Centre for Internet and Society

Odia Wikisource workshop at New Delhi

subha — 2014-12-30T01:08:00Z

The Centre for Internet & Society's Access to Knowledge team in collaboration with "The Intellects" organized a seminar in New Delhi on December 14, 2014. Subhashish Panigrahi gave a talk.

The seminar was on the Relevance of Bhagabat Tungi in the evolution of Odia language from Buddha era to digital age. After attending the event one of the participants Pankajmala Sarangi took great interest in Odia Wikisource which was then an incubator project. Since then she has digitized three books and is now proofreading Odia Bhagabata, an Odia language classic from the 14th century. Having the highest number of edits in Odia Wikisource, Ms. Sarangi took interest to build a community in Delhi. Another Odia Wikilibrarian Sitikantha Kheti also joined in to organise the first Odia Wikisource workshop in Delhi. These Wikimedians, a Delhi based group The Intellects and CIS-A2K collaboratively conducted a workshop.

The Intellect's president Debendra Rout addressed the participants and broadly spoke about the goal of the workshop and long term plans in Delhi. Both the Wikilibrarians shared their experience on Odia Wikisource. The workshop started with self introduction of the participants followed by screening of a documentary "Odia: Silalekharu Mobile".

Video

A handbook with details on the project, Odia input and keyboard layout was distributed among all. Subhashish Panigrahi demonstrated Odia input and the process of digitization of books on Wikisource. Plans for more workshops and digitization sprints were also charted out.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/odia-wikisource-workshop-new-delhi-december-14-2014

Access to Rare Books Made Easy

praskrishna — 2014-12-27T01:56:57Z

Rare Odia books that are out of print and not easily accessible on the internet, will now be available at the click of the mouse. In a bid to make them available online, the Odia Wikipedia community last week launched WikiSource, an Odia e-library and a sister project of Odia Wikipedia that has been trying to popularise use of Odia language on the Internet since 2002.

The article by Diana Sahu was published in the New Indian Express on December 5, 2014

The online library has 69 books by authors Jagannath Mohanty, Upendra Bhanja, Fakir Mohan Senapati, Gopabandhu Das, Baladeva Rath and Ram Das. Besides, the complete volume of Bhagwad Gita in Odia language is available on WikiSource.

The project has been implemented by Bangalore-based Centre for Internet and Society’s Access to knowledge programme. Odia Wikipedian Subhashish Panigrahi, also a programme officer of the Centre for Internet and Society, said work on digitisation of the books was started in April this year by a team of 12 Wikipedians, comprising mostly students and working professionals.

Apart from them, 50 tribal students and nine faculty members of Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences (KISS) helped them with the digitisation job. As most of the books were typed in Akruti font - a proprietary Indian Script Code for Information Interchange (ISCII) compliant font - the font was converted to Unicode text type to make the books searchable and accessible universally in all mobile and web platforms.

In the first phase, 11 books focusing on children’s literature, travelogue and biographies of noted people from Odisha by eminent Odia author Jagannath Mohanty were digitised. Subsequently, works of other authors were added to the e-library and made available on the internet with open access through free licence.

Subhashish said the WikiSource project was started in 2013 as an incubator project. It went through a tough process of being accessed by the Wikimedia Language Committee and Wikimedia Foundation’s board before being released last week. “There are several precious books that are out of print and not easily accessible on the internet. So we thought of digitising them and taking them to the masses. Apart from the 69 books, 81 of seven Odia authors that were already scanned and digitised by Bhubaneswar-based voluntary organisation, Srujanika, have been re-licensed and added to the library,” he said. Srujanika has digitised 740 old Odia magazines and books so far.

Generally a technique called Optical Character Recognition (OCR) is used for digitising scanned books, which currently is in testing phase in Odia. “Faculty member of ITER in Bhubaneswar Ajit Nayak along with his students have rectified the bugs and made character recognition more accurate.

But because of problems with OCR, the books had to be re-typed by the students of KISS on Odia Wikisource, Subashish added. Old books apart, books by contemporary authors like Debiprasanna Pattanayak, Ramakrushna Nanda, Subrat Prusty, Bharat Majhi and Nirmala Kumari Mohapata, and many other authors have been taken up for digitisation by Odia WikiSource team. Odia WikiSource is now live at or.wikisource.org.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/news/new-indian-express-december-5-2014-diana-sahu-access-to-rare-books-made-easy

ICT for Development

praskrishna — 2014-12-28T03:26:03Z

Dr. U.B. Pavanaja was a speaker at this event organized by Christ University on December 3, 2014 in Bangalore.

Download the presentation on ICT4D.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/news/ict-for-development

‘Tulu Wikipedia’ in incubation stage, 600 articles uploaded, says U.B. Pavanaja

praskrishna — 2014-12-07T03:21:11Z

In all, 600 articles have been uploaded to the Tulu Wikipedia which is still in its incubation stage, according to U.B. Pavanaja, Wikipedia representative and Programme Officer, The Centre for Internet and Society, Bengaluru.

The article by Ravi Prasad Kamila was published in the Hindu on November 26, 2014. Dr. U.B.Pavanaja gave his inputs.

Speaking at a workshop on writing articles in Tulu, using Kannada script, for Wikipedia at Sahyadri College of Engineering and Management here on Wednesday, he said that since 2007 till this January there were 135 Tulu articles. The remaining 465 articles were added in the last over nine months.

Workshops on writing articles in Tulu for Wikipedia organised in Udupi and Mangaluru had helped in adding more articles.

Mr. Pavananja, originally hailing from Sullia in Dakshina Kannada, said that if Tulu Wikipedia was to be kept alive at least 50 to 60 articles would have to be uploaded a month and it required at least 10 dedicated writers.

If one wants to write articles in Tulu, he or she would have to log on to bilty.com/tuluwiki and later register there like registering while creating a new e-mail id. Later one can write, edit or read articles written in Tulu using Kannada script.

Karnataka Tulu Sahitya Academy had organised the workshop as a prelude to the three-day ‘Vishwa Tuluvere Parba’ (Global Tulu Festival) scheduled at the college from December 12.

President of the academy M. Janaki Brahmavar requested the participants to write articles about Tulu language and culture and about the coming festival and upload.

One can contact Mr. Pavanaja through pavanaja@gmail.com.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/news/the-hindu-november-26-2014-ravi-prasad-kamila-tulu-wikipedia-in-incubation-stage

Teaching in the Age of Wikipedia

vishnu — 2014-12-28T04:04:47Z

This course is conceived by CIS-A2K. It is currently envisaged as an add-on Certificate Course jointly offered by CIS-A2K and the Nirmala Institute of Education (NIE)-a premier teacher training establishment in Goa, India.

Read the original on Wikipedia page here.

Problem Statement

In India and in other developing countries a lot of emphasis is being laid of late on the use of ICT for improvement of literacy and education.

Massive efforts are afoot by the Government of India, provincial governments within each state, civil society organizations and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives to include ICT (especially digital technology and the internet) into the teaching learning process. Most of these approaches are techno-utopian and think that giving a tablet to a child will automatically transform the learning environment.

