Centre for Internet and Society

WikipediansSpeak: Piotr Konieczny

subha — 2013-09-18T12:22:36Z

WikipediansSpeak is a video interview show hosted by Subhashish Panigrahi at the Centre of Internet and Society. It brings you series of posts about Wikipedians across the globe. Wikipedians are those voluntary contributors who write Wikipedia articles, correct mistakes made by other wikipedians and share knowledge for free to the world.

Video production: Subhashish Panigrahi, Access To Knowledge Programme (Centre for Internet and Society), CC-BY-SA 3.0

This episode brings you a conversation with Piotr Konieczny, a veteran Wikipedian from Poland. He has contributed to over 514 DYK articles on Wikipedia. Being a sociologist and academician Piotr has always tried to divert attention more students, academicians, researchers, scholars to contribute to Wikipedia. I first met Piotr during WikiSym + OpenSym Conference at Hong Kong and again at Wikimania 2013. It was the beginning of my Wiki-experience of meeting more researchers and scholars who are also Wikipedians. Piotr is now based in Seoul and where he is teaching Informational Sociology at the Hanyang University (한양대학교). His keen interest in using Wikipedia as a teaching tool and Wikipedia’s impact in social movement brings the expanse of diversifying Wikipedia’s outreach to masses. In academia he proposes for Wikipedia Education Programs that converts the users of Wikipedia to contribute who elsewhere use it just as a tool to accessing knowledge. If a small portion of the subject experts start contributing to Wikipedia then there would be a big change in this world.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/wikipedians-speak-piotr-konieczny

'Help Konkani Wikipedia come out of incubation'

praskrishna — 2013-09-17T10:10:38Z

The functioning of the free online encyclopedia, ‘Wikipedia,’ is like a true democracy. It is for the people and by the people, said The Centre for Internet and Society Programme Officer (Indian Languages) Pavanaja U B.

The article was published in the Deccan Herald on September 13, 2013. Dr. U.B.Pavanaja was quoted.

He was speaking after inaugurating, "Wikipedia Editing Workshop," organised by Aloysius Institute of Management and Information Technology (AIMIT) in association with The Centre for Internet and Society in Mangalore on Friday.

Stressing on the need for more Wikipedia contributors and editors from India, he explained to students the simplicity of creating a account in Wikipedia and editing articles.

Wikipedia has 50 crore unique visitors and three crore are from India. There are 6,000 editors registered from India, of which, around 2000 people edit in Indian vernacular languages, and only 450 are very active, he said.

There are around 98,000 odd articles in Hindi, 14,600 odd articles in Kannada. However, Konkani Wikipedia is in incubation for the last seven years, as there are only 133 articles and very few registered editors. “To get it out of incubation, many should write Konkani articles for Wikipedia,” he said and added that out of 133 Konkani articles in Wikipedia, over 100 are in Devnagari script, 31 in Roman and just two in Kannada script and none in Malayalam.

Pavanaja added that being a contributor and editor of Wikipedia, will be a positive add on to ones resume. "Today's IT companies need logical thinkers and problem solvers. Writing for Wikipedia, enables one to think and research, hence benefiting one’s personally," he said.

He also regretted that some people try to vandalise Wikipedia, with disruptive editing and deleting articles. Though, this will be corrected by other Wikipedia users instantly, it wastes precious time. Everyone benefits from Wikipedia, hence the contributor should have a positive outlook with regard to helping people and sharing knowledge, he said

He further added, that maintaining a neutral point of view, giving significant coverage and writing on notable topics is important. One should give opposing views and no personal views should be reflected, he added.

St Aloysius College Rector Fr Denzil Lobo said that the present generation is lucky to have knowledge at their finger tips, and they should make the best use of it.

AIMIT Director Rev Fr Pradeep Sequeira, Wikpedia Volunteer Harriet Vidhyasagar among others were present.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/deccan-herald-september-13-2013-help-konkani-wikipedia-come-out-of-incubation

Recap on Konkani Wikipedia Workshop

subha — 2013-09-12T10:22:44Z

Subhashish Panigrahi's blog post was published in Startup Goa Blog on September 9, 2013.

This workshop involved 38 students creating 43 new articles on Konkani Wikipedia which is in incubation. We’re hoping that these efforts will contribute towards bringing this 7 year old project out of incubation to a live Wikipedia project.

Before any language, Wikipedia shapes up as a live project where an incubation process is involved. A community of volunteers (known as Wikipedians) gradually grow to sustain this Wikipedia in incubation with active contribution.The Konkani Wikipedia incubator started way back in 2006. But because of many reasons it could not take off and is still in incubation. One of the major reasons has been the issue with multiple script usage. Because of the political and religious reasons Konkani has multiple writing and verbal standards and also written in multiple scripts; Devanagari and Roman (known as Romi as well) in Goa where Devanagari is the official script, Kannada in the Konkani speaking regions of Karnataka (Mangalore region primarily), Malayalam in Kerala (Kochin region) and in Perso-Arabic script by part of the Konkani speaking population. The largest script usage for Konkani is in Devanagari. Goa University is world’s first University to have a masters program in Konkani language where the writing standard is in Goan Konkani (Language code: Gom) which is written in Devanagari. During the interaction with the faculty members; Prof. Madhavi Sardesai and Head of the department Dr. Priyadarshini Tadkodar, it was found that the students were very enthusiastic to contribute to their language. The students were introduced to Konkani Wikipedia and they showed interest in taking part in a workshop to learn Wikipedia editing. This was the beginning of something new after a long time. Four out of thirty eight students volunteered to coordinate the workshop on the ground. They discussed about the workshop and the prerequisites; going through the list of articles on Konkani Wikipedia, writing a unique article by collecting resources and creating their usernames on Wikipedia before attending the workshop. All of the students including four coordinators came with at least 2 pages of written content before the workshop.

Day 1: Building the Blocks

It was 10 in the morning, a big LED panel in the audio visual room of the Krishnadas Shama State Central Library, Goa was displaying the word cloud containing words like Wikipedia, Openness, Education, Open Knowledge, Global Collaboration. Soon the room was filled with 20 MA students from the Konkani department of Goa University. Prior to the workshop there was an interaction with the students in the presence of the Head of the department Dr. Priyadarshini and Prof. Dr. Madhavi Sardesai and from the Konkani department. Four of the students Supriya Kankumbikar, Fr. Luis Gomes, Vaishali Parab and John Noronha volunteered to coordinate the workshop. With their help, a majority of students signed up and created their user accounts before the first workshop. Some roughwork went on to plan for a whole day workshop.

Introduce Yourself

To start with the first day, there was an “Adjective Name” activity. It was fun to know how people judge themselves with adjective. Then there was a discussion about articles students planned to write. Few of them were not sure if the articles like social issues and biography of a writer could fit into the Wikipedia framework.

Editing time

Article titles were decided and everyone was ready with their homework write ups and books for adding sources. The next big thing was typing in Devanagari. Only four to five of them knew typing. Students came forward to try out typing. There was a glow of triumph after they typed correctly using “Transliteration” layout. The editing session began. It worked well. Students managed to type with only a little typos.


Photo: Subhashish Panigrahi, CC-BY-SA 3.0

There was an activity break with a game called “Tumi Kashi Asat” (means How are you doing in Konkani). According to the game rules, the host has to make some body movements and ask “Tumi Kashi Asat” and bending forward. The participants have to move their body in the reverse way and answer “Ami bari ashat” (I’m doing good). This replaced the caffeine intake for the four days and kept all of us alive.

Rat and frog game

“Rat race” is a game where participants sit on chairs and one of them is made to stand in the center. The rat makes others run and replace each others seats and one among the participants becomes a rat. This rat race brought back the old childhood memories and for a moment everyone forgot their age. At the end of it students sat down to take a deep breath and were taught some of the basic wiki-codes (bold, Italics and adding references). Editing session went on until the rest of the day.

Day 2: Climbing Up the Ladder

The agenda for the day was to tell the students about the advanced options and ensure addition of more citations. Citations on Wikipedia are very essential for readers to validate the facts. But bringing this to the students who just had started typing in their language a day before was not that easy. The second day was spent giving small breaks during the editing session for small activities. Running, jumping and shouting fueled the students to be happy editors and not burdened. By the end of the first two days 22 students created 24 articles (About 42 pages of written content). Everyone clapped for their friends, they were welcomed into the Konkani Wikipedia community and were shown the facebook group they could join and be more connected before thanking and saying bye for the day with the promise of more fun for the next workshop.

Day 3: Fresh Batch, New Start


Photo: Subhashish Panigrahi, CC-BY-SA 3.0

16 new students from the MA course were welcomed. Four student-coordinators and one from the first batch of students joined the funday. The entire day was spent with lots of fun, creating articles and basic know how about Wiki-codes. Half the students in this batch knew typing in Devanagari Inscript. The students were then paired with those who knew Inscript and thanks to the Fedora Devanagari keyboard layout. All of the students created their first articles.

Day 4: No Need to Say Good Bye!

Seeing the newspaper coverage about the workshop featuring some of their friends was a delight for the new wikipedians after two long days. Few of them came forward to share their experience about the workshop and their vision for the Konkani language.

At the end of four days all of them bid farewell. These were the foundation days and the biggest editing rally Konkani Wikipedia Incubator has seen in the last seven years with this milestone that the students had created.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/start-up-goa-blog-september-10-2013-subhashish-panigrahi-recap-on-konkani-wikipedia-workshop

Kannada Wikipedia Workshop at SDM

praskrishna — 2013-09-12T06:16:36Z

The Department of Journalism and Mass Communication, SDM College, Ujire is holding a wiki workshop on September 15, 2013. Dr. U.B. Pavanaja from CIS-A2K team is participating in this workshop.

The workshop is being held to teach post-graduate students studying Journalism and Mass Communication on contributing and editing Wikipedia. The students will be particularly trained to edit Kannada Wikipedia.

More about SDM College, Ujire here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/kannada-wiki-workshop-sdm

Konkani Wikipedia workshop at AIMIT, St Aloysius College

praskrishna — 2013-09-12T06:09:42Z

St. Aloysius College is organizing a Konkani Wikipedia workshop at AIMIT, St Aloysius College (Autonomous), Beeri, Mangalore on September 13, 2013. Dr. U.B. Pavanaja from the CIS-A2K team will participate in the event.

The workshop is aimed at people who want to edit Konkani Wikipedia using Kannada script. Konkani Wikipedia is in incubator at present. Konkani speaking people want to bring this out of incubator. Adding enough content to the Konkani Wikipedia will enable that. Those interested in adding content to Konkani Wikipedia will be trained in the workshop. This will be a full day event.

