Centre for Internet and Society

Kannada Wikipedia Workshop

praskrishna — 2013-03-15T09:52:18Z

A Kannada Wikipedia workshop is being organized by the Centre for Internet and Society in Mysore on March 24, 2013. Dr. U.B. Pavanaja will be participating in this workshop. The one day workshop will begin at 10 a.m. in the morning and shall end at 5.00 p.m. in the evening.

ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯ:ಸಮ್ಮಿಲನ/೯

ಕನ್ನಡ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯಕ್ಕೆ ಇನ್ನಷ್ಟು ಮಾಹಿತಿ ಸೇರಿಸುವ ಸಲುವಾಗಿ ಕನ್ನಡ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯ ಸಮುದಾಯ ಮಾರ್ಚ್ ೨೪ರಂದು ಮೈಸೂರಿನ ಇನ್ಸ್ಟಿಟ್ಯೂಶನ್ ಆಫ್ ಇಂಜಿನಿಯರ‍್ಸ್ ಸಭಾಂಗಣದಲ್ಲಿ ಒಂದೆಡೆ ಸೇರುತ್ತಿದೆ. ಕನ್ನಡದ ಸ್ವತಂತ್ರ ವಿಶ್ವಕೋಶದ ಸಂಪಾದನೆಯಲ್ಲಿ ಆಸಕ್ತಿ ಉಳ್ಳವರು, ಬ್ಲಾಗಿಗರು, ಪತ್ರಕರ್ತರು, ಲೇಖಕರು ಎಲ್ಲ ಈ ಕಾರ್ಯಕ್ರಮದಲ್ಲಿ ಭಾಗವಹಿಸಬಹುದು.

ಸಮ್ಮಿಲನದ ಉದ್ದೇಶ

ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯ ಪರಿಚಯ
ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯಕ್ಕೆ ಸಂಪಾದಕ ಆಗುವ ವಿಧಾನ
ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯಕ್ಕೆ ಲೇಖನಗಳನ್ನು ಸೇರಿಸುವ ಬಗ್ಗೆ ಪ್ರಾತ್ಯಕ್ಷಿಕೆ
ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯಕ್ಕೆ ಚಿತ್ರಗಳನ್ನು ಸೇರಿಸುವ ಬಗ್ಗೆ ಪ್ರಾತ್ಯಕ್ಷಿಕೆ
ಕನ್ನಡದ ವಿಶ್ವಕೋಶದಲ್ಲಿ ಇರಲೇ ಬೇಕಾದ ವಿಷಯಗಳ ಪಟ್ಟಿ ತಯಾರಿಸುವುದು
ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯಕ್ಕೆ ಲೇಖನ ಮತ್ತು ಚಿತ್ರ ಸೇರಿಸುವುದು

ಯಾರು ಭಾಗವಹಿಸಬಹುದು

ಕನ್ನಡದ ಸ್ವತಂತ್ರ ವಿಶ್ವಕೋಶದ ಸಂಪಾದನೆಯಲ್ಲಿ ಆಸಕ್ತಿ ಉಳ್ಳವರು, ಬ್ಲಾಗಿಗರು, ಪತ್ರಕರ್ತರು, ಲೇಖಕರು, ಕನ್ನಡ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಗರು(ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯಾದ ಬಗ್ಗೆ ಆಸಕ್ತಿ ಉಳ್ಳವರು)

ದಿನಾಂಕ ಮತ್ತು ಸ್ಥಳ

ಇನ್ಸ್ಟಿಟ್ಯೂಶನ್ ಆಫ್ ಇಂಜಿನಿಯರ‍್ಸ್

ಜೆ.ಎಲ್.ಬಿ. ರಸ್ತೆ
ಮೈಸೂರು - ೫೭೦೦೦೫

ದಿನಾಂಕ: ಮಾರ್ಚ್ ೨೪, ೨೦೧೩, ಭಾನುವಾರ (ಇಡೀ ದಿನ)

ಕಾರ್ಯಕ್ರಮ ಪಟ್ಟಿ

ಸಮಯ	ಕಾರ್ಯಸೂಚಿ	ಮಾತನಾಡುವವರು	ಟಿಪ್ಪಣಿ, ಉಪಯೋಗ
೯:೫೦ ಬೆಳಗ್ಗೆ	ನೊಂದಣಿ		ನಿಮ್ಮ ಹೆಸರು/ಇ-ಅಂಚೆ/ಮೊಬೈಲ್/ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯ ಬಳಕೆದಾರರ ಹೆಸರು ಜೊತೆಗೆ, ಭಾಗಿಯಾಗುತ್ತಿರುವುದರ ಉದ್ದೇಶವನ್ನು ಸ್ವಾಗತಕಾರರ ಬಳಿ ತಿಳಿಸಿ
೧೦:೦೦	ಸ್ವಾಗತ	ಪವನಜ	ಕಾರ್ಯಕ್ರಮದ ಉದ್ದೇಶ ಮತ್ತು ಅದರ ಪ್ರತಿಪಲಾಪೇಕ್ಷೆಗಳ ವಿವರಣೆ
೧೦:೧೫ - ೧೧:೧೫	ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯ	ಪವನಜ	ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯ ಎಂದರೆ ಏನು? ಇದನ್ನು ಸಂಪಾದಿಸುವವರು ಯಾರು ಮತ್ತು ಏಕೆ? ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯದ ಇತರೆ ಯೋಜನೆಗಳು
೧೧:೧೫ - ೧೧:೩೦	ಚಾ
೧೧:೩೦ - ೧೨:೦೦	ಕ್ರಿಯೇಟಿವ್ ಕಾಮನ್ಸ್	ಕಿರಣ್ ರವಿಕುಮಾರ‍್	ಕ್ರಿಯೆಟೀವ್ ಕಾಮನ್ಸ್ (Creative Commons) ಬಗ್ಗೆ ವಿವರಣೆ.
೧೨:೦೦ - ೧೩:೦೦	ಪ್ರಾತ್ಯಕ್ಷಿಕೆ	ಪವನಜ	ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯ ಸಂಪಾದಕ ಆಗುವುದು ಹೇಗೆ, ಸಂಪಾದಿಸುವುದು ಹೇಗೆ, ಇತ್ಯಾದಿ
೧೩:೦೦ - ೧೪:೦೦	ಊಟ
೧೪:೦೦ - ೧೪:೧೫	ಕರ್ನಾಟಕ ೧೦೦೦ ಯೋಜನೆ ಪರಿಚಯ	ಪವನಜ	ಕನ್ನಡ ಮತ್ತು ಕರ್ನಾಟಕಕ್ಕೆ ಸಂಬಂಧಿಸಿದ ಪ್ರಮುಖ ಲೇಖನಗಳನ್ನು ಪಟ್ಟಿ ಮಾಡಿ, ಸಮುದಾಯದ ಆಯ್ಕೆಯ ಮೇರೆಗೆ ಲೇಖನಗಳ ಸಂಪಾದನೆ, ಪರಿಷ್ಕರಣೆ ಇತ್ಯಾದಿಗಳ ಅವಶ್ಯಕತೆ, ಭಾಗವಹಿಸುವಿಕೆ
೧೪:೧೫ - ಕೊನೆಯವರೆಗೆ	ಪ್ರಯೋಗ (hands-on)	ಎಲ್ಲರೂ	ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯದಲ್ಲಿ ವಿಜ್ಞಾನಕ್ಕೆ ಸಂಬಂಧಿಸಿದ ಲೇಖನಗಳನ್ನು ಸೇರಿಸುವ ಪ್ರಯತ್ನ

ಸ್ವಯಂಸೇವಕರು

Pavanaja (talk) ೦೭:೩೭, ೧೧ ಮಾರ್ಚ್ ೨೦೧೩ (UTC)
ಕಿರಣ್ ರವಿಕುಮಾರ‍್
ನವೀನ್ ಜೋಯಿಸ್

ಭಾಗವಹಿಸಲು ಇಚ್ಛಿಸುವವರು

ನೀವೂ ಭಾಗಿಯಾಗಲು ಇಚ್ಚಿಸುವುದಾದರೆ ನಿಮ್ಮ ಹೆಸರನ್ನು # ಮುಂದೆ ಸೇರಿಸಿ ಅಥವಾ ~ ಅನ್ನು ನಾಲ್ಕು ಭಾರಿ ಟೈಪಿಸಿ ಸಹಿ ಮಾಡಿ.

ಹಾಲತಿ ಸೋಮಶೇಖರ
ಮಾಲಿನಿ ಅಭ್ಯಂಕರ‍್

ಸಮ್ಮಿಲನಕ್ಕೆ ಸಹಾಯ

ಬೆಂಬಲ

ಸೆಂಟರ‍್ ಫಾರ‍್ ಇಂಟರ‍್ ನೆಟ್ ಅಂಡ್ ಸೊಸೈಟಿ, ಬೆಂಗಳೂರು

ಉಪಯುಕ್ತ ಕೊಂಡಿಗಳು
ಸೂಚನೆ ಭಾಗವಹಿಸುವವರು ಲ್ಯಾಪ್‌ಟಾಪ್, ಪವರ್ ಸ್ಟ್ರಿಪ್ (extension switchboard) ಮತ್ತು ಅಂತರಜಾಲ ಸಂಪರ್ಕ ಡಾಂಗಲ್ ತಂದರೆ ಒಳ್ಳೆಯದು.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/events/kannada-wikipedia-workshop

Wikipedia Workshop for Kannada Science Writers

praskrishna — 2013-03-14T11:41:41Z

The Centre for Internet and Society in partnership with Wikimedia Chapter India and KRVP, Bangalore, is organizing a workshop for Kannada science writers at Karnataka Rajya Vijnana Parishath Conference Hall in Banashankari, Bangalore on March 17, 2013. The one day workshop shall begin at 10 a.m. in the morning and will conclude at 5.00 p.m. in the evening. Dr. U.B. Pavanaja will be participating in the event.

The information was published in the Kannada wikipedia page here.

ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯ:ಸಮ್ಮಿಲನ/೮

ವಿಜ್ಞಾನಕ್ಕೆ ಸಂಬಂಧಿಸಿದ ವಿಷಯಗಳನ್ನು ಕನ್ನಡ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯಕ್ಕೆ ಸೇರಿಸುವ ಸಲುವಾಗಿ ಕನ್ನಡ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯ ಸಮುದಾಯ ಮಾರ್ಚ್ ೧೭ರಂದು ಕರ್ನಾಟಕ ರಾಜ್ಯ ವಿಜ್ಞಾನ ಪರಿಷತ್ತಿನ ಸಭಾಂಗಣದಲ್ಲಿ ಒಂದೆಡೆ ಸೇರುತ್ತಿದೆ. ಕನ್ನಡದ ಸ್ವತಂತ್ರ ವಿಶ್ವಕೋಶದ ಸಂಪಾದನೆಯಲ್ಲಿ ಆಸಕ್ತಿ ಉಳ್ಳವರು, ಬ್ಲಾಗಿಗರು ಕೂಡ ಈ ಕಾರ್ಯಕ್ರಮದಲ್ಲಿ ಭಾಗವಹಿಸಬಹುದು.

ಸಮ್ಮಿಲನದ ಉದ್ದೇಶ

ವಿಜ್ಞಾನ ಲೇಖಕರನ್ನು ಕನ್ನಡಿಗರಿಗೆ ಪರಿಚಯಿಸುವುದು
ವಿಜ್ಞಾನ/ತಂತ್ರಜ್ಞಾನದ ಪುಸ್ತಕಗಳ ಮಾಹಿತಿ ಕ್ರೂಡೀಕರಣ
ಮೂಲ ವಿಜ್ಞಾನಕ್ಕೆ ಸಂಬಂಧಿಸಿದ ಪುಟಗಳನ್ನು ಹುಡುಕಿ ತೆಗೆದು ಅವನ್ನು ಅಭಿವೃದ್ದಿ ಪಡಿಸುವುದು
ಕನ್ನಡದ ವಿಶ್ವಕೋಶದಲ್ಲಿ ಇರಲೇ ಬೇಕಾದ ವಿಜ್ಞಾನ ಸಂಬಂಧಿ ಪುಟಗಳ ಪಟ್ಟಿ ತಯಾರಿಸುವುದು
ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯ ಲೇಖನಗಳನ್ನು ಕನ್ನಡಕ್ಕೆ ಅನುವಾದ ವಿಧಾನದ ಬಗ್ಗೆ ಪ್ರದರ್ಶನ-ಸಹಿತ ವಿವರಣೆ

ಯಾರು ಭಾಗವಹಿಸಬಹುದು

ವಿಜ್ಞಾನ, ತಂತ್ರಜ್ಞಾನ ಲೇಖಕರು, ಬ್ಲಾಗಿಗರು, ಪತ್ರಕರ್ತರು, ಕನ್ನಡ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಗರು(ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯಾದ ಬಗ್ಗೆ ಆಸಕ್ತಿ ಉಳ್ಳವರು)

ದಿನಾಂಕ ಮತ್ತು ಸ್ಥಳ

ಸ್ಥಳ: ಕರ್ನಾಟಕ ರಾಜ್ಯ ವಿಜ್ಞಾನ ಪರಿಷತ್ತು
ವಿಜ್ಞಾನಭವನ,
ಕ.ರಾ.ವಿ.ಪ. ಸಭಾಂಗಣ
ನಂ.24/2 ಮತ್ತು 24/3, 21ನೇ ಮುಖ್ಯರಸ್ತೆ,
ಬನಶಂಕರಿ 2ನೇ ಹಂತಬೆಂಗಳೂರು - 560 ೦೭೦
ಟೆಲಿಫ್ಯಾಕ್ಸ್ : 080 - ೨೬೭೧೮೯೫೯
ದೂರವಾಣಿ : 080 - ೨೬೭೧೮೯೩೯
ದಿನಾಂಕ: ಮಾರ್ಚ್ ೧೭, ೨೦೧೩, ಭಾನುವಾರ (ಇಡೀ ದಿನ)

ಕಾರ್ಯಕ್ರಮ ಪಟ್ಟಿ

ಸಮಯ	ಕಾರ್ಯಸೂಚಿ	ಮಾತನಾಡುವವರು	ಟಿಪ್ಪಣಿ, ಉಪಯೋಗ
೯:೫೦ ಬೆಳಗ್ಗೆ	ನೊಂದಣಿ		ನಿಮ್ಮ ಹೆಸರು/ಇ-ಅಂಚೆ/ಮೊಬೈಲ್/ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯ ಬಳಕೆದಾರರ ಹೆಸರು ಜೊತೆಗೆ, ಭಾಗಿಯಾಗುತ್ತಿರುವುದರ ಉದ್ದೇಶವನ್ನು ಸ್ವಾಗತಕಾರರ ಬಳಿ ತಿಳಿಸಿ
೧೦:೦೦	ಸ್ವಾಗತ	ಓಂಶಿವಪ್ರಕಾಶ್/ಪವನಜ	ಕಾರ್ಯಕ್ರಮದ ಉದ್ದೇಶ ಮತ್ತು ಅದರ ಪ್ರತಿಪಲಾಪೇಕ್ಷೆಗಳ ವಿವರಣೆ
೧೦:೧೫ - ೧೧:೧೫	ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯ	ಓಂಶಿವಪ್ರಕಾಶ್	ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯ ಎಂದರೆ ಏನು? ಇದನ್ನು ಸಂಪಾದಿಸುವವರು ಯಾರು ಮತ್ತು ಏಕೆ? ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯದ ಇತರೆ ಯೋಜನೆಗಳು
೧೧:೧೫ - ೧೧:೩೦	ಚಾ
೧೧:೩೦ - ೧೨:೦೦	ಕ್ರಿಯೇಟಿವ್ ಕಾಮನ್ಸ್	ಓಂಶಿವಪ್ರಕಾಶ್	ಕ್ರಿಯೆಟೀವ್ ಕಾಮನ್ಸ್ (Creative Commons) ಬಗ್ಗೆ ವಿವರಣೆ.
೧೨:೦೦ - ೧೩:೦೦	ಪ್ರಾತ್ಯಕ್ಷಿಕೆ	ಓಂಶಿವಪ್ರಕಾಶ್/ಪವನಜ	ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯ ಸಂಪಾದಕ ಆಗುವುದು ಹೇಗೆ, ಸಂಪಾದಿಸುವುದು ಹೇಗೆ, ಇತ್ಯಾದಿ
೧೩:೦೦ - ೧೪:೦೦	ಊಟ
೧೪:೦೦ - ೧೪:೧೫	ಕರ್ನಾಟಕ ೧೦೦೦ ಯೋಜನೆ ಪರಿಚಯ	ಓಂಶಿವಪ್ರಕಾಶ್	ಕನ್ನಡ ಮತ್ತು ಕರ್ನಾಟಕಕ್ಕೆ ಸಂಬಂಧಿಸಿದ ಪ್ರಮುಖ ಲೇಖನಗಳನ್ನು ಪಟ್ಟಿ ಮಾಡಿ, ಸಮುದಾಯದ ಆಯ್ಕೆಯ ಮೇರೆಗೆ ಲೇಖನಗಳ ಸಂಪಾದನೆ, ಪರಿಷ್ಕರಣೆ ಇತ್ಯಾದಿಗಳ ಅವಶ್ಯಕತೆ, ಭಾಗವಹಿಸುವಿಕೆ
೧೪:೧೫ - ಕೊನೆಯವರೆಗೆ	ಪ್ರಯೋಗ (hands-on)	ಎಲ್ಲರೂ	ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯದಲ್ಲಿ ವಿಜ್ಞಾನಕ್ಕೆ ಸಂಬಂಧಿಸಿದ ಲೇಖನಗಳನ್ನು ಸೇರಿಸುವ ಪ್ರಯತ್ನ

ಸ್ವಯಂಸೇವಕರು

~ಓಂಶಿವಪ್ರಕಾಶ್^{/ಚರ್ಚೆ/ಕಾಣಿಕೆಗಳು} ೦೬:೩೩, ೧೧ ಮಾರ್ಚ್ ೨೦೧೩ (UTC)
Pavanaja (talk) ೦೭:೩೭, ೧೧ ಮಾರ್ಚ್ ೨೦೧೩ (UTC)
ಅಭಿರಾಮ

ಭಾಗವಹಿಸಲು ಇಚ್ಛಿಸುವವರು

ಟಿ. ಆರ್. ಅನಂತರಾಮು
ನಾಗೇಶ ಹೆಗಡೆ
ಹಾಲ್ದೊಡ್ಡೇರಿ ಸುಧೀಂದ್ರ
ಟಿ. ಜಿ. ಶ್ರೀನಿಧಿ (talk) ೦೮:೦೪, ೧೧ ಮಾರ್ಚ್ ೨೦೧೩ (UTC)
ಯಶಸ್ವಿನಿ
ಲಕ್ಷ್ಮಿ ಎಸ್.
ಕೆ. ಎಸ್. ನಟರಾಜ (ಕರಾವಿಪ)
ಎ.ಸತ್ಯನಾರಾಯಣ
ಕೊಳ್ಳೇಗಾಲ ಶರ್ಮ
ಜಿ. ವಿ. ನಿರ್ಮಲ
Akashbalakrishna (talk) ೦೯:೧೧, ೧೧ ಮಾರ್ಚ್ ೨೦೧೩ (UTC)
ನಾರಾಯಣ್‌
ವೈ. ಸಿ. ಕಮಲ
ಟಿ ಎಸ್ ಗೋಪಾಲ್
ಶ್ರೀಧರ ಬಾಣಾವರ
ಸುಮನ ದಿನಕರ್
ಟಿ ಎಸ್ ಶ್ರೀಧರ
ಡಾ| ವಸುಂಧರಾ ಭೂಪತಿ
ಗೀತಾ ಕೃಷ್ಣಮೂರ್ತಿ
ಎನ್.ಎ.ಎಂ. ಇಸ್ಮಾಯಿಲ್

ವಾಸ್ತವೋಪಮ ಭಾಗವಹಿಸುವಿಕೆ (Virtual participation)

ನೀವು ದೂರದ ಪ್ರದೇಶಗಳಿಂದ ಯೂಟ್ಯೂಬ್ ಲೈವ್ ಸ್ಟ್ರೀಮಿಂಗ್ ಮೂಲಕ ಭಾಗವಹಿಸಬಹುದು. ಹೆಚ್ಚಿನ ವಿವರಗಳನ್ನು ಈ ವಿಭಾಗದಲ್ಲಿ ಸಮ್ಮಿಲನದ ದಿನ ಪ್ರಕಟಿಸಲಾಗುವುದು. ನಿಮ್ಮ ಹೆಸರನ್ನು # ಮುಂದೆ ಸೇರಿಸಿ ಅಥವಾ ~ ಅನ್ನು ನಾಲ್ಕು ಭಾರಿ ಟೈಪಿಸಿ ಸಹಿ ಮಾಡಿ.

