Centre for Internet and Society

Exercise to Correct articles in Tulu Wikipedia begins

praskrishna — 2016-05-01T10:37:12Z

It will go on till Saturday at the Ramakrishna pre-university college.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/exercise-to-correct-articles-in-tulu-wikipedia-begins

Exceptions and Limitations for Education

praskrishna — 2011-08-22T13:22:35Z

Lawrence Liang examines the exceptions and limitations in copyright law in this article.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/publications/exceptions-limitations-education

EU stalls treaty talks to allow copyright waiver for print disabilities

praskrishna — 2012-07-25T09:37:25Z

India and other developing countries support such a legally binding treaty, writes Priscilla Jebaraj in an article published in the Hindu on July 25, 2012. Pranesh Prakash is quoted.

The European Union is holding up a treaty to allow books and other printed works to be converted into a format accessible to the visually impaired and other print disabled people without seeking the permission of the copyright holder.

India, and most other developing countries, strongly support such a legally binding treaty currently being negotiated at a World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) meeting in Geneva. However, non-governmental organisation sources at that summit say that the EU is stalling the treaty by placing unreasonable restrictions on how copyrighted works are to be converted, and by whom. The EU office in Delhi and Brussels did not respond to a request for comment on their position.

"[The treaty] would allow organisations working for the blind to import and export accessible works without seeking the copyright holder's permission, since very little money is spent in developing countries on converting books into accessible formats, while they are much more readily available elsewhere," according to Pranesh Prakash of the Bangalore-based Centre for Internet and Society who is attending the summit as an NGO member. If the treaty is not finalised by Wednesday, when the meeting ends, disabled people could be forced to wait till 2014 for their next chance.

Last week, Indian delegate G.R. Raghavender pleaded with negotiators to finalise the treaty without further delay "so that we won't go back, especially the Indian delegation won't go back empty-handed, facing the 15 million blind people in India, which is almost 50 percent of the world blind population, that is 37 million."

In fact, the treaty will benefit a much larger group of print-disabled, including those who suffer from motor disabilities which prevent them from holding a book, or learning disabilities such as dyslexia, or autism, which make it hard to read. There are approximately 70 million print-disabled people in India.

Accessible formats would include Braille, electronic text and audio versions of books, making Western publishers' jittery about piracy fears. Hence, some countries are demanding stringent tracking mechanisms and legal requirements that activists say will effectively block access to disabled people in developing countries — where more than 85 per cent of them live.

"An instrument that subjects the enjoyment of fundamental freedoms by persons with visual impairments to market forces and bureaucratic practices will not work," Mr. Prakash said, in his statement to WIPO delegates. "In India, our Parliament recently passed an amendment to our copyright law that grants persons with disabilities, and those who are working for them, a strong yet simply-worded right to have equal access to copyrighted works as sighted persons."

In fact, the EU Parliament had given its unanimous approval to the treaty in February 2012. "It would be a democratic travesty if the EU’s representatives here today posed any problems to a clear road map for a binding international treaty, especially by posing unrealistic proposals with regards to authorised entities and other issues very far from consensus positions in the WIPO and in clear contradiction with the aims of the World Blind Union," said David Hammerstein, a representative of American and European consumer organisations, making a statement at the Geneva meeting.

Read the original published in the Hindu

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/eu-stalls-treaty-talks-to-allow-copyright-waiver-for-print-disabilities

Envisioning the Role of Open Knowledge in the Implementation of the National Education Policy 2020

Ashwini Lele — 2024-08-27T14:53:13Z

The National Education Policy 2020 brings a significant change in India's educational landscape, representing a comprehensive overhaul to address the evolving developmental imperatives of the country.

This latest report by CIS-A2K delves into the potential role of 'Open Knowledge' players within the framework of the NEP 2020, aiming to provide insights and recommendations for effective implementation. This study focuses on Wikimedia ‘open knowledge’ platform amongst all available digital open knowledge platforms.

Wikimedia initiatives have already been successfully integrated into various higher education institutions, such as Christ University and Goa University, where students engaged in writing and editing Wikipedia articles as part of their coursework. These experiences illustrate how open knowledge platforms can cultivate essential skills such as research, writing, and digital literacy among students.

The NEP 2020 encourages the use of open knowledge systems to support interdisciplinary learning and creativity. By leveraging platforms like Wikipedia, educators can facilitate collaborative learning and critical thinking, aligning with NEP's goals of fostering cognitive and emotional competencies. The report identifies key areas where Wikimedia can contribute, including the development of multilingual content and the enhancement of digital skills.

