Centre for Internet and Society

Indian Wikimedia community coordinates Women’s History Month

Jeph Paul and Netha Hussain — 2014-03-06T11:49:10Z

The Indian Wikimedia community is pleased to invite you to participate in Women’s History Month events, 2014. We started off with a pre-event Wikipedia workshop at Roshni Nilaya School of Social Work, in Mangalore on the 26th of February.

This was cross-posted from the Wikimedia Foundation website.

We have planned events all through this month. They aim at creating new articles, expanding the existing stubs and translating English articles to various Indic languages.The schedule includes Wikipedia workshops, online edit-a-thons and wikiparties. You could edit articles, translate them, blog about the events or even be an enthusiast. Visit this page to learn more about getting involved.

Real-life Wikipedia workshops will be conducted in different parts of India. Two online edit-a-thons have been planned. The first one on the 8th & 9th of March focuses on women parliamentarians and the second one on the 15th & 16th will be looking to expand the work done during the last year events on women scientists from India. Participants of the Women’s History Month events in India are requested to fill up this opt in form to help the organizers evaluate the quantum and quality of the edits made. Centre for Internet and Society (Access to Knowledge) has extended their support to the Women’s History Month events in India this year.

The Indian events are being conducted as a part of the global event supported by the Wikiwomen’s Collaborative. We look forward to welcoming all participants at this year’s event.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/wikimedia-community-coordinates-womens-history-month

Stakeholders meeting to discuss the NCAER Report on "Parallel Imports"

praskrishna — 2014-04-01T10:42:04Z

Nehaa Chaudhari will be participating in this meeting to be held in New Delhi on March 26, 2014.

The Ministry of Human Resource Development is organizing a meeting to discuss the comments/views of all stakeholders on the Report of National Council for Applied Economic Research (NCAER) on "the Impact of Parallel Imports of Books, Films/Music and software on the Indian Economy with special reference to students". The meeting will be held under the Chairpersonship of Smt. Veena Ish, JS (BP&CR) on March 26, 2014 at 2.00 p.m.

Download a copy of the Report of the NCAER on Parallel Imports here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/stakeholders-meeting-to-discuss-ncaer-report-on-parallel-imports

ಕನ್ನಡಕ್ಕೆ ಬಲಕೊಡುವ ಕೆಲಸವಾಗಲಿ’

praskrishna — 2014-03-05T11:33:03Z

Dr. U.B. Pavanaja conducted a 2-day workshop-cum-editathon at Sagara on March 1 and 2, 2014. Vijaya Karnataka published a report on March 2.

Read the original published in Vijaya Karnataka on March 2.

ಸಾಗರ: ಆಯಾ ಕಾಲಘಟ್ಟದ ಸಮಸ್ಯೆ ಗಳಿಗೆ ಭಾಷೆ ಸ್ಪಂದಿಸಬೇಕು. ಎಲ್ಲ ಕಾಲ ಕ್ಕಿಂತಲೂ ಹೆಚ್ಚಿನ ಸಮಸ್ಯೆಗಳನ್ನು ಇಂದು ಪ್ರಾದೇಶಿಕ ಭಾಷೆಗಳು ಎದುರಿಸುತ್ತಿವೆ. ಸಾಂಸ್ಕೃತಿಕ, ಜಾಗತಿಕ ಸವಾಲುಗಳಿವೆ. ಆದ್ದರಿಂದ ಕನ್ನಡಕ್ಕೆ ಬಲಕೊಡುವ ಕೆಲಸ ಆಗಬೇಕೆಂದು ಬರಹಗಾರ ಡಾ.ಸರ್ಫ್ರಾಜ್ ಚಂದ್ರಗುತ್ತಿ ಹೇಳಿದರು.

ಕನ್ನಡ ಟೈಮ್ಸ್ ಮೀಡಿಯಾ ವರ್ಲ್ಡ್ ತನ್ನ ಮೊದಲ ವಾರ್ಷಿಕೋತ್ಸವದ ಅಂಗ ವಾಗಿ ಬಿ.ವಿ.ರವೀಂದ್ರನಾಥ್ ಚಾರ್ಟ ರ್ಡ್ ಅಕೌಂಟೆಂಟ್ ಕಚೇರಿಯಲ್ಲಿ ಕನ್ನಡ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯ ಹಾಗೂ ಸೆಂಟರ್ ಫಾರ್ ಇಂಟರ್‌ನೆಟ್ ಅಂಡ್ ಸೊಸೈಟಿ ಸಹ ಯೋಗದಲ್ಲಿ ಶನಿವಾರ ಹಮ್ಮಿಕೊಂಡಿದ್ದ ಕನ್ನಡ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯ ಮಾಹಿತಿ ಕಾರ‌್ಯಾಗಾರ ಉದ್ಘಾಟಿಸಿ ಅವರು ಮಾತನಾಡಿದರು.

