Centre for Internet and Society

Subhashish Panigrahi joins Open GLAM Working Group

praskrishna — 2014-05-27T09:40:40Z

Subhashish recently joined the OpenGLAM Working Group (a global network of people who work to open up cultural data and content.) as a member and OpenGLAM Local (a local affiliate of OKFN's OpenGLAM project) as an ambassador for India. Both the positions will be voluntary.

OpenGLAM Working Group

The OpenGLAM Working Group is a global network of people who work to open up cultural data and content. We run workshops and provide documentation for cultural institutions wanting to open up their data as well as organise events bringing together groups that are committed to building an open cultural commons. The Working Group Members act as a bridge between different organisations and initiatives, and the global network. We meet every month virtually to discuss relevant updates, pressing issues, and next steps to be taken. If you are interested in joining, please get in touch with openglam@okfn.org.

Read the full details on this page.

Open GLAM Local

OpenGLAM has established several local groups as well as OpenGLAM ambassadors to serve as the local point of contact in their area. They are closely connected to the Local Groups of the Open Knowledge Foundation and work on open culture in these local groups. Subhashish Panigrahi is the local contact in India.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/open-glam-working-group-members-subhashish-panigrahi

Tulu Wikipedia Workshop at Udupi

praskrishna — 2014-06-02T08:11:56Z

The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS-A2K) and the Regional Research Centre, MGM College, Udupi invites you to a workshop on Tulu Wikipedia in Udupi on May 25. Anyone interested in contributing to Tulu Wikipedia is welcome to join the workshop.

Tulu Wikipedia is in incubation stage. Pictures of the event can be downloaded here.


Above: Participants at the Tulu Wikipedia Workshop. Pictured by Dr. U.B. Pavanaja under CC-BY-3.0 Share Alike License

The venue was sponsored by Regional Research Centre, MGM College, Udupi. Dr. U.B.Pavanaja from CIS-A2K conducted the workshop. There were 13 participants for this workshop.

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

Community led Konkani Wikipedia Outreach

nitika — 2014-06-10T08:44:22Z

Goa University students organised the first ever community led Konkani Wikipedia outreach on May 14, 2014. Fifteen first year M.A. students from Konkani Department participated in the six hour long workshop.

The primary focus of this workshop was to educate the MA first year students about contributing to Konkani Wikipedia which is currently in incubation.

The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) took this up as an assignment to build capacity of interested community members to conduct effective outreach sessions in Konkani. By way of supporting and mentoring such workshops CIS wants to make sure that we do not reach a situation where Konkani Wikipedia community is entirely dependent on CIS-A2K for its growth. The community should be able to sustain even if CIS-A2K pulls out of its Konkani work.

The workshop was organised by, User: Darshan kandolkar , User: Konknni mogi 24, User: Supriya kankumbikar and User: John Noronha. The presenters were trained, mentored and supported by CIS-A2K to organise this workshop. This included:

Helping the trainers get physical space to organise this workshop at Goa Central State Library.

Training the presenters on how to best organise the workshop and divide it into different sections such as a) Introduction to Wikipedia b) Introduction to Basic Editing c) Hands on workshop on basic editing d) Advance Editing e) Hands on workshop on advance editing

Providing all the training documents such as presentation and presenters note.

Providing registration and feedback forms.

Helping in getting the IP released from '7 accounts creation per IP rule'.

Helping the trainers to design customised energisers, Wikipedia quiz and Wikipedia games to keep the participant's enthusiasm high.


Above: Participants take part in Wiki editing at the workshop.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/konkani-wikipedia-outreach

Wikipedia in UG Education program at Christ University

praskrishna — 2014-05-27T10:19:48Z

On May 15, 2014, Prajavani published an article about Wikipedia in UG Education program in Christ University.

Click to read the online version published by Prajavani here.

A scanned version of the article is given below:

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/prajavani-may-15-2014-wikipedia-ug-education-christ-university

Pushing the Boundaries in Open Governance: Insights from OGP Asia Pacific Regional Conference in Bali, Indonesia (Day 1)

praskrishna — 2014-05-27T11:16:06Z

Sunil Abraham is quoted. He said that open governance is more about citizens checking on what government leaders are doing than on government coding its citizens to exercise surveillance.