Click to read about St.Aloysius Institute of Management

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/konkani-wiki-workshop-aimit-september-13-2013

ଅବସର ପରର ଦ୍ବିତୀୟ ଜୀବନ, ଅବସର ପରେ ସକ୍ରିୟ ଭାବେ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆରେ ଲେଖାଲେଖି ଜାରୀ ରଖିଥିବା ଜଣେ ଡାକ୍ତରଙ୍କ ସ‌ହ ଭାବାଲୋଚନା

subha — 2013-09-13T08:38:01Z

This is a column about Dr. Subas Chandra Rout, a noteworthy wikipedian who started contributing to Wikipedia articles on Odia Wikipedia related to medical science after retiring as an Orthopedic Specialist-Assistant Professor of a Medical college.

This guest column by Subhashish Panigrahi was published by Odiapua on September 10, 2013.

(ଶୁଭାଶିଷ ପାଣିଗ୍ରାହୀ)
ଅଧିକାଂଶ ସମୟରେ ଦେଖାଯାଏ ଯେ ଅବସର ପରେ ଚାକିରୀରେ ଥିବା ଲୋକେ ସ୍ଥାଣୁ ହୋଇପଡ଼ନ୍ତି୤ ଅବସର ସମୟ ବିତେ ଟିଭି ଦେଖିବାରେ କିମ୍ବା ଛୋଟ ମୋଟ ଘର କାମ କରିବାରେ୤ ତେବେ ଜୀବନର ଅଧାରୁ ଅଧିକ ସମୟ ଯାହାର କଟିଥିବ ନିଜ ବୃତ୍ତି-ବେଉସା ପାଇଁ ଅବସର ପରେ ତା' ବିନା ବଞ୍ଚିବା କଷ୍ଟକର ହେଉନ‌ଥିବ କି? ଏ ପ୍ରଶ୍ନଟିର ଉତ୍ତର ଦେବା ଆହୁରି କଷ୍ଟ୤ ଅବସରର ଅର୍ଥ ଦୈନନ୍ଦିନ କାମରୁ ବିରତି ନେଇ ସାମାଜିକ, ପାରିବାରିକ ଓ ଜଞ୍ଜାଳହୀନ ଚାକିରୀରୁ ବିରାମ ନେବା୤ ତେବେ ଅନେକଙ୍କ ପାଇଁ ଏ ବିରାମର ମାନେ କିଛି ନ ଥାଏ୤ ଢିଙ୍କି ସ୍ବର୍ଗକୁ ଗଲେ ବି ଧାନ କୁଟିବା ଭଳି କିଛି ଲୋକ ଅବସର ପରେ ନିଜର ଜ୍ଞାନର ପରିସରକୁ ଆହୁରି ପରିବ୍ୟାପ୍ତ କରାନ୍ତି୤ ଚାକିରୀର ବ୍ୟସ୍ତତା ଭିତରେ ଜ୍ଞାନ ବିତରଣର ସୁଯୋଗଟିକ‌କ ଯେଉଁ କେବେ କେବେ ହାତଛଡ଼ା ହେଇଯାଉଥିବ ତାକୁ ବଢ଼ାନ୍ତି୤ ପୁରା ସମ‌ୟକୁ ବିନି‌ଯୋଗ କରନ୍ତି ଅଧିକ ପଢ଼ିବା ଓ ଅଧିକ ଜ୍ଞାନ ବିତରଣ କରିବାରେ୤ ଏମିତି ଜଣେ ଡାକ୍ତର ଡା ସୁବାସ ଚନ୍ଦ୍ର ରାଉତ୤ ଭୁବନେଶ୍ୱରରେ ଅବସ୍ଥାପିତ ଡା. ରାଉତ ଓଡ଼ିଶା ସରକାରଙ୍କ ଅଧୀନରେ ଅନେକ କାଳ କାମ କରିବା ପରେ ଅବସର ନେଇସାରିଛନ୍ତି୤ ସେ କିଛି କାଳ କିମ୍ସ କଲେଜରେ ସ‌ହକାରୀ ପ୍ରଫେସର ଭାବେ ମଧ୍ୟ କାର୍ଯ୍ୟ କରିଛନ୍ତି୤ ତାଙ୍କର ଅବସର ସମୟ ବିତୁଥିଲା ବ‌ହି ପଢ଼ାରେ ଓ କବୀରଙ୍କ ଦୋହାବଳୀକୁ ଓଡ଼ିଆରେ ଲେଖିବାରେ୤ ଏହି ପଢ଼ାପଢ଼ି-ଲେଖାଲେଖି ଭିତରେ ଥରେ ତାଙ୍କ ଆଖିରେ ପଡ଼ିଲା ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆର ଫେସବୁକ ଗ୍ରୁପ୤ ସେଠି ଦେଖିଲେ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆରେ ନାନାଦି ପ୍ରସଙ୍ଗ ଲେଖିବା ପାଇଁ ଜଣେ ପ୍ରମୁଖ ସଭ୍ୟ ମୃତ୍ୟୁଞ୍ଜୟ କରଙ୍କର ଆମନ୍ତ୍ରଣ୤ ଜିଜ୍ଞାସୁ ଡାକ୍ତର ମନ ପଚାରିବସିଲା ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆ କଣ, ସେଥିରେ ଜଣେ ସାଧାରଣ ଲୋକର ଭୂମିକା କଣ, କିପରି ଜଣେ ସେଥିରେ ପ୍ରସଙ୍ଗମାନ ଲେଖିପାରିବ୤ ମୃତ୍ୟୁଞ୍ଜୟ ଓ ଅନ୍ୟାନ୍ୟ ସଭ୍ୟଙ୍କ ଆଦର ଓ ସମ୍ମାନ ତାଙ୍କୁ ଆଗଭର କରାଇଲା ଅଧିକ ଜାଣିବା ପାଇଁ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆ ବାବଦରେ୤ ନୂଆ ନୁଆ ଜିନିଷ ଶିଖିବାକୁ ମିଳୁଥାଏ୤ ପ୍ରଥମେ ସେ ଏକ ପ୍ରକଳ୍ପ ଉଇକିକଥାରେ ନୂଆ ନୂଆ ଅସୁବିଧାକୁ ସାମ୍ନା କରିବା ଭିତରେ ଡା. ରାଉତ ଆରମ୍ଭ କଲେ ନିଜ ସାରାଜୀବନର ସାଇତା ଚିକିତ୍ସା ବିଜ୍ଞାନ ସମ୍ପର୍କିତ ପ୍ରସଙ୍ଗ ଲେଖିବା୤ ଆରମ୍ଭରେ ଅସୁବିଧା ହେଉଥିଲା ୟୁନିକୋଡ଼ ଓଡ଼ିଆରେ ଟାଇପ କରି ଲେଖିବାରେ୤ ପରେ ଧୀରେ ଧୀରେ ଅଧିକ ଲେଖୁ ଲେଖୁ ବାଟ ହୁଡ଼ୁଥିବା ଲୋକଟି ପାଲଟିଗଲା ପଟୁ ଲେଖାଳୀ୤ ୪୨ ଟି ନୂଆ ପ୍ରସଙ୍ଗ ତିଆରିଥିବା ଓ ଅନେକ ପ୍ରସଙ୍ଗକୁ ଶତାଧିକ ଥର ସମ୍ପାଦନା କରିଥିବା ଡା. ରାଉତ କହନ୍ତି, 'ବାକି ଉଇକିଆଳିଙ୍କ ଶ୍ରଦ୍ଧା, ସମ୍ମାନ ଓ ସହଯୋଗ ପାଇଁ ମୁଁ ଆଜି ମୋର ପୁରା ଅବସର ଜୀବନ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆ ଲେଖିବାରେ ବିନିଯୋଗ କରିଦେଇଛି୤' ଅଗଷ୍ଟ ୭ ରୁ ୧୧ ଯାଏଁ ହଂକଂଠାରେ ଜଗତର ୨୮୬ ରୁ ଅଧିକ ଭାଷାରେ ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆରେ ସମ୍ପାଦନା କରୁଥିବା ଉଇକିଆଳିଙ୍କ ସମାବେଶ "ଉଇକିମାନିଆ ୨୦୧୩"ରେଯୋଗଦାନ କରିଥିବା ଉଇକିଆଳିଙ୍କ ଭିତରୁ ଜଣେ ମାତ୍ର ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଥିଲା ଏ ଲେଖକ୤ ସେଠାରେ ଡା ସୁବାସ ରାଉତଙ୍କ ଭଳି ଆହୁରି କେତେ ଜଣ ବୟୋଜ୍ୟେଷ୍ଠ ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆ ସମ୍ପାଦକଙ୍କ ସହ ଭେଟିବାର ସୁଯୋଗ ମିଳିଥିଲା୤ ଆଗାମୀ ଉଇକିମାନିଆ ଯାହା ଲଣ୍ଡନରେ ଅନୁଷ୍ଠିତ ହେଉଛି ସେଥିରେ ଅଂଶଗ୍ରହଣ କରିବାକୁ ଆଗ୍ରହୀ ଡା. ରାଉତ୤ ସେ ଭୁବନେଶ୍ୱରରେ ଥିବା ବାକି ଯୁବ ସମ୍ପାଦକଙ୍କୁ ଏକାଠି କରି ଅଧିକରୁ ଅଧିକ ସଚେତନତା ତଥା ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆରେ ସମ୍ପାଦନା କରିବା ବାବଦରେ କର୍ମଶାଳାର ଆୟୋଜନ କରୁଛନ୍ତି୤ ସହଜରେ ଓଡ଼ିଆରେ ଲେଖିବା ପାଇଁ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଚ୍ଚାରଣକୁ ନେଇ "ଲେଖନୀ" ନାମରେ ଏକ କି-ବୋର୍ଡ଼ ଲେଆଉଟ ଆମେମାନେ ତିଆରି କରିଥିଲୁ ଯାହା ସହାୟତାରେ କୌଣସି ବି ବ୍ୟକ୍ତି ଓଡ଼ିଆରେ ଟାଇପ କରିପାରିବ୤ ଏଥିରେ ଥିବା ନାନାଦି ଅସୁବିଧାକୁ ଜଣାଇବାରେ ଡା. ରାଉତଙ୍କ ଅବଦାନ କିଛି କମ ନୁହେଁ୤ ଏହା ନିର୍ଭୁଲ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଟାଇପିଂରେ ସହାୟକ ହେଉଛି୤ ଚାକିରୀ ପରର ଅବସର ଜୀବନ ତାଙ୍କର କଟୁଛି ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆରେ ଡାକ୍ତରୀ ବିଷୟ ସମ୍ପର୍କିତ ପ୍ରସଙ୍ଗ ସମ୍ପାଦନା ଓ କିଛି ମାତ୍ରାରେ କବୀର ଦୋହାର ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଅନୁବାଦ କରିବାରେ୤ ବିଳମ୍ବରେ ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆ ବାବଦରେ ଜାଣିଲେ ବୋଲି କହି ମନ ଉଣା କରି ସେ କହନ୍ତି, “ଆଗରୁ ଜାଣିଥିଲେ ହୁଏତ ଆହୁରି କେତେ ଗୁଡ଼ିଏ ପ୍ରସଙ୍ଗରେ ଲେଖିପାରିଥାନ୍ତି"୤ ନିଜର କୁନି ନାତୁଣୀ ସହିତ ଟିକେ ଖେଳିବା ବ୍ୟତୀତ ବାକି ସମୟ ସେ ଏମିତି ଜଣେ ସ୍ୱର୍େଚ୍ଛାସେବୀ ଭାବରେ ଓଡିଆରେ ଜ୍ଞାନର ବିତରଣର ସବୁଠୁ ବିଶାଳ ମାଧ୍ୟମ ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆରେ ସମ୍ପାଦନାରେ ସମୟ କାଟିବେ ବୋଲି କହନ୍ତି ଡା ସୁବାସ ଚନ୍ଦ୍ର ରାଉତ୤

