Centre for Internet and Society

Konkani Vishwakosh Under CC-BY-SA

nitika — 2013-11-30T10:47:20Z

Upon CIS-A2K's explicit request, Goa University has approved the re-release of Konkani Vishwakosh under the Creative Commons License (CC-BY-SA 3.0) to make it freely available to public and giving them the right to share, use and even build upon the work that has already been done. This is a huge step to help preserve Konkani language and culture in digital era and will also feed into building of Konkani Wikipedia.

What is Konkani Vishwakosh?

Konkani Vishwakosh is a four-volume hard copy encyclopedia (3632 pages) published by Goa University; a work of over 14 years. It encompasses all the world information in a nutshell with special emphasis and detailed information on Goa, Konkani, Goan culture, folklore, history, geography, etc. The encyclopaedia is written in Konkani language — a language spoken primarily by people living in Goa and in the neighbouring states on the western coast of India (also known as the Konkan belt) — some pockets in Maharashtra, Karnataka and Kerala. The Vishwakosh serves as a primary source of information and is one of the most important documented texts for a community of 2,489,015 Konkani speakers spread across India and worldwide.

What does re-releasing under CC mean?

Upon CIS-A2K's explicit request, Goa University has approved the re-release of Vishwakosh under the Creative Commons License (CC-BY-SA 3.0) to make it freely available to public and giving them the right to share, use and even build upon the work that has already been done.

This is a huge step to help preserve Konkani language and culture in digital era.

Goa University is the first varsity to enter into a CC-BY-SA 3.0 license that will permit copyrighted produced data by an Indian university accessible to internet users and open to modification (wiki), making Goa University a victory of sorts of free information.

MoU: Goa University and the Centre for Internet & Society’s Access to Knowledge Programme (CIS-A2K)

Goa University has entered into a three year MoU with the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) for building Konkani Wikipedia. As part of this partnership, Goa University will be uploading four volumes of Konkani encyclopaedia under CC licence on Wikimedia projects and CIS will help with scanning and digitization of the Vishwakosh and using it as a foundation for creating articles on Konkani Wikipedia. CIS India has also called out for volunteers to help digitize Konkani Vishwakosh.

Thick heaps of the four volumes of Konkani Vishwakosh (encyclopaedia), till now available only in hard copy, will now be available for free on the Internet.

Event: Re-release of Konkani Vishwakosh under CC

http://bit.ly/17nPMuV

To celebrate and further the movement of open knowledge and open access, Goa University in collaboration with CIS-A2K organised an event on September 26, 2013 at 10 a.m. at the Goa University Conference Hall. The event had a huge attendance including Dr. Satish Shetye (Vice Chancellor of GU), V.P. Kamat (Registrar of GU), T. Vishnu Vardhan (Programme Director CIS-A2K), close kin of Late. Manoharrai Sardesai (writer of the Encyclopaedia), Tanaji Halarnkar (editor of the Encyclopaedia), Goa University’s staff, faculty and students, members of Konkani speaking community and the press.

During the event, GU Vice-Chancellor Dr. Satish Shetye said, "the Konkani Vishwakosh covers all realms of knowledge like any other encyclopaedia. The Konkani Wikipedia will act as a digitized repository of knowledge for future generations and Konkani speakers across the world. I look forward to the pleasure of going to the internet and clicking away to access a Konkani Wikipedia," he was quoted as having said.

The event was covered by several local and national newspapers:

"Goa University to make available online Konkani Wikipedia, within 6 months", Jagran Josh, September 30, 2013.
Chaudhary, Apurva. "Goa University Partners CIS India To Build Konkani Wikipedia", Medianama, September 30, 2013.
Lobo,Joanna. "For the love of Konkani: Preserving Goa's official language", DNA, September 29, 2013.
Prakash, Kamat."Konkani Wikipedia in the Making", The Hindu, September 29, 2013.
"Konkani Wikipedia from Goa University in 6 months", Times of India, September 27, 2013.
"Goa University announces plan to upload Konkani Encyclopaedia on Wikipedia", Navhind Times, September 27, 2013.
"Konkani Vishwakosh Relaunch Tomorrow". The Hindu, September 25, 2013.
Desouza, Vijay. "Goa University Re-releasing Konkani Encyclopaedia on Sept 26", Times of India, September 24, 2013.

More about the event here: http://bit.ly/1aSufAE

Project: Konkani Vishwakosh Digitization Project (KVDP)

http://bit.ly/183USAg

Goa University in collaboration with CIS-A2K is digitizing Konkani Vishwakosh. This is a two month project where CIS-A2K will work with a group of individuals who will help digitize the encyclopaedia in a time bound manner. All 3632 pages of Konkani Vishwakosh will be digitized.

"Professors, students and anyone with expertise or love for Konkani can come forward to help with the project for which training will be provided. Information in the Konkani Vishwakosh will also be updated as per the current developments," said Vishnu Vardhan. Orientation, training, follow-up workshops will also be organised by CIS-A2K. More about the project here: http://bit.ly/HWEMh7

Boost to Konkani Wikipedia

Konkani Vishwakosh could serve as a ready made source of reference for articles on the Konkani Wikipedia, which is in incubation since its inception in 2006. Konkani Wikipedia editors could use content from the Vishwakosh to build articles on Konkani Wikipedia thereby growing Konkani articles not only in numbers but also in its quality.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/konkani-vishwakosh-under-cc-by-sa

History of Creative Commons in India

dwivedi — 2013-11-13T04:20:38Z

This blog-post discusses the potential for Creative Commons in India, in light of imminent Creative Commons Re-launch, by highlighting the history of works licensed under Creative Commons in the country.

In the era where internet has permeated a vast majority of the globe, vast amounts of content is only a few clicks away from billions of users world-wide. As a response, the cumulative appetite of the users for this content rose exponentially and therefore, the mainstream creators are no longer able to satiate it all by themselves. Due to the combination of this hunger with the access to basic editing software on a computing device like a smartphone, users today can create and re-create the content on a massive scale. Termed as “remix culture”,[1] this phenomenon focuses on the enormous aggregated creativity residing among the masses of amateur creators, who are driven not by motives of profit but of sheer innovation.

However, the biggest obstacles that these amateur users-cum-creators face are the limitations imposed on the use of available content by copyright laws. Despite the fact that not all the creators of original content wish to completely restrict the use of their works through copyright, the law grounds “all rights reserved” with the creator. This ensures that the moment something original is created, there is a high potential of stifling the very creativity it was aimed to protect and propagate. The main chilling effect comes from the fact that every use an individual wishes to make of the copyrighted material, permission needs to be sought from the creator. Creative Commons steps in as a solution to this by basing the license on the principle of “some rights reserved”[2]as opposed to all. The licences[3] allow the creator to choose any combination from four conditions (attribution, share-alike, non-commercial, no derivatives) to provide free and unlimited use of the work to all users on one end, or just the right to freely share the work without any change giving proper credit to the author.

In India, where monopolisation is mostly frowned upon especially with the respect to creative aspects, Creative Commons seems like a fitting option to be adopted. The Indian Chapter of Creative Commons was launched by IIT Bombay in 2007 as a part of its technology fest, ‘Techfest’.[4] However, due to certain problems, it didn’t materialize. Now, Creative Commons India is being re-launched on November 12, 2013 in New Delhi by the Centre for Internet and Society, in collaboration with Wikimedia India and Acharya Narendra Dev College.[5]

This does not mean that India has no works licensed under Creative Commons yet. Recently, a short film titled River Terns of Bhadra documenting the life cycle of River Terns was screened in Bangalore and touted as the first film in India to have Creative Commons license.[6]

However, there have been quite a few films licensed under Creative Commons licenses which can be traced as far back as 2007. These films originating from Kerala were archived by an erstwhile website, Kerala Free Knowledge,[7] dedicated to making the creative works available to public with limited restrictions. The creators of these films, which vary in forms such as documentaries or music videos, not only allow their exhibition to small audiences without their permission but actively prohibit any sort of financial collection at any such exhibitions. Perhaps the most attractive part of the licenses employed by these movies is the clause “Copy left, right and centre!”[8]

Another example is a music video titled Gaon Chhodab Nahin![9] about Adivasi struggles due to developmental projects. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.5 India[10] license, which allows not only for copying, distributing, displaying and performing the work but also making derivatives of the same, commercially or otherwise. Yet another initiative that needs mention, though not in filming, is one by Pratham Books, a non-profit publishing house which encourages unrestricted access to content in children’s books by advocating and employing Creative Commons licenses similar to the aforementioned music video. They have achieved unmatched success in reaching their objectives of maximum penetration along with exponentially increasing the reading content while propagating a culture of openly accessible derivative works.[11] These examples clearly demonstrate the viability and the desire for a culture of sharing in the Indian context, thereby emphasising the potential for success for the imminent Creative Commons India Re-launch.

