Centre for Internet and Society

Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD 2013)

praskrishna — 2013-05-09T04:27:04Z

The Centre for Internet and Society is pleased to invite you to participate in the Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD) at The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) in Bangalore on May 9, 2013. The event begins at 4.00 p.m. and will end by 7.00 p.m.

The purpose of the day is to get people talking, thinking and learning about digital (web, software, mobile, etc.) accessibility and users with different disabilities. The target audience of GAAD is the design, development, usability, and related communities who build, shape, fund and influence technology and its use. While people may be interested in the topic of making technology accessible and usable by persons with disabilities, the reality is that they often do not know how or where to start. Awareness comes first.

This will be an opportunity for you to understand the importance of accessibility and how accessibility impacts several users and increase your customer base. This event will consist of presentations by Accessibility professionals in the industry, hands on demonstrations of how people with disabilities use technology and an opportunity to meet peers in the industry.

Agenda

16.00 16.20	Opening remarks by Nirmita Narasimhan, Policy Director, Centre for Internet and Society
16.20 17.00	Accessibility - What, Why and How? by Vivek Gaikwad, Lead Accessibility Expert, Informatica
17.00 17.40	Test for Accessibility by Lavanya Lakshman, Yahoo!
17.40 18.00	Demonstrations of assistive technologies
18.00 18.20	Q & A with panelists
18.20 19.00	Wrap up, networking and refreshments

There will be panel discussions with the following speakers:

Vivek Gaikwad, Lead Accessibility Expert, Informatica
Lavanya Lakshman, Yahoo!
Rama Chari, Director, DEOC
Anasuya Das, Mitra Jyothi
Srividya Vaidyanathan - Multimedia

About the Speakers

Vivek Gaikwad	Vivek is an individual, passionate about accessibility, who digs out all the possible ways to make an application accessible to persons with disabilities. For past 7 years, he is consistently doing R&D on how to make applications, games, e-learning and mobile apps which are built in various technologies/platforms such as Flash, HTML, iOS and Android, PDF, etc., accessible. His emphasis is on providing feasible accessibility solutions by understanding the scenario and the compliance required. His various roles so far in his career such as a developer, tester, trainer and consultant apprehends in finding the exact fit solution for any accessibility related issue. This also helps in understanding and filling the gap between management and the delivery team for accessibility projects. He doesn't work only for compliance of any product, but tries to make it 100 per cent accessible for all the users. Vivek also loves trekking and getting involved in creative things.
Srividya Vaidyanathan	Srividya has a B.Tech in Electrical Engineering from NIT Warangal and is currently working as a Consultant for the Centre for Internet & Society. She more than 13 years of experience in the software industry with TCS, Oracle etc with her latest stint being a co-founder of PixelMat Software a company that makes development of pure native mobile apps easier. A very hands-on mom who loves to play ball with her son in her free time.
Lavanya Lakshman	Lavanya has done BE in Electronics Engineering and MS in Networking from Symbiosis, Pune. She has close to 10 years of experience with over 5 and a half years with Yahoo alone. She is working as principal engineer on font end development and works mainly on platform products varying from user profile experience to application development network. She is currently working on Geo Platform for serving location based experience across Yahoo. She has submitted papers in various forums which includes: White paper titled “Strategic Choice of Test Automation Framework”. This was selected for plenary presentation at SteP-IN Summit 2009. White paper titled “A New Era of Accessibility Testing”. This was selected for publication at the USID Conference 2009. White paper titled “Accessibility: An Emerging field of Usability” for Step-IN Summit 2010.
Rama Chari	Rama Chari has about two decades of work experience in the field of disability. She started her career as an Educator for children with disabilities in the rural community based project of Action for Ability Development & inclusion (AADI) (Formerly, Spastics Society of Northern India (SSNI), She prepared children with disabilities for integrating them into regular schools in the villages of Haryana. She then joined National Centre for Promotion of Employment for Disabled People (NCPEDP), a leading national level advocacy organisation. At NCPEDP, she headed the Legislation, Networking and Communication Units. As part of the core management team of NCPEDP, she played an important role in bringing about several policy changes vis-à-vis disability in the country. In November 2005, she took up a consultancy with Infosys BPO, for setting up their Equal Opportunity Programme. In July 2007, she along with four other professionals set up DEOC. She is serving as an Honorary Board Member of ARUNIM, a marketing initiative for promoting products and services made by disability groups and NGOs. She is also part of the NCPEDP’s National Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disability, which focuses on advocacy for appropriate policies in the country. She is also a Core Group Member of the Disability Forum of Confederation of Indian Industry – Karnataka Chapter. She has travelled widely and has made several presentations on the subject, in national and international conferences / seminars.
Anusuya Das	Anusuya graduated in Computer Engineering from Mumbai University in 2004, and worked as a Software Engineer for 2½ years. Later, she changed her field and completed Masters Degree in Social Work from Nirmala Niketan College of Social Work, Mumbai University. During the 2 years, she gained valuable experience and insight while working for various causes such as Child labour, Disaster Management and Disability. Since 2010, she is working as Chief Coordinator at Mitra Jyothi, Bangalore. It is an NGO working towards the education, training and empowerment of the visually impaired. She is mainly handling the DAISY production unit, Braille Transcription Centre and Digital Talking Book Library at Mitra Jyothi, and is a certified trainer in DAISY content creation.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/events/global-accessibility-awareness-day-2013

