Centre for Internet and Society

April 2015 Bulletin

praskrishna — 2015-05-31T04:29:24Z

Newsletter for the month of April below.

We are happy to share with you the fourth issue of the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) newsletter (April 2015). The past editions of the newsletter can be accessed at http://cis-india.org/about/newsletters.

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Highlights
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CIS received 35 engaging abstracts in response to the call for essays on 'Studying Internet in India'. The final essays will be published from June onwards. The ten selected abstracts can be read at http://cis-india.org/raw/studying-internet-in-india-selected-abstracts/ .

CIS submitted its comments to the National Informatics Centre on April 30, 2015 bringing to notice the negligible progress on the front for making Indian government websites conform to the notified standards, and gave recommendations to take the initiatives forward.
Nehaa Chaudhari has prepared a consolidated report that tracks the development of India's National IPR Policy and the requests by CIS to the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion under the RTI Act and responses elicited from the Department.

Institute of Odia Studies and Research organised 2nd National Language Conference beginning on March 30, 2015 and ending on April 2, 2015 at the Institute of Physics, Bhubaneswar. This conference was organised in collaboration with the Department of Tourism and Culture. Subhashish Panigrahi presented a paper in Odia language in this conference as part of a panel discussion related to Odia language computing.

Sunil Abraham's article titled "Shreya Singhal and 66A" was published in Economic and Political Weekly Vol-L No.15. Vidushi Marda helped in doing the research.

Sunil Abraham in an article in DNA titled " Multiple Aspects Need to be Addressed as the Clamour Grows for Network Neutrality " tells readers that there are four violations of Network Neutrality that are considered particularly egregious.

Jyoti Panday prepared an analysis of the Supreme Court judgement in Shreya Singhal and what it does for intermediary liability in India.
In February 2015, CIS had requested DeitY under RTI Act to provide information clarifying the procedures for blocking in India. The response elicited from DeitY has been published.

CIS sent a joint response to the TRAI Consultation Paper on Regulatory Framework for Over-the-top (OTT) services with scholars from Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. The response was sent on March 27, 2015.

► Vacancies at CIS

CIS is seeking applications for:

Internship : CIS is providing opportunities for students enrolled in graduate programmes to undertake internship at its offices in Bangalore and Delhi. Eligible candidates are welcome to participate in our internship programme.

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Accessibility and Inclusion
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Under a grant from the Hans Foundation we are doing two projects. The first project is on creating a national resource kit of state-wise laws, policies and programmes on issues relating to persons with disabilities in India. CIS in partnership with CLPR (Centre for Law and Policy Research) compiled the National Compendium of Policies, Programmes and Schemes for Persons with Disabilities (29 states and 6 union territories). The publication has been finalised and is being printed. The draft chapters and the quarterly reports can be accessed on the project page. The second project is on developing text-to-speech software for 15 Indian languages. The progress made so far in the project can be accessed here.

►NVDA and eSpeak

# Monthly Updates

April 2015 Report (Suman Dogra; April 30, 2015).

# Language Testing Reports

Hindi Language (Nirmita Narasimhan; April 10, 2015).
Gujarati Language (Nirmita Narasimhan; April 16, 2015).
Oriya Language (Nirmita Narasimhan; April 30, 2015).

►Other

# Submission

Comments to the GIGW (Nirmita Narasimhan; April 30, 2015).

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Access to Knowledge
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As part of the Access to Knowledge programme we are doing two projects. The first one (Pervasive Technologies) under a grant from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) is for research on the complex interplay between pervasive technologies and intellectual property to support intellectual property norms that encourage the proliferation and development of such technologies as a social good. The second one (Wikipedia) under a grant from the Wikimedia Foundation is for the growth of Indic language communities and projects by designing community collaborations and partnerships that recruit and cultivate new editors and explore innovative approaches to building projects.

# Blog Entries

Methodology: Patent Landscaping in the Indian Mobile Device Market (Rohini Lakshané; November 10, 2014). The list of standards and specifications found in sub-USD-100 Internet-enabled mobile phones sold in India" (Annexure 2 in the post) has been updated .
Conference on Standards Settings Organizations (SSO) and FRAND, NLSIU (Rohini Lakshané; April 5, 2015).
National IPR Policy Series: RTI Requests by CIS to DIPP + DIPP Responses (Nehaa Chaudhari; April 15, 2015).
Pervasive Technologies Project Working Document Series: Literature Review on IPR in Mobile app development (Anubha Sinha; April 29, 2015).

Media Coverage

CIS gave inputs for the following:

One reason startups are moving out of India (Evelyn Fok and Varun Aggarwal; The Times of India; April 10, 2015). This was also mirrored in Economic Times .
Indian businesses crave IP certainty, but better patent values are tempting them overseas (IAM Magazine; April 28, 2015).

►Wikipedia

As part of the project grant from the Wikimedia Foundation we have reached out to more than 3500 people across India by organizing more than 100 outreach events and catalysed the release of encyclopaedic and other content under the Creative Commons (CC-BY-3.0) license in four Indian languages (21 books in Telugu, 13 in Odia, 4 volumes of encyclopaedia in Konkani and 6 volumes in Kannada, and 1 book on Odia language history in English).

# Participation in Event

2nd National Language Conference, Bhubaneswar (Organized by Institute of Odia Studies and Research; Institute of Physics; Bhubaneswar; March 30 - April 2, 2015). This conference was organised in collaboration with the Department of Tourism and Culture. Subhashish Panigrahi presented a paper in Odia language in this conference as part of a panel discussion related to Odia language computing.

# Blog Entries

Hindustani Language: We Are Wikipedia (Syed Muzamiluddin; April 10, 2015).
ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଭାଷା ପାଇଁ ଡିଜିଟାଲ ଅସୁବିଧା (Subhashish Panigrahi; April 15, 2015).
Wikipedia Campus at Oxford College (Subhashish Panigrahi; April 28, 2015).

# News and Media Coverage

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

Odia waits for Google Translate debut - Nine Indian languages available (Anwesha Ambaly; Telegraph; April 6, 2015).
Now you can search Google in Kannada, in your handwriting (Apurva Venkat; Bangalore Mirror; April 18, 2015).

►Openness

# Event Co-organized

NASA International Open Data Challenge 2015 (Co-organized by CIS and Team Indus; Bangalore; April 11-12, 2015).

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Internet Governance
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As part of its research on privacy and free speech, CIS is engaged with two different projects. The first one (under a grant from Privacy International and International Development Research Centre (IDRC)) is on surveillance and freedom of expression (SAFEGUARDS). The second one (under a grant from MacArthur Foundation) is on studying the restrictions placed on freedom of expression online by the Indian government.

►Freedom of Expression

India's Apex Court in a landmark decision struck down section 66A of the IT Act. The judgment provided great relief for advocates of freedom of speech on the Internet. The development attracted lots of media coverage to which CIS gave its inputs:

# Articles

Shreya Singhal and 66A (Sunil Abraham; Economic and Political Weekly Vol-L No.15; April 11, 2015). Vidushi Marda helped in doing the research.
Don't Do Nothing. Take a Stand on Net Neutrality. (T. Vishnu Vardhan; NDTV; April 13, 2015).
Multiple Aspects Need to be Addressed as the Clamour Grows for Network Neutrality (Sunil Abraham; DNA; April 16, 2015).
The Hazards of a Non-neutral Internet (Geetha Hariharan; April 18, 2015). A modified version of the blog entry was published as an article titled " A must for free speech " in the Week.

# Blog Entries

The Supreme Court Judgment in Shreya Singhal and What It Does for Intermediary Liability in India? (Jyoti Panday; April 11, 2015).
DeitY says 143 URLs have been Blocked in 2015; Procedure for Blocking Content Remains Opaque and in Urgent Need of Transparency Measures (Jyoti Panday; April 29, 2015).

# Event

Freedom of Expression in a Digital Age: Effective Research, Policy Formation & the Development of Regulatory Frameworks in South Asia (Organized by Center for Global Communication Studies at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania, Observer Research Foundation and CIS; Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi; April 21, 2015).

# Participation in Event

Financial Express hosts #NetNeutralityDebate: 'Price discrimination can be allowed, but not for the same packet of data' (New Delhi; April 24, 2015). Pranesh Prakash participated in the discussion.

►Privacy

# Participation in Event

Privacy International Network Meeting (Organized by Privacy International, UK; April 22 - 23, 2015). Sunil Abraham attended the meeting.

►Miscellaneous

# Announcement

IIGF Recruitment : The National Internet Exchange of India (NIXI) conducted walk-in interviews on May 16, 2015 at NIXI Jasola office, Flat No. 6B, 6th Floor, Uppals M6 Plaza, New Delhi. NIXI sought candidates to fill the posts of Technology Analyst, Policy Analyst, Research Associate and Executive Assistants.

# Participation in Events

Global Conference on Cyberspace 2015 (Co-organized by Dutch Government, City of the Hague and One Conference; The Hague, Netherlands; April 16 - 17, 2015). Sunil Abraham was a panelist. He also participated in an expert roundtable conference .
CII Digital India Summit (Organized by Confederation of Indian Industries; Taj Mahal Hotel and Pragati Maidan, New Delhi; April 21 and 24, 2015). Pranesh Prakash attended the summit.

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News & Media Coverage
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CIS gave its inputs to the following media coverage:

'Smack' the Trolls! (Marianne De Nazareth; The Citizen; March 31, 2015).
The block heads (Sibi Arasu; Hindu Businessline; April 3, 2015).
Smriti Irani brings back focus on voyeurism prevailing in our country (Amrita Madhukalya; DNA; April 6, 2015).
Surveillance rises, privacy retreats (Namrata Acharya; Business Standard; April 12, 2015).
People voice their support for net neutrality, say Internet a utility not a luxury (IBN Live; April 13, 2015).
Net neutrality: Trai receives over 2 lakh mails (Sandhya Soman and Jayanta Deka; April 14, 2015).
Net neutrality: Debate rages on (Surabhi Aggarwal; Business Standard; April 11, 2015)
Net neutrality debate rages (Lalatendu Mishra and Pradeesh Chandran; The Hindu; April 15, 2015).
Net neutrality: Net activism packs a punch (Sandhya Soman; The Times of India; April 19, 2015).
Net Neutrality debate in India: Here are all the arguments you need to know (Indian Express; April 23, 2015).
Freedom struggle 2.0 (Zara Khan; Hindu; April 25, 2015).
Cry, you nasty trolls (Prasun Chaudhari; The Telegraph; April 26, 2015). Net Neutrality: The argument continues (Deepak Ajwani and Debojyoti Ghosh; Forbes India Magazine; April 29, 2015).

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Researchers at Work
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The Researchers at Work (RAW) programme is an interdisciplinary research initiative driven by contemporary concerns to understand the reconfigurations of social practices and structures through the Internet and digital media technologies, and vice versa. It is interested in producing local and contextual accounts of interactions, negotiations, and resolutions between the Internet, and socio-material and geo-political processes:

# Blog Entries

Studying Internet in India: Selected Abstracts - CIS received thirty five engaging abstracts in response to the call for essays on 'Studying Internet in India.' The final essays will be published from June onwards. These are the ten selected abstracts: Studying the Internet Discourse in India through the Prism of Human Rights (by Deva Prasad); Indic Scripts and the Internet (by Dibyajyoti Ghosh); The Internet in the Indian Judicial Imagination (by Divij Joshi); Dharmasala Networked (by Laird Brown); WhatsApp Economy (by Maitrayee Deka); Citizens and their Internet (by Purbasha Auddy); The Many Lives and Sites of Internet in Bhubaneswar (by Sailen Routray); Quantity over Quality: Social Media and the New Class System in India (by Sarah McKeever); Governing Speech on the Internet: Transforming the Public Sphere through Policymaking (by Smarika Kumar).