NEP 2020 presents a unique opportunity to formalize the role of open knowledge ecosystems in education, promoting a shift from rote learning to a more engaging, participatory approach that prepares students for the complexities of the modern world.

Read the report here

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/envisioning-role-of-open-knowledge-in-implementation-of-national-education-policy

Entertainment industry and Internet piracy in focus

praskrishna — 2012-09-17T10:00:54Z

The first-of-its-kind initiative by the anti-piracy cell of the Kerala Police to register cases against 1,010 Internet users for uploading or downloading the Malayalam film Bachelor Party has sparked a debate between social media experts and legal puritans on what the law actually says.

Krishnadas Rajagopal's article was published in the Hindu on September 17, 2012. Pranesh Prakash and Prashant Iyengar are quoted.

Internet users and anti-monopoly advocates say the police action against movie downloaders is “questionable.” They argue how the Copyright Act, 1957, has given wide exception to those who disseminate copyright works for “personal and private use.”

Legal puritans, on the other hand, quote the same 1957 law and the Information Technology (IT) Act, 2000, to argue that the State police have not done anything wrong.

They say the act of uploading and downloading a copyrighted cinematographic work amounts to publishing and transmitting it, respectively.

They cite Section 66 of the IT Act, 2000, that says a “hacker,” if found guilty, can get three years’ imprisonment, a fine up to Rs.2 lakh, or even both.

That’s not all. Section 43 of the same statute prescribes that a “hacker” may have to cough up Rs.1 crore in compensation in case of “damage to the computer system.”

Middle line

Some others draw the middle line about the police’s drive. They say that though downloading is as illegal as buying a pirated CD from the market and “ignorance of law is no excuse to escape prosecution under an existing law,” the sheer magnitude of registering mass cases against downloaders, probably on a global scale, is impractical.

“It is questionable whether downloading for personal use by itself constitutes an offence under the Copyright Act, 1957. The Act has created a wide exception for personal and private use,” says Pranesh Prakash, programme manager for Access to Knowledge, Openness, Internet Governance and Freedom of Speech at The Centre for Internet and Society in Bangalore.

The usage “personal and private use” in the Act can be better understood in the contrast — that is, downloading without any intention to “disseminate the cinematographic work to a community you are not provisionally associated to.”

Legislative intent

Prashant Iyengar, Assistant Professor and Assistant Director, Centre for Intellectual Property Rights Studies, Jindal Global Law School, says the legislative intent behind the wide exceptions given to dissemination of work in the 1957 law is actually strengthening the public domain.

“In India under the Copyright Act, we have a robust regime of fair dealing rights to ensure that information cannot be monopolised at the expense of the public’s access to information,” he says.

He refers to Section 52 of the Act that allows reproduction of literary, artistic, musical, and dramatic works for research and private uses without any “quantitative restriction” on the amount that may be copied. “However, cinematographic works do not fall under this exception,” he says.

Under Section 51, a single copy of a cinematographic work could be “imported” to India for personal and domestic use. This would not amount to copyright infringement.

“But it is currently unsettled in law whether Section 51 would protect users downloading movies for their personal use. On the other hand, if you receive a copy of a movie CD by post, this section would clearly apply,” Mr. Iyengar says.

Pavan Duggal, senior Supreme Court lawyer specialising in cyber laws, differs in his opinion. As far as he is concerned, the law is clear against copyright infringement.

He says unauthorised downloading of movies also attracts action under the IT Act, 2000. “The legal perspective is that when you upload a pirated copy, you are doing an act of publishing and when you click the ‘download’ button, you are transmitting data in an electronic format for the purpose of diminishing the value of electronic information,” he says.

“The Kerala Police have not done anything fundamentally wrong by registering cases against uploaders and downloaders. When I am creating a film, I have copyright to both cinematic and electronic versions. In case of infringement, I can act by suing for damages, injunction, in addition to exposing the person to criminal liability under the Copyright Act,” Mr. Duggal says.

However, Mr. Iyengar vehemently counters the point. He asks a “pertinent” question — how the Kerala Police conducted their probe and how the Internet Protocol addresses were obtained when Internet service providers have strict privacy obligations against disclosure of any such details, except to government authorities.

“In this case, one hears that a private investigation firm called ‘Jadoo Infotech’ was involved in conducting ‘cyber-patrolling,’ which is not authorised by any law. They would be guilty of the digital equivalent offence of ‘lurking house trespass’,” Mr. Iyengar says.

But Nandagopal Rajan, an associate editor with a technology magazine in Delhi, has a simple logic grounded in law.