This post originally appeared on the Open Data Research Network and has been republished with permission from the author. For the republished post on OGP website, see here.

The plenary room of Bali Nusa Dua Convention Center was jam-packed at 845 in the morning, with representatives from different countries in the Asia-Pacific region and all over the globe joining the first regional conference on open data hosted by the Government of Indonesia. The conference stage backdrop depicts a million colourful cranes moving in one direction towards the OGP logo, perhaps signalling an unprecedented wave of aspirations, commitments, plans, and actions towards a more ‘open’ governance within the region. Then a few minutes later, President Yudhoyono arrived and the two-day gathering (6-7 May 2014) of roughly 500 people started.

The program was impressive. It tried to cater to the different voices of what ideally should make an open government community – government leaders, journalists, right-to-information activists, business representatives, academia, researchers, civil-society groups, funding agencies, programmers, among others. The over-arching theme of the conference “Unlocking Innovative Openness: Impetus to Greater Citizen Engagement” speaks to both the supply side and the demand side of open data where governments can make openness more innovative to which citizens can proactively engage. The people in attendance reflected this multi-dimensionality and the kind of discussions on open governance that happened in Day 1 reflects the several, differentiated, yet somehow united view and interests of the many people that were there.

The first day of the conference brings me to four main realisations, prompted by the excellent presentations of the speakers and the lively discussion at the break-out session that I attended.

Openness is not an option but an imperative. Aruna Roy, founder of Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathanaof India, and considered one of the most influential thinkers of this decade put it more vividly using her organization’s slogan – “right to know, right to live”. While bureaucrats, like Minister Francis Maude of the UK argued that openness improve transparency, enhance public service, and stimulate growth, civil society groups claimed that openness is not something the government can do, but must do, to benefit right holders by ensuring that they are not only aware of what the government is doing but by ensuring that government leaders, to whom citizens entrust sovereignty, execute the will of the governed.
Open governance is about relations, about people, not just about technology, transparency, or data provision. Ms. Nwe Zin Win, of Myanmar National NGOs Network emphasized that as Myanmar moves towards Open Government Partnership (OGP) membership, the process should create a space for civil society groups to proactively participate. In his remarks, Director General Yoon Soon-Gu of the Republic of Korea emphasized that when his government embarked on the process of crafting Gov 3.0 as a development agenda, with the end-goal of making Koreans live a happy life, citizen consultations were conducted all across government to ensure that this plan is responsive and relevant and reflects the people’s aspirations. Anne Jellema, CEO of World Wide Web Foundation highlighted the fact that open governance is not only good for vertical accountability (government-governed) but also about horizontal accountability (agencies within the same government) and ensures that systems are working with government – judiciary, legislative, audit, executing agencies – for the common good. Open governance then, is about building that relationship of trust between government and citizens, between business and government, and between agencies in the government.
Open government has many challenges, but these are not insurmountable. Malou Mangahas of the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism emphasized five “I”s in her plenary speech that she said are the main challenges to the open government story in the Philippines and in the region – implementation, inclusiveness, information, institutionalisation, and interconnectedness. In the area of inclusiveness, one of the challenges is on how to ensure that people can participate in a context when there is a large digital divide, where internet penetration is low, and broadband speed is slow to a crawl. Mr. Samadhi of the Government of Indonesia emphasized that there are many examples in his country where government information is translated to accessible formats by infomediaries so that citizens without internet connection became aware, informed, and knowledgeable. In one of the coffee breaks, Redempto Parafina of the Affiliated Network for Social Accountability in East Asia and the Pacific shared to me that non-government organizations, concerned individuals, and universities translate information in the CheckmySchool portal to information materials for distribution and use by communities without internet.
Open governance narrative should focus on making governments more responsive and accountable. President Yudhoyono uses Facebook and Twitter, apart from the traditional media as text and snail mail, to listen to the demands of his constituents. The Government of New Zealand, according to Minister Peter Dunne, sets goals on basic public services as health, education, and employment and demands regular public reporting on these goals; reports that can be accessed and challenged by the people to whom the services are intended. Sunil Abraham of the Centre for Internet and Society argued that open governance should not veer away from this narrative. He made an example regarding India’s Unique Identification System, where the implementation is couched within the open data narrative. He believed that open governance is more about citizens checking on what government leaders are doing than on government coding its citizens to exercise surveillance.