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Telecom
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CIS is involved in promoting access and accessibility to telecommunications services and resources and has provided inputs to ongoing policy discussions and consultation papers published by TRAI. It has prepared reports on unlicensed spectrum and accessibility of mobile phones for persons with disabilities and also works with the USOF to include funding projects for persons with disabilities in its mandate:

# Submission

Response to TRAI Consultation Paper on Regulatory Framework for Over-the-Top (OTT) Services (Pranesh Prakash; March 27, 2015). The response was sent in March but mirrored on our website recently.

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About CIS
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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
Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/cisa2k
Visit us at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge
E-mail: a2k@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. 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/april-2015-bulletin

ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଭାଷା ପାଇଁ ଡିଜିଟାଲ ଅସୁବିଧା

subha — 2015-05-27T15:22:31Z

This paper was presented at the 2nd National Language Seminar by CIS-A2K Pogramme Officer Subhashish Panigrahi. In the paper, Panigrahi discusses about the hindrances of mass use of Odia language on the internet and how that is impacting in overall contribution of people in the language.

He further elaborates on the major content repositories like Odia Wikipedia that have the potential to drive the bandwagon of an old and rich language like Odia online which is otherwise ceased because of the lack of contribution. Click to download the file.

"ଭାଷାସବୁ ଭାଷାଙ୍କୁ ମାରନ୍ତିନି; ଭାଷାଭାଷୀମାନେ ମାରନ୍ତି' କହିଥିଲେ ଜଣାଶୁଣା ଭାଷାବିଦ ସାଲିକିକ ମୁଫଉଇନ । ଅନେକ ଡରନ୍ତି ଜଗତରେ ଆଜି ଜିଇଁଥିବା ୬,୭୦୦ଭାଷା ମରିମରି ଆଉ ଶହେବର୍ଷ ପରେ ୨୦୦ ହୋଇସାରିଥିବ । ଭାଷା ତଳେ ଭାଷାର ସମାଧି ଲଭିବାର ମୂକସାକ୍ଷୀ ନିକଟ ଅତୀତ । ଅନେକ ଭାଷା ରାଜଭାଷା, ରାଜନୈତିକ ପୃଷ୍ଠପୋଷକତା ପାଇଥିବା ଭାଷାର ମଙ୍ଗ ଧରିଥିବା ମୁଣ୍ଡିଆଳମାନଙ୍କ ଅଦଉତିରେ ମୁଣ୍ଡଟେକି ଭବିଷ୍ୟତର ଆଲୋକ ଦେଖିାରିନାହାନ୍ତି । ତେବେ ଅନେକ ଭାଷା ଅନାଦରରୁ, ରାଜନୀତିକ ଷଡ଼ଯନ୍ତ୍ର ଶିକାର ହୋଇ ଧୀରେ ଧୀରେ ସାଧାରଣ ବ୍ୟବହାରରୁ ହଜି ଯାଆନ୍ତି । ଶାସ୍ତ୍ରୀୟ ମାନ୍ୟତା ପାଇଲାଣି ଯେବେ ଆମକୁ ଆଉ କୂପମଣ୍ଡୁକ ହୋଇ ନିଜ ଦେଶ ଭିତରେ ବାନ୍ଧି ହୋଇ ରହିଲେ ଚଳିବ ନାହିଁ । ଆମ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଭାଷାର ସ୍ଥିତି ଏବେ ଜଗତ ପୃଷ୍ଠଭୂମିରେ କେଉଁଠି ତା' ବିଚାରିବା ବେଳ ଆସିଲାଣି । ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଭାଷାର ପୁରୁଣାପଣ ଉପରେ ଆଉ କାହାର ସନ୍ଦେହ ନାହିଁ । ତେବେ ସନ୍ଦେହଟି ଆମ ଭାଷାର ବ୍ୟାବହାରିକ ଦିଗ ଉପରେ । ଭାଷାଟି ଲୋକତୁଣ୍ଡରେ ଯେତେ ଅଧିକ କଥିତ ହେବେ ତା' ଖାଦି ସେତେ ବଢ଼ିବ । ପୁଣି ସମାଜର ମୁଣ୍ଡିଆଳମାନେ ଯେବେ ସେ ଭାଷାକୁ ଶାସନ, ବଣିଜ ଆଉ ସବୁଠି ବ୍ୟବହାର କରିବେ ସେ ଭାଷା ସେତେ ବଳୁଆ ହେବ । ଆମ ପାଇଁ ସମାଜର ଉଚ୍ଚ ବର୍ଗର ଲୋକଙ୍କ ଦେଇ ଓଡ଼ିଆ କହାଯିବାଟି ଏକ ବଡ଼ ବାଧକ ହୋଇ ଠିଆ ହୋଇଛି । ଆମ ଚାରିପାଖେ ଅନେକ ଉଞ୍ଚା ଗଛ ହେଲେ ଆମେ ଯେ ଛାଇରେ ଏକଥା କହିବା ବାହୁଲ୍ୟ । ୫୦୦ରୁ ଅଧିକ ବର୍ଷକାଳ ଓଡ଼ିଶା ପରାଧୀନ ହୋଇ ନ ରହନ୍ତା କି ଆମ ଭାଷାର ଯଥେଷ୍ଟ ପରେ ଜନମିଥିବା ନୂଆ ଭାଷାମାନେ ଆମଠୁ ଅଧିକ ବଳୁଆ ହୋଇ ଆମ ଉପରେ ହାକିମାତି ନ ଦେଖାନ୍ତେ । ଏବେ ଓଡ଼ିଶା ଗରିବ ରାଜ୍ୟ ବୋଲି ଯେଉଁ ଅପପ୍ରଚାରଟି କରାଯାଇଛି ଦୀର୍ଘ କେତେ ବର୍ଷ ଧରି ତା' ସକାଶେ ଲୋକଙ୍କ ଭିତରେ ନାହିନଥିବା ହୀନମନ୍ୟତା । ଆଉ ବଲିଉଡ଼ ଭଳି ଅର୍ଥକାରୀ ମିଡ଼ିଆ ପ୍ରଭାବରେ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ମିଡ଼ିଆର ପ୍ରଭାବ ଜନମାନସରେ ଖୁବ କମ ପଡ଼େ । ଏକ କାଳେ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ସିନେମା ଯେଉଁ ବଲିଓଡ଼ ସହିତ ସମତାଳେ ଗତି କରୁଥିଲା ବୋଲି ଆମେ ଆଜି ସିନେମାକୁ ଛି ଛାକର କରୁ ସେ କେବଳ ପ୍ରହେଳିକା । ଯେଉଁମାନେ ହିନ୍ଦୀ ସିନେମା ତିଆରି କରୁଥିଲେ ତା'ର ପ୍ରଭାବ ସିଧାସଳଖ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଓ ବାକି ଭାଷା ଉପରେ ପଡ଼ୁଥିଲା । ଲୁଗା ପିନ୍ଧା ହେଉ କି ସଂଳାପ ସେସବୁରେ ଏକ କୃତ୍ରିମତା ବାରିପଡ଼େ । ତେବେ ଅନେକ ନିଆରା ଚିଜ ସେଥିରେ ଖଞ୍ଜାଥିଲା ଯାହା ଆଜି ଆଉ ନାହିଁ । ଆମ ମିଡ଼ିଆରେ ଏବେ ଖୁବ କମ ଭାଗ ଖାଣ୍ଟି ଓଡ଼ିଆପଣ ଅଛି, ବାକି ସବୁ ହିନ୍ଦୀ ଓ ଅନ୍ୟାନ୍ୟ ମିଡ଼ିଆରୁ ଚୋରାଯାଉଛି । ମିଡ଼ିଆର ବଡ଼ ଦେଖଣାହାରୀ ହେଲେ ଯୁବସମାଜ । ଏଇ କିଛି ବର୍ଷ ଭିତରେ ପ୍ରଚାର ଚାଲିଲା ଯେ ହିନ୍ଦୀ ଭାରତର ରାଷ୍ଟ୍ରଭାଷା ଆଉ ଏହା କହୁଥିବା ଲୋକେ ଆସି ଏବେ ୪୦ ଭାଗରେ ପହଞ୍ଚିଲେଣି । ଏ ମିଛ ପ୍ରହସନ ପାଇଁ ସରକାର କିଛି ପରିମାଣରେ ଦାୟୀ ଆଉ ବାକି ଶ୍ରେୟ ଲାଭଖୋର ବେପାରୀଙ୍କୁ ଯାଏ । ଏମାନେ ହେଲେ ମିଡ଼ିଆକୁ ନେଇ କୋଟି କୋଟି ଟଙ୍କାର ବେପାର କରୁଥିବା ବେପାରିଏ । ଏ ଦେଶେ ଇଂରାଜୀ ଭଳି ଏକ ଆନ୍ତର୍ଜାତୀୟ ସ୍ତରର ଖାଦିଥିବା ଭାଷାକୁ ଆମ ଜାତୀୟତାବାଦର ବିରୋଧୀ, ଉପନିବେଶବାଦର ସ୍ମାରକ କହି କେଇ ଶହ ବର୍ଷ ତଳେ ଆକ୍ରମଣକାରୀ ପାରସିକଙ୍କ ଭାଷାରୁ ତିଆରି ଏକ କୃତ୍ରିମ ଭାଷାକୁ ଲଦିଦିଆଗଲା ଭାରତର ରାଜଭାଷା କରି । ଏହାର ଶିକାର ଉଣାଅଧିକେ ସବୁ ଭାରତୀୟ ଭାଷା ତଥା ଆମ ପଡ଼ୋଶୀ ଦେଶର ଭାଷାଙ୍କ ଉପରେ ପଡ଼ିଛି । ତେଣୁ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ପାଇଁ ପଇସା ଭାଷା ହେବା ଦୂରୁହ ହୋଇପଡ଼ିଛି । ଆମ ଭାଷା ଏବେ କେବଳ ସାହିତ୍ୟ ଭିତରେ ସୀମିତ ବୋଲି ମୋଟାମୋଟି କହିହେବ । ତେବେ ସବୁଠୁ ବଡ଼ ସମସ୍ୟା ଆସି ହେଲାଣି ପିଢ଼ି ଅସମତା, ଆମ ବୁଢ଼ାମାନେ କିଛି ପରିମାଣରେ ଓଡ଼ିଆକୁ ଧରି ରଖିଥିବା ବେଳେ ପିଲାଏ ଫିଙ୍ଗିବା ଆରମ୍ଭିଲେଣି । ଏଥିପାଇଁ ବଡ଼ମାନଙ୍କ ଭୂମିକା ଖୁବ ଅଧିକ । ପିଲାଙ୍କୁ ଇଂରାଜୀ ମିଡ଼ିଅମ ସ୍କୁଲରେ ଛାଡ଼ିଲେ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଯେ ଅଛୁଆଁ ଏମିତି ଏକ ଧାରଣା ଦେବା ପ୍ରତି ଅଭିଭାବକ ପାଖେ ଦେଖିବାକୁ ମିଳେ ।

ଓଡ଼ିଆରେ ଟାଇପ କରିବା:

