural laws (e.g. gravity), the discovery of anything occurring in nature, and the formulation of an abstract theory.[19] That being said, a patentable invention generally must be able to result in a useful, concrete and tangible result, although restrictions of what is not patentable may vary country to country.

Patents are valid for a limited period of time; generally 20 years from the start of the term. A patent’s exclusivity is also limited to the country in which it was granted, meaning that a patent holder may not be able to exclude others from the making, using, or selling of a similar invention in a different jurisdiction that would otherwise infringe upon the their IP right.[20]

Effects on Innovation

There are vast perspectives around the adoption and application of patents, ranging from a strong opposition—by those in favour of free and widespread access to products of innovation and knowledge processes (e.g. medicines and educational materials)—to those in strong support of a more restrictive intellectual property (IP) regime, as a means of protecting the inventor and his or her inventions.

One of the underlying principles for the consideration and enforcement of a patent regime is the claim that this form of IPR serves as an incentive for innovation to take place. By offering a “reward” in the form of statutory recognition, protection, and remuneration, the granting of a patent may encourage innovation. An opposing viewpoint to such a claim, however, may argue that patents do not encourage innovation, but stifle it, by preventing others from being able to innovate through their enforcement. Just as well, a patent is granted after the fact, and the odds of one’s application being approved are quite slim—not to mention expensive!—so a patent would not be an ideal form of incentive, with remuneration only taking place when one’s patent is infringed or one’s monopoly abused.

One’s monopoly may be abused when the right holder of a patent (or thousands!) brings an industry to a standstill by shutting out others from having their new inventions reach the market. Often, patents may prevent the manufacturing and selling of innovations that are not actually relevant, but claim by the right holder to fall within the scope of the patented invention.

The effects of the excessive granting and enforcement of patents may trickle down to the level of the individual when the economic threshold for starting a new business increases, one’s business’s profitability reduces due to the payments of royalties and legal expenses, and the potential for such an entrepreneur to scale beyond national boundaries is undermined.[21]

Case Study: Pervasive Technologies
Because of these limitations placed onto others by patent holders, small-to-medium business and enterprises in India and China tend to ignore existing IPR for inventions they may use within their manufactured products due to the high costs associated to seeking permission and paying royalties to the right holder. For this reason, these businesses may only begin to develop protection and risk-mitigation strategies when they have scaled up and can afford to do so.[22] A phenomenon that has risen out of a restrictive market and resulting repeated efforts to get around such restrictions is the “gray” market, where mobile phone are being manufactured with the likelihood of infringing upon a number of existing patents for inventions used in the manufactures. Mobile phones that are entirely legal may cost well over INR 8000/- (US $120) when gray market devices generally range from INR 3000/- to INR 4000/- (US $48-60), demonstrating the high price of patents on the availability of hardware.[23] The term, pervasive devices, coined by the Centre for Internet & Society, largely refers to sub-$100 communication devices that are becoming near-ubiquitous as a result of their increased availability to reach larger demographics of lesser income brackets. Software Technologies Although software technologies are predominantly protected under Indian copyright law, in countries such as the United Kingdom and the United States, software is patentable. Unlike American companies, such as IBM which has applied for 5,896 US patents, very seldom do Indian companies apply for software patents, and instead are likely to become at risk for litigation in attempts to penetrate markets elsewhere due to the patents already existing. Most commonly, software producers from India do not own the rights to the IP they have created and instead adopt a “software as a service” (SAAS) business model, within which contracts signed require all IP developed to be signed over to the client. As international players continue to register a multitude of software patents, it becomes increasingly difficult for Indian companies to move away from this SAAS model to developing their own proprietary products due to the increased risk of litigation.[24]

Pre-Grant and Post Grant

Upon signing the Trade Related Aspects Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement, India introduced two kinds of patent oppositions, where an individual may write to the Indian Patent Office to oppose the granting of a patent. The first kind, pre-grant opposition, may occur after the patent application has been published by the Patent Office, but has not yet been granted, for the primary purpose of challenging the application’s validity before a patent is granted. One may also give notice of opposition to the Patent Office after the granting of a patent, under post-grant opposition, so long as it occurs within a year of the granted patent’s publication.[25]

Compulsory Licensing

In March 2012, the Government of India granted its first compulsory license ever to Indian generic drug manufacturer, Natco Pharma Ltd. to allow for the manufacturing of Sorateni tosylate, a treatment for advanced kidney and liver cancer. Patent Holder and German pharmaceutical giant, Bayer Corporation, had not been making the drug adequately accessible to the people of India on a commercial scale, and had not imported the drug at all in 2008, and barely in 2009 and 2010. As a result, Natso Pharma Ltd. applied for a compulsory license.

Once granted, Natco was to pay a reduced royalty fee to Bayer quarterly, was required to provide the drug for free to at least 600 needy and deserving patients per year, to sell the drug for a set fee, as specified by the Indian government.

Pharmaceuticals have been an area of fierce debate as drugs for treating serious illnesses, such as malaria, HIV and AIDS, are widely available in the West, and generally too expensive for developing countries due to being protected by patents, where outbreaks are more likely to occur. India’s first compulsory license had been a landmark decision for India, as it is an exemplary case which demonstrates the possibility of a “new” drug under patent to be produced by generic makers at a fraction of the price, compensating the patent holder through royalty payments, while at the same time, enabling access to individuals that would not have otherwise been able to receive this form of treatment.

In the scenario where a government feels a patent holder is abusing one’s monopoly over their patented invention by excessively limiting others to access—and when it could otherwise substantially benefit the public good—a government may grant special privilege to another to use or manufacture such a patented product without the consent of its owner. This is called a compulsory license, and does not take the rights away from the patent holder, but limits them, as to enable increased access. A license fee or royalty payment is still to be paid to the patent holder; however this rate may be negotiated by the government, contrary to a statutory license, where this rate is fixed by the law.

Copyright

Copyright refers to the protection granted, in law, to the expression of some ideas. It is to be noted that the idea itself is not protectable. For instance, if I were to tell you about an ‘idea’ that I had about writing a story about a cat and a mouse, and, a few days later, you wrote a story about a cat and a mouse, the copyright of that story would vest with you, despite the fact that the ‘idea’ for the story was mine. This concept is called the idea-expression dichotomy.

