Centre for Internet and Society

Open Source Project Brings 11th Century Kannada Verses Online

subha — 2014-04-06T06:00:47Z

The post was co-authored by Pavithra Hanchagaiah, Omshivaprakash H L and Subhashish Panigrahi and published in the March issue of Foss Force.

Click to read the original published on the website of Foss Force here.

Vachana sahitya is a form of rhythmic writing in Kannada poetry that evolved in the 11th century C.E. and flourished in the 12th century as a part of the Lingayatha movement. More than 259 Vachanakaras (Vachana writers) have compiled over 11,000 vachanas. 21,000 of these verses which were published in a 15 volume set, “Samagra Vachana Samputa,” by the Government of Karnataka, a state in South West India, have been digitized. Two Wikimedians along with Kannada linguist and author O. L. Nagabhushana Swamy are involved in the Unicode conversions, corrections and writing the preface for these verses. The entire work is now available as a standalone project called Vachana Sanchaya and ready to enrich Kannada WikiSource.


Palm leaf of 11th and 12th Century with Vachana poems in Kannada language

This project was started a year ago when Kannada Wikimedian Omshivaprakash was trying to help Professor O. L. Naghabhushana Swamy and Kannada author and publisher Vasudhendra to easily access the vachana (verses) of Vachana Sanchaya. Swamy had challenges in using publicly available content on Vachanas since the data was in ASCII and searching text was a huge problem. Pavithra Hanchagaiah started helping to collect information about about vachanas and document them into Unicode by writing scripts to customize open source software to convert the Kannada fonts from ASCII into Unicode.

After further discussions, it was decided to get thousands of vachanas into a database, making them easily searchable with an index. This required us to build a platform on which this could be done. The fruits of our labors will help linguistic researchers and students as well as the public at large, anybody who’s interested in reading and studying Vachana literature. With this idea, Omshivaprakash started designing the model and his colleague Devaraju started building it. In the meantime, Pavithra was running various scripts to fix errors in the conversion of the ASCII text to Unicode, confirming that the data was ready to be consumed by the modules developed for the concordance. We spent weekends and holidays executing this project from home and would sync up once in a while online.	Pavithra Hanchagaiah and Omshivaprakash H L

After further discussions, it was decided to get thousands of vachanas into a database, making them easily searchable with an index. This required us to build a platform on which this could be done. The fruits of our labors will help linguistic researchers and students as well as the public at large, anybody who’s interested in reading and studying Vachana literature.

With this idea, Omshivaprakash started designing the model and his colleague Devaraju started building it. In the meantime, Pavithra was running various scripts to fix errors in the conversion of the ASCII text to Unicode, confirming that the data was ready to be consumed by the modules developed for the concordance. We spent weekends and holidays executing this project from home and would sync up once in a while online.

Pavithra Hanchagaiah and Omshivaprakash H L

With constant feedback and guidance from Mr. Swamy and Vasudendra, we learned how a concordance of text is used by researchers and what would make it easier for them to do their research. Omshivaprakash worked on the architecture of the platform, decided the infrastructure requirements and managed the entire project. Free and open source software technologies were used for keeping the platform active. Pavithra was involved in providing critical hacks for digitization and offered valuable input through suggestions, feedback and Q&A.

Working system

At present, the system has around 200,000 unique words in the repository. It was an extensive learning process, as we used our free time to solve real time issues. Moreover, it was a work of the Kannada language that needed quick attention. Vachana Sanchaya is meant to be more than just a repository of the text online; it’s meant to be a tool for researchers.

For example, as a user searches the words on our system, he or she can see who has used the word in which Vachanas. To improve readability, the searched text string is highlighted in each Vachana that is displayed. To repeat the search for a specific Vachanakaara, the user needs only to click on his or her name on the graph provided on the result page. We have used the MediaWiki jquery-ime input tool architecture that helps us provide the user with the ability to directly enter Kannada text in Unicode for a search.

Public response

We are glad to see people accessing vachanas from our Facebook, Twitter and Google+ channels. Thousands read them every day and it has become a part of many people’s daily routine. There have been more than 50,000 page views on social networks and 500,000 page views on our site in the first few months after our platform’s public launch. Some of the most commonly searched Kannada words are “ಕರ್ಮ”(Karma en: Work/Deed), “ಸತ್ಯ” (Sathya en: Truthfulness) and “ನದಿ” (River).

ಆಂಗೀರಸ, ಪುಲಸ್ತ್ಯ, ಪುಲಹ, ಶಾಂತ,
ದಕ್ಷ, ವಸಿಷ್ಠ, ವಾಮದೇವ, ನವಬ್ರಹ್ಮ, ಕೌಶಿಕ, ಶೌನಕ, ಸ್ವಯಂಭು, ಸ್ವಾರೋಚಿಷ, ಉತ್ತಮ, ತಾಮಸ, ರೈವತ, ಚಾಕ್ಷಷ, ವೈವಸ್ವತ, ಸೂರ್ಯಸಾವರ್ಣಿ, ಚಂದ್ರಸಾವರ್ಣಿ, ಬ್ರಹ್ಮಸಾವರ್ಣಿ, ಇಂದ್ರ ಸಾವರ್ಣಿ ಇವರು ಇಪ್ಪತ್ತು ಮಂದಿ ಪ್ರಪಂಚ ನಿರ್ಮಾಣ ಸಹಾಯ[ದ]ವರು. ಹತ್ತೊಂಬತ್ತು ಎಂದರೆ ಪುಣ್ಯನದಿಗಳು. ಅದು ಎಂತೆಂದಡೆ: ಗ್ರಂಥ

– An example of a vachana from the Vachana Sanchaya project.

Plans for the future

Our system is extensible with respect to adding new features. We have a review desk for researchers to help with the review of content. Later we will be adding required references to Vachanas from various research works on this literature. The content is available for the public through OpenData API and will be distributed in the public domain through WikiSource once the review work is complete. This will open up the system for students, developers, researchers and anyone interested in working to build linguistic tools for Kannada and other Indic languages.

This system will evolve so it can be used for other literature projects. Vachana Sahitya will further help us to initiate Natural Language Processing (NLP) projects if more researches get together to tag the words, glossary, etc. We can also add various language tools such as a spell checker and grammar checker through crowd-sourcing development. The forthcoming project under the “Kannada Sanchaya” are Sarvagnana Vachanagalu and Dāsa Sanchaya which are already in the pipeline. Our idea is to extend this platform to include works from antiquity (Vyasa, for example) to the early 20th century (e.g., Muddanna) and possibly even include contemporary literature that’s available in the public domain.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/foss-force-open-source-project-brings-11th-century-kannada-verses-online

Open Source India 2015

praskrishna — 2015-12-15T07:46:46Z

The twelfth Open Source India event organized by EFY Group was held at NIMHANS Convention Centre in Bangalore on November 19 and 20, 2015. Subhashish Panigrahi attended the event for the first day.

Open Source India (OSI) is the premierconference in Asia targeted at nurturing and promoting the Open Source ecosystem in the subcontinent. Started as LinuxAsia in 2004, OSI has been at the helm of bringing together the Open Source industry and the community in the last 11 years. The 12th edition of OSI this year aimed to take this event a notch higher by focusing on the Open Source ecosystem in Asia, and more specifically, in India.

For more information see the brochure of the event. Schedule of the event on Day 1 here and Schedule of the event on Day 2 here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/news/open-source-india-2015

Open source effort gives indigenous language an official typeface

subha — 2016-08-03T02:00:36Z

Santali, an aboriginal South Asian language, has a brand new freely licensed font and set of cross-platform open source input tools on the way.

The article was published by Opensource.com on July 8, 2016.

More than 6.2 million people in four South Asian countries (India, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Bhutan) speak Santali. In India, it is one of the 22 major languages as mentioned in the eighth schedule of the Indian constitution. However, Santali is not the official language in regions where it is largely spoken, nor is it widely taught in schools. A large segment of the native speakers are socially and economically disadvantaged, which doesn't help either.