ମୋବାଇଲ, କମ୍ପୁଟର ଓ ଟାବଲେଟ ଆଦିରେ ସହଜେ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଟାଇପ କରିହେବ । ତେବେ ଗୋଟିଏ କଥା ଜାଣିବାକୁ ପଡ଼ିବ ଯେ ଆକୃତି, ଶ୍ରୀଲିପି, ଲିପ-ଅଫିସ ଆଦି ବ୍ୟବହାର କରି ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଲେଖିଲେ କମ୍ପୁଟରରେ ସେ ଫଣ୍ଟସବୁ ଇନଷ୍ଟଲ ହୋଇଥିଲେ କେବଳ ଜଣେ ପଢ଼ିପାରିବ । ତେବେ ଏସବୁ ପୁରୁ୍ଣାକାଳିଆ ହୋଇଥିବାରୁ ସେଥିରେ ଇମେଲ, ଫେସବୁକ ବା ୱେବସାଇଟ କଲେ ବାକିମାନେ ପଢ଼ିପାରିବେ ନାହିଁ । ଏସବୁ ଫଣ୍ଟରେ ୱେବସାଇଟ କଲେ ଗୁଗୁଲ ସର୍ଚରେ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଆସିବ ନାହିଁ । ଅନେକ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଲେଖା ଇଣ୍ଟରନେଟରେ ଆକୃତି, ଶ୍ରୀଲିପି ଓ ସେ ଧରଣର ଲେଖାରେ ଉପଲବ୍ଧ ହୋଇଥିବାରୁ ସେସବୁ ପାଠକେ ଖୋଜି ପାଉନାହାନ୍ତି । ବାକି ଭାଷାରେ ଉପଲବ୍ଧ ହେଲେ ମଧ୍ୟ କେବଳ ଏହି କାରଣ ସକାଶେ ଗୁଗୁଲ ଏଯାଏ ତା' ସାଇଟରେ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ବିଭାଗଟି ଖୋଲିନାହିଁ । ତେଣୁ ଲେଖାଲେଖିକୁ ଅଧିକ ଲୋକଙ୍କ ପାଖେ ପହଞ୍ଚାଇବାର ସବୁଠୁ ବଡ଼ ବାଟ ହେଲା ଇଉନିକୋଡ଼ । ଏହା ଏକ ବିଶ୍ୱସ୍ତରର ମାନକ ଓ ଜଗତର ସବୁ ଭାଷା ଏହି ମାନକ ସକାଶେ ନିଜ ନିଜ ସହ ଯୋଡ଼ା । କମ୍ପୁଟରରେ ଓଡ଼ିଆରେ ଟାଇପ କରିବା ସହଜ । Windows XP ସର୍ଭିସ ପ୍ୟାକ ୨ ପରେ ଆସିଥିବା ସବୁ ଅପରେଟିଂ ସିଷ୍ଟମରେ (XP service pack 3, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8 ଆଦି) ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଫଣ୍ଟ ଇନଷ୍ଟଲ ହୋଇ ଆସୁଛି । ତେଣୁ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ପଢ଼ିବାରେ କୌଣସି ଅସୁବିଧା ହେବା କଥା ନୁହେଁ । ଇଉନିକୋଡ଼ ଓଡ଼ିଆରେ ଟାଇପ କରିବା ପାଇଁ ମୋଜିଲା ଫାୟାରଫକ୍ସ ବ୍ରାଉଜରରେ http://bitly.com/odiafirefox ଏବଂ ଗୁଗୁଲ କ୍ରୋମ ବ୍ରାଉଜରରେ http://bitly.com/odiachrome ଖୋଲି ସେଠାରେ ଥିବା Addon ଡାଉନଲୋଡ଼ କରିପାରିବେ । ଏସୁବୁକୁ ପ୍ରଥମ ଥର ଇନଷ୍ଟଲ କଲାପରେ ଫେସବୁକ, ମେଲ ଆଦିରେ ଏକ ଫାଙ୍କା ସ୍ଥାନରେ କ୍ଲିକ କଲେ ଛୋଟ କିବୋର୍ଡ଼ ଛବିଟିଏ ଦିଶିବ । ସେ ଛବି ଉପରେ କ୍ଲିକ କରି ପ୍ରଥମେ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଓ ପରେ "ଲେଖନୀ" କିମ୍ବା "ଫୋନେଟିକ" ବାଛି ଓଡ଼ିଆରେ ଟାଇପ କରିହେବ । ଆମେ ନିଜ ନାଁ ଯେମିତି ଇଂରାଜୀ ଅକ୍ଷରରେ ଲେଖୁଛୁ ଠିକ ସେହିଭଳି ଢଙ୍ଗରେ ଓଡ଼ିଆରେ ଟାଇପ କରିହେବ । ଯଥା: "କାମ" ଲେଖିବା ପାଇଁ "kam", "ଆଚାର" ଲେଖିବା ପାଇଁ "achar" ।

ଯଦି ଆଗରୁ ଆକୃତି, ଶ୍ରୀଲିପିରେ କିଛି ଲେଖା ଅଛି ତାକୁ ବ୍ଲଗ, ଇମେଲ, ଫେସବୁକ ଓ ଇଣ୍ଟରନେଟରେ ବାକି ଜାଗାରେ ବ୍ୟବହାର କରିବା ପାଇଁ ଇଉନିକୋଡ଼କୁ ବଦଳାଇବା ବାଟ ଆସିଲାଣି । ଆକୃତି ଲେଖା http://bitly.com/akrutiodia ଓ ଶ୍ରୀଲିପି ଲେଖା http://bitly.com/shreelipi ସାଇଟ ଖୋଲି ଇଉନିକୋଡ଼କୁ ବଦଳାଇ ହେବ । ନିଜ କମ୍ପୁଟରରେ ରାଇଟ କ୍ଲିକ କରି "Save as" ଅପସଙ୍କୁ ଯାଇ ଏ ଦୁଇଟିଯାକ କନଭର୍ଟର ନିଜ କମ୍ପୁଟର ଡେସ୍କଟପରେ ସାଇତିହେବ ଓ ପରେ ବିନା ଇଣ୍ଟରନେଟରେ ମଧ୍ୟ ବ୍ୟବହାର କରିହେବ ।

ମୋବାଇଲରେ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଟାଇପ କରିହେବ କି ନାଁ ତା' ଜାଣିବାର ସହଜ ବାଟଟି ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆ (or.wikipedia.org) ବା ଆଉ କୌଣସି ଓଡ଼ିଆ ସାଇଟ ଖୋଲି ପରଖିପାରିବେ । ଯଦି ଏକ ମୋବାଇଲରେ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ପଢ଼ିହେଉଛି ତାହେଲେ ଓଡ଼ିଆରେ ଟାଇପ କରିବା ମଧ୍ୟ ସମ୍ଭବ । ଆଣ୍ଡ୍ରଏଡ଼ ପାଇଁ http://bitly.com/indickeyboard ଏବଂ iOS ପାଇଁ http://bitly.com/odiaios ବ୍ୟବହାର କରି ଓଡ଼ିଆରେ ଟାଇପ କରିପାରିବେ ଓ ଫେସବୁକ, ଟୁଇଟର, ଇମେଲ ଆଦିରେ ବ୍ୟବହାର କରିପାରିବେ । ତେବେ ଉଇଣ୍ଡୋଜ ଏବଂ ବ୍ଲାକବେରି ଆଦି ମୋବାଇଲରେ ଓଡ଼ିଆରେ ଟାଇପିଂ ସୁବିଧା ଏଯାଏ ଆସିନାହିଁ ।

ଓଡ଼ିଆରେ ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆ:

ଅନେକେ ଜାଣନ୍ତି ନାହିଁ ଯେ ଓଡ଼ିଆରେ ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆଟିଏ ଅଛି ବୋଲି । ୨୦୦୨ ମସିହାରେ ପ୍ରଥମ ଭାରତୀୟ ଭାଷାର ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆ ଭାବେ ପଞ୍ଜାବୀ, ଅହମିୟା ଓ ମାଳାୟାଳାମ ସହ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆ ଆରମ୍ଭ ହୋଇଥିଲା । or.wikipedia.org ରେ ଉପଲବ୍ଧ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆ ୮୬୦୦ରୁ ଅଧିକ ପ୍ରସଙ୍ଗରେ ଭରା । ପାଖାପାଖି ୧୫ ଜଣ ସ୍ୱେଚ୍ଛାସେବୀ ସମ୍ପାଦକ ଏଥିରେ ବିଭିନ୍ନ ବିଷୟରେ ଜ୍ଞାନକୋଷ (ଏନସାଇକ୍ଲୋପିଡ଼ିକ) ଲେଖାମାନ ଲେଖୁଛନ୍ତି । ତେବେ ୨୦୦୨ରୁ ଆରମ୍ଭ ହେଲେ ହେଁ ପାଖାପାଖି ୯ ବର୍ଷ ଧରି ପ୍ରକଳ୍ପଟି ସକ୍ରିୟ ସପାଦକଙ୍କ ଅଭାବେ ନିଶ୍ଚଳ ହୋଇ ପଡ଼ିରହିଥିଲା ଏବଂ ୨୦୧୧ ପରେ ଏଥିରେ ସକ୍ରିୟ ସମ୍ପାଦନା ଆରମ୍ଭ ହୋଇଛି । ମଜାର କଥା ହେଲା ଏଥିରେ ସଭିଙ୍କ ପାଇଁ ସମ୍ପାଦନାର ସୁବିଧା ରହିଛି ଓ ଏକ ପ୍ରସଙ୍ଗକୁ ବହୁ ସମ୍ପାଦକ ମିଶି ସମ୍ପାଦନା କରିଥାନ୍ତି । ତେବେ ନିଜ ମନଗଢ଼ା ବିଷୟ ନ ଲେଖି ଆଗରୁ ପ୍ରକାଶିତ ବିଭିନ୍ନ ପ୍ରତିଷ୍ଠିତ ଖବରକାଗଜ ଓ ପତ୍ରପତ୍ରିକାରେ ପ୍ରକାଶିତ ପ୍ରବନ୍ଧ ଆଦି ଲେଖା ଆଧାରରେ ଏଥିରେ ଲେଖିବା ନିୟମ । ଏଣୁ ଗପ, କବିତା ଭଳି ସୃଜନାତ୍ମକ ସାହିତ୍ୟ ଏଥିରେ ରହିପାରିବ ନାହିଁ ।

ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିପାଠାଗାର: ଓଡ଼ିଆରେ ଡିଜିଟାଲ ଲାଇବ୍ରେରି

ପୁରୁଣା ବହିକୁ ଡିଜିଟାଲ ମିଡ଼ିଆରେ ଆଣିବା ପାଇଁ ଏକ ନୂଆ ପ୍ରକଳ୍ପ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିପାଠାଗାର । ଏହି ପ୍ରକଳ୍ପଟି or.wikisource.org ରେ ଉପଲବ୍ଧ । ଏଥିରେ ଆଗରୁ ସ୍କାନ ହୋଇଥିବା ବହିଗୁଡ଼ିକ ଆଥରେ ଇଉନିକୋଡ଼କୁ ରୂପାନ୍ତର କରାଯାଉଛି । ଅନେକେ ସ୍ୱେଚ୍ଛାରେ ଅନେକ ଉପାଦେୟ ପୁରୁଣା ବହିର ଲେଖା ଆଉଥରେ ଟାଇପ କରୁଛନ୍ତି । ଫଳରେ ସେ ବହିର ଲେଖାସବୁ ଇଣ୍ଟରନେଟରେ ଖୋଜିଲେ ମିଳିବ ।