Girls in ICT Day 2013 — Nirmita Narasimhan Felicitated

praskrishna — 2013-06-20T05:35:54Z

The ITU-APT Foundation of India with support from CMAI - Association of India Communication and Infrastructure organized the "Girls in ICT Day" to pay tribute to the contribution of young women in ICT in India on May 7, 2013 at FICCI Auditorium, Tansen Marg, New Delhi.

Nirmita Narasimhan got a felicitation on this event.

Anil Prakash, Secretary General, ITU-APT Foundation of India wrote a 'thank you' letter to Nirmita for participating in this event. The text of the letter by Anil Prakash is reproduced below:

Thank You for attending the Girls in ICT day 2013
Dear Ms. Narasimhan,
On behalf of ITU-APT Foundation of India and CMAI, I take this opportunity to thank you for your precious time and for participating in the panel discussion at the "Girls in ICT Day 2013", held on 7th May 2013 at FICCI Auditorium, Tansen Marg, New Delhi. Your thoughtful deliberation on the subject was well appreciated and encouraged by the participants. The opening address by...Rita Teaotia, Addl, Secretary, DoT and concluding address by ... Eun-Ju Kim, Regional Director, ITU Regional Office in Asia Pacific had added a great significance to the programme.

The programme was a great success and over 150 participants including international dignitaries, ambassadors, ministers from foreign countries, students, young professionals, civil society & government representatives and the industry acknowledged the awards given to young girls who have contributed in the development of ICT and made a difference with their untiring enthusiasm, determination and working against all odds to make a difference.

The success of the programme has encouraged us largely as this was the first time the event was celebrated in India and henceforth we plan to celebrate it on an annual basis and pay our tribute to the young women achievers in the field of ICT.

We once again thank you for your valuable contribution and look forward to your continued support in future.

Thanking You,
Anil Prakash
Secretary General
ITU-APT Foundation of India
Suite 115, Gagandeep, 12 Rajendra Place
New Delhi-110008
Tel. +91-11-2575 7128

Below is a group picture of participants at the Girls in ICT event in Delhi. The winners are seen holding on to their certificates.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/girls-in-ict-day-2013-in-delhi

Girls in ICT Day

praskrishna — 2013-04-22T11:15:57Z

The Centre for Internet and Society and Mitra Jyothi is glad to invite you to celebrate Girls in ICT day on April 25, 2013 at the Mitra Jyothi auditorium in Bangalore. Dr. U.B. Pavanaja will give a talk on Social Media and Kannada Language for Women with Disabilities. The event will begin at 2 p.m. and end at 5 p.m.