ଲେଖକଙ୍କ ବାବଦରେ: ସୁଭାସିସ ପାଣିଗ୍ରାହୀ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆ ସ‌ହିତ ୩ ବର୍ଷ ଧରି ଜଡ଼ିତ ଅଛନ୍ତି୤ ଅତୀତରେ ସେ ଉଇକିମିଡ଼ିଆ ଫାଉଣ୍ଡେସନରେ କମ୍ୟୁନିଟି ଓ ପ୍ରୋଗ୍ରାମ ସ‌ପୋର୍ଟ କନସଲଟାଣ୍ଟ ଭାବେ କାମ କରିଛନ୍ତି୤ ଅଧୁନା ସେ ବାଙ୍ଗାଲୋରଠାରେ ସେଣ୍ଟର ଫର ଇଣ୍ଟରନେଟ ଏଣ୍ଡ ସୋସାଇଟିର ଆକ୍ସେସ ଟୁ ନଲେଜରେ ପ୍ରୋଗ୍ରାମ ଅଫିସର ଭାବରେ ଅବସ୍ଥାପିତ୤ ସେଠାରେ ସେ ଭାରତୀୟ ଭାଷାର ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆ ଓ ସେଥିରେ ପ୍ରସଙ୍ଗ ଲେଖୁଥିବା ସ୍ୱେଚ୍ଛାସେବୀ ସମ୍ପାଦକମାନଙ୍କର ବିକାଶ ନିମନ୍ତେ କାର୍ଯ୍ୟରତ୤ ଟେକ୍ନୋଲୋଜି କ୍ଷେତ୍ରରେ ବିକାଶ ଓ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଭାଷାର କମ୍ପ୍ୟୁଟରୀକରଣ ସମ୍ବନ୍ଧରେ ତାଙ୍କର ଅନେକ ଲେଖା ନାନାଦି ସମ୍ବାଦପ୍ତ୍ର ଓ ପ‌ତ୍ରପ‌ତ୍ରିକାରେ ପ୍ରକାଶିତ୤ ତାଙ୍କୁ subhashshish@cis-india.orgରେ ଇ-ମେଲ ଯୋଗେ ଯୋଗାଯୋଗ କରା‌ଯାଇପାରିବ୤

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/odiapua-subhashish-sep-10-odia-wikipedian-subas-rout

Selection of Programme Officer — Pilot Projects, CIS-A2K

nitika — 2013-10-30T06:07:24Z

The Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) opened applications for the post of Programme Officer, Pilot Projects for its Access to Knowledge (A2K) Programme on 17th April 2013. The vacancy and call for applications was shared on all Indian language mailing lists, city mailing lists as well as Village Pumps.

Last date of submitting applications was 30th April which was later extended for another week. By the first week of May we had received 35 applications.

First level of shortlisting
Applicants were given an assignment where they had to write at least one new article on their respective language Wikipedia projects (though we encouraged them to write more than one article if they liked). Asking them to write new articles on Wikipedia was a way to assess their seriousness and level of commitment towards this job. Applicants who failed to submit their written assignment were outright rejected in this level. Amongst the ones that did complete the assignment were assessed on the basis of their relevant work experience and skills that matched requirements of the job profile. CIS-A2K assessed these applicants on different parameters such as:

Exposure to digital domain
Exposure in community driven projects
Exposure of working with schools of performing arts or cultural departments
Prior experience of working in multi-cultural environment
Prior experience in program design and management
Exposure to Wikimedia projects and community
Technical work experience

In this level, 9 applicants were rejected due to failure of completing the assignment and 1 applicant pulled out. Out of the remaining 25 applicants, CIS-A2K shortlisted 15.

Second level of shortlisting
Vishnu and Nitika conducted one hour Skype interviews with each of the shortlisted candidates. CIS-A2K tried to assess candidates on their:

Understanding and passion for Wikimedia movement and projects

Level of understanding of the job profile

Level of understanding of open source, open access, open standards.

Clarity of thinking and communication skills

Ability to work with teams and communities

Experience / understanding of community mobilisation & outreach

Skills in project management

Comfort with working in unstructured environments

Ability to learn new things and approach unfamiliar situations

Personal passions and interests

On the basis of Skype conversations, CIS-A2K shortlisted 6 candidates out of 15 for the next level.

Third level of shortlisting
At this stage one more applicant pulled out and remaining 5 were called for personal interviews to our Bangalore office. All participants were requested to come prepared to present on the topic of 'Performing Arts and Wikipedia' for 10 mins. Each interview lasted for approximately an hour. Towards the closure of the day all participants were requested to gather where each one of them showcased their presentations. This further led to an interesting group discussion.

CIS-A2K had requested Wikimedia India to select someone from the Chapter who could be involved in the selection process and we're glad that Sowmyan Tirumurti, Executive Manager of Wikimedia Chapter could join us for a little while on the day of personal interviews.

Final Selection
Based on all the parameters and levels of interviews, CIS-A2K decided to extend the offer to Syed Muzammiluddin for the position of Programme Officer - Pilot Projects. Muzammil's experience, skills and interest matched our requirements the best and we look forward to a long and successful relationship with him.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/selection-of-programme-officer-pilot-projects-a2k

Digital Resources in Telugu: A Workshop for Research Scholars

praskrishna — 2013-09-12T10:30:45Z

The Department of Cultural Studies, English and Foreign Languages University and the CIS-A2K invite you to a workshop for research scholars on September 13, 2013.

Note to Participant:
As you may know, Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia, and is the 5th most-visited website in the world! It's completely free to use and re-use, it has no advertising, and is available in more than 286 different languages - including 20+ Indian languages. Wikipedia articles are written by ordinary people who volunteer to share their knowledge with the world.

What students gain from Wikipedia editing:
It improves writing skills. Wikipedia provides students a platform to hone their writing skills. Writing on Wikipedia enhances critical thinking and the ability to see all sides of a story. Students will find this incredibility useful in both their personal and professional lives while evaluating the pros and cons of different situations, projects, assignments etc. Wikipedia editing also strengthens research skills. A Wikipedia editor has to provide credible references by looking up books, journals and online materials. Writing on Wikipedia is good practice for those who will also work on a thesis or a research project.

Your articles will be read by thousands of people across the globe. If you edit a Wikipedia article, it is there *forever* and the audience can be any number from the 500 million who read Wikipedia every month!

It teaches students how to collaborate! Editing Wikipedia is magical. You add some content and someone from some other part of the class or school or town or country or somewhere else in the world adds a little bit more and makes the contribution that much better. Wikipedia helps one learn how to work productively with other people, even those you don’t know and may never actually meet.

The workshop will cover the following:

Essential Information Literacy for Researcher in Digital Era
Changing trends in knowledge production post digital turn
What exactly is Wikipedia and how does it work?
How do I edit Wikipedia?
What can I edit?
How can I input text in Indian languages?
How do I insert images?
How do I find and add references?
Do’s and Don’ts

Schedule:
10 a.m. to 1.00 p.m. (Discussion and demonstration)
2.00 p.m. to 5.00 p.m. (Practical session)

Important Instructions for Interested Participants

Each student attending the workshop should 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 12, 2013 (before the workshop commences). Please note that you will not be able to register more than 5 Usernames from a single IP address within 24 hours (a security feature of Wikipedia). This tutorial will help you with Registration on Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Tutorial/Registration
Once registered the students must furnish their details on the google doc. I have already entered my data just as sample. Please circulate this link to all the students at the earliest. This should be done by September 12, 2013 before the commencement of the Workshop https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AshSF7ZKRBR5dEY0N0tlZTcxRDktSHdaOERWeGhuRUE&usp=sharing
All the students are expected to do editing on Wikipedia. We will choose Telugu Wikipedia as a site to do some editing. Please be assured that we will also show how to use English Wikipedia. For this workshop each student should come up with one article at least in Telugu. This should be typed and be available in a soft copy form and could be carried in a thumb drive or any other storage media which should be easily accessible to them during the training programme. If you are not able to type, please bring the write-up in your note book. Check if the topic you are writing on is already available on Telugu Wikipedia (www.te.wikipedia.org).

Suggested topics: a) About a key Theorist in your field of research; b) About a critical concept that you use in your Research; c) Your Research Object; d) Any other notable topic that you feel should be in your language Wikipedia.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/events/digital-resources-in-telugu

The Law and Economics of Copyright Users Rights

praskrishna — 2013-09-06T06:25:35Z

Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property, American University Washington College of Law is organizing a conference on law and economics of copyright users at Massachusetts Ave., NW, Washington DC, on September 26, 2013. Sunil Abraham will present an update on the Pervasive Technologies project as keynote at this meeting.

Click to read the original announcement published by the Washington College of Law here.

