Centre for Internet and Society

More Than 40 Million People Await the Launch of Odia Wikisource

subha — 2014-11-04T13:58:48Z

Speakers of Odia will soon have mountains of books to read online in their mother tongue, following the launch of the Odia Wikisource, which will make accessible many rare books that have entered the public domain.

The article by Subhashish Panigrahi was published in Global Voices on October 18, 2014 and thereafter mirrored on the Wikimedia Blog on October 21, 2014.

Authors and publishers are also invited to donate their copyrighted work, possibly bringing open access to large volumes of books and manuscripts, creating a vast archive of educational resources. And everything will be in Odia.

One of the biggest advantages of Wikisource is that all its books are available in Unicode, meaning that Google's search engine indexes the texts’ entirety, and readers are able to copy easily what they wish. (Most conventional archival systems lack this feature.) A volunteer community administers Wikisource. To upload a book's content, volunteers either retype the books word-for-word, or, when possible, use Optical Character Recognition (commonly known as “OCR“), which converts scanned images into editable text. Available at or.wikisource.org, Odia is Wikisource's eleventh Indic language.

There are more than 40 million native Odia speakers in the world. Most live in the Indian state of Odisha and its neighboring states, but there is a large diaspora in countries like the US, UK, UAE, and across South and East Asia. Despite being spoken by so many people, Odia's online presence is relatively small.

As of October 2014, Odia Wikipedia hosted 8,441 articles. The state government's websites have Odia-language content, naturally, but none of the text is in Unicode, making the materials invisible to search engines and difficult to share. Thanks to individual and organizational efforts, some Odia-language websites have recently emerged with Unicode content.

With support from the non-profit organization Pragati Utkal Sangha and the National Institute of Technology Rourkela, a Bhubaneswar-based outfit has digitized about 740 books through the Open Access to Oriya Books (OAOB) project. Most of these texts were published between 1850 and 1950. The OAOB project is the largest existing digital archive of Odia literature, but the archived books are only available as scanned PDFs, restricting readers’ ability to search within the texts.

As a Wikimedia project, Odia Wikisource underwent a long approval process, after running as an active incubator project for nearly two years. Both the Language Committee and the Wikimedia Foundation's Board reviewed and endorsed the project.

Odia Wikisource has already digitized and proofread three books entirely. In collaboration with the Wikimedia-funded Centre for Internet and Society‘s Access to Knowledge, the Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences (KISS) has partially digitized another book, as well. KISS is also busy digitizing another Nine books by Odia-language author Dr. Jagannath Mohanty that were relicensed to CC-BY-SA 3.0 earlier this year.

In response to posts on Twitter and Facebook, four new contributors recently joined Wikisource to help digitize “The Odia Bhagabata,” a literary classic compiled in the 14th century. “Content that have already been typed with fonts of non-Unicode encoding systems could be converted by converters which was the case of Odia Bhagabata. New contributors did not face the problem of retyping the text, as the book was already available on a website Odia.org and is out of copyright”, says Manoj Sahukar, who (along with yours truly) designed a converter that helped to transcribe “Bhagabata”.

Rising Voices contacted some of those whose efforts made this happen.

Mrutyunjaya Kar (MK), Long time Wikimedian who has proof-read the books on Odia Wikisource
Rising Voices (RV): Youre there with Odia Wikisource since its inception. How you think it will help other Odias?
MK: Odias around the globe will have access to a vast amount of old as well as new books and manuscripts online in the tip of their finger. Knowing more about the long and glorious history of Odisha will become easier.

Nihar Kumar Dalai (NKD), Wikisource writer
RV: How does it feel to be one of the few contributors to digitize Odia Bhagabata. How you want to get involved in future?
NKD: This is a proud opportunity for me to be a part of digitization of such old literature. I, at times, think if I could get involved with this full time!

Nasim Ali (NA), Oldest active Odia Wikimedian and Wikisource writer
RV: Do you think any particular section of the society is going to be benefited by this?
NA: Books contain the gist of all human knowledge. The ease of access and spread of books are the markers of the intellectual status of a society. And in this e-age Wikisource can be helpful by not just providing easy access to a plethora of books under free licenses but also aiding the spread of basic education in developing economies. Together with Wikisource and cheaper internet this could catalyze a Renaissance of 21st century.

Pankajmala Sarangi (PS), Wikisource writer
RV: You have digitized almost two books, are the highest contributor to the project and also one of the main reasons for Odia Wikisource getting approved. What are your plans next to grow it and take to masses?
PS: I would be happy to contribute by typing more books on Odia so that they can be stored and available to all. We can take this to masses through social, print and audio & visual media and organizing meetings/discussions.

Amir Aharoni (AA), Wikimedia Language Committee member and Software Engineer at the Language Engineering team at the Wikimedia Foundation
RV: What you feel Wikisource could do to a language like Odia with more than 40 million speakers?
AA: In schools in Odisha, are there lessons of Odia literature? If the answer is yes, then it can do a very simple thing – make these lessons more fun and help children learn more! Everybody says that in Kerala this worked very well with Malayalam literature.

Clearly, strong passions motivate Odia Wikisource's volunteers, like Nihar Kumar Dalai, who writes on Facebook:

Hindi and English are fine, but our native language it bit more special! Who of us does not now about the art, culture, noted personalities, tourist spots and festivals of Odisha? But if you search online about all of these then there is very little available. There comes a simple and easy solution Odia Wikipedia. Like Odia Wikipedia, Odia Wikisource is another great place and this is my small contribution to bring Odia Bhagabata on Odia Wikisource.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/global-voices-subhashish-panigrahi-october-18-2014-more-than-400-million-people-await-launch-of-odia-wikisource

Bharat Majhi Writings Now Available Under a Creative Commons License

subha — 2014-11-07T15:34:38Z

Before the advent of Odia Wikisource becoming live, Centre for Internet and Society's Access to Knowledge (CIS-A2K) got in touch with notable Odia author Bharat Majhi for bringing his writings on the Internet.

Dr. Sailen Routray, Director, Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences (KISS) (also an institutional partner of CIS-A2K) played a key role in initiating a dialog with Mr. Majhi. Five of his books are now available under Creative Commons Share Alike 4.0 (CC-by-SA 4.0) license:

Agadhu Duari
Saralarekhaa
Murtikaara
Mahanagara Padya
Highwayre Kuhudi

Bharat Majhi is a known name in Odia literary circle. His writings on societal structures in rural Odisha, the people, their life, aspiration and suffering have been critically acclaimed. These books also become the first Odia modern poetry books to be available under a CC-by-SA license and Mr. Majhi takes another leap of being the first Odia poet to release his literary work under CC-by-SA 4.0 license.

Video

In this video, Odia-language poet Bharat Majhi reciting a poem from his first book Agadhu Duari. He recently released 5 of his books under CC-by-SA 4.0 license by the efforts of Centre for Internet and Society's Access To Knowledge (CIS-A2K) and Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences (KISS).He also tells Subhashish Panigrahi about his dreams of poetry becoming a performing art coming true by it becoming more open. After other Odia author and poet Dr Jagannath Mohanty, Majhi is the first Odia poet to release poem online under CC-by-SA license and his poetry earn the title of the first Odia modern poetry under the same license.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/bharat-majhi-writings-now-available-under-cc-license

Ada Lovelace Edit-a-thon 2014

praskrishna — 2014-10-13T06:30:08Z

A Wikipedia edit-a-thon is being held at Urban Solace on October 14, 2014 from 10.00 a.m. to 4.00 p.m. The event is being organized by IndiaBioScience in partnership with the Centre for Internet and Society's Access to Knowledge (CIS-A2K) team. CIS-A2K will conduct the first three edit-a-thons.

In India, Science as a discipline is subject to many of the same gender issues as it is worldwide - women scientists are fewer in number than men, they occupy fewer positions of power, and face distinct issues by virtue of their gender and the accompanying societal pressures. Women Scientists in India also tend to be less visible than their male counterparts, and public awareness of Indian Women Scientists is low.