It was a productive day. I am thankful that I was afforded the opportunity to attend the conference. One message that profoundly affected me was Aruna Roy’s exhortation at the end of her presentation – that we should make truth powerful, and that we should make power truthful.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/open-government-partnership-michael-canares-may-6-2014-pushing-the-boundaries-in-open-governance

Books and More are Relicensed to Creative Commons

subha — 2014-05-28T06:29:57Z

This blog post is cross-posted from Opensource.com. It was published on May 2, 2014.

Image by opensource.com

I began working with the Wikimedia Foundation in January 2012 for program and community support in India. With the Centre for Internet and Society's Access To Knowledge program, we focus on open access for scholarly publications to help communities enrich Wikipedia entries for Indic languages.

While I was negotiating with a few authors to relicense their copyrighted books to a Creative Commons license (a license that allows anyone to reuse, modify and use content), I began identifying certain areas of motivation for an author to donate their work as free content.

We worked closely with Goa University, Manik-Biswanath Smrutinyasa Trust, and the Institute of Odia Studies and Research.

Increasing open access for publications gained a lot when the government of India launched the National Repository of Open Educational Resources in August 2013 by the request of Wikimedia India. It generally takes a long time and much effort to negotiate with copyright holders for relicensing material as Creative Commons. But, when we do negotiate it, and win, the content is a permanent and valuable addition to open knowledge and the movement.

So far, authors might be avoiding open licensing because:

They think it might put them out of business because others could plagiarize and republish their work without attribution.
They think if they will lose ownership of the content due to the nature of open licenses, which allow reuse.

Open licensing should be important to authors because as more readers and reviewers get access to their books and other online content, the visibility of their work increases, allowing them to gain more respect and popularity. This can, in turn, help authors sell more of the reprints.

The "one book in every child's hand" campaign by Pratham Books was an initiative by a large publisher to license Indian langage books with a CC BY-SA license. The campaign's mission was to provide access to knowledge and good quality education of native Indian languages to students whose families cannot bear educational costs. Pratham Books gained a lot of attention globally and the campaign proved to be a sustainable model for publishers and free licenses.

Scholarly research publications are less prone to plagiarism because of their low retail value compared to mainstream fiction, self-help books, or travel and lifestyle books. Encyclopedic books have even less retail value. Thus, releasing content online under free licenses would not affect such scholarly works or encyclopedic print publications to a large extent.

Photo by Veethika Mishra, CC-BY-SA 4.0

Relicensing projects

Last year, Goa University applied a CC BY-SA 3.0 license to their four-volume encyclopedia, Konkani Vishwakosh. It is the largest encyclopedia compiled in the language. The book is being digitized on Konkani WikiSource, attracting new volunteers.
Manik-Biswanath Smrutinyasa relicensed eleven of the noted author Dr. Jagannath Mohanty's Odia books under a CC BY-SA 3.0 license.
Classical Odia is a 600+ page book of historical documents and manuscripts on Odia language and literary heritage of more than 2,500 years. The researchers Dr. Debiprasanna Pattanayak and Subrat Prusty moved from copyright to a CC BY-SA 3.0 license.
Two Odia language books by linguist Subrat Prusty have been relicensed to CC BY-SA 3.0. They are Jati, Jagruti O Pragati, and Bhasa O Jatiyata and have been digitized as well using ISCII standard fonts (not Unicode). ISCII standard fonts have glyphs with Indic characters that are actually replacements of the Latin characters by Indic characters.
A recent addition is the relicensing of the Kannada language encyclopedia published and copyrighted by Mysore University to a Creative Commons license.

The community and the publishers of books gain mutual benefits when more Indic language books are digitized, put online, and made freely available. By expanding online content and readership, a new life is given to many South Asian and non-Latin works, creating a revival for these languages and cultures.