When it comes to mainstream media and the Internet, use of the native Santali alphabet, Ol Chiki, is limited. Right now there exists no single, fully Unicode-compliant website with Santali content. The Indian government's Ministry of Tribal Affairs, which is set up for the development of many aboriginal groups in the country, does not have its web portal in Santali or any other indigenous language. However, the government announced last year that it would make native Indian language input mandatory in mobile phones.

The need for a typeface, especially in a universal encoding standard like Unicode, became apparent during a three-month digitization project on Odia Wikisource, an Odia-language online library and sister project of Wikipedia. Many of the students who were part of the digitization project were native speakers. The students shared how they couldn't opt for education in their own language, thus affecting their knowledge and understanding of the written language.

The question whether digital activism can help revive indigenous languages was discussed at the 2015 Global Voices Citizen Media Summit in Cebu City, Philippines. After the event, a pilot project was started within the Center for Internet and Society's Access to Knowledge program to create a freely licensed font and input methods so that anyone can easily type in their native language.

The typeface family was designed by type designer Pooja Saxena and went through several rounds of review by language experts. However, the typeface is still one step away from reality. Because of this, two input methods will be made available along with the typeface; Sarjom Baha, a phonetic input method so that every common user can easily type the they pronounce the words, and InScript, a keyboard layout standard for Indian scripts. Even though the original plan was to create a editor community to contribute to the Santali Wikipedia and bring it live from Incubator, outputs will just be distributed for the users to use them.

The input method will also be available on Mediawiki so that the input methods will be available on Wikipedia and all its sister projects. Hopefully in the future, a group of contributors will use the tools, contribute, and bring the Santali Wikipedia live!

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/opensource.com-subhashish-panigrahi-july-8-2016-open-source-effort-gives-indigenous-language-an-official-typeface

Open Movement in India (2013-23): The Idea and Its Expressions

soni — 2024-02-13T02:57:29Z

This report identifies some broad patterns that have materialized in the Open Movement in the country in the last decade. The report is based on a reading of the available literature on selected projects and conversations with academicians and advocates of the Open. The rough outline of the Open initiatives is accompanied by reflections on the nature of the Open here and the need to envision it differently from what it currently is.

The report was prepared by Soni Wadhwa, and the visual elements of this study have been sourced by Joseph Francis. CIS’s Access to Knowledge team is grateful to Soni for embarking on the study and making the recommendations. The full report can be read here.

Open, as an idea, has not received systematic attention in India. Openness as a philosophy is rooted in the belief that sharing ideas and resources is healthy for the knowledge economy, especially in contemporary times. This sharing does not take anything away from any entity; rather, it enables collaboration and innovation for the larger social good. With the Internet and digital technology, one can see the faster spread of such innovation across the globe while also allowing for plenty of room for its adaptation to regional contexts. Anchored in the thought and efforts of individuals such as Richard Stallman (1992; 2002; 2006; 2009) and Tim Berners-Lee (Berners Lee, 2004; Berners-Lee, Hendler and Lassila, 2001; Berners-Lee et al 1992; Berners-Lee and Tim, 2010; Berners-Lee, Tim and Hendler, 2001; Berners-Lee, Tim and Shadbollt, 2011; Bizer, Heath and Berners-Lee 2011) who take a view contrary to that of keeping public funded research and innovation locked away under copyright and patent laws, the Open Movement originated in the Global North.

In the West, specifically in the USA, with the support from the institutions such as the Hewlett Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the manifestation of the Open Movement through the push for OER (Open Educational Resources) translated into a greater uptake from educational institutions such as Rice University and the MIT (through MIT OCW – Open CourseWare)(Bliss and Smith, 2017). With prestigious universities offering MOOCs (massive open online courses) through platforms such as edX and Coursera, educational resources have come to be seen as a social good: keeping them available for mass access has been an intentional move towards equal access to quality educational materials. In addition to OER, Open Access (the idea that research funded by public funds need to be made available publicly rather than behind a paywall erected by commercial publishers), as an expression of the Open Movement, has also been present in institutional funding mechanisms in the West, again, especially in the USA. A lot of research emerging out of grants extended to individuals and institutions have space for allocation of funds towards the cost of Open Access publishing for dissemination of results. Several other initiatives such as the Creative Commons, and the Wikimedia Foundation have been working towards making Openness a reality by charting out various projects, pathways, and initiatives to keep knowledge accessible to all for learning as well as collaboration.

In India, the state of the Open Movement is thrown into stark relief by the much longer and much more engaged Western imagination and practice of Openness. Indeed, studying its contours here is equivalent to studying its absences and is therefore very challenging. Here, Open, as an idea, has come via the West and still seems to be struggling to be defined and accepted as an ideal to strive towards. It is an alien concept, deeply misunderstood by the stakeholders who control sharing of knowledge resources: policy makers, legislators, leaders of research and institutions, and researchers and academicians in general.

To suggest another example, a pilot survey of Indian faculty members’ attitudes towards use of Open Knowledge sources such as Wikipedia in Indian classrooms reveals that faculty members are very suspicious and skeptical of such sources. They see it as a source of misinformation and therefore, as unreliable.What gets missed is the idea that the content on these sources is not merely for consumption of information and knowledge but are also platforms for knowledge creation and collaboration. In contrast to the two scenarios of OER and Open Access mentioned above, India does not show a long history of organized effort towards making information and knowledge accessible to all, not just through earmarking funds or mechanisms for making publicly funded research available in the public domain via Open Access, but through nurturing a culture of the Open as the default mode of dissemination.

What, then, are we to make of the direction in which the Open Movement is headed in India? Is it possible to shape its trajectory in India? Is it possible to ascertain the ways in which the ideas or benefits of the Open can be made to resonate with the Indian educational and research scenario? Can Indian educators and researchers afford to stay out of the Open ecosystem? What alternative modes of innovation do they champion? These are the questions that this study of the Open Movement in India in the last decade (2013-2023) seeks to explore.

The study is not an exhaustive one: it looks at only some examples that engage with the idea of the Open. The selective nature of the study is informed by two rationales. One, an all-encompassing review would be impossible given the constraints on time and resources: indeed, such a review would be the task of a full-fledged tracking project (which is one of the futures that this report suggests at the end). Two, given that Open does not have a clear pathway or a central, strategic vision to drive it as a movement, the selection of projects themselves is a symptom of the disjointed ways in which the idea of Open struggles to take shape or survive in India.

The year 2013 has been chosen as a starting point for this exploration because it was the year the Wikimedia Foundation extended a grant to the Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore, to work with various Wikipedia communities in India towards the growth of the Open ecosystem in India. This last decade then is of grave importance to the CIS because it helps the organization reflect on their own work vis-a-vis that of other Open advocates CIS’s work, since then, is available on its website through details of its initiatives via its Access to Knowledge and Openness Programmes (see, for instance, their work on bridging gender gap on Indian Wikimedia communities, apart from a host of other training and advocacy initiatives here). This study is an aid to survey the idea and expressions of the Open as a broader movement and thus help CIS reflect on new directions and strategies to be pursued in the near future, to begin with.

However, there is more to the year 2013 than the happenstance of the grant to CIS per se: indeed, one can spot other organized efforts emerging in the Indian ecosystem since then. NPTEL (National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning), which was established in 2003, began to offer MOOCs on its platform in 2014. Coincidentally, 2013 was also the year the Bichitra Project (an online variorum of the work of the Indian Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore), funded by the Ministry of Culture, went live. Together, the international foray into the Indian Open Movement and the governmental gravitas to strive towards making education and the literature of a great Indian author) accessible provide the rationale for this study’s focus on the examination of the nature of championing for the cause of the Open, its successes, failures, and potential for its growth in the next decade.

The approach or methodology to explore answers to these questions involved: analysis of primary as well as secondary research available on the different initiatives in India; interactions with experts working in the Open domain in India including some Indian academicians, especially on the discussion of Open Access which impacts their publishing record, and in turn, impacts their career advancement. The reading and the conversations supplemented each other in the process of investigation: the existing literature provided facts through texts (blogs, papers, documentation on websites and so on) while the interactions opened up more nuances of intersections through perspectives that do not always make it to the static texts.