ತಂತ್ರಜ್ಞಾನಕ್ಕೆ ಕನ್ನಡ ಒಗ್ಗಿಸುವ ಕೆಲಸ ಅತ್ಯಂತ ಕಷ್ಟವಾದುದು. ಭಾಷೆಯನ್ನು, ಭಾವವನ್ನು ಕಟ್ಟಿಕೊಡುವ ಕೆಲಸ ತಂತ್ರಜ್ಞಾನ ಮಾಡಬಲ್ಲದು. ಜಗತ್ತಿನ ಆಗುಹೋಗುಗಳನ್ನು ಕನ್ನಡ ಭಾಷೆ ಮೂಲಕ ಅರ್ಥಮಾಡಿಕೊಳ್ಳುವ ಯತ್ನ ಆಗಬೇಕಾಗಿದೆ. ಜೀವ ವೈವಿಧ್ಯ ಕಾಪಾಡು ವಂತೆ ಭಾಷಾ ವೈವಿಧ್ಯ ಕಾಪಾಡಬೇಕು. ಸರಕಾರದ ಜಾಲತಾಣಗಳು ಕನ್ನಡದಲ್ಲೇ ಇರಬೇಕೆಂಬ ಆದೇಶ ಇದುವರೆಗೂ ಅನುಷ್ಠಾನಗೊಂಡಿಲ್ಲ. ಕೇರಳದಲ್ಲಿ ತಂತ್ರಜ್ಞಾನದಲ್ಲಿ ತಮಿಳು ಭಾಷೆ ಕುರಿತು 2011ರಲ್ಲಿ ರಾಜ್ಯಮಟ್ಟದ ಚರ್ಚೆಯಾಗಿ 140 ಪ್ರಬಂಧಗಳ ಮಂಡನೆ ಮಾಡಲಾ ಗಿತ್ತು. ಭಾಷೆಯನ್ನು ಸಮಕಾಲೀನಗೊಳಿ ಸುವ ಕೆಲಸಕ್ಕೆ ಎಲ್ಲರೂ ಕೈಜೋಡಿಸಬೇಕು. ಕನ್ನಡ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯದ ಕನ್ನಡದ ಕೆಲಸವನ್ನು ಕನ್ನಡಿಗರು ಬೆಂಬಲಿಸ ಬೇಕೆಂದರು.

ಆಶಯ ಮಾತನಾಡಿದ ಕನ್ನಡ ತಂತ್ರಾಂಶ ಪಂಡಿತ ಡಾ.ಯು.ಬಿ.ಪವನಜ ಮಾತನಾಡಿ, ಮೂಲತಃ ಹವಾಯಿ ಭಾಷೆಯ ಪದವಾಗಿರುವ ವಿಕಿ ಅಂದರೆ ವೇಗ ಎಂದು ಅರ್ಥ. ವೇಗವಾಗಿ ಮಾಹಿತಿ ನೀಡಬಲ್ಲ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯ ಒಂದು ಸ್ವತಂತ್ರ ವಿಶ್ವಕೋಶ. ಎಲ್ಲರ ಜ್ಞಾನವನ್ನೂ ಒಟ್ಟುಗೂಡಿಸಿ, ಅದು ಪ್ರತಿಯೊಬ್ಬರಿಗೂ ಮುಕ್ತವಾಗಿ ದೊರೆಯುವಂತಾಗ ಬೇಕೆಂಬುದು ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯ ಉದ್ದೇಶ ವಾಗಿದೆ ಎಂದರು. ತಾ.ಪಂ. ಸದಸ್ಯೆ ಜ್ಯೋತಿ ಮಾತನಾಡಿದರು. ಕನ್ನಡ ಟೈಮ್ಸ್ ಮೀಡಿಯಾ ವರ್ಲ್ಡ್ ಗೌರವ ಸಲಹೆಗಾರ ಬಿ.ವಿ.ರವೀಂದ್ರ ನಾಥ್ ಅಧ್ಯಕ್ಷತೆ ವಹಿಸಿದ್ದರು. ಸಂಸ್ಥೆ ಅಧ್ಯಕ್ಷ ಜಿ.ಟಿ.ಶ್ರೀಧರ ಶರ್ಮ, ಚಿನ್ಮಯ ಎಂ.ರಾವ್ ಹೊನಗೋಡು, ಬಿ.ಜಿ.ಮಂಜಪ್ಪ, ವಿದ್ಯಾಧರ ಚಿಪ್ಪಳಿ, ಗಣಪತಿ ಕಾನಗೋಡು, ಬಿ.ಎಸ್.ಚಂದ್ರಶೇಖರ ಹಾಜರಿದ್ದರು. ಸಹನಾ ಜಿ.ಭಟ್ ಪ್ರಾರ್ಥಿಸಿ, ಸತ್ಯನಾರಾಯಣಭಟ್ ಸ್ವಾಗತಿಸಿ, ವೈಶಾಲಿ ವಂದಿಸಿದರು.ಅರುಣ್ ಘಾಟೆ ನಿರೂಪಿಸಿದರು.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/vijay-karnataka-march-2-2014-wikipedia-workshop-coverage

Odia Language's Presence in Digital Media and Wikipedia's Role

subha — 2014-03-05T11:36:46Z

କମ୍ପ୍ୟୁଟରରେ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଭାଷା (Odia language in computer) is an essay published in Odia newspaper "The Samaja's Sunday supplement" on March 2. It is about the journey of Odia language in the digital era and the challenges faced during digitization of books and manuscripts.

It also focusses on the new technological advancements that allow users to interact and share knowledge on the internet in Odia language. It briefly explains about Odia Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia that is written by voluntary editors and the massive knowledge production by opening up platforms like these that allows real-time collaboration for editorship in regional languages.