The ‘expression’ that is eligible for protection could be in various forms, including literary, artistic or dramatic works.

Components of Copyright

Copyright recognises the concepts of ownership and authorship of work, and the fact that these might vary in specific instances, when various persons could be involved in the creation of a work. Some may have provided creative input (the author of the book or the director/screen play writer/story writer of the movie), and some may have provided monetary input (the publisher of the book/producer of the movie).

The moral right of ‘attribution’, that is, the right to be recognised for the work vests with the authors. Economic rights associated with copyright vest in the owner of the copyright. The owner could be different from the author. For instance, in case of the book, the owner of the copyright could be the publisher, and in the case of the movie, it could be the producer. In some instances, copyright may be jointly owned as well. Copyright vests in the owner of copyright. It grants the owner the right to exclude all others from making use of/exploiting the work in question commercially. This would essentially prevent others from adapting, copying, distributing, or making any other use of the protected work, unless authorised by the owner.

Copyright and the Law

Copyright law is territorial in nature, that is, copyright granted by law in one nation state is only enforceable in the said that grants the right. One aspect of territoriality could be the term of copyright. Generally, the term is the lifetime of the author (creator/owner) (plus) fifty to hundred years from the death of the author. Anonymous works, or works owned by corporations have a fixed term of copyright, usually between fifty and hundred years. The exception to this general rule of territoriality is if the state in question has entered into any international agreement to the contrary.

Other aspects of copyright regulated by law include subject matter of protection, requirements of registration, term of protection and associated rights. Internationally, the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, 1886 is the key instrument. Additionally, some other important international instruments include the WIPO Copyright Treaty, 1996 and the WIPO Performers and Phonograms Treaty, 1996.

While the general rule is that all copying and distribution of the copyrighted work has to be done with the express permission of the copyright holder, some exceptional circumstances allow for this requirement to be dispensed with. These are known as fair use/fair dealing (depending on the jurisdiction).

Case Study: The Oxbridge Textbooks[26]
The Broad Issue: The issue of copyrights when it comes to academic purposes has always been one that has sparked debates and very compelling arguments on both sides. While research that is published in scientific journals is carried out with the pure intent of spreading knowledge that will ultimately lead to broader scientific inquiry and research, in the past few decades it has transformed into a product of “ruthless capitalism” whose profit margins are far too high. The question then arises that how research that is carried out mostly with government funded public money be made available to the general public across the world at reasonable and affordable rates? Don’t students in the developing world have equal rights to access a level of education and research that would enable them to compete with their affluent counterparts? But this issue isn't just a cause for concern in the developing world as one of the world’s richest schools,Harvard University released a memorandum in mid-2012 that the cost of its journal subscriptions has become prohibitively expensive. This forces us to take a moment and think about the world of academic publishing, the accessibility of knowledge, and the flow of information when the richest academic institution on the planet cannot afford to continue paying for its journal subscriptions? According to Thomes and Clay’s report, commercial publishers within the last twenty to thirty years have taken control over many publications that had been controlled by non-profit academic and scholarly societies. The shift took place during the 1960’s and 1970’s as commercial publishers recognized the potential for profitability in acquiring journals from the societies. This has resulted in publishing houses now commanding hefty profit margins up to 40%. The Broad Solution: The Indian Copyright Act, Section 52, provides for a wide educational fair use exception for academic purposes. Yet the publishing houses, demand for the purchasing of a Blanket License under the IRRO (Indian Reprographic Reproduction Organization)[27] which costs Rs 24,000 per annum for 20 copies of a single publication and not more than 10% of each copy being photographed. This clause can be challenged on the grounds of “fair use exception” under Section 52. The cancellation of these licenses is a fair demand as the risks of purchasing the license and complying to the publishing houses norms have many repercussions. Due to the business model of the publishing industry, a steep increase in prices has been seen for the past decade, the Harvard letter being just the tip of the iceberg. In 2012, over 12,000 researchers have signed a statement promising to boycott any publication published by Elsevier (a publication house accused of pocketing 40% of the profits). The increase in the prices of academic works in the international market has a steep impact on the budget of children who attend public universities such as Delhi University where the annual fees is Rs. 5000 per annum. Specific Issue at Hand: The specific issue here is a lawsuit filed by the Cambridge and Oxford publication press against Delhi University and a small photocopy shop for copyright infringement. The store, who they accuse of creating photocopied “course packs” in agreement with the University that include content from their textbooks, is selling these bundles for much cheaper than the original books. The presses are demanding more than US$110,000 in damages. On one hand we have powerful international publishing houses and on the other students who do not have access to study material from these houses due to their impoverished backgrounds. It is unlikely that the publishing houses’ revenues would increase post this suit, as most students cannot afford to purchase the study material unless the university foots the bill. It is also important to note that a previous lawsuit that Cambridge publication house lost was due to the defendant using only 10% of the book. In this case we have: Average percentage of entire book copied = 8.81 %. The breakup of the amount of material used per book can be found here.[28] Out of the 23 books in question, only 5 extracts exceed the 10% threshold(these have been marked in red in the document). To suggest that the photocopy shop and Delhi University should have to shell out Rs. 60,00,000 in damages for this case, is a case of publishing houses flexing their muscle power over students in the developing world who deserve equal access to academic material.

[1]. Peter Dravos

[2]. Ibid

[3]. Ibid

[4]. Ibid

[5]. For more on intellectual property see http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/intellectual-property/

[6]. Supra note above.

[7]. For more see Darryl J. Murphy “Are Intellectual Property rights compatible with Rawlsian principles of justice?, Springer, available at http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10676-012-9288-8

[8]. For more see Ashish Rajadhyaksha, “The Last Cultural Mile”, Centre for Internet and Society, available at http://cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/last-cultural-mile.pdf, last accessed on February 1, 2014.

[9]. See citation above.