Any study on the Open Movement in India owes a huge debt to Arul George Scaria’s gargantuan Open Science India Report (2019). At over 350 pages, it is a detailed study of Open Access projects and also includes a survey conducted among academic fraternity. It also offers concrete suggestions to strengthen access in research. It is remarkable for the larger view it takes of access to include access for persons with disabilities and access in terms of language, suggesting that research should also be accessible in Indian languages, and also in jargon-free English for wider audiences. Apart from Scaria’s study, there are journalistic pieces about Open Data in India, given the relevance it has for governance.

This current study does not aspire to be monumental like Scaria’s. However, it is hoped that its relevance to the ongoing conversations about openness would be noted at at least two levels. One, between 2019 (when Scaria’s report was published) and 2023 (the end point of this study), socioeconomic changes such as COVID-19 and the resulting remote work, one expects, have highlighted the significance of openness. For instance, given the serious constraints it posed for travel, a lot of commercial publishers kept their resources open so that further research, within medicine and outside, could keep happening. Thus, it becomes imperative to understand if the Indian ecosystem displayed any stronger endeavor towards openness. To anticipate a couple of suggestions discussed in the report below, certain things such as Indian researchers’ apathy or disdain for Open Access has not quite changed in the span of these four years. However, Government of India’s open initiatives such as Anuvadini and Bhashini around tools for navigating and producing content in Indian languages have started to appear.

Two, Scaria’s study subsumed all knowledge under “science”: in other words, science, in his report, is a metonym for knowledge. This current study, in being inclusive of humanities and the arts, especially as relevant to Open GLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives, Museums), engages with knowledge or movement in general irrespective of its disciplinary boundaries.

With that statement on where this report is situated, some notes about its structure are in order. This study begins with an overview of the legal and policy environment in India. It then moves on to explore the nature of Open projects in India. There are many ways to organize the narrative around Openness, with the domain wise bifurcation of the different aspects of the Open (The OPEN Movements, 2023). In contrast, this goes on to organize the projects around positionalities, rather than the domains. That is, the different projects and initiatives are narrativised as:

Public funded projects: These are endeavors emerging from funds provided by the Ministry of Education and Ministry of Culture and distributed via grants to Higher Education Institutes in India, especially the IITs. They stand out as one category in that they are characterized by:

The vision to provide basic infrastructure of education and archival material in the public domain
The capacity to think and execute in terms of massive impact and scale
A wide scope for aiming higher in terms of innovation, approach, and access

Volunteer undertakings: These are projects undertaken by non governmental organizations such as the Sanchaya Foundation, SFLC (Software Freedom Law Centre) and FOSSUnited characterized by:

A niche focus on a language or a domain or an audience
A preoccupation with developing a community rather than delivering an output
A qualitative aspect to engagement and documentation, as opposed to impact in terms of numbers

Within volunteer undertakings, the role of philanthropic foundations is very briefly touched upon. There are entities such as the SRTT (Sir Ratan Tata Trust) and SDTT (Sir Dorabji Tata Trust) that supported the cause of the Open in the initial stages via their investment in the larger educational and cultural cause. These foundations also seem to have discontinued their efforts in the long term perhaps given the scope of work involved. In addition to philanthropic foundations, mention is also made of international projects. The international Open Knowledge projects in India involve the Wikimedia Foundation and the Mozilla Foundation that have funded various initiatives in India and have continued to stay invested in the larger vision as well as execution of Openness through their grants.

The discussion of the above mentioned types of projects is followed by an examination of the attitudes of academicians teaching at Higher Education Institutes towards Open Access as a specific niche within the Open Movement. Conversation with faculty members in different institutions reveals that Open as an idea is not quite clear to the academia, or at least occupies a space of dissonance: while it is desired as an ideal, it is very strongly constrained by the judgments of fellow peers and employing institutions. In contrast, conversations with experts in Open Access reveals that Open Access deserves a much stronger effort: not just to push for policy changes but also to decolonize Indian academia.

The study concludes with some threads that can be pursued from the projects the Open Movement in India has witnessed in the last decade. These points of engagement could become points of reflection for further initiatives in the next decade or two.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/open-movement-in-india-idea-and-its-expressions

Open Letter to the Vatican: Request for Holy See to Comment on IPR

samantha — 2014-01-31T07:14:07Z

Due to the Holy See’s demonstrated pro-access position to medicines and published materials for persons with disabilities, the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) requested for His Excellency, Archbishop Silvano M. Tomasi, to also consider copyrights, patents or IPR more generally, as the Holy See’s Permanent Observer at WIPO. We strongly encourage other organizations and civil society groups to modify this letter, as needed, and to contact the Holy See Mission to the United Nations (and WIPO) in Geneva in order to help us prompt His Excellency to contribute to the international dialogue on IPR.

You may view the original letter sent by CIS here.

His Excellency, Archbishop Silvano M. Tomasi, Apostolic Nuncio
Holy See Mission to the United Nations in Geneva
P.O. Box 28
1292 Chambésy
Geneva, Switzerland
mission.holy-see@ties.itu.int
+41 22 758 98 20

Friday, January 24, 2014

Your Excellency Archbishop Silvano M. Tomasi,

Subject: Call for the Holy See’s comment on Intellectual Property Rights

On behalf of the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), Bangalore, India, I, Samantha Cassar, write to Your Excellency’s opinion on copyrights, patents and intellectual property rights.

We are a not-for-profit, non-governmental research organization that works on addressing policy issues related to access to knowledge and intellectual property law reform (http://cis-india.org/a2k), and accessibility for persons with disabilities (http://cis-india.org/accessibility) among other areas related to internet and information and communication technologies.

CIS is an accredited organization with the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) and a regular participant at the meetings of the Standing Committee on Copyrights and Related Rights (SCCR), the Standing Committee on the Law of Patents (SCP), as well as the Committee on Development and Intellectual Property.

At the outset, we commend Your Excellency for signing the Marrakesh Treaty to Facilitate Access to Published Works for Persons Who Are Blind, Visually Impaired, or Otherwise Print Disabled. As one of the contributors to this treaty, we appreciate the concern of the Holy See for those who are marginalised within our information society by their disabilities.

As Pranesh Prakash, Policy Director from CIS noted at Marrakesh during the adoption of this treaty, “When copyright doesn't serve public welfare, states must intervene, and the law must change to promote human rights, the freedom of expression and to receive and impart information, and to protect authors and consumers.” We are happy to see this being done through a treaty as such.

Also said by Your Excellency, within the Holy See’s statement at the 9th Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization (WTO), “Among the most damaging concessions developing countries make in regional and bilateral agreements are those enhancing the monopolies on life-saving medicines, which reduce access and affordability and those that provide excessive legal rights to foreign investors, limiting the policy space for nations to promote sustainable and inclusive development.”

Given the Holy See’s demonstrated standpoint on the accessing of medicines and published works, we at the Centre for Internet and Society would like to request Your Excellency to also consider copyrights, patents or more generally, intellectual property rights (IPR), as Permanent Observer of the Holy See to the United Nations and Other International Organizations in Geneva.

On behalf of CIS, I am honoured to be writing to Your Excellency and for this request to be considered. Due to the ability of copyright and other forms of IPR to obstruct the access of one’s own human rights and even the sustainable development of one’s country, we feel this area must be crucially considered within an international dialogue—not only from a place of political strategy but also from principles of mercy and compassion.

With meetings approaching for both WIPO’s Standing Committee on the Law of Patents (January 27-31, 2014) and WIPO’s Committee on Development and Intellectual Property (May 19-23, 2014), we are very excited at the possibility of the Holy See enriching this discussion, and hope for such a contribution to take place when the international community is listening—at these meetings, or in any other form.

With Every Best Wish,
Sincerely Yours,

Samantha Cassar

Programme Associate
The Centre for Internet & Society

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/open-letter-to-the-vatican-request-for-holy-see-to-comment-on-ipr

Open Letter to Prime Minister Modi

rohini — 2016-02-14T04:39:01Z

After the government introduced the "Make in India" and "Digital India" programmes, the air is thick with the promise of reduced imports, new jobs, and goods for the domestic market. In light of the patent wars in India, the government can ill-afford to overlook the patent implications in indigenously manufactured mobile phones. CIS proposes that the Government of India initiate the formation of a patent pool of critical mobile technologies and a five percent compulsory license.