ଏମିତି ଅନେକ କାମ ଓଡ଼ିଆରେ ହୋଇସାରିଲାଣି । କିନ୍ତୁ ଆଜି ବି ଆହୁରି ପର୍ବତ ପ୍ରମାଣ କାମ ହେବାକୁ ବାକି । ବ୍ୟକ୍ତିଗତ ମାଲିକାନାରେ ଥିବା ଅନେକ ପୋଥି ଧୀରେ ଧୀରେ ସିନ୍ଦୁରବୋଳା ହୋଇ ଉଇଖିଆ ହୋଇ ଧୀରେ ଧୀରେ ନଷ୍ଟ ହୋଇଯାଉଛନ୍ତି । ଏଭଳି ପୋଥି ପାଠକଙ୍କ ପାଖରେ ଥିଲେ ଲେଖକ ତାହାର ଡିଜିଟାଲ ରୂପ ପାଇଁ ସାହାଯ୍ୟ କରିବାକୁ ଆଗ୍ରହୀ । ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆରେ ଓଡ଼ିଶା ସମ୍ବନ୍ଧିତ ଅନେକ ଲେଖା ପାଠକମାନେ ତିଆରି କରି ଜଗତର କୋଣ ଅନୁକୋଣରେ ଥିବା ଓଡ଼ିଆଙ୍କୁ ବିଭିନ୍ନ ବିଷୟରେ ଅବଗତ କରାଇପାରିବେ । ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିପାଠାଗାରରେ ପୁରୁଣା ବହି, ପାଣ୍ଡୁଲିପି ଓ ପୋଥିର ଡିଜିଟାଲ ରୂପ ପାଇଁ ଓଡ଼ିଆରେ ଟାଇପ କରିବାରେ ପାଠକେ ଅଳପ ଅଳପ ସାହାଯ୍ୟ କଲେ ଇଣ୍ଟରନେଟରୁ ଅନେକେ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ପୁରାତନ ରଚନା ବାବଦରେ ଜାଣିବାକୁ ପାଇବେ । ଅଧିକରୁ ଅଧିକ ଲୋକ ବ୍ଲଗ, ଫେସବୁକ ଆଦିରେ ଓଡ଼ିଆରେ ଟାଇପ କରି କିମ୍ବା ଆକୃତି/ଶ୍ରୀଲିପି ଆଦିରେ ଆଗରୁ ଟାଇପ ହୋଇଥିବା ଲେଖା ବିତରଣ କଲେ ଧୀରେ ଧୀରେ ଅଧିକ ଲୋକ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ପଢ଼ିବାକୁ ପାଇବେ । ଧୀରେ ଧୀରେ ଲୋକେ ଇଣ୍ଟରନେଟରୁ ବିଭିନ୍ନ ବିଷୟ ଜାଣୁଥିବାରୁ ଓଡ଼ିଆରେ ଲେଖା ରହିଲେ ଯାଇ ଲୋକେ ପଢ଼ିବେ ଓ ନିଜେ ଲେଖିବେ ।

ଲେଖକ ପରିଚୟ: ଶୁଭାଶିଷ ପାଣିଗ୍ରାହୀ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ତ‌ଥା ଅନ୍ୟାନ୍ୟ ଭାରତୀୟ ଭାଷାର ଇଣ୍ଟରନେଟରେ ବ୍ୟବ‌ହାର ଉପରେ କାମକରୁଥିବା ଜଣେ ଶିକ୍ଷା-ଗବେଷକ । ଭାଷାର ବ୍ୟାବହାରିକ ଭୂମିରେ ତାଙ୍କର ବିଚରଣ ଓ ଆଧୁନିକ କାରିଗରି ଦ୍ୱାରା ପୁରାତନ ଭାଷାର ବିକାଶ-ଚାରା ରୋପଣ ତାହାଙ୍କ କାମ । ସେ ଅଧୁନା ବେଙ୍ଗାଳୁରୁର ସେଣ୍ଟର ଫର ଇଣ୍ଟରନେଟ ଏଣ୍ଡ ସୋସାଇଟିର ଆକ୍ସେସ ଟୁ ନଲେଜ ପ୍ରୋଗ୍ରାମରେ ଭାରତୀୟ ଭାଷାରେ ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆମାନଙ୍କର ବିକାଶ ଲାଗି କାର୍ଯ୍ୟରତ । ଭାଷା ଓ ସଂସ୍କୃତିର ବିକାଶରେ ଇଣ୍ଟରନେଟର ଭୂମିକା ସମ୍ବନ୍ଧରେ ତାଙ୍କର ପ୍ରବନ୍ଧମାନ ଅନେକ ଖବରକାଗଜ ଓ ବିଶ୍ୱସ୍ତରୀୟ ବ୍ଲଗରେ ପ୍ରକାଶିତ । ସେ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆ ତଥା ଅନେକ ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆ ସମ୍ବନ୍ଧିତ ବିଶ୍ୱସ୍ତରର ସମୂହର ଏବଂ ମୋଜିଲା ଲୋକାଲାଜେସସନର ସଭ୍ୟ, ଗ୍ଲୋବାଲ

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/odia-language-paper-presented-at-second-national-language-seminar

Odia waits for Google Translate debut - Nine Indian languages available

praskrishna — 2015-05-08T01:27:21Z

Odia getting the "classical" status last year was certainly a proud moment for the people of the state, but, it is yet to feature among the languages available in Google's popular translation service.

The article by Anwesha Ambaly was published in the Telegraph on April 6, 2015. Subhashish Panigrahi was quoted.

Over 90 languages, including nine from India (Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Marathi, Malayalam, Punjabi, Tamil, and Telugu) are part of the service.

Odia, which is spoken by over 45 million people globally, is yet to debut here.

Techies working in the field attribute the reason to the lack of web presence of the language.

"Google has set parameters on the basis of which translations are available. Only those languages that have a wide use on the Internet and have enough online content are included in the list. The online presence of Odia is quite insignificant," said Subhashish Panigrahi, programme officer at Centre for Internet and Society and a regular contributor to Odia Wikipedia.

Among the limited data in Odia available online, Odia Wikipedia and Odia Wikisource have emerged as important reference sources for all kinds of information.

The Odia Wikipedia serves as an online encyclopaedia that was initiated in 2002 and hosts over 8,000 articles in Odia. The Odia Wikisource was launched in the state last year and is run by volunteers and communities. It is a sister concern of Odia Wikipedia that makes rare Odia books available on the Internet.

However, a Google spokesperson said: "We value all Indic languages and search and Gmail are available in 16 Indian languages with more languages to follow"

Recently, the entire Odia Bhagbata by Jagannath Das was made available on Wikisource. Also, Bhubaneswar-based organisation Srujanika, in collaboration with NIT, Rourkela, has digitized over 750 books. But these apart, there are no major online portals available in Odia.

Panigrahi and his contributor friends are presently working at promoting the Google Translate community, which is a platform for language enthusiasts and volunteers interested in improving translation quality for their language or help Google add it to translate.

"To ensure more availability of online content, people should be encouraged to share information on the web. More Odia content on the web will get a wider reach," said the techie.

"We are quite hopeful that the translator would be available in Odia soon."

The universal web-compatible Unicode font for Odia language was developed in 2000. Despite the Unicode standard having been made available over a decade ago, Odia language is not used actively on the Internet.

"We are still stuck to using outdated fonts such as Akruti and Sreelipi for typing text in Odia and most of these are not compatible for using on the Internet. There are thousands of book and articles available in these fonts. Most of the important content available on the government portals also uses the older fonts. Unless content is available in Unicode, it will not be searchable, sharable and reusable on the Internet," said Panigrahi.

One of the earliest websites in Odia was developed by Ganesh Mishra in 1999 for a popular Odia daily. But the website was shut down after six years when the concept of e-paper came into being.

"These days, most of the publishers of Odia newspapers and magazines have come up with e-papers which are nothing but the scanned images of the original pages. But an online search won't display them as results. Online content in Unicode is accessible through search engines," said the website developer.

He said that people have so many alternatives on the Internet that the absence of Odia language is not felt. "Customers often initiate commercial websites in Odia but soon request us to change it to English because it was inconvenient for users," said Mishra.

Some youngsters in the state are coming up with online portals to promote Odia literature. Jyoti Prasad Patnaik, a doctor by profession, has been running an online Odia literary magazine since 2006.

"The Internet is the most powerful medium of communication these days and there could be no better way to popularise our language other than this. When I started out, there were hardly any readers. Today my website has around 5,000 visitors every month. The number is growing slowly and I hope it will increase in the future," said Patnaik.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/news/the-telepgrah-april-6-2015-anwesha-ambaly-odia-waits-for-google-translate-debut-nine-indian-languages-available

February 2015 Bulletin

praskrishna — 2015-03-30T16:09:05Z

It is my distinct pleasure to share with you the second issue of the CIS newsletter (February 2015).

Earlier this year, I joined the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) as the Research Director. I have been fortunate to periodically work with CIS in various capacities since mid-2012, mostly focusing on the topics of open data, open access, and visual exploration of data. Most importantly perhaps for my present responsibilities, for the last year or so, I have been in communication with various projects teams at CIS and supported their efforts through workshops on research methodologies, and by discussing and co-designing their research questions and approaches.

As the Research Director, I look forward to take these works forward, along with leading the Researchers at Work (RAW) programme, which has been shaped by Prof. Nishant Shah to host an exciting range of critical research initiatives into how the Internet and digital technologies reconfigure social processes and structures, and vice versa. Please keep an eye on the newsletter for further updates from the RAW programme.

Our sincere apologies for the delay in sending out this month's newsletter. We will soon be back in our usual rhythm. The past editions of the newsletter can be accessed at http://cis-india.org/about/newsletters

Sumandro Chattapadhyay
Email: sumandro@cis-india.org

Highlights

Forbes India in an article titled " Minds that (should) matter" names Sunil Abraham as one of the Thinkers who best explain a rapidly-changing India to the world (and the world to India). Errata: This story was shared in the last newsletter but with an error, which is now rectified.

NVDA team organized three workshops during the month for training participants on using eSpeak with NVDA software. The languages covered werePunjabi,Oriya and Hindi.
The Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP), Government of India invited comments on the First Draft of India's National IPR Policy. CIS sent its comments . CIS commended the DIPP for this initiative and appreciated the opportunity to provide comments on the National IPR Policy.

CIS sent out three different Right to Information (RTI) requests to find out more details about the constitution and working of the IPR Think Tank to draft the first national IPR Policy.
Anubha Sinha analyses the submission to the DIPP by Academia and Civil Society on the draft National IPR Policy from a public interest perspective.
In an Open Letter to the Prime Minister of India, CIS requests the Government of India to initiate the formation of a patent pool of critical mobile technologies and a five per cent compulsory license.
CIS's Access to Knowledge team (CIS-A2K) in collaboration with the Centre for Indian Languages (CILHE) at TISS, Mumbai conducted a two-day workshop at English and Foreign Languages University (EFLU) at Hyderabad on January 28 - 29, 2015. Tejaswini Niranjana captures the developments in a blog post.

Subhashish Panigrahi wrote an op-ed on the endangered languages in India. This was published by Odia daily Samaja on February 21 which is celebrated as the International Mother Language Day.
CIS-A2K team conducted the " Train the Trainer Program" (TTT 2015) at CEO Centre, Dodda Gubbi, Bangalore. About 25 delegates attended the programme.
CIS has joined an international campaign to allow anyone in the world to request whether Britain's intelligence agency GCHQ has illegally spied on them.
On January 30, 2015, Associated Chambers of Commerce & Industry of India (ASSOCHAM) held a consultation on Internet governance. A committee was set up to draft a report on Internet governance, with a focus on issues relevant to India. CIS is represented on the committee, and has provided its preliminary comments to ASSOCHAM .

As part of CIS's inquiry into 'Network Neutrality' in the developing world a set of definitions of the term from different sources was collected and published as a blog post.
Namita A. Malhotra in a blog entry examines the figure of the pornographer, as a mixed media figure entrenched in various networks of knowledge production, circulation and consumption.

Accessibility and Inclusion

Under a grant from the Hans Foundation we are doing two projects. The first project is on creating a national resource kit of state-wise laws, policies and programmes on issues relating to persons with disabilities in India. CIS in partnership with CLPR (Centre for Law and Policy Research) compiled the National Compendium of Policies, Programmes and Schemes for Persons with Disabilities (29 states and 6 union territories). The publication has been finalised and is being printed. The draft chapters and the quarterly reports can be accessed on the project page. The second project is on developing text-to-speech software for 15 Indian languages. The progress made so far in the project can be accessed here.