IndiaBioScience will be organising a series of public events to raise the profile of women scientists on one of the most-popular online encyclopaedias - Wikipedia. At these events, participants will be encouraged to create and complete profiles of Indian Women in Science.

The last of these events, on October 14 coincides with Ada Lovelace Day, an international day to celebrate the achievements of women in Science, Technology and Math.

To participate sign up below or click here (http://www.indiabioscience.org/content/women-science-wiki-edit-thon)

Lunch and snacks will be provided.

At the venue, the events will begin with a short, hands-on introduction to Wiki editing. Participants can then go on to pick the scientist they would like to work on. There will be an interaction session with a guest Woman Scientist around lunch, with a discussion of issues commonly faced by women in science. In the afternoon session, participants can continue working on the Wiki pages, with a break for tea. Participants are requested to bring their laptops. We have a few desktops available at Saturday's venue for those who cannot do so.

Online participants can find us via Google Hangout. Chat with us or dial in for interactions, questions, help or simply to socialize.

Speaker: Rohini Godbole

See the event page on Wikipedia.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/events/ada-lovelace-edit-a-thon-2014

Indian Women in Science Wiki edit-a-thon

praskrishna — 2014-10-13T06:17:56Z

A Wikipedia edit-a-thon is being held at the Centre for Ecological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore on October 11, 2014 from 10.00 a.m. to 4.00 p.m. The event is being organized by IndiaBioScience in collaboration with the Centre for Internet and Society's Access to Knowledge team.

CIS-A2K will conduct the first three edit-a-thons.

To participate sign up below or click here (http://www.indiabioscience.org/content/women-science-wiki-edit-thon

Contact the IndiaBioScience Team for more details: www.indiabioscience.org & team@indiabioscience.org

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/events/india-women-in-science-wiki-edit-a-thon

ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଭାଷା ବିକାଶରେ ପ୍ରତିବନ୍ଧକ ଓ ସମ୍ଭାବନା

subha — 2014-10-13T05:19:44Z

I authored an editorial in today's Samaja (Odia daily). It talks about the hurdles Odia language has been facing and potential aspects of the language including it being used massively on the Internet in Wikipedia and other platforms.

Click to read the article published in the Samaja on October 13, 2014 here. Click to download the file (PDF).

ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଭାଷା ଶାସ୍ତ୍ରୀୟ ମାନ୍ୟତା ପାଇବା ପରେ ସଭା ସମିତି ମାଧ୍ୟମରେ ଗୋଟିଏ କଥା "ଓଡ଼ିଆ ସଂସ୍କୃତରୁ ଆହରିତ ନୁହେଁ, ବରଂ ନିଜେ ସ୍ୱୟଂସମ୍ପୂର୍ଣ୍ଣ ଏକ ଭାଷା ଯାହାର ପାଖାପାଖି ପାଞ୍ଚହଜାର ବର୍ଷର ଇତିହାସ ରହିଛି'ଜନମାନସରେ ବାରମ୍ବାର ବିମ୍ବିତ ହୋଇଛି । ଏହା ଅନେକ ଓଡ଼ିଆଙ୍କୁ ନିଜ ଭାଷା ବାବଦରେ ଖାଲି ସଚେତନ କରିନାହିଁ, ବରଂ କେଇ ଶହ ବର୍ଷର ବିଦେଶୀ ଶାସନ ଓ ତା' ପରର ଭୁଶୁଡ଼ି ପଡ଼ିଥିବା ଏକ ସାମାଜିକ ଅବସ୍ଥା ଭିତରେ, ଢୋକେ ପିଇ ଦଣ୍ଡେ ଜିଇ ଆଗକୁ ଆଗେଇଥିବା ଏକ ଜାତିକୁ ଆତ୍ମଗୌରବ ଦେଇଛି । ୧୯୩୬ରେ ଭାଷା ଭିତ୍ତିରେ ଓଡ଼ିଶା ପ୍ରଦେଶ ଗଢ଼ାହେବାବେଳେ ଓଡ଼ିଆଙ୍କ ମଞ୍ଜ ଯେଉଁ ଦମ୍ଭିଲା ହୋଇଥିଲା, ଶାସ୍ତ୍ରୀୟ ମାନ୍ୟତା ମିଳିବା ପରେ ତା' ଉପରେ ଏ ଭାଷାକୁ ଆହୁରି କେଇ ହଜାର ବର୍ଷ ଆଗକୁ ବଢ଼ାଇବା ପାଇଁ ସଂକଳ୍ପର ଇନ୍ଧନ ଯୋଗାଇଛି । ତେବେ ଆମର ଏ ଗୌରବ ସାର୍ବଜନୀନ କି କେବଳ ବୁଦ୍ଧିଜୀବୀଙ୍କ ଭିତରେ ସୀମିତ ତାହା ବିଚାରିବାର ବେଳ ଆସିଛି । ଭାଷାଟିଏ କେବେ ହେଁ ଭାଷାଗବେଷାଳିଙ୍କ ଭାଷା ହୋଇ ଜିଏଁ ନାହିଁ, ଜିଏଁ ସାଧାରଣ ଲୋକଙ୍କ ନିତିଦିନର ଜୀବନରେ-ଘରେ, ସାମାଜିକ ମେଳିରେ, ସାହିତ୍ୟରେ ବିଶେଷ କରି ବେପାର-ବଣିଜରେ ଓ ଶାସନରେ । ଆମ ଭାଷା କେତେ କେଉଁଠି ବ୍ୟବହାରରେ ଲାଗୁଛି ଓ କେତେ ଲାଗିବ, ତାହାର ନିର୍ଦ୍ଧାରଣ ନିତାନ୍ତ ଜରୁରୀ । ଏ ଗୁରୁବେଳା ଏବେ ଆସି ଉପନୀତ । ଭାଷାଟିଏ ସବୁବେଳେ ଆରମ୍ଭ ହୋଇଥାଏ ସମାଜ ସମାଜ ଭିତରେ ଭାବ ଦିଆନିଆ ନିମନ୍ତେ । ଇତିହାସ, ସାମାଜିକତା କିମ୍ବା ଧନ ସମ୍ପତ୍ତି ନିଜପର ପିଢ଼ି ପାଇଁ ସାଇତି ରଖିବାପାଇଁ ସମାଜର ପୁରୁଖା ଲୋକେ କଥିତ ଭାଷାକୁ ଲିପି ମାଧ୍ୟମରେ ଲେଖିରଖନ୍ତି । ଏହି ଳେଖିବାର ପ୍ରକ୍ରିୟା କିଛିକାଳ ଚାଲିବା ଭିତରେ ଲିଖନ ପଦ୍ଧତିକୁ ବ୍ୟବସ୍ଥିତ କରିବା ନିମନ୍ତେ ବ୍ୟାକରଣ ତିଆରି ହୁଏ, କେବଳ ଆବଶ୍ୟକତା ମେଣ୍ଟାଇବାପାଇଁ ଲିଖନ ତିଆରି ନହୋଇ ମନୋରଞ୍ଜନ ଓ ଜୀବନଧାରାକୁ ସୁଗମ କରିବାପାଇଁ ସାହିତ୍ୟ ତିଆରି ହୁଏ । ଏମିତି ହୁଏ ଭାଷାର ବିକାଶ । କେବେ ଏକ ଭାଷାଭାଷୀ ସମାଜ ଆଉ ଏକ ଭାଷାଭାସୀ ସମାଜର ଶିକାର ହୁଏ ତ କେବେ ଷଡ଼ଯନ୍ତ୍ରର । ଭାଷା ପ୍ରବାହର ଏ ଆବଡ଼ାଖାବଡ଼ା ପଥରେ ମୂଳ ଭାଷାରୁ କେତେ ନାଶ ହୁଏ କେତେ ଅଲଗା ଭାଷାରୁ ମିଶେ । କେବେକେବେ ଭାଷାଟିଏର ଆଧୁନିକ ରୂପ ମୂଳ ରୂପରୁ ଖୁବ୍‍ ଅଲଗା ହୋଇବସେ । ଓଡ଼ିଆ, ଏକ ଭାଷା ଭାବେ ଏମିତି ଉତ୍‍ଥାନ ପତନ ଭିତର ଦେଇ ନିଶ୍ଚିତ ଆସିଛି । ଆଜି ଆମେ ଯଦି କଳିଙ୍ଗରୁ ଆବିଷ୍କୃତ ଲିଖିତ ପୋଥିପୁରାଣରୁ (ଯାହା ପାଳି ଭାଷା ସହିତ ସାମଞ୍ଜସ୍ୟ ରଖେ)ଆମ ଭାଷା ସହ ମେଳ ଖୋଜିବସିବା, ଅନେକ ମେଳ ପାଇବା ନିଶ୍ଚିତ, ହେଲେ ଅନେକ ବର୍ଷର ବ୍ୟବଧାନ ହେତୁ ତା'ର ଅନେକ ଭାଗ ଆମକୁ ବୁଝିବାକୁ ଦୁରୁହ ମଧ୍ୟ ହେବ । ଆମ ଭାଷାର ମୌଳିକତା ଜାଣିବା ସମୟରେ ଆମେ ସବୁଠାରୁ ମୂଳ ପ୍ରମାଣ ଯାହା କେବଳ ଆମର ଅଧୁନା ବ୍ୟବହୃତ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଭାଷା ସହ ମୋଟାମୋଟି ମିଶୁଥିବା ତଥା ଆମର ସାମାଜିକ ବ୍ୟବସ୍ଥାର ଇତିହାସ ସହ ମିଶୁଥିବ, ତାହା ପରଖି ନିର୍ଦ୍ଧାରିବା । ପ୍ରାମାଣିକ ଓ ଐତିହାସିକ ତଥ୍ୟ, ଲୋକମୁଖରେ ଜୀବନ୍ତ ଇତିହାସ (ଓରାଲ ହିଷ୍ଟି୍ର) ତଥା ପ୍ରତ୍ନତାତ୍ତ୍ୱିକ ଗବେଷଣାର ଆଧାରରେ ଏହା ସାଧିତ ହେବ । ଆମ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଭାଷା ପାଇଁ କିଛି ଗବେଷଣା ହୋଇଛି, କିଛି କାମ ବାକି ଅଛି, ଆଉ ଆମ ପାଖେ ମିଳୁଥିବା ଭାଷାଗତ, ଲିପିଗତ, ପ୍ରତ୍ନତାତ୍ତ୍ୱିକ ଓ ସାମାଜିକଗତ ପ୍ରମାଣକୁ ଭିତ୍ତିକରି ହୋଇଥିବା ନାନାଦି ଗବେଷଣାକୁ ପରସ୍ପର ସହ ଯୋଡ଼ିବା ଦେଇ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଭାଷାର କ୍ରମବିକାଶର ଧାରା ଜଣାପଡ଼ିବ । ହେଲେ ଇତିହାସ ଗୋଟେ ଆଡ଼େ, ବାସ୍ତବିକ ଜୀବନରେ ଭାଷାର ପ୍ରତିଛବି ଆଉ ଗୋଟେ ଆଡ଼େ । ଆମେ ଅତୀତରେ ଏକ ଲଢ଼ୁଆ, ପରିଶ୍ରମୀ, ଚତୁର ଜାତି ହୋଇଥିଲେ ହେଁ ଆମ ଏବେକାର ପିଢ଼ିରେ ଯେ ଘୋଡ଼ାମୁହାଁ ପୁଅ ଜନମ ନହେବେ ତା'କିଏ ଦମ୍ଭର ସହ କହିପାରିବ? ଗହଣା ଯେତେ ଝଟକୁ ପଛେ ମାସରେ ଥରେ ତେନ୍ତୁଳିପାଣିରେ ମାଜିବା ଚାହି । ଭାଷାଟିଏ ଯେତେ ପୁରାତନ ଓ ସମୃଦ୍ଧ ହେଉ ପଛକେ, ଛୋଟ ପିଲାଟିଏରୁ ନେଇ ବୁଢ଼ାଯାଏ ସେ ଭାଷାକୁ ନିଜ ଜୀବନଧାରଣର ଭାଷା ଭାବେ ବ୍ୟବହାର ନକଲାଯାଏ ସେ ଭାଷାର ଉତ୍ତରଣ କେବେ ହେବନାହିଁ । ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଭାଷା ଏବେ ଧୀରେଧୀରେ ସାଧାରଣ ବ୍ୟବହାରରୁ ଦୂରେଇ ଯାଉଛି । ଏ କଥା ଯେତେ ବେଦନାଦାୟକ ହେଲେ ବି ସତ । ଆମେ ରକ୍ଷଣଶୀଳ ଭାବେ ଇଂରାଜୀ ବା ହିନ୍ଦୀଭାଷାକୁ ଦୋଷ ହେଉଛୁ ସିନା, କିନ୍ତୁ ସେହି ପରିମାଣରେ ଆମେ ନିଜ ଭାଷା ପାଇଁ ଜନପ୍ରିୟ ମାଧ୍ୟମରେ ସାଧନ ଉପଲବ୍ଧ କରାଇପାରିନାହୁଁ । ମୋବାଇଲ କଷ୍ଟମର କେଆରରେ ଓଡ଼ିଆଟିଏ ସେପଟରୁ କଲ ଉଠାଇ ହିନ୍ଦୀରେ ସିଧା କଥା ହେବା ଆରମ୍ଭ କରିବା ଦେଖି ଲାଗିବ ଆପଣ ବୋଧେ ଦିଲ୍ଲୀ କି ପାଟଣାରେ ଅଛନ୍ତି । ଗଣମାଧ୍ୟମରେ ବହୁବିଧ ଖେଚୁଡ଼ି ଭାଷାରେ ସମ୍ବାଦ ପରିବେଷଣ, ବିଲବୋର୍ଡ଼ଠାରୁ ଆରମ୍ଭ କରି ଟିଭି ବିଜ୍ଞାପନ ଯାଏ ଅବିକଳ ହିନ୍ଦୀ ବା ଇଂରାଜୀ ଢ଼ାଞ୍ଚାରୁ ଓଡ଼ିଆକୁ ବଦଳାଇବା, ଇଂରାଜୀମାଧ୍ୟମ ସ୍କୁଲମାନଙ୍କରେ ଓଡ଼ିଆକୁ ବାଧ୍ୟତାମୂଳକ ନକରାଇବା, ବିଭିନ୍ନ ଶିକ୍ଷାନୁଷ୍ଠାନଗୁଡ଼ିକରେ, ଦୋକାନ ବଜାରରେ, ରାଜଧାନୀର କ୍ୟାଫେଠାରୁ ଆରମ୍ଭ କରି ଛୋଟଛୋଟ ଦୋକାନରେ ହିନ୍ଦୀରେ କଥାବାର୍ତ୍ତା ଶୁଣି ଲାଗୁଛି ଆମ ସମାଜ ପାଇଁ ଆଉ ଏକ ଭାଷା ଆନ୍ଦୋଳନ ଲୋଡ଼ା ।