[10]. Geert Lovink and Nathaniel Tkacz, Critical Point of View: A Wikipedia Reader, published by CIS and Institute of Network Cultures, available at http://www.networkcultures.org/_uploads/%237reader_Wikipedia.pdf

[11]. The Access to Knowledge (Wikipedia) team from CIS has held several workshops and produced more than 50 blog entries in nearly 10 months.

[12]. See Pranesh Prakash, Nishant Shah, Sunil Abraham and Glover Wright, “Open Government Data Study: India” published by Transparency & Accountability Initiative, available at http://cis-india.org/openness/blog/publications/open-government.pdf

[13]. A term coined by the Brazilian theatre practitioner Augusto Boal in the context of theatre. This formulation of spect-actor is very useful in reimagining the citizen in the digital era that has created preconditions for the citizen to effectively participate in governance. For more on Spect-actor see Augusto, Boal (1993). Theater of the Oppressed. New York: Theatre Communications Group.

[14]. For more see Article 27 available at http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/index.shtml#a27, last accessed on January 31, 2014.

[15]. Read the full Covenant at https://treaties.un.org/doc/Publication/UNTS/Volume%20999/volume-999-I-14668-English.pdf

[16]. Stephan Kinsella, “Against Intellectual Property”, Journal of Libertarian Studies 15, no. 2 (Spring 2001), available at http://www.stephankinsella.com/publications/against-intellectual-property/, last accessed on February 1, 2014.

[17]. See “Inventing the Funture: An Introduction to Patents for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises, World Intellectual Property Organization”, available at http://www.wipo.int/export/sites/www/freepublications/en/sme/917/wipo_pub_917.pdf , last accessed on January 31, 2014.

[18]. See “Types of Patents”, available at http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/ac/ido/oeip/taf/patdesc.htm , last accessed on January 31 , 2014

[19]. See “Inventions not Patentable in India”, available at http://www.cazri.res.in/itmu/pdf/Inventions%20not%20Patentable%20in%20India.pdf, last accessed on January 31, 2014.

[20]. Supra note 62 above.

[21]. See Research Proposal on Pervasive Technologies available at http://cis-india.org/a2k/pervasive-technologies-research-proposal.pdf , last accessed on January 31, 2014.

[22]. Ibid.

[23]. Ibid.

[24]. Ibid.

[25]. See Tech Corp Legal http://bit.ly/NBRg1F

[26]. Ariel Bogle, Cambridge & Oxford University Press sue Delhi University for copyright infringement — over course packs, March 18, 2013, Melville House, available at http://www.mhpbooks.com/cambridge-university-press-oxford-university-press-sue-delhi-university-for-copyright-infringement-over-course-packs/,last accessed on January 29, 2014.

[27]. http://www.irro.in/about.php

[28]. Book-wise Percentage Analysis (DU Photocopying Case), available at https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AnUBa-WkvhlOdDItVENnYkpZZ1ZYYTYwRGVycXVtZ1E#gid=0, last accessed on January 29, 2014.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/telecom/knowledge-repository-on-internet-access/access-2-knowledge

Access India Meet-Up, May 2009

sachia — 2011-08-31T10:50:37Z

Meet-up of members of Access India mailing list (open to invitees only)

Access India is an informal mailing list for the visually impaired community in India, in which subscribers primarily discuss technology and various aspects of its accessibility. Although the Access India mailing list, originally started in 2002, was intended to be a forum for discussing technology-related issues for the blind, it has over the years expanded to cover a whole range of social, educational, cultural, political and other issues of significance to the visually impaired community in India. It is one of the largest mailing lists of blind persons in India and has roughly 500 members from all over the country. Members of the Access India community in various cities hold informal gatherings from time to time. An annual national meeting of Access India members is also held, where various issues affecting the community are discussed in detail.

Agenda

2 PM: Welcome address by CIS, hosts of the meet.

2:05 PM: A round of introduction by participants.

2:30 PM: Presentation by representatives from AreaPal, a Bangalore-based social networking group founded by students. areapal allows users to locate and connect with people on the basis of their area and neighborhood. It is a genuine neighbourhood networking service. Apart from that, they also provide user-generated news, events and marketplace based information about a user’s area. For further information, please visit www.areapal.com.

2:40 PM: Question time.

2:50 PM: Presentation by representatives from 3I Infotech, a company which recently launched e-Mudhra, an initiative to roll out digital signatures. The main focus of the discussion will be the accessibility of their product. For additional information, please visit http://www.e-mudhra.com/

3:00 PM: Question time.

5. 3:10 PM: Presentation by representatives from iVolunteer, an organization that matches volunteers seeking volunteering opportunities
with organizations and individuals looking for volunteers in Bangalore. To learn more about the organization, please visit www.ivolunteer.in

3:20 PM: Question time.

6. 3:30 PM: Introduction to Inclusive planet. Inclusive Planet is in the process of building the largest online portal for disabled persons in India. It is intended to be a comprehensive portal containing various resources including employment resources, educational resources, a match-making
channel, accessible books section, discussion boards, resources for medical facilities, sports and entertainment center, etc. We hope to have a
representative from Inclusive Planet demonstrate the site for us, inform us about its scope and expansion plans, and tell us about how we can contribute toward making the site totally accessible. Please visit http://www.inclusiveplanet.org/

3:50 PM: Question time.

4:00 PM: Tea followed by open discussion on technology.

4:45 PM: Vote of thanks and conclusion.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/events/access-india-meet-up-may-2009

Access at the cost of Net neutrality?

praskrishna — 2015-10-09T01:18:31Z

In the Net neutrality debate, there is a conflict between two core values: ease of access and neutrality. The ease of access promised by applications like Free Basics compromises neutrality and may later morph into a method of predatory pricingIf programs that bring access to a part of the Internet in the immediate future were to entrench themselves, it could eventually lead to telecom companies abusing their dominant positionsIn the absence of a specific law mandating a neutral Internet, telecom companies enjoy a virtual carte blanche to discriminate between different applications. Though they have not yet exploited this autonomy fully, they are certainly moving towards that.

The article by Suhrith Parthasarathy was published in the Hindu on October 8, 2015. Pranesh Prakash gave inputs.