A scanned version of the article is reproduced below. A higher resolution of this article could be read in The Samaja e-Paper.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/the-samaja-subhashish-panigrahi-march-2-2014-odia-language-presence-in-digital-media

Kannada Wikipedia Workshop (Coverage in Suvarna Prabha)

praskrishna — 2014-03-05T11:05:23Z

Dr. U.B. Pavanaja conducted a Kannada Wikipedia workshop on March 1, followed a by edit-a-thon on Mar 2, 2014, at Sagara. A report of the inauguration program, appeared in Suvarna Prabha, Sagara on March 1, 2014.

A scanned version of the report is given below. The event was organised by Kannada Times Sagara and co-sponsored by CIS-A2K.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/kannada-wikipedia-workshop-coverage-suvarna-prabha-march-1-2014

Wikipedia Mangalore Workshop (Coverage in Prajavani)

praskrishna — 2014-03-05T11:04:24Z

Dr. U.B.Pavanaja gave a presentation on Wikipedia with a special focus on students and women at Roshini Nilaya, Mangalore on February 26, 2014. An event report was published in Prajavani the following day.

Scanned version of the report published by Prajavani on February 27 is below. The event was organised by Roshini Nilaya and co-sponsored by CS-A2K.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/wikipedia-workshop-mangalore-coverage-prajavani-february-27-2014

Wiki Women's Workshop

praskrishna — 2014-03-05T10:37:57Z

As part of the commemoration of the International Women's Day, International Centre Goa (ICG) in association with the Centre for Internet & Society’s Access to Knowledge team is organising a Wiki Women’s Workshop on Sunday, March 9, 2014 from 3.30 p.m. to 6.00 p.m. at ICG – Dona Paula.

8th March is International Women's Day and to celebrate, women in India are organizing edit-a-thons and meetups to create and expand articles of importance to women in Wikipedia in English and various Indian languages. The goal of the month-long event is to encourage more women to contribute to Wikipedia and increase representation of articles related to women in Wikipedia. The event aims at creating new articles, expanding the existing stubs and translating English articles to various Indic languages.

The main aim of the event is to get more women aware about Wikipedia and Wikimedia projects. Participants would be guided on "How to contribute to Wikipedia?" by a hands-on session and make the knowledge available for free.

Click here to view the poster and registration details.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/events/international-womens-day-2014

First Urdu Wikipedia Workshop at Maulana Azad National Urdu University, Hyderabad

syed — 2014-04-07T01:06:31Z

During the second week of February, Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), Bangalore received a call from Dr Faheemuddin, Assistant Professor, Department of Translation Studies, Maulana Azad National Urdu University, Hyderabad requesting an Urdu Wikipedia Workshop in University. We were informed of special interest of Dr Zafaruddin , Head, Department of Translation studies in holding the event as any effort aimed at expanding the Urdu Wikipedia will benefit the Urdu language community across the world.

The event was covered by Taemeer News, Aalami Akhbar, and Firokhabar on March 5, 2014.

During the course of discussion and further communication, CIS agreed to hold a day-long workshop for about 20-30 students. The day-long workshop was scheduled on March 4, 2013 for 28 students. These students came from different levels such as MA, M Phil and Ph D offered by the Department of Translation Studies. All the participating students had opened their accounts on Urdu Wikipedia prior to the event. They were well-versed in the Unicode typing for Urdu.

Prof. Mohammed Zafaruddin said during the inaugural session that the Dept. of Translation Studies wants its students to impart training for writing material for Urdu Wikipedia so that Urdu could be made compatible with the modern technology. Later, Mr. Vishnu Vardhan, Director, Access to Knowledge, addressed the students through Skype. He told that Wikipedia has become an important source of communicating information. Millions of people throughout the world are getting information through Wikipedia in 287 languages. Urdu is an important language of the world, the speakers of which are spread all over the world. In view of its importance, it is obligatory on the part of Urdu speakers to preserves their language and culture by using and contributing to Urdu Wikipedia.

The initial session of the workshop included a general introduction to Wikipedia, the encyclopaedic content it showcases and the ways in which the students can contribute. This was followed by a practical demonstration round. For this purpose, the students witnessed the creation of the article on the famous Urdu poet and Bollywood lyricist Kaif Bhopali. It was pointed out that while the English Wikipedia already had article on the poet, Urdu Wikipedia got its version only during the current workshop. The students were later surprised to see that in the context of many Urdu poets, more content was available on Wikipedia in English than in Urdu. In the case of some of the famous poets, even an article entry is missing in the Urdu Wikipeda while English Wikipedia has full length articles.

During the hands-on session, each of the students was given a bitly link of an Urdu Wikipedia article. The students were asked to edit the article and expand the content. The students enthusiastically participated in the event with some of them creating their own articles. They also asked questions pertaining to an advanced level of editing such as uploading images. A student named Mohammed Asif had taken pictures of the event which he later uploaded on Wikimedia Commons (http://bitly.com/urduworkshop).

The departmental staff present on the occasion included Dr. Mohammed Khaled Mubbashir-Uz-Zafar, Associate Professor, Dr. Mohammed Junaid Zakir, Dr. Khakashan Lateef (Asst. Professors), Prof. Syed Khwaja Moinuddin and Dr. Shaik Sadi Arshad (Translator). Convener of the workshop, Dr. Faheemuddin Ahmed, proposed vote of thanks.