<ನಿಮ್ಮ ಹೆಸರು>

ಸಮ್ಮಿಲನಕ್ಕೆ ಸಹಾಯ

ಬೆಂಬಲ

ಸೆಂಟರ‍್ ಫಾರ‍್ ಇಂಟರ‍್ ನೆಟ್ ಅಂಡ್ ಸೊಸೈಟಿ, ಬೆಂಗಳೂರು
ವಿಕಿಮೀಡಿಯ ಇಂಡಿಯ ಚಾಪ್ಟರ್
ಕರ್ನಾಟಕ ರಾಜ್ಯ ವಿಜ್ಞಾನ ಪರಿಷತ್ತು

ಉಪಯುಕ್ತ ಕೊಂಡಿಗಳು

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/events/wikipedia-workshop-for-kannada-science-writers

Wikipedia Women's Workshop Bangalore 2013

praskrishna — 2013-03-13T05:09:48Z

The Wikipedia Women's Workshop Bangalore 2013 was held on March 8, 2013 at Servelots Infotech, Jayanagar in Bangalore. It was organized by Wikimedia India. Dr. U.B. Pavanaja participated in the event. The news was covered by Kannada Prabha on March 9, 2013.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/wikipedia-womens-workshop-bangalore-2013

Access to Knowledge Bulletin — February 2013

praskrishna — 2013-03-12T04:20:14Z

In the second issue of our newsletter for 2013, we are glad to introduce you to our new programme officer, Dr. U.B. Pavanaja. The A2K team consists of four members based in Delhi: T. Vishnu Vardhan, Nitika Tandon, Subhashish Panigrahi and Noopur Raval, and one new team member Dr. U.B. Pavanaja who works from Bangalore office.

Wikipedians from various communities can request for outreach programs, technical bugs, logistics-merchandize and media, public relations and communications at http://bit.ly/TOcXId.

New Team Member

Dr. U.B. Pavanaja joined the A2K team as Programme Officer, India Language Initiatives on March 4, 2013. Dr. Pavanaja holds a Master’s degree from Mysore University and Ph.D. from Mumbai University. He was a scientist at Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Mumbai, for about 15 years. He is one of the earliest editors of Kannada Wikipedia. He has to his credit many firsts, viz., first Kannada website, first Kannada online magazine, first Indian language (Kannada) website to receive Golden Web Award, first Indian language (Kannada) editor for Palm OS, first Indian language (Kannada) editor for WinCE device (HP Jornado 720), first Indian language version (Kannada) of universally popular Logo (programming language for children) software, etc. His Kannada logo won the Manthan Award for the year 2006. He was a member of the technical advisory committee setup by the Govt. of Karnataka for Standardization of Kannada on Computers (2000). He is also a member of the Kannada Software Committee of Govt. of Karnataka (2008-current).

Events Participated In

GNUnify 2013 (organized by Pune Linux/Unix User Group and Symbiosis Institute of Computer Studies & Research, Pune, February 15 – 17, 2013). Subhashish Panigrahi participated in the event.

Creative Commons comes to India (co-organized by Pune Linux/Unix User Group and Symbiosis Institute of Computer Studies & Research in Pune, February 15, 2013, and CIS the Wikimedia India Chapter, Chitrakala Parishad, Bangalore, February 25, 2013).The Access to Knowledge team participated in the CC meetings organized in Bangalore.

Fifty-fourth Bangalore Wikimedia Meet-up at IIM, Bangalore (organized by Radhakrishna Arvapally, SIG (Special Interest Group) Chair, Bangalore (a part of the Wikimedia India Chapter) with support from Solutions IQ, Wikimedia India Chapter and CIS, Indian Institute of Management, February 25, 2013). Sudhwana Jogalekar (President, Wikimedia India) spoke on Wikimedia Projects. T. Vishnu Vardhan (Programme Director, A2K, CIS) gave a talk on 'Accessibility to Knowledge'. Joe Justice (Founder WikiSpeed) and Vibhu Srinivasan gave a presentation of WikiSpeed Car project. Chief Guest K.S. Viswanath (Vice President, Industry Initiatives, NASSCOM) gave the welcome address. Noopur Raval participated in the event.

Knowledge Sharing through GLAM at Bangalore (organized by Wikimedia India and Creative Commons, Karnataka Chitrakala Parishad, Kumara Krupa Road, Bangalore, February 25, 2013). Dr. U.B. Pavanaja, Nitika Tandon and Subhashish Panigrahi participated in the event. CIS supported the event.

Education Program

Odia Wikipedia Community Brings Wikipedia Education Program to IIMC, Dhenkanal (by Subhashish Panigrahi, February 28, 2013).

Event Reports

CIS organised one Wiki workshop in the month of February 2013, and also brings you the report from an event organised in the month of January:

Celebrating Odia Wikipedia's Ninth Anniversary (organized by the Odia Wiki Community with support from CIS and Academy for Media Learning, January 29, 2013, Bhubaneswar). Few glimpses of the event are available as an audio podcast.
Digital Literacy Workshop at Department of Arts, Delhi University (by Nitika Tandon, February 5, 2013).

Media Coverage

ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆର ନ‌ବମ ଜନ୍ମତିଥି ଅବସରରେ କର୍ମଶାଳା: ଇମିଡ଼ିଆରେ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଭାଷାର ପ୍ର‌ୟୋଗ (Odishan.com, February 4, 2013).
ସମ୍ବାଦ: ଲିପି ବ୍ୟାକରଣ ଓ ମାନକ ଭାଷାର ପ୍ରୟୋଗ ଜରୁରୀ. (Sambad, February, 2013).
Odisha: Workshop organized on 9th Anniversary of Odia language: Application of Odia language in e-media (e India Bureau, March 2, 2013).
Odia Wikipedia’s 9th anniversary (fullOrissa News, February 13, 2013).
Odisha: Workshop organized on 9th Anniversary of Odia language: Application of Odia language in e-media (India Education Diary.com, March 2, 2013). Subhashish Panigrahi is quoted.
Odia language workshop organized on 9th Anniversary of Odia Wikipedia: Application of Odia language in e-media (Odishaviews.com, February 5, 2013). Subhashish Panigrahi is quoted.

Ongoing Events

Wikipedia Workshop @ BITS Goa (BITS Pilani K K Birla Goa Campus, March 7, 2013, 5.30 p.m. to 8.00 p.m.).
A Wikipedia Editing Workshop in Goa (Nirmala Institute of Education, Goa, March 8, 2013, 3 p.m. to 5 p.m.).

Announcement

Sanskrit Wikiquote — Now Available!: The Access to Knowledge team at CIS is happy to announce the availability of Sanskrit Wikiquote. Shiju Alex, an ex-team member played an active role in bringing this out. For more info see http://bit.ly/Y9OY9R.

About CIS

CIS was registered as a society in Bangalore in 2008. As an independent, non-profit research organisation, it runs different policy research programmes such as Accessibility, Access to Knowledge, Openness, Internet Governance, and Telecom. The policy research programmes have resulted in outputs such as the e-Accessibility Policy Handbook for Persons with Disabilities with ITU and G3ict, and Digital Alternatives with a Cause?, Thinkathon Position Papers and the Digital Natives with a Cause? Report with Hivos, etc. We have conducted policy research for the Ministry of Communications & Information Technology, Ministry of Human Resource Development, Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, etc., on WIPO Treaties, Copyright Bill, NIA Bill, etc.

CIS is accredited as an observer at WIPO. CIS staff participates in the Standing Committee for Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR) meetings regularly held in Geneva, and participate in the discussions and comments on them from a public interest perspective. Our Policy Director, Nirmita Narasimhan won the National Award for Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities from the Government of India and also received the NIVH Excellence Award.

Follow us elsewhere

Get short, timely messages from us on Twitter
Join the CIS group on Facebook
Visit us at http://cis-india.org

Support Us

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

Request for Collaboration

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

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

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

Wikipedia at Avenir

praskrishna — 2013-03-11T04:08:23Z

A 4 hours Wikipedia event at Avenir, 2013 is being held at Netaji Subhash Engineering College, Kolkata, West Bengal on 11th March 2013. The Centre for Internet and Society is supporting this event.

Read the event page on Wikipedia

Basic Agenda

1 hour Wikpedia edit-a-thon Workshop with Kolkata based Wikipedians.
3 hours long MediaWiki Workshop on Wikipedia-Gadgets and UserScripts.

Edit-a-thon

A 2 hours long Wikipedia editing workshop with Kolkata based Wikipedians.

Why an Edit-a-thon

It helps build the encyclopedia
It builds relationships in the community
It can help new Wikipedians to contribute
It's fun :)

Pre-requisites

Bring your own laptops if possible, we will be creating things!

What will you have learnt at the end of it?

Along with the idea of how to create and edit articles in Wikipedia, you will get to know about Wikipedia, about setting knowledge free, about all those awesome things, that make us believe in this huge repository of knowledge.

Articles Planned

Lascar War Memorial, Calcutta (Kolkata)

Facilitators

MediaWiki Workshop

3 hours long MediaWiki Workshop on Wikipedia-Gadgets and UserScripts with Developers from Wikimedia.

Goal

The Wikipedia community needs small bits of web tech that make the site better for lots of users. We'll take people who know wiki stuff and also a little programming stuff, and have them be able to write code for Wikipedia.

Pre-requisites

Please bring your laptops! This is a hands on session, and you'll be creating things!