Thus, substantial focus is on either technology or digital content creation (lesson plans, etc.) and almost singularly focussed on the student. There is very little done to empower or train the teachers on how to use digital technology in the classroom. When teachers are not equipped to deal with a digital classroom, use of digital technology is not optimised.

There are instances where the students were given free laptops or tablets by the government and the teachers banned their use in the classroom. Is the average Indian teacher equipped to handle a class of students who are always gazing at their screens?

How will an average Indian teacher approach a class with access to Wikipedia? Do we need to re-imagine the classroom? If yes, how? Consequently, do we need to re-imagine the role of the teacher in the age of Wikipedia?

How does this course attempt to address this problem?

This course is a small step in the direction of empowering the teacher trainees (mostly digital immigrants) to get a grasp on how the digital and internet has changed our mode of learning and approach to knowledge. It will show the macro and bird's eye view of how we have moved on from a Tree of Knowledge to a Web of Knowledge. The course will also introduce them to practical experiments that are being done within the Indian and global context and to also critically evaluate the relevance of a digital knowledge platform like Wikipedia.

Background

The knowledge production, consumption, dissemination and distribution is undergoing a tectonic shift with the advent of digital technologies. Within this context of the digital turn, openness and transparency have gained new significance.

On the one hand, emerging participatory knowledge production models of openness like Wikipedia are increasingly pushing us to look beyond the traditional models of the past century; on the other hand, these models are being thought of to be effective in diverse fields like pedagogy, governance and policy making.

This has been impacting the way how teaching and learning happens at the school level. Open Educational Resources for instance is becoming a key asset for the students and educational institutions alike in imagining better pedagogy models.

This creates a pre-condition for the transformation of society into a ‘Knowledge Society’, wherein the student is increasingly repositioned from a ‘spectator’ to a ‘spect-actor’, from a consumer of knowledge to a “prosumer” (producer+consumer) of knowledge.

Within this context it becomes crucial that the teacher (a key pillar to building a robust knowledge society) is familiarized with the working of digital technology, especially within the context of the classroom.

Course Objectives

This certificate course is aimed at Teacher trainees and Teachers who teach up to High school in India. This course will give the Teacher participant:

a comprehensive understanding of the changes that are brought about by digital technology to the knowledge domain
an introduction to various openness movements that have informed the discourse on Open Educational Resources
exposure and training to participate on open knowledge platforms like Wikipedia
practical examples and best practices of using Wikipedia and sister projects within the classroom context.

Key Concepts

Digital, Digital literacy, FOSS, Internet, Knowledge, Knowledge Platforms, Mirrored Technology, Openness, Open Access, Open Educational Resources, Open-Data, Sugar, Wiki, Wikipedia, Wikisource, Wikitionary, Wikimedia Commons.

Course Design

The course will approach each of these issues within the context of Indian languages and school education, so that the teacher could take back the learning to his or her immediate pedagogic environment. The course will be delivered through lectures, demonstrations and hands-on training sessions. Every participant is expected to do 2 hours of pre-course work before coming for the first contact session. The face to face contact sessions will be done in two rounds with a gap of less than 40 days in between Round 1 and Round 2. The participant is expected to spend approximately 13 hours working on a real-time project with digital output.

Duration

This course involves 45 hours of effort.

30 hours face to face contact sessions
15 hours virtual contact

Resources

YouTube: Hindi Video Tutorials Play-list - FEEL FREE TO DOWNLOAD, REDISTRIBUTE AND REMIX THESE VIDEOS AS THEY ARE LICENSED UNDER CC-BY-SA 3.0.
YouTube: Kannada Video Tutorials Play-list - FEEL FREE TO DOWNLOAD, REDISTRIBUTE AND REMIX THESE VIDEOS AS THEY ARE LICENSED UNDER CC-BY-SA 3.0.

Registration

Step 1: All participants are expected to register themselves on Wikipedia. Please note that once you register on a Wikipedia project, you can use that 'Username' (i.e. same log-in details) across all Wikipedias and Wikimedia platforms. This should be done by September 4, 2014 (10.00 am). This tutorial will help you with Registration on Wikipedia: Registration Tutorial
Step 2: Once you create a Wikipedia user id, please fill up this form to complete the registration process.

Above: Flyer of the course to be held in November 2014 and January 2015

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/teaching-in-age-of-wikipedia

Odia Wikisource, its Potential

subha — 2014-12-05T01:47:37Z

I wrote an editorial in Odia newspaper the "Samaja" on November 17, 2014. I have written about Odia Wikisource, its potential and how people can get involved in it with a short note about the digitization done already. I have also highlighted the authors and copyright holders who kindly have donated their work under CC-by-SA license.

The original article published by the Samaja in Odia on November 17 could be read here.

ଓଡ଼ିଆ ବହି ପ୍ରକାଶନ ପାଇଁ ନୂଆ ରାହା
ଶୁଭାଶିଷ ପାଣିଗ୍ରାହୀ
ଓଡ଼ିଶାରେ ପ୍ରଥମ ଛାପାଖାନା ସ୍ଥାପିତ ହେବାଠୁ ଆଜିଯାଏ ବିତିଛି ଏକ ଲମ୍ବା କାଳ । ଏ କାଳ ଭିତରେ କେତେ ଲକ୍ଷ ପାଣ୍ଡୁଲିିପି ଲେଖା ହୋଇଥିବ, କେତେ ବହି ଛପା ହୋଇଥିବ । ଏ ଭିତରେ କେତେ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଓଡ଼ିଶା ବାହାରକୁ ଯାଇଥିବେ । ତାଙ୍କ ଭିତରୁ ପଢ଼ାରଙ୍କୁଣା ଲୋକେ କ'ଣ ସବୁବେଳେ ସବୁ ବହି ପାଇପାରୁଥିବେ? ଓଡ଼ିଶାରେ ଥିବା ଅନେକ ମଧ୍ୟ ଲାଇବ୍ରେରୀ ଯାଇ ବହି ଖୋଜିବା ଅବସ୍ଥାରେ ସବୁବେଳେ ନଥାନ୍ତି । ଲୋକେ ବହି ପଢ଼ିବାର ସଳଖ ସୁବିଧାଟିଏ ନପାଇଲେ ଧୀରେ ପଠନ ଅଭ୍ୟାସ କମିଯାଏ । ଆଜି ଓଡ଼ିଶାର ଅଗଣିତ ପାଠକଙ୍କ ପାଠକୀୟ ରୁଚି କେବଳ ଖବରକାଗଜ, ସାପ୍ତାହିକୀ ଆଦି ପଢ଼ାକୁ ଖସି ଆସିଲାଣି । ଏ ବେଳା ଏକ ଭାଷା ପାଇଁ ଶୁଭ ନୁହେଁ । ଆଉ ଓଡ଼ିଆର ଶାସ୍ତ୍ରୀୟ ମାନ୍ୟତା ପାଇବା ପାଠକପଣ ବଢ଼ାଇବାରେ ମୁଖ୍ୟ ଭୂମିକାଟିଏ ନିଭାଇପାରିନାହିଁ । ତେବେ କେଉଁଥିରେ କିଛି ଊଣା ରହିଯାଇଛି କି? କାହିଁକି ଆଜି ଭାଷା-ସାହିତ୍ୟର ଶ୍ରୋତା-ବକତା ଉଭୟ ସମାନ? ବହି ଉନ୍ମୋଚନ ହୋଇ କେବଳ ଲେଖକ ମହଲରେ ବଣ୍ଟାହୋଇ ସମୀକ୍ଷା ହୋଇଯାଉଛି, ସଭା କିବା ବହିମେଳା ହତା ଡେଉଁନାହିଁ?