[1]. Lawrence Lessig, Remix: Making Art and Culture Thrive in the Hybrid economy, 28 (2008).

[2]. Watch http://creativecommons.org/videos/wanna-work-together

[3]. See http://creativecommons.org/licenses/

[4]. See http://creativecommons.org/weblog/2007/01

[5]. For details see http://cis-india.org/openness/events/creative-commons-india-launch

[6]. http://www.timeoutbengaluru.net/bangalore-beat/features/tern-events

[7]. https://web.archive.org/web/20080401064333/http://kerala.free-knowledge.org/

[8]. https://web.archive.org/web/20070307175447/http://kerala.free-knowledge.org/?page_id=3

[9]. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFmsl7KrZn8&feature=youtu.be

[10]. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/in/

[11]. http://spicyip.com/2011/09/creative-commons-licensing-success.html

The author, Priyank Dwivedi is a student at NALSAR University of Law, Hyderabad and an intern at the Centre for Internet and Society.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/history-of-creative-commons-in-india

Odia Wikipedia Workshop @ IIMC

praskrishna — 2013-11-12T05:13:04Z

The CIS-A2K team is organizing an Odia Wikipedia workshop at the Indian Institute of Mass Communication, Dhenkanal, Odisha on November 18 and 19, 2013 from 10.30 a.m. to 5.00 p.m.

ଏଥିରେ କଣ କଣ ଶିଖିବାକୁ ମିଳିବ?

ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆର ଉନ୍ନ‌ତ ଅପସନସମୂହ: ବୋଲ୍ଡ, ତେରଛା ଅକ୍ଷର (Italics), ଆଧାର (Reference) ଯୋଗ, ଶିରୋନାମ (Heading) ଯୋଗ ଆଦି
ଆଗାମୀ କର୍ମଶାଳା ଯାଏଁ ପ୍ରତ୍ୟେକ ଛାତ୍ରଛାତ୍ରୀମାନଙ୍କ ନିମନ୍ତେ କାମ ବିତରଣ
ଛାତ୍ରମାନେ କିପରି ଅଭିଜ୍ଞ ଉଇକିଆଳିଙ୍କଠାରୁ ଅନଲାଇନରେ ତ‌ଥା ଅନ୍ୟାନ୍ୟ ମାଧ୍ୟମରେ ସ‌ହ‌ଯୋଗ ଲୋଡ଼ିବେ

Please find the full details on the Wiki meta-page here

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/events/odia-wiki-workshop-iimc-nov-18-19-2013

Documentation and Wikipedia Contribution — A One Day Workshop

praskrishna — 2013-11-12T04:20:37Z

On November 14, the CIS-A2K team is organizing a one day orientation workshop on 'Documentation and Wikipedia Contribution' at the Kalinga Institute of Social Studies (KISS), Bhubaneswar from 10.30 a.m. to 5.00 p.m.

ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆ ରୁ

ଭୁବନେଶ୍ୱରସ୍ଥିତ ଆଦିବାସୀ ଆବାସିକ ଅନୁଷ୍ଠାନ KISS (କଳିଙ୍ଗ ଇନଷ୍ଟିଚୁଟ ଅଫ ସୋସିଆଲ ଷ୍ଟଡିଜ)ଠାରେ ଏଠାକାର ଶିକ୍ଷକ ଓ ସ୍ନାତକୋତ୍ତର ଛାତ୍ରଛାତ୍ରୀମାନେ ଆଦିବାସୀମାନଙ୍କର ଭାଷା, ଚଳଣି ଓ ଜନ‌ଜୀବନ ବାବଦରେ ଅନେକ ଗବେଷଣାଭିତ୍ତିକ ପ୍ରସଙ୍ଗ ଏକାଧିକ ଭାଷାରେ ଲେଖିବାର ଏକ ପ୍ରକଳ୍ପ ଆରମ୍ଭ କରାଯାଇଛି । ପ୍ରାରମ୍ଭିକ ପର୍ଯ୍ୟାୟରେ ଏହି ନ‌ଥିକରଣ ତିନୋଟି ଭାଷାରେ (ଓଡ଼ିଆ, ଇଂରାଜୀ ଓ ହିନ୍ଦୀ)ରେ କରାଯାଇ KISS ୱେବସାଇଟରେ ଉପଲବ୍ଧ କରାଯିବ । ଏହି ପ୍ରସଙ୍ଗସମୂହ ଜ୍ଞାନ‌କୋଷ ପରିସରରେ ଥିବାରୁ ଏସବୁକୁ ଉଇକିକରଣ କରି ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆର ପ୍ରସଙ୍ଗସବୁକୁ ସମୃଦ୍ଧ କରିବା ନିମନ୍ତେ ଏହି ଏହି କର୍ମଶାଳାର ଆୟୋଜନ କରାଯାଇଛି । ନ‌ଭେମ୍ବର ୧୪ (ଗୁରବାର‌) ଦିନ ସକାଳ ୧୧:୦୦ ରେ ଅନୁଷ୍ଠିତ ହେବାକୁ ଥିବା ଏହି କର୍ମଶାଳାରେ ୧୨ ଜଣ ଶିକ୍ଷକ ଓ ୩୨ ଜଣ ସ୍ନାତକୋତ୍ତର ଯୋଗଦେଇ ଓଡ଼ିଆରେ ଟାଇପ କରିବା ଓ ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆ ବାବଦରେ ତାଲିମ ଗ୍ରହଣ କରିବେ ।

Click to read the full details published on the Wiki meta page here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/events/documentation-and-wikipedia-contribution

Wikimedia Diversity Conference

praskrishna — 2013-12-02T06:40:02Z

T.Vishnu Vardhan participated in the conference organized by the German Wikipedia community in Berlin (GLS Campus) on November 9 and 10, 2013. He presented on So Many Languages- Challenges and Opportunities for the Wikimedia Movement in India and also led a Round-up session on Geographic diversity and Language pluralism on Wikimedia.

This was published on the meta page of Wikipedia.

Vishnu's presentation can be accessed here.
A brief discussion of the round-up session can be seen here.
All the videos can be watched here.

Video

Wikimedia Diversity Conference 2013: Interview - T Vishnu Vardhan from Wikimedia Deutschland on Vimeo.

Why a Diversity Conference?

Representing the world's knowledge is the mission of the global Wikimedia movement. But we are still in our infancy. Many languages and cultures are not adequately represented in the different Wikimedia projects, many people shy away from participating in our projects and sharing their knowledge with the world. Particularly striking is the low proportion of women. To gain this knowledge and commitment, both to increase the pool of knowledge in the Wikimedia projects and to enable a heterogeneous, colourful, diverse community, is the goal of our work.

Wikimedia Deutschland is planning to make "Diversity" the topic of an international conference in Berlin. Here we will gather to exchange findings, methods, and approaches for incorporating more gender diversity in Wikimedia projects, and for considering gender diversity within the wider context of diversity in general (language, culture, projects, etc).

New technological innovations such as VisualEditor can have an impact on the formation and composition of authorship, and community projects like Teahouse or WikiWomen's Collaborative have been successfully aimed at supporting diverse contributors. Let's gather to share information about what's working and what's not in current initiatives, consider the impact of technical and community developments, and connect in order to turn ideas into action.

Goals of the Conference

Establish a sustainable dialogue with collaborators in Wikimedia Chapters, the Wikimedia Foundation and the international communities to frame the issue of diversity in the context of Wikimedia.

We aim to build a shared understanding of what diversity means for Wikimedia projects and why it is important.
Connect, multiply and create successful initiatives for increasing gender and other types of diversity in Wikimedia.

We aim to turn ideas into action.

Focus of the conference

We are very happy to see all your ideas and it seems that many Wikipedians, Wikimedians and interested people are highly engaged in thinking about many aspects concerning diversity in Wikipedia. This is great!

To help us organize sessions and accomplish our goals of developing a shared understanding and set of actions for improving diversity, we intend to focus this first conference on two aspects of diversity:

Gender diversity - the gender gap, LGBT initiatives
Geographic diversity - the global south, linguistic and economic diversity

We hope that future events will be organized to focus more specifically on other important diversity aspects like age, education, and disabilities.

Timeline

application for scholarships/submission of proposals August 20 - September 20, 2013
official registration August 20 - October 20, 2013
note of acceptance: by October 4, 2013
agenda finalized: end of October 2013
conference: November 9 - November 10, 2013

Background Information

In 2013, Wikimedia Deutschland initiated a research and development project "Diversity for Wikipedia" that develops possible courses of action towards more gender diversity. Within the project, gender diversity guidelines, gender diversity action plans and designs are developed. It will implement specific actions aimed at enhancing a welcoming culture, diversity awareness among Wikipedians and participation of female editors. In a co-operation with Beuth University, digital web-based educational material with a focus on gender topics will be developed.