Read the original post here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/opensource-education-may-2-2014-subhashish-panigrahi-books-and-more-are-relicensed-to-creative-commons

Access to Knowledge Bulletin — May 2014

praskrishna — 2014-07-04T05:30:05Z

The Access to Knowledge (Wikipedia) newsletter for the month of May 2014:

We from the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS-A2K) thank you all for your support and collaboration. We bring you the details of our work for the month of May 2014:

CIS Signs MoU with Shri Dharmasthala Manjunatheshwara College

CIS-A2K signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Shri Dharmasthala Manjunatheshwara College to introduce “Indian Language Wikipedias in the Indian Under Graduate and Post Graduate Classroom”. Dr. U.B. Pavanaja on behalf of the CIS-A2K team signed the MoU. The signing event took place earlier on April 21, 2014.

Articles

Books and More are Relicensed to Creative Commons (by Subhashish Panigrahi, Opensource.com, May 2, 2014).
GLAM in India: 10 tips for successful GLAM projects (by Subhashish Panigrahi, OpenGLAM, May 27, 2014).
Indic Language Wikipedias as Open Educational Resources (by Subhashish Panigrahi, Open Education Working Group, May 27, 2014).

Blog Entry

Community led Konkani Wikipedia Outreach (by Nitika Tandon, May 16, 2014)

Event Organized

Tulu Wikipedia Workshop at Udupi (co-organized by CIS-A2K and the Regional Research Centre, MGM College, Udupi, May 25, 2014). Dr. U.B.Pavanaja conducted the workshop.

News and Media Coverage

CIS gave its inputs to the following media coverage:

Wikipedia in UG Education program at Christ University (Prajavani, May 15, 2014).
Subhashish Panigrahi joins Open GLAM Working Group Subhashish recently joined the OpenGLAM Working Group (a global network of people who work to open up cultural data and content.) as a member and OpenGLAM Local (a local affiliate of OKFN's OpenGLAM project) as an ambassador for India. Both the positions will be voluntary.

Wikimedia Foundation has funded A2K to anchor the growth of Wikimedia movement in India. The A2K team consists of six members, four based in Bangalore: T. Vishnu Vardhan, Dr. U.B. Pavanaja, Subhashish Panigrahi and Rahmanuddin Shaikh. One team member Nitika Tandon is based in Delhi. We also have one Advisor Dr. Tejaswini Niranjana working with us. Archives of our newsletters can be accessed here. Wikipedians from various communities can request for outreach programs, technical bugs, logistics-merchandize and media, public relations and communications here.

About CIS

The Centre for Internet and Society is a non-profit research organization that works on policy issues relating to freedom of expression, privacy, accessibility for persons with disabilities, access to knowledge and IPR reform, and openness (including open government, FOSS, open standards, etc.), and engages in academic research on digital natives and digital humanities.

Twitter: https://twitter.com/CISA2K
CIS group on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/cis.india
Visit us at: https://cis-india.org

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

Request for Collaboration:
We invite researchers, practitioners, and theoreticians, both organisationally and as individuals, to collaboratively engage with Internet and society and improve our understanding of this new field. To discuss the research collaborations, write to Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, at sunil@cis-india.org or Nishant Shah, Director – Research, at nishant@cis-india.org. To discuss collaborations on Indic language wikipedia, write to T. Vishnu Vardhan, Programme Director, A2K, at vishnu@cis-india.org

CIS is grateful to its donors, Wikimedia Foundation, Ford Foundation, Privacy International, UK, Hans Foundation 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-may-2014

Wikipedia Session for Trainee Journos of Prajavani

praskrishna — 2014-05-06T07:50:44Z

Dr. U.B.Pavanaja took a session for the trainee journalists of Prajavani Kannada daily on Wikipedia, Kannada Wikipedia for the media persons.

Dr. Pavanaja explained how they can use Wikipedia in their daily work for reference. He also explained the necessity to add content to Kannada Wikipedia, correct the articles if they find any factual errors, enhance the existing articles, especially stubs, etc.

The event was organized by Prajavani on April 28, 2014.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/wiki-session-for-prajavani-journalists

14 Odia books re-released under Creative Commons license

subha — 2014-05-06T06:26:29Z

This blog entry by Subhashish Panigrahi (originally published in Wikimedia Foundation's Blog) was edited and re-published by Rohini Lakshane in DNA on April 26, 2014.