Video

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/first-urdu-wikipedia-workshop-hyderabad

Kannada Wikipedia Workshop (Coverage in Vijayavani)

praskrishna — 2014-04-11T10:15:45Z

Vijayavani covered the Kannada Wikipedia workshop held in Sagara.

Read the scanned version of the article published in Vijayavani below

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/vijayavani-kannada-wiki-workshop-march-3-2014

Zero Project Conference on Accessibility: Innovative Policies and Practices for Persons with Disabilities

praskrishna — 2014-03-06T08:44:00Z

Essl Foundation, the World Future Council and the European Foundation Centre convened an international conference at the United Nations Office in Vienna, Austria on February 27 and 28, 2014. Pranesh Prakash participated in the conference as a speaker. On February 27 he spoke on e-speak and on the following day (February 28) he spoke in a session on Copyright & the Marrakesh Treaty: Opportunities and Challenges.

The conference was attended by over 450 people. Dr. Nirmita Narasimhan had submitted two proposals, one on innovative practices (eSpeak) and one on innovative policy (India's copyright policy). Click on the links below to find more on these:

Once again, the Essl Foundation, the World Future Council and the European Foundation Centre have joined forces to convene an international conference in Vienna, Austria. On this occasion we aim to raise awareness about innovative solutions from around the world that advance accessibility for persons with disabilities. The conference seeks to strengthen the commitment of all stakeholders to promote, protect and advance the rights of persons with disabilities, and to improve their daily lives.

At the third Zero Project Conference on “Accesibility: Innovative Policies and Innovative Practices for Persons with Disabilities” parliamentarians, representatives of NGOs and foundations, academics, social entrepreneurs, disability rights activists and the business world will come together to discuss Innovative Policies and Innovative Practices and explore ways to promote and spread them to other countries.

Innovative Policies: Paving the Way

Building on the success of our conferences in January 2012 and February 2013, at this Zero Project Conference, 15 Innovative Policies will be presented. They contain promising elements, have achieved identifiable improvements on the ground and point to a positive dynamic change that can be easily replicated in many countries around the world to advance the implementation of the Convention. They overcome conditions that act as barriers to the full exercise of rights by persons with disabilities and constitute the outcome of a multilevel research and selection process.

Innovative Practices: Crucial Steps

The Zero Project team has done extensive research worldwide on the most outstanding projects. The expert network that contributed their expertise in actively nominating and evaluating projects included more than 500 persons worldwide from 120 countries.

These projects cover all areas of accessibility, including built environment, transport, products and services and ICT (information, communication and technology).

Be part of the Zero Project Network!

The Zero Project Conference gathers in Vienna the world’s leading representatives of the disability rights movement in order to facilitate a direct exchange of experiences. In this way the world’s most innovative and promising solutions are jointly identified, disseminated and further developed in order to make a noticeable improvement in the daily life and legal situation of persons with disabilities.

Join the discussion and explore possibilities and potentials on how global implementation of these exemplary solutions can be advanced!

Click here to see the programme schedule
Click here to see the speakers list

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/zero-project-conference-vienna-february-27-28-2014

February 2014 Bulletin

praskrishna — 2014-04-07T07:27:46Z

The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) welcomes you to the second issue of its newsletter (February) for the year 2014:

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Highlights
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We published revised chapters for the states of Mizoram, Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Himachal Pradesh and Haryana, as part of our National Resource Kit project.
In the concluding blog post of a three-part study Ananth Padmanabhan looks at the Indian law in the Copyright Act and the Information Technology Act, and concludes that both those laws restrain courts and private companies from ordering an ISP to block a website for copyright infringement.
Telugu Wikipedia celebrated its 10^th anniversary. An event was co-organized in Vijaywada to celebrate the same.
The second Institute on Internet and Society was held in Pune from February 11 to 17. The proceedings from the workshop are captured in a blog post.
CIS announced an Open Call for Comments for the latest draft of the Privacy Bill, 2013 prepared by Bhairav Acharya.
Forbes India published its “30 Under 30 List”. Pranesh Prakash is featured in the list.
As part of the Making Change Project, Denisse Albornoz wrote a blog post that compares the production behind a performance with the process of storytelling.
Beli gives an introduction to spectrum sharing. The post looks at GSM and CDMA, and touches upon LTE, and how they might share spectrum.

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Jobs
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CIS is seeking applications for the post of Program Officer (Access to Knowledge): http://bit.ly/1fnydB0. There are two vacancies for this post and it is full-time based in Delhi. To apply, please send your resume to Sunil Abraham (sunil@cis-india.org), Nirmita Narasimhan (nirmita@cis-india.org) and Pranesh Prakash (pranesh@cis-india.org) with three writing samples of which at least one demonstrates your analytic skills, and one that shows your ability to simplify complex policy issues.

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Accessibility and Inclusion
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As part of our project (under a grant from the Hans Foundation) on creating a national resource kit of state-wise laws, policies and programmes on issues relating to persons with disabilities in India, we bring you draft chapters for the states of Mizoram, Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Himachal Pradesh and Haryana. With this we have completed compilation of draft chapters for 35 states.