Within the framework of developing a diversity concept about what diversity in Wikipedia really means, we will organise this conference to further develop our existing approaches and to elaborate on new ideas. By the end of this year, the project will be in an advanced state and we are looking forward to discuss the different worldwide initiatives with the international communities, Wikimedia Chapters and the Wikimedia Foundation.

Contact

Julia Kloppenburg. You can reach Julia via her user page or via e-mail. For general enquiries and questions concerning scholarships you can contact the organising team at: diversity@wikimedia.de Feel free to get in touch!

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/wikimedia-diversity-conference

The Relaunch of Creative Commons India

praskrishna — 2013-12-11T08:12:50Z

Wikimedia India, the Centre for Internet and Society, and Acharya Narendra Dev College invite you to the Relaunch of Creative Commons India in New Delhi on November 12, 2013 with the Minister of State for Human Resource Development Dr. Shashi Tharoor as the Chief Guest.

What is Creative Commons?

Creative Commons is a non-profit organization headquartered in Mountain View, California, United States, devoted to expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. The organization has released several copyright-licenses known as Creative Commons licenses free of charge to the public. These licenses allow creators to communicate which rights they reserve, and which rights they waive for the benefit of recipients or other creators.

In simple words, Creative Commons helps you share your knowledge and creativity with the world.

Some more facts about Internet licenses

Ever wondered what "Some Rights Reserved" means?

Copyright grants to creators a bundle of exclusive rights over their creative works, which generally include the right to reproduce, distribute, display, make adaptations, perform, sell and so on. The phrase “All Rights Reserved” is often used by owners to indicate that they reserve all of the rights granted to them under the law. When copyright expires, the work enters the public domain, and the rightsholder can no longer stop others from engaging in those activities under copyright, with the exception of moral rights reserved to creators in some jurisdictions. Creative Commons licenses offer creators a spectrum of choices between retaining all rights and relinquishing all rights (public domain), an approach we call "Some Rights Reserved."

Is Creative Commons against copyright?

Absolutely not. CC has responded to claims to the contrary. CC licenses are copyright licenses, and depend on the existence of copyright to work. CC licenses are legal tools that creators and other rightsholders can use to offer certain usage rights to the public, while reserving other rights. Those who want to make their work available to the public for limited kinds of uses while preserving their copyright may want to consider using CC licenses. Others who want to reserve all of their rights under copyright law should not use CC licenses.

Relaunch

Dr. Savithri Singh, Principal, Acharya Narendra Dev College will be the Master of Ceremony and the Moderator for the sessions:

Time	Detail
16.00 16.30	Shashi Tharoor, Minister of State for Human Resource Development, Government of India: Initiatives of MHRD around Openly Licensed Content
16.30 16.45	Question and Answer Session
16.45 17.00	Sam Pitroda (TBC), Adviser to the Prime Minister on Public Information Infrastructure and Innovations: Creative Commons and Open Government Data
17.00 17.05	Question and Answer Session
17.05 17.25	Rohini Nilekani, Chairperson, Pratham Books: Creative Commons and Pratham Books Case Study (Including Question and Answer Session)
17.25 17.40	Moksh Juneja, President, Executive Committee, Wikimedia India Chapter: Creative Commons and Wikipedia (Including Question and Answer Session)
17.40 18.00	Lawrence Liang, Co-founder of Alternative Law Forum: Creative Commons and Open Access to Scholarly Journals (Including Question and Answer Session)
18.00	Tea

VIDEO

Registration

Please register here to attend the event: http://ccindia.doattend.com/ Registration is free.
Please carry a soft or hard copy of the confirmation email to the venue.
Seating will be on first come first served basis.

Invite to the Relaunch of Creative Commons India

Link to the meta page on Wiki: http://wiki.wikimedia.in/Events/Creative_Commons_India_launch

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/events/relaunch-of-creative-commons-india

Kannada Wikipedia and its Tenth Anniversary

praskrishna — 2016-01-28T13:14:20Z

Dr. U.B. Pavanaja was on RadioCity to talk about Kannada Wikipedia and its tenth anniversary. The programme was aired on November 2, between 8 a.m. and 9 a.m.


Above: Dr. U.B. Pavanaja speaking on RadioCity.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/kannada-wikipedia-tenth-anniversary

Access to Knowledge Bulletin — October 2013

praskrishna — 2014-01-04T12:04:56Z

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

Train the Trainer Program
Wikipedians, about 20 of them, from 10 different cities, speaking 8 different languages, joined together for the first ever four days "Train the Trainer Program" organised by the Centre for Internet and Society's Access to Knowledge (CIS-A2K) team in Bangalore from October 3 to 6, 2013. CIS-A2K organised the residency training program to build capacities amongst different language Wikimedia communities. A good diversity of Wikipedians from various language communities such as Bengali, Gujarati, Sanskrit, Malayalam, Hindi, Marathi, Telugu, Odia, came over for the event. Two prominent reasons identified for organizing the event were the limitations of a virtual sphere and the limited number of Wikipedians leading outreach activities. Seventeen people participated in the event: http://bit.ly/18hjw0n

► Events Organised
Workshop on Wikipedia in the Indian Undergraduate Language Classrooms (October 1, 203, Christ University, Bangalore). Dr. U.B. Pavanaja conducted the workshop: http://bit.ly/HIiC30.
వికీపీడియా:సమావేశం/బెంగుళూరు/అక్టోబర్ (UTC, Bangalore, October 12, 2013). T. Vishnu Vardhan gave a talk: http://bit.ly/1hpmXrt.
Konkani Vishwakosh Digitization (Goa University, October 19-20, 2013). CIS-A2K team conducted the workshop. Thirty-seven people participated in the event: http://bit.ly/1a9m8N2. Nitika Tandon shares a detailed blog post on the re-release of Konkani Vishwakosh under CC License: http://bit.ly/1cm9wBH.
► Event Participated In
Re-sourcing Indian Cinema: Humanities Research, New Archives and Collaborative Knowledge Production (organised by the Centre for Contemporary Studies and the Centre for Study of Culture and Society, October 29, 2013). T. Vishnu Vardhan gave a talk on “Let Cinephiles Collaborate: Pleasures and Perils of Indian Film History on Wikipedia”: http://bit.ly/18Obr2P.
► Media Coverage
CIS gave its inputs for the following media coverage:

Mangalore: Konkani writers resolve to form all-India forum at JKS conference (Daijiworld, October 1, 2013): http://bit.ly/1ek8AzW.
Wikipedia in Indian Languages on Mobile Phones (by Megha Prakash, Sci Dev Net, October 15, 2013): http://bit.ly/Hfh7sI.
कोंकणी विश्‍वकोश ‘विकिपीडिया’वर (Navprabha Daily, October 22, 2013). A detailed article about the digitalization of Konkani Vishwakosh: http://bit.ly/18J3YlB.

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 Muzammiluddin Syed, one member Nitika Tandon in Delhi and one Advisor Dr. Tejaswini Niranjana. 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.

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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-october-2013

October 2013 Bulletin

praskrishna — 2014-01-04T04:31:01Z

Our newsletter for the month of October 2013 can be accessed below.

Highlights

The National Resource Kit team is pleased to bring you its research for the states of Delhi, Madhya Pradesh and Arunachal Pradesh, and the Union Territory of Daman and Diu.
The Department of Electronics and Information Technology invited comments on the Framework on the proposed adoption of Open Source Software in E-Governance Systems. CIS gave its feedback.
The Access to Knowledge team in collaboration with the Goa University re-released the Konkani Vishwakosh under Creative Commons License CC-BY-SA-3.0.
Sunil Abraham, Pranesh Prakash and Chinmayi Arun participated in the Internet Governance Forum held in Bali, Indonesia from October 21 to 25. Overall CIS spoke in 7 panels.
In an article on Spy Files, Maria Xynou examines the legality of India’s surveillance technologies and their potential connection to India’s central monitoring system.
A clause-by-clause comments on the Working draft version of the Human DNA Profiling Bill, 2012 was sent to the Ministry of Science and Technology.
CIS started the first Privacy Watch in India. The map includes data on the UID, NPR and CCTNS schemes, installation of CCTV cameras and the use of drones throughout the country.