Celebrated on the 4th Thursday of April every year, International Girls’ in ICT Day is an initiative backed by ITU Member States in ITU Plenipotentiary Resolution 70 (Guadalajara, 2010) to create a global environment that empowers and encourages girls and young women to consider careers in the growing field of information and communication technologies (ICTs).

About the Speaker

Dr. U.B. Pavanaja holds a Master’s degree from Mysore University and Ph.D. from Mumbai University. He has vast experience and has dedicated himself fully for the cause of Computer and Indian languages. He is one of the oldest editors of Kannada Wikipedia.

Click to download the invite (PDF, 118 Kb)

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/events/girls-in-ict-day

G3ict-White Paper

radha — 2011-08-22T13:17:44Z

G3ict -White Paper

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/publications/Web%20Accessibility%20Policy%20Making-%20G3ict%20White%20Paper-%20CIS%20Bangalore-%20India%202009.pdf

G3ict-GW Global Policy Forum: "ICT Accessibility: A New Frontier for Disability Rights"

praskrishna — 2011-08-26T09:58:36Z

The Institute for Global and International Studies, Elliott School of Intenational Affairs at George Washington University, in cooperation with G3ict hosted this conference in Citiy View Room, Washington, D.C on 15 and 16 November 2010. Nirmita Narasimhan participated in this conference and spoke in the panel on Successful Treaty Implementation: Key Factors of Success and Obstacles.

Background

Just four years ago the UN General Assembly adopted the text of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). Designed to protect the rights and dignity of persons with disabilities, this was the first international human rights treaty that was negotiated, developed, and written with the active participation of representatives of persons it is designed to protect. The remarkable engagement in and momentum behind this treaty, an international human rights instrument of the United Nations, has led to rapid accession to the treaty. As of September 2010, 146 signatories (including the United States) and 90 ratifying parties to the Convention pledged their commitment effectively extending the benefits of the Convention to more than 75% of the global population.

Despite the notably rapid adoption of the Convention, the global scale of the target population and the wide range of stakeholders, there is surprisingly little scholarship on the policy issues associated with the implementation of the Convention. The Institute for Global and International Studies (IGIS) at the George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs is entering into an ongoing research partnership with G3ict focusing on the global policy dimensions of ensuring accessibility of ICT and implementation of the Convention.

Shortly before the adoption of the Convention, the Global Initiative for Inclusive Information and Communication Technologies (G3ict), a global grass-roots organization of subject matter experts covering the various technical and social dimensions of ICT accessibility, was made a flagship initiative of the UN Global Alliance for Information and Communication Technologies and Development (UN GAID). G3ict is a U.S.-based public-private partnership representing multiple stakeholders from all regions of the world and a variety of backgrounds. It works closely with ITU, UNESCO, UN DESA and the World Bank, among other multilateral institutions active in this policy space. G3ict collaborated over the course of 3.5 years to develop a global, multidisciplinary body of knowledge - expert practices and tools - on the wide range of issues relevant to accessible Information and Communication Technologies, including The Accessibility Imperative, G3ict-ITU Toolkit for Policymakers, and the G3ict Self-Assessment Framework.

Objectives of the Global Forum

In the context of this research program, the Institute for Global and International Studies at the Elliott School of International Affairs hosted, in cooperation with G3ict, a high-profile, high-impact Global Policy Forum on ICT Accessibility to build upon the work of G3ict and to convene a prominent interdisciplinary group of GWU and non-GWU scholars along with an array of global leaders from Government, Industry, and Civil Society to:

review the unique set of processes which made it possible for the CRPD to enjoy one of the fastest rates of adoption among Human Rights treaties and how its digital accessibility dispositions are now promoted by a grassroots multi-stakeholders cooperative work across the globe;
identify specific areas of opportunities in supporting country-level policy making and international cooperative efforts in the field of digital accessibility policy making;
raise awareness among the current Federal Administration officials and industry leaders of the potential leadership role that the United States can play in promoting digital accessibility rights around the world
Proceedings of the workshop will be video recorded, edited and made available on both the IGIS and G3ict web sites and the presentations compiled to produce an update of G3ict’s initial compendium on ICT accessibility policy making, The Accessibility Imperative, with the GWU faculty delivering a “State of the Scholarship” report for publication as well as policy briefs for U.S. congressional leaders.