Based upon discussion with the office of the Chief Commissioner for Persons with Disabilities (CCPD) the following chapters were revised:

► National Resource Kit Chapter

The Mizoram Chapter (by CLPR, February 5, 2014): http://bit.ly/1eUSvxW
The Dadra & Nagar Haveli Chapter (by CLPR, February 6, 2014): http://bit.ly/1mv3YhJ
The Haryana Chapter (by Anandhi Viswanathan, February 10, 2014): http://bit.ly/1dVOiKI
The Himachal Pradesh Chapter (by Anandhi Viswanathan, February 12, 2014): http://bit.ly/1jSk03x

► Other

# Participation in Events

National Consultation on Inclusion of Persons with Disabilities in Development Process (organized by CBM India in collaboration with United Nations Solution Exchange for Gender Community, WHO Regional office for South-East Asia, New Delhi, February 12, 2014). Anandhi Viswanathan participated in a panel discussion. She made a presentation on the National Resource Kit project: http://bit.ly/OlkHVq.
Zero Project Conference on Accessibility: Innovative Policies and Practices for Persons with Disabilities (organized by Essl Foundation, the World Future Council and the European Foundation Centre, United Nations Office, Vienna, February 27 and 28, 2014). Pranesh Prakash spoke on Affordable Text-to-Speech Software from India: http://bit.ly/1czo32s. Nominations on e-speak were recognised as examples of innovative practices and policies from India. Pranesh Prakash was also a speaker on Copyright Exception for Accessible Formats: http://bit.ly/1l8HRth.

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Access to Knowledge
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The Access to Knowledge programme addresses the harms caused to consumers and human rights, and critically examines Open Government Data, Open Access to Scholarly Literature, and Open Access to Law, Open Content, Open Standards, and Free/Libre/Open Source Software.

# Analyses

Can Judges Order ISPs to Block Websites for Copyright Infringement? (Part 2) (by Ananth Padmanabhan, February 5, 2014): http://bit.ly/1cddoKm. Analyses the law laid down by the U.S. Supreme Court and the Delhi High Court on secondary and contributory copyright infringement.
Can Judges Order ISPs to Block Websites for Copyright Infringement? (Part 3) (by Ananth Padmanabhan, February 5, 2014): http://bit.ly/1g35mDg. Analyses the Indian law in the Copyright Act and the Information Technology Act.

# Participation in Events

2nd International Conference on Managing Intellectual Property Rights and Strategy (MIPS 2014) (organized by Shailesh J. Mehta School of Management, IIT Bombay with support from the Ministry of Human Resources Development IPR Chair Project, Government of India): http://bit.ly/PsPEbq.
Consultation on Institutional Arrangements for IP management under MHRD (organized by the Planning Commission and Ministry of Human Resource Development, New Delhi, February 21, 2014). Nehaa Chaudhari participated in this consultation: http://bit.ly/1fTCoar.
National Conference on Use of Technology in Higher Education (organized by the Ministry of Human Resource and Development and Planning Commission in partnership with Microsoft Research and British Council, Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, February 25, 2014): http://bit.ly/P6u78i. Nehaa Chaudhari participated in the event as a panelist in the session on "Future of Content Creation".

# Media Coverage

Pranesh Prakash: Influencing India's IP Laws (by Samar Srivastava, Forbes India, February 15, 2014): http://bit.ly/1kBzLMq.

The following has been done under grant from the Wikimedia Foundation (http://bit.ly/SPqFOl). As part this project (http://bit.ly/X80ELd), we organised 4 workshops in the month of January, published an article in DNA, and signed a memorandum of understanding with KIIT University and Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences to further the development of Odia Wikipedia:

►Wikipedia

# Articles / Blog Entries

Odia Language's Presence in Digital Media and Wikipedia's Role (by Subhashish Panigrahi, The Samaja, March 2, 2014): http://bit.ly/1ieF3sC.
Indian Wikimedia community coordinates Women’s History Month (by Netha Hussain and Jeph Paul, Wikimedia Foundation, March 6, 2014): http://bit.ly/1cyRfqf,

# Events Co-organized

Cinemathon2014 Bangalore (organized by Pad.ma and CIS-A2K, CIS, Bangalore, February 8-9, 2014): http://bit.ly/MRRkZz.
Tewiki 10th Anniversary (organized by CIS-A2K and Telugu Wikipedia community, February 15, 2014): http://bit.ly/1iI2Pxs. T. Vishnu Vardhan and Rahmanuddin Shaikh were speakers at the event.
Cinemathon2014 Mumbai (organized by Pad.ma and CIS-A2K, CAMP Studio, Mumbai, February 15-16, 2014): http://bit.ly/P5YGL8.
Wikipedia Mangalore Workshop (organized by Roshini Nilaya and CIS-A2K, Mangalore, February 26, 2014). Dr. U.B.Pavanaja gave a presentation on Wikipedia with a special focus on students and women.

CIS gave its inputs to the following media coverage:

# Media Coverage

Father-son duo promote Punjabi online (by Jatinder Preet, Sunday Guardian, February 1, 2014): http://bit.ly/1l87b2h.
୧୦ ବର୍ଷରେ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ୱିକିପିଡିଆ (Rabibara Sambad (Sunday supplement of Odia newspaper The Sambad), February 9, 2014): http://bit.ly/1igMynn. This is a feature about Odia Wikipedia's 10th anniversary and the story of a dead volunteer community reviving after 8 years.
Wikipedia Mangalore Workshop (Prajavani, February 27, 2014): http://bit.ly/1gVMG6f.