ଆଧୁନିକ କାରିଗରି ବଳରେ ବହିକୁ ଅଧିକ ପାଠକଙ୍କ ପାଖକୁ ନେବାରେ ଏଯାବତ ଅଳ୍ପ କିଛି ଉଦ୍ୟମ କରାଯାଇଛି । ରାଜ୍ୟ ସରକାରଙ୍କ ସଂସ୍କୃତି ବିଭାଗ ପକ୍ଷରୁ ସାରଳା ମହାଭାରତ ଓ ଭାଗବତ ଆଦି କେତୋଟି ପୁରୁଣା ପୋଥିକୁ ଟାଇପ କରି ଡିଜିଟାଲ ସଂସ୍କରଣ ତିଆରି କରାଯାଇଥିଲା । (ଓଡ଼ିଆ.ଓଆରଜି) ୱେବସାଇଟ ଜରିଆରେ ବିଦେଶରେ ଥିବା କେତେଜଣ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଅନେକ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ବହିକୁ ଟାଇପ କରି ଏବଂ ସ୍କାନ କରି ଇଣ୍ଟରନେଟରେ ଉପଲବ୍ଧ କରାଇଥିଲେ । ପୁରୁଣା ବହିର ଡିଜିଟାଲ ଅଭିଲେଖ କରିବା କାମ ବିଧିବଦ୍ଧ ଭାବେ କିଛିବର୍ଷ ତଳେ ଭୁବନେଶ୍ୱରର ସୃଜନିକା ଅନୁଷ୍ଠାନ ତରଫରୁ ଏନଆଇଟି ରାଉରକେଲା ଓ ପ୍ରଗତି ଉକ୍ରଳ ସଂଘ ସହଯୋଗରେ ଏକ ପ୍ରକଳ୍ପ "ଓପନ ଆକସେସ ଟୁ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ବୁକ୍ସ' ମାଧ୍ୟମରେ ଆରମ୍ଭ କରାଯାଇଥିଲା । ଏଥିରେ ସ୍କାନ ହୋଇଥିବା ମୋଟ ୭୪୦ଖଣ୍ଡ ବହି ଓ ପତ୍ରପତ୍ରିକା ଭିତରୁ ୨୦୦ରୁ ଅଧିକ ବହି ଇଣ୍ଟରନେଟରେ ଡାଉନଲୋଡ଼ କରିବା ପାଇଁ ଉପଲବ୍ଧ କରାଯାଇଛି । ଏସବୁ ପ୍ରମୁଖ କାମକୁ ବାଦ ଦେଇ ଆଉ କେତେକ ଉଦ୍ୟମ ମଧ୍ୟ ହୋଇଛି । ତେବେ ଏଯାବତ ହୋଇଥିବା ଏସବୁ କାମରେ ଲେଖାଖୋଜା ବା ଟେକ୍ସଟ ସର୍ଚ ସୁବିଧା ନାହିଁ । ଅର୍ଥାତ, ଇଣ୍ଟରନେଟରେ ଓଡ଼ିଆରେ ଟାଇପ କରି କିଛି ଭାଗବତର ପଦଟିଏ ଖୋଜିଲେ ସେ ପଦ ଥିବା ସ୍କନ୍ଧଟି ମିଳିବ ନାହିଁ । ପାଠକୁ ଲୋକଙ୍କ ପାଖରେ ପହଞ୍ଚାଇବା ପାଇଁ ଏ ଏକ ବିରାଟ ସମସ୍ୟା । ତେଣୁ ଆହୁରି ଲକ୍ଷେ ବହି ସ୍କାନ କରି ଇଣ୍ଟରନେଟରେ ରଖିଲେ ମଧ୍ୟ ତାହାକୁ ପାଠକେ ଖୋଜି ପାଇବେ ନାହିଁ ।

ହେଲେ ସ୍କାନ କଲାପରେ ପୁରୁଣା ବହିର ଲେଖାକୁ ଟେକ୍ସଟରେ ରୂପାନ୍ତର କରିବା ଏତେ ସହଜ ନୁହେଁ । କମ୍ପ୍ୟୁଟର ଟେକନୋଲୋଜିରେ ନାନାଦି ସାଧନ ନିର୍ମାଣ କରାଯାଇଥିବା ଜଗତର ବହୁବିଧ ଭାଷାରେ ଏ ସ୍କାନ ଛବିରୁ ଟେକ୍ସଟ ରୂାନ୍ତର ଲାଗି ଅପ୍ଟିକାଲ କ୍ୟାରେକ୍ଟର ରେକଗନିସନ (ଓସିଆର) ନାମକ କାରିଗରୀ ବ୍ୟବହାର କରାଯାଏ । ତେବେ ଛବିକୁ ଚିହ୍ନି ତାକୁ ଅକ୍ଷରରେ ରୂାନ୍ତର କରିବା ଦୁରୂହ ଓ କମ୍ପ୍ୟୁଟର ତାଲିମ ଦେବା ସମୟସାପେକ୍ଷ । କାମଟି କିନ୍ତୁ ଏ ଭାଷା ପାଇଁ ଏକ ବିଶାଳ ବରଦାନ । ତେବେ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ସମେତ ଭାରତର ଅନ୍ୟାନ୍ୟ ଭାଷାରେ ଏଯାଏ ଓସିଆର ସେତେ ବେଶି ନିର୍ଭୁଲ ଭାବେ କାମ କରିନାହିଁ । କମ୍ପ୍ୟୁଟର ଜ୍ଞାନ ଥିବା କିଛି ଲୋକ ୬-୭ ମାସ ଲାଗିଲେ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ପାଇଁ ଏ ଉପକରଣର ବିକାଶ କରାଯାଇପାରନ୍ତା । ବିକଳ୍ପ ସମାଧାନ ହେଲା ବହି ପାଠକୁ ଇଉନିକୋଡ଼ ନାମକ ମାନକରେ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଲିିରେ ଟାଇପ କରି ଟେକ୍ସଟ ରୂପେ ଇଣ୍ଟରନେଟରେ ଉପଲବ୍ଧ କରାଇବା । ଏ କାମ କିନ୍ତୁ କେବଳ ମୂଲ୍ୟବାନ ବହିମାନଙ୍କ ପାଇଁ କରାଯିବା ଉଚିତ । ଧରାଯାଉ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଆଈମା କାହାଣୀ କି ଅବଲୋକରା କାହାଣୀ କିମ୍ବା ବାକି ଲୋକକାହାଣୀ ସବୁ ଏତେ ଉପାଦେୟ ଓ ଯୁଗୋପଯୋଗୀ ସେ ସବୁକୁ ଥରେ ଟାଇପ କଲେ ଅନେକ ଲୋକଙ୍କ କାମରେ ଲାଗିବ ।