Program Committee

His Excellency Luis Gallegos, Ambassador of Ecuador to the United States; past Chair of the Ad Hoc Preparatory Committee of the United Nations General Assembly for the CRPD (G3ict Chairperson)
Daniel Aghion, Executive Director, W2i
Mohammed Al-Tarawneh, Inaugural Chairperson and Vice-President 2010, UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities
Francesca Cesa Bianchi, Director, External Relations, G3ict
A.R. Forcke, Public Sector Market Manager, IBM Research - Human Ability & Accessibility Center
Larry Goldberg, Director of Media Access, WGBH (or Trisha O’Connell)
Akiko Ito, Chief, Secretariat for the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities/UN Focal Point on Disability, UN DESA
John D. Kemp, Esq., Partner, Powers Pyles Sutter & Verville PC; Executive Director and General Counsel U.S. Business Leadership Network (USBLN®); (G3ict Research Committee Chair)
Axel Leblois, Executive Director, G3ict
Susan Mazrui, Director, Federal Regulatory Affairs, AT&T
Debra Ruh, CEO and Founder, TecAccess
Paul Schafer, Information Technology (IT) Specialist & Assistant Section 508 Coordinator, U.S. Department of State
James Thurston, Senior Strategist, Global Policy and Standards, Microsoft
Dr. Susan Sell, Professor of Political Science and International Affairs; Director, Institute for Global and International Studies, Elliott School of International Affairs, George Washington University
Representative of GWU School of Education

Participants

GWU faculty and non-GWU Academics
International D.C.-based delegations
World Bank representatives
Representatives from the International Telecommunication Union (ITU)
Representatives from UNESCO
International delegations of Disabled Persons Organizations
ICT Industry and ICT corporate and institutional users
State and local government broadband planners and policy makers
U.S. Federal government representatives
Non-Governmental Organizations
Elliott School Alumni who are significant actors in this policy space

Download the agenda
See the list of speakers
Also see G3ict for full details

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/ict-accessibility-conference

G3ict and CIS in collboration

radha — 2011-08-17T08:44:56Z

The G3ict and Centre for Internet and Society, India (www.cis-india.org) are collaborating on a white paper comparing internet accessibility policies and legislative frameworks in 15 countries across the world.

The paper seeks to identify initiatives which different countries have taken to make the internet more accessible. Countries chosen for the study include both developed and developing countries having very comprehensive legislations like USA and Germany, as well as countries having less detailed policies which are both low in scope of coverage as well as applicability like Portugal. The study will map the policies against several criteria such as their scope of coverage (only the internet or including electronic accessibility), applicability (only to the Government or to both the public and private sector), efficacy of the monitoring mechanism, provision for review, penalty in case of non compliance and so on.

Based on the findings of the study, the paper will identify generic options which policy makers could adopt to address the specific needs of their countries. This study will also form part of the larger tool kit for policy makers which G3ict is jointly publishing with the ITU.

The paper will be peer reviewed by experts in different countries to ensure that information which is given in the study is accurate and up to date. The paper will be published on the G3ict website in the first week of October and will be open for review by interested experts.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/g3ict-and-cis-in-collboration

Free Copyright Control to Help Blind Students: Xavier's Resource Centre

praskrishna — 2011-04-02T13:10:36Z

This article throws light on the fact that even though technology has made it possible for visually challenged to access print material, there is little awareness among authors and publishers to make it accessible, and hence, only an amendment in copyright laws can bring about this awareness.