ଏକଥା କହିବାର ଉଦ୍ଦେଶ୍ୟ ହେଉଛି ଯେଉଁ ତୋଷାଳିକୁ ଆମ ସଂସ୍କୃତିର ପ୍ରାଣକେନ୍ଦ୍ର କହି ମନ୍ଦିରମାଳିନୀ ଉପାଧି ଦେଇ ଆମେ ମୁଣ୍ଡରେ ବସାଇଛୁ, ସେଇ ସହରରେ ଅନ୍ୟ ରାଜ୍ୟରୁ ଆଗତ ବିଭିନ୍ନ ଭାଷାଭାଷୀ ଇଞ୍ଜିନିଅରିଂ ବା ଅନ୍ୟାନ୍ୟ ଛାତ୍ର ଓ ଚାକିରିଆ କେତେ ଅଧିକ ହୋଇଗଲେ ଯେ, ଆମର ଦୋକାନବଜାରର ବ୍ୟାବହାରିକ ଭାଷା ହିନ୍ଦୀ ହୋଇଗଲା? ଯେଉଁଠି ଆମ ରାଜ୍ୟର ଭାଷା ଓ ଚଳଣିର ବାନା ସୁଦୂର ଜାପାନ, ଥାଇଲାଣ୍ଡ, କୋରିଆ, ମାଲେସିଆ, ସିଙ୍ଗାପୁରଠୁ ଆରମ୍ଭ କରି ଦକ୍ଷିଣ ଆମେରିକାଯାଏ ଉଡ଼ୁଛି ସେଠି ଆମେ ଆମ ପଡ଼ିଶା ରାଜ୍ୟର କେତୋଟି ପିଲାଙ୍କ ପାଇଁ ନିଜର ପରିଚୟ ହରାଇଦେବା? ନିଜ ଭାଷାକୁ ଉଜାଡ଼ି ଦେବା? ବିଶ୍ୱାସ କରିବାକୁ ବାଧ୍ୟ ହେବେ ଯେ ଧୀରେଧୀରେ ଓଡ଼ିଶାର ଶିକ୍ଷାନୁଷ୍ଠାନମାନଙ୍କରେ ବ୍ୟାବହାରିକ ଭାଷା ଉପରେ ବର୍ଣ୍ଣିତ ଖେଚୁଡ଼ି ଭାଷା ହେଲାଣି । ଏଥିରେ ହିନ୍ଦୀ ଛୁଆଁ ଥିବାରୁ କେହି ହିନ୍ଦୀ ଭାଷା ବିଶାରଦ ଯେ ଆନନ୍ଦ ଅନୁଭବ କରିବେ ତାହା ମୋର ଧାରଣା ବାହାରେ । ଏମିତି ବେମୁରବା ଭାଷାର ଏନ୍ତୁଡ଼ିଶାଳ ହିନ୍ଦୀ ଭାଷାର ଅନେକ ଟିଭି ଚ୍ୟାନେଲ ଓ ବଲିଉଡ଼ । ଯାହା ଜଣାଶୁଣା ମିଡ଼ିଆରେ ପ୍ରସାରିତ ହୁଏ ତାକୁ ଯୁବଗୋଷ୍ଠୀ ଶୁଣନ୍ତି । ସେଥିରେ ଯୁବାମନକୁ ସୁହାଇବାକୁ ଏତେ ଯେ ଉପାଦାନ ଭରି ରଖାଯାଇଛି, ଆମ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଭାଷାର ମିଡ଼ିଆ ଏଯାଏ ପହଞ୍ଚି ପାରୁନାହିଁ; ବରଂ ସେମାନେ ହିନ୍ଦୀ ଭାଷାରେ ପ୍ରସାରିତ ଅନେକ କାର୍ଯ୍ୟକ୍ରମର ନକଲ କରିବାକୁ ଯାଇ ଆହୁରି ବେଙ୍ଗା ଭାଷାଟିଏ ତିଆରି କରୁଛନ୍ତି । ଆଉ ଏ ଭାଷାର ପ୍ରସାର କେଉଁ ଗୋଟିଏ ଭାଷାର ଲାଭ ଯେ ହେଉନାହିଁ ଏକଥା କହିବା ବାହୁଲ୍ୟ । ଏ ଭାଷା ଏବେ ରିଆଲିଟି ଶୋ କିମ୍ବା ଗୀତନାଚ ଭଳି ଅନେକ ମନୋରଞ୍ଜନଧର୍ମୀ ଓଡ଼ିଆ କାର୍ଯ୍ୟକ୍ରମରେ ଦେଖିବାକୁ ମିଳିବ । ଭାବନ୍ତୁ, ଆଜିକାଲିର ଶିଶୁମାନେ ବହିଠାରୁ ଯେତେ ଦୂରେଇଗଲେଣି ଆଉ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଭାଷା ଶିକ୍ଷାକୁ ସ୍କୁଲରେ ଯେଉଁଭଳି ଅବହେଳା କରାଯାଉଛି ସେଥିରେ ପିଲାଟିଏ କେମିତି ଅବା ଶିଖିବ ଓଡ଼ିଆ? ଯଦି ଏ ରାଜ୍ୟର ଆଗାମୀ ପିଢ଼ି ଏ ଭାଷା ଶିଖୁନାହାନ୍ତି, ଯୁବାଏ ୪୦ ଭାଗରୁ ଅଧିକ ଶବ୍ଦ ହିନ୍ଦୀ, ଇଂରାଜୀରୁ ଆହୁରି ଓଡ଼ିଆରେ ବ୍ୟବହାର କରୁଛନ୍ତି ତା'ହେଲେ ଆଉ ଦଶଟି ବର୍ଷରେ ଓଡ଼ିଆ କେଉଁଠି ଥିବ? ଭାଷାଟି କେବଳ କ'ଣ କିଛି ଜେଜେ ବୟସର ଲୋକଙ୍କ ପାଇଁ, ଆଉ ସାହିତ୍ୟ ଚଷୁଥିବା କିଛି ତରୁଣ ଓ ପ୍ରବୀଣଙ୍କ ପାଇଁ?

ତେବେ ଏଥିପାଇଁ ଆମ ଗଣମାଧ୍ୟମ ଏକ ଗୁରୁଭୂମିକା ନିଭାଇ ପାରନ୍ତା । ଏବେ ଯେଉଁ ଓଡ଼ିଆକୁ ଆମେ ମାନକ ବୋଲି ମାନୁଛେ ସେ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଆମ ଭାଷାର ପୁରାକାଳର ଭାଷା ସହ କିଛି ତ ସାମଞ୍ଜସ୍ୟ ରଖେ । ତା'ର ବାକ୍ୟ ଗଢ଼ଣ ଓ ଶବ୍ଦସମ୍ଭାର ଏବଂ ଦେଶୀୟ କହି ଏକ ସମୟରେ ଫିଙ୍ଗାଯାଇଥିବା ଅନେକ ଶବ୍ଦର ପୁନଃବ୍ୟବହାର କରି ଆଜିର ଖବରକାଗଜ, ରେଡ଼ିଓ-ଟେଲିଭିଜନ ଏବଂ ଇଣ୍ଟରନେଟ୍‍ରେ ଫେସବୁକ୍‍, ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆ, ଅନ୍ୟାନ୍ୟ ପୋର୍ଟାଲ ଆଦିରେ ଅଧିକରୁ ଅଧିକ ବ୍ୟବହାର କଲେ ତା'ର ପ୍ରଭାବ ସିଧାସଳଖ ସମାଜ ଉପରେ ପଡ଼ନ୍ତା । ହିନ୍ଦୀ କି ବାକି ଭାଷାରୁ କପି ନକରି ଆମର ଅନେକ ସୁଖପାଠ୍ୟ ସାହିତ୍ୟରୁ କାହାଣୀମାନ ଓ ଆମର ନିଆରା ପରିବେଷଣ ଶୈଳୀଟିଏ ତିଆରି କରାଗଲେ ଆଗାମୀ କେଇ ପିଢ଼ିର ମନ ଭିତରେ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଯେ ବ୍ୟାବହାରିକ ଭାଷାଭାବେ ଏକ ସମୃଦ୍ଧ ଭାଷା, ଏ ଭାବନା ତିଆରି ହୋଇଯାଆନ୍ତା ।