ଓଡ଼ିଆରେ ଇ-ବହି ବା ବହିର ଡିଜିଟାଲ ସଂସ୍କରଣ କରାଯିବାର ନୂଆ ରାହାଟିଏ ନିକଟରେ ଖୋଲିଛି । ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିିପିଡ଼ିଆର ସହଯୋଗୀ ପ୍ରକଳ୍ପଭାବେ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିପାଠାଗାର ନାମକ ଏକ ନୂଆ ପ୍ରକଳ୍ପ ଆରମ୍ଭ ହୋଇଛି । ଏଥିରେ ଥିବା ବହିସବୁ or.wikisource.org ରେ ପଢ଼ିହେବ । ଭାରତରେ ପ୍ରକାଶକ କିମ୍ବା ସ୍ୱତ୍ୱାଧିକାରୀଙ୍କ ଦେହାନ୍ତର ୬୦ବର୍ଷ ପରେ ବହିର କପିରାଇଟ ଲୀନହୋଇ ବହିଟି ପବ୍ଲିକ ଡୋମେନରେ ଗଣାଯାଏ । ଏହି ଶ୍ରେଣୀର ଓଡ଼ିଆ ବହିସବୁକୁ ଓସିଆର କିମ୍ବା ଟାଇପ କରି ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିାଠାଗାରରେ ରଖାଯାଇପାରିବ । କିନ୍ତୁ ଏ ପ୍ରକଳ୍ପର ଏକ ବିଶେଷ ସୁବିଧା ଲେଖକ ଓ ପ୍ରକାଶକଙ୍କ ମଙ୍ଗଳ ଲାଗି ମଧ୍ୟ ରହିଛି । ନିଜ ବହିକୁ ଅନଲାଇନ ବିତରଣ କରିବାକୁ ଚାହୁଁଥିବା ପ୍ରକାଶକ କିମ୍ବା ଲେଖକ ନିଜର କପିରାଇଟର ସର୍ତ୍ତାବଳୀକୁ
ସମ୍ପୂର୍ଣ୍ଣ କପିରାଇଟରୁ ଆଂଶିକ କପିରାଇଟକୁ ମଧ୍ୟ ବଦଳାଇ ପାରିବେ । ଏହି ଆଂଶିକ କପିରାଇଟର ନାଁ ହେଲା କ୍ରିଏଟିଭ କମନ୍ସ ସେଆର-ଏଲାଇକ (ସିସି-ବାଇ-ଏସଏ) । ଏଥିରେ ଅନ୍ୟ ଜଣେ ଏକା ସର୍ତ୍ତରେ ପୂର୍ବ-ପ୍ରକାଶିତ ଲେଖାର ପୁନଃପ୍ରକାଶନ କରିାରିବ । ଏହା ବଳରେ ବହିଟିକୁ ଅନ୍ୟମାନେ ପଢ଼ିପାରିବା ସହ ବିତରଣ ମଧ୍ୟ କରିାରିବେ । ଏ ବିଶେଷ କପିରାଇଟ ଆଜିକାଲି ଏତେ ଜଣାଶୁଣା ହେଲାଣି ଯେ ଜଗତର ଅନେକ ଜଣାଶୁଣା ଶିକ୍ଷାନୁଷ୍ଠାନ ଓ ପ୍ରକାଶକ ନିଜର କିଛି ବହିକୁ ଏହି କପିରାଇଟରେ ବିତରଣ କରୁଛନ୍ତି । ଆହେ ଦୟାମୟ ବିଶ୍ୱବିହାରୀ ଓ ଅଗଣିତ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଶିଶୁକବିତା-ଗପର ରଚୟିତା ରାମକୃଷ୍ଣ ନନ୍ଦ, ସୁଶିକ୍ଷକ- ଭ୍ରାମଣିକ-ଦାର୍ଶନିକ ଡ.ଜଗନ୍ନାଥ ମହାନ୍ତି, ଭାଷା-ଗବେଷକ ଡ. ସୁବ୍ରତ ପୃଷ୍ଟି ଓ କବି ଭାରତ ମାଝୀଙ୍କ ବହିମାନ ସ୍ୱତ୍ୱାଧିକାରୀଙ୍କ ଅନୁମତି କ୍ରମେ ପୁନଃଲାଇସେନ୍ସ କରାଇ ଉଇକିାଠାଗାର ପରିସରକୁ ଅଣାଗଲାଣି ।

ଓଡ଼ିଆ ପାଠକେ ଏହି ଉଇକିାଠାଗାର ପ୍ରକଳ୍ପରୁ ଆଉ ଏକ ସୁବିଧା ମଧ୍ୟ ପାଇପାରିବେ । ଏଥିରେ ଟାଇପ ହୋଇ ବହିସବୁ ସିନା ଗଚ୍ଛିତ ହେବ । ହେଲେ ସେସବୁକୁ ଟାଇପ କରିବ କିଏ? ଅନେକ ସମୟରେ ଯାହା ସରକାର କିମ୍ବା ଏକ ଅନୁଷ୍ଠାନ କରିନପାରେ ସେତେବେଳେ ଜନସାଧାରଣଙ୍କ ବଳର ଉପଯୋଗିତା ବୁଝାପଡ଼େ । ଆଉ ଉଇକିପାଠାଗାର ସମ୍ପୂର୍ଣ୍ଣ ଭାବେ ଏହି ସ୍ୱେଚ୍ଛାସେବୀଙ୍କ ବଳରେ ବଳୀୟାନ । ଜଣେ ଚାହିଁଲେ ଲେଖାର ଭୁଲଟିଏ ସୁଧାରିପାରିବ, ବାକିଥିବା ପୃଷ୍ଠା ଟାଇପ କରିାରିବ ଆଉ ଅସମ୍ପୂର୍ଣ୍ଣ ବହିଟିଏକୁ ସମ୍ପୂର୍ଣ୍ଣ କରି କୋଟିକୋଟି ପାଠକଙ୍କ ପାଇଁ ପଠନର ଏକ ନୂଆ ଝରକା ଖୋଲିଦେଇ ପାରିବ ।

ଅନେକେ ବିରସି ଉଠନ୍ତି ଗୁଗୁଲରେ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ନାହିଁ ବୋଲି; ଇଣ୍ଟରନେଟ୍‍ରେ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଭାଷାରେ ଲେଖାର ଅଭାବ ତା'ର ଏକ ବଡ଼ କାରଣ । ଯେଉଁ ଭାଷାରେ ଇଣ୍ଟରନେଟରେ କାରବାର ଯେତେ ଅଧିକ ସେ ଭାଷା ନୂଆ ପିଢ଼ିର ସେତେ ନିଜର । ଆଉ ଯେଉଁ ଭାଷା ଏବେର ପିଢ଼ି ତୁଣ୍ଡରେ ଯେତେ ଅଧିକ କଥିତ, କାମରେ ଯେତେ ଅଧିକ ବ୍ୟବହୃତ, ସେ ଭାଷା ଭବିଷ୍ୟତରେ ସେତେ ଛାମୁଆ ହେବ । ଓଡ଼ିଆ ପାଇଁ ଉଇକିପାଠାଗାର ଭଳି ଏକ ବିଶ୍ୱମାନର ପ୍ରକଳ୍ପ ଅଧିକ ଲେଖକଙ୍କ ସମାଗମରେ ଭରି ଆମ ଭାଷା ପାଇଁ ଏକ ବିଶାଳ ପାଠାଗାରରେ ପରିଣତ ହୋଇପାରିବ ।

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/the-samaja-november-17-2014-subhashish-panigrahi-odia-wikisource-its-potential

Odia author Nirmala Kumari Mohapatra's 21 books relicensed under CC-by-SA 4.0

subha — 2014-12-06T02:49:12Z

Twenty one books of renowned Odia author Nirmala Kumari Mohapatra will now be available under the Creative Commons License.