Basic grasp of Javascript, CSS
An account on Wikipedia
A modern browser (preferably Chrome, but Firefox with Firebug will also do)

What will you have learnt at the end of it?

Understanding how user scripts work
Be able to use the MediaWiki API appropriately
Improve your own wiki experience / experience for your language wikipedia by writing scripts

Lesson Plan

Environment (JS, Dev Toolbar, Common.js, importScript)

Facilitators

Yuvi Panda

Register Yourselves!

Folks who are interested to join us, are requested to fill up the form and register themselves for the event. We shall send you an invitation via email!

Harsh Kothari

Data (API, API Sandbox, actions)
Accessing Data from the Environment (AJAX concepts, mw.API, mw.loader.using)

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/wikipedia-at-avenir

A Wikipedia Editing Workshop in Goa

praskrishna — 2013-03-05T09:10:24Z

On the occasion of International Women's Day, the Access to Knowledge team from the Centre for Internet & Society is organizing a wikipedia editing workshop on March 8, 2013 at Nirmala Institute of Education, from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m., followed by an offline and online editathon.

The online editathon is a month-long affair, which will be held every weekend starting with the weekend after March 8. The goal of the month-long event is to encourage more women to contribute to Wikipedia and increase representation of articles related to women in Wikipedia.

The event aims at creating new articles, expanding the existing stubs and translating English articles to various Indian languages. Members are requested to start edithons in regional language Wikipedias.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/events/wikipedia-editing-workshop-in-goa

Wikipedia Workshop @ BITS Goa

praskrishna — 2013-03-05T08:29:13Z

The Access to Knowledge team at the Centre for Internet & Society is organising a workshop at BITS Pilani KK Birla Goa Campus on March 7, 2013, from 5.30 p.m. to 8.00 p.m.

The workshop aims to spread awareness about Wikipedia, who edits Wikipedia and how to edit Wikipedia. Some of you might be curious to learn more about Wikipedia and contribute to this pool of knowledge in your own special ways. We'd like to encourage such students and provide them all the information and support they need. Several colleges and universities across the world have already successfully participated in similar Wikipedia workshops.

Below are some more details about the Wikipedia session:

Purpose:

Understand what is Wikipedia
Explore how Wikipedia works
Learn how they can contribute (i.e., writing) to Wikipedia
Discover what they (students / faculty / institutes) can gain by editing

Logistics:

A room big enough to accommodate all the students comfortably
If possible, laptops or computers for everyone
Stable internet connection
Projector facility

Duration:

2-3 hour workshop

Participants

Maximum 40-50
Students, faculty & staff
Please do convey to everyone that it is totally voluntary and should not be in lieu of attendance, etc.

Our experience has shown that Wikipedia for students (and, indeed faculty) is invaluable in supporting better writing skills, stronger research abilities, richer critical thinking, improved collaboration as well as providing a massive global audience to students (which drives academic excellence).

Feel free to get in touch with Nitika Tandon (nitika@cis-india.org) if you have any queries.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/events/wikipedia-workshop-bits-goa

Foreign Funding of NGOs

praskrishna — 2013-03-04T23:52:31Z

Should FDI in India’s thinktank sector worry us? It is a debate long overdue.

This article by Prashant Reddy was published in the March issue of Open Magazine.

In 1976, at the height of the Emergency imposed by Indira Gandhi, India’s Parliament enacted a piece of legislation called the Foreign Regulation Contribution Act. It prohibited political parties and ‘organisations of a political nature’, civil servants and judges, as also correspondents, columnists and editors/owners of registered newspapers and news broadcasting organisations— and even cartoonists—from receiving foreign contributions.

The very fact that the Act makes a specific reference to cartoonists should be hint enough of the establishment’s paranoia vis-à-vis the ‘invisible hand’ of foreign powers back then. During a Rajya Sabha debate on the proposed bill on 9 March 1976, the term ‘CIA’ (Central Intelligence Agency) was mentioned at least 30 times by different legislators, while ‘Lockheed Martin’ (a military aerospace corporation) came up at least six times in the context of alleged instances of Americans pumping dollars into governments worldwide to buy influence during the Cold War.

The sentiment of the times was captured by the following statement made during that debate by Khurshid Alam Khan, father of India’s present Minister for External Affairs: “The CIA’s doings all over the world have very clearly indicated as to what could be done by foreign money and foreign interference.”

In 2010, a different parliament, with opposition members who had not been imprisoned like those in 1976, unanimously voted to update the law by passing the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA). In fact, the Parliamentary Standing Committee that examined the bill was headed by the BJP’s Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj, and it had no major objections.

This time round, there was no talk of the CIA or Lockheed Martin. Instead, concern was focused on the increasingly influential role of Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) as institutions of civil society in India. The term ‘NGO’ found at least 40 mentions during the Rajya Sabha debate on the 2010 bill. The main concern of the Upper House appeared to be a lack of transparency among NGOs receiving foreign contributions. Hence the calls to strengthen the monitoring regime, although several MPs expressed worry that the new law would give the Centre too much discretionary power to crack down on dissenting NGOs.

Worries about the 2010 Act’s overreach were validated last year when the Government used it to clamp down on NGOs involved in anti-corruption and anti-nuclear protests. As part of that exercise, at least four NGOs were booked under the FCRA for allegedly diverting foreign funds to aid the organisation of protests against the Koodankulam nuclear power plant in Tamil Nadu. Their bank accounts were frozen. The protests, however, did not end.

Perhaps the most ironic use of the FCRA was when the Ministry of Home Affairs reportedly held back potential funding from the US-based Ford Foundation for the Mumbai-based Institute for Policy Research Studies (IPRS), a thinktank that runs Parliamentary Research Service (PRS).

Incubated at the Centre for Policy Research (CPR), a Delhi-based thinktank, PRS was spun off and institutionalised as IPRS in 2010 as a Section 25 non-profit company with a registered office in Mumbai. The main aim of PRS was to provide non-partisan legislative research services to parliamentarians, most of whom are starved of resources to conduct independent research required to hold the Executive accountable in Parliament. The service’s popularity among MPs was obvious from the fact that several of them reportedly made individual representations to the Home Ministry against blocking foreign funds for its parent institute.

The tragedy of why Parliament does not have a public-funded service like PRS is a debate for another day, but choking the IPRS of foreign funds raises a question of hypocrisy since the Central Government routinely collaborates with a wide range of civil society thinktanks that receive funds from the West.

Let’s start with the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER). According to its filings with the MHA, accessible on the FCRA website (http://mha.nic.in/fcra.htm), ICRIER has received over Rs 11.5 crore in foreign donations from a range of international institutions such as the Asian Development Bank, World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF) and Sasakawa Peace Foundation between 2007 and 2012. This council, currently headed by Dr Isher Judge Ahluwalia, wife of Planning Commission Vice-chairperson Dr Montek Singh Ahluwalia, appears to have a cosy relationship with the present establishment. When the Government was in a fix over the contentious General Anti- Avoidance Rules (GAAR) of taxation, for example, it delegated the task of ironing out its problems to a four-member committee headed by Dr Parthasarathi Shome, a well-known economic policy expert at ICRIER. There are several other projects on which the Council’s faculty collaborates closely with the Government of India.

That thinktanks are well networked goes without saying. In fact, ICRIER and PRS were involved in quite a controversy during last year’s Parliament vote on Foreign Direct Investment in India’s multi-brand retail sector. As reported by India Today, (‘Foreign Direct Instruction for our MPs?’ 6 December 2012), IPRS had organised a ‘close-door’ meeting at Delhi’s Constitution Club the day before the vote, where MPs were briefed on the benefits of FDI by Professor Arpita Mukherjee of ICRIER. Some MPs had publicly labelled this a ‘lobbying’ effort.

Another example of close collaboration between the Centre and a thinktank that gets significant foreign funding is the one between the Government and the CPR, headed by Dr Pratap Bhanu Mehta. Between 2007 and 2012, according to its filings with the MHA, this thinktank received foreign funds of over Rs 40.8 crore from a range of donors such as the Ford Foundation, Google Foundation, International Development Research Centre, Economic and Social Research Council, Hewlett Foundation and IKEA Social Initiative.

Environmental policy is another area in which foreign-funded thinktanks have a significant impact. The Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), headed by Sunita Narain with a governing board that has Ela Bhatt, BG Verghese, Dr MS Swaminathan and Dr NC Saxena among others, has received over Rs 67.7 crore in foreign funds between 2006 and 2012. The CSE’s main donors, according to FCRA records, include the Denmark- based Dan Church Aid, Germany-based Evangelischer Entwicklungsdienst EV, Heinrich Boll Foundation and the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency. Other donors include the Commission of European Communities and Government of India.

Going by the media coverage that CSE receives, it is safe to say that this thinktank has a profound influence on India’s environmental policy. An indication of its ties with the Government is the fact that the two had their own ‘side-event’ at the recently concluded Doha talks on climate change.

The other green thinktank with generous foreign contributions that works closely with the Government is The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI). Consider this: the International Bioenergy Summit of 2012 held in New Delhi was organised by TERI and sponsored by the Department of Biotechnology (DBT). According to its FCRA filings, TERI, with a staff of over 900, has received about Rs 155.9 crore between 2006 and 2012 from a vast variety of donors.

In the field of health policy, one of the most influential thinktanks is the Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI). Since it was founded in 2006, it has received a total of Rs 219 crore in funds, its biggest foreign donor being the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and biggest Indian donor being the Government of India. Other foreign donors, according to FCRA filings, include the National Institutes of Health (of the US government), Welcome Trust, International Development Research Centre and MacArthur Foundation.

A public-private initiative, the PHFI is expected to shape India’s approach to public health policy over the next decade. An example of its influence on India’s health policy is the fact that its secretariat has been thanked and praised in a report of the High Level Expert Group constituted by the Planning Commission to frame a new policy on ‘universal health coverage’ for all Indians.

On matters of internet policy, the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), a Bangalore-based thinktank focused on internet governance and intellectual property issues, has been a member of some key government committees, like the one under Justice AP Shah to study privacy laws in India. The CIS also receives foreign funding. According to its website, it has received over Rs 8.3 crore in funds, a significant portion of it from foreign donors like the UK-based Kusuma Trust, which was founded by Anurag Dikshit, an Indian businessman who made a fortune selling his stake in a popular online gambling website. He eventually donated most of his wealth to the Kusuma Trust, which funds various charities across the world.