Accessibility

As part of our project (under a grant from the Hans Foundation) on creating a national resource kit of state-wise laws, policies and programmes on issues relating to persons with disabilities in India, we bring you draft chapters for the states of Madhya Pradesh and Arunachal Pradesh, and the union territory of Daman and Diu. With this we have completed compilation of draft chapters for 24 states and 5 union territories. Feedback and comments are invited from readers for the following chapters:

National Resource Kit

The Daman and Diu Chapter (by Anandhi Viswanathan, October 28, 2013).
The Arunachal Pradesh Chapter (by CLPR, October 29, 2013).
The Madhya Pradesh Chapter (by Anandhi Viswanathan, October 30, 2013).
The Delhi Chapter (by Anandhi Viswanathan, October 31, 2013).

Note: All of these are early drafts and will be reviewed and updated.

Survey (Other Organisation)

Accessibility of Banks and Financial Services Institutions: A Global Survey (posted by Nilofar Ansher, October 20, 2013). G3ict and Scotiabank, requests senior managers, COO / CEOs, Managing Directors, IT Directors, HR Directors, and accessibility professionals from banks and financial services companies to participate.

Blog Entry

Bengali eSpeak Aids in Disaster Management (by Anirudh Sridhar, October 15, 2013).

Access to Knowledge

The Access to Knowledge programme addresses the harms caused to consumers and human rights, and critically examines Open Government Data, Open Access to Scholarly Literature, and Open Access to Law, Open Content, Open Standards, and Free/Libre/Open Source Software. We produced a column in the Economic and Political Weekly, submitted our feedback on Framework on Open Source Software Adoption in E-Governance Systems, and conducted 3 Wikipedia workshops:

Article

The Fight for Digital Sovereignty (by Sunil Abraham, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol-XLVIII No. 42, October 19, 2013).

Blog Entries

Mobile Phone Patents: Prior Art Survey (by Nehaa Chaudhari, October 23, 2013).
Ambiguity in the App Store: Understanding India’s emerging IT sector in light of IP (by Samantha Cassar, October 24, 2013).

Submission

Feedback on the Framework on OSS Adoption in E-Governance Systems (by Nehaa Chaudhari, October 26, 2013). In September, 2013, the DeitY invited comments on the Framework on the proposed adoption of Open Source Software in E-Governance Systems. CIS gave its feedback.

Events Participated In

OSOD 2013: International Workshop on Open Science and Open Data (organised by Indian Statistical Institute, Bangalore, October 7, 2013). Nehaa Chaudhari participated as a panelist and gave a presentation on Government Accessibility and Copyright Conundrum.

National Conference on Opening up by Closing the Circle: Strengthening Open Access in India (co-organised by UNESCO, Central Library, Jawaharlal Nehru University and the Commonwealth Educational Media Centre for Asia, October 21, 2013). Nehaa Chaudhari was a panelist in the discussion on "Why Open Access?". She gave a presentation on 'Pondering Copyright and Recasting Openness'.

Note: The following has been done under grant from the Wikimedia Foundation (http://bit.ly/SPqFOl). As part this project (http://bit.ly/X80ELd), we held 3 Wikipedia workshops in October:

Event Co-organised

Re-release of Konkani Vishwakosh under CC-BY-SA 3.0 (organised by Goa University and CIS-A2K, Goa University Conference Hall, September 26, 2013). Nitika Tandon has blogged about the event.

Events Organised

Workshop on Wikipedia in the Indian Undergraduate Language Classrooms (October 1, 203, Christ University, Bangalore). Dr. U.B. Pavanaja conducted the workshop.
Train the Trainer — Four-day long Residential Programme (October 3 – 6, 2013, CEO Center, Gubbi, Bangalore. CIS-A2K Team conducted the workshop. Seventeen people participated in the event.
Konkani Vishwakosh Digitization (Goa University, October 19-20, 2013). CIS-A2K team conducted the workshop. Thirty-seven people participated in the event.

Events Participated In

Re-sourcing Indian Cinema: Humanities Research, New Archives and Collaborative Knowledge Production (organised by the Centre for Contemporary Studies and the Centre for Study of Culture and Society, October 29, 2013). T. Vishnu Vardhan gave a talk on “Let Cinephiles Collaborate: Pleasures and Perils of Indian Film History on Wikipedia”.

Media Coverage

CIS gave its inputs for the following media coverage:

Mangalore: Konkani writers resolve to form all-India forum at JKS conference (Daijiworld, October 1, 2013).
Wikipedia in Indian Languages on Mobile Phones (by Megha Prakash, Sci Dev Net, October 15, 2013).
कोंकणी विश्‍वकोश ‘विकिपीडिया’वर (Navprabha Daily, October 22, 2013). A detailed article about the digitalization of Konkani Vishwakosh.

Internet Governance

CIS is doing a project (under a grant from Privacy International and International Development Research Centre (IDRC)) on conducting research on surveillance and freedom of expression (SAFEGUARDS). So far we have organised seven privacy round-tables and drafted the Privacy (Protection) Bill. This month we bring you clause-by-clause comments on the Human DNA Profiling Bill, 2012, and a map monitoring privacy in India. As part of its project (funded by Citizen Lab, Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto and support from the IDRC) on mapping cyber security actors in South Asia and South East Asia we did an interview with Anja Kovacs on cyber security. With this we have completed a total of 10 video interviews:

Internet Governance Forum

Sunil Abraham, Pranesh Prakash and Chinmayi Arun participated in the Internet Governance Forum held in Bali, Indonesia in the month of October. Overall, CIS spoke in 7 panels:

Charting the Charter: Internet Rights and Principles Online (organised by IRP Coalition, October 22, 2013). Pranesh Prakash was a panelist.
Fair process frameworks for cross-border online spaces (organised by the Internet & Jurisdiction Project, Civil Society of France, Western Europe and Others Group and Internet & Jurisdiction Project, Civil Society of Germany, Western Europe and Others Group, October 22, 2013). Sunil Abraham and Chinmayi Arun were panelists for this workshop.
Removing Barriers to Connectivity: Connecting the Unconnected (organised by Internet Society and ETNO, October 23, 2013). Pranesh Prakash was a panelist.
FOSS: Smart Choice for Developing Countries (organised by TechNation and Open Source Alliance of Central Asia, October 23, 2013). Sunil Abraham spoke on FOSS and IT Growth Policies in South Asia.
Privacy: from regional regulations to global connections? (organised by Internet Society, Bali, October 24, 2013). Sunil Abraham was one of the panelists.
Human rights, freedom of expression and free flow of information on the Internet (a Focus Session on Openness, October 24, 2013). Pranesh Prakash was a speaker at this event.
Taking Stock: Emerging Issues - Internet Surveillance (a session on Internet Surveillance, October 25, 2013). Pranesh Prakash made intervention in this session.
Tweets from Bali IGF 2013: To enable research by those who didn't want to mess around with Twitter's APIs, CIS has made available tweets from the IGF as downloadable .CSV files.

Privacy

Magazine Article

What India can Learn from the Snowden Revelations (by Elonnai Hickok, Yahoo, October 23, 2013). The title of the article was changed in the version published by Yahoo.

Blog Entries

Concerns Regarding DNA Law (by Bhairav Acharya, October 9, 2013): http://bit.ly/1aoxXM9.
Interview with Big Brother Watch on Privacy and Surveillance (by Maria Xynou, October 15, 2013): http://bit.ly/1cRDMbV.
Interview with Bruce Schneier (by Maria Xynou, October 17, 2013): http://bit.ly/GS6oDX.
An Interview with the Tactical Technology Collective (by Maria Xynou, October 18, 2013): http://bit.ly/1i1lVNo.
Interview with Dr. Alexander Dix (by Maria Xynou, October 23, 2013): http://bit.ly/1a7dgtQ.
Open Letter to Members of the European Parliament of the Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs Committee (by Elonnai Hickok, October 23, 2013): http://bit.ly/17eZntz.
An Interview with Jacob Kohnstamm (by Elonnai Hickok, October 25, 2013): http://bit.ly/17NcQmD.
Spy Files 3: WikiLeaks Sheds More Light on the Global Surveillance Industry (by Maria Xynou, October 25, 2013): http://bit.ly/1d6EmjD.

Comments

Re: The Human DNA Profiling Bill, 2012 (by Bhairav Acharya, October 9, 2013). CIS provided clause-by-clause comments on the on the Working Draft version of the Human DNA Profiling Bill: http://bit.ly/17Jpp63.

Announcement

The India Privacy Monitor Map (by Maria Xynou with assistance from Srinivas Atreya, October 9, 2013). CIS has started a first of its kind Privacy Watch in India. The map includes data on the UID, NPR and CCTNS schemes, as well as on the installation of CCTV cameras and the use of drones throughout the country: http://bit.ly/19A5mCZ.

Event Organised

Privacy Round-table, New Delhi (organised by FICCI, DSCI and CIS, FICCI, Federation House, Tansen Marg, New Delhi, October 19, 2013): http://bit.ly/GAsStr.