The blog post was re-published by Medianama on March 24, 2015.

Honourable Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi,

We at the Centre for Internet and Society support the "Make in India" and "Digital India" initiatives of the Indian government and share your vision of a digitally empowered India where “1.2 billion connected Indians drive innovation”, where “access to information knows no barriers”, and where knowledge is the citizens’ power. The government’s plan of incentivising the manufacturing of electronics hardware, including that of mobile phones in the 2015 Union Budget is equally encouraging. Towards this important goal of nation building, the Centre for Internet and Society is researching the patent and copyright implications of Internet-enabled mobile devices that are sold in the Indian market for Rs 6,000 or less.

Bolstered by Make in India, several mobile phone manufacturers have started or ramped up their manufacturing facilities in India. Homegrown brands — such as Spice, Maxx Mobile and Lava — and foreign manufacturers alike are making humongous investments in mobile phone plants. Chip manufacturer Mediatek; one of the newest entrants in the Indian smartphone market, Xiaomi; and telecom company Huawei, all different links in the mobile phone manufacturing chain, are setting up research and development units in India having recognised its potential as a significant market. These developments promise to cut or substitute imports, cater to the domestic market, create millions of jobs, and stem the outflow of money from India.

However, mobile phone manufacturers, big and small, have also been embroiled in litigation in India for the past few years over patents pertaining to crucial technologies. Micromax, one of the several Indian mobile phone manufacturers with original equipment manufacturers in China was ordered by the Delhi High Court late last year to pay a substantial 1.25 to 2 per cent of the selling price of its devices to Ericsson, which has claimed infringement of eight of its standard essential patents. Intex and Lava, two members of Micromax’s ilk, have been similarly sued and claim to have received the short end of the stick in the form of unreasonable and exorbitant compensations and royalty rates. Chinese budget phone manufacturers operating in India — Xiaomi, OnePlus, and Gionee — also have come under the sledgehammer of sudden suspension of the sale of their devices. The bigger companies such as Asus, Samsung and ZTE have faced the heat of patent litigation as well.

The fear of litigation over patent infringement could thwart local innovation. Additionally, the expenses incurred due to litigation and compensation could lead to the smaller manufacturers shutting shop or passing on their losses to their consumers, and in turn, driving the price points of Internet-enabled mobile devices out of the reach of many. It could also become a stumbling block to the success of ambitious plans of the government, such as the one to provide free WiFi in 2,500 cities and towns across India.

We propose that the Government of India initiate the formation of a patent pool of critical mobile technologies and mandate a five percent compulsory license. Such a pool would possibly avert patent disputes by ensuring that the owners' rights are not infringed on, that budget manufacturers are not put out of business owing to patent feuds, and that consumers continue to get access to inexpensive mobile devices. Several countries including the United States regularly issue compulsory licenses on patents in the pharmaceutical, medical, defence, software, and engineering domains for reasons of public policy, or to thwart or correct anti-competitive practices.[1] [2] Unfortunately, we did not receive a response from the previous government to our suggestion of establishing such a patent pool. We believe that our proposal falls in line with your ambitious programmes designed to work towards your vision of India, and we hope that you would consider it.

Yours truly,
Rohini Lakshané,
Programme Officer,
The Centre for Internet and Society

Copies to:

Shri Arun Jaitley, Minister for Finance
Shri Rajiv Mehrishi, Secretary to Ministry of Finance
Smt. Smriti Zubin Irani, Minister for Human Resource Development
Shri Satyanarayan Mohanty, Secretary to Ministry of Human Resources Development
Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman, Minister for Commerce and Industry
Shri Amitabh Kant, Secretary to Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion
Shri Ravi Shankar Prasad, Minister for Communication and Information Technology
Shri Rakesh Garg, Secretary to Department of Telecommunications
Shri R. S. Sharma, Secretary for Department of Electronics and Information Technology

Also read: FAQ: CIS' Proposal for Compulsory Licensing of Critical Mobile Technologies

[1]. James Love, Knowledge Ecology International (KEI) written comments and notice of intent to testify at the Special 301 Public Hearing, Page 6, "US use of compulsory licensing",http://keionline.org/sites/default/files/KEI_2014_Special301_7Feb20014_FRComments.pdf, February 7, 2014, Last accessed February 10, 2015.

[2]. Colleen Chien, Cheap Drugs at What Price to Innovation, Does the Compulsory Licensing of Pharmaceuticals Hurt Innovation, Berkeley Technology Law Journal, Volume 18, Issue 3, Article 3, Page 862, "Compulsory licensing in the United States", http://scholarship.law.berkeley.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1429&context=btlj, June 2003, Last accessed February 10, 2015.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/open-letter-to-prime-minister-modi

Open Letter to PM Modi on Intellectual Property Rights issues on His Visit to the United States of America in September, 2015

Pranesh Prakash and Nehaa Chaudhari — 2015-09-25T06:43:12Z

This is an open letter by CIS to the Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi in light of his impending visit to the USA. This letter asks the Prime Minister to urge the USA to ratify the Marrakesh Treaty; and asks that India not be a party to TPP negotiations, in light of recent reports on a study encouraging India to join the TPP.

Shri Narendra Damodardas Modi
Hon’ble Prime Minister of India
152, South Block, Raisina Hill
New Delhi-110011

22 September, 2015

Dear Sir,

We write on behalf of the Centre for Internet and Society, India [1], a Bangalore and New Delhi based not-for-profit organization engaging in research on among others, accessibility for persons with disabilities, intellectual property rights, openness and access to knowledge. Over the past fifteen months, we have welcomed and support certain initiatives of our government as being in line with some of our research interests, specifically, the "Make in India" and "Digital India" initiatives, and your vision of a digitally empowered India, as we have noted in an earlier open letter to you. [2]

This letter is in light of your visit to the United States of America (“USA”) this month, to articulate a two-fold request: first, that during the course of your visit you request the government of the USA to ratify the Marrakesh Treaty for visually impaired persons (“Marrakesh Treaty”); [3] and second, that the Indian government not enter into any negotiations around the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement (“the TPP”).

On the Marrakesh Treaty

According to figures by the World Blind Union, approximately 90% of all published material is not accessible to blind or print disabled people. [4] The severity of the ‘book famine’ experienced by the world’s estimated 300 million blind or otherwise print or visually disabled people (of which an estimated 63 million are in India) was highlighted by India in its Closing Statement at the Diplomatic Conference convened to conclude the Marrakesh Treaty. [5] India has historically been a strong advocate of the spirit of the Marrakesh Treaty, becoming the first country to ratify it in June, 2014. [6] Amendments in 2012 to India’s copyright law predated the signature to the Marrakesh Treaty. These amendments created disability and works neutral exceptions to our copyright law, well beyond the mandate of the Marrakesh Treaty.

The true realization of the promise of the Marrakesh Treaty however will remain a distant dream until the treaty comes into effect (three months) after 20 Member States have ratified it or acceded to it. [7] According to information available from the World Intellectual Property Organization [8], this number is currently only 9, and the USA is not one of the countries to have done so. The USA is home [9] to some of the largest publishers of both academic and other/leisure material including Penguin Random House, Harper Collins, John Wiley & Sons, the RELX Group, McGraw-Hill Education, Scholastic and Cengage Learning to name a few. It accounts for a large volume of the world’s book and other print material export. The active participation of the USA through the ratification of the Marrakesh treaty is critical if the treaty is to be truly effective.

During your visit, we urge you request the government of the United States of America to ratify the Marrakesh Treaty at the earliest. This will bring us one important step closer to eradicating the book famine.

On the TPP

We are concerned after reports [10] of a recent study authored by C Fred Bergsten that encourages India to join the TPP. On this front, we are in complete agreement with the reported statement of the Hon’ble Ambassador Shri Arun K. Singh, where he disagrees with some of the findings and analysis of this recent report. [11]

The TPP has come into severe criticism [12] over the years [13] from a vast multitude [14] of sources [15] (including a group of 30 law professors in 2012) [16] across the various countries that are a party to the negotiations. Among others and most relevant to us as an organization is the criticism around the secrecy of negotiations [17] as well as the content of the chapter on intellectual property in the TPP. It is our belief that eventually, India stands to lose as a result of the TPP [18] with its possible adverse impact on our economy. [19]

The rigid intellectual property protections (including criminal penalties for unintentional copying) [20] sought to be enforced through the TPP would benefit only US pharmaceutical and entertainment industries. [21] These provisions (among others) mandate the inclusion of TRIPS plus provisions in national laws, envisage possible extensions in term of protection on patents, restrict copyright exceptions and limitations, extend copyright protection terms and impose a higher liability on intermediaries; [22]all of which would be disastrous for an emerging economy such as India’s, which is a heavy user of intellectual property and not a heavy producer of the same.