2:00	Welcome by PIJIP Director Michael Carroll
2:15	Copyright Flexibilities and Social and Economic Development: Current State of Knowledge Moderator: Walter Park, American University Department of Economics (Bio) Christian Handke, Erasmus University Rotterdam (Bio) Joost Poort, University of Amersterdam (Bio) Piotr Stryszowski, Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (Bio) Rokia Alavi, International Islamic University of Malaysia (C.V.)
4:00	Break
4:15	Roundtable: Copyright Users Rights in Law Reform Moderator: Sean Flynn, American University Washington College of Law Jeremy Debeer, University of Ottawa, Canada (Bio) Rebecca Giblin, Monash University, Australia (Bio) Caroline Ncube, University of Cape Town, South Africa (Bio) Alberto Cerda, Georgetown University and Universidad de Chile (Bio) Martin Senftleben, University of Amsterdam (Bio)
6:00	Break
6:15	Keynote: Sunil Abraham, Center for the Internet and Society – India (Bio) Users Rights and Innovation in the ICT Industries in India
7:00	Reception (Room 600)

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/pijip-september-26-2013-the-law-and-economics-of-copyright-users-rights

Wikipedia Training in Telugu for Dr. B.R. Ambedkar Open University, Hyderabad

praskrishna — 2013-09-06T05:51:49Z

CIS-A2K is conducting a Wikipedia training programme in Telugu for the faculty of Dr. B.R.Ambedkar Open University (Dr. BRAOU) in Hyderabad on September 5 and 6, 2013.

This is done as part of the "ICT and eContent" workshop organized by the Centre for Staff Training and Development of Dr. BRAOU for their faculty. T. Vishnu Vardhan Program Director, CIS-A2K has been invited to teach a module on "Knowledge and Openness in the Digital Era" as part of which this Wikipedia training programme was also organized.

Details in Telugu originally published in the metapage on Wikipedia is reproduced below:

వికీపీడియా:శిక్షణ శిబిరం/హైదరాబాద్/హైదరాబాద్2

--14.139.86.130 05:32, 6 సెప్టెంబర్ 2013 (UTC)పరాంకుశం వెంకట రమణ==తేదీ - స్థలం== సెప్టెంబరు, 5 2013; డాక్టర్ బి.ఆర్. అంబేద్కర్ సార్వత్రిక విశ్వవిద్యాలయం

సమయం
పొ. 10.00 నుండి మ. 1.00 వరకు

నిర్వహణ సంస్థ/లు

CISA2K డాక్టర్ బి.ఆర్. అంబేద్కర్ సార్వత్రిక విశ్వవిద్యాలయం, హైదరబాద్ వారి సంస్థాగత భాగస్వామ్యంతో. ఈ శిబిరం Centre for Staff Training and Development (Dr. BRAOU) వారు 10 రోజులపాటు విశ్వవిద్యాలయం యొక్క ఉపాధ్యాయుల కొరకు నిర్వహించిన ‘ICT and e-Content Development’ Workshop లో భాగంగా నిర్వహించబడినది.

నిర్వాహకులు

విష్ణు (చర్చ)

--Elkasudharani (చర్చ) 05:37, 6 సెప్టెంబర్ 2013 (UTC)==Dr.BRAOU లోని కార్యక్రమ సంధానకర్తలు==

ఘంటా చక్రపాణి (డైరెక్టర్, Centre for Staff Training and Development, డాక్టర్ బి.ఆర్. అంబేద్కర్ సార్వత్రిక విశ్వవిద్యాలయం)

--14.139.86.130 05:35, 6 సెప్టెంబర్ 2013 (UTC)

శిక్షణ శిబిరానికి హజరైన సభ్యులు

--Pallavisudheer (చర్చ) 05:31, 6 సెప్టెంబర్ 2013 (UTC)

సరోజ --Drgsaroja (చర్చ) 05:27, 6 సెప్టెంబర్ 2013 (UTC)
--Rajani nellutla (చర్చ) 05:29, 6 సెప్టెంబర్ 2013 (UTC)
--Kiranmayi.ys (చర్చ) 05:30, 6 సెప్టెంబర్ 2013 (UTC)
--Vasuvaddanam (చర్చ) 05:31, 6 సెప్టెంబర్ 2013 (UTC)

--Gpushpa (చర్చ) 05:32, 6 సెప్టెంబర్ 2013 (UTC) --Drgsaroja (చర్చ) 05:34, 6 సెప్టెంబర్ 2013 (UTC)

--Boju srinivas (చర్చ) 05:36, 6 సెప్టెంబర్ 2013 (UTC)
--Shridhevie (చర్చ) 05:37, 6 సెప్టెంబర్ 2013 (UTC)

పై వరసలో పేరు చేర్చండి లేక సంతకం చేయండి>

--[[--14.139.86.130 05:35, 6 సెప్టెంబర్ 2013 (UTC)]]
--Elkasudharani (చర్చ) 05:37, 6 సెప్టెంబర్ 2013 (UTC)
--Pvramana24 (చర్చ) 05:37, 6 సెప్టెంబర్ 2013 (UTC)

నివేదిక

చిత్రమాలిక

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/events/wikipedia-training-in-telugu-for-b-r-ambedkar-open-university

Train the Trainer — Four-day long Residential Training Workshop in Bangalore

praskrishna — 2015-09-27T09:59:00Z

Train the Trainer is a four-day long residential training workshop to enable Indian Wikipedia community members conduct outreach sessions effectively and independently. It is being conducted by the CIS-A2K team in Bangalore in the first week of October.

See the event on the Wikipedia page here. Please note that the exact dates for this event hasn't been finalized. We will let you know once it is done. See the Snippets from Wikimedia Train the Trainer here.

Why CIS-A2K is conducting this Program?

Based on an internal needs assessment exercise undertaken by CIS-A2K, it has been realized that:

bulk of the Indian population does not know about the existence of Indic Wikipedias and sister projects.
there is a lot of potential to do outreach in India but it is hampered by community member's lack of time, lack of availability of support material and/or ability to do outreach.
though many Indic Wikipedia community members have desire to undertake offline outreach they seldom receive support and guidance.
there is a need to further build the capacity of interested community members to conduct effective outreach sessions.

Thus through this program, the CIS-A2K programme wants to support and enable community members who are interested to conduct Wikipedia outreach sessions in their own cities/languages and to spread the word about the Indic Wikipedias.

Overview of the programme

CIS-A2K is organising a 4 day Train the Trainer Program in Bangalore. The program will include:

3 day sessions with interactive training run by professional consultants on how to conduct outreach in an effective manner – training on presentation skills, audience engagement, public speaking etc. It will include mock presentations, with video recording for feedback.
4th day will be a field trip aiming to train the participants on how to organise an effective photothon; in addition, participants will also add pictures from the field trip to Wikimedia Commons for enhancing and improving articles on Indian language Wikipedias.

Selection Criterion

CIS-A2K will conduct this program for approximately 20-25 interested community members from different Indian language communities. We want to make sure that there is equal participation from each language community. The CIS-A2K will use below mentioned parameters for selecting candidates.

CIS-A2K's evaluation of Train the Trainer Program Application Form.
Motivation of the candidate to be a part of the program.
The applicant should have made minimum 200 edits on their respective Indian language Wikipedia.
The applicant should have created at least 5 new articles of start class (as defined by their language community) on their respective Indian language Wikipedia.
The applicant should have conducted at least 1 outreach session before the end of application date and shared the report with the community (via mailing list, village pump, event page, etc.)

Candidates' Deliverable

There are certain deliverables that CIS-A2K expects out of selected candidates. These are:

Take lead in translating outreach documents (including presentations, banners, FAQs, handouts) in their respective language and share it with their respective communities.
Organise at least 2 outreach sessions per month in their respective cities, for a minimum of 6 continuous months and share the report with the community (via mailing list, village pump, event page, etc.).
Take lead in organising at least 1 community meet up in their respective cities, where they would give a small talk/presentation about their experience in the Train the Trainer Program and share ideas and tips they picked from the program with their language community members.
Write a 1500-word report sharing their Train the Trainer Program experience with large emphasis on their learnings and take-aways to be shared with all Indian communities.

What's in it for you?

Get general training and presentation skills which you can apply not only during Wikipedia workshops, but also during delivering personal and professional talks.
Receive detailed feedback about your presentation and training skills from professional consultants.
Help design a training program that serves Wikimedia community in the long term.
Share your skills with others.
Meet fellow Wikimedia editors and have fun.

Dates	Number of days	Details
30th August to 13th September 2013	14 Days	CIS-A2K accepts applications.
13th September to 16th September 2013	3 Days	CIS-A2K evaluates the applications and shares details of selected candidates.
16th September to 23th September 2013	7 Days	CIS-A2K co-ordinates with selected candidates to finalize their travel plans, make reservations etc.
1st week of October 2013	4 Days	CIS-A2K organises Train the trainer Program.

Call for Participation

CIS-A2K is calling for applications for it's Train the Trainer Program. If you'd like to be part of this program please make sure that you meet the selection criterion and fill in the Train the Trainer Program Application Form by 13th September, 2013.

FAQ

What is train the trainer program?
Train the trainer is a 4 day program organised by CIS-A2K to build capacity and enable community members to conduct outreach sessions independently or with minimal support to introduce Wikipedia to prospective editors in their respective Indian languages. Participants will be trained on various aspects such as presenting with impact, engaging with the audience, significance of body language, outreach follow ups etc. Program will also include groups discussions on ideas, learnings, challenges faced during outreach sessions.
When will train the trainer program run?
Train the trainer program will take place in Bangalore for 4 continuous days in the 1st week of October 2013. Exact details of dates and venue will be communicated shortly.
Who can take part in the program?
The event is open to all Wikimedia volunteers from India who can and want to support outreach events in the coming year.
How can I apply?
Please fill in Train the Trainer Program Application Form.
Who will take care of my travel and accommodation?
CIS-A2K has a budget for Community Development and the team will be able to cover your travel and accommodation.
What will be the timings each day?
The timings of the program will be 9.00am to 7.30pm everyday with sufficient time for lunch, dinner, tea breaks and fun sessions.
Where will I eat?
Light breakfast and lunch will be provided; together with social dinner. Arrangements will also be made for tea and coffee.
What is expected out of me?

Each selected candidate will be given some pre-work. You're expected to come with completed pre-work.
Take lead in translating outreach documents (including presentations, banners, FAQs, handouts) in their respective language and share it with their respective communities.
Post the program, organize at least 2 outreach sessions per month in your respective cities, for a minimum of 6 continuous months and share the report with the community (via mailing list, village pump, event page, etc.).
Post the program, take lead in organising at least 1 community meet up in your respective cities, where you would give a small talk/presentation about your experience in the Train the Trainer Program and share ideas and tips you picked from the program with your language community members.
Write a 1500-word report sharing your Train the Trainer Program experience with large emphasis on learnings and take-aways to be shared with all Indian communities.