Read the article published in DNA on April 26, 2014.

Odisha became a separate state in British India on April 1, 1936. Odia, a 2,500 year old language recently gained the status of an Indian classical language. The Odia Wikimedia community celebrated these two occasions on March 29 in Bhubaneswar with a gathering of 70 people. Linguists, scholars and journalists discussed the state of the Odia language in the digital era, initiatives for its development and steps that can be taken to increase accessibility to books and other educational resources. 14 copyrighted books have been re-licensed under the Creative Commons license and the digitization project on Odia WikiSource was formally initiated by an indigenous educational institute, the Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences (KISS). Professor Udayanath Sahu from Utkal University, The Odisha Review’s editor Dr. Lenin Mohanty, Odisha Bhaskar’s editor Pradosh Pattnaik, Odia language researcher Subrat Prusty, Dr. Madan Mohan Sahu, Allhadmohini Mohanty, Chairman Manik-Biswanath Smrutinyasa and trust’s secretary Brajamohan Patnaik along with senior members Sarojkanta Choudhury and Shisira Ranjan Dash spoke at the event.

Eleven books from Odia writer Dr. Jagannath Mohanty were re-released under Creative Commons Share-Alike (CC-BY-SA 3.0) license by the “Manik-Biswanath Smrutinyasa” trust, a trust founded by Dr. Mohanty for the development of the Odia language. Allhadmohini Mohanty formally gave written permission to Odia Wikimedia to release and digitize these books. The community will be training students and a group of six faculty members at KISS who will coordinate the digitization of these books.	Group photo of Odia wikimedians participating in the advanced Wikimedia workshop at KIIT University.

Eleven books from Odia writer Dr. Jagannath Mohanty were re-released under Creative Commons Share-Alike (CC-BY-SA 3.0) license by the “Manik-Biswanath Smrutinyasa” trust, a trust founded by Dr. Mohanty for the development of the Odia language. Allhadmohini Mohanty formally gave written permission to Odia Wikimedia to release and digitize these books.

The community will be training students and a group of six faculty members at KISS who will coordinate the digitization of these books.

Group photo of Odia wikimedians participating in the advanced Wikimedia workshop at KIIT University.

“Collaborative efforts and open access to knowledge repositories will enrich our language and culture,” said linguist Padmashree Dr. Debiprasanna Pattanayak as he inagurated the event. Dr. Pattanayak and Odia language researcher Subrat Prusty from the Institute of Odia Studies and Research also re-licensed three books (Two Odia books; “Bhasa O Jatiyata“, “Jati, Jagruti O Pragati” and an English book “Classical Odia”) based on their research on Odia language and cultural influence of the language on other societies under the same license. KISS is going to digitize some of these books and make them available on Odia Wikisource.

An OpenType Odia Unicode font, “Odia OT Jagannatha” designed by Sujata Patel from Odialanguage.com was released under the OFL license. This is the first Odia OpenType font that the community actively tested. A new Odia offline input tool called “TypeOdia” by Wikipedian Manoj Sahukar was also released for public distribution. DVDs containing the font, the input tool, Odia language dictionaries, offline Odia Wikipedia in Kiwix, Wikipedia editing guide, ISCII to Unicode font converter, various free and open source software packages and Ubuntu operating system.

Active Odia Wikipedian and Admin Mrutyunjaya Kar gave the inaugural speech. Subhashish Panigrahi from the Center for Internet and Society read the annual report and vision of Odia Wikipedia. Chief guest Dr. Debiprasanna Pattanayak discussed about the efforts put forth that brought the Odia language as the sixth Indian classical language. A large majority of Odia publications are not available on the internet and readers are devoid of easy accessibility. He further discussed the process of digitization for preserving valuable books that are out of print and the old palm leaf manuscripts. Professor Udayanath Sahu presented on the process, progress and implementation of machine translation project in Utkal University.