“Anybody who is downloading illegally cannot seek protection. You are actually doing something illegal. On the flip side, how many people can you prosecute?” he asked.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/www-the-hindu-sep-17-2012-krishnadas-rajagopal-entertainment-industry-and-internet-piracy-in-focus

English Wikipedia and the Telugu Wikipedia joint meetup and edit-a-thon: Sakshi

praskrishna — 2016-01-05T06:31:25Z

The article was published in Sakshi on December 20, 2015. A scanned version of the article is given below.

On December 20, 2015 English Wikipedia and the Telugu Wikipedia joint meetup and edit-a-thon were conducted on Golden Threshold, Hyderabad.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/english-wikipedia-and-the-telugu-wikipedia-joint-meetup-and-edit-a-thon-sakshi

English Wikipedia and the Telugu Wikipedia joint meetup and edit-a-thon: Andhra Jyoti

praskrishna — 2016-01-05T06:33:09Z

The article was published in Andhra Jyoti on December 20, 2015. A scanned version of the article is below.

On December 20, 2015 English Wikipedia and the Telugu Wikipedia joint meetup and edit-a-thon were conducted on Golden Threshold, Hyderabad. Andhra Jyoti covered the programme.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/english-wikipedia-and-the-telugu-wikipedia-joint-meetup-and-edit-a-thon-andhra-jyoti

English and Telugu Wikipedia edit-a-thon in Hyderabad

Pavan Santosh — 2015-12-31T07:49:19Z

After a long time, a collaborative Telugu and English Wikipedia edit-a-thon is being organised in Hyderabad on December 20.

This Sunday, the Telugu and English language Wikipedia editors are organising a unique edit-a-thon at Golden Threshold, Abids. The event is aimed at translating many English Wikipedia articles related to Telugu language and culture to Telugu and vice versa. Theatre scholar and Telugu Wikimedian Pranay Raj Vangari and English Wikimedian Srikar Kasyap are organising this event with support from Centre for Internet and Society. Telugu speakers who contribute to English Wikipedia are going to contribute to Telugu Wikipedia. “The event is scheduled at 10 am and over a dozen articles are planned to be created during the sprint”, explains Vangari. Kashyap adds saying, “the Wikimedians are also planning to share best practices of the two communities which will benefit everyone”. The event is open to all and newbies will be oriented with the basics of Wikipedia editing and enriching the knowledge pool in Telugu and other languages on the Internet.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/english-and-telugu-wikipedia-edit-a-thon-in-hyderabad

Enforcement of Anti-piracy Laws by the Indian Entertainment Industry

praskrishna — 2011-08-04T04:35:48Z

This brief note by Siddharth Chadha seeks to map out the key actors in enforcement of copyright laws. These bodies not only investigate cases of infringement and piracy relating to the entertainment industry, but tie up with the police and IP law firms to pursue actions against the offenders through raids (many of them illegal) and court cases. Siddharth notes that the discourse on informal networks and circuits of distribution of cultural goods remains hijacked with efforts to contain piracy as the only rhetoric which safeguards the business interests of big, mostly multinational, media corporations.

International Intellectual Property Alliance

The International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA) is an international lobby group of US media industries with close ties to the United States Trade Representative. It has in its reports consistently expressed dissatisfaction with Indian efforts to deal with piracy. IIPA works in close cooperation the other US lobby groups like the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) and the BSA (Business Software Alliance). The IIPA reports, which place India in a 'danger zone', significantly influence regional and international discourses on piracy. Interestingly, the IIPA in India has been very successful in regionalizing and nationalizing a global discourse. Thus, in the past few years, local industry associations in India in cinema, music and software have independently run highly emotional campaigns against piracy, reminiscent of IIPA's own campaigns.

Motion Pictures Association

The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) through its international counterpart, Motion Pictures Association (MPA), has been unofficially operational in India for the last 15 years. Its member companies are Walt Disney, Paramount, Sony Entertainment, Twentieth Century Fox, Universal Studios, and Warner Bros. The MPA's work in India was mostly non-obtrusive till 1994 when MPA Asia-Pacific, based in Singapore, started being represented by the high profile legal firm Lall & Sethi Advocates.

They have collectively worked on forming enforcement teams for coordinated raids in Mumbai and Delhi since 1995. Earlier this year, MPA announced its first India office to be set up in Mumbai, called the Motion Picture Distributor's Association India (Pvt.) Limited (MPDA), under the directorship of Rajiv Dalal. Mr. Dalal had previously directed strategic initiatives from the MPAA's Los Angeles office. The MPDA will engage itself in working jointly with local Indian film industries and the Indian government to promote the protection of motion pictures and television rights.