Contact

For any further queries please mail at a2k@cis-india.org

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/events/train-the-trainer

Konkani Wikipedia Advances in 4 Days — From 90 Articles to 130 Articles!

nitika — 2013-09-03T10:37:15Z

There has been a rise of article contributions to the Konkani Wikipedia in a span of 4 days following a 4 day programme organized by the CIS-A2K team for M.A. students from the Konkani Department, Goa University at the Central State Library, Goa from August 21 to 24, 2013. Nitika Tandon and Subhashish Panigrahi conducted the event.

The original details posted on the meta page can be viewed here.

Introduction

There are 30 lakh Konkani speakers spread across the Konkani belt of Goa, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra. Only a few are aware of the existence of an open source project, Konkani Wikipedia, that can help them preserve their language and culture. The project has been in incubation since its inception in 2006 and had 90 articles till last week — an incomparable number in English Wikipedia, which has 4.3 million articles. However, CIS-A2K teams effort in Goa to strengthen Konkani Wikipedia project and community has finally started to show some tangible results. As a follow up to the early workshops and orientations we organized this latest programme to help the students make themselves familiar in editing and contributing articles to Konkani Wikipedia.

We started the event with a demonstration on the basics of editing the Wikipedia followed by a brief discussion about Konkani Wikipedia and the editing session. Besides these we had fun activities and wiki quiz.

Highlights of the Workshop

A total of 38 students from the Konkani Department took part in this workshop. Forty-three new articles were created and added to Konkani Wikipedia in the 4-day event.
During the first couple of days, 22 students generated 42 pages of print material and in the last two days, 16 students generated 56 pages of printed material.
A total of 987 edits were made and 41 references were added on Konkani Wikipedia.
The students added a total of 3,90,040 bytes of data; an average of 10KB data was added by each student.
Students wrote articles on varied topics such as Goan folk dances, eminent personalities, festivals, folk music, proverbs, food items, theater, etc.


Pictured above: Participants at the Konkani Wiki editing workshop in Goa University. Picture credit: Subhashish Panigrahi

Articles and Participants

Phase 1 (Day 1 and Day 2)

1	धालो	Varsha Kavlekar
2	केळशीची फमाद दर्यादेग	Mona Rodrigues
3	देखणी	Fernandes Sandra
4	गोयच्यों परबो	Komal Dhuri
5	जागर्	Cliffa Fernandes
6	गोंयचे पारंपारीक वेवसाय	Abigail Dias
7	गोंयचें मुखेल जेवण	Effa Dias
8	चवथ	Shanta Gaundalkar
9	कुंकळ्ळेची चळवळ	Dias Neves
10	राणेचे बंड	Fay Fernandes
11	रविंद्र केळेकार	Gaurisha Phal Desai
12	गोंयचे पारंपारीक खेळ	Safira Ferns
13	शणै गोयबाब	Pratima Fal Desai
14	मांडो	Anisha Gad
15	संगीत	Santoshi Kole
16	म्हणी,ओपारी	Pooja Kavlekar
17	मोसिन्योर दाल्गाद- जीण आनी वावर	Sukhada Daikar
18	कोंकणी तियात्राचीं कांतारां	Konknni mogi 24
19	कोंकणी लोककाणयो, कोंकणी सिनेमा	Supriya Kankumbikar
20	गोवा कोंकणी अकादेमी, कोंकणी भाशा मंडळ	Vaishali Parab
21	कोंकणी नाटक	Darshan Kandolkar
22	विश्व कोंकणी केंद्र	John Noronha

Phase 2 (Day 3 and Day 4)

1	गोंयचें लोक नाच	Pooja Tople
2	गोंयची जातीय वेवस्था, गोंय मुक्ती उपरान्तचो इतिहास	Priyanka Kudaskar
3	दिवाळी,शिरगांवची जात्रा	Pritam Barve
4	गोंयची लोकगितां	Rusita Paryekar
5	हिंदूच्या सणपरबांचें जिन्नस	Gauri Prabhugaonkar
6	लोकवादय़ा	Suma Parab Gaonkarr
7	गाराणें	Darshana Mandrekar
8	तुळशीलग्न	Heefza
9	बारसो	Nikita Prabhu
10	कोंकणी कथा	Marizma Mascarenhas
11	गोंयचीं क्रिस्तावांचीं काजारां	Linette Saldanha
12	बेबींक	Frania Pereira
13	तियात्र	Rhakee Santos
14	गोंयचे तियात्रिस्त	Pereira Goreti
15	कुळबी समाजाच्यो परबो	Rubiya Komarpant
16	कोंकणीतलें पयलें बरप	Savidha Talekar

Media Coverage

Wikipedia writes a new script (by Joyce Dias, The Goan, August 24, 2013)
Konkani Wikipedia makes headway (by Diana Fernandes, OHeraldO, August 24, 2013)

Learnings

Pre-course work : Participants were asked to do pre-course work before the actual event. This included creating Wikipedia usernames, selecting articles they wanted to edit, writing their articles in Konkani on a piece of paper and get their references too. Students were also given few pages of Wikipedia literature to read beforehand. Students did all their pre-course work with a lot of dedication and efficiency confirming their passion and interest to contribute to Wikipedia. The pre-course also helped students to come prepared and focused for the workshop.

Limiting number of participants: We limited the number of participants to a total of 40 and further divided in two different groups with about 20 students in each. The first batch came for 2 consecutive days and the second batch came for the last two consecutive days of the event. By limiting the number of participants we were able to give individual attention to each student and closely monitor their on wiki performance.

Longer duration workshop: Fourteen hours of training was given to each batch. It was spread over 2 days. We had sufficient time to break down the entire workshop into different sections (theoretical and practical) that could be easily followed by the participants. Those 14 hours gave us enough time to cover most of the important topics (such as teaching typing, adding reference, adding headers, wiki markup, talk page protocol, etc.) at as comfortable pace.

Bite size chunks: The workshop was divided into different sections to give them bite size information only. Each theoretical section was followed by a practical section. For example, the first section involved teaching typing in Devanagari and then participants were given enough time to type their articles in Devanagari. In the second section we taught them how to add headers and then the participants were given sometime to add only headers to their articles. This was followed by a third section where we taught them how to add references and then giving them time to add their references. We made sure that we didn't overwhelm the students with a lot of information in one go and broke it down into simpler pieces.

Energizers : Seven continuous hours of editing Wikipedia would have really tired the students and made them disinterested as well. To keep their energy and motivation level high, after fixed intervals we played some energizer games with them.

Student co-ordinators: A total of 4 students were selected (2 from each batch) to act as student co-ordinators. These co-ordinators acted as a communication bridge between A2K members and the participants. For example, these co-ordinators would help students take a unanimous decision about what are the next dates for a follow up session, what timings would work for everyone, etc.

Varied sources of information: We used different sources and means to educate students about Wikipedia and Wikipedia editing. We definitely didn't want it to be a 14-hour long discourse and hence used different tools such as (Netha's, Poongothai's, Sriket and Noopur's, and Ganesh's videos talking about their personal experiences in the Wikipedia world), along with handouts, presentations, cheat sheets for typing, etc. We also invited Harriet for a video conference to speak with students in Konkani and share with them some inspirational stories.

Challenges

Most students didn't know typing in Devanagari and had to be taught during the workshops. It took them a little while to practice and get comfortable with the typing tool.
We wanted to make sure that along with quantity, students are also producing good quality articles. Non-existance of active Konkani Wikipedia editors makes it a little tough to keep control on the quality. Hence, we reached out to Madhavi Sardesai and Priyadarshani Tadkodkar professors from the Konkani Department at Goa University to assess the quality and ask students to make required changes.
Since Konkani Wikipedia is in incubation students had to do some additional work such as:
- Browse through incubator.wikimedia.org to find about Konkani Wikipedia. Many wanted to know why Konkani Wikipedia doesn't have an independent link just as en.wikipedia.org.
- Add Category:Wp/gom to every new article that was created. Many found this as extra work.
- Searching for existing articles on incubation was difficult for participants.
During the workshop all students added huge amount of information but only a handful of them continued editing once they left the computer lab. This brings us to our all time biggest challenge: How do we keep their motivation and interest levels high for them to continue writing on Wikipedia beyond these workshops?


Seen above: Konkani Wikipedia editing session in progress. Picture credit: Subhashish Panigrahi

Acknowledgements

This event and future events at Goa University would not have been possible without the committed support CIS-A2K has got from the Goa University and Wikipedians. CIS-A2K is very thankful to Dr. Satish Shetye (Vice-Chancellor, Goa University) — for seeing the significance of growing open knowledge movement in Goa and Konkani and encouraging Konkani Wikipedia activities at GU. Thanks are due to the GU faculty, specifically Prof. Alito Sequeira; Prof. Madhavi Sardesai; Prof. Priyadarshini Tadkodkar; and Dr. Gopa Kumar. Wikipedians Harriet Vidyasagar and Frederick Nooronha. Last but not the least the enthusiastic students of Goa University who are integral to this event.


				Konkani Wikipedia editor Frania Pereira speaks about her editing experience on Konkani Wikipedia. (by Subhashish Panigrahi, CC-BY-SA 3.0)

What's Next?

A2K team is organizing a follow-up session with the same set of students on Sept 6 and 7, 2013. This session will aim to clear any confusions/doubts that participants may have about Wikipedia editing and also to give them a brief about Wikimedia Commons. In this session, students will also decide how they would want to continue with this project with an aim to bring Konkani Wikipedia as a live project.

Additional Info:

Konkani Department, Goa University: http://bit.ly/14S87Ci
Central State Library, Goa: http://bit.ly/1dzHmao
Konkani Wikipedia: http://bit.ly/1dGOFOL

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/konkani-wikipedia-advances-in-four-days

Konkani Wikipedia — Climbing up the Indian Language Ladder?

subha — 2013-10-25T07:16:30Z

Konkani as a language has seen geographical, political and religious conflicts. Being the official language of Goa and spoken widely in the Indian states of Karnataka, Kerala and Maharashtra it is still trying to strengthen its base. Recently CIS-A2K in collaboration with Goa University organized a four-day workshop for MA, Konkani language students. This workshop involved 38 students creating 43 new articles on Konkani Wikipedia which is incubation. We’re hoping that these efforts will contribute towards bringing this 7 year old project out of incubation to a live Wikipedia project.

A modified version of this was published in DNA on September 6, 2013. This was re-posted in Fitness Foundation website on October 9, 2013.