Historically, India has been a supporter of a transparent, multilateral decision making process, a commitment to which was also reiterated recently by the Hon’ble Minister of State for Commerce and Industry, Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman. [23]India has also raised many of its concerns (on the secrecy of the negotiations as well as substantive provisions themselves) around the TPP and its close cousin, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (“ACTA”) in 2011 [24] and 2012 [25] at the World Trade Organization (“WTO”) TRIPS Council and on the ACTA in 2010, also at the WTO Trips Council. [26]

In light of the above, we strongly urge the Indian government to not engage in negotiations on the TPP. At a minimum, we would request that any engagement in TPP negotiations be preceded by national consultations on the same, soliciting input from various stakeholders with diverging interests, including academia, civil society, industry associations, large Indian corporations, small and medium enterprises and multi- national corporations, rights holders associations and other interest groups.

We thank you for the opportunity to present these views to you. We do hope that you will consider these suggestions favourably, in the interests of India’s economic and social development. We welcome any opportunity to assist you with any queries you may have with regard to these submissions.

Thank you.

Yours truly

(For the Centre for Internet and Society, India)

Pranesh Prakash, Policy Director
Nehaa Chaudhari, Programme Officer

Copies to:

Smt. Smriti Zubin Irani, Minister for Human Resource Development, Government of India.
Prof. (Dr.) Ram Shankar Katheria, Minister of State for Human Resource Development (Higher Education), Government of India.
Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman, Minister of State for Commerce and Industry, Government of India.
Shri Vinay Sheel Oberoi, Secretary (Department of Higher Education), Ministry of Human Resources Development, Government of India, Government of India.
Shri Amitabh Kant, Secretary (Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion), Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Government of India.

(Edit - 25 September, 2015) - The following people have reached out to us in support of this letter and have expressed a desire to have their signatures placed on record as support. We wish to acknowledge the same.

Prof. Dinesh Abrol - Convenor, National Working Group on Patent Laws and WTO
Dr. B. Ekbal - President, Democratic Alliance for Knowledge Freedom, Kerala
T.C. James - President, NIPO
Dr. Suman Sahai - Chairperson, Gene Campaign
Dr. Biswajit Dhar - Professor, Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University

[1]See generally http://cis-india.org/ (last accessed 22 September, 2015).

[2]Rohini Lakshane, Open Letter to Prime Minister Modi, available at http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/open-letter-to-prime-minister-modi (last accessed 22 September, 2015); Centre for Internet and Society/Rohini Lakshane, Digital India & Make in India : Form a patent pool of critical mobile technologies – CIS India, available at http://www.medianama.com/2015/03/223-digital-india-make-in-india-form-a-patent-pool-of-critical-mobile-technologies-cis-india/ (last accessed 22 September, 2015).

[3]The Marrakesh Treaty to Facilitate Access to Published Works by Visually Impaired Persons and Persons with Print Disabilities adopted on June 27, 2013. Treaty text and other official documentation available at http://www.wipo.int/treaties/en/ip/marrakesh/ (last accessed 22 September, 2015).

[4]World Blind Union, Marrakesh Treaty – Right to Read Campaign, available at http://www.worldblindunion.org/English/our-work/our-priorities/Pages/right-2-read-campaign.aspx (last accessed 22 September, 2015).

[5]Pranesh Prakash, India’s Closing Statement at Marrakesh on the Treaty for the Blind, available at http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/india-closing-statement-marrakesh-treaty-for-the-blind (last accessed 22 September, 2015).

[6]Nehaa Chaudhari, India’s Ratification of the Marrakesh Treaty Celebrated; Accessible Books Consortium Launched, available at http://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/indias-ratification-of-marrakesh-treaty-celebrated (last accessed 22 September, 2015).

[7]Article 18 of the Marrakesh Treaty.

[8]World Intellectual Property Organization, WIPO Administered Treaties: Contracting Parties > Marrakesh VIP Treaty (Treaty not yet in force), available at http://www.wipo.int/treaties/en/ShowResults.jsp?lang=en&treaty_id=843 (last accessed 22 September, 2015).

[9]Publishers Weekly, The World’s 57 Largest Book Publishers, 2015, available at http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/international/international-book-news/article/67224-the-world-s-57-largest-book-publishers-2015.html (last accessed 22 September, 2015).

[10]S Rajagopalan, US Report Pushes India to Join the Trans-Pacific Partnership, available at http://www.dailypioneer.com/world/us-report-pushes-india-to-join-trans-pacific-partnership.html (last accessed 22 September, 2015); Indo-Asian News Service on NDTV, India Can Boost Exports by $500 Billion with Trade Liberalization: Study, available at http://www.ndtv.com/india-news/india-can-boost-exports-by-500-billion-with-trade-liberalization-study-1218887 (last accessed 22 September, 2015); Raghavendra M., India can boost exports by $500 billion with trade liberalization: study, available at http://www.americanbazaaronline.com/2015/09/18/india-can-boost-exports-by-500-billion-with-trade-liberalization-study/ (last accessed 22 September, 2015); Press Trust of India in the Business Standard, India can boost exports by USD 500 bn by joining the TPP: report, available at http://www.business-standard.com/article/pti-stories/india-can-boost-exports-by-usd-500-bn-by-joining-tpp-report-115091701149_1.html (last accessed 22 September, 2015); Seema Sirohi, India must expand its trade before it gets left behind in the race, available at http://blogs.economictimes.indiatimes.com/letterfromwashington/india-must-expand-its-trade-before-it-gets-left-behind-in-the-race/ (last accessed 22 September, 2015).

[11]S Rajagopalan, US Report Pushes India to Join the Trans-Pacific Partnership, available at http://www.dailypioneer.com/world/us-report-pushes-india-to-join-trans-pacific-partnership.html (last accessed 22 September, 2015)

[12]Natasha Lennard, Noam Chomsky: Trans-Pacific Partnership is a “neoliberal assault”, available at http://www.salon.com/2014/01/13/chomsky_tpp_is_a_neoliberal_assault/ (last accessed 22 September, 2015); Zach Carter and Ryan Grim, Noam Chomsky: Obama Trade Deal a ‘Neoliberal Assault’ to ‘Further Corporate Domination’, available at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/13/noam-chomsky-obama-trans-pacific-partnership_n_4577495.html?ir=India&adsSiteOverride=in (last accessed 22 September, 2015); Sean Flynn;, Margot E Kaminski, Brook K Baker and Jimmy H Koo., "Public Interest Analysis of the US TPP Proposal for an IP Chapter" (2011). PIJIP Research Paper Series. Paper 21. http://digitalcommons.wcl.american.edu/research/21 (last accessed 22 September, 2015).

[13]BBC News, TPP: What is it and why does it matter?, available at http://www.bbc.com/news/business-21782080 (last accessed 22 September, 2015);

[14]For a compilation on writing on the TPP see James Love, Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP also known as the TPPA), available at http://keionline.org/tpp (last accessed 22 September, 2015); see also American University Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property, Trans-Pacific Partnership, available at http://infojustice.org/tpp (last accessed 22 September, 2015).

[15]Zach Carter, Alan Grayson on Trans-Pacific Partnership: Obama Secrecy Hides ‘Assault on Democratic Government’, available at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/18/alan-grayson-trans-pacific-partnership_n_3456167.html?ir=India&adsSiteOverride=in (last accessed 22 September, 2015); James Love, KEI analysis of Wikileaks leak of TPP IPR text, from August 30, 2013, available at http://keionline.org/node/1825 (last accessed 22 September, 2015); Ian Verrender, The TPP has the potential for real harm, available at http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-03-16/verrender-the-tpp-has-the-potential-for-real-harm/6321538 (last accessed 22 September, 2015).