Experienced Wikimedians conducted an advanced Wikipedia workshop on the second day of event at KIIT University, Bhubaneswar. It was attended by a majority of the existing Wikimedians from the community including new Wikipedians who signed up for the Odia Wikipedia Education Program at the Indian Institute of Mass Communication, Dhenkanal. Mrutyunjaya Kar presented on WikiData and various tools for linking and accessing information in multiple languages on various Wikimedia projects.

	Experienced Wikimedians conducted an advanced Wikipedia workshop on the second day of event at KIIT University, Bhubaneswar. It was attended by a majority of the existing Wikimedians from the community including new Wikipedians who signed up for the Odia Wikipedia Education Program at the Indian Institute of Mass Communication, Dhenkanal. Mrutyunjaya Kar presented on WikiData and various tools for linking and accessing information in multiple languages on various Wikimedia projects.

Ansuman Giri discussed advanced technical aspects such as the use of various gadgets, proper categorization, how to use subpages, how to auto-list archive pages, customizing WikiLove feature, user rights modification, including how important it is to cite biographies of living persons with secondary sources, etc. Shitikantha Dash discussed copyright and issues regarding uploading images and other media files on Wikimedia Commons.

Dr. Subas Chandra Rout presented on “notability, referencing and creating citations for the notable topics.” Subhashish Panigrahi discussed the work plan for the year, failure of program projects, collective learning and the dos and don’ts of community building.


“	We hope that more authors will come forward and re-release their books under CC-BY-SA license. The Odia community is excited to see or.wikisource.org go live. A few Wikipedians are even interested in typing their favorite free licensed books to make them available on Wikisource. I believe it’ll be challenging to train the KISS students to type and proof-read the written texts. In the CISA2K’s draft plan, the goal to have the number of editors seems overestimated. The students need to have some knowledge about Wikimedia and how it works in general before they start working. We hope that the books will be digitized properly and in coming days more users will join us in the process as we will have more free books in Odia Wikisource. I appeal to the Odia people to be a part of the Odia Wikimedia community and make Odia Wikisource a successful project, we need all the time you can devote. :-)	”
Ansuman Giri, Odia Wikipedian

Copyright notes: "A group photo of Odia wikipedians at kiit conference hall on 30th march 2014.jpg", "Odia wikipedian mrutyunjaya kar and ansuman giri on 30the march 2014.jpg" by Jnanaranjan Sahu , under CC-BY-SA 3.0 Unported, from Wikimedia Commons, "Release of DVD containing Odia font, open source tools and Offline Odia Wikipedia.jpg" by Ahemadullah Shaikh , under CC-BY-SA 3.0 Unported, from Wikimedia Commons.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/dna-rohini-lakshane-april-26-2014-14-books-re-released-under-creative-commons-license

Delhi meet focuses on Bhagabat Tungi revival

praskrishna — 2014-05-06T05:47:00Z

The Intellects, a Delhi based organisation of Odia intellectuals, and Shree Jagannath Mandir and Odisha Art and Cultural Center held a seminar on “Relevance of Bhagabat Tungi in the evolution of Odia language from Buddha era to digital age” on the occasion of one year celebration its mission ‘Asa Sikhiba Amari Bhasa’. The initiative is to spread and promote Odia language and literature in New Delhi.

The event report was published in the Pioneer on April 26, 2014. Subhashish Panigrahi from CIS-A2K participated in the event.

The seminar was attended by Rajya Sabha MP Baisnab Parida, Dr Subash Pani, Dr Bhagaban Prakash, researcher Subrat Prusty, writer and lawyer Biraja Mohapatra, journalist and Odiakart.com founder Sahasranshu Mahapatra, Subhashish Panigrahi, Kamdev Biswal of Tyagraj Nagar Jaggnath Temple and The Intellects chairman Debendra Nath Rout. The Odia intellectuals stresses on the need for revival of Bhagabat Tungi in Odisha villages as knowledge hub.

Prusty was felicitated with The Intellects Award-2014 for his contribution to Odia language, while Ramachandra Nath was felicitated for his Pallibani mission in New Delhi.