ଅନେକେ ଆଳ ଦେଖାନ୍ତି ଯେ କମ୍ପ୍ୟୁଟରରେ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଭାଷାର ବ୍ୟବହାର ଦୁରୂହ । ଅନ୍ତତଃ ୮ବର୍ଷ ଧରି ଓଡ଼ିଆ ବ୍ୟବହାରର ଅନୁଭୂତିରୁ କହିବି ଯେ କମ୍ପ୍ୟୁଟରରେ ବ୍ୟବହାର କରିବାପାଇଁ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଜଗତର ବାକି ଭାଷା ତୁଳନାରେ କୌଣସି ଗୁଣରେ କମ୍‍ ନୁହେଁ । ତେବେ କମ୍ପ୍ୟୁଟର ଓ ମୋବାଇଲରେ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ପଢ଼ିବା ଓ ଲେଖିବା ସହିତ ଅଧିକରୁ ଅଧିକ ୱେବସାଇଟ୍‍ରେ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ବ୍ୟବହାର କରିବା ଅଧିକ ବଢ଼ିନାହିଁ । ପାଖାପାଖି ୧୦-୨୦ଜଣ ସ୍ୱେଚ୍ଛାସେବୀଙ୍କ ଅବଦାନରେ ୮୦୦୦ରୁ ଅଧିକ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ପ୍ରସଙ୍ଗ ତିଆରି ହୋଇପାରିଲା ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆରେ, ଆମର ଏତେ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଇଞ୍ଜିନିଅର କ'ଣ ଓଡ଼ିଶାର ପାରମ୍ପରିକ ଖେଳକୁ ନେଇ ମୋବାଇଲ କି କମ୍ପ୍ୟୁଟର ଗେମ୍‍, ପିଲାଙ୍କୁ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଶିଖାଇବା ପାଇଁ ଇଣ୍ଟରାକ୍ଟିଭ ଗେମ ତିଆରନ୍ତେ ନାହିଁ? ଆଜିକାଲି ପିଲାଏ ବହି ପଢ଼ାରୁ ଯେଉଁ ଦୂରେଇ ଯାଉଛନ୍ତି, ଇ-ବୁକ୍‍ ବା ଡିଜିଟାଲ ବହି ତିଆରିଲେ ସେସବୁ ପିଲାଏ ଭଲ ଭାବେ ପଢ଼ିପାରନ୍ତେ ।

ଭାଷା ସାହିତ୍ୟର ଚଉହଦିରୁ ମୁକୁଳି ବେପାର ବଣିଜର ଭାଷା, ଶାସନର ଭାଷା ହେଉ । ଭାଷା ଶିକ୍ଷାଦୀକ୍ଷାର କେବଳ ଭାଷା ନୁହେଁ ବରଂ ବ୍ୟାବହାରିକ ଭାଷା ହେଲେ ଯାଇ ଲୋକେ ତାକୁ ଅଧିକ କହିବା ଆରମ୍ଭ କରିବେ । ଭାଷାକୁ ନେଇ ହୀନମନ୍ୟତା ସେତେବେଳେ ଦୂର ହେବ ଯେତେବେଳେ ଆମେ ଆମ ଭାଷାକୁ ଅର୍ଥ ରୋଜଗାରର ଭାଷା କରିପାରିବୁ । ଭାଷା ଯେତେବେଳେ ବିତ୍ତଶାଳୀଙ୍କ ଭାଷା ହୁଏ ସେଥିରେ ଗବେଷଣା ହେବାର ଅଧିକ । ଭାଷା ଯେଉଁଠି ଯେତେବେଶି ସାମାଜିକ, ସେଠି ସେତେ ବ୍ୟାପକ । କେରଳୀମାନେ ମନ୍ଦିରର ପୂଜାରେ ଖାଲି ନୁହେଁ, ଚର୍ଚ୍ଚର ଉପାସନାରେ ଆଉ ମସଜିଦର ଫାଟକରେ ମଧ୍ୟ ମାଲାୟାଲାମର ବହୁଳ ବ୍ୟବହାର କରନ୍ତି । ସେମାନଙ୍କର ଧର୍ମଗତ ବିଭେଦ ବାହ୍ୟ ରୂପରେ ଏତେ କମ ଯେ ବେଳେବେଳେ ଜଣାପଡ଼େ ନାହିଁ କିଏ କେଉଁ ଧର୍ମର । ଆମର ଭାଷାର ବ୍ୟବହାର ବେଳେବେଳେ ସାମାଜିକ ବ୍ୟବହାରରୁ ସଂକୀର୍ଣ୍ଣ ହୋଇ ଧର୍ମଗତ ହୋଇଛି । କଳିଙ୍ଗର ଇତିହାସ କହେ ଏ ଚତୁର ଜାତି ସାଗର ବେଳାର ଲମ୍ବା ବେଳାଭୂଇଁ ଉପକୂଳରେ ବସତି ସ୍ଥାପନ କରି କେତେ ଦଶନ୍ଧି ରାଜୁତି କରିଥିଲା, ତା'ର ବଣିକ-ସାଧବ ପୁଅ ମାଛମରାଠାରୁ ପାଟଲୁଗା ବୁଣା ବହୁବିଧ କାମରେ ନିପୁଣ ହୋଇ ନିଜର ଭାଷା, ଚଳଣି ଓ ଜୀବନର ଅନେକ ରଙ୍ଗ ଦକ୍ଷିଣ ଏସିଆର ଦେଶମାନଙ୍କରେ ମାଖିଥିଲେ । ସେ ଭାଷା ବଳବାନ, ଯାହା ବେପାର ଆଉ ଶାସନର ଭାଷା । ସରକାରୀ କାମ ସବୁ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଭାଷାରେ ହେବା ଆରମ୍ଭ ହେଉ । ଆଗରୁ ଦୁଇଥର ହୋଇ ବନ୍ଦ ହୋଇଯାଇଥିବା ଏ ବ୍ୟବସ୍ଥାର ପୁନରାରମ୍ଭ କରାଗଲେ ଅନେକ ସମ୍ଭାବନା ଠିଆ ହୁଅନ୍ତା ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଭାଷାର ଭବିଷ୍ୟତ ପାଇଁ । ଏଥି ସହିତ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଭାଷାକୁ ନେଇ ଚାକିରି କରିବାପାଇଁ ବି ବାଟ ମିଳିଯାଆନ୍ତା ଯୁବପିଢ଼ିକୁ ।

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/subhashish-panigrahi-october-13-2014-editorial-in-samaja

Barcamp Bangalore

praskrishna — 2014-10-13T04:43:45Z

The Centre for Internet and Society's Access to Knowledge team participated in a Barcamp at SAP Labs, Bangalore on October 12, 2014. Dr. U.B.Pavanaja and Rahmanuddin Shaik participated in the event.

Dissecting Wikipedia

Wikipedia is the world’s most famous free and open encyclopaedia which anyone can edit. In this session we will explore various technical aspects of Wikipedia with demonstrations. Wikipedia has its own set of APIs using which we can retrieve information by using various queris and parameters. The output can be generated in various formats. These output can be used for processing by programming languages as input. These will be demonstrated.

Click to read the details on the Barcamp website.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/news/barcamp-bangalore

Sangeet Baithak: A Hindustani Music Resource Donation Event in Mumbai

praskrishna — 2014-10-07T04:27:49Z

The Access to Knowledge team from the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS-A2K) and Khayal Trust is organizing a music event on October 7, 2014 in Shivaji Park, Dadar, Mumbai. T.Vishnu Vardhan and Tejaswini Niranjana will be participating.

Neela Bhagwat will donate her comprehensive textual compilation of Gwalior Gharana bandishes. Gwalior Gharana is one of the old traditions of Hindustani gayaki and like other gayaki's the tradition has been passed on orally in the guru-shishya parampara. Pt. Neela Bhagwat has over a period of 30 years (of learning and teaching music) meticulously compiled most of the Gwalior Gharana bandishes with notations and notes. This comprehensive collection which will be scanned and hosted on Wikisource and made available under CC-BY-SA 4.0. license.

Click to download the event invite here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/events/sangeet-baithak

Developing Digital Open Knowledge Resources in Indian Languages

Tejaswini Niranjana and Tanveer Hasan — 2014-10-12T03:52:20Z

A two-day workshop for students was organized by Krantijyoti Savitribai Phule Women’s Studies Centre, University of Pune (KSPWSC), Centre for Indian Languages in Higher Education (CILHE), Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai and Access to Knowledge Programme, Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore (CIS-A2K) on September 11 and 12, 2014 in Pune. Tejaswini Niranjana and Tanveer Hasan summarize the developments from the workshop in this report.