Earlier this year, the social media giant, Facebook, formalised a partnership with Reliance Communications that enabled the Indian company to provide access to over 30 different websites, without any charge on mobile data accruing to the ultimate user. The platform, originally known as “Internet.org,” has now been rebranded as “Free Basics,” Facebook announced last month. Its fundamental ethos, though, remains unchanged. It allows Reliance’s subscribers to surf completely free of cost a bouquet of websites covered within the scheme, which includes, quite naturally, facebook.com. Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s founder, views this supposed initiative as a philanthropic gesture, as part of a purported, larger aim to bring access to the Internet to those people who find the costs of using generally available mobile data prohibitive.

Neutrality, an interpretive concept
On the face of it, this supposed act of altruism appears to be commendable. But, there are many critics — some of whom have come together to launch a website “savetheinternet.in” with a view to defending Internet freedom — who argue that Free Basics violates what has come to be known as the principle of network (or Net) neutrality.

While it is clear to all of us that a notion of Net neutrality involves some regulation of the Internet, it is less clear what the term actually means. Like any phrase that involves either a moral or a legal obligation, Net neutrality is also an interpretive concept. People who employ the term to denote some sort of binding commitment, or at the least an aspirational norm, often tend to disagree over precisely how the idea ought to be accomplished. Tim Wu — an American lawyer and presently a professor at the Columbia University — who coined the term, views the notion of Net neutrality as signifying an Internet that does not favour any one application over another. In other words, the idea is to ensure that Internet service providers do not discriminate content by either charging a fee for acting as its carrier or by incorporating any technical qualifications.

In India, there is no law that expressly mandates the maintenance of a neutral Internet. This March, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) released a draft consultation paper seeking the public’s views on whether the Internet needed regulation. Unfortunately, much of its attention was focussed on the supposedly pernicious impact of applications such as WhatsApp and Viber. “In a multi-ethnic society there is a vital need,” wrote TRAI, “to ensure that the social equilibrium is not impacted adversely by communications that inflame passions, disturb law and order and lead to sectarian disputes.” The questions, therefore, in its view were these: should at least some Internet applications be amenable to a greater regulation, and should they compensate the telecom service providers in addition to the data charges that the consumers pay directly for the use of mobile Internet?

If the government eventually answers these questions in the affirmative, the consequences could be drastic. It could lead to a classification of Internet applications based on arbitrary grounds, by bringing some of them, whom the government views as harmful to society in some manner or another, within its regulatory net. Through such a move, the state, contrary to helping establish principles of Net neutrality as a rule of law, would be actively promoting an unequal Internet.

In any event, as things stand, in the absence of a specific law mandating a neutral Internet, telecom companies enjoy a virtual carte blanche to discriminate between different applications. Though these companies have not yet completely exploited this autonomy, they are certainly proceeding towards such an exercise. In April this year, Airtel announced Airtel Zero, an initiative that would allow applications to purchase data from Airtel in exchange for the telecom company offering them to consumers free of cost.

On the face of it, this programme appears opposed to Net neutrality. But what is even more alarming is that mobile Internet service providers could, in the future, plausibly also control the speeds at which different applications are delivered to consumers. For example, if WhatsApp were to subscribe to Airtel Zero by paying the fee demanded by the company, Airtel might accede to offering WhatsApp to consumers at a pace superior to that at which other applications are run. This kind of discrimination, as Nikhil Pahwa, one of the pioneers of the Save The Internet campaign, has argued, is prototypically opposed to Net neutrality. It tends to breed an unequal playing field, and, if allowed to subsist, it could create a deep division in the online world. Ultimately, we must view Net neutrality as a concept that stands for the values that we want to build as a society; it pertains to concerns about ensuring freedom of expression and about creating an open space for ideas where democracy can thrive. There is a tendency, though, to view those who support Net neutrality as representing a supercilious position. Such criticism is unquestionably blinkered, but it also highlights certain telling concerns.

Telecom companies that wish to discriminate between applications argue that in the absence of an Internet that has completely permeated all strata of society, an obligation to maintain neutrality is not only unreasonable on the companies, but also unfair on the consumer. After all, if nothing else, Airtel Zero and Free Basics bring, at the least, some portions of the Internet to people who otherwise have no means to access the web. What we have, therefore, at some level, is a clash of values: between access to the Internet (in a limited form) and the maintenance of neutrality in an atmosphere that is inherently unequal. This makes tailoring a solution to the problem a particularly arduous process.

The Internet, in its purest form, is a veritable fountain of information. At its core lies a commitment to both openness and a level playing field, where an ability to innovate is perennially maintained. It is difficult to argue against Facebook when it says that some access is better than no access at all. But one of the problems with Free Basics, and indeed with Airtel Zero too, is that the consumer has no choice in which websites he or she might want to access free of cost. If this decision is made only by Facebook, which might argue that it gives every developer an equal chance to be a part of its project as long as it meets a certain criteria, what we have is almost a paternalistic web. In such a situation, information, far from being free, is shackled by constraints imposed by the service provider.

Laudable end, unethical means
This is precisely one of the concerns raised by those arguing in favour of Net neutrality, who, it is worth bearing in mind, aren’t resistant to the idea of a greater penetration of the Internet. Their apprehensions lie in companies resorting to what they believe is an unethical means to achieving, at least in theory, a laudable end. According to them, negating Net neutrality, in a bid to purportedly achieve greater access to the Internet in the immediate future, could prove profoundly injurious in the long run. Yes, Airtel Zero and Free Basics would bring to the less-privileged amongst us some access to the Internet, but the question is this: at what cost?

The worry is that if the programs that bring access to a part of the Internet in the immediate future were to entrench themselves, it could eventually lead to these telecom companies abusing their dominant positions. No doubt, as Pranesh Prakash, policy director at the Centre for Internet and Society, has argued, it might require a deeper analysis to argue convincingly that packages such as Free Basics and Airtel Zero require immediate invalidation in their present forms; significantly, the former does not demand payments from the applications while the latter is premised on such consideration. But, viewed holistically, the companies’ actions could potentially be characterised as a form of predatory pricing, where consumers might benefit in the short run, only for serious damage to ensue to competition in the long run.