According to the organization's own assertion, in 2006 the MPA's Asia-Pacific operation investigated more than 30,000 cases of piracy and assisted law enforcement officials in conducting nearly 12,400 raids. These activities resulted in the seizure of more than 35 million illegal optical discs, 50 factory optical disc production lines and 4,482 optical disc burners, as well as the initiation of more than 11,000 legal actions.

Indian Music Industry

The world's second-oldest music companies' association, Indian Music Industry (IMI), was first established as Indian Phonographic Industry in 1936. It was re-formed in its present avatar in 1994, as a non-commercial and non-profit organization affiliated to the International Federation of Phonographic Industry (IFPI) and is registered as a society in West Bengal. IMI members includes major record companies like Saregama, HMV, Universal Music (India), Tips, Venus, Sony BMG (India), Crescendo, Virgin Records, Magnasound, Milestone, Times Music and several other prominent national and regional labels that represent over 75 per cent of the output in corporate recordings.

It was one of the first organizations in the country to start the trend of hiring ex-police officers to lead anti-piracy operations. In 1996, IMI hired Julio Ribeiro (a former Commissioner of Police, Mumbai; Director General of Police, Punjab; and Indian Ambassador to Romania) to head its anti-piracy operations. Their anti-piracy work is split into three specific regions, North and North Eastern, Western and Southern and East, each zone headed by a former senior police officer. IMI operates through offices in Kolkata, Mumbai, New Delhi, Chennai, Bangalore and several other cities and towns across India, focusing on surveillance, law enforcement, and gathering intelligence through an 80 member team hired to tackle piracy. During 2001 to 2004, IMI registered over 5500 cases, seized over 10 lakh music cassettes, and around 25 lakh CDs.

Business Software Alliance

Headquartered in Washington DC, the Business Software Alliance has a regional office in Delhi, and has been instrumental in conducting anti-piracy operations across the country. According to the BSA, India ranks 20 in global software piracy rankings, with a rate of 73 per cent while the Asia Pacific average is 53 per cent. China ranks second with a rate of 92 per cent and annual losses of $3,823 million while Pakistan ranks nine with 83 per cent piracy rate. They have engaged the general public in providing them with information on pirated software through an anti-piracy initiative – The Rewards Programme. Launched in 2005, reward amount up to Rs.50, 000, would be provided for information leading to successful legal action against companies using unlicensed software. The reward program was aimed to encourage people to support the fight against piracy and to report software piracy to the NASSCOM-BSA Anti-Piracy Software Hotline.

In 2006, BSA and NASSCOM got a shot in their arms by winning the largest settlement amount for a copyright case in India, with Netlinx India Pvt. Ltd. The case had emerged after a civil raid was conducted at the premises of Netlinx in December 2000, leading to inspection and impounding of 40 PCs, carrying illegal unlicensed software. The settlement includes damages of US$ 30,000, complete legalization of software used by them, removal of all unlicensed/pirated software and submission to an unannounced audit of computer systems during next 12 months.

Industry Enforcers

Bollywood Film and Music companies, such as T-Series and Yashraj Films, have established anti-piracy arms to combat piracy in specific markets. T-Series has been in the industry for over 15 years, as a brand of Gulshan Kumar founded Super Cassettes Industries Limited, and has often been at the forefront for conducting raids along with police officials to check piracy of its copyrighted content. In its latest announcement earlier this year, T-Series launched an anti-piracy campaign against those stealing digital content. The announcement came after they filed a complaint on June 1 with a police station in Mangalore against Classic Video shop for infringement of its copyright works like Billu, Ghajini, Aap Ka Suroor, Apne, Fashion and Karz that had been illegally downloaded and copied onto multiple discs, card readers and pen-drives.

Yashraj Films, a leading film studio, has long been a part of enforcement activities against piracy, both in the Indian market and internationally. Most recently, it was a key member in the formation of the United Producers and Distributors Forum, which also included chairman Mahesh Bhatt, Ramesh Sippy, Ronnie Screwalla of UTV, Shah Rukh Khan, Aamir Khan and Eros International. This organization is now trying to enforce anti-piracy laws by conducting raids across the country with the help of another ex-cop from Mumbai, A.A. Khan. Yashraj Films has also established anti-piracy offices in the United Kingdom and the United States to curb piracy in those markets, as overseas returns of its films, watched by the desi diaspora is one of its largest revenue earning sources. The website of Yashraj Films lists news reports from across US and Europe of instances of crackdown on pirates.

In the context of intellectual property in the creative industries, these anti-piracy agents have successfully created the halo of illegality around the subject of piracy. The discourse on informal networks and circuits of distribution of cultural goods remains hijacked with efforts to contain piracy as the only rhetoric which safeguards the business interests of big media companies and multinational corporations.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/piracy-and-enforcement

Emphasis on developing vernacular encyclopaedias

praskrishna — 2014-04-15T10:22:04Z

emphasis-on-developing-vernacular-encyclopaedias.