Aabout 600 Odias attended the progremme, including Dr Anita Panda, Prof Saudamini Barik, Jayaram Samal, Indubhushan Lenka, Odia Radio founder Sitanshu Mohapatra, journalist Asit Ranjan Mishra, OdishaDiary (www.orissadiary.com) founder Prachee Naik, Rashmi Ranjan Parida, The Intellects members Sangram Dhar, Smrutidhara Rout, Anasuya Sahoo, Aditya Mohanty, Nirmal Dhal, Sanjaya Parida, Pankajamala Sarangi, Premanda Swain, lawyer Sanjeeb Kumar Mohanty and Tarun Samantray. The Intellects will also organise 7-day Bhagabata Sandhya on the premises of Shree Jagannath Mandir, Tyagraj Nagar, from April 21 to 27 in an effort to spread the noble principles of the Shreemad Bhagabat.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/the-pioneer-april-26-2014-delhi-meet-focuses-on-bhagabat-tunigi-revival

Tech Talk: Landscape of Wireless Communications & Electromagnetic Spectrum

praskrishna — 2014-05-07T08:12:54Z

The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) welcomes you to a talk by A. Radha Krishna on April 28, 2014, 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. at its office in Bangalore.

Radha Krishna's talk will focus on:

The various wireless communication technologies like Bluetooth, Zigbee, Zwave, WiFi, IoT, HomeRF, RFid, NFC, RuBee, connected car, V2V, V2I, V2R, 2G, 3G, 4G, x10, Insteon, JenNetIP, Wireless USB, microwave communication, satellite communication, Iridium, ameture radio, DVB-T, H/NGH, SH, AM, FM, NTSC, TV-Band Devices, cordless phones, RC toys, remote door lock of cars, etc.
Touch upon lasers and fiber optic communications.
Discuss licensed/unlicensed/reserved bands of electromagnetic spectrum.
Some of the challenges to use other frequencies of electromagnetic spectrum.

A. Radha Krishna

A. Radha Krishna is an Architect working in Alcatel-Lucent with 15 years of experience in embedded, consumer electronics, and telecom domains. He is also a long time Wikimedian and acted as Wikimedia Bangalore SIG chair for about 1.5 years. He is also part of NASSCOM initiative to reduce the gap of skills of Engineering students to Industry need. He is working on a Telecom course which could be part of curriculum in Engineering colleges all over India from 2015.

Presentation Material

View more presentations by Radha Krishna here.

Snacks and high tea will be served at 5.00 p.m.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/events/tech-talk-landscape-of-wireless-communications-and-electromagnetic-spectrum

Seminar on Odia Language in New Delhi by the Intellects

praskrishna — 2014-05-06T15:04:41Z

Recently the Odia Language has been accorded classical status by the Government of India. It has increased the responsibility of all Odias to protect, promote and propagate the Odia literature at this digital age while the next gen Odias are moving away from their mother tongue.

The event report was published in Odisha Samachar on April 24, 2014. Subhashish Panigrahi participated in the event.

It is now important for all the scholars, writers, intellectuals and students of Odia literature to shoulder the responsibility to carry forward the legacy of the language while confronting the challenges. On this issue a brain storming seminar has organized by a New Delhi based progressive forum of intellectual Odia people; THE INTELLECTS at Tyagaraj Nagar Jaggnath Mandir, New Delhi. Odia Intellectuals stresses on need for revival of Bhagabat Tungi in Odisha villages as knowledge hub. It should be noted that The Intellects a Delhi based organization of Odia intellectuals and Shree Jagannath Mandir & Odisha Art And Cultural Center have come together to organize aseminar on the subject “Relevance Of Bhagabat Tungi In The Evolution Of Odia LanguageFrom Budha Era To Digital Age” on the occasion of one year celebration its mission ASA SIKHIBA AMARI BHASHA which is an initiative to teach Odia language in New Delhi.

The conference was about the discussion over creative platform for future development of Odia language and literature. Delegates were drawn from diverse areas to provide more interdisciplinary insight in to issues and challenges that are in from of Odia language to march ahead in the new age of computer.