It is, therefore, necessary that any debate on the issue must address the tension between the two apparently conflicting goals — the importance of maintaining a neutral Internet and the need to ensure a greater access to the web across the country. Mr. Zuckerberg argues that these two values are not fundamentally opposed to each other, but can — and must — coexist. He is possibly correct at a theoretical level.

But the history of markets tells us that we have to be very careful in allowing predatory practices, devised to achieve short-term goals, to go unbridled. As citizens, each of us has a fundamental right to freedom of speech and expression. If we were to get the balance between these two values wrong, if we were to allow the domination, by a few parties, of appliances that facilitate a free exchange of ideas, in a manner that impinges on the Internet’s neutrality, our most cherished civil liberties could well be put to grave danger.

(Suhrith Parthasarathy is an advocate in the Madras High Court.)

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/the-hindu-october-8-2015-suhrith-parthasarathy-access-at-the-cost-of-net-neutrality

Academia and Civil Society submit critical comments to DIPP on draft National IPR Policy

sinha — 2015-03-08T11:27:05Z

As our readers may be aware, the DIPP had initiated public consultation on the drafting of India’s first National IPR policy in November 2014.

These were published as two separate blog posts on Spicy IP (Part I and Part II).

The second round of consultation on the National IPR Draft Policy (draft policy) ended on January 31, 2015. Last week, we brought to you a guest post by Raghul Sudheesh who presented criticisms submitted by Prof. NS Gopalakrishnan, Director and Dr. TG Agitha, Associate Professor at Inter University Centre for Intellectual Property Rights Studies (IUCIPRS at CUSAT).

This two part post highlights two more submissions: first, made by Prof. Srividhya Ragavan (University of Oklahoma), Prof. Brook Baker (Northeastern University), Prof. Sean Flynn(American University) (click here); and second, by Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore (CIS). In November 2014, the professors also made submissions to the Office of United States Trade Representative (USTR) objecting to US’ threats of unilateral trade sanctions, and argued in support of India’s current IPR regime.

The following sections discuss the submission made by Prof. Srividhya Ragavan, Prof. Brook Baker and Prof. Sean Flynn. The authors have shared with us a draft version of the submission as well (authored by Prof. Raghavan and Prof Baker) and you may access it here. The two submissions are substantially similar, and therefore, I have discussed the points made in the final submission only.

Broad observations and caveats

According to the authors, the policy begins with a noble objective to maintain a balance between rights and obligations (protections, limitations and exceptions) as a means to serve constitutionally recognized ends of developing scientific and creative capacities of Indian society. However, the objective soon loses steam when one comes across clauses disturbing the balance in favour of rights holders (highlighted in subsequent sections).

The document also erroneously treats IP as an end in itself, rather than a means to higher social goals and functions; and fails to mention that there exist non-IP centric policies, which are equally, possibly better suited to meet such goals. The document depicts IP as a magic tool to disperse greater creativity and innovation. In view of such dubious characterisation of IP, the authors are quick to add that the policy would be more aptly titled “Views on the Future of Creativity and Innovation in India”! To fix this muddled projection of IP, the authors at the very outset recommend that the policy imbibe the following norms, broadly:

Firstly, intellectual property systems are means to the greater ends of society, not ends in themselves.
Secondly, the ends that IP is meant to serve include to promote both production of and access to fruits of science and creativity.
Thirdly, in order to achieve the production and access promoting ends of there is a need for context-specific tailoring of protections and exceptions and limitations to achieve a proper balance of rights and obligations.

Further, the policy recommends India becoming more active in negotiations at the international level, and in this regard the authors suggest India to actively resist and reject any TRIPS plus provisions. They express concern about the policy’s intent on commercializing IP, and warn about not going overboard with the commercialization, lest it interferes or diminishes access to medicines, and state that this is where the policy should have mentioned flexibilities in Indian IP law. While addressing specific clauses, the authors warn that steps to introduce a trade secret legislation should be mulled over more, and the proposed law should reconcile with protection of traditional knowledge. Reviewing legislations and their implementation is a welcome step, but law makers need to be extremely cautious before adding more protections to the IP mix. The authors also raise their doubts about the competence and expertise of the think-tank constituted to draft the policy.

What the policy should have done instead (as per the submission)

Articulated the limited role of IP in fostering innovation, creativity and societal goals more accurately – the policy goes as far as to deem copyright and patents as ‘intellectual creations’ on page one! The policy should also have highlighted literature which indicated that IP promises are grossly overemphasized particularly with respect to low- and lower-middle income countries.
Not glorified IP as a magic tool at the altar of other instruments (effective instruments include capacity building, technology transfer, and investment strategies) to increase economic growth. For instance, the IP Hall of Fame section proposes to celebrate only ‘IP innovators &creators’ and ignores other innovators/creators.
Stressed on the importance of limitations and exceptions – the policy calls for case studies of “successful use of IPRs” but not of limitations and exceptions to intellectual property rights, nor of open access tools like Creative Commons licensing or of any other knowledge governance policies. By neglecting the role of limitations and exceptions and focusing on IPRs only, the policy also takes two steps backwards by ignoring amendments to patent and design laws – changes which facilitated the introduction of flexibilities into India’s IPR law. The policy should have also defended India’s compulsory licensing decisions and produced evidence to support the same.
Held back on its enthusiasm to increase the infrastructure for IP specialist courts. In a country where the poor is struggling with access to justice, it is unjustified to put such matters on the backburner and focus on IP adjudication.

In the end, the authors draw up a list of core IP debates that the policy should address, inter alia: clarification of patent eligibility threshold on controversial subject matters; reexamination of the policy on exhaustion of IP rights; calibration and defining the impact of competition law on the exercise of IP exclusive rights; deciding whether India will continue to improve the compulsory and government use licensing regime to broaden permissible grounds for such licenses; articulating India’s position on counter IP overreach of other countries on IP and trade such as USTR’s unilateral Special 301 Watch List and US International Trade Commission investigations; increasing collaboration with developing countries to take a coordinated stand on common IP and trade issues; clarifying and broadening standards for fair use and affordable access to copyright protected works and translation of the same, especially with respect to educational and scientific resources, etc.