This article published in the Hindu on March 30, 2014 quotes Rehmanuddin Sheikh.

It is imperative to make efforts to develop encyclopaedias in all vernacular languages, S. Rehmanuddin, programme officer, Centre of Internet Society - Access To Knowledge, said.

In a guest lecture on Telugu Wikipedia organised by the Computer Science department in JNTU College of Engineering, Pulivendula, he explained the way Wikipedia works - the wiki model and the Wiki mark-up language.

Students were also told about the workings of the media wiki framework, which forms the backend of Wikipedia and several similar projects.

Head of Computer Science, A. Suresh Babu, explained that the guest lecture was organised to enlighten CSE students about Wikipedia, the largest encyclopaedia ever.

It is the biggest multilingual textual source with over three crore articles in 287 languages including Telugu, students were told.

It has over four million articles on various topics ranging from arts to mythology and science to advanced computing, he added.

He explained to the participants about Media wiki API that would help them understand web services and create applications based on the API data.

IT will help them to create data-driven projects in future, he said.

Automation of tasks in the form of running bot scripts were also demonstrated during the lecture.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/the-hindu-march-30-2014-emphasis-on-developing-vernacular-encyclopaedias

El idioma oriya ama a Wikipedia

praskrishna — 2014-05-05T05:14:26Z

Este post es de Rising Voices, un proyecto de Global Voices que ayuda a difundir los medios ciudadanos en lugares que normalmente no tienen acceso a ellos.

The following is a Spanish version of the news that was already published in English on Rising Voices. The Russian version can be read here.

El oriya (odia) es una lengua con una antigüedad de 2,500 años nativa de la región de Odisha (antes conocida como Orissa). La lengua obtuvo recientemente el estatus de lengua clásica de la India.

Recientemente, la comunidad Wikimedia Oriya se reunió para celebrar el nuevo estatus de la lengua en Bhubaneswar.

A continuación un extracto de un artículo [en] reciente en el blog de la Fundación Wikimedia, por Subhashish Panigrahi [en], compartiendo información sobre la comunidad Wiki en Oriya:

14 libros con derechos de autor se han relicenciado bajo la licencia Creative Commons y el proyecto de digitalización en Odia WikiSource [or] fue formalmente iniciado por una institución educacional indígena, la Institución Kalinga de Ciencias Sociales (KISS por sus siglas en inglés) [...] La KISS digitalizará algunos de estos libros y los pondrá a disposición en Odia Wikisource.

Una fuente OpenType Unicode en oriya, “Odia OT Jagannatha [en]” diseñada por Sujata Patel de Odialanguage.com [en] fue publicada bajo la licencia OFL. Es la primera fuente OpenType para oriya que la comunidad ha probado activamente.

Una nueva herramienta para la escritura en oriya sin necesidad de estar en línea llamada “TypeOdia” [en], por el wikipedista Manoj Sahukar [or] también se publicó para su distribución. DVD's con la fuente, la herramienta de escritura, diccionarios en la lengua oriya, la Wikipedia oriya fuera de línea en Kiwix, la guía de edición de Wikipedia [en], un convertidor de fuentes ISCII a Unicode, varias paquetes de software libre y de fuente abierta y el sistema operativo Ubuntu [...]

Una gran mayoría de las publicaciones en oriya no se encuentran en Internet y los usuarios carecen de fácil acceso. (El dr. Debiprasanna Pattanayak) discutió el proceso de digitalización para preservar libros valiosos que ya no se imprimen y viejos manuscritos en hoja de palma [...]

Las fuentes en oriya pueden ser descargadas gratuitamente [en]. Los desarroladores de la fuente dicen [en]:

Abogamos por el uso de la lengua oriya de verdadero espíritu, en el campo de la administración diaria, en la justicia, además del campo de la educación. Además, hemos tomado el proyecto para desarrollar un léxico en oriyia, incluyendo versiones en oriya típicas de palabras técnicas, para evitar la dependencia de la lengua inglesa.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/rising-voices-april-12-2014-el-idioma-oriya-ama-a-wikipedia

Eight Challenges That Indian-Language Wikipedias Need to Overcome

subha — 2016-03-29T17:05:36Z

Even after a decade of existence, Indian language Wikipedias are not yet known to many Indian language speakers. Wikipedia, being the largest available encyclopedia made in the human history, it what it is today because of the hundreds and thousands of volunteer-editors. But while native-language Wikipedias are becoming game-changers in other corners of the world, the scenario in India is skewed. In my experience, here are a number of challenges that Indian-language Wikipedias are currently facing.