Day 1

The workshop began with Tejaswini Niranjana speaking about the monolingual nature of the present day higher education system. She explained why monolingual students were disadvantaged in their pursuit of knowledge, since they could not grasp the concepts coming from the societies they lived in. The mandate of CILHE was briefly explained, and the commitment of the centre to generate accurate and relevant multi-lingual terminology for the social sciences and humanities stressed upon. She lauded the role of the KSPWSC, Pune University, in using bilingual pedagogic material and promoting an engagement with Indian language materials in their courses. The importance of using digital resources was also discussed. The collaborative nature of creating entries on the Wikipedia platform was stressed. The organizers added that students from various other institutions across the country would be participating in the larger exercise.

Next, T. Vishnu Vardhan of CIS-A2K spoke about the changing nature of knowledge repositories and the pattern of access to those repositories. He described at length the genesis of Wikipedia and the influence it has today on the way we access and understand knowledge. Different types of digital resources available to us and the nature in which they generate the knowledge and make it available was explained. Participants were also introduced to the difference between born digital material and digitized material along with the many sister projects of the Wikimedia foundation. Vishnu explained how anyone registering as an editor on Wikipedia could begin contributing to the development of this knowledge base. This was followed by a session in which the basics of Wikipedia editing were explained.

Following lunch, there was a group exercise that required the participants to pick any three concepts that were provided to them in a handout and try to explain the same without using the concept itself. This exercise was important as the participants would try to understand the concept more closely without assuming its meaning. This was self-evident. Better understanding of the concept would in turn help them to write about it or use it meaningfully in an Indian language entry on Wikipedia. Many participants found this exercise difficult in the initial stages as they fell back upon their classroom understanding of the term. They were asked to focus on explaining the concept without using the word itself but by understanding its effects and its multiple meanings.

In the second exercise, the participants made use of the material generated through the first exercise and tried to explain the denotative and connotative meanings of their chosen concept. The third exercise involved coming up with a cluster of concepts in which their chosen concept was embedded. The idea was to show how concepts derived meaning from a larger context, and could not be understood outside of their conceptual universe. The first day of the workshop ended with all the participants successfully registering themselves as Wikipedia editors, learning the basics of editing, and having taken part in an exercise that made them think about the concepts they used with greater clarity.


						Above: A participant explains the denotative and connotative meaning of her chosen concept.

Day 2

Participants were asked to search for an article in the English Wikipedia for a person, a book and a concept connected to women’s studies. They were asked to identify the challenges involved if they had to translate the article into an Indian language they were familiar with. The exercise was intended to alert the participants to the kind of problems they were likely to face during the act of translation. They were also asked to come up with solutions as to how these problems could be overcome. A key problem voiced by many participants was that of the non-availability of the right phrase/term/word in Indian languages. Tejaswini Niranjana advised the participants not to reinvent the wheel but use the terms that had been coined earlier but were now out of circulation in Indian languages. She also pointed out that translation from English to Indian languages is a different process than from Indian languages to English. In the former, one has to break sentence structure to make the meaning more clear, and in the latter one has to combine the sentences. She also said that the process of translation must happen at the level of sentences and ideas and not simply at the level of terms and words.

Answering another question about the lack of social context while translating a concept, Prof. Niranjana asked the participants to use the existing historical and social writings already available in their languages to overcome this problem. These writings could be updated and edited, and current references added.

Vishnu continued the discussion of using digital platforms to create and disseminate knowledge by explaining various tools available. He stressed the importance of sharing our efforts in creating knowledge and making it widely available, and pointed out various features of Wikipedia and Google translator. Participants were shown ways by which the existing knowledge base on Google and such other digital knowledge platforms could be improved.

Everyone then started working on his/her individual entries that would be the quantitative output of this workshop. They were asked to select one topic (a book, a person, a concept) from their previous exercise and develop an article based on that in any Indian language that they preferred. Most of the entries were in Marathi, with a few participants opting for Hindi. There was an entry in Bangla as well.

At the end of the workshop, more than half of our 26 participants had fully developed entries in Indian languages. These entries contained a table of contents and references, inter-wiki references, and external links, and in some cases included images too. Many participants wrote about personalities such as the writer Mukta Salve, the feminist theorist Mary John, and the contemporary Marathi writer Narayan Bhosle. Some wrote about concepts such as feminism, nationalism and domestic violence.

This two-day workshop proved to be immensely successful as the participants were motivated to contribute to the Wikimedia platforms regularly, and began to appreciate the importance of Indian language initiatives such as these.

We are very thankful to the entire faculty at KSPWSC, Pune University, Dr. Anagha Tambe, Dr. Swati Dyahadroy, Sneha Gole, Sanjay Kumar Kamble, and Deepa Tak who facilitated the discussions and were of immense help in conducting the workshop.


					Above: Tejaswini Niranjana with participants at the Pune workshop.

Click to download all the photographs from the workshop.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/report-on-developing-digital-open-knowledge-resources-in-indian-languages

State Level Seminar on "Odia alphabet and order teaching in primary education"

praskrishna — 2014-09-30T08:51:05Z

Subhashish Panigrahi participated in a state-level seminar on "Number of Odia characters and order teaching in primary education" (ପ୍ରଥମ ଶ୍ରେଣୀରେ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଅକ୍ଷର ସଂଖ୍ୟା ଓ କ୍ରମଶିକ୍ଷା) co-organised by Institute of Odia Studies and Research, and Odia Bhasa Pratisthan in Bhubaneswar on September 14, 2014.

Subhashish discussed about the applied aspects of Odia language in the context of primary education and need for reforms in the total number and order in the character-set citing problems with computer and internet.

The reports of the event are given below:


Above: Report of the event published in Prameya


Above: Report of the event published in Dharitri


Above: Report of the event published in Samaja

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/news/odia-alphabet-and-order-teaching-in-primary-education

Publishing Next

praskrishna — 2014-09-30T07:50:28Z

T. Vishnu Vardhan was a speaker at Publishing Next organized by CinnamonTeal Publishing, a Margao (Goa)-based publishing house that provides publishing services to authors and publishers. The event was held in Goa on September 19 and 20.

For speakers click here. Read the full description on Publishing Next website.

Schedule | publishing next

Schedule

For descriptions of each session, please view this page.

19th September 2014			20th September 2014
	Hall 1 (Panel Discussions and Presentations)	Hall 2 (Workshops)		Hall 1 (Panel Discussions and Presentations)	Hall 2 (Workshops)
09:00 – 10:00	Registration of attendees		09:30 – 10:00	Insight Talk by Klaus Willberg
10:00 – 10:20	Inauguration / Address		10:00 – 11:30	A Pulse on Publishing
10:20 – 11:00	Keynote Address		11:30 – 12:00	Tea
11:00 – 11:20	Tea		12:00 – 13:15	Worse Off Without Verse?	Physical Distribution in a Global World: 12.00-12.45
11:20 – 11:45	Presentation by Netex Knowledge Factory		13:15 – 14:00	Lunch
11:45 – 13:15	Publishing in Indian languages		14:00 – 14:20	Presentation by HP India
13:15 – 14:00	Lunch		14:20 – 15:20	The Art of the Book	Fiction/History/Research : 14:20 – 15:00
14:00 – 14:20	Presentation by NewsHunt		15:20 – 15:45	Q&A on ISBN Issues
14:20 – 15:45	Open Publishing, Copyright and Copyleft	Face to Face: Printers and Publishers: 14:20 – 16:15	15:45 – 16:15	Tea
15:45 – 16:15	Tea		16:15 – 16:30	Presentation by IppStar	Publishing Environments in Brazil and Sri Lanka: 16:15 – 17:00
16:15 – 17:30	The Business of Graphic Books	Publishing Translated Literature: 16:15-17:00	16:30 – 18:00	e-Publishing in India
17:30 – 19:00	Are There Enough Good Books for Children?	eBook Development and Distribution: 17.30-18.30	18.00 – Publishing Next Industry Awards Presentation Ceremony
20:30 – Networking Dinner at Hotel Sandalwood

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/news/publishing-next

Expanding the World of Telugu Wikipedia – CIS-A2K and ALC join hands

T Vishnu Vardhan and Rahmanuddin Shaik — 2014-09-30T05:11:29Z

Students and faculty of Andhra Loyola College in Vijayawada aim to enhance Telugu Wikipedia through increased contributions to Wikipedia and make it available under free license.