Public consultation on the first draft of the National IPR Policy concluded this month. The DIPP received many submissions on the draft policy and also held stakeholder meetings. We’ve discussed two other submissions on SpicyIP (here and here), and this post discusses the submission made by Centre for Internet and Society, India. For our readers’ information, Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) is a non-profit research organisation that works in the areas of issues of intellectual property law reform, openness, privacy, freedom of speech and expression and Internet governance, accessibility for persons with disabilities, and engages in academic research on digital humanities and digital natives.

Like the other two submissions, CIS’ submission also reiterates that a National IPR Policy is not something to be rushed into without adequate evidence and consultation. The submission highlights certain principles that should be followed in the the formulation of a National IPR Policy, and also provides comments and recommendations for the draft policy. To begin with, the submission claims that the vision and mission are at odds with the methods suggested by the draft Policy. While the vision encourages growth for the ‘benefit of all’ and embraces the philosophy that knowledge owned (should be) ‘transformed into knowledge shared’ and, the mission expresses a commitment to establish a balanced, dynamic and vibrant intellectual property system in India, both sections leave much to be desired. The policy should also have envisioned (and set a mission) towards:

The creation of a balanced IP framework and committing to do so by including adequate limitations and exceptions; duly acknowledged that IP is not necessarily the best and the only solution to promoting creativity, innovation and access; and prevent unreasonable and disproportionate remedies to IPR law violations; and
Recognized that upholding freedom of expression and due process of law are essential pillars of any IP regime.

One of the (many) assumptions made by the policy is that increased IP will lead to a corresponding growth in innovation. The submission flags this and cites evidence to prove that there exists no established nexus between intellectual property and innovation, and there are reports which suggest that an increase in patents is not directly proportional to an increase in innovation and productivity. Many academic papers have concluded that the connection between patents and innovation/productivity is at best, unambiguous, and there are no positive correlations in the developing countries.

The submission also warns against introduction of a utility model protection system and mentions a couple of drawbacks- explosion in litigation of poor quality patents and legal uncertainty – which impact small business the maximum in terms of costs; risk of the system being used by foreign companies more than local firms. Utility model rights can be, and have been, used by companies to cordon off entire areas of research. Reports also suggest that in China, the abundance of utility models has led to lowering of quality of innovation. Creation of a second-tier patent protection system would lead to a deluge of low quality patents, and the impact of such a system remains debatable, especially in a developing country like India.

The policy also makes an unequivocal commitment to increase IP output at national research labs and universities. The submission cautions against use of excessive IP to cordon off timely access to valuable research produced at public funded institutions and points out that the commitment is at odds with its vision of ‘knowledge sharing’. Any IP resulting from of publicly funded research should automatically belong to the funder. Further, a focus on maximising IP will lead to research being conducted only in areas of commercial value. The objective of the section goes against the recent steps by the government to make research openly accessible in Department of Science and Technology and the Department of Biotechnology as well as other institutions. On a similar note, the submission recommends that the government develop and support the evolution of open standards. The Policy must not encourage use of IP to limit access to standards, because these are the foundational rules any technology must adhere to enter the market or ensure quality. To make the government’s ‘Digital India’ and ‘Make in India’ initiatives a success, it is imperative that standards are openly accessible – not just for the technology sector, but also India’s manufacturing sector. It would also help to establish reasonable and non-discriminatory patent pools, so that even small scale entities can commercialise their inventions based on standards with relative ease. For instance, CIS has earlier proposed that the establishment of a a government-aided patent pool of standard essential technologies in mobile phones will facilitate cross-licensing. This may potentially help avoid a patent thicket and patent licensing war in India, the kind that has erupted internationally.

On the issue of negotiating international treaties and agreement, the submission recommends that the policy state that such negotiations shall be conducted in consultation with various stakeholders, and in a transparent manner. Regional FTAs should not override nor dilute TRIPS’ flexibilities.

Lastly, it strongly pushes the policy to not just ‘study the role of limitations and exceptions’ as future policy development, but also commit to include, adopt and periodically renew of limitations and exceptions in India’s intellectual property laws.

In conclusion, the submission seeks the creation of a policy which encourages greater use of exceptions and limitations to the otherwise exclusionary use of intellectual property, encourages the expansion of the public domain, secures proportionality in enforcement of IP rights, promotes alternatives to IP – including open access to scholarly literature, open educational resources, free/open source software, open standards, open data, and aims to create a regime of intellectual property that aims to serve the public interest and not just the narrow interest of private right holders.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/academia-and-civil-society-submit-critical-comments-to-dipp-on-draft-national-ipr-policy

About Us

pranesh — 2016-06-27T13:59:12Z

What we do

The Centre for Internet and Society is a non-profit research organisation that works on policy issues relating to freedom of expression, privacy, accessibility for persons with disabilities, access to knowledge and intellectual property rights, and openness (including open data, free/open source software, open standards, open access to scholarly literature, open educational resources, and open video), and engages in academic research on reconfigurations of social processes and structures through the Internet and digital media technologies, and vice versa.

Vision and Mission

The Centre for Internet and Society will critically engage with concerns of digital pluralism, public accountability and pedagogic practices, in the field of Internet and Society, with particular emphasis on South-South dialogues and exchange.

Through multidisciplinary research, intervention, and collaboration, we seek to explore, understand, and affect the shape and form of the internet, and its relationship with the political, cultural, and social milieu of our times.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/about/about-us

About Open Access Day

sunil — 2008-09-21T14:43:16Z

October 14, 2008 will be the world’s first Open Access Day. The founding partners for this Day are SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition), Students for FreeCulture, and the Public Library of Science.

Open Access Day will help to broaden awareness and understanding of Open Access, including recent mandates and emerging policies, within the international higher education community and the general public.

Open Access^¹ is a growing international movement that uses the Internet to throw open the locked doors that once hid knowledge. It encourages the unrestricted sharing of research results with everyone, everywhere, for the advancement and enjoyment of science and society.

Open Access is the principle that publicly funded research should be freely accessible online, immediately after publication, and it’s gaining ever more momentum around the world as research funders and policy makers put their weight behind it.