# Participation in Event

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.

Event Organized

Wiki Women's Workshop (ICG – Dona Paula, Goa, March 9, 2014): http://bit.ly/MRRJLy. The event is being organized as part of the commemoration of the International Women's Day.

Openness

# Event Organised

Bitcoin & Open Source with Aaron Koenig (CIS, Bangalore, February 7, 2014): http://bit.ly/1fbN6mP.

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Internet Governance
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CIS is doing a project (under a grant from Privacy International and International Development Research Centre (IDRC)) on conducting research on surveillance and freedom of expression (SAFEGUARDS). So far we have organised seven privacy round-tables and drafted the Privacy (Protection) Bill. Gautam Bhatia gives an analysis of the right to privacy from a constitutional perspective. Bhairav Acharya prepared an updated version of the Privacy Protection Bill which was published for comments.

# Call for Comments

The Privacy Protection Bill, 2013 (by Bhairav Acharya, February 25, 2014): http://bit.ly/1g3TwIX. CIS announced an Open Call for Comments to the latest version of the bill.

# Articles

The Internet Way (by Nishant Shah, Biblio Vol. 19 No.8 (1&2), January – February 2014): http://bit.ly/1kBp9gJ. Dr. Nishant Shah's review of the book “The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon” by Bantam Press/Random House Group, London can be found on page 16.
Surveillance and the Indian Constitution - Part 3: The Public/Private Distinction and the Supreme Court’s Wrong Turn (by Gautam Bhatia, Indian Constitutional Law and Philosophy Blog, February 25, 2014): http://bit.ly/1kBosnw. This was originally published on Indian Constitutional Law and Philosophy Blog.
Big Democracy, Big Surveillance: India's Surveillance State (by Maria Xynou, Open Democracy, February 28, 2014): http://bit.ly/1nkg8Ho.
Will You be Paid to Post a Picture? (by Nishant Shah, Indian Express, February 18, 2014): http://bit.ly/P65d8L.

# Blog Entries

February 11: The Day We Fight Back Against Mass Surveillance (by Divij Joshi, February 14, 2014): http://bit.ly/1e7drCV.
Calcutta High Court Strengthens Whistle Blower Protection (by Divij Joshi, February 24, 2014): http://bit.ly/1cG8v7t.
CIS Welcomes 52nd Report on Cyber Crime, Cyber Security, and Right to Privacy (by Elonnai Hickok, February 24, 2014): http://bit.ly/1oviMJ4.
UIDAI Practices and the Information Technology Act, Section 43A and Subsequent Rules (by Elonnai Hickok, February 25, 2014): http://bit.ly/1fbSfep.

# Events Organized

Nullcon Goa Feb 2014 — International Security Conference (organised by Nullcon, Bogmallo Beach Resort, Goa, February 12 – 15, 2014). CIS is one of the sponsors for this event: http://bit.ly/1lrBu5I.
Counter Surveillance Panel: DiscoTech & Hackathon (co-organized by CIS, MIT Centre for Civic Media Co-Design Lab, Tactical Technology Collective, Hackteria.org, and Shristi School of Art, Design and Technology, Bangalore, March 1, 2014): http://bit.ly/NCGMyH

# Participation in Events

First Meeting of the Multistakeholder Advisory Group for India Internet Governance Forum (organized by the Department of Electronics and Information Technology, New Delhi, February 10, 2014). Sunil Abraham participated in this meeting: http://bit.ly/1fKu5xz.
Internet Intermediary Liability: Towards Evidence-based Policy and Regulatory Reform to Secure Human Rights on the internet (organized by Association for Progressive Communications, The Wedgewood, Melville, Johannesburg, February 10-11, 2014): http://bit.ly/1fMAEK2. Elonnai Hickok was a speaker.
Towards an Equitable and Just Internet (organized by IT for Change, New Delhi, February 14-15, 2014). Bhairav Acharya was a speaker: http://bit.ly/1cz9EDt.
Workshop on Media Law & Policy Curriculum Development (organized by the Centre for Communication Governance, National Law University, Delhi and University of Oxford in support with the International Higher Education-Knowledge Economy Partnerships Programme of the British Council, February 16, 2014, National Law University, Delhi): http://bit.ly/1ovoT00. Bhairav Acharya was a speaker.
The Changing Role of the Media in India: Constitutional Perspectives (organized by School of Law, Christ University, February 28, 2014): http://bit.ly/1lB2nTO. Snehashish Ghosh moderated a session at this conference.

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

The Dangers of Birdsong (by Namrata Joshi, Outlook, January 25, 2014): http://bit.ly/1kB8J7L.
A Tale of Two Internet Campaigns (by Deepa Kurup, The Hindu, February 11, 2014): http://bit.ly/1lDdRZy.
Dark days for the creative class in India: Siddiqui (by Haroon Siddiqui, thestar.com, February 16, 2014): http://bit.ly/1gdtgbC.
The Forbes India 30 Under 30 List (by Abhilasha Khaitan, Forbes India, February 21, 2014): http://bit.ly/1ovnvKM. Pranesh Prakash features in the list.
India ‘tea parties’ enable politicians to woo urban youth with technology (by Avantika Chilkoti, Financial Times, February 26, 2014): http://bit.ly/1cGfOMm.