Taking into consideration the request from the Centre for Internet and Society's Access to Knowledge team (CIS-A2K), Odia researcher, teacher and author Nirmala Kumari Mohapatra has signed a note to release 21 of her books under CC-by-SA 4.0 license. She came and attended the "Odisha Dibasa 2014" organized by Odia Wikimedia Community and CIS-A2K on March 29 in Bhubaneswar where we got 11 books of Dr. Jagannath Mohanty. Expressing her motivation for kindheartedly donating 21 out of her 35 books she tells us, "If Jagannath Mohanty's writings could go to millions of readers online why not I also open up my work. My life as a teacher has spent on researching on simplifying education. One of the 21 books she donated "Chandaka-Damapada Hasti Abhayaranya", is one of the rarest books that has ever been written on wildlife sanctuary. It is full of many observations about the elephants that reside in the Chandaka-Damapada wildlife sanctuary. Many interesting incidents from Odisha's history like a female barber shaving Gandhi during his Padayatra that are captured in her books would add to the richness of Odia Wikipedia. These books will soon be available on Odia Wikisource for digitization.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/odia-author-nirmala-kumari-mohapatra-21-books-under-cc

An Article on Kannada Wikipedia

pavanaja — 2014-12-05T01:22:53Z

I wrote an article on Kannada Wikipedia which was published in the Yojana magazine on November 2014 issue.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/yojana-november-2014-pavanaja-article-on-kannada-wikipedia

55 Works of Iconic Indian writer released under Free Licence to benefit Wikisource

vishnu — 2014-11-14T13:29:48Z

Kannada is a language spoken by 40 million people in Karnataka – one of the four southern states of India.The Kannada Wikimedia community, in collaboration with CIS-A2K, are enthusiastic about having almost all of the works of Niranjana re-licensed under CC-BY-SA 4.0 on the occasion of Kannada Rajyotsava.

The original post was published on Wikimedia Blog.

Niranjana was a prolific Indian author and activist, and wrote more than 60 books over the course of his career. These works will be digitized and made available on Kannada Wikisource, allowing Kannada speakers to freely access the diverse set of works. Niranjana’s works give a rich glimpse into social, political, and cultural history of Karnataka from the 1940s to 1990s; they can be used as a potential resource for creating and improving articles on Kannada Wikipedia.

Niranjana (1924-1992) was the pseudonym of Kulkund Shivarao, a prominent Kannada writer of the 20th century and a leading figure in the Progressive Writers’ Movement in Kannada. His prolific output, across nearly five decades, included novels, short stories, plays, biographies, political commentary, and translations. He was a regular columnist in the Kannada newspapers and magazines. Among his achievements as an editor are Jnana Gangotri, a 7-volume encyclopedia for young people, and a 25-volume compilation of the world’s greatest short stories.

A total of 55 Kannada books by Niranjana are re-licensed. “This is the single largest and most comprehensive individual collection of a writer to be released under CC-BY-SA 4.0 in any of the Indian languages so far,” says Kannada Wikimedian Omshivaprakash. Kannada Wikimedians and CIS-A2K have organized a formal event to celebrate Creative Commons efforts to cultivate free and open knowledge online in Kannada; specifically, Kannada Wikisource. It is important to also acknowledge the great initiative shown by Niranjana’s daughter, Dr. Tejaswini Niranjana (also CIS-A2K Advisor), in getting these works released under CC-BY-SA 4.0 licensing.

Dr. Tejaswini Niranjana says, “[Kannada] Wikisource is an excellent free and open knowledge platform for books in Indian languages and I am happy that my father’s works can now be accessed by [all] Kannadigas across the world. Let these writings have innumerable readers. What more could any author want?”

She is determined to release more work under CC licensing, and says, “[I] will be more than glad to get as many Indian works as possible under a free license as this will ensure that a lot of knowledge produced over the past many decades in India can easily be made accessible to the next generation of seekers of knowledge, who are digital natives.”

“This is the the single largest and most comprehensive individual collection of a writer to be released under CC-BY-SA 4.0 in any of the Indian languages so far,” says Omshivaprakash.

“KannadaWikipediaWorkshop 010″ by Pavanaja, under CC-BY-SA-3.0

Tejas Jain, another Kannada Wikimedian, was quick to co-write a blog in Kannada about this content donation. Jain says, “this is a bold step…and will act as motivation for other Kannada writers to release more content under CC-BY-SA 4.0.” He hopes to see “Kannda Wikisource grow as the comprehensive single digital resource for free Kannada books” and address “the fear of loosing the rich print heritage of Kannada to time.”

Omshivaprakash was surprised to realize that there is no article on such a prominent Kannada writer like Niranjana on English Wikipedia.This led to a Facebook discussion, and User Tito Dutta responded swiftly, but needed help with verifiable resources. Omshivaprakash chipped in with resources and a page on Niranjana (needs your Wiki Love) has now been started on English Wikipedia. While this is not a big achievement, it is a simple example of how the (Indian) English Wikipedians could collaborate with Indic Wikimedians in creating India focused content on English Wikipeida and how social media could be used for off-wiki collaboration by Wikimedians. Incidentally Tito and Omshivaprakash became friends on FB during the WMF’s India Community Consultation 2014 which was held recently in Bangalore.

Tejas Jain “This is a bold step[...]and will act as motivation for other Kannada writers to release more content under CC-BY-SA 4.0″

“Tejas Jain” by Visdaviva , under CC-BY-SA-4.0

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/55-works-of-iconic-indian-writer-released-under-free-licence-to-benefit-wikisource

ನಿರಂಜನರ ಕೃತಿಗಳು CC-BY-SA 4.0 ಪರವಾನಗಿಯೊಂದಿಗೆ ಮರುಪ್ರಕಟಗೊಳ್ಳಲಿವೆ

Omshivaprakash and Tejas Jain — 2014-11-03T15:04:23Z

ಕನ್ನಡ ರಾಜ್ಯೋತ್ಸವದ ಸಂದರ್ಭದಲ್ಲಿ ನಿರಂಜನರ ಬಹುಪಾಲು ಕೃತಿಗಳು CC-BY-SA 4.0 ಪರವಾನಗಿಯೊಂದಿಗೆ ಮರುಪ್ರಕಟಗೊಳ್ಳಲಿವೆಯೆಂದು ಸಿಐಎಸ್-ಎ೨ಕೆಯ ಸಹಯೋಗದೊಂದಿಗೆ ಕನ್ನಡ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯ ಬಳಗವು ಹಂಚಿಕೊಳ್ಳಲು ಹರ್ಷಿಸುತ್ತದೆ.