The Open Access philosophy was firmly articulated in 2002, when the Budapest Open Access Initiative was introduced. It quickly took root in the scientific and medical communities because it offered an alternative route to research literature that was frequently closed off behind costly subscription barriers.

Today, the OAIster search engine provides access to 17,799,314 Open Access records from 1015 contributors. According to the Directory of Open Access Journals – India publishes 105 Open Access journals. Both INSA and IASc have made their journals open access journals. Indian Institute of Science has an EPrints repository and it has over 11,000 papers and this year, the Institute's centenary year, the number is expected to cross 23,000. NIT, Rourkela, has mandated open access to all faculty research papers. There are about thirty OA institutional repositories in India today. The IITs and IISc have formed a consortium and are making their class lectures open access under a project called NPTEL. These lectures are available in web, video and YouTube formats.

About CCMG-JMI

The Centre seeks to enhance the integration and development of interdisciplinary research into the media in India and South Asia. To this end, various programmes envisaged at CCMG will contribute in the following manner:

Methodologically, work at the Centre will examine and seek to develop new approaches both, quantitative and qualitative. This being a recurrent motif across all thematic rubrics pursued.
Archiving the measurement and analysis of media production, content and reception takes place in many organisations, but very little of such data is available to researchers, or is analysed comparatively. To address this void, the Centre aims to create an archive of media research data of value to researchers across South Asia.
Comparative perspectives across disciplines, mediascapes and regions are of utmost importance to the centre’s body of objectives. Comparative analyses will require reconciling data based on differing calibration approaches rooted in, often, contesting intellectual traditions and policy foundations.
Networking will be structured to aid the regular association of media scholars and policy analysts from varied, contiguous disciplines. Equally, the Centre will act as a focal point for dialogues between social scientists, civil society actors and media professionals who rarely are able to share a platform.

1This section and the next is adapted from the content available at http://www.openaccessday.org

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/publications/content-access/about-open-access-day

Aaron Swartz: The First Martyr of the Free Information Movement

lawrence — 2013-01-24T12:26:02Z

Well known American computer programmer, writer, political organizer and Internet activist died on January 11, 2013. Lawrence Liang from the Alternative Law Forum discusses with Newsclick the tragic loss. The interview was conducted by Prabir Purkayastha.

This interview was originally published by NewsClick on January 19, 2013.

Discussing on the immediate background in which this tragic event happened, Lawrence says that all of us are collectively mourning the death of an extremely talented individual. He adds that Aaron was facing a very difficult trial ahead. A couple of years ago he had plugged his computer on to the MIT network and had downloaded approximately four million articles from JSTOR (primary database for social science and other science journals) and he had intended to make freely available. This act of his in many ways marks Aaaron's short life but one which is marked by a certain commitment and activism around the idea of free knowledge.

Lawrence further says that his anger at databases like JSTOR was the fact that they were charging extraordinary amounts of money to provide access (which meant that they were not available to most people in the world) without paying any royalty to the authors contributing to the article or to the people who do the peer review of the articles. Here is a scenario which is rent control of the worst kind essentially of knowledge which is completely privatised and enclosed (public knowledge which is enclosed in this particular way).

Most researchers and academics who work and contribute towards making of journals do not get compensated for it but are paid for by public money because they happen to be employed by universities or research centres. And then all this material goes behind pay walls. And that is the context in which we need to understand Aaron's life. Click below to watch the full interview:

Video

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/aaron-swartz-the-first-martyr-of-free-information-movement

Aadhaar-enabled smartphones will ease money transfer

praskrishna — 2016-08-10T13:33:54Z

With its plans to make smartphones Aadhaar-enabled, the government hopes to provide users a means to do self-authentication and let businesses and banks verify the identity of their clients through their smartphones, a move that could potentially lead the way to a cashless society.

The article by Neha Alawadhi and Gulveen Aulakh was published in the Economic Times on August 10, 2016. Sunil Abraham was quoted.

"Iris and fingerprint sensors are now becoming a standard feature in smartphones anyway, and this requirement will only take a minor tweak to the operating system. Once enabled, people will be able to use phones to do self-authentication and KYC (know your customer)," Nandan Nikelani, former chairman of the Unique Identification Authority of India, told ET, welcoming the government's plan to make smartphones Aadhaar-enabled.

ET was the first to report that on July 27 a meeting between UIDAI, which administers Aadhaar, and senior executives of smartphone-makers discussed ways to allow smartphone handsets let citizens authenticate their fingerprints and iris on the phone to get services. The most immediate use for the Aadhaar-enabled smartphones is the Unified Payment Interface (UPI), the new payment system that allows money transfer between any two parties using mobile phones and a virtual payment address.

"The two-factor authentication in UPI is now being done with mobile phone as one factor, and MPIN as the second factor. But once you have Aadhaar authentication on the phone, then the second factor can be biometric authentication through Aadhaar," said Nilekani. Over time, the idea is to open Aadhaar authentication to third party apps, said another person familiar with the ongoing discussions, who did not wish to be named.

In effect, biometric and iris scan authentication could become one of the permissions a user grants to different third party apps, such as access to camera, contacts, phone book and so on. Handset makers have raised concerns about some security issues on using iris scan for Aadhar authentication. Also, companies such as Apple that have very closed ecosystems, would not be easy to get on board, several people told ET.

"The primary challenge lies in safe storing of the iris scan between the time it is captured by the camera and then sent to UIDAI server seeking authentication," said an industry insider, who is aware of the discussions, requesting anonymity. The proposal for smartphone makers includes a "hardware secure zone" where biometric data will be encrypted and sent out. It will not leave the electronic secure zone without encryption, and every phone doing Aadhaar authentication will be registered in the UID system.

"Unfortunately, from the biometric sensor the data goes to the hardware secure zone via the operating system. Therefore, the biometric data can be intercepted by the operating system before it is sent to the hardware secure zone," said Sunil Abraham, executive director at Bengaluru-based research organisation, the Centre for Internet and Society.