The seminar was attended by Rajya Sabha MP Baisnab Parida, Dr. Subash Pani, Dr. Bhagaban Prakash, researcher Subrat Prusty, writer and lawyer Biraja Mohapatra, journalist and Odiakart.com founder Sahasranshu Mahapatra, Subhashish Panigrahi- Programme Officer at the Centre for Internet and Society, Kamdev Biswal of Tyagraj Nagar Jaggnath Temple and The Intellects chairman Shri Debendra Nath Rout. Sh. Subrat Prusty was felicitated with The Intellects Award-2014 for his contribution to Odia language. Sh. Ramachandra Nath has felicitated for his pallibani mission in New Delhi. Students of ASA SIKHIBA AMARI BHASHA were felicitated for their performance in learning process of Odia in national capital. The program was attended by who is who of Delhi Odias like Dr. Anita Panda, Prof. Saudamini Barik, Jayaram Samal, Indubhushan Lenka, OdiaRadio Founder, Sitanshu Mohapatra, Journalist Asit Ranjan Mishra, OdishaDiary (www.orissadiary.com) founder Prachee Naik, Rashmi Ranjan Parida,The Intellects members Sangram Dhar, Smrutidhara Rout, Anasuya Sahoo, Aditya Mohanty, Nirmal Dhal, Sanjaya Parida,Pankajamala Sarangi, Premanda Swain, lawyer Sanjeeb Kumar Mohanty, Tarun Samantray, and others.

This program was attended by nearly 600 Odias living across the national capital region. The Intellects also organsing 7-days BHAGABAT SANDHYA will also be organized at the premises of Shree Jagannath Mandir, Tyagraj Nagar, New Delhi from 21st April to 27 April 2014 in an effort to spread the noble principles of the SHREEMAD BHAGABAT .

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/eodishasamacharseminar-on-odia-language-in-new-delhi-by-the-intellects

World Book Day

praskrishna — 2014-05-05T09:33:11Z

Dr. U.B.Pavanaja was one of the speakers on the program arranged on account of World Book Day by Karnataka Publishers’ Association at the Indian Institute of World Culture, Basavanagudi.

He spoke about the importance of giving info about Kannada books in Kannada Wikipedia, about digitization of books, ebooks and audio books.

Click to read the media coverage in the Hindu.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/world-book-day

Books are a bridge between generations

praskrishna — 2014-05-05T09:27:05Z

Kannada litterateurs stressed on the importance of books and cultivating the habit of reading on the occasion of ‘World Book Day’ on Wednesday.

The article was published in the Deccan Herald on April 23, 2014. Dr. U.B.Pavanaja was a speaker on the occasion.

Speaking on the sidelines of the event, writer Narahalli Balasubramanya said “We should ensure children emulate great minds if we want them to be responsible citizens. This is possible only if we make them read good books.

Today, we are increasingly finding ourselves in the company of corrupt people. It is through books that we can interact with great literary figures such as Bendre and Kuvempu.”

The event was jointly organised by Karnataka Publishers Association, Kendra Sahitya Akademi, Karnataka Lekhakiyara Sangha and Indian Institute of World Culture.

Balasubramanya maintained that the Kendra Sahitya Academy sold books at affordable rates and also gave a funding of Rs 400 crore to the book publishers, annually. “But not many people are aware of books entering market and the works don’t reach people,” he added.

A series of Kannada works written by authors were released on the occasion. Writer Dr Siddalingaiah who released the books said “Books are bridges between our minds and our ancestors’ minds. Every home should have a small library.”

‘Pustaka Bhagya’

“The State government has introduced Anna Bhagya, Ksheera Bhagya and other schemes. Similarly, they should also implement Pustaka Bhagya,” said M V Nagaraj Rao of Shrungara Prakashana.

Technical writer in Kannada U B Pavanaja maintained that in Kannada Wikipedia there was dearth of information on Kannada literary works. “There is enough information about English works but not on Kannada novels and literary publications. The Kannada publishers should strive to feed information and synopsis of each work into the Kannada wikipedia,” he added.

Public Library Department celebrated the occasion by holding a book exhibition and essay competition for children at City Central Library premises on Wednesday.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/deccan-herald-april-23-2014-books-are-a-bridge-between-generations

World Book Day (Coverage in Vijayavani)

praskrishna — 2014-05-05T09:40:16Z

Dr. U.B. Pavanaja participated in the event as a speaker. A scanned version of the report is below:

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/vijayavani-april-23-2014-world-book-day