Technology has made it possible for the visually challenged to access the print. But there is little awareness among publishers and authors about the need to make printed documents accessible to all. An amendment in copyright laws is needed to bring about this awareness.

To make it happen, the Xavier’s Resource Centre for the Visually Challenged (XRCVC) has urged authors and publishers to support the global Right to Read [RTR] campaign initiated by the World Blind Union and Sight Savers International among others.

“The proposed amendments to the Indian Copyright Act are yet to be tabled in Parliament. But it is not just the law that needs to change,” said Dr Sam Taraporevala, XRCVC director. “There needs to be a quantum leap in the mindset, where people are thinking of accessibility across diverse dimensions.”

The XRCVC has urged authors and publishers to sign the RTR declaration. Technology can convert print into audio, larger print or Braille. But very little content has been converted into formats accessible to the print impaired.
The RTR campaign seeks to bring about changes to copyright laws, increase public awareness on the issue of access to reading for the print-impaired, and gather support for the treaty for the blind proposed by the WBU at the World Intellectual Property Organisation.

The XRCVC feels that amendments to the Indian Copyright Act should take interests of all stake holders into consideration. “A coordinated effort is required by all the stake holders, like the government, the copyright owners, persons with print impairment and organisations representing them, and the public,” Taraporevala said. “Signing the declaration does not involve handing over rights but indicates a statement of intent in support for the cause.”

For link to the original story on DNA.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/free-copyright-control-to-help-blind-students

France, Greece, India and the European Union Sign the Marrakesh Treaty

nehaa — 2014-05-02T23:23:25Z

On April 30, 2014, on Day 3 of the 27th Session of the WIPO Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights, a Signing Ceremony was conducted for member states wishing to sign the Marrakesh Treaty to facilitate access to books and other reading material for the print disabled.

Read the WIPO Signing Ceremony for Marrakesh Treaty

Opening the proceedings, the Director General of WIPO, Francis Gurry called the Marrakesh Treaty “one of the greatest achievements of this Committee in the past year.” The Hon’ble Ambassador of France in his speech following that of the Director General emphasised the importance that his government placed on this treaty. Mrs. Veena Ish, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Human Resource Development signed the Marrakesh Treaty for the Government of India. In her address at the Signing Ceremony, Mrs. Ish placed emphasis on India’s 2012 amendments to the Copyright Act, 1957, stating that these provisions were “in complete harmony” with the Marrakesh Treaty and that India was “well poised” to implement the same. Mrs.Ish also stated that India would be ratifying the treaty “very soon.” Most importantly perhaps, Mrs. Ish reminded the Committee that appropriate mechanisms to implement this treaty would have to be put in place; and that implementing it in its true spirit would require cooperation from all member states. The Ambassador of Greece, speaking on behalf of Greece and the European Union said that they wanted the Marrakesh Treaty to serve its original purpose of benefitting persons with print disabilities.

The European Blind Union (EBU) and the Secretary General of (and speaking on behalf of) the International Publishers’ Association (IPA) also made statements at the Signing Ceremony. EBU was of the opinion that while the signature was a “major, symbolic leap forward”, the next crucial step was to ensure its speedy ratification so that it might become effective. IPA echoed previous speakers on the point that ratification and implementation were but first steps, and that access would only be achieved as a result of “collaboration between rights organizations and rights holders.”

It will be interesting to see how these member states follow up on their signatures to the Marrakesh Treaty. The treaty will only be effective 3 months after at least 20 nations have ratified it.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/france-greece-india-eu-sign-marrakesh-treaty

For a Truly Inclusive Consultative Process

salelkar — 2014-07-02T04:44:14Z

At Inclusive Planet we attempt to engage as many people with disabilities as possible with the consultative process which precedes the enactment of legislation and policy, and we are very happy with the NDA Government’s positive steps in putting out all proposed amendments to the public at large for feedback.