►NVDA and eSpeak

Monthly Update

February 2015 Report (Suman Dogra; February 28, 2015).

Events Organized

Joint Report on Training of the Use of eSpeak in Hindi with NVDA (Organized by NVDA team; National Association for the Blind, New Delhi, February 5 - 6, 2015 and Blind Relief Association, Delhi, February 13 - 14, 2015).
Report on Training in the use of eSpeak Oriya with NVDA (Organized by NVDA team; Orissa Association for the Blind, Bhubaneswar; February 8 - 10, 2015). Thirty six delegates attended the workshop.
Training of the use of eSpeak Punjabi with NVDA (Organized by NVDA team; Asha Kiran Training Institute, Chandigarh; February 20-21, 2015). The workshop was inaugurated by Shri Tilak Raj, Director, Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, Government of Punjab.

Access to Knowledge

As part of the Access to Knowledge programme we are doing two projects. The first one (Pervasive Technologies) under a grant from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) is for research on the complex interplay between pervasive technologies and intellectual property to support intellectual property norms that encourage the proliferation and development of such technologies as a social good. The second one (Wikipedia) under a grant from the Wikimedia Foundation is for the growth of Indic language communities and projects by designing community collaborations and partnerships that recruit and cultivate new editors and explore innovative approaches to building projects.

►Pervasive Technologies

As part of the Pervasive Technologies project, Rohini Lakshané wrote an Open Letter to India's Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi for creation of a patent pool of critical mobile technologies. And as part of broader Access to Knowledge work CIS submitted comments to DIPP on the National IP Policy.

Blog Entries

National IPR Policy Series: CIS Comments to the First Draft of the National IP Policy (Nehaa Chaudhari, Pranesh Prakash and Anubha Sinha; February 4, 2015). Varnika Chawla assisted the team.
RTI Requests - DIPP: Details on constitution and working of IPR Think Tank (Nehaa Chaudhari; February 9, 2015).
Open Letter to Prime Minister Modi (Rohini Lakshané; February 10, 2015). Copies of the open letter were sent to various ministers.
Academia and Civil Society submit critical comments to DIPP on draft National IPR Policy (Anubha Sinha; February 16, 2015).

Participation in Event

India at Leisure: Media, Culture and Consumption in the New Economy (Organized by Jamia University; January 8 - 10, 2015). Maggie Huang attended the event and presented a paper titled "The Future of Music Streaming: Business Practices and Copyright Management in India". The paper was co-authored by Maggie and Amba Kak.

►Wikipedia

Op-ed

Our Endangered Languages (Subhashish Panigrahi; February 21, 2015).

Blog Entries

A Wikipedia Presentation at BITS, Goa (Radhakrishna Arvapally; February 9, 2015). Arvapally was a guest blogger.
Developing Open Knowledge Digital Resources in Indian Languages (Tejaswini Niranjana; February 20, 2015).
Telugu Wikipedia Winter Camp at Andhra Loyola College (Rahmanuddin Shaik; February 26, 2015).

Event Organized

Train the Trainer (Organized by CIS-A2K; CEO Centre, Dodda Gubbi, Bangalore; February 26 - March 1, 2015). Rohini Lakshané took a session on GLAM.

News and Media Coverage

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

More online free content in Telugu Wikipedia soon (A.D.Rangarajan; Hindu, February 16, 2015).
Cultural knowledge needs to be more open (Jen Wike Huger; OpenSource.com; February 18, 2015).
Online Free Content in Telugu Wikipedia (Andhra Jyothy; February 19, 2015).

Announcements

2015 Opensource.com Community Awards : Every year, Opensource.com awards people from our community who have excelled in contributing and sharing stories about open source. Subhashish Panigrahi from the CIS-A2K team won the award under the category 'People's Choice Awards'.
CIS-A2K team also published the Telugu Wikipedia Stats tables. Most metrics have been collected from a partial dump (aka stub dump), which contains all revisions of every article, meta data, but no page content.

Participation in Events

Hindi Wiki Community Baithak (Organized by Wikipedia Community; February 14 - 15, 2015). Subhashish Panigrahi attended the event.
An International Conclave of Odia Language (Organized by the Intellects; February 20 - 21, 2015; Constitutional Club, Rafi Marg, New Delhi). Subhashish Panigrahi participated in the event.

►Openness

Participation in Events

Regional Open Data Agenda-Setting Workshop 2015 (Organized by Open Data Lab, Jakarta Web Foundation; Jakarta; February 4 - 6, 2015). Sunil Abraham was a speaker.
Washington Meet on Open Data (Organized by World Bank; Washington; February 20 - 21, 2015). Sunil Abraham was a speaker and made a presentation on Open Data.

Internet Governance

As part of its research on privacy and free speech, CIS is engaged with two different projects. The first one (under a grant from Privacy International and International Development Research Centre (IDRC)) is on surveillance and freedom of expression (SAFEGUARDS). The second one (under a grant from MacArthur Foundation) is on studying the restrictions placed on freedom of expression online by the Indian goverTnment.

►Privacy

Blog Entries

The Surveillance Industry in India - An Analysis of Indian Security Expos (Divij Joshi; February 19, 2015).
Right to Information (RTI) Requests to BSNL and MTNL Regarding Security Equipment (Maria Xynou; February 25, 2015). CIS had sent RTI requests to MTNL and BSNL in July 2013. MTNL responded recently whereas BSNL has yet to reply.

Announcements

CIS joins Worldwide Campaign to Discover Depth of GCHQ's Illegal Spying (Elonnai Hickok; February 28, 2015). Individuals who wish to take part in this process can sign up at https://www.privacyinternational.org/illegalspying.
Prof. Peng Hwa Ang from Nanyang Technology University visited CIS recently. He had a series of interactions with several researchers at CIS and has prepared a brief visit report. Impressed with the research work of CIS he had discussions with CIS on possible collaborations including publication in more academic journals, collaboration with academic institutions in research projects in Privacy / Data Protection and other areas of Internet Governance. He also discussed on the possible areas where he could contribute to CIS including conduction of training session on writing for academic journals.

►Freedom of Expression

Blog Entries

Requests to ICANN: CIS sent ICANN six requests to ICANN regarding ICANN's expenditure on travels and meetings, granular revenue, cyber-attacks on ICANN, ICANN's implementation of the NETmundial principles, complaints under the Ombudsman process, and information regarding revenues received from gTLD auctions. These were prepared by Geetha Hariharan: DIDP Request #1: ICANN's Expenditures on "Travel & Meetings" ; DIDP Request #2: Granular Revenue/Income Statements from ICANN; DIDP Request #3: Cyber-attacks on ICANN; DIDP Request #4: ICANN and the NETmundial Principles ; DIDP Request #5: The Ombudsman and ICANN's Misleading Response to Our Request ; and DIDP Request #6: Revenues from gTLD auction.

Collection of Net Neutrality Definitions (Tarun Krishnakumar; February 8, 2015). The definitions were compiled by Manoj Kurbet, Maitreya Subramaniam and Tarun Krishnakumar under the guidance of Sunil Abraham.
ICANN accountability, IANA transition and open questions (Geetha Hariharan; February 6, 2015).
Where Does ICANN's Money Come From? We Asked; They Don't Know (Geetha Hariharan; February 9, 2015).
Preliminary Submission on "Internet Governance Issues" to the Associated Chambers of Commerce & Industry of India (Geetha Hariharan; February 12, 2015).

►Miscellaneous

A Selection of Tweets on How to Make Crowdmaps Effectual for Mapping Violence against Women (Rohini Lakshané; February 19, 2015).
Reply to RTI Applications filed with respect to Foreign Contractors and Vendors of IT and Telecommunication Enterprises (Lovisha Aggarwal; February 25, 2015).

Event Co-organized

Digital Security Workshop for Journalists (Organized by CIS and Mumbai Press Club; Mumbai Press Club, Azad Maidan, Mumbai; February 7, 2015). Rohini Lakshané conducted the workshop as part of the Cyber Stewards project.

Upcoming Event

Cybersecurity and the Internet of Things (Organized by US Consulate Chennai, Cyber Security & Privacy Foundation and CIS; Hotel Atria, Palace Road, Bangalore; March 19, 2015).

Participation in Events

Winter School on Privacy, Surveillance and Data Protection (Organized by the Centre for Communication Governance (CCG) in collaboration with the UNESCO Chair on Freedom of Communication and Information at the University of Hamburg and the Hans Bredow; Delhi; January 19 - 23, 2015). Bhairav Acharya was a facilitator. Errata: This was wrongly mentioned in the last newsletter. We have corrected this.
NetGain: Working Together for a Stronger Digital Society (Organized by Ford Foundation; February 11 - 12, 2015).

---------------------------------
News & Media Coverage
---------------------------------
CIS gave its inputs to the following media coverage:

Facebook offers free but limited access to the Internet in India (PC World; February 10, 2015).
Govt may turn to supercomputing for better use of Aadhaar database (Moulishree Srivastava; Livemint; February 10, 2015).
Analytics to help govt read public mood online (Surabhi Talwar; Business Standard; February 10, 2015).
Facebook launches Internet.org in India (Lalatendu Mishra and Sriram Srinivasan; Hindu; February 11, 2015).
Google's war on nude photos goes against user rights (Sahil Mohan Gupta; India Today; February 25, 2015).
Hacking of SIM card by spy agencies raises fears of sensitive documents being leaked (PK Jayadevan and Neha Alawadhi; Economic Times; February 25, 2015).
Delhi government in consultation with Centre to block Uber's Internet address (Harsimran Julka; Economic Times; February 25, 2015).
SC reserves judgement in cases against Section 66A (Shreeja Sen; Livemint; February 26, 2015).

Researchers at Work

The Researchers at Work (RAW) programme is an interdisciplinary research initiative driven by contemporary concerns to understand the reconfigurations of social practices and structures through the Internet and digital media technologies, and vice versa. It is interested in producing local and contextual accounts of interactions, negotiations, and resolutions between the Internet, and socio-material and geo-political processes:

Event Organized

Innovative Infrastructures for Research and Pedagogy in Interdisciplinary Social Sciences and Humanities (Co-organized by Centre for Study of Culture and Society and CIS, Bangalore): The RAW programme organized a consultation to discuss and conceptualise an upcoming project. The project will be hosted by the RAW programme.

Blog Entry

Figures of Learning: The Pornographer (Namita A. Malhotra; February 28, 2015).

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
Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/cisa2k
Visit us at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge
E-mail: a2k@cis-india.org

► Support Us

► Request for Collaboration:

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/february-2015-bulletin

Hindustani Language: We Are Wikipedia

syed — 2015-04-10T16:20:07Z

In 2014, the Centre for Internet and Society's Access to Knowledge team (CIS-A2K) embarked on a new social media-based initiative - WeAreWikipedia. The aim of the project was "One Wikimedian every week to tell untold community stories on Twitter".

Read the original published on Wikipedia page here.

Although CIS-A2K has the mandate of promoting Wikimedia Projects only in India, by virtue of the inherent power of Twitter and Internet, the project was able to attract Wikipedians from virtually all parts of the world - India, Cambodia, Israel, USA, and a number of other countries for curating WeAreWikipedia account on Twitter. The enriching outcome was these Wikipedians' expression of community views and as well as their own editing and Wiki World experiences in the form of short and succinct tweets. These messages give a more clear pictures of happenings than tons of blogposts, videos and lengthy articles which we find today scattered over the internet.