Event Participated In

'Free Speech and Media in South Asia: Human Rights Concerns in a Globalizing World (organised by the Programme in Comparative Media Law and Policy, Centre for Socio-Legal Studies, University of Oxford, in collaboration with the Centre for Media and Governance, National Law University, Delhi, Oxford University, October 25, 2013). Chinmayi Arun spoke about “Privacy and Surveillance in India” in a panel discussion: http://bit.ly/18bRGi5.

Cyber Security

Laird Brown, a strategic planner and writer with core competencies on brand analysis, public relations and resource management and Purba Sarkar who in the past worked as a strategic advisor in the field of SAP Retail are working in this project:

Part 11: An Interview with Anja Kovacs (October 15, 2013): http://bit.ly/15EAZOE.

Other IG Updates
Event Organised

Mapping Digital Media: Broadcasting, Journalism and Activism in India (co-organised by Alternative Law Forum, Maraa and CIS, Bangalore International Centre, October 27, 2013). Samantha Cassar has blogged about the event: http://bit.ly/17EVtdw. It was covered by the New Indian Express (http://bit.ly/1dGENE6) and Hindu (http://bit.ly/1bcVUIU) on October 28.

Events Participated In

Religious Pluralism and the Tensions between Freedom of Expression and Respect for the 'Other’ (organised by Reset-Dialogues on Civilizations project, in cooperation with Jamia Millia Islamia, India Habitat Centre, New Delhi, October 10, 2013). Chinmayi Arun was a speaker at the session on “Democracy and the Tension between Freedom of Speech and Respect for the Other’s Religion, Culture, Identity, India and Europe”: http://bit.ly/194dtI7.
Fragmentation in a Democracy: The Role of Social Movements and the Media (organised by the Observer Research Foundation, Delhi and Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung, Berlin at Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi, October 16, 2013). Sunil Abraham was a panelist in the session on “Impact of Media, Social Media & Technology on Democracy / Governance”: http://bit.ly/17e3PZ9.
Internet, Mobile & Digital Economy Conference (IMDEC) 2013 (organised by FICCI, in association with the Ministry of Communications & IT, Government of India, New Delhi, October 25, 2013). Sunil Abraham participated as a speaker in the session on "The Internet We Want: A Multistakeholder Approach": http://bit.ly/1b8QHDD.

New and Media Coverage

CIS gave its inputs to the following media coverage:

Decline in web freedom steepest in India: Report (by Javed Anwer, The Times of India, October 3, 2013): http://bit.ly/1cVOJ99.
Google survey: 37% of urban Indian voters are online (by Anuja and Moulishree Srivastava, Livemint, October 8, 2013): http://bit.ly/1gtqqDY.
The quest for genuine clout on the internet (by Karthik Subramanian, October 13, 2013): http://bit.ly/1b8TdKa.
India believes in Complete Freedom of Cyber Space: Kapil Sibal (by Elizabeth Roche, Livemint, October 14, 2013): http://bit.ly/1fZgwd1.
Location Tracking: Why the Govt-Mobile Manufacturer War Won’t End Soon (by Danish Raza, FirstPost, October 15, 2013): http://bit.ly/HkIvF7.
Bouquets & brickbats for Google's new privacy policy (by Indu Nandakumar, Economic Times, October 18, 2013): http://bit.ly/18Rzkqm.
Bali meet to discuss Internet governance issues (by Moulishree Srivastava, October 22, 2013): http://bit.ly/17I4r3M.
Indian politicians yet to tap voters online: CIS’s Abraham (by Venkatesh Upadhyay, Livemint, October 22, 2013): http://bit.ly/17HRV4s.
Beyond the Searchlight (by Debarshi Dasgupta, October 23, 2013): http://bit.ly/17IitlZ.
Nowhere to hide: Govt making your personal details public (by FirstPost editors, FirstPost, October 28, 2013): http://bit.ly/1dGE6KJ.
Your private data may be online, courtesy govt (by Somesh Jha and Surabhi Agarwal, Business Standard, October 29, 2013): http://bit.ly/HpQRMp.
Saving privacy as we knew it (by Somesh Jha and Surabhi Agarwal, Business Standard, October 29, 2013): http://bit.ly/16HNYwu.
E-governance hopes rise as India crosses 1 billion transactions (by J Srikant, Economic Times, October 29, 2013): http://bit.ly/1cnJIKd.

Digital Humanities

CIS is building research clusters in the field of Digital Humanities. The Digital will be used as a way of unpacking the debates in humanities and social sciences and look at the new frameworks, concepts and ideas that emerge in our engagement with the digital. The clusters aim to produce and document new conversations and debates that shape the contours of Digital Humanities in Asia:

Events Participated In

GFM 2013 (organized by the University of Luneberg, Germany, October 3 – 5, 2013). Dr. Nishant Shah participated in a panel discussion with Wendy Chun, Tom Levine and Geert Lovink, around 'The End of Bibliographies: New Media and Research'. Nishant also participated as a panelist in a panel discussion on 'Open Up: Pragmatism and Politics of Open Access': http://bit.ly/1f9LCOH.
Digitalization of Culture (organized by Leuphana University, Luneberg, October 8, 2013). Dr. Nishant Shah did an introduction keynote to 1600 undergraduate students. A video of the lecture can be accessed here: http://bit.ly/1enWQPv.
RENEW: The 5th International Conference on the Histories of Media Art, Science and Technology (hosted by RIXC Centre for New Media Culture in Riga in partnership with the Art Academy of Latvia, Stockholm School of Economics in Riga and Danube University’s Center for Image Science, October 8 - 11, 2013). Dr. Nishant Shah was a part of the selection committee for the conference and chaired a session on Network Art on October 9: http://bit.ly/17e41aJ.

Blog Entry

A Hitchhikers Guide to the Cyberspace (by Anirudh Sridhar, October 4, 2013): http://bit.ly/1ga8yfH.

Knowledge Repository on Internet Access

CIS in partnership with the Ford Foundation is executing a project to create a knowledge repository on Internet and society. This repository will comprise content targeted primarily at civil society with a view to enabling their informed participation in the Indian Internet and ICT policy space. The repository is available at the Internet Institute website: http://bit.ly/1iQT2UB.

Modules

World Intellectual Property Organisation (by Anirudh Sridhar and Snehashish Ghosh, October 31, 2013). WIPO is a specialized agency of the United Nations which deals with issues related to intellectual property rights throughout the world. Find out more at http://bit.ly/17a8WEk.
An Interview on Internet Governance with Professor Milton Mueller and Jeremy Malcolm (by Anirudh Sridhar, October 31, 2013). Professor Milton Mueller from the Syracuse University School of Information and Jeremy Malcolm, an Information Technology and Intellectual Property Lawyer, spoke about current issues and debates surrounding internet governance: http://bit.ly/17ix3Ro.

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

Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/cisa2k

Visit us at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge

E-mail: a2k@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 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/october-2013-bulletin

Feedback on the Framework on OSS Adoption in E-Governance Systems

nehaa — 2013-10-28T10:35:04Z

CIS gave its feedback to the Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY) on the Framework on Open Source Software Adoption in E-Governance Systems on October 26, 2013.

In September, 2013, the DeitY invited comments on the Framework on the proposed adoption of Open Source Software in E-Governance Systems (available at https://egovstandards.gov.in/Public_review_Framework_on_oss).

The Framework, published in September, 2013, provides a set of recommendations and procedures to encourage, manage and increase the adoption of Open Source Software in E-Governance systems. Further, the Framework goes on to discuss various important issues, including the deployment of unified software for all major devices, with the utilization of a standards based web browser, the integration of OSS with other on-going initiatives, and the development of an eco-system consisting of institutions, industry, academia and other key stakeholders to promote and adopt OSS. The envisaged Centre of Excellence on OSS to realize this Framework is noteworthy.

CIS commends the DeitY for this initiative, and appreciates the opportunity to provide feedback on the Framework.

The text of CIS Feedback is reproduced below:

PRELIMINARY

This submission presents comments from the Centre for Internet and Society[1] on the Framework on Open Source Software Adoption in ‘E-Governance’ (“Framework”), published by the Department of Electronics and Information Technology, Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, Government of India (DeitY).[2]

The Framework, published in September, 2013, provides a set of recommendations and procedures to encourage, manage and increase the adoption of Open Source Software in E-Governance systems.[3] Further, the Framework goes on to discuss various important issues, including the deployment of unified software for all major devices, with the utilization of a standards based web browser, the integration of OSS with other on-going initiatives, and the development of an eco-system consisting of institutions, industry, academia and other key stakeholders to promote and adopt OSS. The envisaged Centre of Excellence on OSS to realize this Framework is noteworthy.