In the human rights space, there is the famous Lawyers Collective, which, apart from its human rights advocacy, also provides legal aid to members of disadvantaged communities. Although this collective does not appear to work all that closely with the Government, it is interesting to note that it was founded by Indira Jaising, who is currently one of the Centre’s Additional Solicitor Generals. Since 2006, according to its FCRA filings, the organisation has received around Rs 21.8 crore in foreign funds from the Ford, Levi Strauss and Open Society foundations and from the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids, Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, among others.

Another thinktank that deserves a mention is the Centre for Civil Society (CCS), which was founded by Dr Parth J Shah and has a ‘Board of Scholars’ with Isher Judge Ahluwalia, Jagdish Bhagwati, Lord Meghnad Desai and Swaminathan Anklesaria Aiyar, among others, as members. While it is not clear from its website whether it works closely with the Government, it was ranked 51st in a recent global survey of thinktanks by University of Pennsylvania. According to a CCS press release, these rankings were ‘based on not just our research and analysis, but also on our engagement with policy makers and ability to influence policy decisions’. The CCS’s rank was quite a surprise, given its modest resources. According to its FCRA filings, between 2006 and 2011, it received about Rs 6.2 crore from foreign donors such as the Atlas Economic Research Foundation, John Templeton Foundation and International Policy Network. As per its audited accounts, available on its website, donations from Indian donors were equally modest.

The above examples demonstrate the influence of foreign funded thinktanks on almost every major aspect of Indian policy today, be it economic or environmental, related to public health or internet governance.

Is this good or bad for India as a country? Given that most sectors of the economy are now open to foreign investment, does it make sense to regulate and restrict foreign funds for such thinktanks under laws like the FCRA?

The answer depends on what Indian society expects of them. Do we expect them to be completely independent of donors in their views? Would an organisation like the CSE still get foreign funds from European donors if it were to readily welcome genetically modified (GM) food in India? In such circumstances, how independent should we expect these thinktanks to be in the arena of policy?

Absolute objectivity—or at a least public perception of it—is an absolute myth. No matter who funds a thinktank, be it foreigners or Indians, it is impossible to be seen as such. The more pressing issue is of transparency. Are Indian policymakers aware of the details of foreign funds received by these thinktanks?

Take, for example, a recent Parliamentary Standing Committee report that expressed serious reservations about GM food. The Committee repeatedly quotes with approval the deposition of Dr Vandana Shiva against GM food. A little-known fact about Dr Shiva is that her organisation, Navdanya, according to its FCRA filings, has received a total of Rs 16.7 crore between 2006 and 2012 in foreign donations from mainly European organisations (some of which also contribute to the CSE) like Bread for the World, Diakonie Emergency Aid, Hivos Foundation, Evangelischer Entwicklungsdienst EV, RSF Innovations in Social Finance, and even from the European Union itself.

Would a Parliamentary Standing Committee headed by an MP of the CPM, a party that is always suspicious of the ‘foreign hand’, show the same deference to Dr Shiva’s views if its members knew of Navdanya’s European donors, several of which are also Christian churches?

In an op-ed article in The Indian Express (‘Do not disagree’, 29 February 2012), Dr Pratap Bhanu Mehta while criticising the FCRA, states, ‘Of course, NGOs should be transparent and accountable in terms of their sources of funding.’ Yet, the CPR, of which Dr Mehta is president, only discloses the names of its donors in its annual report, and that too without revealing the amounts received from each. Similarly, Navdanya offers no information on either of its websites, Indian and Italian (navdanyainternational.it), on any of its funding. Other thinktanks like the PHFI and CIS offer a more detailed breakup of their different sources of funding, while some like the CSE and CCS provide only a roll of donor names and a figure of cumulative funding with no breakup of individual contributions. So, while these thinktanks are forced to disclose their foreign funding sources to the MHA under the FCRA, why do they not volunteer exhaustive information on their own websites?

An amusing facet of this is that the Central Government and Corporate India are more transparent (even if forced to be) than these civil society institutions, thanks to the Right to Information Act, 2005, and the extensive disclosure requirements under the Companies Act, 1956. Of companies in particular, information is accessible over the internet on the MCA21 website of the Ministry of Corporate Affairs. This contrast is amusing because some of these thinktanks never tire of demanding transparency of the State and corporate sector.

For several thinktanks, it is often hard to figure out something as basic as the nature of the legal entity through which they conduct their activities. Are they societies, associations or trusts? More pertinently, why is the Government not pushing for a stricter transparency regime? A major stumbling block may be the fact that these thinktanks are set up under state laws and it is difficult for the Central Government to coordinate a nationwide transparency regime. However, given that most are beneficiaries of income tax exemptions, it may be possible for the Centre to use the Income Tax Act to demand comprehensive disclosures. Since they enjoy tax benefits, they might also qualify as ‘public authorities’ under the Right To Information Act, 2005.

Another reason that disclosure of funding is important is to inform the analysis of people who usually see NGOs as selfless entities dedicated to nothing but a higher cause. While this may be true of some NGOs, many leaders of these set-ups have personal stakes in ensuring certain outcomes. After all, future donor grants often depend on sustaining one’s influence in the policy space. Many of the institutions described in this article have been regular recipients of funds from the same sources year after year.

Another question is the volume of funds coming in and where it will leave India’s public institutions that were originally meant to aid policymaking with unbiased intellectual inputs. How are cash-strapped Indian universities to compete with these well-funded thinktanks?

Government-run institutions of higher learning are supposed to have an inbuilt guarantee of academic independence, but would their scholarly voices be drowned out by those backed by bigger resources?

Also, given the frequency with which a few foreign funders appear on donor lists, is it time to worry about their influence on Indian policies? After all, generous funding lets the faculty of these thinktanks jetset around the world to attend conferences, organise seminars in India and network with officials at a level that most public universities cannot afford. How does this impact our civil society discourse? Should Parliament limit the amount that a single foreign entity can donate, or are we better off sticking to a regulatory regime that only insists on a set of disclosure norms?

On a concluding note, let us not forget that a large part of the credit for the RTI Act of 2005—the country’s most empowering piece of legislation since the Constitution of 1950—goes to the advocacy efforts of the Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS), a farmers group in Rajasthan that does not accept institutional funding from either India or overseas. Bank interest on its corpus and donations by individuals are the MKSS’s only sources of funding. Together, the two gave it Rs 30 lakh for the financial year 2010-11, details of which are available on its website.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/openmagazine-article-business-prashant-reddy-march-2-2013-foreign-funding-of-ngos

Creative Commons comes to India

subha — 2013-07-17T06:49:55Z

Creative Commons team visited four Indian cities to spread the word about CC free licenses and CC affiliate program. Wikimedia India chapter was approached to join hands with Creative Commons for research and community building.

Jessica Coates, Global Network Manager and Jane Hornibrook, Regional Coordinator, Asia-Pacific, Creative Commons recently visited India. The Access to Knowledge team from the Centre for Internet and Society got a chance to join them for three of their meetings: one in Pune and two in Bengaluru.

Ceative Commons is a not-for-profit organization and the base for the free licenses. More than 400 million work in the world are in Creative Commons license as of today. The foundation is looking to expand its wing of voluntary affiliates in India who would support for more outreach, community building and research. "We are excited to see the wikipedians in India and their passion to contribute to Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects. Wikimedia Commons is the largest Creative Commons license use and we are looking for joining hands with the Indian wikipedians and the Wikimedia India chapter", says Jessica Coats.


Jessica Coates and Jane Hornibrook from Creative Commons at Centre of Internet and Society, Bengaluru

Jane Hornibook, who looks after Creative Common's operation in Asia-Pacific said, "Creative Commons has many users in India. It would be exciting for us to collaborate with more academicians, wikipedians and organizations like Wikimedia India Chapter and CIS for peer research and outreach and grow our affiliate network in India.

Video

Note: This blog post is a combination of events organized in Pune by Pune Linux/Unix User Group and Symbiosis Institute of Computer Studies & Research, and CIS and the Wikimedia India Chapter in Bangalore.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/creative-commons-comes-to-india

Fifty-fourth Bangalore Wikimedia Meet-up at IIM, Bangalore

noopur — 2013-03-06T09:09:03Z

The 54th Wikimedia meet-up in Bangalore was held at the Indian Institute of Management on February 25, 2013. The event was planned and organized by Radhakrishna Arvapally, SIG (Special Interest Group) Chair, Bangalore (a part of the Wikimedia India Chapter) with support from Solutions IQ, Wikimedia India Chapter and CIS.

The proposed agenda was as follows: an introduction to Wikimedia projects by Sudhanwa Jogalekar, President of Wikimedia India Chapter, a talk on accessibility and knowledge by T. Vishnu Vardhan, Programme Director, Access to Knowledge, followed by a session on WikiSpeed – extreme manufacturing of high speed cars by Joe Justice and Vibhu Srinivasan from Solutions IQ. Mr K S Viswanathan, Vice President (NASSCOM) was the chief guest. He spoke to the participants about the importance of developing a digital hub of free knowledge.

Sudhanwa gave a brief introduction to the world of Wikimedia including projects like Wikipedia, Wiktionary, Incubator, MediaWiki and more. He also explained how one could contribute to each of these projects. He mentioned two upcoming projects – Wikivoyage and Wikidata. He answered a few questions after his session and encouraged participants to become members of the Wikimedia India Chapter and get involved in Wikimedia activities in India. Here are the details to become a member.

Vishnu’s talk was about understanding why Wikipedia and what is the importance of enabling access to knowledge resources. He took the example of older technologies and what propelled their invention. In the interactive session, we explored our relationship with knowledge resources, how happy we are with the knowledge we get and how we can make the access better and wider. The discussion also touched upon knowledge resources in Indian languages in the digital domain and the problems associated with them. Participants noted some challenges like affordability, awareness, fonts, low visibility in search etc. They also agreed that given the multilingualism, machine translations are not the solution to knowledge gaps in Indian languages in the digital domain. Another question was about awareness versus access to existing knowledge.