The article by Omshivaprakash and Tejas Jain was published in ನನ್ ಮನ on November 1, 2014.

ನಿರಂಜನ (೧೯೨೪-೧೯೯೨) , ಇದು ಕುಳಕುಂದ ಶಿವರಾವ್ ಅವರ ಲೇಖನಾಮ. ಇವರು ೨೦ನೇ ಶತಮಾನದ ಪ್ರಮುಖ ಲೇಖಕ ಮತ್ತು ಪ್ರಗತಿಪರ ಚಳವಳಿಯ ಮುಂದಾಳು. ಅವರ ಸುಮಾರು ಐದು ದಶಕಗಳ ಸಂಮೃದ್ಧವಾದ ಕೃತಿಗಳು ಕಾದಂಬರಿ, ಸಣ್ಣ ಕಥೆಗಳು, ನಾಟಕಗಳು, ಜೀವನ ಕಥನಗಳು, ರಾಜಕೀಯ ವ್ಯಾಖ್ಯಾನಗಳು ಮತ್ತು ಭಾಷಾಂತರಗಳನ್ನು ಒಳಗೊಂಡಿವೆ. ಅವರು ಕನ್ನಡ ವಾರ್ತಾಪತ್ರಿಕೆ ಮತ್ತು ನಿಯತಕಾಲಿಕಗಳಲ್ಲಿ ನಿಯತ ಅಂಕಣಕಾರರಾಗಿದ್ದರು. ಅವರ ಸಾಧನೆಯಲ್ಲಿ ಯುವಕರಿಗಾಗಿ ೭ ಸಂಪುಟಗಳ ಜ್ಞಾನ ಗಂಗೋತ್ರಿ ಮತ್ತು ೨೫ ಸಂಪುಟಗಳ ಪ್ರಪಂಚದ ಮಹತ್ತರವಾದ ಕಥೆಗಳ ಸಂಕಲನಗಳು ಸೇರಿವೆ.

ನಿರಂಜನರ ಒಟ್ಟು ೫೫ ಕೃತಿಗಳು ಮರುಪ್ರಕಟಗೊಳ್ಳಲಿವೆ. ಇದು CC-BY-SA 4.0 ಪರವಾನಗಿಯೊಂದಿಗೆ ಭಾರತೀಯ ಭಾಷೆಯಲ್ಲಿ ಪ್ರಕಟಗೊಳ್ಳುತ್ತಿರುವ ಒಬ್ಬನೇ ಲೇಖಕನ ಕೃತಿಗಳ ಅತಿ ದೊಡ್ಡ ಸಂಗ್ರಹವಾಗಿರಬಹುದು. ಇದನ್ನು ಆಚರಿಸಲು ಒಂದು ಔಪಚಾರಿಕ ಕಾರ್ಯಕ್ರಮವನ್ನು, ಕ್ರಿಯೇಟೀವ್ ಕಾಮನ್ಸ್ ಪಾಮುಖ್ಯತೆಯ ಬಗ್ಗೆ ಒಂದು ಅಭಿಶಿಕ್ಷಣದ ಜೊತೆಯಲ್ಲಿ ೨೦೧೪ನೇ ನವೆಂಬರ್ ತಿಂಗಳಿನ ಮೊದಲ ವಾರದಲ್ಲಿ ನೆಡೆಸಲು ಯೋಚಿಸುತ್ತಿದ್ದೇವೆ. ಕಾರ್ಯಕ್ರಮದ ಕರಾರುವಾಕ್ಕಾದ ವಿವರಗಳನ್ನು ಸಧ್ಯದಲ್ಲೇ ಹಚಿಕೊಳ್ಳಲಾಗುವುದು.ಕನ್ನಡ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯ ಬಳಗ ಮತ್ತು ಸಿಐಎಸ್-ಎ೨ಕೆಯು ನಿಮ್ಮನ್ನು ಸಮಾರಂಭದಲ್ಲಿ ನೋಡಲು ಸಂತಸಪಡುತ್ತದೆ. ಕೆಳಗಿನ ಪುಸ್ತಕಗಳು CC-BY-SA 4.0 ಪರವಾನಗಿಯೊಂದಿಗೆ ಮರುಪ್ರಕಟಗೊಳ್ಳಲು ಸಿಐಎಸ್-ಎ೨ಕೆಯ ಸಲಹೆಗಾರರೂ ಆಗಿರುವ ತೇಜಸ್ವಿನಿ ನಿರಂಜನರ ಮಹತ್ತರವಾದ ಆರಂಭಿಕ ಕೆಲಸವನ್ನು ನಾವು ಸ್ಮರಿಸುತ್ತೇವೆ.

ಲೇಖನದ ಕನ್ನಡ ಅನುವಾದ: ತೇಜಸ್ ಜೈನ್

ಚಿತ್ರ, ಇನ್ಫೋಬಾಕ್ಸ್ ಮತ್ತು ಇತರೆ ಮಾಹಿತಿ ಮೂಲ: ಕನ್ನಡ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯ

About the Authors

OmShivaprakash and Tejas Jain are long time Kannada Wikimedians and enthusiasts of free and open knowledge in Kannada.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/kannada-work-released-under-cc-by-sa

Wiki Media Foundation keen on developing Urdu Wikipedia

praskrishna — 2014-11-01T13:23:54Z

The Wikipedia India Community Consultation 2014 was organized by the Wiki Media Foundation (WMF) and Wikipedia India Chapter in collaboration with Centre for Internet Society (CIS A2K) Bangalore on The venue was Movenpick Hotel and scheduled for October 4th and 5th here.

The article was published in the Siasat Daily on October 24, 2014.

The objectives of the meet up according to the organizers are “to share views and preferences on the most effective ways to pursue our shared vision of creating and sharing free knowledge in India and in the Indian languages, and to arrive at an agreement on a road map for a future where its resources are better utilized, its volunteers are better served and progress on its mission is more steadily attained. “

I reached Bangalore on 3rd October and invited Urdu speaking people and the Urdu media from Bangalore for a general meet up. Mr. Azeez Belgaumi a renowned Urdu Poet & writer and Mr. Syed Tanveer Ahmed, as senior Journalist heading “Karnataka Muslims” News portal approached me and we had a good conversation to know more about Urdu Wikipedia. They appreciated Wikipedia and promised to extend their support to the Urdu Wikipedia.

Mr. Syed Tanveer Ahmed and Mr. Azeez Belgaumi promised to take up the initiative to conduct some Wiki workshops in collaboration with Salam foundation and CIS A2K. Mr. Vishnu the Project Director CIS has also agreed to extend his best support to organize the outreach programmes in Bengaluru and other parts of India to develop Urdu Wikipedia.