[16]Sean Flynn, Law Professors Call for Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Transparency, available at http://infojustice.org/archives/21137 (last accessed 22 September, 2015).

[17]Sachie Mizohata, "The Trans-Pacific Partnership and Its Critics: An introduction and a petition," The Asia-Pacific Journal, Vol. 11, Issue 36, No. 3, available at http://japanfocus.org/-Sachie-MIZOHATA/3996/article.html (last accessed 22 September, 2015).

[18]Vijay Rajamohan, Trans-Pacific Partnership – Should India Join this Mega Trade Deal?, available at http://swarajyamag.com/world/trans-pacific-partnership-should-india-join-this-mega-trade-deal/ (last accessed 22 September, 2015).

[19]Sylvia Mishra, How will the Trans-Pacific Partnership affect India?, available at http://www.observerindia.com/cms/sites/orfonline/modules/analysis/AnalysisDetail.html?cmaid=85684&mmacmaid=85685 (last accessed 22 September, 2015).

[20]Gabrielle Chan, Trans-Pacific Partnership: a guide to the most contentious issues, available at http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/10/trans-pacific-partnership-a-guide-to-the-most-contentious-issues (last accessed 22 September, 2015).

[21]James Love, New leak of TPP consolidated text on intellectual property provides details of pandering to drug companies and publishers, available at http://www.keionline.org/node/2108 (last accessed 22 September, 2015); Vijay Rajamohan, Trans-Pacific Partnership – Should India Join this Mega Trade Deal?, available at http://swarajyamag.com/world/trans-pacific-partnership-should-india-join-this-mega-trade-deal/ (last accessed 22 September, 2015) referencing Paul Krugman.

[22]William New, Leaked TPP Draft Reveals Extreme Rights Holder Position Of US, Japan, Outraged Observers Say, available at http://www.ip-watch.org/2014/10/17/leaked-tpp-draft-reveals-extreme-rights-holder-position-of-us-japan-outraged-observers-say/ (last accessed 22 September, 2015).

[23]Lalit K Jha, India not being left out of global trade pacts: Minister, available at http://www.thestatesman.com/news/business/india-not-being-left-out-of-global-trade-pacts-minister/91679.html (last accessed 22 September, 2015).

[24]Thirukumaran Balasubramaniam, WTO TRIPS Council: India raises concerns on ACTA and TPPA on discussion of “Trends in the Enforcement of IPRs”, available at https://donttradeourlivesaway.wordpress.com/2011/10/29/wto-trips-council-india-raises-concerns-on-acta-and-tppa-on-discussion-of-trends-in-the-enforcement-of-iprs/ (last accessed 22 September, 2015).

[25]Thirukumaran Balasubramaniam, 28 Feb 2012: Intervention delivered by India at WTO TRIPS Council on IP Enforcement Trends noting concerns with ACTA and TPPA, available at http://keionline.org/node/1376 (last accessed 22 September, 2015).

[26]Kanaga Raja, ACTA comes in for criticism at the TRIPS council, available at http://www.twn.my/title2/wto.info/2010/twninfo100606.htm (last accessed 22 September, 2015).

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/open-letter-on-intellectual-property-rights-issues-during-your-visit-to-the-united-states-of-america-in-september-2015

Open letter to Hillary Clinton on Internet Freedom

sunil — 2012-09-04T08:28:02Z

Last month I wrote an open letter to Hillary Clinton. It was based on a presentation I that I made during a panel discussion at a Google sponsored conference titled Internet at Liberty 2012 in Washington DC on May 24, 2012.

Sunil Abraham's article was published in Thinking Aloud on July 17, 2012

The question that my panel tried to grapple with was "In a world where nearly nine out of ten Internet users are not American, what is the responsibility of United States institutions in promoting internet freedom?" My co-panelists were Cynthia Wong who is with the Centre for Democracy and Technology, Mohamed El Dahshan a writer and journalist, Dunja Mijatovic the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media.

Internet freedom is a curious subject. It is a technology specific liberty - for a moment consider television freedom. The US has more Muslims than India has Christians. But Indian television in the average hotel comes in hundreds and there are at least 3 channels of Christian preaching. But US television in hotels is usually less than 50 channels with no channels of Islamic preaching. In fact even the reception of secular channels from the Islamic World like Al Jazeera is still difficult in America. Can we accuse the US of not having television freedom since their television features Christian evangelists but not Muslim evangelists? Should it be part of India's foreign policy to evangelize television freedom given that there is a large domestic industry with clear international potential?

In an ideal world - citizens will possess technology-neutral freedom to communication and expression. But nothing can be farther from the truth. Communication technologies are regulated using a plethora of policies and practices and very often these have a chilling effect on freedoms.

The following is my response to the technology-specific demands for deregulation from the US Government.

Text of the Open Letter[2]

Recognise Access to Knowledge (A2K) as pre-condition for freedom of expression: There is no difference between aggressive enforcement of imbalanced and obsolete intellectual property laws and censorship. The need of the moment is not more enforcement to protect obsolete business models against the everyday practices of ordinary netizens but rather the reform of intellectual property law (levies, broader exceptions and limitations, pools, statutory and compulsory licenses, prizes etc.) to keep pace with innovations in technology and the production of knowledge and culture.

Recognise privacy as pre-condition for security: The alleged tension between privacy and security is a false dichotomy. Blanket surveillance by design compromises security. Surveillance is like salt in cooking — essential in very small quantities but dangerous even if slightly in excess. Blanket surveillance technologies are only going make things easier for — and will only serve as targets for — current and future online villains.

Don't lose the moral high-ground: Remember, with great power comes great responsibility. Other countries are waiting to cherry pick from your worst practices. Also don't use trade agreements to selectively export components of US policy without the accompanying safeguards for civil liberties and rights. Citizens in oppressive and authoritarian states are depending on the US government, courts and civil society to protect their rights online. Don't undermine their capacity to shame their governments by holding up the US as the example of 'how to get things right'. They urgently need the US government to lead by example.

Recognise that freedom of expression has become a trade issue: This is unfortunate but this is true — thanks to the precedent set by the developed world when it came to asymmetric trade negotiations. Just as the US is interested in protecting the interests of its corporations in global markets — other governments are keen protect the interests of their own corporations. The optimal solution in this case is where all countries and corporations are equally unsatisfied. This will remain a continuing discussion.

Address developing country anxieties around critical internet infrastructure: Security by obscurity will no longer do — security by transparency through open standards, technologies and governance is the only way to fears and build a trust-worthy and secure Internet for all of us. For example, there is urgent need to develop standards for supply chain audits of information infrastructure. The US has dealt with the fear of back doors by banning the use of hardware and software from countries it does not trust. The developing world is not sure if there are back-doors in hardware and software manufactured by US corporations.

Time has comes to address this and other related anxieties.

Appreciate diversity in nomenclature: 'Freedom' and 'liberty' may be appropriate terms to use in the United States of America. But openness may be more in countries that are not yet full and robust liberal democracies. The Internet Governance Forum for example uses 'openness' instead of 'freedom'. Openness is also preferred because it includes 'freedom of expression', 'freedom of information' (also known as right to information, access to information or public and 'free knowledge' (free software, open standards, open content, open access, open data, open educational resources, etc.)

Don't be too instrumental in your interventions: Don't undermine the local credibility of like-minded civil society, think-tanks and research organisations by being too directive in your support. Managerialism will undermine reform of policies and practices in information societies and so does inappropriate/premature monitoring and evaluation (for example, looking for explicit attribution in terms of casual connections between your actions and outcomes). There is a need to support greater reflexivity in the global information society by developing institutional capacity in developing countries through unrestricted funding. True critical thinking is the foundation of both scientific progress and open societies. Go out of your way to find and support those who disagree with you. Protect the plural foundation of our networked society!

Video

Sunil Abraham was a speaker along with Cynthia Wong, Mohamed El Dahshan and Dunja Mijatovic in Plenary IV Debate 3 at the Internet at Liberty 2012 event organised by Google on May 24, 2012.