Some of the areas on which public comment has been sought is the proposed repeal and reenactment of the Juvenile Justice Act, the amendments of three labour laws viz. the Factories Act, the Minimum Wages Act, and the Prevention of Child Labour Act, and the Railways Ministry has asked for comments towards the formulation of the Rail Budget. All of these are extremely key legislations and in fact there is a lot to contribute in terms of suggesting enabling provisions towards accessibility and recognizing potential discrimination against persons with disabilities.

Unfortunately, the disabilities sector is faced with two major problems when it comes to this process. One is that the material which is uploaded onto the respective government websites is inaccessible for screen readers. Many of these are large documents which are essentially scanned copies of the printed notifications – for example, the Factories Act press release is now available in an easier format than the original version which had been uploaded. The websites themselves are not easy to navigate and are not screen reader friendly. Efforts are on by the newly launched India Access Hub to convert these documents into an accessible format for contributors and discussions on their forum, however, the process seems tedious and there is no reason why the Government bodies cannot ensure that the best possible document, screen reader compatibility wise, is not made available to the public. This would ensure that precious time is not consumed in the process of making the document accessible.

Which is closely linked to the second issue – the comments and suggestions which have been called for are required within a short period of time – between 15 days (Juvenile Justice Act) to 30 days (all three labour legislations) and while the advertisement for the Railway Budget appears to have been put out on the weekend of the 21^st of June, since the budget itself is slated to be tabled on the 8^th of July by recent media reports, feedback is realistically required within this week itself. The process becomes exclusionary on account of these narrow deadlines – the presumption being made is that specialized agencies with able-bodied representatives can revert speedily with their feedback. The disability sector is quite keen on responding to all proposed legislation, as the provisions of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities demand compliance in terms of non discrimination and access across all sectors. It is also difficult to respond with such momentum considering that many stakeholders are not online, and for some, processing and expressing viewpoints may take longer than the average person, not to mention the importance of making this information available in a simplified format. Ideally, any person with impairment should be able to express their views and be considered as a stakeholder; however, with the barriers in place which prevent effective access and accommodation to the expression of views, 15% of the population may effectively be disabled to that extent.

This is by no means a new complaint – the lack of accessibility of government documentation has been rampant and raised before previous Governments as well – however, the hope is that with the NDA Government’s manifesto focus on using information technology to alleviate the concerns of persons with disabilities, that the mandate for all Government Websites to be compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 will be implemented with immediate effect, and in the meantime that Government Officials be instructed to upload fully accessible documents to their websites. It would also not be out of place to institute a common information portal for all documents open for public consultation to make such access easier for all.

There should never be any bar on access to information: particularly that which affords an opportunity to the public to be heard and considered. It is sincerely hoped that the new Government takes a much needed positive step in this direction.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/for-a-truly-inclusive-consultative-process

Follow-up Letter in Support of WIPO Treaty for Reading Disabled

sachia — 2011-08-25T08:43:42Z

CIS has sent another letter to the Department of Higher Education, Ministry for Human Resource Development, petitioning it to support the WIPO Treaty for the reading disabled.

In November last year, CIS launched a nation wide signature campaign to support the treaty for the blind, visually impaired and other reading disabled proposed by the World Blind Union to the WIPO. Since then, the list of signatories was updated. In May 2009, WIPO's Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR) held another meeting, and in light of this, the endorsement of the treaty and appeal to the government to support it was resubmitted, by an increased number of signatories, including members of the DAISY Forum of India.

The letter and list of signatories is available below.

Mr. R. P. Aggarwal
Secretary

Department of Higher Education
Ministry of Human Resource Development
‘C’ Wing, Shastri Bhavan
New Delhi-110001

Dear Sir,

Re: Letter of support for the proposed Treaty for the blind and visually impaired submitted by the World Blind Union.