CIS commends the DeitY for this initiative, and appreciates the opportunity to provide feedback on the Framework. CIS’ comments are as stated hereafter.

COMMENTS

Scope and Applicability

In the section pertaining to Scope and Applicability, the Recommendation proposed is to give priority to preferred areas for the adoption of this Framework.[4]

It is suggested that the preferred areas alluded to aforesaid be identified and disclosed. It is further suggested that the Framework identify a timeline for operationalization of all of the proposed recommendations, including the identification of the preferred areas and the adoption of the Framework in these areas. It is also suggested that a time frame be provided for the implementation of the Framework to all other areas, besides the preferred ones.

Preamble

In the section titled Preamble, the Recommendation proposed is to consider OSS along with Closed Source Software.[5] considering the socio- economic and strategic benefits provided by OSS.[6]

CIS appreciates the welcome measure in considering OSS alternatives along with CSS. While viewing this as indeed the first step in the right direction, CIS would suggest the development of a mechanism and the adoption of further measures in order to migrate entirely to an entirely OSS based system; with preference being given to OSS between OSS and CSS.

Factors Influencing the Adoption of OSS in Government

In the section dealing with Factors Influencing the Adoption of OSS in Government, the Framework states that the influencing factors are to be prioritized on the basis of feedback from managers/users.[7]

CIS proposes that it may be clarified who the managers/users being spoken of are, and what is the type and manner of feedback expected for the evaluation of influencing factors. CIS suggests that feedback also be sought in a more inclusive and holistic manner, after seeking consultation from other stakeholders as well.

Device Drivers

Under the section dealing with Device Drivers, the onus to ensure availability of device drivers for GNU Linux Operating Systems has been placed on the users.[8]

CIS strongly suggests that this be modified to state that the availability of device drivers for GNU Linux Operating Systems must be assured by vendors as a part of procurement requirements.

Procurement Guidelines

Under the section dealing with Procurement Guidelines, it has been recommended that vendors must provide justifications for excluding OSS in their response to proposals.[9]

CIS suggests that vendors be given a time frame within which to ensure compliance with the Framework, and thereafter be required to include OSS in their response to proposals, post which justifications ought not to be considered, as a matter of policy, but could be on an exceptional case to case basis.

CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS

CIS welcomes the initiative of the DeitY towards the adoption of OSS in E-Governance Systems. This Framework, while indeed addressing the important issues associated towards the end of adoption of OSS in E- Governance, would be further strengthened by addressing the concerns enumerated above.
CIS is thankful to the DeitY for the opportunity to provide feedback on this Framework. As a non-governmental research organization working in the areas of Openness[10] and Access to Knowledge.[11] CIS appreciates this effort by the DeitY, and would be privileged to work with the Government on this and other matters in these areas.

[1]. See www.cis-india.org (last accessed 26 October, 2013).

[2]. See https://egovstandards.gov.in/system/files/PublicReviewDocument/Framework_on_OSS_Ver0.8.pdf (last accessed 26 October, 2013).

[3]. Hereafter referred to as OSS.

[4]. See Page 9 of the Framework.

[5]. Hereafter referred to as CSS.

[6].See Page 12 of the Framework.

[7].See Page 16 of the Framework.

[8].See Page 20 of the Framework.

[9].See Page 22 of the Framework.

[10].See http://cis-india.org/openness (last accessed 26 October, 2013)

[11].See http://cis-india.org/a2k (last accessed 26 October, 2013).See http://cis-india.org/a2k (last accessed 26 October, 2013).

This submission was prepared on behalf of CIS by Nehaa Chaudhari. Click to download the submission file here. For specific section wise review comments, click here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/feedback-on-framework-on-oss-adoption-in-e-governance-systems

The Fight for Digital Sovereignty

sunil — 2013-10-25T07:29:22Z

It is time to incorporate free software principles to address the issue of privacy. Thanks to the revelations of Edward Snowden, a former contractor to the United States (US) National Security Agency (NSA) who leaked secrets about the agency’s surveillance programmes, a 24-year-old movement aimed at protecting the rights of software users and developers has got some fresh attention from policymakers.

The article was published in the Economic & Political Weekly, Vol-XLVIII No. 42, October 19, 2013

The free and open source software movement (often collectively labelled as FOSS or sometimes FLOSS, with the “l” standing for “libre”) guarantees four freedoms through a copyright licence – the freedom to use for any purpose, the freedom to study the code, the freedom to modify it and the freedom to distribute the modified code gratis or for a fee. Free software principles have permeated the world in the form of movements around open standards, open content, open access and open data. The second freedom is the most critical in an open society. Privacy, security and integrity are best achieved through the transparency guaranteed by free software rather than the opacity of proprietary software.

Free software is directly useful in deciding on the software required for your device operating system and applications. NSA’s surveillance programme covered operating system vendors like Microsoft and Apple, and application vendors like Skype. The concerns raised by such surveillance programmes are best addressed by shifting to free software. Increasingly, this is possible on mobile devices because of the availability of Android derivatives that keep Google’s nose out of your business and on other personal computing devices through GNU/Linux distributions such as Ubuntu. Ideally, this should be accomplished by a mandate for government and public infrastructure in specific areas where free software alternatives are on par with proprietary competitors. Two other policy options remain outside procurement policies for hardware – code escrow and independent audits. Firms that are willing to share code with the government should be preferred over those that do not, thereby encouraging proprietary software companies to provide for the second freedom in free software within a limited context. Code escrow could improve the quality of the independent audit.

Unfortunately, open hardware based on free software principles is still a fringe phenomenon in terms of market share. The Indian government cannot afford bans on foreign products, unlike the intelligence and military of Australia, the US, Britain, Canada and New Zealand, which recently prohibited the use of Lenovo machines in “secret” and “top secret” networks. Last October, the US government banned US telecos from using equipment from Huawei and ZTE. Both these bans are not based on any credible public evidence regarding back doors in any of the products manufactured by these Chinese companies. The Indian government, using funds like the Universal Service Obligation Fund, should support competitive research to reverse-engineer and analyse all foreign and indigenous hardware to ensure that there is no national security threat or infringement on the individual’s right to privacy. One example would be a research project to determine whether China-manufactured phones call home when they are used on Indian telecom networks.

Cloud and other online services run by corporations could also completely undermine privacy and security. This again can be partially addressed through the transparency enabled by free software and open standards. To begin with, the government must ban the use of Google, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc, for official purposes by those in public office, law enforcement and the military, while simultaneously mandating the use of cryptography for all sensitive material and communication. It should not, however, mandate the use of National Informatics Centre (NIC) infrastructure as it may be a single point of failure; instead, a variety of open-standards-compliant and free-software-based infrastructure for all public sector information communication technology (ICT) requirements should be encouraged. This procurement bias will result in the growth of domestic server administration and security competence, thus creating and contributing towards the establishment of a market for affordable privacy and security-enhanced services that ordinary citizens and private sector organisations can access.

The end objective through means such as free software, open hardware, code escrow and independent audits is sovereignty over software, hardware, cloud and network infrastructure. However, the state, the private sector, the consumer and the citizen may disagree on the details. Apart from law enforcement and national security concerns that may require targeted surveillance, there are other occasions when technological possibilities may have to be curtailed through policy to protect human rights and the public interest. For example, to implement the internationally accepted privacy principle of notice on electronic recording devices, some jurisdictions may require that video recorders display a blinking red light and that digital cameras make an audible click sound just like analog cameras. This was first initiated in South Korea to reduce the incidence of “upskirt photography”. This type of law may become more commonplace when technologies like Google Glass become more popular. In other words, absolute digital sovereignty may need to be curtailed in order to protect human rights in certain circumstances. But code could be used to resist regulation through law, thereby converting both the software and hardware layers of devices and networks into a battleground for sovereignty between the free software hacker and the state.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/epw-vol-xlviii-42-october-19-2013-sunil-abraham-the-fight-for-digital-sovereignty

Wikipedia in Indian Languages on Mobile Phones

praskrishna — 2013-10-25T06:00:28Z

Wikipedia in India's regional languages and accessible over mobile phones is revolutionising the way Internet content is used in this multi-lingual country, say information technology (IT) experts.

This post by Megha Prakash was published in Sci Dev Net on October 15, 2013. T. Vishnu Vardhan is quoted.

"Developing Wikipedia and other content in regional languages is a way forward to bridge the knowledge gap," says T. Vishnu Vardhan, programme director of the Access to Knowledge project at the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), Bangalore.

In September, CIS signed an agreement with Goa University to train students and foster collaborative content development with Wikipedia libraries and archives in view. A similar agreement was signed in August with the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, while a third is due to be signed this month with Christ University, Bangalore.