Incubation

Before any language Wikipedia shapes up as a live project an incubation process is involved. A community of volunteers (known as Wikipedians) gradually grow to sustain this Wikipedia in incubation with active contribution. Konkani Wikipedia incubator began way back in 2006. However, due to many reasons it could not take off and is still in incubation. One of the major reasons has been the issue with multiple script usage. Due to political and religious reasons Konkani has multiple writing and verbal standards and is also written in multiple script. These include Devanagari and Roman (also known as Romi) in Goa where Devanagari is the official script, Kannada in the Konkani speaking regions of Karnataka (Mangalore region primarily), Malayalam in Kerala (Kochi region) and in Perso-Arabic script by part of the Konkani speaking population. The largest script usage for Konkani is in Devanagari. Goa University is world's first university to have a masters programme in Konkani language where the writing standard is in Goan Konkani (Language code: Gom) which is written in Devanagari. During the interaction with the faculty members; Prof. Madhavi Sardesai and Head of the department Dr. Priyadarshini Tadkodar we found that the students are very enthusiastic to contribute to their language. We met the students and introduced Konkani Wikipedia to them and they showed interest to take part in a workshop to learn Wikipedia editing. This was the beginning of something new after a long time. Four out of the 38 students volunteered to coordinate the workshop on the ground. They discussed about the workshop and the prerequisites; going through the list of articles on Konkani Wikipedia, and writing a unique article by collecting resources and creating their usernames on Wikipedia before attending the workshop. To our surprise, all of the students including the four coordinators came out with at least two pages of written content before the workshop.

Day 1: Building the Blocks

It was 10 in the morning. A big LED panel in the audio visual room of the Krishnadas Shama State Central Library, Goa was displaying the word cloud containing words like Wikipedia, Openness, Education, Open Knowledge, Global Collaboration, etc. Soon the room was filled with 20 M.A. students from the Konkani Department of Goa University. Prior to the workshop we had interacted with the students in the presence of Head of the department Dr. Priyadarshini and Prof. Madhavi Sardesai and from the Konkani department. Four of the students, Supriya Kankumbikar, Fr. Luis Gomes, Vaishali Parab and John Noronha volunteered to coordinate for the workshops. With the help of them we managed to get a majority of the students to sign up and create their user accounts before the first workshop. We had to do some rough work to plan for a whole day workshop. The word "workshop" has been always boring for the students and our biggest worry was how we would keep this boredom at bay and make Wikipedia editing a fun.

Intro Yourself

To start with the first day we had an "Adjective Name" activity. It was fun to know how people judge themselves with adjective. Myself turned out to be "Sub-Hashish" and Nitika turned out to be "Naughty-Nitika"! Then we had a discussion about articles that students planned to write. A few of them were not sure if articles like social issues and biography of a writer could fit into Wikipedia framework.

Editing Time

Article titles were decided. Everyone was ready with their homework write-ups and books for adding sources. The next big thing was typing in Devanagari. Only four-five of them knew typing. Students came forward for trying their hands in typing. For the first time some of them typed a few words and they typed it correctly. We could see the glow of triumph after they typed correctly using “Transliteration” layout. The editing session began. Our experience with majority of the Indian language outreach participants had been more or the less the same; most new Wikipedians struggle to type. This time we printed some handouts with the layout for typing help. It worked well. Students managed to type albeit small little typos.

Game Time

We had to cut the session for an activity break and invited them to play “Tumi Kashi Asat” (means How are you doing in Konkani). This is a game I learned from my colleague Vishnu. To make it more interesting we got it translated to Konkani by our coordinator Supriya. The host has to make some body movements and ask “Tumi Kashi Asat” and bending forward. The participants have to move their body in the reverse way and answer “Ami bari ashat” (I’m doing good). This replaced the caffeine intake for the four days and kept all of us alive.

Rat and Frog Game

There was surprise for participating wikipedians post lunch, “Rat race”. Participants sit on chairs and one of them is made to stand in the center. The rat makes others run and replace each others seats and one among the participants become rat. This rat race brought back the old childhood memories and for a moment everyone forgot their age. At the end of it students sat down to take a deep breath and we taught them some of the basic wiki-codes (bold, Italics and adding references).

Editing session went on until the rest of the day. To our surprise all of the students had created their first articles by the end of the day.

Guide for Konkani Wikipedia editing with typing layouts

Day 2: Climbing up the Ladder

This was the day to tell the students about the advanced options and ensure addition of more citations. Citations on Wikipedia are very essential for readers to validate the facts. But bringing this to the students who just had started learning typing in their language a day before was not that easy. The second day was spent giving small breaks during the editing session for small activities. Running, jumping and shouting fueled the students to be happy editors and not burdened. We managed to teach them the advanced options for proper wiki-formatting (Bold, Italics, Heading and Category), and citations. By the end of the first two days 22 students created 24 articles (about 42 pages of written content). Everyone clapped for their friends. We welcomed them to Konkani Wikipedia community, left our contacts to contact further and showed them the Facebook group that they could join and be more connected before thanking and saying bye for the day with the promise of more fun for the next workshop.

Day 3: Fresh Batch, New Start

Sixteen new students from the M.A. course were welcomed. Four student-coordinators and one from the first batch of students joined the "funday". The entire day was spent with lots of fun, creating articles and learning about the basic know how about Wiki-codes. Half the students in this batch knew typing in Devanagari Inscript. Our first and second day taught us how students ask their fellow students more than they ask us for small little help. Nitika and myself being Inscript noobs made it tough. We then paired these students with those who knew Inscript, thanks to the Fedora Devanagari keyboard layout. It helped us to look and guide the students. All of the students created their first articles. John, Supriya and Vaishali (from first batch) were giving final touches to their second articles.

Day 4: No Need to Say Good Bye!

This was the day to do two very important things: clap for their contribution on the first day and tell about contribution of their friends, teach about the advanced options and extend further support. Seeing the newspaper coverage about the workshop featuring some of their friends was a delight for our new wikipedians after two long days. Few of them came forward to share their experience about the workshop and their vision for Konkani language.

At the end of four days all of them bid us farewell. It felt like saying bye to good old friends. These were the foundation days and the biggest editing rally Konkani Wikipedia Incubator has seen in the last seven years with this milestone that the students had created. Happy faces of our new found friends is going to be a great piece of memory in this journey.

Media Coverage

Wikipedia writes a new script (by Joyce Dias, The Goan, August 24, 2013)
Konkani Wikipedia makes headway (by Diana Fernandes, OHeraldO, August 24, 2013)

Video


Rusita Paryekar speaks about Konkani Wikipedia

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/konkani-wikipedia-climbing-up-the-indian-language-ladder

India's Obligations under Bilateral Investment Treaties (Part A): “Bilateral Inhibiting Treaty?” — Investigating the Challenges that Bilateral Investment Treaties pose to the Compulsory Licensing of Pervasive Technology Patent Pools

gavin — 2013-09-02T14:45:08Z

In this blog post, the first of a series of three, Gavin Pereira attempts to address the challenges that India's obligations under Bilateral Investment Treaties may pose to the establishment of a patent pool in the country. The author thanks Puneeth Nagaraj for his guidance and inputs on this paper.

"And finally, many states, unfortunately, see investment treaties as a diplomatic photo opportunity without being fully aware of the actual legal implications."
Nathalie Bernasconi-Osterwalder[1]

Introduction
Continuing from the Indian government’s Economic Reform Program, which had started in 1991,[2] are India’s Bilateral Investment Promotion and Protection Agreements. Generally referred to as Bilateral Investment Treaties or "BITs," these agreements seek to provide for conditions that are “favourable for greater investment by investors of one State in the territory of the other State”[3] in hopes that this would lead to "stimulation of business initiatives and increase in prosperity."[4]

Since 1996, India has signed a total of 82 BITs, of which 72 have come into force.[5] At the time of signing them, BITs were generally hailed as a means to increase foreign investor confidence during the liberalisation of India’s economy.[6]

Recently however, several notices of disputes were filed or threatened to be filed under these treaties by companies such as Vodafone B.V.[7], Telenor[8] and Sistema.[9] These filings lead to the review of all the BITs signed by India, a procedure that was called upon by the Indian government’s Department for Industrial Policy and Promotion,[10] as well as the composition of an amended model BIT by the Ministry of Finance to increase the threshold requirements for an investor to initiate arbitration.[11]

Such discord between thestate and investors protected under BITs is not unique to India. There has been a steady rise in the number of investment disputes brought to international arbitration with the highest number of known treaty-based disputes filed in 2012. This has been revealed through a review of the claims filed in the International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) and an inspection of United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).[12] In the history of investor-state dispute resolution, the highest reward to the tune of $1.77 billion in Occidental v Ecuador[13] was awarded last year.

In order to better contextualize this background of increasingly assertive investor claims, my essay will first attempt to ascertain the meaning of intellectual property (IP) rights as defined as investments within BITs and explore their effect on the compulsory licensing of information and communication technology patent pools. I will then discuss the relation between covenants that India is a signatory to, Indian copyright law and BITs with an aim to propose measures by which BITs should be suitably amended to allow for India’s burgeoning growth in the budget smartphone market.

BIT Claims Against India
There are a total of 12 known and 17 estimated[14] treaty claims against India, the 11th highest number of claims in the world.[15] Given the strict confidentiality thatcovers these proceedings, this is merely the tip of the iceberg, as there may be several other claims against India that are not available in the public domain.[16]

The tribunal in White Industries v Republic of India [17] — the first investment treaty award against India — held India liable for breaching its obligation to provide “effective means of asserting claims and enforcing rights” pursuant to 4(2) of the India-Australia BIT, read with 4(5) of the India-Kuwait BIT. India was ordered to compensate White Industries a total amount of approximately four million Australian dollars plus interest.[18]

The tribunal attributed the inordinate delay by Indian courts, especially the Indian Supreme Court in enforcing an arbitral award in favour of White Industries as a denial of effective means to enforce their right to their investment.[19]

In 2012, Vodafone B.V. filed a notice of dispute, a prerequisite to commence arbitration under the India-Netherlands BIT, claiming that the Indian government’s decision to enact the Indian Finance Bill 2012 would be a failure to accord ‘fair and equitable treatment;’ the reason being that the amendment sought to retroactively tax the 2007 share-purchase agreement between Hutchinson Telecommunications International Ltd. and Vodafone[20] despite the Supreme Court ruling in favour of Vodafone on that issue.[21]

Telenor and Sistema have filed or threatened to file notices of dispute under BITs Following the cancellation of 122 2G spectrum telecom licenses by the Supreme Court.[22] Within these filings was the alleging that the act of the Supreme Court undermined the license allocation process and was a form of indirect expropriation of their investments.[23]

In March 2012, the Children’s Investment Fund (CIF) filed a notice of dispute in a letter addressed to the Minister of Finance, invoking both the India-UK BIT and the India-Cyprus BIT in response to the “seriously impaired business activities and operations of the company” by virtue of their investment in Coal India.[24] They alleged that Coal India’s sale of assets to private companies at below-market price, on the directive of the Government, has caused a huge loss to the Coal India and in effect, to the company’s share value. This claim is unprecedented as CIF is a minority shareholder essentially suing Coal India for greater dividends.[25] CIF has since soldalmost 20% of their shareholding in Coal India.[26]

Intellectual Property and BIT
The Indian model text of BIT’s, and therefore all 82 BITs that have been drafted based on the model text, define "investment" inter alia as "intellectual property rights, in accordance with the laws of the contracting party."[27] This enables investors protected to file BIT claims against India for any action that directly or indirectly adversely affects their IPR, subject to certain other conditions. It was only a matter of time before the full extent of the scope of claims that may be brought forward against India under the numerous BITs had begun to unravel. Two distinct but equally important IP-related court judgments have signaled the possibility of the intervention of investment treaties on India’s IP regime, and in the context of this paper, on affordable smartphones.