View the video on YouTube

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/open-letter-to-hillary-clinton

Open letter from CIS to PM Modi on Intellectual Property Rights issues on his Visit to US

praskrishna — 2015-09-24T02:48:32Z

Centre for Internet and Society, through its Policy Director Mr. Pranesh Prakash and Programme Officer Nehaa Chaudhari has addressed an open letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the intellectual property right issues concerning his visit to the United State of America in September, 2015.

The article by Apoorva Mandhani was published by LiveLaw on September 23, 2015. CIS Open Letter here.

The letter makes a two-fold request: first, that the Government of the USA be requested to ratify the Marrakesh Treaty for visually impaired persons and second, that the Indian Government should not enter into any negotiations around the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement.

The letter relies on the statistics released by the World Blind Union, according to which 90% of all published material is not accessible to blind or print disabled people. The severity of the ‘book famine’, it says, was highlighted by India in its Closing Statement at the Diplomatic Conference convened to conclude the Marrakesh Treaty.

India was the first country to ratify the Marrakesh Treaty in June, 2014. However, the Marrakesh Treaty will come into effect only after 20 Member States have ratified it or acceded to it. As per information available from the World Intellectual Property Organization, only 9 countries have ratified or acceded to the treaty and USA is not one of it. The letter therefore requests Mr. Modi to request USA ratify the Marrakesh Treaty at the earliest.

It says, “The USA is home to some of the largest publishers of both academic and other/leisure material including Penguin Random House, Harper Collins, John Wiley & Sons, the RELX Group, McGraw-Hill Education, Scholastic and Cengage Learning to name a few. It accounts for a large volume of the world’s book and other print material export. The active participation of the USA through the ratification of the Marrakesh treaty is critical if the treaty is to be truly effective.”

With regard to the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement, the letter communicates its concern regarding the secrecy of negotiations as well as the content of the chapter on intellectual property in the TPP.

Provisions sought to be imposed through the TPP mandate the inclusion of TRIPS plus provisions in national laws, envisage possible extensions in term of protection on patents, restrict copyright exceptions and limitations, extend copyright protection terms and impose a higher liability on intermediaries. All these provisions, it says, “would be disastrous for an emerging economy such as India’s, which is a heavy user of intellectual property and not a heavy producer of the same.”

Highlighting CIS’s concerns, the letter requests that any engagement in TPP negotiations be preceded by national consultations on the same, soliciting input from various stakeholders with diverging interests, including academia, civil society, industry associations, large Indian corporations, small and medium enterprises and multi- national corporations, rights holders associations and other interest groups.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/live-law-apoorva-mandhani-september-23-2015-open-letter-from-cis-to-pm-modi-on-intellectual-property-rights-issues-on-his-visit-to-us

Open Knowledge Festival 2014

praskrishna — 2014-07-28T10:17:38Z

Subhashish Panigrahi represented India as the India Ambassador of OpenGLAM local in Berlin. The event was organized by Google, Omidyar, et.al., in Berlin from July 15 to 17, 2014.

Click to read the details on the website here. See the official programme here. Download Subhashish's presentation at this page.

Subhashish presented on the following:

Situation in India

Wikimedia India chapter and WMF's India program working on first India GLAM project
Good traction of image contribution through Wiki Loves Monuments photo contest
Mass communication and other media institutes slowly taking interest in open audio library
Digitization is a priority across government departments, with funding available
Majority of GLAMs lack knowledge about open culture, need for outreach
Relicensing and book digitization have gained public interest
Goals of the survey
Data
Mapping the sector
Encourage institutions to think beyond their digital strategy
Show institutions what is there for them

What we have done so far

Started filing Right to Information (RT) asking state government departments for lists of institutions
Reached out to WMIN (Wikimedia India chapter) for help in creating a list
Difficulty with getting people and contact details

Collaborative Presentation

OKFest2014 glam-survey_workshop_20140717 from Beat Estermann

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/ok-festival-2014

Open Knowledge Day at Mysore

praskrishna — 2014-07-14T09:41:39Z

Mysore University along with the Centre for Internet and Society's Access to Knowledge (CIS-A2K) team invites you to an Open Knowledge Day at the University of Mysore on July 15, 2014.

We signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the University of Mysore earlier this year in January to re-release the first six volumes of their Kannada encyclopaedia under Creative Commons (CC) license.

CIS-A2K facilitated extracting the legacy text from the soft-copies, converting them to Unicode, distributing the files among volunteers and Christ University interns and uploading them to Kannada Wikisource. So far about 1200 articles have been added. These articles will feed to articles in Kannada Wikipedia.

To commemorate this, the University of Mysore and CIS-A2K is organizing this event. This will also coincide with the Open Knowledge Festival happening at Berlin from July 15 to 17, 2014.

The invitation for the Mysore program given below:

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/events/open-knowledge-day-mysore

Open Education Week: Interview with Subhashish Panigrahi

noopur — 2014-04-04T09:20:49Z

Noopur Raval interviewed Subhashish Panigrahi from the Centre for Internet and Society's Access to Knowledge team about sharing information resources and attribution in academia.

Subhashish Panigrahi works as a Programme Officer for Community and Program Support, Access To Knowledge (A2K) for Centre for Internet and Society. Supported by a grant from the Wikimedia Foundation, the Access to Knowledge program promotes participation in Indian language Wikipedia projects. As a part of his role, Subhashish interacts with school and university students from different parts of India regularly. In this interview, he reflects on how students are aware (or not) of attribution.

Read the original published on Commons Machinery website here.

What is the general trend around sharing information resources and attribution among students and teachers?
It is funny to know most students I have spoken to rely on photocopied notes provided by their teachers and try to keep the writing style and sentence structure same as the notes. They don’t know that copying answers or quotes amounts to plagiarism. It is the same for many teachers who teach them to keep the beauty of the author’s writing without modifying it. Also, when I visit universities and interact with professors and students, most consider Google and Wikipedia their best friends, primarily for the quick access to information and imagery. I get a lot of questions about the proper procedure of inserting images that appear in Google search in Wikipedia entries. Many student projects are focused on getting the best pictures available on the internet which means they may download copyrighted images (with watermarks) and modify them. With music and video, it is even worse.

Does the current situation become problematic when you encourage students to contribute to Wikipedia?
It often does. For instance, when we initiated the India Education Program (IEP), as a part of Wikipedia Education Program (WEP), to include editing Wikipedia articles as part of academic curricula. Started in 2011 as a pilot program in the city of Pune, IEP engaged with over 1000 students on English Wikipedia. But the lack of education about copyright violation, and a habit of copying notes from books and other sources affected the program outcome. Many articles were copied from books and internet portals without even paraphrasing, which is completely against Wikipedia policies.

What could be the possible reasons for the lack of basic awareness about how to share information among these students?
Self-taught knowledge about the Internet and the idea of the Internet as a place with few restrictions could be a few of the reasons for these problems. Frequently, social media platforms do not have barriers to downloading and sharing content produced by people in your network. With mobile devices, all incoming content is downloaded and stored on your phone. Often, people crop incoming images or modify them and share them in small networks. Although they do it in good faith, information keeps getting reused very rapidly without any credits or metadata.For a new media educator like me, it is easy to explain why and how to contribute to Open Knowledge projects like Wikipedia…but attribution, and why appropriate attribution is crucial to information sharing, are very difficult things to teach. Most students feel like it is not really important to attribute correctly as long as you are not using it for profit or with bad intentions.

How do you deal with it individually and as a part of the A2K team?

It is crucial for educators, academics and everyone else to include education about Copyright and Copyleft in their syllabus so that students and faculty alike can know how not to violate copyright. At the same time, I think schools and universities are a great place to educate students about Open Access journals and the entire culture of knowledge producing/sharing beyond commercial gains.I often cite the example of one of my pictures that got featured in many international magazines and newspapers including The Conservation magazine and The Huffington post, which would not have happened if I hadn’t let the copyright go. I tell students that the biggest perk of contributing works in Creative Commons licenses is having a wide audience, especially young people. People release published information in free licensing when they hear about the opportunity to get enormously popular.