We also discussed how audio technologies could help the cause of Indian languages in education. Radhakrishna coordinated the sessions and answered questions related to content on Wikipedia, authenticity of knowledge on Wikipedia.


Participants seen in the classroom during the Wiki meetup at IIM, Bangalore

In the next session, Joe Justice and Vibhu Srinivasan spoke about WikiSpeed cars, a DIY project to make high-speed cars by harnessing work methods from the Open Source movement. Joe spoke of Kanban and agile engineering. He also explained how the car uses Arduino circuit boards and this project is being scaled so that people across the world can make functional cars collaboratively. He also invited the participants to WikiSpeed event in Bangalore.

Mr Viswanathan then spoke about TEQIP (Technical education and Skill Development Cycle), a program devised to ensure industry exposure and experience to students in technical fields. He also mentioned how the curriculum would be freely available online for all to use. Radhakrishna made the concluding remarks and thanked all the participants and guests for attending.

The meetup ended with questions and more interaction. Details of upcoming Wikimedia meetups in Bangalore can be found here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/fifty-fourth-bangalore-wikimedia-meetup

FOSS, Wikimedia and Mozilla Under One Roof at GNUnify 2013, Pune

subha — 2013-07-17T06:55:43Z

GNUnify 2013 organized in the campus in Pune from February 15 to 17, 2013. The event was organized by Pune Linux/Unix User Group (PLUG) and Symbiosis Institute of Computer Studies & Research (SICSR). Subhashish Panigrahi reports the outcomes in this blog post.

GNUnify is an annual gathering consisting of Free and Open Source software workshops, talks, seminars and BOFs (Birds of a feather). This was hosted by the Pune Linux User Group and the Symbiosis Institute of Computer Studies and Research in Pune, India.

Day 1: February 15, 2013
The first day of the event had many parallel tracks including talks on KDE, Firefox OS, FUEL Project, Wikimedia Localization, OpenSSL, Discussions on Creative Commons, OpenStack and few technical workshops.

Day 2: February 16, 2013
Few of the full day events includes several talks and discussions about Mozilla and Firefox, Internationalization, Localization and Indic language input method related talks and workshops by the Wikimedia Foundation Engineering team (More details on mediawiki.org), Drupal and workshop and talks on Python. Wikipedians, translators from various languages, A2K team members Vishnu Vardhan and Subhashish had an open conversation with the Wikimedia Foundation Engineering team.

Day 3: February 17, 2013
The final day of GNUnify had 3 major parallel day long events; Mozilla India community meetup, Wikipedia translation sprint and Wikipedia gadget workshop. At the end of all the events participants gathered for a group photo and socialized.

Videos

Podcasts

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/foss-wikimedia-under-one-roof-gnunify

Odia Wikipedia Community Brings Wikipedia Education Program to IIMC, Dhenkanal

subha — 2013-08-23T14:01:17Z

The Odia Wikipedia community collaborated with the Indian Institute of Mass Communication, Dhenkanal and hosted a pilot Odia Wikipedia Education Program. The program began in November 2012 and got over by January 2013. Sixteen student wikipedians signed up and took part in editing more than a dozen articles on Odia Wikipedia.

Odia Wikimedia community is primarily active in three major cities: Bhubaneswar, Cuttack and Nalconagar. There was a sustained growth in the community during August-October 2012 which inspired the comunity to initiate a long term program like Wikipedia Education Program. Mrutyunjaya Kar from Nalconagar community reached out to several schools in Nalconagar and Phulbani to find a potential institute for such a program. Subhashish from Access To Knowledge team of CIS supported the community for setting up a meeting with Prof. Mrinal Chatterjee and few other faculty members of Indian Institute of Mass Communication, Dhenkanal followed by a workshop for the students.

More than 45 students from both Odia and English department took part for the first introductory workshop. A program page was created on Odia Wikipedia for the detailed plan and discussion. 16 out of 45 students showed their interest to take part in the program and signed up on the project page. Teaching assistants Bhagaban and Sucharita supported the students in assessing and suggesting articles. A follow up session was organized in December by the Nalconagar Wiki-Community to teach the students about the typing and basic Wikipedia editing. Students continued to edit their chosen articles. Though initially the program was planned to be run for 3-4 months because of the course structure and exam announcement students requested for the closure of it.

The articles were assessed and wiki-fied by the wikipedians. On January, 26 a celebratory event was organized for the student-wikipedians. Prof. Chatterjee addressed the students about the benefits of contributing to Wikipedia in their mother tongue Odia. Subhashish along with fellow Wikipedians Dr. Subas Rout, Mrutyunjaya Kar, Srikant Kedia and Manoranjan Behera took part in a discussion about “What students can gain by contributing to Odia Wikipedia”.

Contribution details:

Number of student participants for introductory session: 45

Number of students took part in the Wikipedia workshop: 16
Number of students contributed: 12

Number of mentor wikipedians: 4

Number of articles edited: 12

Other details:

More details on Project page.

Photos, meeting podcasts and videos: http://bit.ly/YymQkn

Podcast of discussion among Odia Wikipedians with Prof. Mrinal Chatterjee and Subhashish Panigrahi

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/odia-wikipedia-education-program-iimc-dhenkanal

Open DataCamp - 2013

praskrishna — 2013-02-28T11:08:14Z

A two day unconference for people working with data from various sectors to come together and share their projects and idea is being organized by Open Data Camp on March 2 and 3, 2013 at Dharmaram Vidya Kshetram (inside Christ University Campus), Dairy Circle in Bangalore.

Read the original published by Open Data Camp. Sunil Abraham is a panelist.

Sessions

Day 1

9:00am - 10:00am	Registration
10:00am - 10:15am	Introduction to OpenDataCamp Team DataMeet
10:15am - 11.00am	Visualizing Politics By S Anand
11.00pm - 11.15pm	Tea
11:15am - 12.15am	Why Open Data is Good for Gov and Citizens alike Panel: Alka Mishra (NIC Data.Gov.In), Meera K (CitizenMatters) and Shekhar Krishan, PhD Student, (STS at MIT) Moderated by - Nisha Thompson
12:15pm - 01.00pm	Ignite talks. 6 of them 5 minutes each. OpenBangalore by Thejesh GN The School of Data is open for admissions By Maya Indira Ganesh Open Mapping for the Development of a Maoist-affected district in Orissa By Kuldip Gyaneswar Aggregate and Visualize your data with Ushahidi in 15 minutes By Praveen Selvasekaran DIY Weather Station By Samuel Rajkumar
01:00pm - 02.00pm	Lunch Break

	Room 034	Room 032	Room 117	Room 118	Room 119
2:00pm - 2:40pm	Public Problem Solving using Data: Lessons from the Daksh Survey. By Meera K and Rajesh Kasturirangan	SSLC data Infographics - Experiences By Sajjad Anwar	Examining Data Practices: the case of Cyberabad's Publicly Accesseble Crime Map By Siddharth Hande, Fellow, Hyderabad Urban Lab Anant Maringanti, Executive Director, Hyderabad Urban Lab	Leveraging UIDAI data for public benefit Tulika Khunger	Analyzing Voice Data of Community Based Organizations By Piyush Aggarwal
2:40pm - 3:20pm	Cont: Public Problem Solving using Data: Lessons from the Daksh Survey. By Meera K and Rajesh Kasturirangan	From Data to Evidence: How Activists Use Data in their Campaigns By Maya Indira Ganesh, Tactical Technology Collective	Quality of Gov Data By Amrtha Kasturi Rangan	Open Financial Data: Following the World Bank's money By Ankur Nagar	OpenData for Non-Profits! By Adethya Sudarsanan
3:20pm - 4:00pm	Telling Stories with Data By Amit Kapoor	Know Your Climate: Going Open with Climate Data - Part 2 Pavan Srinath	Adopt Open Governance By Sridhar Pabbisetty	Big Data and Hadoop in Indian Context By Mohan Kumar	Participatory community mapping as a tool for cumulative impact assessments By Shashank Srinivasan
4.00pm - 4.30pm	Tea
4:30pm - 5:30pm	Panel Discussion: What has Open Data got to with UIDAI? Panelists - Sunil Abraham, Anivar Aravind and Anant Maringanti. Moderated by - Sumandro Chattapadhyay.
5:30pm - 6:00pm	Unscheduled talks	Unscheduled talks	Unscheduled talks	Unscheduled talks	Unscheduled talks

Day 2

9:00am - 10:00am	Registration
10:00am - 10:15am	Welcome Team DataMeet
	Room 034	Room 032	Room 117	Hall
10:15am - 11:15am	Data and Maps Kaustubh Srikanth and Sajjad Anwar. Details	A gentle introduction to data cleaning from Tactical Tech's course on the School of Data By Allan Stanley and Maya Indira Ganesh, Tactical Technology Collective.	An Introduction to Apache Hadoop By Mrinal Wadhwa	Blocked for Hackathon
11:15am - 11:30am	Tea
11:30pm - 01:00pm	Cont: Data and Maps Kaustubh Srikanth and Sajjad Anwar Details	Cont: A gentle introduction to data cleaning from Tactical Tech's course on the School of Data By Allan Stanley and Maya Indira Ganesh, Tactical Technology Collective.	Cont: An Introduction to Apache Hadoop By Mrinal Wadhwa	Blocked for Hackathon
01:00pm - 02.00pm	Lunch Break
2:00pm - 4:00pm	Workshop-1	Designing a Story. How To: Look At Data and Tell A Story By Tejas Pande	Workshop-3	Blocked for Hackathon
4.00pm - 4.30pm	Feedback and Tea
4:30pm - 6:00pm	Unscheduled talks	Unscheduled talks	Unscheduled talks	Blocked for Hackathon

Contact Nisha Thompson (nisha.thompson@gmail.com)

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/open-data-camp-2013

February 2013 Bulletin

praskrishna — 2013-03-11T05:35:46Z

The Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) wishes you a great year ahead and welcomes you to the second issue of its newsletter for the year 2013. In this issue we bring you an overview of our research programs, updates of events organised by us, events we participated in, news and media coverage, and videos of some of our recent events.