The article was published in the Wire on March 17, 2016. A version of the article was also mirrored by Opensource.com on March 28, 2016.

1. Language communities:

The language communities of many of the Indian languages are such that many of them do not know how to search for information online, in their language typed in their script. Some of these communities even believe that because Google’s home page does not have their script, their language does not exist on the Internet. Starting with five Indian languages as the language of its interface, Google now has has nine Indian languages. But this does not stop a Santali or Manipuri user to search in Unicode Ol chiki (script for Santali) or in Unicode Meithei (script for Manipuri). Google or any search engine for that matter will display anything available in any script on the Internet. But the lack of this very thing is keeping many people away from being connected to the Internet in general and Wikipedia in particular.\

2. Wikipedia’s editor community:

Wikipedia is written by people like you and me. And from writing to editing everything happens voluntarily. As many people do not probably know, or do not try to learn, anybody can correct the mistakes and inaccuracies that exist in many Wikipedia articles. The Wikipedia editor communities for several Indian languages are really small. While these languages are spoken by millions of people, only a handful editors contribute in editing the Wikipedia in these languages. In January this year, the Hindi Wikipedia, for instance, had only 89 editors while the total number of Hindi speakers would be over 550 million.

3. Language input in computers:

A vast majority of people in this country do not know how to type in their own language.. There is also little documentation for users to learn about language input. Even though many government-run schools in India are seeing a proliferation of more computers and Internet access, native language input and several other essential training of basic computing are not widely taught in schools in all states. What is sad is that there is a wide variety of free software for native-language input and the challenges of typing in Indian languages that existed a few years back has almost gone.

4. Language input in mobile devices:

With over 1 billion people with mobile phones, the 15% internet penetration rate will soon grow at a faster pace. This in turn — and also tough competition that compel TSPs to drop data charges — will help many Indians get access to the Internet . If these people are not educated about native language input then they will be victims of the English-centric Internet rather than being able to enjoy the virtue of the same. Many Indians that have smartphones need full Indian language support and especially inbuilt input methods to be able to contribute in their own language Wikipedia.

5. Low availability of Indian-language content on the Internet:

Lack of native language content on the Internet is another major factor in the low adoption of Indian language Wikpedias. As per an Internet and Mobile Association of India survey conducted in 2012, over 6% of the population is left behind from joining the online sphere simply because of lack of content in their languages. Take, for instance, my state odisha.While the Kerala government’s official tourism portal is available in Odia and other Indian languages, the Odisha government’s tourism portal itself has no information in Odia-language today. Our languages are neglected largely in our own states.

6. Mismatch of conventional and new media:

Many conventional media houses still continue to use non-standard variants of the ASCII/ISCII script encoding systems, instead of adopting the Unicode standard. Unicode being a global standard, and having the advantage of unifying the world, has been available for Indian languages for almost 25 years now. But much of our vernacular print media has failed to adopt this. Consequently, many popular Indian-language newspapers are yet to become available in Unicode on the open Internet.

7. Lack of Open Access:

Majority of the information produced on the Internet in general and by the government, in particular, are mostly copyrighted. The paywalled garden of copyright restrictions keeps the information closed and stop people from sharing and learning more. On the contrary, Wikipedia is available under a Creative Commons Share-Alike license which allows anyone to make use of the content and even distribute commercial copies of its content. The idea of opening up information for masses in a free license could make information reach millions of people.

8. People with disabilities:

Many people cannot read, speak and write. India has over 60 million people with some form of hearing impairment. There is a desperate need for a high-quality text-to-speech and speech-to-text engine for people with physical disabilities. Also, these software products have to be free software so that common people, that cannot afford to buy expensive proprietary software like JAWS, can contribute to Wikipedia in their language. Many text-to-speech engines that are available today for Indian languages sound so mechanical that it is difficult for common speakers to use them.

Subhashish Panigrahi is an educator and free knowledge evangelist, and currently works for Communications, Program Capacity & Learning at Wikimedia Foundation, and Access to Knowledge at the Centre for Internet and Society. Portions of this article came from a speech that Panigrahi gave at BHASHA: Indian Languages Digital Festival in New Delhi.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/the-wire-march-17-2016-subhashish-panigrahi-eight-challenges-that-indian-language-wikipedias-need-to-overcome

Eight Challenges Indian-Language Wikipedias Need to Overcome

subha — 2016-06-18T17:09:38Z

Even after a decade of existence, Indian language Wikipedias are not yet known to many Indian language speakers. Wikipedia, the largest available encyclopedia made in the human history, is what it is today because of the hundreds and thousands of volunteer editors.