India's 28 states and seven union territories are organised on a linguistic basis and three of its vernaculars — Hindi, Bengali and Punjabi — rate among the world's ten most widely spoken languages, each with its own script.

With 70 mobile phone subscriptions per 100 people and the market flooded with affordable feature phones, the majority of India's 1.2 billion people potentially have access to IT. Current usage, however, is limited to downloading entertainment content and to such applications as mobile banking.

Vardhan tells SciDev.Net that attention is now being paid to developing knowledge repositories in India's regional languages.

M. Sampath Kumar, who heads the Telugu department at the University of Madras in Chennai, says the Telugu Wikipedia is regularly used by students and researchers and is a resource for speakers of the language living abroad but eager to maintain community links.

Kumar tells SciDev.Net that literary content is popular and that there is a future for regional Wikipedia in educating the younger generation and serving as a free repository for traditional knowledge in the vernacular.

Subbiah Arunachalam, a Chennai-based IT consultant, says the effort will benefit non-English speaking rural youth at school and college levels and help bring them on par with their urban counterparts in terms of knowledge.

A programme funded by the Wikimedia Foundation and due to end in June 2014 covers the Telugu, Kannada, Oriya, Bengali and Konkani languages. A Hindi version already has 100,000 articles and recorded eight million views.

'Lilavati's Daughters', a book on Indian women scientists published by the Bangalore-based Indian Academy of Sciences, is currently being translated into the regional languages with a view to engaging women content developers and editors.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/sci-dev-net-megha-prakash-wikipedia-in-indian-languages-on-mobile-phones

Ambiguity in the App Store: Understanding India’s emerging IT sector in light of IP

samantha — 2014-04-15T08:24:28Z

Mobile applications hold immense potential for India but are not fully understood by even their own developers in the context of India’s intellectual property (IP) regime. This is the first in a series of blog posts introducing CIS's new access to knowledge research initiative that seeks to understand how stakeholders encounter India’s IP law and what this means for the mobile app ecosystem, and in turn, the Indian mobile user. This research also aims to address problematic policy areas for innovation and protection for developers, as well as to comment on India’s regime with respect to the emerging mobile app sector.

India is at a pivotal point within its IT industry as mobile technologies take off like never before. Smartphone usage appears to be replacing PC use altogether for many,[1] and today’s generation is even said to belong to India’s "mobile only generation" as 41% of Indians access the internet through mobile phones.[2] The potential for mobile technologies for India can be better envisioned as various reports compare prior growth rates with astonishing projections for the next few years, and in doing so, demonstrate India’s exponential growth in terms of smart phone and internet penetration.

In the last 3-4 years, the number of users who access the internet through a 3G connection has long surpassed the number of fixed line broadband connections accumulatively over the last 17 years.[3] The funny part is that 3G has yet to be widely adopted, with only 4% of over 900 million mobile subscriptions using 3G.[4] This number is expected to grow from 36 million to 266 million by 2016—within a mere 3 years,[5] and smartphones, from 67 million this year to 382 million by 2016.[6] At that point, India will likely be within the world’s top 5 countries for smartphones, potentially representing almost 10% of the entire world’s supply—practically five times that of what it was only 5 years prior in 2011.[7] As the cost of data and price of smartphones come down, and as mobile internet and smartphone penetration rates surge tremendously, new pathways are paved for emerging sectors to evolve, such as that of the mobile application market,[8] a market which is expected to have a value of Rs 2,700-crore by 2016.[9]

Every month, 100 million apps are being downloaded in India, ranging from productivity to localized music and language apps, to health and spirituality apps, to banking and e-commerce apps; with ones relating to dating and gaming growing in popularity.[10]

India’s appetite for mobile apps is definitely here to stay. This booming app market is expected to increase demand for an additional three lakh developers in the next five years in India[11] and introduce many new players into market.

Although holding great potential, the mobile app ecosystem has yet to become robust, and is still a place of volatility and ambiguity for developers. As more and more build upon previously produced content within the pursuit of new idea for a mobile application, the lines become blurred as to what is legally acceptable and what is not. For emerging start-ups, these blurred lines are irrelevant, with the main focus on the product and with insufficient manpower and money flow to invest time elsewhere. But for the developers that are on their way up the enterprise ladder, protection is sought out. As developers gain more leverage within app stores, and therefore more exposure, their applications may be at risk for being copied by others, and may begin to seek support commonly in the form of copyright or not-so-often patent protection. As this system of who seeks protection and who does not repeatedly manifests within the Indian mobile app ecosystem, an uneven playing field is further tipped in favour of those for who are willing to pay for a lawyer. Many a time, developers are not aware themselves that they may be infringing upon others’ intellectual property, and as foreign players begin to enter India’s mobile app market — often with overwhelmingly large IP portfolios—Indian developers may unknowingly be at risk for litigation for their own mobile applications.

This blog post kick-starts a new research initiative from the Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) as I attempt to understand the many factors at play at the intersection of the mobile app ecosystem and Indian intellectual property (IP) law. It is also the first in a series to attempt to paint a comprehensive picture of what the real implications are of intellectual property within the mobile app ecosystem for India. This initiative falls within CIS’s A2K Programme which ultimately aims to protect citizen, consumer and public interest via IP law reform and by offering alternatives to strictly proprietary-based intellectual property regimes, with those that incorporate principles of openness. These differentiating regimes will be looked at further with reference to mobile applications in the series of postings to come.

In performing this research I hope to attain the following achievements: 1) to understand the legal environment in which the mobile app ecosystem exists, 2) to evaluate India’s current IP regime with respect to its mobile application industry, and lastly, and 3) to work towards creating contextually appropriate conditions to harness the potential of mobile app technologies for India. Each of these objectives are looked at closer below, as I demonstrate how I intend to attain each goal, and for what reason:

To understand the mobile app ecosystem in light of India’s IP regime

As the mobile app market is still on its incline, there is little understanding of the implications of policy decisions on this ecosystem and the stakeholders implicated within it. Consequently, policy decisions are ill-informed and at risk of being determined by foreign players in pursuit of foreign interests. I hope to acquire a sufficient sense of understanding of these implications from the ground up: beginning with the developers themselves. In performing empirical research to survey how stakeholders within the ecosystem encounter Indian IP law, with a main focus on developers themselves, I hope to also be able to identify key determinants of IP-related disputes and areas of concern amongst mobile app developers and understand corresponding implications for the mobile app market, and in turn, the potential for this market’s impact in India.

To evaluate India’s IP regime with respect to the mobile app ecosystem

Through the carrying out of this initiative I hope to produce the research necessary that will get the debate started regarding the role of intellectual property in the mobile applications market in India. In order to do so, I hope to identify and address policy blindspots — if any — within the current IP regime, as well as to make evident the consequences of such. I also hope to be able to draw my own conclusions to assess the current IP regime with respect to the needs of various stakeholders and the market which they drive forward through investigating how policies related to IP law facilitate or hinder levels of innovation, creation, and protection for mobile applications and their developers, to the benefit or detriment of Indian mobile users.

To work towards creating conditions to harness the potential of mobile apps for India

It is evident that within the mobile app market, along with other mobile technologies, lies potential for the future of access to information and means of communication amongst mobile users from all corners of India. Relative trajectories for market trends and mobile and internet penetration should not be taken for granted, however, as the environment within which these trends take course may be considered to be volatile and may consequently enable or undermine what potential this market holds for current and future consumers. Through analyzing primary empirical evidence and research findings in conjunction with market reportings and projections, I hope to be able to identify key conditions for an enabling legal environment in which mobile applications are available and accessible for the fulfillment of their potential.

The IP debate is a highly contested one, with opposing viewpoints and varying manifestations across jurisdictions. In order to understand how India fits into this debate, with respect to the mobile app ecosystem, I intend to guide my research in asking the following questions:

Who are the stakeholders and key players in the mobile app ecosystem, and how does each encounter India’s IP law?
What are the determining and resulting factors at play at the intersection of the mobile app ecosystem within India and India’s IP law regime?
What conditions would create an enabling legal environment for mobile app developers in terms of innovation and protection for their works?

This research will employ a multidisciplinary approach in incorporating theory and contextual aspects related to academic law, philosophy, political science, economics, history, and sociology in attempts to holistically understand the multifaceted picture in question and the different perspectives of such.

As preliminary research to this initiative, I have been in touch with mobile app developers of differing scales within the ecosystem. In speaking with each, I continue to observe a prevalent theme to be that of how each interprets Indian IP law. Regardless of whether they develop mobile apps for clients or their own enterprises, or are part of a small startup enterprise or an Indian success story, or even if they’re IP consultants themselves: in trying to understand the Indian IP landscape, one often encountered experience is confusion. As a result, the ambiguity of what may be protected under intellectual property and what may not be lingers on, to the advantage of some and the disadvantage of many. I intend to continue carrying out interviews with various stakeholders across India — with a special focus on Bangalore as India’s IT hub — including developers, incubators, lawyers, and even consumers, to better understand how each feels about Indian IP law, to what extent developers engage in protection for their IP, and if this theme of ambiguity is truly a consistent one throughout the mobile app ecosystem with regards to the Indian IP regime.