Memorial

Rahul Cherian, an expert and policy activist in disability law, intellectual property and technology law passed away due to an illness while on a visit to Goa on February 7, 2013. Rahul was the founder of the Inclusive Planet Centre for Disability and Policy, and a fellow at CIS. He was also a partner at IndoJuris Law Offices in Chennai and was one of the experts who drafted the Treaty for the Visually Impaired currently being negotiated at the World Intellectual Property Organization. The Hindu (February 8, 2013), First Post (February 8, 2013), Legally India (February 7, 2013), and Bar & Bench (February 8, 2013) covered this story. Lawrence Liang wrote an obituary page, A Lightness of Spirit (The Hindu, February 9, 2013) and Nishant Shah wrote a column One For All (Indian Express, February 17, 2013).

CIS organised a memorial function for Rahul Cherian at the TERI, Southern Regional Centre in Bangalore on February 28, 2013.

Jobs
CIS invites applications for the posts of Developer (NVDA Screen Reader Project), Programme Officer (Access to Knowledge and Openness), and Programme Officer (Internet Governance). To apply send your resume to sunil@cis-india.org and pranesh@cis-india.org.

Accessibility

CIS is doing two projects in partnership with the Hans Foundation. One of this is to create a national resource kit of state-wise laws, policies and programmes on issues relating to persons with disabilities in India and another is for developing a screen reader and text-to- speech synthesizer for Indian languages. CIS is also working with the World Blind Union and many other organisations to develop a Treaty for the Visually Impaired helped by the WIPO:

National Resource Kit for Persons with Disabilities

Anandhi Viswanathan from CIS and Manojna Yeluri from the Centre for Law and Policy Research are working in this project. Draft chapters have been published. Feedback and comments are invited from readers for the chapters on Bihar and West Bengal:

The Bihar Chapter (by Manojna Yeluri, February 14, 2013): The state of Bihar is in the process of formulating a comprehensive state policy on disability. The Bihar State Policy on Disability is an extension of the National Policy for Persons with Disabilities and is currently in a draft form awaiting government approval and notification.
The West Bengal Chapter (by Anandhi Viswanathan, February 28, 2013): The state of West Bengal has issued the West Bengal Persons with Disabilities (Equal Opportunities, Protection of Rights and Full Participation) Rules, 1999 to implement the provisions under the central Persons with Disabilities (Protection of Rights, Equal Opportunities and Full Participation) Act, 1995.

Media Coverage

Indian Users’ Perspective On WIPO Negotiations On Treaty For Visually Impaired (by Catherine Saez, Intellectual Property Watch, February 16, 2013). Nirmita Narasimhan is quoted.

Access to Knowledge

The Wikimedia Foundation awarded CIS a two year grant of INR 26,000,000 to support and develop the growth of Indic language communities and projects by community collaborations and partnerships. This is being carried out by the Access to Knowledge team based in Delhi. CIS is also doing a project (Pervasive Technologies) on examining the relationship between production of pervasive technologies and intellectual property. The project researches upon the noteworthy opportunities of the new types of low cost mobile devices, content and services as available in the market.

Wikipedia

Beginning from September 1, 2012, Wikimedia Foundation awarded CIS a two-year grant of INR 26,000,000 to support and develop free knowledge in India. The A2K team consists of four members based in Delhi: T. Vishnu Vardhan, Nitika Tandon, Subhashish Panigrahi and Noopur Raval, and one new team member Dr. U.B. Pavanaja who works from Bangalore office.

New Team Member

Dr. U.B. Pavanaja joined the A2K team as Programme Officer, India Language Initiatives on February 19, 2013. Dr. Pavanaja holds a Master’s degree from Mysore University and Ph.D. from Mumbai University. He was a scientist at Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Mumbai, for about 15 years. He is one of the earliest editors of Kannada Wikipedia. He has to his credit many firsts, viz., first Kannada website, first Kannada online magazine, first Indian language (Kannada) website to receive Golden Web Award, first Indian language (Kannada) editor for Palm OS, first Indian language (Kannada) editor for WinCE device (HP Jornado 720), first Indian language version (Kannada) of universally popular Logo (programming language for children) software, etc. His Kannada logo won the Manthan Award for the year 2006. He was a member of the technical advisory committee setup by the Govt. of Karnataka for Standardization of Kannada on Computers (2000). He is also a member of the Kannada Software Committee of Govt. of Karnataka (2008-current).

Events Organised

Knowledge Sharing through GLAM at Bangalore (Karnataka Chitrakala Parishad, Kumara Krupa Road, Bangalore, February 25, 2013). Dr. U.B. Pavanaja, Subhashish Panigrahi and Nitika Tandon participated in this event.
Wikimedia Bangalore Meetup @ Indian Institute of Management (Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore (organized in partnership with Wikispeed and NASSCOM). Vishnu Vardhan spoke on the Access to Knowledge project. Noopur Raval participated in the event.

Blog Entries

Creative Commons comes to India (by Subhashish Panigrahi, February 28, 2013).
Fifty-fourth Bangalore Wikimedia Meet-up at IIM, Bangalore (by Noopur Raval, February 28, 2013).
Odia Wikipedia Community Brings Wikipedia Education Program to IIMC, Dhenkanal (by Subhashish Panigrahi, February 28, 2013).
FOSS, Wikimedia and Mozilla Under One Roof at GNUnify 2013, Pune (by Subhashish Panigrahi, February 28, 2013).

Event Reports
CIS organised one Wiki workshop in the month of February 2013. We also bring you the report from an event organised in the month of January:

Celebrating Odia Wikipedia's Ninth Anniversary (organized by the Odia Wiki Community with support from CIS and Academy for Media Learning, January 29, 2013, Bhubaneswar). Few glimpses of the event are available as audio podcasts.
Digital Literacy Workshop at Department of Arts, Delhi University (by Nitika Tandon, February 5, 2013).

Media Coverage

ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆର ନ‌ବମ ଜନ୍ମତିଥି ଅବସରରେ କର୍ମଶାଳା: ଇମିଡ଼ିଆରେ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଭାଷାର ପ୍ର‌ୟୋଗ (Odishan.com, February 4, 2013).
ସମ୍ବାଦ: ଲିପି ବ୍ୟାକରଣ ଓ ମାନକ ଭାଷାର ପ୍ରୟୋଗ ଜରୁରୀ. (Sambad, February, 2013).
Odisha: Workshop organized on 9th Anniversary of Odia language: Application of Odia language in e-media (e India Bureau, March 2, 2013).
Odia Wikipedia’s 9th anniversary (fullOrissa News, February 13, 2013).
Odisha: Workshop organized on 9th Anniversary of Odia language: Application of Odia language in e-media (India Education Diary.com, March 2, 2013). Subhashish Panigrahi is quoted.
Odia language workshop organized on 9th Anniversary of Odia Wikipedia: Application of Odia language in e-media (Odishaviews.com, February 5, 2013). Subhashish Panigrahi is quoted.

Ongoing Events

Wikipedia Workshop @ BITS Goa (BITS Pilani K K Birla Goa Campus, March 7, 2013, 5.30 p.m. to 8.00 p.m.).
A Wikipedia Editing Workshop in Goa (Nirmala Institute of Education, Goa, March 8, 2013, 3 p.m. to 5 p.m.).

Announcement

Sanskrit Wikiquote — Now Available: The Access to Knowledge team at CIS is happy to announce the availability of Sanskrit Wikiquote. Shiju Alex, an ex-team member played an active role in bringing this out. For more info see http://bit.ly/Y9OY9R.

Pervasive Technologies

Event Participated In

International Conference on Contours of Media Governance: Teaching, Disciplinarity, Methodology (organised by Jamia Millia Islamia University with support from Ford Foundation and ICSSR, Centre for Culture, Media & Governance, Jamia Millia Islamia University, New Delhi, February 25 – 27, 2013). Sunil Abraham presented preliminary findings from the Pervasive Technologies project.

Other Openness Updates

Announcements from Other Organizations

Iryna Kuchma wins the second EPT award: The Electronic Publishing Trust for Development announced the winner of its 2nd Annual Award in recognition of the effort made by individuals working in the developing and emerging countries in the furtherance of Open Access (OA) to scholarly publications. Dr. Francis Jayakanth won the inaugural award last year.

HasGeek

HasGeek creates discussion spaces for geeks and has organised conferences like the Fifth Elephant, Droidcon India 2011, Android Camp, etc. HasGeek is supported by CIS and works from the CIS office in Bengaluru.

Event Report & Video

Report of Aaron Swartz Memorial Hacknight (by Zainab Bawa, February 6, 2013). On January 19 and 20, 2013, HasGeek organized a hacknight to commemorate the life and work of Aaron Swartz. Zainab Bawa shares the developments.

Internet Governance

CIS has an agreement with Privacy International, London to facilitate the implementation of activities related to surveillance and freedom of speech and expression. We are also doing a project on examining the indicators of female economic empowerment in the IT industry in India.

Gender

Women in India’s IT Industry (by Jadine Lannon, February 27, 2013)
Women in the IT Industry: Request for Data (by Jadine Lannon, February 28, 2013).

Free Speech & Expression

Analyzing the Latest List of Blocked URLs by Department of Telecommunications (IIPM Edition) (by Snehashish Ghosh, February 14, 2013). The analysis was quoted in FirstPost.
Don’t SLAPP free speech (by Sunil Abraham with inputs from Snehashish Ghosh, Tehelka, February 3, 2013, Issue 9, Volume 10).
Freedom of Expression Gagged (by Chinmayi Arun, Hindu Business Line, February 15, 2013).