In February 2015, I attended the first Hindi Wiki Sammelan Meet in Delhi. This event was also supported by CIS-A2K. It was attended by 15 people, including three administrators of the Hindi Wikipedia: Ashish Bhatnagar, Aniruddha Kumar and Sanjeev Kumar. Also present were two reviewers: Piyush Maurya and my humble self. During the meet, one of the participants, Manish Panday, demonstrated the massive reach and impact of "Twittercasting" the event proceedings. This drew a keen interest from the Hindi Wikipedians with the Hindi Wikipedia admin Ashish Bhatnagar taking the lead in curating the "WeAreWikipedia" shortly after the meet. As his one week of curation came to end, he asked as to who would curate next. I volunteered to be part of this exercise. My CIS ex-colleague Subhashish Panigrahi informed about allocating the week March 2-9 for me, which I agreed.

As a Wikimedian, I made it a point to first showcase the developments within Hindi Wikipedia such as the notable articles written during the week, the discussions on the Hindi transliteration of non-Hindi names/ titles, village pump discussions, etc.I also shared suggestions with some of the Hindi Wikipedians on editing aspects.

A remarkable development during the week was publication of my report on Hindi Wiki Sammelan Meet in Delhi and its Hindi translation by Ashish Bhatnagar on Wikimedia Foundation Blog. I was delighted to post the information of both these developments on Twitter. In fact, Ashish Bhatnagar favorited my Twitterpost about the Hindi translation. . In addition to Hindi Wikipedia, I was also vocal on the developments at the language front such as Kavita Path Pratiyogita (Poetry Competition) by HindiUSA, Unicode converters, Hindi blogs, developments in Urdu and other Indian languages. I also highlighted some of the projects such as Speedydeletion Wikia, Manypedia, blogpost/ online forum discussions on Wikipedia as well as the rise of mobile edits on Indian Wiki projects.

Since March 8 or Women's Day happened during the week, I made many tweets during the week about the commemorative Wikipedia Editathons both in India and abroad, including those in places like Latin America. I also tweeted about important events such GLAM-WIKI 2015 conference, Erasmus Prize 2015 for Wikipedia, Howard University's efforts to fill in Wikipedia’s gaps in Black History, etc.

I was glad to highlight many important issues during my week as a curator. This included the special media attention abroad given to people who edit Wikipedia or Wikimedia projects such as the featured interview of Bryan Henderson in the The Independent. I suggested that there is a need for such an encouraging gesture to the contributors of Wikimedia projects. I remember some of the Wikipedians favoriting this message as they concurred with me. I also stressed on the need to reinforce fresh lease of life in projects such as Devanagari Wikis Monitoring Team as an active team will benefit not just Hindi but all Wiki Projects in Devanagari-based languages.

The most pleasing aspect of my curator experience were the proactive discussions, retweets, favoriting, of many of my messages. I witnessed an instant response when I mentioned how beautifully the bot-assisted Twitter account "PakistanEdits" posts about anonymous edits from Pakistan on English Wikipedia and the need for a similar tool for India. One Wikipedian promised to work on finding a similar solution to this idea. Similarly, my Twitterpost on the time-barred "Hindi Wiki Sammelan" message notification on every page of Bhojpuri Wikipedia was removed instantly. A still surprising reaction was seen only a few days back when a gentleman enquired about how he can contribute to fill the need for Sanskrit text in the online Vietnamese Wikipedia guestbook page - this response comes after a fortnight of my tweet, and two persons had curated the Twitter account during this period.

Thus, I believe that my messages were well received and my interactions with other Twitter-users were friendly, informative and extremely fruitful. A summary of my curator experience is as follows:

Description of Tweets	Number
No of Unique Tweets	148
My Tweets Retweeted	53
My Tweets Favorited	63
My Discussed Tweets	12
Others Tweets I Retweeted	27
Followers+	34
Following+	17
Image Uploads	5

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/hindustani-language-we-are-wikipedia

India's Supreme Court Axes Online Censorship Law, But Challenges Remain

subha — 2015-03-27T02:38:20Z

The Supreme Court of India took a remarkable step to protect free expression on March 24, 2015, striking down controversial section 66A of the IT Act that criminalized “grossly offensive” content online. In response to a public interest litigation filed by Indian law student Shreya Singhal, the court made this landmark judgement calling the section “vague”, “broad” and “unconstitutional”. Since Tuesday's announcement, the news has trended nationally on Twitter, with more than 50,000 tweets bearing the hashtags #Sec66A and #66A.

The blog entry by Subhashish Panigrahi was originally published by Global Voices Online on March 25, 2015. Pranesh Prakash is quoted.

Section 66A allowed police to arrest any person who sent online communications deemed “grossly offensive” or known to be false. This has enabled the government take down many websites with allegedly objectionable content. Among various cases since the law was updated in 2008, two people were arrested for making comments on Facebook regarding India's prime minister Narendra Modi and one man was arrested for commenting on public service closures following the death of political leader Bal Thakrey.

The now-defunct Section 66A reads as follows:

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

Internet rights advocate and lawyer Pranesh Prakash, who works with the Center for Internet and Society in Bangalore, has been one of the law's most outspoken critics in recent years. Immediately following the ruling, he tweeted:

Nikhil Pahwa, independent journalist and founder of the MeddiaNama blog, offered his take on the ruling:

This is a great decision for freedom of speech in India…66A is far too vague, and lends itself to arbitrary implementation by the police, especially phrases like “grossly offensive”, annoyance, inconvenience, ill will. Remember that even the right to offend is an integral part of free speech.

Journalist and author Sagarika Ghose sarcastically wondered if the government of India would retroactively offer recompense for all of the actions taken against citizens for violating 66A.

Some were playful in their response to the decision. Siddharth Sing set out to “test” the efficacy of the ruling with a tweet mocking prominent public figures in Indian politics:

Section 69, which provides authorities with the power to censor websites that “create communal disturbance, social disorder, or affect India's relationship with other countries” was upheld however. The Court has yet to clarify this decision. CIS India's Pranesh Prakash tweeted:

Unfortunately 69A (website blocking) has been upheld despite many issues, incl lack of transparency. Need to read full judgment to see why.

— Pranesh Prakash (@pranesh_prakash) March 24, 2015

Tuesday's decision comes after the government of India was heavily criticized in January 2015 for blocking 32 websites in the country.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/global-voices-march-25-2014-subhashish-panigrahi-indias-supreme-court-axes-online-censorship-law-but-challenges-remain

Train the Trainer Program

praskrishna — 2015-02-27T02:37:10Z

The Centre for Internet and Society's Access to Knowledge team (CIS-A2K) welcomes you to attend the "Train the Trainer Program" in Bangalore.

Train the Trainer (TTT) is a residential training workshop to groom leadership skills among the Indian Wikimedia community members. CIS-A2K is organizing the Wikipedia Train the Trainer Program 2015 (TTT 2015). This is the second iteration of this program. TTT 2015 will be conducted by CIS-A2K during 26 February to 1 March 2015 in Bangalore, India.

Note: All selected participants will be expected to reach the event venue the previous night (i.e. February 25) and leave by the evening of March 1, 2015. The selected participants are requested to kindly confirm their participation by writing to tanveercis-india.org. Registration for TTT 2015 is closed. Please do not register.. Please note that registration does not confirm participation. Selection by CIS-A2K will be final. Before registering here please go through the selection criterion.

Programme Schedule

Thursday, February 26, 2015

Timing	Session	Topics to be Covered	Coordinator / Resource Person

7:30am - 8:30am	Breakfast
8:30am - 9:00am	Registration
9:00am - 10.30am	Welcome & Introduction	Introductions (activity based) Creating name tags for yourself and your friends Energiser/Activity. Meet and greet Wikimedians	T. Vishnu Vardhan (VV) and Tanveer Hasan (TH)
10:30am - 11 am	Why TTT?	Design and Objectives of the TTT	VV
11 am - 11.30 am	☕ Tea/Coffee Break
☼ 11.30 am - 1 pm	Participant presentations	Individual presentation based on pre-work	TTT Participant
1 pm - 2 pm	Lunch
2 pm - 3.30 pm	Participant presentations	Individual presentation based on pre work	TTT Participant
3.30 pm - 4 pm	☕ Tea/Coffee Break
4 pm - 5 pm	Presenting with impact	Effective Communication Forceful Introduction Organizing your speech (Opening, Body Closing) Get to the point (General purpose and specific purpose) Communicate clearly, accurately and vividly Body Language (Stance, Movement, Gestures, Facial expression and eye contact) Vocal Variety (Volume, Pitch, Rate and Quality)	TH
5.30 pm - 6.30 pm	Break
6.30 pm - 8 pm	Parallel Sessions	Personal coaching on Presentation Skills using video recordings of Presentation or Multilingual Edit-a-thon (theme - Jnanpith_Award)	Sunil Abraham(SA) VV TH Rahmanuddin Shaik (RS) Subhashish Panigrahi (SP) U.B. Pavanaja (UBP)
8:00 pm - 9:00 pm	Dinner

Friday, February 26, 2015

Timing	Session	Topics to be Covered	Coordinator / Resource Person

☾ 8 pm - 9 pm	Dinner
☼ 10.30 am - 11 am	Internet research techniques (Session 2)	Information literacy and Internet research techniques for Wikipedia editors slides	LS
9.15 am - 10 am	Internet research techniques (Session 1)	Information literacy and Internet research techniques for Wikipedia editors	LS
8:30 am - 9.15 am	Copyright, CC and Wikimedia	Introduction to Copyright and Creative Commons slides Creative Commons Wikimedia Applications	L. Shyamal (LS)
7:30 am - 8:30 am	Breakfast
7 pm - 8 pm	Parallel sessions	Personal Coaching GLAM Projects Do's and Dont's FOSS Tools Support and Discussion	CIS-A2K Team RL RS
6.30 pm - 7 pm	GLAM Projects in Indic Wikipedia Context	Feasibility, Scalability and Scope	Rohini Lakshane(RL)
6 pm - 6.30 pm	☕ Tea/Coffee Break
5 pm - 6 pm	Essential Foss Tools for Wikimedians	Hands on Session	Rahamanuddin
4.30 pm - 5 pm	Essential FOSS Tools	Demonstration	RS
4 pm - 4.30 pm	☕ Tea/Coffee Break
3.30 pm - 4 pm	Panel Discussion	Importance of NPOV in Indian Languages	Participant Panel (TBD)
2.45 pm - 3.30 pm	Importance of NPOV	NPOV as an essential quality for Wikimedians with English Wikipedia as a case study	NVV Char and Tito Dutta
2 pm - 2.45 pm	Spectogram	Interactive activity to critically discuss the importance of NPOV	SA
11.45 am - 1 pm	DIY	Digitisation Techniques for Wikimedians-Hands on Session	Group Activity
11.30 am - 11.45 am	☕ Tea/Coffee Break
11 am - 11.30 am	DIY	Digitisation Techniques for Wikimedians	Viswa Prabha(VP)
10 am - 10.30 am	☕ Tea/Coffee Break
1 pm - 2 pm	Lunch

Saturday, February 28, 2015

Timing	Session	Topics to be Covered	Coordinator / Resource Person

7 am - 7.30am	Breakfast
7:30am	Departure to Janapada Loka
9 am - 9.30am	Expectations from GLAM Activity	Design,scope and expected outcomes	TH
9.30am - 1 pm	* GLAM Activity	Interviewing Janapada Loka Staff Documentation of Janapada Loka exhibits Resource Collection for Wiki Commons Material collection for GLAM Edit-a-thon	VP RL CIS-A2K
1 pm - 2 pm	Lunch
2 pm - 3.30 pm	Group Activity	GLAM Editathon in Indian Languages	VP and VV
3.30 pm - 4 pm	☕ Tea/Coffee Break
4 pm - 4.30 pm	Panel Discussion	Need and importance of GLAM Activities	TBD
4.30 pm - 5.30 pm	Focused Group Discussion	GLAM Activities to be pursued (Individual and Community)	Participant Groups
5.30 pm - 6.30 pm	Departure to CEO Centre
☾ 8 pm - 9 pm	Dinner at CEO Centre