The Access to Knowledge (A2K) programme of the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) in its quest to catalyze the growth of open knowledge movement in Indic languages recently added another feather to its cap by signing a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Andhra Loyola College (ALC) in Vijayawada on August 14, 2014 to work collaboratively to improve Telugu Wikipedia and Telugu Wikisource. College Principal Fr. G.A.P. Kishore, Vice-Principals Fr. P. Anil Kumar and Fr. Rex Angelo, correspondent Fr. Raju signed the agreement with CIS-A2K programme director T. Vishnu Vardhan.

The MoU signed with ALC is for a period of five years and encompasses four activities: Open knowledge creation in Telugu across various disciplines on Telugu Wikipedia: ALC faculty and students will be trained by CIS-A2K staff and interested Telugu Wikimedians to understand the principles that govern Wikipedia in order to generate quality entries. Faculty from Botany, Physics, Statistics, Ethics, Religion, Telugu Literature, and Music will work with CIS-A2K. Each of the faculty in the coming months will come up with a plan to generate open knowledge in Telugu in their respective disciplines. Content donation and digitization on Telugu Wikisource: ALC through its networks will help CIS-A2K to bring Telugu content under CC-BY-SA 4.0 license. The Telugu department of the college expressed keen interest to work with CIS-A2K in digitizing historical Telugu content and to make it available on Telugu Wikisource. Various competitions will be planned in the future. Creating a free software environment at Andhra Loyola College: 400 machines within various labs on the campus will be converted into FOSS systems with free and open source software including support for Telugu and other Indic languages. It should be noted that all the existing computers of ALC are run on proprietary software. As a pilot initiative CIS-A2K has already converted 30 systems in a lab and named it as Loyola FOSS Lab. CIS-A2K to revise the FIT (Fundamentals in Information Technology): A mandatory course for all undergraduate students which will introduce students to FOSS, Openness and Wikipedia. This is an outcome of the FOSS orientation done by T. Vishnu Vardhan and Rahimanuddin Shaik during the two workshops that were held at ALC.

CIS-A2K will put every effort to involve Telugu Wikimedians and FOSS community in taking this collaboration with ALC forward. CIS-A2K will also create a project page on Telugu Wikipedia to actively document and publicly share the detailed plans and progress. More updates will also be shared on this website.


Above: Representatives from ALC and CIS-A2K seen during the signing ceremony.

The signing of the MoU was done at a public event in the presence of students, faculty and management of ALC and various representatives from media. The media covered this event enthusiastically. The Hindu coverage can be found here and Eenadu article coverage is here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/expanding-the-world-of-telugu-wikipedia-cis-and-alc-join-hands

NIE Steps in to Grow Konkani Wikipedia

vishnu — 2014-10-10T11:26:26Z

The Centre for Internet & Society's Access to Knowledge team (CIS-A2K) signed a memorandum of agreement (MoU) with Nirmala Institute of Education, Goa to enhance digital literacy in Konkani in the education sector across Goa.

The Access to Knowledge (A2K) programme of CIS, in its sustained efforts to enhance the content and reach of Kokani Wikepedia (which is in incubation), has signed an MoU for a period of five years with Nirmala Insitute of Education (NIE), a Secondary Teacher Education College established in 1963 by the Society of the Daughters of the Heart of Mary in response to the then urgent need for trained teachers in post liberation Goa. The key objectives of this partnership are: a) to design, develop and execute a certificate course titled "Teaching in the Age of Wikipedia", which is aimed at middle and high school teacher-trainees and teachers; and b) to introduce Wikimedia projects into the pedagogic curriculum of NIE.

Both CIS and NIE share a mutual interest in conserving, developing and disseminating knowledge free of cost in Konkani, which incidentally is Goa’s official language. Konkani as a language faces several challenges — it has no official script. The population who speak it are dispersed across the world and have little motivation to further the cause of Konkani, and there are few educational venues that offer a formal course to study Konkani or offer Konkani based curriculum. NIE Principal Dr. Denzil Martins welcomed this MoU and said that "it will guide our teacher-trainees to upload relevant information in Konkani that can be freely accessed by the local population" and "provide the volunteer-trainees with skills that they will be able to use to contribute and enhance the free knowledge in Konkani". The MoU was signed by Dr. Denzil Martins from NIE and T. Vishnu Vardhan (Programme Director, Access to Knowledge, CIS) in the presence of staff and students of NIE and volunteers Harriet Vidyasagar and Gayathri Rao Konkar. Dr. Rita Paes, ex-Principal of NIE who worked to forge this MoU sent her best wishes.

CIS-A2K since 2013, has worked to develop partnerships with key educational institutions to promote and grow Konkani Wikipedia. It has previously worked with NIE to design and implement a program to enroll 100 B.Ed. students to increase the amount of information available in Goan villages and towns on Konkani Wikipedia. A2K has also been instrumental in convincing Goa University to re-release Konkani Vishwakosh (encyclopedia) under CC-BY-SA 3.0 , making it freely available to public, giving them the right to share, use and even build upon the work that has already been done.

The course ‘Teaching in the Age of Wikipedia’ will enable the teacher participant to have a) a comprehensive understanding of changes due to digital technology to the knowledge domain; b) an introduction to various openness movements that inform the discourse on Open Educational Resources; c) exposure and training to participate on open knowledge platforms like Wikipedia; and d) practical examples and best practices of using Wikipedia and sister projects within the classroom context. The parties will also co-design and jointly implement programmes to introduce Wikipedia in the NIE curriculum. The curriculum for this workshop is positioned within the context of indian languages (particularly Konkani) and school education to ensure that any learning is practical and can be applied within the teachers immediate pedagogic environment. Speaking about the relevance of this course Gayathri and Harriet (who have been associated with NIE as volunteers) mentioned that "the Goa government has handed out tablets to all school going children in Goa. In order to use them effectively in the classroom will require teachers to rethink their role and teaching methodologies and this course is an important step towards that". Agreeing with this Denzil Martins feels that this course "will provide the teacher-trainees with ideas and inputs for using Wikipedia in creative ways in the classroom".

This partnership could bring huge momentum and scale for the growth of Konkani as participants who graduate from this course will as teachers act as anchors and mentors to teach and assign Wikipedia editing assignments in their respective schools and classrooms.

As Gayathri feels "such courses once fine tuned should be made available to teachers from all over the country and should be part of the package for introducing the digital technology in the school system. Today it ends with setting up computer labls in schools or distribution of hardware to students - they may have a 'computer teacher' but the class and subject teachers never become part of these new initiatives. Only when this happens can we move away from 'teaching computers' to using computers as tools to learn and teach, which is the primary objective of digital technology in schools".

CIS will develop this open course and welcomes anyone to partner in this effort, which will be made available for anyone to use it within their context. The efforts to build free and open knowledge platforms like Konkani Wikipedia will continue and partnerships like NIE will play a crucial role in building a robust knowledge society in India.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/nie-steps-in-to-grow-konkani-wikipedia

Access to Knowledge Bulletin — August 2014

praskrishna — 2014-10-04T15:51:15Z

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

India Access to Knowledge/Newsletter/August 2014 - Meta

Andhra Loyola College and the Centre for Internet & Society sign MoU for Better Net Access

Andhra Loyola College (ALC) and the Centre for Internet and Society's Access to Knowledge team (CIS-A2K) have entered into a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to steward the growth of Telugu Wikipedia and to make available free knowledge in Telugu to all Telugus across the globe.
Highlights

Ten theosophical books authored by Rev. Fr. P. Jojaiah, SJ released under free license (CC-BY-SA-4.0)
For the first time an educational institution in the state of Andhra Pradesh is signing an MoU with CIS-A2K to work collaboratively to qualitatively improve Telugu Wikipedia.
ALC faculty and students to create free e-content in Telugu on Telugu Wikipedia.
Digital content from the fields of Botany, Physics, Chemistry, Telugu, Statistics, Ethics and Religion, Music and Dance to be produced on Telugu Wikipedia.