The first is the interim injunction passed by the Delhi High Court in Ericsson v Micromax[28] that acknowledged that the plaintiff (Ericsson) has "made out a prima facie case in its favour and balance of convenience…also entirely in its favour." Accordingly, if interim compensation in accordance with a temporary Fair Reasonable and Non-Discriminatory (FRAND) license between Micromax and Ericsson were not granted, "irreparable harm would be caused to the plaintiff."[29]

The resulting interim arrangement included the execution of a FRAND license, based on FRAND terms, with Micromax agreeing to pay Ericsson between 1.25% and 2% of the sale price of their phone models to Ericsson.[30]

The second of the two court judgments to be looked at is comprised of a series of pharmaceutical patent disputes between global pharmaceutical companies and Indian generic drug producers regarding the compulsory licensing of critical drugs related to cancer and HIV. In March 2012, the Controller General of Patents, Designs and Trademarks relied on the patentability clause of the Patents Act, 1970[31] to authorise an Indian generic drug producer, Natco Pharma,to manufacture and sell copies of Nexavar, a patented drug sold globally by Bayer.[32]

In April 2013, the Supreme Court allowed Indian generic drug manufacturers to manufacture a version of the cancer drug, Glivec (also known as “Gleevec”), referring to the same patentability clause of the Patents Act in coming to the conclusion that it did not have a feature that qualified it as a true invention.The court emphasised the importance of referring to the evolution of India’s patent regime, specifically the influence of what they term “important milestones,” such as the Justice Bakshi Tek Chand Committee Report, the Justice Ayyangar Committee Report, the growth of India’s domestic pharmaceutical industry after the enactment of the 1970 Patents Act, and the signing of the TRIPS agreement in determining whether a compulsory license should be granted.[33]

Interestingly enough, an immediate reaction to these regulatory and court decisions in the area of pharmaceutical patents included press releases from large law firms discussing the benefits for multinational pharmaceutical companies in seeking dispute resolution under Bilateral Investment Treaties.[34] While there is a WTO Dispute Resolution Mechanism under TRIPS, where contracting parties may request for consultation under Article XXII or initiate dispute resolution under Article XXIII of the GATT, there are a number of reasons why investors chose to file claims under BITs,[35] an aspect that will be discussed in the next post.

Internationally as well, the intertwining of issues of Intellectual Property with BIT claimsis a new development, at the forefront of which is the Australian tobacco plain packaging international arbitration. Australia enacted the Tobacco Plain Packaging Act that increased the Graphic Health Warnings on the front of the packaging from 30% to 75%, and which prescribes every aspect of the appearance, size and shape of tobacco packaging and prohibits the use of trademarks, symbols or graphics other than the brand and variant name in plain font. Philip Morris Asia Limited (PMAL) filed a notice of arbitration under the Hong Kong-Australia BIT arguing that their intellectual property and goodwill were infringed by the Plain Packaging Act.[36]

Pervasive Technology and India’s Growth
The Report of the Special Rapporteur of the Human Rights Council on the Promotion and Protection of the Right to Freedom of Opinion and Expression emphasised the importance of the internet, not only to enable individuals to exercise their right to freedom of expression but to promote the progress of society as a whole. The report called upon member states to make the internet widely available, accessible and affordable to all segments of society.The cutting off of users from Internet access, including on grounds of violation of IP,was described as disproportionate and in violation of the reasonable limitations to freedom of expression clause of the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights.[38]

It is in light of these international developments and global arbitral awards in the area of IP that the compulsory licensing of budget smartphone patents in India needs to be evaluated.

[1]. Latha Jishnu, India’s many investment treaties make it vulnerable, Down To Earth, Jan 31, 2012.

[2]. For a commentary on the slew of FDI measures taken as part of India’s liberalisation, see M.S. Ahluwalia, Economic Reforms in India since 1991: Has Gradualism worked?,16(3) J. Econ. Perspectives 67, 73 (2002).

[3]. See e.g. Preamble to, Agreement for the Promotion and Reciprocal Protection of Investments, India-Arg., Aug. 20, 1999, Ministry of Finance-Government of India, http://finmin.nic.in/bipa/Argentina.pdf; Preamble to Agreement for the Promotion and Reciprocal Protection of Investments, India-China, Nov. 21, 2006, Ministry of Finance-Government of India, http://finmin.nic.in/bipa/China.pdf.

[4]. Id.

[5]. Ministry of Finance-Government of India, Bilateral Investment Promotion and Protection Agreements, http://finmin.nic.in/bipa/bipa_index.asp?pageid=1 (last visited July 17, 2013); ICSID Database of Bilateral Investment Treaties, International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes, https://icsid.worldbank.org/ICSID/FrontServlet (last visited July 18, 2013).

[6]. Id;India-Germany sign bilateral investment pact, INDIAN EXPRESS, July 16, 1998; YashwantSinha, Foreword to Agreement for the Promotion and Reciprocal Protection of Investments, India-Ger., July 10, 1995, Ministry of Finance-Government of India, http://finmin.nic.in/bipa/Germany.pdf.

[7]. Vodafone.com, News Release: Vodafone serves Notice Against Indian Government Under International Bilateral Investment Treaty, http://www.vodafone.com/content/index/media/group_press_releases/2012/bit.html (last visited July 23, 2013).

[8]. Siddharth, Telenor seeks arbitration, claims $14 bn from govt in 2G case, Times of India, Mar. 27, 2012.

[9]. ShauvikGhosh, Sistema asks why India wants to delay arbitration proceedings, Live Mint, Oct. 1, 2012.

[10]. S. Bhushan & Puneeth Nagaraj, Need to align Bilateral Investment Treaty regime with Global Reality, THE HINDU, Jan. 6, 2013; Surabhi, Govt. to review bilateral ties to avoid legal battle with telcos, Indian Express, Apr. 13, 2012.

[11]. Deepshikha Sikarwar, Government to draft model treaty on MNC’s mediation rush, Economic Times, Jul. 9, 2013.

[12]. UNCTAD, INTERNATIONAL INVESTMENT ARBITRATION ISSUE NOTE: RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN INVESTOR-STATE DISPUTE SETTLEMENT (2013).

[13]. UNCTAD, UNCTAD publishes its review of investor-state dispute settlement, http://unctad.org/en/pages/newsdetails.aspx?OriginalVersionID=453&Sitemap_x0020_Taxonomy=Investment%20and%20Enterprise;#607;#International Investment Agreements (IIA);#20;#UNCTAD Home (last visited Aug. 2, 2013).

[14]. Sikarwar, supra note 11.

[15]. Id. at 29.

[16]. Latha Jishnu, A treaty too many, DOWN TO EARTH, May 15, 2013 (few details are available of the Enron-Dabhol Investment Arbitration under the India-Mauritius Bilateral Investment Treaty).

[17]. White Industries Australia Ltd. v Republic of India, UNCITRAL, Final Award, Nov. 30, 2011.

[18]. Id. at ¶ 16.

[19]. Id. at ¶ 14.3.5. For an understanding of the implications that the White Industries case has for India’s Investment Treaty program, see Prabhash Ranjan, The White Industries Arbitration: Implications for India’s Investment Treaty Program, INVESTMENT TREATY NEWS, Apr. 13, 2012 available at http://www.iisd.org/itn/2012/04/13/the-white-industries-arbitration-implications-for-indias-investment-treaty-program/.

[20]. Vodafone.com, supra note 7. For an analysis of Vodafone and India’s investment arbitration claims, see RAAG YADAVA ET. AL., VODAFONE AND INDIA: A REVIEW OF CLAIMS IN INVESTMENT ARBITRATION (2012).

[21]. Vodafone International Holdings B.V. v. Union of India & Anr., Civil Appeal No. 733 of 2012, arising out of S.L.P. (C) No. 26529 of 2010, Supreme Court of India.

[22]. Dr. Subramaniam Swamy v. Union of India & Ors., W.P. (Civil) No: 423 of 2010 with W.P. (Civil) No: 10 of 2011. Supreme Court verdict on 2G spectrum allocation, The Hindu, Feb. 2, 2012.

[23]. Siddarth, supra note 8; Ghosh, supra note 9.

[24]. Sam Jones, TCI initiates legal action against India, Financial Times, Mar. 27, 2013.

[25]. Debjoy Sengupta, UK-based The Children's Fund demands higher dividend from Coal India, The Economic Times, Feb 19,2013.

[26]. See, http://www.vccircle.com/news/commodities/2013/06/25/childrens-investment-fund-sells-fifth-its-holding-coal-india.

[27]. Department of Economic Affairs – Ministry of Finance, Indian Model Text of Bilateral Investment Promotion and Protection Agreements (BIPA), available at http://finmin.nic.in/the_ministry/dept_eco_affairs/icsection/ Indian%20Model%20Text%20BIPA.asp?pageid=1.

[28]. Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson v. Mercury Electronics & Anr, I.A. No. 3825/2013 in CS(OS) 442/2013, Delhi High Court.

[29]. Id.

[30]. Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson v. Mercury Electronics & Anr, I.A. No. 4694/2013 in CS(OS) 442/2013, Delhi High Court.

[31]. Section 3(d) - the mere discovery of a new form of a known substance which does not result in the enhancement of the known efficacy of that substance or the mere discovery of any new property or new use for a known substance or of the mere use of a known process, machine or apparatus unless such known process results in a new product or employs at least one new reactant.

[32]. Vikas Bajaj & Andrew Pollack, India orders Bayer to license a Patented Drug, NYT, March 12, 2012.

[33]. Novartis AG v Union of India &Ors., CIVIL APPEAL Nos. 2706-2716 OF 2013 with Natco Pharma Ltd. v. Union of India & Ors. CIVIL APPEAL No. 2728 OF 2013 with M/s. Cancer Patients Aid Association v. Union of India & Ors. CIVIL APPEAL Nos. 2717-2727 OF 2013, Supreme Court of India (2013).