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Digital Humanities
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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:

# Blog Entries

Defending the Humanities in the Digital Age (by Nishant Shah, DML Central, February 24, 2014): http://bit.ly/1czdZqg.
Digital Humanities in India- Mapping Changes at the Intersection of Youth, Technology and Higher Education (by Sneha PP, February 21, 2014): http://bit.ly/1qd6xo4.

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Digital Natives
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CIS is doing a research project titled “Making Change”. The project will explore new ways of defining, locating, and understanding change in network societies. Having the thought piece 'Whose Change is it Anyway' as an entry point for discussion and reflection, the project will feature profiles, interviews and responses of change-makers to questions around current mechanisms and practices of change in South Asia and South East Asia:

►Making Change Project

# Blog Entries

Storytelling as Performance: The Ugly Indian and Blank Noise 1 (by Denisse Albornoz, February 24, 2014): http://bit.ly/1jX4qBb.
Storytelling as Performance: The Ugly Indian and Blank Noise 2 (by Denisse Albornoz, February 27, 2014): http://bit.ly/1fKwQil.

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Telecom
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Shyam Ponappa, a Distinguished Fellow at CIS is a regular columnist with the Business Standard. The articles published on his blog Organizing India Blogspot is mirrored on our website:

# Newspaper Column

Centre- or State-Driven Development? (by Shyam Ponappa, Business Standard, February 5, 2014, Observer India Blogspot, February 7, 2014): http://bit.ly/1ceuWFS.

# Blog Entry

An Introduction to Spectrum Sharing (by Beli, February 24, 2014): http://bit.ly/NZlknd.

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Knowledge Repository on Internet Access
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CIS in partnership with the Ford Foundation is executing a project to create a knowledge repository on Internet and society. This repository will comprise content targeted primarily at civil society with a view to enabling their informed participation in the Indian Internet and ICT policy space. The repository is available at the Internet Institute website: http://bit.ly/1iQT2UB.

►Event Organized

Institute on Internet and Society (organised by Ford Foundation and CIS, Yashada, Pune, February 11-17, 2014): http://bit.ly/1fpTdDS. Bishakha Datta, Ravikiran Annaswamy, Kingsley John, Prof. G. Nagarjuna, Nisha Thompson, Prashant Naik, Nehaa Chaudhari, Bhairav Acharya, Manu Srivastav, Dr. Abhijeet Safai, Payal Malik, Nishant Shah, Laura Stein, Sunil Abraham, Madan Muthu and Chinmayi Arun taught at the institute.

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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 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, MacArthur Foundation, IDRC and 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.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/february-2014-bulletin

National Conference on Use of Technology in Higher Education

praskrishna — 2014-03-06T07:30:32Z

The Ministry of Human Resource and Development and Planning Commission in partnership with Microsoft Research and British Council organized a conference at the Indian Institute of Technology in Bombay on February 25, 2014.

Nehaa Chaudhari participated in the event as a panelist in the session on "Future of Content Creation".

Click to download the schedule.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/iitb-february-25-26-2014-national-conference-on-use-of-technology-in-higher-education

Pranesh Prakash: Influencing India's IP Laws

praskrishna — 2014-02-25T06:20:31Z

Pranesh Prakash believes intellectual property laws need to evolve and change with time.

Samar Srivastava's article was published in Forbes India Magazine on February 15, 2014.

At an age where his contemporaries are still junior litigators and aspiring lawyers, Pranesh Prakash, 28, is already a recognisable name in the filed of legal activism.

In 2013 he worked with the World Intellectual Property Organization to draft a treaty for the blind. It provides for an exception to copyright laws so that books can be converted into accessible formats for the blind and visually impaired, and exchanged across borders.

For Prakash the treaty capped a signal achievement in intellectual property and copyright—an area he has been working in since graduating from the National Law School, Bangalore. In his closing speech at the diplomatic conference at Marrakesh, Morocco, Prakash said: “When copyright doesn’t serve public welfare, states must intervene... Importantly, markets alone cannot be relied upon to achieve a just allocation of informational resources, as we have seen clearly from the book famine that the blind are experiencing.”

Prakash’s work on intellectual property has brought him recognition through affiliations: He is an Access to Knowledge Fellow at the Information Society Project at Yale Law School. In 2012, he was selected as an Internet Freedom Fellow by the US State Department.

“I was always interested in doing public interest work,” says Prakash. An internship with activist lawyer Rajeev Dhawan cemented his desire. Prakash is now prominent in a line of thinkers working in the area of freedom of expression, internet governance and intellectual property.

It is clear that existing laws in these areas are inadequate and a new jurisprudential setup needs to evolve. For example, the same standards often apply to print and internet media; they fail to recognise that, say, tweets have a different impact than newspapers headlines.

Prakash’s criticism of governments blocking websites stood out, but his recommendations were not accepted. He proposed that all intermediaries, like the ISP and the domain host, not be bunched, and separate standards be imposed on them, based on their editorial role in content creation.

“What distinguishes his work is the impact it has on the public at large,” says Gautam John, head, Karnataka Learning Partnership at the Akshara Foundation. “His work in the area is cutting edge. There is no one doing that work.”