Sunday, March 1, 2015

Timing	Session	Topics to be Covered	Coordinator / Resource Person

07:30 am - 08:30 am	Breakfast
08:30am - 9.30 am	Media and Social Media Strategies for Wikimedians	Mobilizing mainstream media to cover Wikimedia success stories Best practices of Social Media	Tinu Cherian
9.30am - 10 am	Building Communities for Wikimedia Movement	Introduction to WMIN	Ravishankar Ayyakkannu (RA)and Yohann Thomas (YT)
10am - 10.30 am	Building Communities for Wikimedia Movement	CIS-A2K Trials and Success	VV
☼ 10.30 am - 11:00 am	☕ Tea/Coffee Break
11am - 11.30 am	Group Discussion	Challenges & Opportunities in building an Indian Language Community online	Participant Groups
11.30 pm - 12.30 pm	Participant Presentation	Participant Presentations
12.30 pm - 1 pm	Lunch
1.30 pm - 2 pm	Focused Group Discussion	Road Ahead for GLAM activities in India Languages	Participant Presentations
2.30 pm - 3.30 pm	Participant Presentation	Submission of Outreach and GLAM Draft Plans
3.30 pm - 3.45 pm	Feedback Session
3.45 pm - 4 pm	Closing Remarks
4:00 pm	Departures or Visit to CIS

For any further queries please email—

tanveercis-india.org 09844439247
ajoy cis-india.org 09845492122
vishnucis-india.org 09845207308

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/events/train-the-trainer-program

Hindi Wiki Community Baithak in Delhi

subha — 2015-02-27T01:34:25Z

Hindi Wikimedians met in New Delhi during February 14 and 15. This was the first meeting of the Hindi community. Subhashish Panigrahi attended the meetup.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/how-the-first-time-face-to-face-interaction-helped-india-hindi-wikipedia-community

Cultural knowledge needs to be more open

praskrishna — 2015-03-12T16:41:05Z

Subhashish Panigrahi is an educator and open source activist based in Bangalore, India. He is currently working at the Centre for Internet and Society's Access To Knowledge program where he builds partnership with universities, language researchers, and GLAM organizations.

The blog post by Jen Wike Huger was published on the website of OpenSource.com. It can be read here.

Their goal is to bring more scholarly and encyclopedic content under free licenses. During his work at the Wikimedia Foundation's India Program, Subha was involved in designing community sustaining and new contributor cultivation models.

For his effort to share and spread open source far and wide, this year he was awarded a 2015 Opensource.com People's Choice Award.

His most recent articles include: Digitize any book in the public domain, on his work to with Indian poetry important to the culture. Books and more are relicensed to Creative Commons, about news from the Wikimedia Foundation. Mozilla brings Indian communities together, about the Indic FirefoxOS L10n Sprint 2014. And, Open access platform to save the Odia Indian language, on his work to preserve his native culture.

The Basics

Name: Subhashish Panigrahi ("Subha")
Opensource.com username: psubhashish
Location: India (Bengaluru and Odisha)
Occupation/Employer/Position: Programme Officer, Centre for Internet and Society
Favorite open source tool or application: Audacity
Favorite Opensource.com channel: Education

Open up to us

I was away from home for my studies and was longing to read and write more in my native language of Odia. That led me to co-found eOdissa.com, a portal to tell stories to the rest of the world about my language, history, and cultural heritage. I was a sporadic editor on Wikipedia; anonymously since 2006. Then, in 2011, I was introduced to editing for Odia Wikipedia by my mentor Shiju Alex and friend Asutosh Kar.

That was my entry point to the free software movement. And it was a trap I could never get out of!

I thankfully began a full-time job with the Wikimedia Foundation in 2012 for its India Program. The program is now housed with their Indian movement partner, Centre for Internet and Society, under the Access To Knowledge program. I work in the Bengaluru office but mostly travel to work with the communities. I work on building capacity for the Indian language Wikimedia communities, building institutional partnerships for long term outreach engagement, negotiating with publishers and copyright holders to bring more content relicensed under Creative Commons licenses, and taking part in policy level discourses around open access and enforcing free software for governance.

What open tools and data help you get things done?

For my day job, I solely rely on Wikimedia Stats to collate data related to Wikimedia projects. I use some Python programming, jQery.ime, and JavaScript for other data-related work. But, I am a people's man and my interaction is mostly with humans rather than tools.

What do you wish were more open?

GLAM (galleries, libraries, archives and museums) and many other cultural institutions have historically been the keepers of cultural knowledge. But I see possessiveness in not opening up their archival for public consumption. I wish more policy level negotiations and open collaborations were happening to open up cultural data.

What are the biggest challenges to openness that you encounter, either at work or in your life?

Community and its growth. Working in a developing nation with historical, cultural, economic, and political hindrances pulls volunteerism down. It's is a huge challenge for me. Tapping into many existing networks and communities, and leveraging ongoing activities for the betterment for the free and open source movement, is something I am struggling for.

Why choose the open source way?

I would like to quote a good friend and activist Michelle Thorne who says, "Human civilization has everything free and open from the beginning, but slowly the problems of restriction start beginning." Furthermore filmmaker Nina Paley says, "Knowledge is not created by us, rather shared by us."

If we are here to share knowledge, why to restrict its free flow?

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/news/opensource-feburary-18-2015-jen-wike-huger-cultural-knowledge-needs-to-be-more-open

[OpenGLAM] Nominate an OpenGLAM project today for the 2015 Muse Awards

praskrishna — 2015-05-27T14:08:55Z

It's that time of the year again to nominate projects for the Muse Awards! This is like the Oscar of GLAM awards in the USA and welcomes international submissions.

Our esteemed jury comprises of:

Glen Barnes, Founder/CEO of MyTours and co-founder of Open New Zealand
Dominic McDevitt-Parks, Digital Content Specialist, National Archives and Records Administration
Subhashish Panigrahi, Programme Officer, Centre for Internet and Society
Jane Park, Project Manager, Creative Commons
Lieke Ploeger, Community Manager, Open Knowledge Foundation
Merete Sanderhoff, Curator, National Gallery of Denmark

Submissions are due Feb 23.

Please submit your OpenGLAM projects!!! This is a volunteer driven process, and we throw a big award ceremony with lots of champagne at the annual AAM conference.

More details here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/news/open-glam-nominate-open-glam-project-today-for-2015-muse-awards

An International Conclave of Odia Language

praskrishna — 2015-03-08T05:06:14Z

Subhashish Panigrahi is participating in this event.

See the invitation letter and the concept letter.

The Odia language traces its roots back to 4th Century BC. Odisha was the first state to be carved out as a separate state on the basis of the language. The dawn of 20th February 2014 was a proud moment for all Odias as Odia language was accorded the ‘Classical language’ status of our country and occupied the 6th position. This achievement was due to the relentless effort of many scholars and activists. Now it becomes the responsibility of all the Odias to preserve, propagate and carry forward the legacy of the Odia language which is spoken by around 40 million people in India and around 45 million people globally. We will see that a day will come when it will be used as the first language in all government offices for official communications.

THE INTELLECTS, a forum of progressive individuals and intellectuals in Delhi, believes it as an utmost duty and responsibility to promote Odia identity in India and abroad. In its bid to impart our language to Pravasi Odias living in and around Delhi, THE INTELLECTS is on a missionary zeal. It has started its mission called “ASA SIKHIBA AMARI BHASHA” in National Capital region.

And now, the forum in association with SHRI JAGANNATH MANDIR, TYAGRAJNAGAR is organizing a two days conclave, on 20th & 21st February 2015, to celebrate the 1st anniversary of Classical status to Odia language & the World Mother tongue Day with a special focus on our mother tongue Odia.

The Event

International Conclave of Odia Language:
The event will be a two days festival showcasing the Odia identity in the national Capital and bringing some best minds of the country to discuss on various issues of immense need on language and culture of Odisha. Around 200 eminent people from across the world including many renowned experts from various walks of life are the invited speakers.

It will be our proud privilege to have you with us for the occasion.
With Kind Regards

Debendra Rout
Convener of the conclave & Chairman of The Intellects
Email: cm.intellects@gmail.com
Mob: +91-9350127370

Programme

Celebration of 1st Anniversary of Classical status of Odia language
Date: 20th February, Friday, Time: 6 p.m. to 9 p.m.

Venue: Constitution Club, Rafi Marg, New Delhi

Welcome
Inauguration of Conclave
Inauguration of Special Report on the Conclave
Felicitation of prominent personalities for their contribution to
Odia language
Addresses
Vote of Thanks
Cultural Programme
Dinner

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/news/international-conclave-odia-language

Winners of the Opensource.com 2015 Community Awards

praskrishna — 2015-02-12T01:23:44Z

Every year, Opensource.com awards people from our community who have excelled in contributing and sharing stories about open source.

These stories are about open source as we use it in our everyday lives as well as how it helps to build a better world and future in technology. This year, we present to you the 2015 Opensource.com Community Awards in the following categories.

People's Choice Awards

Subhashish Panigrahi

An educator and open source activist, based in Bangalore, India.

Reader's Choice Awards

Recognizes the community's favorite articles from 2014. Voted on by the community.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/news/opensource-2015-award-winners

Citizen Media Summit 2015

praskrishna — 2015-02-08T14:57:29Z

The Citizen Media Summit 2015 was held in Cebu City, Philippines on January 24 and 25, 2015. Subhashish Panigrahi was a speaker at the event.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/news/citizen-media-summit-2015

January 2015 Bulletin

praskrishna — 2015-02-26T17:02:23Z

Our newsletter for the month of January can be accessed below.

The Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) welcomes you to the first issue of the newsletter (January 2015). Archives of our newsletters can be accessed at: http://cis-india.org/about/newsletters.

Highlights

Forbes India in an article titled “Minds that (should) matter” names Sunil Abraham as one of the Thinkers who best explain a rapidly-changing India to the world (and the world to India).

Subhashish Panigrahi won the 2015 Opensource.com Community Awards under the category 'People's Choice Awards'.
Sumandro Chattapadhyay has joined CIS team as Research Director. Sumandro has replaces Nishant Shah who stepped down from the position.
Rishika on behalf of CIS prepared an analysis of the disability exceptions in Copyright Legislations . The blog post provides in detail the country-wise exceptions in copyright legislations.
NVDA team conducted a training programme on Malayalam eSpeak with NVDA in Thiruvananthapuram on January 24 and 25, 2015. Chakshumathi's main trainer Akhil M. took eSpeak Malayalam classes and Dr. Homiyar took classes on NVDA and accessible equipment.
The Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion, Government of India invited comments on the First Draft of India's National IPR Policy. CIS made its submission.
As part of the Pervasive Technologies project, Nehaa Chaudhari has produced a research methodology document which maps the existing literature around questions of competition law intersecting with intellectual property law on the specific issue of enabling access to sub hundred dollar mobile devices .
Maggie Huang, an intern at CIS as part of the Pervasive Technologies project has written a blog entry which documents, synthesizes, and analyses learnings from attending various music industry trade conferences.

CIS-A2K team on December 28, 2014 organized a MediaWiki hackathon event for Telugu Wikimedia community members to enhance their skills and understanding of technical matters related to MediaWiki usage. The theme of the workshop was “Mediawiki, its extensions and tools to work around” and it aimed at allowing Wikipedians to use MediaWiki tools more effectively.

Subhashish Panigrahi authored an op-ed that highlights the need for taking Odia language to the international fora instead of keeping it confined in the books. The op-ed was published in the Samaja on January 30, 2015.