[34]. See e.g. TREATY PROTECTION FOR GLOBAL PATENTS: A RESPONSE TO A GROWING PROBLEM FOR MULTINATIONAL PHARMACEUTICAL COMPANIES, JONES DAY (October 2012).

[35]. GENERAL AGREEMENT ON TRADE AND TARIFFS , XXII and XIII (1994).

[36]. NOTICE OF ARBITRATION, BETWEEN PHILIP MORRIS ASIA LIMITED AND THE COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA (2011).

[37]. U.N.G.A. - Report of the Special Rapporteur of the Human Rights Council on the Promotion and Protection of the Right to Freedom of Opinion and Expression, U.N. Doc A/HRC/17/27.

[38]. Id. at 21-22. Article 19 (3) of the ICCPR - The exercise of the rights provided for in paragraph 2 of this article carries with it special duties and responsibilities. It may therefore be subject to certain restrictions, but these shall only be such as are provided by law and are necessary:(a) For respect of the rights or reputations of others; (b) For the protection of national security or of public order (ordre public), or of public health or morals.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/bilateral-inhibiting-treaty-investigating-challenges-that-bilateral-investment-treaties-pose-to-compulsory-licensing-of-pervasive-technology-patent-pools

Access to Knowledge Bulletin — August 2013

praskrishna — 2013-10-04T10:49:51Z

The Access to Knowledge (Wikipedia) newsletter for the month of August 2013:

Updates from Konkani Wikipedia

The CIS-A2K programme organised a four-day workshop in collaboration with the Goa University for students of M.A. (Konkani) at the Central State Library, Konkani Department, University of Goa from August 21 to 24, 2013. Nitika Tandon and Subhashish Panigrahi conducted this workshop. The event saw 38 students creating 43 new articles on Konkani Wikipedia, which is incubation. The main objective is to bring this seven-year-old project out of incubation into a live Wikipedia project. Event reports, blog entries, videos, guest column and media coverage arising from the workshop can be accessed by clicking on the links below:

Event Reports

Konkani Wikipedia — Climbing up the Indian Language Ladder? (by Subhashish Panigrahi, August 31, 2013):
Konkani Wikipedia Advances in 4 Days — From 90 Articles to 130 Articles! (by Nitika Tandon, August 31, 2013):

Guest Columns

Konkani Wikipedia climbing up the Indian language ladder (by Subhashish Panigrahi, DNA, September 6, 2013).
Recap on Konkani Wikipedia Workshop (by Subhashish Panigrahi, Startup Goa Blog, September 9, 2013).

Media Coverage

Wikipedia writes a new script (by Joyce Dias, August 24, 2013, The Goan). CIS-A2K workshop held in Goa is mentioned extensively. Nitika Tandon and Subhashish Panigrahi are quoted.
Konkani Wikipedia makes headway (by Diana Fernandes, OHeraldO, August 24, 2013). Nitika Tandon is quoted.
Konkani Wikipedians Speak (Goan Voice Daily Newsletter, September 4, 2013). Konkani Wikipedia workshop organized in Goa from August 21 to 24, 2013 is mentioned in this newsletter.

Blog Entries

Voices from Goa: Frania Pereira tells Why She Writes Articles on Konkani Wikipedia (by Subhashish Panigrahi, August 27, 2013).
Voices from Goa: Wikipedia Editor Rusita Paryekar (by Subhashish Panigrahi, August 27, 2013)

Other Wikipedia Updates

Event Reports

A Kannada Wikipedia Workshop at Krishnarajapet (by Dr. U.B. Pavanaja, August 14, 2013). The workshop was co-organized by the CIS-A2K team along with Kannada Sahitya Parishat of KR Pet.
Wikimania 2013: Wikipedians represent Indian Languages in Hong Kong (by Subhashish Panigrahi, August 19, 2013). The event was organised by Wikimedia Foundation. Subhashish participated in the event.
An Odia Wikipedia Workshop at Sambalpur (by Gorvachove Pothal, August 27, 2013). This workshop was held at Veer Surendra Sai University of Technology, Burla, Sambalpur on July 26 and 27, 2013. Odia Wikipedian Gorvachove Pothal organized this workshop with financial support from the CIS-A2K programme.

Events Co-organised

Digitization of Books for Indic Language WikiSource (co-organised by Wikimedia India and CIS-A2K, CIS, Bangalore, August 18, 2013).
A Workshop on Editing Wikipedia in Mumbai (organised by the Centre for Indian Languages in Higher Education and CIS-A2K, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, August 24, 2013). The workshop was aimed at assisting students to take part in the Indian Languages Mela at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (September 20-21, 2013) which is hosting a competition for best Indian language entries on Wikipedia.

Event Organised

Mobile Training Workshop @ CIS (CIS, Bangalore, August 29, 2013). Rachita and Keerthana Chandrashekar gave a talk on mobile campaigns.
Wikipedia Training in Telugu for Dr. B.R. Ambedkar Open University, Hyderabad (Dr. B.R. Ambedkar Open University, Hyderabad, September 5-6, 2013). T. Vishnu Vardhan taught a module on "Knowledge and Openness in the Digital Era".

Events Participated

Wikimania 2013: The International Wikimedia Conference (organised by Wikimedia Foundation, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, August 7 – 11, 2013). T. Vishnu Vardhan and Subhashish Panigrahi participated in the event.
Wikimedia Asia Meeting (organised by Wikimedia community, Hong Kong, August 10, 2013). T. Vishnu Vardhan and Subhashish Panigrahi participated in the meeting. Unedited transcript of the entire conversation is posted online.
వికీపీడియా:సమావేశం/హైదరాబాద్/ఆగష్టు (Hyderabad, August 25, 2013). T.Vishnu Vardhan participated in the meeting through Skype.

Media Coverage

Wikipedia Gains Massive Traffic Thanks To Vernacular Languages (Before It’s News, August 1, 2013). T. Vishnu Vardhan is quoted.
Wikipedia boom in Marathi, Malayalam and other desi languages (by Sandhya Soman, The Times of India, August 1, 2013). T. Vishnu Vardhan is quoted.
Wikipedia boom in vernacular languages (by Divya Saboo, DNA, August 1, 2013). The Centre for Internet and Society is mentioned.
Stress on posting articles on Kannada Wikipedia (by R. Krishna Kumar, Hindu, August 2, 2013). Dr. U.B.Pavanaja is quoted.
India’s Indigenous Languages Drive Wikipedia’s Growth (by Mahesh Sharma, TechCrunch, August 6, 2013). T. Vishnu Vardhan is quoted.
Krishnarajapet Wikipedia Workshop Coverage (Prajavani, August 12, 2013).
Krishnarajapet Wikipedia Workshop Coverage (Vijaya Vani, August 12, 2013).
Krishnarajapet Wikipedia Workshop Coverage (Suvarna Times of Karnataka, August 12, 2013).

Other guest columns:

ଅବସର ପରର ଦ୍ବିତୀୟ ଜୀବନ, ଅବସର ପରେ ସକ୍ରିୟ ଭାବେ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆରେ ଲେଖାଲେଖି ଜାରୀ ରଖିଥିବା ଜଣେ ଡାକ୍ତରଙ୍କ ସ‌ହ ଭାବାଲୋଚନା (by Subhashish Panigrahi, Odiapua, September 10, 2013).

Ongoing / Upcoming Events

Digital Resources in Telugu: A Workshop for Research Scholars (co-organised by the Department of Cultural Studies, English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad and CIS-A2K, September 13, 2013).
Train the Trainer — Four-day long Residential Training Workshop in Bangalore (organised by CIS-A2K, Bangalore, October 1 – 5, 2013). The programme will be held in the first week of October.

Wikimedia Foundation has funded A2K to anchor the growth of Wikimedia movement in India. The A2K team consists of three members based in Bangalore: T. Vishnu Vardhan, Dr. U.B. Pavanaja and Subhashish Panigrahi and one member Nitika Tandon in Delhi.

Archives of our newsletters can be accessed here (http://cis-india.org/about/newsletters). Wikipedians from various communities can request for outreach programs, technical bugs, logistics-merchandize and media, public relations and communications at http://bit.ly/TOcXId.

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

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-august-2013

Centre for Internet and Society

WikipediansSpeak: Piotr Konieczny

'Help Konkani Wikipedia come out of incubation'

Recap on Konkani Wikipedia Workshop

Day 1: Building the Blocks

Introduce Yourself

Editing time

More Editing Post Lunch

Rat and frog game

Day 2: Climbing Up the Ladder

Day 3: Fresh Batch, New Start

Day 4: No Need to Say Good Bye!

Kannada Wikipedia Workshop at SDM

Konkani Wikipedia workshop at AIMIT, St Aloysius College

Selection of Programme Officer — Pilot Projects, CIS-A2K

Digital Resources in Telugu: A Workshop for Research Scholars

Important Instructions for Interested Participants

The Law and Economics of Copyright Users Rights

Wikipedia Training in Telugu for Dr. B.R. Ambedkar Open University, Hyderabad

వికీపీడియా:శిక్షణ శిబిరం/హైదరాబాద్/హైదరాబాద్2

Train the Trainer — Four-day long Residential Training Workshop in Bangalore

Why CIS-A2K is conducting this Program?

Overview of the programme

Selection Criterion

Candidates' Deliverable

What's in it for you?

Call for Participation

FAQ

Contact

Konkani Wikipedia Advances in 4 Days — From 90 Articles to 130 Articles!

Introduction

Highlights of the Workshop

Articles and Participants

Media Coverage

Learnings

Challenges

Acknowledgements

What's Next?

Konkani Wikipedia — Climbing up the Indian Language Ladder?

Incubation

Day 1: Building the Blocks

Intro Yourself

Editing Time

Game Time

More Editing Post-lunch

Rat and Frog Game

Day 2: Climbing up the Ladder

Day 3: Fresh Batch, New Start

Day 4: No Need to Say Good Bye!

Media Coverage

Video

India's Obligations under Bilateral Investment Treaties (Part A): “Bilateral Inhibiting Treaty?” — Investigating the Challenges that Bilateral Investment Treaties pose to the Compulsory Licensing of Pervasive Technology Patent Pools

Access to Knowledge Bulletin — August 2013

Updates from Konkani Wikipedia

Event Reports

Guest Columns

Media Coverage

Blog Entries

Other Wikipedia Updates

Event Reports

Events Co-organised

Event Organised

Events Participated

Media Coverage

Other guest columns:

Ongoing / Upcoming Events

About CIS