Similarly, BBC and Al-Jazeera have set great examples of mass donating imagery and video footage under CC. In one of our recent collaborations at the A2K program, the Goa University, on our request, changed terms of their licenses for a Konkani language Encyclopedia to Creative Commons license that has brought many volunteers to digitize and enrich the Konkani Wikipedia.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/commons-machinery-march-14-2014-noopur-raval-open-education-week-interview-with-subhashish-panigrahi

Open Data in Cultural Heritage – OpenGLAM in Germany

praskrishna — 2014-07-28T09:49:50Z

Subhashish Panigrahi took part in this event as a member of the OpenGLAM Working Group.

Read the details on the OpenGLAM website here. Images from the event can be seen at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:OpenGLAM_2014

Are you working in a cultural heritage institution, or interested in opening up cultural heritage data for wider reuse? On the morning prior to the start of the Open Knowledge Festival, the OpenGLAM initiative, DM2E project, Open Knowledge Germany and Wikimedia Deutschland are organising a half day workshop on open cultural data, with a special focus on German cultural heritage institutions.

During the OpenGLAM workshop, we will investigate and discuss the possibilities and obstacles of opening up your cultural data as an institution. After a round of inspiring presentation from initiatives like Europeana, Wikidata, the German Digital Library and Coding da Vinci we will continue the discussion how to overcome the barriers to opening up data in the cultural heritage sector.

Finally, we will hear from the successful local OpenGLAM groups currently active in Switzerland and Finland, and kickstart a local OpenGLAM network for German memory institutions interested in open cultural content and open access. We invite everyone to join and help think about the focus points for such a German OpenGLAM group for the future, and look forward to start up a fruitful collaboration!

Programme

9.30: Welcome & introduction to OpenGLAM – Lieke Ploeger, Open Knowledge

9.40: Lightning talks on the value of open data for cultural heritage institutions

We opened up – now what? An analysis of the open data policy of the Rijksmuseum – Joris Pekel, Europeana
1 year in digital cultural heritage – what were the walls I ran into most often & how to tear them down – Stephan Bartholmei, Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek
Wikidata – Making your data available and useful for everyone – Lydia Pintscher, Wikimedia Deutschland
How to use cultural heritage data: Coding Da Vinci results – Helene Hahn, Open Knowledge Foundation Germany
Experiences from German GLAM projects / GLAM-Wiki-Kollaborationen in der Wissenschaft - Daniel Mietchen, Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin

10.30: Coffee Break

10.45: Debate on the current situation around openness in Germany

11.30: Forming a local German OpenGLAM group

With inspiring presentations of the OpenGLAM local groups from Switzerland & Finland

13.00: End

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/open-data-in-cultural-heritage

Open Access: Students help revive and digitize rare books for Malayalam Wiki Library

praskrishna — 2014-07-28T08:50:07Z

The blog post that quotes Centre for Internet and Society was published in SPICY IP on July 15, 2014.

The New Indian Express reports that in a terrific effort, more than 1000 school students and 234 members of the public across the state of Kerala digitized, proof-read and uploaded more than 150 rare and out-of-copyright Malayalam books as part of a digitization contest organized to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Wiki Source project by the Centre for Internet and Society, the state government run IT@School project, Swanthanthra Malayalam Computing and the Kerala Sahitya Akademi online library.

While these rare books were already in the public domain, the importance of preserving them in an accessible format cannot be emphasised enough. Books published as early as 1772 are now available on Wiki Grandhasala, the Malayalam wiki library to which these digitized copies have been uploaded. As they have been digitized rather than simply scanned, one can also search through them for keywords/phrases. If I’m not mistaken, OCR solutions for Indian languages either do not exist or are not of reliable quality. This would mean that much of the over 13,000 pages were typed out! I understand that these articles will also be used to cross reference wikipedia articles as well.

A big round of applause to all the involved parties for organizing and participating in this great effort at preserving as well as making accessible local literature and culture, that could otherwise be at a risk of getting lost amongst unhelpful copyright laws and/or tarnished or lost physical copies amongst other risks.

(I’m not sure if these overlap but as we reported here, there also seems to be the Kerala State Central Library that makes rare books available as well).

Can this effort be replicated in other states? I know the Panjab Digital Library is another resource that looks to do something similar. Their mission statement includes: to locate, digitize, preserve, collect and make accessible the accumulated wisdom of the Panjab region, without distinction as to script, language, religion, nationality, or other physical condition. There is also the Digital Library of India, hosted by IISC Bangalore, which states that they are trying to digitize all the significant works of mankind! If our readers know of other such databases, please do let us know in the comments.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/spicy-ip-swaraj-paul-barooah-july-15-2014-open-access-students-help-revive-and-digitize-rare-books-for-malayalam-wiki-library

Open Access: An Opportunity for Scientists around the Globe

subbiah — 2013-09-26T06:00:48Z

Researchers face two problems related to information access: making their own research more visible to researchers elsewhere and making worldwide research readily available to them. Open access (OA) can solve both of them.

This article by Prof. Subbiah Arunachalam was published in Euro Scientist on September 25, 2013.

Open access is particularly important in developing countries, where the research and higher education budgets are nowhere near those in advanced countries. For example, libraries in most universities in sub-Saharan Africa subscribe at best to only a few journals, and are thus forced to do research literally in a literature vacuum.

Elsewhere like in India, some institutions such as the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, subscribe to a few thousand journals. But many of them go unused. Thus this approach results in non-productive investment of scarce resources. In addition, when developing country scientists publish their work in expensive journals, then all too often it goes unnoticed by other researchers in their own country.

To make OA more widespread, there are two possible routes: OA journals and OA archives. OA journals and archives help to integrate the work of scientists everywhere into the global knowledge base, reduce the isolation of researchers, and improve opportunities for funding and international collaboration. OA, if adopted widely, can raise the profile of an entire nation’s research output.

OA journals

For now, there are already many successful OA journals initiatives in the developing world. Bioline International , for example, hosts electronic OA versions of more than 35 peer reviewed bioscience journals from 17 developing countries. It is backed, among others, by the Electronic Publishing Trust for Development (EPT), established in 1996. EPT promotes open access to the world’s scholarly literature, and provides an annual award for the best contribution to the advancement of OA in the developing world.

Other worldwide OA initiatives include the African Journals Online (AJOL), which provides free online access to 462 African journals. Latin American initiatives– some of which have overlapping content—include SciELO with 1,013 Iberoamerican OA journals, RedALyC , which supports 809 OA journals and Latindex, with more than 4,600 OA journals. In parallel, India alone publishes more than 400 OA journals. For example, the ten journals of the Indian Academy of Sciences and the 17 journals published by the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research are OA.

With the emergence of OA, many new commercial publishers have sprouted recently. They are publishing OA journals largely to earn through Article Processing Charges (APC). So much so India is considered a leader in publishing predatory OA journals.

Not all commercial publishers are predatory, though. For example,Medknow Publications, a commercial publishing company founded by a paediatrician based in Mumbai, has helped more than 100 OA medical journals make the transition from print to electronic open access. In doing so, they realised that most of them are now doing much better than before in terms of readership, print subscription, quality of editing and production, and as a result a major multinational STM publishing company acquired the company from the founder a few years ago.

OA archives

The trouble is that a lot remains to be done in extending open access. Indeed, there are about a hundred functioning academic papers repositories in India. However, only two of them are backed by a mandate. The Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), for example, recently came up with an OA mandate for research performed in its own research institutions and for research it funds, but its implementation may take a while. The Indian Academy of Sciences, Bangalore, has a repository for all papers by all its Fellows, both living and deceased. This is the only science academy in the world to have such a repository. The Academy was also the first in India to adopt OA for its journals. For instance, its physics journal, Pramana, became OA as far back as 1998.

To extend open access further, the archives route appears to be particularly appealing in developing countries. Setting up institutional archives does not cost much. The software needed is absolutely free and the technological infrastructure, such as the server and the internet connectivity, is already available in most institutions.

About a decade ago, I thought that the scarcity of computers and high bandwidth access in many developing countries would put them at a disadvantage. But now prices are falling and the situation has improved. Thus, OA archiving is even more promising than OA journals. It is less expensive, allows faster turnaround, and is compatible with publishing in conventional journals.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/euroscience-september-25-2013-subbiah-arunachalam-open-access-an-opportunity-for-scientists-around-the-globe