A journal article by Subbiah Arunachalam, Perumal Ramamoorthi and Subbiah Gunasekaran the steps taken by scientists and librarians in the West to reclaim ease of access to research findings with what is happening in India along with a few suggestions was published by the Indian National Science Academy Journals.
The Supreme Court, in Sabu George v. Union of India and Ors. (WP (C) 341/2008), is looking into the presence of material regarding pre-natal sex determination on search engines such as Google, Bing, and Yahoo that has been falling foul of section 22 of the Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act, 1994 as amended in 2002. Geeta Hariharan and Balaji Subramanian analyse this in their blog post.
As part of its Making Methods for Digital Humanities project, CIS-RAW organized two consultations on new figures of learning in the digital context. For a proposed journal issue on the theme of 'bodies of knowledge' which draws upon these conversations, participants were invited to write short sketches on these figures of learning. Tejas Pande wrote an abstract which examines the figure of the visual designer, and emerging practices of mapmaking.

Accessibility and Inclusion

NVDA and eSpeak

Monthly Update

January 2015 Report (Suman Dogra; January 31, 2015).

Event Organized

Training of Malayalam eSpeak with NVDA (Co-organized by CIS, DAISY Forum of India and Chakshumathi Assistive Technology Centre; Thiruvananthapuram; January 24-25, 2015).

Other

Blog Entries

Response to RTI Applications from Different States on Accessibility (Anandhi Viswanathan; January 31, 2015).

Access to Knowledge

Pervasive Technologies

As part of the Pervasive Technologies project, Maggie Huang conducted interviews with fabless semiconductor industry professionals in Taiwan. The findings from the samples are highlighted in four part series. The third and fourth parts have been published:

Blog Entries

Pervasive Technologies Project Working Document Series: Document 2 Literature Review on Competition Law + IPR + Access to < $100 Mobile Devices (Nehaa Chaudhari; January 1, 2015).
Relationship between App Developers and App Platforms: An Intellectual Property Perspective (Anubha Sinha; January 7, 2015).
Beyond Alcohol and Angel Investors: Building Business Models in an Age of Mobile Music Streaming (Conference Learnings) (Maggie Huang; January 20, 2015).
National IPR Policy Series: The Development of the National IPR Policy (Nehaa Chaudhari; January 22, 2015).
RTI Responses - MHRD IP Chairs: Details of Funding & Expenditure (Nehaa Chaudhari; January 31, 2015).
National IPR Policy Series: CIS Comments to the First Draft of the National IP Policy (Nehaa Chaudhari; January 31, 2015).

Participation in Events

Global Intellectual Property Convention (Organized by ITAG Solutions; Mumbai; January 15 - 17, 2015). Rohini Lakshané attended the event.
Library and Information Professionals Summit (LIPS) 2015 (Organized by Society for Library Professionals, National Law University Delhi with UN Information Centre for India & Bhutan and Special Library Association (USA), Asian Chapter; January 23 - 24, 2015; New Delhi). Nehaa Chaudhari was on a panel discussing Internet Technology and Challenges for Libraries in IPR Regime. She made a presentation on Technology (Internet?), Libraries and the Law (?).

Upcoming Event

Announcing the Institutional Partner for the Global Congress on Intellectual Property and the Public Interest 2015 (Organized by the National Law School of India University; New Delhi; December 2015).

Wikipedia

Op-ed

ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଭାଷା ପାଇଁ ଅନ୍ତର୍ଜାତୀୟ ପ୍ରକଳ୍ପ (Subhashish Panigrahi; The Samaja, January 31, 2015).

Blog Entries

Telugu Wikimedia Hackathon 2014 (Rahmanuddin Shaik; January 31, 2015).

Telugu Wikimedia Hackathon 2014 (Rahmanuddin Shaik; January 31, 2015). The event was conducted on December 28, 2014. However, the blog post was published in January 2015.

News and Media Coverage

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

Works of Veerasalingam Pantulu on web (Hans India; January 1, 2015).
Centre should partner local communities in 'Digital India': Expert (IANS and mirrored in Zee News; January 9, 2015).
Musician donates Gwalior Gharana songs to free e-library (Times of India; January 20, 2015).

Announcement

2015 Opensource.com Community Awards : Every year, Opensource.com awards people from our community who have excelled in contributing and sharing stories about open source. Subhashish Panigrahi from the CIS-A2K team won the award under the category 'People's Choice Awards'.
CIS-A2K team also published the Telugu Wikipedia Stats tables. Most metrics have been collected from a partial dump (aka stub dump), which contains all revisions of every article, meta data, but no page content.

Participation in Event

Citizen Media Summit 2015 (Organized by Global Voices; January 24 - 25, 2015). Subhashish Panigrahi was a speaker.

Openness

Journal Article

Heads I Win, Tails You Lose: The Intransigenc of STM Publishers (Subbiah Arunachalam, Perumal Ramamoorthi and Subbiah Gunasekaran; Indian National Science Academy Journals, Proc Indian Natn SciAcad 80 No. 5 December 2014 pp. 919-929).

Internet Governance

Articles and Blog Entries

Indians Plead for #NetNeutrality as Airtel Raises Data Charges (Subhashish Panigrahi; Global Voices; December 30, 2014). The article was published in the month of December but mirrored on CIS website in January.
Indian Netizens Criticize Online Censorship of 'Jihadi' Content (Subhashish Panigrahi; Global Voices; January 6, 2015).
Security and Surveillance - Optimizing Security while Safeguarding Human Rights (Elonnai Hickok; January 19, 2015).
Search Engine and Prenatal Sex Determination: Walking the Tight Rope of the Law (Geetha Hariharan and Balaji Subramanian; January 29, 2015).

Event Co-organized

Security, Governments, and Data: Technology and Policy (Organized by CIS and Observer Research Foundation; January 8, 2015, New Delhi). Sunil Abraham, Pranesh Prakash, Elonnai Hickok, Bhairav Acharya and Nehaa Chaudhari participated in this event.

Participation in Events

Symposium on Human Rights and the Internet in India (Organized by the Center for Communication Governance at National Law University, Delhi in collaboration with the UNESCO Chair on Freedom of Communication and Information at the University of Hamburg; New Delhi; January 17, 2015). Bhairav Acharya was a panelist.
Winter School on Privacy, Surveillance and Data Protection (Organized by the Centre for Communication Governance (CCG) in collaboration with the UNESCO Chair on Freedom of Communication and Information at the University of Hamburg and the Hans Bredow; Delhi; January 19 - 23, 2015). Bhairav Acharya was a facilitator.
ASSOCHAM National Council on IT / ITes (Organized by ASSOCHAM; New Delhi; January 30, 2015). Geetha Hariharan participated in the event.

Blog Entries

Overview of the Constitutional Challenges to the IT Act (Pranesh Prakash; December 15, 2014).
Reply to RTI filed with BSNL regarding Network Neutrality and Throttling (Tarun Krishnakumar; December 22, 2014).

News & Media Coverage

CIS gave its inputs to the following media coverage:

Government blocks 32 websites to check ISIS propaganda (Kim Arora; The Times of India; January 1, 2015).
Internet users fume as govt blocks 32 sites (Jaison Lewis; Mumbai Mirror; January 1, 2015).
India 'jihadi' web blocking causes anger (BBC; January 2, 2015). This was also mirrored in Puffington Post.
Govt cracks down on cyber jehad network, blocks access to 32 websites (India Today, January 1, 2015).
Indian Government still blocks 20+ websites - Indian Censorship on Internet (Times of Assam; January 2, 2015).
350% surge in Cyber crimes in last 3 years (Devanik Saha & Indiaspend.org; Hindustan Times; January 20, 2015).
TOI literary festival kicks off today (The Times of India; January 31, 2015).

Digital Humanities

CIS is building research clusters in the field of Digital Humanities. The Digital will be used as a way of unpacking the debates in humanities and social sciences and look at the new frameworks, concepts and ideas that emerge in our engagement with the digital. The clusters aim to produce and document new conversations and debates that shape the contours of Digital Humanities in Asia:

Staff Movement

Sumandro Chattapadhyay has joined CIS as Research Director. His academic interests span over topics of history and politics of informatics in India, new media and technology studies, and data infrastructures and economies. He is also keenly interested in questions and techniques of digital humanities. Recently, Sumandro has completed a study on policy and practices of open data in India as part of the Open Data Research Network managed by the World Wide Web Foundation. He is an involved member of DataMeet, a leading community of open data and data science enthusiasts from India. Sumandro studied economics in Visva-Bharati, Shantiniketan, and in Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He has variously worked on topics of urban development, information technology in governance, data visualisation, and early electronic governance in India with MOD Institute, Azim Premji University and the Sarai Programme at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies.

Blog Entry

Figures of Learning: The Visual Designer (Tejas Pande; January 30, 2015).

About CIS

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For more details visit https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/january-2015-bulletin

Indian Netizens Criticize Online Censorship of ‘Jihadi’ Content

subha — 2015-02-10T02:43:17Z

The article on online censorship by Subhashish Panigrahi was published in Global Voices on January 6, 2015.

Click to view the article on Global Voices here.

Indian Netizens Criticize Online Censorship of ‘Jihadi’ Content · Global Voices


Mock-up of a blocked URL (Image: Subhashish Panigrahi, CC-by-SA 3.0)

The Government of India in the last week of 2014 asked Internet service providers (ISPs) to block 32 websites including code repository Github, video streaming sites Vimeo and Dailymotion, online archive Internet Archive, free software hosting site Sourceforge and many other websites on the basis of hosting anti-India content from the violent extremist group known as ISIS.

The blanket block on many resourceful sites has been heavily criticized on social media and blogs by reviving the hashtag #GoIblocks that evolved in the past against internet censorship by the government.

Nikhil Pahwa at MediaNama notes that this time many ISPs published the list of the blocked sites:

Typically, users are not informed about which websites are blocked, so this was a welcome move from the ISP.

“Say No to Censorship. #GOIBlocks” (taken from Facebook page of Free Software Foundation, Tamil Nadu)

In 2012, opposition party leader Narendra Modi (who is now India's Prime Minister) tweeted against the URL blocks by the earlier ruling of India's National Congress when then-Minister of Communications and Information Technology Kapil Sibal ordered to block 300 websites. Many eyebrows were raised when Modi repeated the move this time around.

Internet censorship in India has been increasingly prominent since 1999 when Pakistani newspaper Dawn was blocked by the Videsh Sanchar Nigam Limited for post-Kargil War views against India. These caught heavy criticism from netizens, often under the hashtag #IdiotKapilSibal. Since then there have been many instances of government-mediated censorship, particularly with the enactment of India's Information Technology Act of 2000.

Arvind Gupta, head of Information Technology for India's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, tweeted to clarify that the sites were blocked as advised by the Anti-Terrorism Squad.

Arvind Gupta ✔ @buzzindelhi
Follow

The websites that have been blocked were based on an advisory by Anti Terrorism Squad, and were carrying Anti India content from ISIS. 1/2

3:11 PM - 31 Dec 2014

362 Retweets 82 favorites

After agreeing to remove anti-India content posted by accounts that appeared to have some association with ISIS, weebly.com, vimeo.com, Pastebin, dailymotion.com and gist.github.com were unblocked.

These websites have undertaken not to allow pasting of such propaganda information on their website and also work with the government to remove such material as per the compliance with the laws of land.

- Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, Government of India (posted in Business Standard)

Arvind Gupta ✔ @buzzindelhi
Follow

Action has been initiated to unblock -- http://weebly.com , http://vimeo.com , http://dailymotion.com and (1/2)

12:36 AM - 1 Jan 2015

63 Retweets 25 favorites

Arvind Gupta ✔ @buzzindelhi

gist.github.com :: http://wap.business-standard.com/article/news-ians/government-decides-to-unblock-four-websites-out-of-32-114123101162_1.html … (2/2)

12:36 AM - 1 Jan 2015

39 Retweets 12 favorites

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/global-voices-january-6-2015-subhashish-panigrahi-indian-netizens-criticize-online-censorship-of-jihadi-content