The article was published in Global Voices on April 27, 2016. A version of this post was previously published on The Wire.

But while native-language Wikipedias are becoming game-changers in other corners of the world, the scenario in India is skewed. Here, from my point of view, are some of the challenges that Indian-language Wikipedias are currently facing.

1. Language communities

The language communities of many of the Indian languages are such that many of them do not know how to search for information online, in language typed in their script. Some of these communities even believe that because Google’s home page does not display their script, their language does not exist on the Internet. Google, which starting with five Indian languages as options in its interface, now has has nine Indian languages. But this does not stop a Santali or Manipuri user from searching in Unicode Ol chiki (the script for Santali) or in Unicode Meithei (the script for Manipuri). Google, or any search engine, for that matter, will display anything available in any script on the Internet. But the perceived lack of this very function is keeping many people from connecting to the Internet, and to Wikipedia in particular.

2. Wikipedia’s editor community

Wikipedia is written by people like you and me. And everything, from writing to editing, is done by volunteers. And anybody can correct the mistakes and inaccuracies that exist in many Wikipedia articles. While several Indian languages are spoken by millions of people, the Wikipedia editor communities for these languages are very small, with only a handful editors contributing to editing those language versions of Wikipedia. In January this year, Hindi Wikipedia, for instance, had only 89 editors, while the total number of Hindi speakers is over 550 million.

3. Language input on computers

A vast majority of people in India do not know how to type in their own language. There is also little documentation instructing users about language input. Even though many government-run schools in India are seeing a proliferation in computer use and Internet access, native language input and other essential training of basic computing are not widely taught in schools in all states. This is unfortunate, as there is a wide variety of free software for native-language input, and the challenges of typing in Indian languages that existed a few years back are now almost non-existent.

4. Language input on mobile devices

With over 1 billion mobile phone users, India's 15% internet penetration rate will soon start growing at a faster pace. This in turn—along with the tough competition that will compel TSPs to lower data charges—will help many Indians get access to the Internet. If these people are not educated about native language input they will be victims of the English-centric Internet and fail to enjoy the virtues of the former. Many Indians who have smartphones need full Indian language support, and especially built-in input methods, to be able to contribute to Wikipedia in their own languages.

5. Scarcity of Indian-language content on the Internet

The relative lack of native language content on the Internet is another major factor in the low adoption of Indian language Wikpedias. According to an Internet and Mobile Association of India survey conducted in 2012, over 6% of the population is left behind with regard to joining the online sphere simply because of a scarcity of content in their languages. Take my home state of Odisha, for instance: while the Kerala state government’s official tourism portal is available in Odia and other Indian languages, at the time of writing the Odisha government’s tourism portal had no information in Odia. It is unfortunate that our languages are neglected largely within our own states.

6. Incompatibility between new and traditional media standards

Instead of adopting the Unicode standard, many traditional media outlets continue to use non-standard variants of the ASCII/ISCII script encoding systems Unicode, a global standard, has been available for Indian languages for almost 25 years now, but most of India's vernacular print media has failed to adopt it. As a result, many popular Indian-language newspapers are unavailable in Unicode on the open Internet.

7. Lack of Open Access

The majority of the information published on the Internet, and by the Indian government, in particular, is copyrighted. This paywalled garden of copyright restrictions restricts access of this information and prevents people from sharing and learning more. Wikipedia, on the other hand, is distributed under a Creative Commons Share-Alike license that allows anyone to make use of the content, and even distribute it commercially. Opening up information for the masses under free license regime could make it easily accessible to millions of people.

8. Failure to cater for people with disabilities

Many people in India cannot read, speak or write, and the country has over 60 million people with some form of hearing impairment. There is a desperate need for a high-quality text-to-speech and speech-to-text engines for people with physical disabilities. These products also be freely available so that those who cannot afford to buy expensive proprietary software like JAWS can contribute to Wikipedia in their languages. Many of the text-to-speech engines available today for Indian languages sound so mechanical that it is difficult for the average speaker to use them.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/global-voices-april-27-2016-subhashish-panigrahi-eight-challenges-indian-language-wikipedias-need-to-overcome

Editor Growth & Contribution Program on Telugu Wikipedia

Nitika Tandon — 2012-09-29T12:13:04Z

Nitika Tandon tells us about the Editor Growth & Contribution Program on Telegu Wikipedia, how it will run, its necessity and the future steps.

What is Editor Growth & Contribution Program on Telugu Wikipedia?

Editor Growth & Contribution Program is an online outreach program that will help raise the number of active editors on Telugu Wikipedia. The program will provide an entrance point for newcomers to Wikipedia, enabling them to contribute to its contents and share the knowledge they possess, while participating and communicating with existing Wikipedia community members. Such a program will serve as a compliment to off-wiki outreach activities already underway.