Then there is his work with Section 66A of the IT Act. Under the section, anyone who sends false, offensive or inappropriate content by a computer or communication device can be punished with three years of imprisonment. This section has been misused by the police. Prakash has long argued that the law must be more specific in what it defines as offensive, and that the government needs to engage more with civil society and industry to end the antagonistic and selective manner in which the law is imposed.

Efforts of the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), Bangalore, where Prakash is policy director, have resulted in rules being amended. Now, only officers of the rank of DCP and above can make an arrest. CIS, set up in 2008, has also made representations on the copyright law to Parliamentary Standing Committees.

Prakash’s activism has had another significant effect on intellectual property in India. By a 2008 Bill, the government had tried to privatise publicly-funded intellectual property. Prakash was part of a sustained campaign against the Bill, and in 2011 it was shelved.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/forbes-india-february-15-2014-samar-srivastava-pranesh-prakash-influencing-indias-ip-laws

Consultation on Institutional Arrangements for IP managment under MHRD

praskrishna — 2014-03-12T13:17:00Z

Planning Commission and MHRD jointly are having consultations to design institutional arrangements for IP management under the MHRD between 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. on February 21, 2014 at IIC (Annexe), New Delhi 9 Lecture Hall No. 1).

Nehaa Chaudhari participated in this consultation.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/consultation-institutional-arrangements-ip-management-mhrd

Tewiki 10th Anniversary

rahim — 2014-03-19T11:01:01Z

Tewiki 10th anniversary celebration 2014, started on February 15 in Vijayawada at Kakaraparti Bhavanarayana College. It was co-organized by the Centre for Internet and Society's Access to Knowledge (CIS-A2K) team and the Telugu Wikipedia community. Ch.Arjuna Rao expressed his happiness on Telugu Wikipedias completion of 10 years and 55000 articles in Telugu on the inauguration of decade celebrations.

The full details are captured in the report published on the meta page. The following is an abridged version of the same in English.

The founding president of the Wikimedia India Chapter CH.Arjunarao , T.Vishnu Vardhan, Programme Director, CIS-A2K, President of the decade ceremonial committee BK Viswanath. K.B.N.college officials Sambasiva Rao, Rajith Kumar and Krishnamurthy inaugurated the function by Jyothi Prajwalana.

Talking on the occasion the chairman of Andhra Pradesh official languages commission Buddha Prasad said that 2014-15 must be declared as the year of the Telugu Wikipedia and to make the most of it by more exciting activities. Telugu Wikipedia has put in more efforts than governments and universities to the culture of the Telugu language. Many great personalities served Telugu language and culture were remembered in this occasion including Lakshmanrao, Mallampalli.

Telugu Computer: Past, Present, Future of the Convention

Komarraju Laxmana Rao Visishta Wikipedian award-winner Veeven organised an awareness seminar. Veeven talked about how in 2004, a decade ago, the Internet Telugu writing, and reading had many problems, and how by the year 2014 they got eliminated in the sequence. He also touched upon the future development of the technology used in the Telugu language. He said that Microsoft Office, Libre Office, Adobe In Design, Adobe Photoshop, etc., will be used as the applications in Telugu. Today Telugu is expected to be used in mobile phones, i. Pods, and this justifies the use of Android in Telugu.

Convention on Wikidata

Rahmanuddin spoke about wikidata. He explained in detail how linking an article in all languages is the first step and linking diagrams and figures is the second step and showed participants that in the third stage classification is included. He explained it with examples of the mango tree and the word 'mother'. After this he showed how the link the particular article to the word. Thereafter he spoke about the app developed by Tamil students to link a particular word to the article and urged that people should start using these apps early on in their life as then only development in this field would be possible.

Experiences of Other Language Wikipedians

Some Tamilians shared their experience in developing Tamil wiki. They said that government and other organisations have helped a lot in developing Tamil wiki. Government organisations helped a lot in filing data in digital form. Many educational institutions have take part in this project. Some even proposed that Tamil wiki might be made a part of the education for students. They said that they shared this info about Tamil wiki to various friends and organisations.

Odia wikipedian Mrutunjay said that they attached the voice app feature to help with pronounciation. They attached the Odiya files to English words so that it will be useful for easy search. He also mentioned that there is a lack of creative writers in Odisha and that they are trying to overcome this problem.

Malayalam wikipedian K.Manoj said that from wikisource Malayalam remains the topmost Indian language for obtaining various data from a specific language. He said that over 200 books and 800 articles were included in the Malayalam wiki. They organised the structure in such a way that students will be able to use it from a very early age. These books in wikisource were used by many students.Konkani wiki. Darsan said that in 2007 they started the Konkani wiki. Goa students made a significant contribution to the development of this project. They uploaded 290 articles till now and they are trying to digitalise konkani wiki and other projects to help them develop.

Making a substantial contribution to the Telugu Wikipedia Nisar Ahmed also spoke about the developments in Urdu Wikipedia. He came to share his experience with others. He said that Urdu language was born in India and in the globalized Urdu wikipedia there are only 2 or 3 Urdu wikipedians from India. He also spoke of the experiences of an article on national anthem and about the views of the Pakistani community.He further discussed about the difficulties in work caused by different countries, the available options and how to solve those problems and gain experiences.

More pictures of the event can be found here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/tewiki-10-anniversary