"The reluctance to make changes at the vendor level are mainly coming from a desire for control of biometric data for strategic and commercial purposes. Privacy and security are bogus reasons," Nilekani said, adding that both ends - the handset and the Aadhaar database -- will use the highest level of encryption.

Samsung India, which in May launched the Galaxy Tab Iris, a device that uses Aadhaar authentication, said it has taken care that its user's biometric data does not fall into the wrong hands. "We ensure that biometric data is encrypted as per UIDAI specifications in device itself for Galaxy Tab Iris," Sukesh Jain, vice president, Samsung India Electronics, told ET in an email response.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/economic-times-august-10-2016-neha-alawadhi-gulveen-aulakh-aadhaar-enabled-smartphones-will-ease-money-transfer

Aadhaar security: Here's how your private information can be protected

praskrishna — 2017-05-19T10:05:25Z

Lock Aadhaar, and notify UIDAI if you get a one-time-password for a transaction you did not initiate

The article by Sanjay Kumar Singh was published in the Business Standard on May 11, 2017. Udbhav Tiwari was quoted.

The linking of Aadhaar — the 12-digit unique identification number for Indian residents — across various benefits is going through a roller-coaster ride. On one hand, the government, keen to make it mandatory, is linking it with filing of income-tax returns and benefits. But, on the other, many are uncomfortable with it because of privacy issues and leakages that have been reported recently. The Supreme Court, on Tuesday, referred another fresh plea challenging the Aadhaar Act and its mandatory use in government schemes to a larger Constitution bench.

There has been several reports that say that Aadhaar numbers and other personal data are being leaked. Bengaluru-based Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) has published a report (titled Information security practices of Aadhaar, or lack thereof) where it lists four government departments that have posted Aadhaar numbers and other personal information of people. According to the report, an estimated 130-135 million Aadhaar numbers and 100 million bank account numbers were posted on the four portals that the CIS researchers checked. Normally such data should be kept on the government’s intranet, where only authorised people can access it. However, a few government departments have uploaded this data on their websites. In many cases, the data was in excel format, making it all the more easy for people to download and misuse it. The worst part: If your data is stolen, you cannot file even a First Information Report with the police. Only the nodal body, the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), can file a police complaint.

Your data can be misused: Experts say that leakage of Aadhaar numbers and other personal information into the public domain violates peoples’ privacy. “Your name, phone number, address, bank account number and Aadhaar number are personal information. Only you have the right to decide whether to release such information to others. Such data shouldn’t be complied in excel sheets in large numbers and be freely accessible on the internet to everyone," says Udbhav Tiwari, policy officer at the Centre for Internet and Society, Bengaluru.

Tele-marketers and advertisers will have access to the personal information of all those people. More serious problems such as identity theft can occur. Says Smitha Krishna Prasad, project manager, Centre for Communication Governance at National Law University, Delhi: “The more sensitive information a person has about you, the easier it becomes to impersonate you when that person is speaking to, say, a bank." The impersonator could open a bank account or even take a loan in your name.

Suppose a hacker gets your email ID. “He will use the ‘password reset or forgot password’ feature to change your password and get access to your account. This feature poses questions based on personal info about you. Any such data collected about you comes useful here. Such hackers mine a lot of data about potential victims from all possible sources," says Shomiron Das Gupta of NetMonastery, a threat management provider. In the email, he could find info about your bank account, credit card account, etc, and cause financial losses to you.

Serious risks can also arise if someone manages to breach the biometric authentication or one-time password (OTP) required for using the Aadhaar system. “It is possible to copy an individual’s fingerprints, and replicate them using very commonly available resins. It is also possible for hackers to capture the data being communicated between a telephone tower and a mobile phone, especially if it is poorly encrypted. This will allow the hacker to see the OTP. Admittedly, this does require expertise and a targeted effort vis-a-vis an individual," says Tiwari. Now that the Aadhaar numbers of so many people have been divulged, someone could utilise their identities to steal their government-granted benefits, or obtain a SIM card, which could then be misused. Raman Jit Singh Chima, policy director, Access Now, says at many places where the Aadhaar number is required today, no biometric authentication is done. So just the number can be used to impersonate you.

Lock your biometrics: If your Aadhaar number and other personal information have been leaked, here are a few steps you can take to safeguard yourself. One, be wary of any calls you receive asking for additional details, which may not have been leaked already. Be equally wary if you receive a call wherein someone rattles off your personal data and asks you to verify it. The caller could pretend to be calling from your bank. It is best not to reveal or confirm any information over the phone at all. Two, you have the option to lock your biometric data online. Even if someone manages to steal your fingerprint, he will not be able to use it if you have locked your biometric data (see table). Also, if you get an OTP on your phone for an Aadhaar utilisation that you did not initiate, notify the UIDAI, and thus ensure that no transaction is carried out using your Aadhaar account.

Need for a privacy law: To prevent data leaks in the future, the government needs to sensitise state government officials who work with Aadhaar data about the need to protect the its privacy. More importantly, India needs a comprehensive data protection law. At present, there is limited provision in the Information Technology Act of 2008 under which you can file a civil case against a corporate that has leaked your personal information. “The person affected by data leakage has to show that he has suffered wrongful loss, or somebody else has enjoyed a wrongful gain, and then claim compensation," says Prasad.

After the Radia tapes incident, the government had said it would pass a comprehensive privacy law. “This law would lead to the creation of a data protection authority with enforcement powers, which would be able to penalise both companies and government bodies violating privacy principles. Despite the process beginning in 2012-13, and multiple drafts being leaked into the public domain, there has not been much progress on this count," says Chima. He adds that when the privacy law becomes a reality, any part of the Aadhaar Act that is contrary to it should also be amended.

How to lock your biometric data online

Go to the UIDAI web site: https://uidai.gov.inGo to Aadhaar services, then Lock/Unlock Biometrics Enter Aadhaar number Enter security code that appears below the Aadhaar numberYou will receive an OTP on your registered mobile number. Enter it Click ‘Verify’Click box against ‘Enable biometric lock’Click on Submit buttonSame procedure can be repeated to disable biometric lock.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/business-standard-sanjay-kumar-singh-aadhaar-security-here-is-how-your-private-information-can-be-protected