Blog Entries

We are Wikipedia (by Subhashish Panigrahi, Global Voices Online, June 18, 2014)
OpenGLAM at Wikimania 2014 (by Subhashish Panigrahi, OpenGlam, August 27, 2014)

News and Media Coverage

CIS-A2K team gave its inputs to the following media coverage:

Now, Christ students will contribute to Wikipedia (by H.M.Shruthi, Deccan Herald, August 5, 2014).
CIS-A2K Signs MoU with Andhra Loyola College in Vijayawada (Eenadu, August 15, 2014).
ALC signs MoU for better net access (The Hindu, August 15, 2014).

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 has left from the organisation -- We wish Nitika all the best for her career. 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.

Follow us elsewhere

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

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 primary donor the Kusuma Trust founded by Anurag Dikshit and Soma Pujari, philanthropists of Indian origin for its core funding and support for most of its projects. CIS is also grateful to its other donors, Wikimedia Foundation, Ford Foundation, Privacy International, UK, Hans Foundation, MacArthur Foundation, and IDRC for funding its various projects.

Retrieved from "http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=India_Access_to_Knowledge/Newsletter/August_2014&oldid=9929126"

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/access-to-knowledge-bulletin-august-2014

Will domain dot भारत spur the growth of Indian languages on the internet?

praskrishna — 2014-09-08T05:50:11Z

Modi's effort to promote the use of Hindi and e-governance has given hope to those who want to see more vernacular content online, but many challenges have to be overcome.

Rohan Venkataramakrishnan's blog post was published in Scroll.in on August 29, 2014. Sunil Abraham gave his inputs.

For most of its short history, the internet has been the English speaker’s playground. Though English is the world’s third-most spoken language (after Mandarin and Spanish), it is by far the most commonly used language on the internet. If you wanted to make sense of most of what’s on the World Wide Web, you had to be able to read and write English.

This is slowly changing. The launch of Devanagari script web addresses on Sunday, allowing people to use .भारत domain names, was another step in the slow effort to bring about a multilingual Web. Already, Indian languages like Hindi – one of the most commonly-spoken languages on Earth – lag far behind. The move gels well with the new government’s effort to promote the use of Hindi, and its push to increase digital services available to all citizens. The next few years could well see a spurt in vernacular content online.

But first many challenges have to be overcome. “At present, not a single Indian language figures in the top 10 languages prevalent on the Internet, though Chinese, Arabic and Russian feature in the list,” said a McKinsey report on the internet's impact on India. “The next wave of internet adoption in India will be dominated by local language speakers, which underscores the need for much more content and applications to be offered in local languages.”

Vernacular internet
Early studies of the internet attempted to quantify how much of the web was in English. A 1997 estimate put the number at 80% of all websites, while the Online Computer Library’s study in 2003 concluded that 72% of all online content was in English. Today that number is much lower.

W3Techs, which conducts surveys of the internet, now estimates that about 55% of content on the Internet is in English, followed by German, Russian and Japanese. Indian languages don’t crack the top 35.

The analysis is by its nature imprecise. The internet is vast and mostly uncharted. Estimates suggest search engines have indexed only 40% of Web content, leaving much off the mainstream radar. Measuring language becomes even harder because, in the early years, when fonts were harder to render, most non-English content on the internet was spelt out in Roman letters.

Indian Wiki
The rise of multilingual scripts has changed that, and made it easier to evaluate the diversity of the internet. Yet even the best approach relies more on sampling than measurement. There is one section of the Web, however, that does allow for comparisons of absolute numbers.

Relative to other tongues, Indian language-articles still comprise a minuscule portion of Wikipedia. English, Spanish and French are perhaps expected, but even languages like Vietnamese have nearly 10 times the number of pages that Hindi does. Waray-Waray, the fifth-most commonly spoken language in the Philippines, appears to be an outlier because of an automated translation method that creates pages in that language.

Hindi content has been growing on the internet encyclopedia, from no pages in 2003 to more than one lakh in 2011, but it still falls far behind the languages that are spoken as commonly as it, like Spanish and Arabic, let alone those with much smaller reach. Of course in many countries English is not spoken at all, so Internet users need web pages in their own language. In India, because of the language-class association, the majority of Internet users are at least conversant in English.

Obstacle Course
The impediments to further growth are all too apparent. For one, internet infrastructure still leaves much to be desired. Though India has the third-largest internet user-base in the world, only 10% of the country is actually online. Even by 2015, when internet access is expected to reach 28% of the population, the equivalent rural figure is likely to be just 9%, according to estimates.

“A lot of the core infrastructure that is necessary for language computing is missing,” said Sunil Abraham, executive director of the Centre for Internet & Society. “There’s no mandate by the government that these languages must be supported, no comprehensive dictionaries, no thesauri, no machine translation capabilities, no optical character recognition capabilities. Because our market is so insignificant for proprietary software makers, they haven’t done enough to develop these. Meanwhile, the free software community is too small and mostly English-speaking.”

The government has launched some initiatives in this regard, like a National Translation Mission aimed at machine translating text from English into Indic languages, as well as banks of fonts that are free to use. But Abraham said that while the government is clear this should be a priority area, it underestimates the scale of the problem.

“We need large scale investment by the government into each language,” he said. “We’re looking at maybe even Rs 100 crore per language, to bring each of our traditional languages into the internet age.”

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/news/scroll-in-rohan-venkataramakrishnan-will-domain-dot-bharat-spur-the-growth-of-Indian-languages-on-the-internet

OpenGLAM at Wikimania 2014

subha — 2014-10-06T05:09:19Z

GLAM activities in the last two months have been quite happening!

Subhashish Panigrahi's blog post was published on OpenGLAM website on August 27, 2014.

After Open Knowledge Festival in Berlin, OpenGLAM members and other GLAM contributors met again during Wikimania London, the official annual event of the Wikimedia movement focused on what people are making with wikis and open content. There were GLAM talks, workshops, discussions and brown bag talks: in this blog I’ll go into some of the highlights, but you can find an overview of all GLAM & Free culture submissions here.

Best practices for the evaluation of GLAM-Wiki cooperation

A GLAM-Wiki evaluation workshop was organized by Beat Estermann, Maarten Brinkerink and Wikimedia Foundation’s Program Evaluation specialist Jaime Anstee to assess the impact of the past GLAM projects and to create a road map by placing evaluation parameters in place for institutional collaboration. From the GLAM wiki residency project at Wikimedia UK, Jonathan Cardy presented the evaluation process needed in place for Wikipedia-in-Residence programs. Wikimedia Deutschland (WMDE)’s Lilli Iliev shared information about the evaluation practices WMDE has put in place in order to implement small to large scale GLAM projects in Germany. While working with various cultural institutions in Germany, they focused on qualitative aspects of the content acquired, on goal oriented programs like “GLAM on Tour”, and on mass outreach by popular media and post campaign impact measuring. Four groups were then formed to work on particular GLAM projects, how they plan to evaluate tangible output and measure return on investments.

Have you heard?

In the scope of the Wikipedia Voice Intro Project that he founded, Andy Marbett (http://pigsonthewing.org.uk) spoke about the beauty of having recordings of notable people where they not just pronounce their names in their native languages, but introduce themselves with their dates and places of birth. With BBC’s collaboration, this project has grew to an avenue on Wikipedia to enrich biography-articles. This is indeed a project that has run absolutely in zero cost and aims at making Wikimedians meet their stars and document their voices for ever on the Internet. The full video of the talk is available below.

Video

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/open-glam-august-27-2014-subhashish-panigrahi-open-glam-at-wikimania-2014