An introductory meeting was held in the evening of 3rd October in which members of WMF and the Wikipedians representing languages viz. English, Urdu, Hindi, Bengali, Odia, Assamese, Kannada, Konkani, Sanskrit, Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam, Marathi, and Gujarati attended.

On 4th October after noon the scheduled meet up was conducted wherein WMF Senior Director Grantmaking Mrs. Anasuya Sengupta from US, Head of Wikimedia Grants & Global South Partnerships Mr. Asaf Bartov from US, Chief Financial Officer Mr. Garfiled Byrd from France and Vice-Chair of the Board of Trustees Mr. Petricio Lorente from Argentina Trustee Bishakha Datta participated. Mr. Gagan Sethi from Counterviews Gujarat facilitated the programme.

The Indic language bureaucrats, sysops and representatives participated actively and focused on the topic how to improve the Wikipedia in Indic languages. This session gone up to 7 p.m. and in the night too, the delegates had the get together to discuss on various issued related to Wikimedia programmes in India.

On the 5th October morning the work shop continued with dignified discussions. Various user groups from different languages took part and presented their views and successes. The discussions focused on wiki tools, various practical problems, do’s and don’ts. It’s a fabulous meet to take part, comprehend, and show the spirit of volunteerism towards Wikipedia.

During discussion on Urdu language, Mr. Asaf appreciated the contributions of Mr. Muhammad Shuaib. Mr. Nisar Ahmed Syed administrator in Telugu Wikipedia represented Urdu Wikipedia too as he is a contributor to Urdu Wikipedia. He discussed issues and stressed the need of outreach and developmental activities for Urdu Wikipedia in India. Mr. Muzammil Ahmed from Hindi and Urdu Wikipedia advocated its importance.

Ms. Anasuya and Mr. Asaf Bartov accepted the need of Urdu Wiki development programmes in India and they said they are ready to prepare a road map for the same.

Finally with the initiations of Mr. Nisar Ahmed Syed and with the kind cooperation of Mr. Asaf Bartov and Mrs. Anasuya Sengupta, an Urdu user group was set and introduced. The user group initially was gathered by backing of Mr. Asaf Bartov. The group has Mr. Syed Nisar Ahmed (Pune), Mr. Muzammil Ahmed (Hyderabad), Mr. Azeez Belgaumi (Bengaluru) and Mr. Satdeep Gil (Punjab).

The contributions of Muzammil Ahmed and Nisar Ahmed to Urdu Wikipedia were appreciated. The WMF team thanked all the Urdu users from India who rendered their best contributions.

Emphasis was laid to improve the Urdu Wikipedia India group.

As WMF intends to focus on the online encyclopedia WIKIPEDIA in the Indian languages Urdu users too expressed willingness to work for the mother tongue Urdu by enriching Urdu Wikipedia.

Mr. Nisar Ahmed said, “It is true that the awareness among the Urdu speaking community about Urdu Wikipedia is very less.” He emphasized the need to take a small step to lead to a large extent to bring awareness by means of outreach programmes, meet ups, seminars. It was accepted and appreciated to initiate outreach work among the Urdu speaking states and clusters in India.

In India about 450 newspapers and magazines are being published in Urdu language. And it is an amazing fact that many of the Urdu newspapers are using the Wikipedia as their source material from English Wikipedia as it has a large and authentic content, but they are not aware about the need to enrich Urdu Wikipedia. It should be known that everyone can edit, resource and enrich it. Hence it is decided to start a user group for Urdu Wikipedia India and to bring the same message to the masses.

“Bring Urdu Wikipedia from budding stage to a blooming stage.”Courtesy:Karnataka Muslims

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/news/siasat-daily-october-24-2014-wiki-media-foundation-keen-on-developing-urdu-wikipedia

Wiki Media Foundation keen on developing Urdu Wikipedia

praskrishna — 2014-11-01T13:29:32Z

The article by Nisar Ahmed Syed was originally published on the website of Karnataka Muslims on October 22, 2014.

India Community Consultation 2014 held in Bangalore

Ms. Anasuya and Mr. Asaf Bartov accepted the need of Urdu Wiki development programmes in India and they said they are ready to prepare a road map for the same.

The contributions of Muzammil Ahmed and Nisar Ahmed to Urdu Wikipedia were appreciated. The WMF team thanked all the Urdu users from India who rendered their best contributions.

Emphasis was laid to improve the Urdu Wikipedia India group.

As WMF intends to focus on the online encyclopedia WIKIPEDIA in the Indian languages Urdu users too expressed willingness to work for the mother tongue Urdu by enriching Urdu Wikipedia.

“Bring Urdu Wikipedia from budding stage to a blooming stage.”

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/news/karnataka-muslims-nisar-ahmed-syed-october-22-2014-wiki-media-foundation-keen-on-developing-urdu-wikipedia

Converting from nonUnicode (Nudi, Baraha, ...) font encoding to Unicode Kannada

pavanaja — 2016-10-23T15:36:25Z

People have been using computers for typing and printing Kannada text for more than 25 years. Most of the usage of Kannada on computers was limited to the DTP arena.

People made use of packages like PageMaker (Version 6.5 or 7) to type and compose pages. Even now, many people still use these packages for Kannada DTP work. The text entered into these packages is stored as font glyph codes rather than character encodings. Non-Unicode truetype fonts like Nudi, Baraha, ShreeLipi, Akruti, etc, are some of the most popular fonts being used.

The system does not understand these characters as Kannada characters. Any text based operations like search, replace, sorting, spell-check, text-to-speech, etc, are not possible with this kind of text. Employing Unicode for all digitisation works of Kannada text solves this problem. Usage of Unicode for Kannada has become prominent only recently. All websites like Facebook, Twitter, Wikipedia, Wikisource, etc, want the text only in Unicode. There is still a large amount of text entered and stored with old non-Unicode font based encodings. These are mostly present in the form of PageMaker files. This blog post explains the process of converting the text present in PageMaker into Kannada Unicode text.

The Kannada and Culture Department of the Government of Karnataka have released Unicode complaint open-type fonts and Unicode based software for Kannada under GPL. These are available for free download on their website (http://kannadasiri.co.in/index/software). Download and
install “Ascii to Unicode Kannada Converter” from this page. This software works only in Windows. Now you are ready to convert the text from PageMaker file into Unicode.

Open the PageMaker file. Select the Text tool depicted by a big “T” shaped icon. Click anywhere in the text area. Select the entire text (Ctrl-A followed by Ctrl-C). Now open Notepad and paste this text into that (press Ctrl-V). The text will appear gibberish in Notepad. Don’t worry about it. Save the file as plain text file (.TXT file). Remember where you have saved the file.

Now run the “Kannada ASCII Unicode Converter” software. In the first textbox enter the name of the ASCII file to be converted (the file you just saved from Notepad). In the bottom textbox enter a filename for the Unicode text file that will be created by the software. Select the default “GOK (Kuvempu Nudi Baraha)”, or other encoding as the case may be, as the encoding from which the text has to be converted. Click on the button written “ಪರಿವರ್ತಿಸಿ”. It will show the progress of conversion.