We were extremely gratified that the Government took note of our letter in November, 2008, containing endorsements of 16 organisations urging the government to support the Treaty for the Blind, which was proposed by the World Blind Union in the WIPO SCCR meeting from Nov 1^st-6^th,2008. In light of the fact that there is another SCCR meeting scheduled from May 25^th-29^th, where this issue is to be taken up, we are resubmitting our endorsement and urgent plea to the Government to actively support this treaty, since it will be extremely beneficial to all blind, visually challenged and print disabled persons in India. The list of endorsers has expanded to include about 50 more organizations. There are many more who have verbally expressed support. We look forward to an active response from the Government on this. Thanking you,

Yours Faithfully,

Nirmita Narasimhan
Programme Manager
(Centre for Internet and Society)

Sr. No	Name of Organization	Contact Person
1	Akhil Bharatiya Drishtiheen Kalyan Sangh,	Mr. Ajay M. Joshi
2	Amulya Sahara	Sh. Ashok Kumar Goyal
3	Andhjan Kalyan Trust,	Mr. Praful N. Vyas
4	Arushi	Sh. Anil Mudgal
5	Astha	Ms Radhika M. Alkazi,
6	Atmajyoti Vikas Samitee	Mrs. Priti Yadav
7	Blind People's Association (Ahmedabad)	Mr. R.P. Soni
8	Blind Person's Association (Kolkata)	Mr. Amiyo Biswas
9	Blind Welfare Council	Sh. Yusuf Kapadiya
10	Centre For Internet And Society	Sunil Abraham,
11	Devnar Foundation for the Blind	Dr. A. Saibaba Goud
12	Discipleship Centre	Mr. John A
13	Farook College	Prof. K. Kuttialikutty
14	Hans Raj Mahila Maha Vidyalaya	Ms. Prabha Puran Sharma
15	Human Development Institute	Ms. R.C. Meena
16	Indian Association for the Blind	Mr. S.M.A. Jinnah,
17	Indira Mahila Mandal Hudco New Nandeds	Sh. Nagnath Ramji Kadam
18	Jamia Millia Islamia	Prof. Zubair Meenal,
19	Janta Adarsh Andh Vidyalaya	Mrs. Kalpana Sharma
20	Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya	Rajesh Gupta
21	Jyoti Sroat School	Bertha G. Dkhar
22	L.V. Prasad Eye Institute	Mr./Ms. Beula Christy
23	Lakshmi Bai College	Dr. Nalini Govind
24	Maulana AzadLibrary(AligarhMuslim Universit)	Mr. Shakeel Ahmad Khan Mr. Shakeel Ahmad Khan
25	Mitra Jyothi	Ms. Madhu Singhal
26	Montfort Centre For Education	Mr. Michael Mathew
27	National Association for the Blind, Delhi
28	NAB-Phiroze &NoshirMerwanjiRehabilitationCentre for the Blind (Mount Abu)	Sh. Vimal Kumar Dengla
29	National Association for the Blind (Uttarakhand)	Mr. Shyam Dhanak,
30	National Association for the Blind (Chandigarh)	Sh. Vinod Chadha
31	National Association for the Blind (H.)	Ms. Shalini Vats Kimta
32	National Association for the Blind (India)	Sh. Suhas V. Karnik
33	National Association for the Blind(Jharkhand)	Sh. Ar. Sahay
34	National Association for the Blind(Junagad)	Ms. Rinaben V. Jasani
35	National Association for the Blind (Karnataka),	(Mrs.) Saroja Ramachandra
36	National Association for the Blind (Kerala)	Sh. Manoj Kurian
37	National Association for the Blind (Sikkim Branch)	Mr. Rajesh Verma
38	National Association for the Blind(West Bengal)	Sh. Arup Chakroborty
39	National Federation of the Blind (Guwahati)	Mohd. Imran Ali
40	North Ex. Blind Welfare & Educational Society	Sh. Subhash Garg
41	Orissa Association for the Blind	Sh. Bihari Nayak