If you are interested in contributing to this initiative, I invite you to contact me by e-mail at samantha@cis-india.org. Any or all contributions may be kept anonymous and your explicit approval will be sought out before incorporating any of your responses into my research.

[1]. Bhine, A., Sharma, K., Rao, S., Mishra, K., Preetham, N., & Nemani, N. (2013). India’s mobile internet: The revolution has begun: An overview of how mobile internet is touching the lives of millions. Avendus . Retrieved from http://www.avendus.com/Files/Fund%20Performance%20PDF/Avendus_Report-India's_Mobile_Internet-2013.pdf

[2]. NextBigWhat.com (2012). Mobile Internet in India: All you need to know about it [PowerPoint slides]. Retrieved from http://www.slideshare.net/nextbigwhat/mobile-internet-revolution-in-india-all-that-youd-like-to-know

[3]. Bhine, A. et al. (2013)

[4]. NextBigWhat.com (2012)

[5]. Mobile Marketing Association (2013). India Adspend Report. Retrieved from http://www.mmaglobal.com/whitepaper/india-adspend-report

[6]. Press Trust of India (2013, Sep 29). Mobile games, apps market in India to touch Rs 2,700 cr by 2016: Report. IBN Live. Retrieved from http://ibnlive.in.com/news/mobile-games-apps-market-in-india-to-touch-rs-2700-cr-by-2016-report/425284-11.html

[7]. Bhine, A. et al. (2013)

[8]. Pahwa, N. (2013, Apr 30). TiE India Internet Day: On Smartphones, Mobile App Monetization & Indic Languages. Medianama. Retrieved from http://www.medianama.com/2013/04/223-mobile-app-monetization-smartphones/

[9]. Press Trust of India (2013, Sep 29)

[10]. Kulkarni, V.A. (2013, Aug 22). India in line for the big app boom? Certainly, say developers. Know Your Mobile India. Retrieved from http://www.knowyourmobile.in/applications/8759/india-next-line-big-app-boom-certainly-say-developers

[11]. Nair, R. P. (2013, Aug 13). Booming app market is driving startups to offer mobile technology course. The Economic Times. Retrieved from http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2013-08-13/news/41375028_1_app-market-mobile-app-development-company-marketsandmarkets

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/ambiguity-in-the-app-store

Re-sourcing Indian Cinema: Humanities Research, New Archives and Collaborative Knowledge Production

praskrishna — 2013-10-29T05:16:52Z

The Centre for Contemporary Studies and the Centre for Study of Culture and Society invites you to a symposium on "Re-sourcing Indian Cinema" and a launch of a book titled "Politics as Performance: A Social History of the Telugu Cinema" by S.V. Srinivas on October 29, 4 p.m. to 6 p.m., at the CCS Seminar Hall, Indian Institute of Science. T. Vishnu Vardhan will speak on “Let Cinephiles Collaborate: Pleasures and Perils of Indian Film History on Wikipedia”.

Click to read more about the event published on the website of Indian Institute of Science.

Agenda

Welcome: Raghavendra Gadagkar (CCS) & Tejaswini Niranjana (CSCS)
S.V. Srinivas (Senior Fellow, Centre for the Study of Culture and Society and Visiting Professor, Centre for Contemporary Studies): “Film, History and Politics: Looking beyond Bollywood”
M.V. Rayudu (Professor of Electronics, Atria Institute of Technology; industrialist, publisher and archivist): “Archiving Telugu Cinema”
T. Vishnu Vardhan (Centre for Internet and Society): “Let Cinephiles Collaborate: Pleasures and Perils of Indian Film History on Wikipedia”

About the book

Politics as Performance examines the deep connection between cinema and politics in India. It provides a picture of the Telugu cinema, as both industry and cultural form, over fifty formative years. It argues that films are directly related both to the rise of an elite which dominates Andhra Pradesh and other parts of India, and to the emergence of a new idiom of mass politics.

Download the Invite

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/re-sourcing-indian-cinema

कोंकणी विश्‍वकोश ‘विकिपीडिया’वर

praskrishna — 2013-10-23T05:11:54Z

News about digitalization of Konkani Vishwakosh, appeared in Navprabha daily on October 22, 2013 on front page.

Click to read the original published in Navprabha on October 22, 2013.

गोवा विद्यापीठाचा प्रकल्प असलेला कोंकणी विश्‍वकोश हा लवकरच विकिपीडिया या ऑनलाइन विश्‍वकोशावर संपूर्ण जगासाठी विनामूल्य उपलब्ध होणार आहे. कोंकणी विश्‍वकोशाच्या डिजिटलायझेशनची प्रक्रिया सुरू झाली असून ती येत्या दोन महिन्यात पूर्ण करण्याची योजना आहे.

क्रिएटिव्ह कॉमन्स लायसन्सखाली कोंकणी विश्‍वकोशाचे पुन:प्रकाशन करण्याचे हल्लीच गोवा विद्यापीठातर्फे जाहीर करण्यात आले होते. अशाप्रकारचा हा देशातील अनोखा प्रयोग ठरेल. यामुळे विश्‍वकोशाचा अभ्यासकांना अधिक मुक्तपणे वापर करता येईल. क्रिएटिव्ह कॉमन्स लायसन्सखाली मूळ मालकाला हक्क राखता येतातच पण वापरकर्त्यांनाही माहितीत भर टाकण्याची, ती अधिक विकसित करण्याची मुभा मिळते.

आता बंगळूरस्थित सीआयएस ही संस्था गोवा विद्यापीठाच्यावतीने कोंकणी विश्‍वकोशाचे चारही खंड डिजिटल माध्यमात परिवर्तीत करून विकिपीडियाद्वारे संपूर्ण विश्‍वात नेण्याचे काम करणार आहे. एकदा हा विश्‍वकोश डिजिटल होऊन विकिपीडिया या ऑनलाईन ज्ञानकोशावर गेल्यानंतर या विकिपीडियावर जगातील इतर भाषांप्रमाणेच कोंकणीतून ज्ञानात्मक मजकूर निर्माण करणे तसेच चटकन संदर्भ उपलब्ध करून देणे अधिक सोपे होणार आहे.

गोवा विद्यापीठासाठी डिजिटलायझेशनचे काम करत असलेल्या सेंटर फॉर इंटरनेट ऍन्ड सोसायटीच्या नितीका टंडन यांनी माहिती देताना सांगितले की, येत्या दोन महिन्यांत विश्‍वकोशाच्या चारही खंडांचे डिजिटलायझेशन पूर्ण करण्याची योजना आहे. त्यासाठी गोवा विद्यापीठातील कोंकणी विभागाच्या विद्यार्थ्यांची तसेच अन्य इच्छुकांची मदत घेतली जाणार आहे.

सीआयएस संस्था विकिपिडीयावर भारतीय भाषांतील मजकूर वाढविण्यासाठी काम करते, अशी माहितीही टंडन यांनी दिली. दिल्ली, पुणे, बेंगलोर येथे असे गट कार्यरत असल्याचे त्या म्हणाल्या. कोंकणी भाषेतून विकिपीडियावर फारच कमी मजकूर उपलब्ध असल्याचे त्यांनी सांगितले. तो वाढविण्यासाठी प्रयत्न करण्यात येत असल्याची माहिती त्यांनी दिली. त्यासाठी हल्लीच गोवा विद्यापीठाच्या कोंकणी विभागातील विद्यार्थ्यांना एक खास कार्यशाळाही घेण्यात आली होती. कोंकणी विश्‍वकोश एकुण चार छापील खंडांत असून या खंडांचे प्रकाशन गोवा विद्यापीठातर्फे ग्रंथरूपात १९९१,१९९७,१९९९ व २००० साली याप्रमाणे झाले होते. पहिल्या दोन खंडांचे संपादन मनोहरराय सरदेसाय यांनी तर खंड तीन व चारचे संपादन डॉ. तानाजी हळर्णकर यांनी केले होते. या चार छापील ग्रंथरूपातील खंडांची पृष्ठसंख्या ८६३, ९३४, ८२४ व १०११ अशी आहे.

दरम्यान, विकिपीडिया संकेतस्थळ हे इंटरनेटवर सर्वाधिक भेट दिले जाणारे चौथ्या क्रमांकाचे संकेतस्थळ आहे.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/navprabha-sameer-janty-october-22-2013-konkani-vishwakosh-wikipedia