Media Coverage

Hate speech: ban or ignore? (NDTV, February 5, 2013). Pranesh Prakash, Shivam Vij, and Sanjay Rajoura gave their expert views on the impact of hate speech.
Censorship and sensibility in India (by Samanth Subramanian, February 6, 2013). Pranesh Prakash is quoted.
Online Abuse of Teen Girls in Kashmir Leads to Arrests (by Betwa Sharma, New York Times, February 8, 2013). Pranesh Prakash is quoted.
Indian net service providers too play censorship tricks (by T Ramachandran, The Hindu, February 9, 2013). Sunil Abraham is quoted.
Anonymous joins protests against Internet shutdown in Kashmir (by Indu Nandakumar, Economic Times, February 12, 2013). Sunil Abraham is quoted.
Why was the Gwalior court in such a hurry to block IIPM URLs? (by Danish Raza, FirstPost, February 19, 2013). Snehashish Ghosh’s analysis on blocked website is quoted.
Stop Press Carousel (by Arindham Mukherjee, Outlook, February 22, 2013). Sunil Abraham is quoted.
"All Indian Enterprises should Be Very Worried": Centre for Internet and Society (by Shubhra Rishi, Computer World, February 25, 2013). Pranesh Prakash is quoted.

Events Participated In

Freedom of expression online: identifying and addressing challenges and developing a shared vision and a working partnership: (organized by Wilton Park, Wiston House, Sussex, UK, February 13 – 15, 2013). Pranesh Prakash participated in the event.
9th International Asian Conference (organized by ITech Law, Bangalore, February 14 -15, 2013). Sunil Abraham was a panelist in the session on Censorship of Online Content.

Privacy

2012: Privacy Highlights in India (by Elonnai Hickok, February 12, 2013): Elonnai summarizes the top privacy moments of 2012 in India.
Surveillance Camp IV: Disproportionate State Surveillance - A Violation of Privacy (by Elonnai Hickok and Katitza Rodriguez of Electronic Frontier Foundation February 19, 2013).
BigDog is Watching You! The Sci-fi Future of Animal and Insect Drones (by Maria Xynou, February 25, 2013).

Events Organized

Analyzing the Draft Human DNA Profiling Bill 2012 (March 1, 2013, CIS, Bangalore).
Unique Identity Number (UID), National Population Register (NPR), and Governance (March 2, 2013, TERI Southern Regional Centre, Bangalore).

Event Participated In

The Omnishambles of UID, shrouded in its RTI opacity: CIS sponsored Colonel Mathew Thomas to hold a workshop at the fourth National Right to Information (RTI) organized by the National Campaign for People's Right to Information, held in Hyderabad from February 15 to 18, 2013.

Upcoming Event

DML Conference 2013 (co-organised by CIS and Digital Media & Learning Research Hub Central, Sheraton Chicago Hotel & Towers - Chicago, Illinois, March 14 – 16, 2013).

Internet Access – Knowledge Repository

CIS in partnership with the Ford Foundation was executing the telecom knowledge repository project which included producing and disseminating modules on various aspects of telecommunications including policy, regulations, infrastructure and market. However, from November 2012 there was a change in the mandate of the project. The new repository will cover the history of the internet, technologies involved, principle and values of internet access, broadband market and universal access. It will also touch upon various polices and regulations which has an impact on internet access and bodies and mechanism which are responsible for formulation policies related to internet access. The blog posts and modules will be published in a new website: www.internet-institute.in.

Upcoming Event

We are hosting an “Institute on Internet and Society” in collaboration with the Ford Foundation India, which is to be held from June 8, 2013 to June 14, 2013. Call for registration and relevant details will be announced soon on our website.

Telecom

While the potential for growth and returns exist for telecommunications in India, a range of issues need to be addressed. One aspect is more extensive rural coverage and the other is a countrywide access to broadband which is low. Both require effective and efficient use of networks and resources, including spectrum:

Newspaper Column

The Supreme Court & Spectrum Management (by Shyam Ponappa, Organizing India Blogspot, February 14, 2013, originally published in the Business Standard, February 6, 2013).

Blog Entry

Who Minds the Maxwell's Demon: Revisiting Communication Networks through the Lens of the Intermediary (by Sharath Chandra Ram, February 28, 2013).

Digital Natives

Digital Natives with a Cause? examines the changing landscape of social change and political participation in light of the role that young people play through digital and Internet technologies, in emerging information societies. Consolidating knowledge from Asia, Africa and Latin America, it builds a global network of knowledge partners who critically engage with discourse on youth, technology and social change, and look at alternative practices and ideas in the Global South:

Events Participated In

D:coding Digital Natives - Seminar with Nishant Shah (organized by HUMlab, February 26, 2013). Nishant Shah gave a talk on D:coding Digital Natives at Samhällsvetarhuset.

Video Vortex # 9 Re:assemblies of Video (organized by the Institute of Network Cultures, Post Media Lab, Moving Image Lab, Leuphana, et.al, February 28 – March 2, 2013). Nishant Shah delivered a key note at this event.

Digital Humanities

From 2012 to 2015, the Researchers At Work series is focusing on building research clusters in the field of Digital Humanities. We organised the first Habits of Living workshops in Bangalore last year. The next workshop is being held in Brown University.

Upcoming Event

Habits of Living: Networked Affects, Glocal Effects (organised by CIS and Brown University, March 21 – 23, 2013, Brown University, Rhode Island). Nishant Shah will be speaking at this event.

About CIS

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Visit us at http://cis-india.org

Support Us

Request for Collaboration

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/february-2013-bulletin

Celebrating Odia Wikipedia's Ninth Anniversary

subha — 2013-02-28T04:32:29Z

Odia Wikipedia saw its first edit on January 29, 2004. After a dormancy of many years it got revived in 2011. To commemorate the effort of many volunteer wikipedians, a celebratory event was organized on January 29, 2013 in Bhubaneswar. Subhashish Panigrahi participated in this event.

Odia Wikipedia recently has celebrated its 9 ^th anniversary. January 29 is considered to be that day when someone made a first edit on it. Communities from Bhubaneswar, Cuttack and Nalconagar joined hands to celebrate this event with a panel discussion on "Application of Odia language in e-media". The discussion was coordinated by Nilambar Rath, Director of Academy for Media Learning. The event was organized by the Odia Wiki Community with support from The Centre for Internet and Society in collaboration with Academy for Media Learning. Panelists who took part in the discussion were Prasanna Kumar Mohanty, Director of "Odia Bhasa Pratisthan", Dr. Prafulla Tripathy, Odia linguist and writer, Dr. Dhanada Mishra, Academician and Director-Academics, KMBB College of Engineering, Subhashish Panigrahi, Programme Officer, Centre for Internet and Society, Jatindra Das, Senior journalist and founder, Odisha.com and Subhransu Panda, Senior journalist, Sambad. Wikipedians, students and journalists took active part in the discussion.

To celebrate the success of Odia Wikipedia, wikipedians joined the guest to cut a “Chhenapoda” and light Deepam as an integral part of the Odia culture.

The discussion began with Nilambar Rath speaking briefly about the agenda of the meeting and about the current scenario of the use of Odia language in media especially in the web. Prasanna Kumar Mohanty spoke about how the true form of the language should be taken to public via media. He also emphasized about the need to sacrifice our conventional way of approach and adopt new technologies like Wikipedia. Many such efforts are not rewarded because of the lack of support from the government even though funding is available for such development. Odia linguist Prafulla Tripathy explained about the lack of public interest to pledge for declaring Odia as a classical language even though Odia holds the 31^st position among 6500 world languages. "The language of our personal lives, social interaction and verbal communication never gets documented. The confusion among various linguists is another obstacle to take Odia to a global level. If the script grammar is kept in focus and script and eventually the fonts are simplified then they would be easier to be used online", he expressed. Dr. Tripathy also shared his experience of his interaction with other Indian language experts at places where he worked such as on OCR (Optical character reading) software which could be a great tool to digitize many precious resources. He offered his support for helping with OCR in Odia. Few other aspects of simpler approaches of scripts discussed were glossary, Odia-English and English-Odia lexicon, spell check feature for typing and interactive e-learning which could boost the effort of the wikipedians.

Prof. Dhanada Mishra took the audience through the free and open source culture and Linux and future role of Odia Wikipedia to tackle the problems of primary education. He thanked the wikipedians for their noble effort and showed his interest in promoting it more in academics. Subhashish Panigrahi discussed about the role of Odia Wikipedia in documenting various resources in Odia Wikipedia. He brought various technical problems that common men face while typing, contributing to Wikipedia and how they could be handled. He also proposed a plan for bringing more language experts and museum curators to the community which would increase the spectrum of resource and capacity for the Odia Wikimedia community.

Jatindra Das, founder of the first online Odia newspaper Odisha.com discussed about the hurdles of using Odia Unicode and acceptance level in the society for it. Senior journalist Subhransu Panda discussed about the usage of various fonts and how adopting Unicode could bring a lot of information to the public.

Nilambar Rath, Director, Academy for Media Learning talked about the future efforts of Odia Wikipedia community. He elaborated how media could be used as an essential tool for taking Wikipedia to more people. Mrutyunjaya Kar, one of the very active Wikipedians closed the ceremony with a brief talk about the achievements, education program and impact of Odia Wikipedia in the recent past and community building plans.

There was a press meet in the afternoon. Wikipedians interacted with the media about future prospects of Odia Wikipedia and its current state.


Odia wikipedians being felicitated by the guests

Few glimpses of the event Audio Podcast

Press coverage:

ଓଡ଼ିଶାନ୍: ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆର ନବମ ଜନ୍ମତିଥି ଅବସରରେ କର୍ମଶାଳା : ଇମିଡ଼ିଆରେ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଭାଷାର ପ୍ର‌ୟୋଗ.
ସମ୍ବାଦ: ଲିପି ବ୍ୟାକରଣ ଓ ମାନକ ଭାଷାର ପ୍ରୟୋଗ ଜରୁରୀ.
eindiadiary.com:Odisha: Workshop organized on 9th Anniversary of Odia language: Application of Odia language in e-media.
Fullorissa.com: Odia Wikipedia’s 9th anniversary. Fullorissa.com
orissadiary.com:Odisha: Workshop organized on 9th Anniversary of Odia language: Application of Odia language in e-media.
Indiaeducationdiary.in:Odisha: Workshop organized on 9th Anniversary of Odia language: Application of Odia language in e-media.
Odishaviews.com:Odia language workshop organized on 9th Anniversary of Odia Wikipedia: Application of Odia language in e-media. Subhashish Panigrahi is quoted.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/celebrating-odia-wikipedias-ninth-anniversary

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Celebrating Odia Wikipedia's Ninth Anniversary