Once the conversion is complete, it will display an appropriate message to indicate completion of the conversion. If you open the text file created by the software, it will have the text converted into Unicode. This text can be used in Wikisource, Wikipedia, etc.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/converting-from-non-unicode-nudi-baraha-font-encoding-to-unicode-kannada

Tulu Wikipedia Workshop cum Editathon at Udupi

pavanaja — 2014-10-31T14:54:07Z

A three-day programme was held at Udupi from October 15 to 17, 2014 with an aim to increase the presence of Tulu in the online world. The first day comprised the inauguration programme and a workshop to understand the Wiki markup. The next two days were devoted to the edit-a-thon where participants added articles to Tulu Wikipedia.

The team comprised 18 girls from the Government PU College, Udupi and some other women. The event was organised by Tulu Sahitya Academy and sponsored by MGM College, Udupi and the Regional Research Centre, Udupi. Janaki Brahmavar, Chairperson of Tulu Sahitya Academy, presided over the function. She spoke about the efforts being made to add Tulu in Unicode. Jayakar Shetty, President Tulu Okkoota, expressed his happiness over the fact that it was a batch of about 20 girls who participated in the workshop cum edit-a-thon. There is a grouse that male editors far outnumber females in editing Wikipedia. This could be one instance where only female editors actively added articles to Tulu Wikipedia over three days. The programme was well covered by the print and television media. The good news is that the girls who participated in the edit-a-thon have continued adding articles. As on October 26, 2014, the total number of articles in Tulu Wikipedia has gone up to 574.

Tulu is one of the Dravidian languages spoken primarily by people from the south coast of Karnataka and north coast of Kerala[1]. As per the Census of 2001, there were 1,722,768 Tulu speakers [2]; figures of 2011 census are still not available. There are a lot of Tulu-speaking people residing outside Karnataka and Kerala in Mumbai, Goa and Gulf countries. It is estimated that the total number of Tulu-speaking people is more than 2.5 million. There has been a long-standing demand to include Tulu in the 8^th Schedule of the Constitution of India[3], [4]. Tulu had its own script long ago, it is not in use. Currently, Tulu is written in the Kannada script. Tulu has a vast vocal tradition, and there is a huge collection of knowledge that is transferred across generations orally. Efforts are being made to document this vocal tradition. The history of Tulu literature has already been documented in Kannada. Recently, the Karnataka government introduced Tulu as an optional language for schools in Mangalore and Udupi districts. However, these students don't have many books to read apart from the prescribed textbooks. There are some Tulu books in the creative writing domain, but there is hardly any book of an encyclopaedic nature in Tulu language which the students can refer to. This is where Tulu Wikipedia becomes extremely significant.

Tulu Wikipedia has been in incubation since 2007[5]. Some editing activities in Tulu Wikipedia were carried out during 2007-08. But the initial momentum gradually subsided, and most editors stopped editing. Tulu Wikipedia thereafter went into a dormant status. During the Alvas Vishwa Nudisiri Programme at Moodabidre in December 2013, Dr BA VivekaRai, former vice-chancellor of Kannada University, who was the President of the cultural and literary meet, dwelt at length on the importance of implementing Tulu language in technology. This was followed by a talk by Dr UB Pavanaja, a member of the CIS-A2K team. He continued from where Viveka Rai left off, and talked about bringing world knowledge in Tulu, rejuvenating Tulu Wikipedia, and pressuring the state and Union governments towards including Tulu in the 8^th Schedule of the Constitution.

Subsequently, a workshop on editing Tulu Wikipedia was held at Mangalore on January 19 this year under the leadership and initiative of Dr BA VivekaRai. This was followed by another edit-a-thon at Mangalore on April 5 and another workshop at Udupi on May 25. All these efforts have given a new impetus to Tulu Wikipedia. The number of articles in Tulu Wikipedia was 147 as in March 2014, which went up to 365 in July. The Tulu Sahitya Academy realised the importance and pitched into the effort of making it live.

[1] http://www.ethnologue.com/subgroups/dravidian

[2] http://www.censusindia.gov.in/%28S%28i4hlwuf0ltgmdnejdawhdr45%29%29/Census_Data_2001/Census_Data_Online/Language/partb.aspx

[3] http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/requests-to-include-38-languages-in-constitution-pending-govt/article58221.ece

[4] http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/mangalore/Include-Tulu-in-8th-Schedule-demands-forum/articleshow/38992142.cms

[5] http://tools.wmflabs.org/meta/catanalysis/?title=Wp%2Ftcy&cat=0&wiki=incubatorwiki#overview_edits

Media Coverage

http://www.mangaloretoday.com/newsbriefs/Wikipedia-can-establish-Tulu-in-a-wider-way.html

http://v4news.com/enliven-the-tulu-viki-fidia-first-and-then-add-tulu-to-the-8th-schedule-dr-ug-pavanaja-bangalore-rep-in-udupi/

http://www.mangaloretoday.com/newsbriefs/2-Day-Workshop-on-Tulu-in-internet.html

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/tulu-wikipedia-workshop-cum-editathon-at-udupi

Samskrita Vaibhavam (Sanskrit Wiki Outreach Program)

Shubha and Sayant Mahato — 2014-10-31T14:02:51Z

To celebrate the revival of Sanskrit language, the Bangalore chapter of Samskrita Bharati organised a two-day mega event "Samskrita Vaibhavam" at VSR Kalyan Mantapa in Bangalore on August 9 and 10, 2014.

Competition, Conference & Exhibition

The theme of the event was promotion of Sanskrit. It offered an encapsulation of the culture and heritage woven into Sanskrit. No wonder, the event attracted more than thousand samskrita premis or Sanskrit enthusiasts, who actively participated in the proceedings.

As is well known, Samskrita Bharati with a missionary zeal, is engaged in popularising Sanskrit language and demonstrating to the world that Sanskrit cannot only be easily learnt by anyone but also by those who can easily speak in Sanskrit and transact daily activities too. Samskrita Bharati organises Samskrita Shibirams through which these concepts are popularised.

Notable during the event was a seminar on "Why Samskrit". Dr. Chamu Krishna Shastry, Samskrita Bharati; Dr. Srinivas Varkhede, Karnataka Samskrit University; Dr. Ramachandra Bhat, Veda Vignyana Gurukulam; Dr. Balachandra Rao, mathematecian and astrophysicist; Dr. VR Anil Kumar, Kalpa Heritage Trust; and Uttara Nerurkar, Vedic scholar, were the expert speakers.

Additionally, an exhibition was also organised. Here, there was a stall on "Samskrita Wikipedia" (Sa.Wikipedia). This was a grand attraction for visitors as Sanskrit Wikipedia showed that (Sanskrit) knowledge can be accessed in a split second with a click on a computer.

The Sanskrit Wikipedia wing of Samskrita Bharati is thankful for the timely support from CIS-A2K, which was used for designing and printing handbills and brochures about Sanskrit Wikipedia. The brochures, which were distributed among participants, were well appreciated as it helped them connect with Sa.Wikipedia, and the myriad possibilities available to them by learning Sanskrit.

The entire event was of great significance in the promotion of Sanskrit language.

Acknowledgement from Samskrita Bharati

This article was written by Shubha and Sayant Mahato.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/samskrita-vaibhavam