Some of the Telugu Wikipedians like Arjuna, Dr. Rajshekhar, Sujatha are in the initial stage of discussing the possibility and ways of running an Editor Growth & Contribution Program on Telugu Wikipedia.

How will the program run?

The idea is to run outreach banners using the local site notice on Telugu Wikipedia for three consecutive months. These banners will be in the form of short bios/stories of Telugu Wikipedians who agree to be featured in the editor campaign. Most Wikipedia visitors are unaware of the fact that regular folks write articles on Wikipedia and not scholars or paid writers. These personal stories from active Wikipedians could feature their motivation to contribute, their passion for building and developing Wikipedia, their early experience with Wikipedia as an editor, their invitation to site visitors to become Wikipedia editors, etc. Such personal stories will add a human touch to Wikipedia and will help new visitors related to real life stories.

Each of these banners will link to a landing page. The landing page will start with a question at its top saying “What would you like to do in Wikipedia?” followed by six buttons each listing an answer to this question, and linking to the corresponding tutorial page. These six buttons will be: create your username, create your userpage, edit an existing article (fix a typo), add a reference, create a new article, and send a message.

Landing page will be designed in a simple way to avoid any visual distraction for the visitor. Each button will provide a detailed graphical explanation on how to perform each of those actions. To understand the workings of the program in greater detail please click here (this program design is just a rough draft and may change as required).

Why Telugu Wikipedia?

As per Wikimedia Stats Telugu speaking population is around 8 crore. Telugu Wikipedia has about 18 lakh page views per month and 21 active editors (5+ edits in a month). In a community with such large numbers of speakers but extremely low number of Wikipedia editors, there seems to be a lot of scope and opportunity to increase Wikipedia's reach and awareness amongst Telugu speaking population and more so amongst reader of Telugu Wikipedia to start improving and expanding Wikipedia articles and foster the growth of Telugu Wikipedia community.

Telugu Wikipedia at a glance July 2012

Number of speakers of other Dravidian languages like Kannada, Malayalam and Tamil is relatively low but have higher number of page views and active editors as compared to Telugu as seen in the table on the right. KA, ML and TA Wikipedia communities have run different programs over time to increase it's reach, spread more awareness and invite new editors. Some of these programs were TamilWiki Media Contest, Tamil Wikipedia Contribution Campaign, Malayalam Wikipedia Education Program, Kannada Medical Project, etc. Telugu Wikipedia requires a similar high impact project that can help them grow their community.

Comparison of Telugu Wikipedia with other langauge Wikipedias.

Cross pollinating ideas

Tamil and Arabic Wikipedia communities have already experimented with Editor Growth & Contribution Program and have produced amazing results. Ravi from Tamil Wikipedia and Haitham from Arabic Wikipedia were actively involved in running the contribution programs on their respective language Wikipedias and have offered help to run similar project on Telugu Wikipedia and provide regular guidance and support.

Next steps ahead

Strong community support will be required to run such a program. The larger Telugu Wikipedia community will plan a meet up sometime in October in Hyderabad to take this program forward. Special thanks to Dr. Rajshekhar who has offered to organise this meet-up.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/editor-growth-and-contribution-on-telegu-wikipedia

Edit-a-thon to improve Kannada-language science-related Wikipedia articles

pavanaja — 2015-09-04T08:25:51Z

A three-day Kannada Wikipedia edit-a-thon was conducted for science lecturers of institutions who gathered at the District Institute of Education and Training (DIET), Bengaluru this August 18. The idea of this event was to improve science-related articles that are part of the Government of Karnataka's high school syllabus.

During the span of three days the lecturers were taught about basics of Kannada Wikipedia, editing policies, Kannada input, creating and editing articles on Kannada Wikipedia, and they all participated in contributing to about 20 articles science-related article based on topics listed in the high school syllabus (as per the Karnataka state syllabus). Some of the lecturers who were first-timers faced problems with Kannada typing where most others took some time to understand the Wikipedia markup and citations. As this was the first iteration of the project, two more edit-a-thons will follow; one in November 2015 and another one in February 2016. We invite all Kannada Wikimedians to join and mentor these new Wikimedians.

Images of the edit-a-thon can be found on Wikimedia Commons Category “Kannada Wikipedia Workshop for DSERT Bengaluru Aug 18-20 2015”. Dr. U.B. Pavanaja and Tito Dutta from CIS-A2K conducted the workshop.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/edit-a-thon-to-improve-kannada-language-science-related-wikipedia-articles-1