42	Rajasthan Netraheen Kalyan Sangh	Sh. Jitendra Bhargava
43	Ramakrishna Mission Blind Boys' Academy	Sh. Sunilbaran Pattanayak
44	Saksham	Ms. Deepika Sood,
45	Salwan Public School	Mrs. Vandana Puri
46	Samarthanam Trust for the Disabled	Sh. Ganesh
47	Samrita Trust	Sh. Seetarama Sastry Nori
48	School for the Deaf Mutes Society	Dr. Homiyar Mobedji
49	Score Foundation,	George Abraham
50	Shikshit Yuva Sewa Samiti Basti	Mr. Gopal Krishna Agarwal
51	Shree Andhjan Vividhlaxi Talim Kendra,	Sh. Prakash Mankodi
52	Shri Navchetan Andhjan Mandal,	Sh. Himanshu Sampura
53	Shri Venkateswara College	Ayesha Maliwal
54	Shri Vrajlal Durlabhji Parekh Andh Mahila Vikas Grah,	Sh. P.J. Mankodi
55	Shruti Information Centre of Yashoda Charitable Trust	Ms. Sonal Sena
56	Shubham	Dr. Sangeeta Agarwal
57	Springdales School	Ms. Sonali Bose
58	St. Mary's School
59	Tagore International School,	Ms. Aparna Sharma
60	The Blind Relief Association (Delhi)	Sh. Kailash Chandra Pande
61	University of Hyderabad	Dr. Madhireddy Anjaneyulu
62	Venu Eye Institute & Research Centre	Ms. Tanuja Joshi
63	Victoria Memorial School for the Blind	Mrs. Radha Subrahmanian
64	Welfare Centre For Visually Handicapped,	Mr. Profulla Kumar Rout
65	Welfare Society for the Blind,	Smt. Jharna Sur
66	Xavier's Resource Centre for the Visually Challenged (XRCVC)	Dr. Sam Taraporevala
67	Sense International (India)	Akhil Paul
68	N. Krishnaswamy Barrier Break Technologies (Mumbai)	Shilpi Kapoor
69	National Association for the Blind (NAB) Bangalore	Mr. Pruthviraj
70	National Federation for the Blind (Delhi)	S.K.Rungta
71	Mitrajyoti (Bangalore)	Madhu Singhal
72	Accessability (New Delhi)	Vikas Sharma
73	Alternative Law Forum (Bangalore)	Lawrence Liang
74	Acrodelon Technologies Pvt Ltd(Chennai)	Rahul Cherian
75	Enable India	Shanthi Raghavan
76	College Students and Graduates Association of the Blind(Chennai)	Ponmudi
77	Indian Association for the Blind(Chennai)	S.M.A. Jinnah
78	Prayatna(Chennai & Bangalore)	Aruna Sankaranarayanan
79	Worth Trust, Katpadi (TN)	Venki/Mike

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/follow-up-letter-in-support-of-wipo-treaty-for-reading-disabled

Five from Bengaluru get Helen Keller awards

Admin — 2017-11-27T15:21:29Z

Those from the city continue to dominate the 18th Helen Keller Awards 2017 with five Bengaluru-based individuals and organisations being honoured for their work towards empowerment of the differently-abled.

The article was published in the Hindu on October 27, 2017

A total of 10 people, NGO or companies will be awarded at the NCPEDP-Mindtree Helen Keller Awards 2017 to be held on December 2 in New Delhi.

In the category of ‘Role model disabled person’, Nirmita Narasimhan, policy director, Centre For Internet and Society, and Pradip Sinha, executive at Dell-EMC, will be awarded. Swaminathan Subramanian, manager at ANZ Bengaluru Service Centre, will be awarded for being a ‘Role model supporter of increased employment opportunities for disabled persons’. Bengaluru-based Hatti Food and Beverages Pvt. Ltd., and Vindhya e Infomedia Pvt. Ltd. were chosen as ‘role model companies’ for promoting equal employment opportunities for people with disabilities.

The Helen Keller awards were started in 1999 by the National Centre for Promotion of Employment for Disabled People (NCPEDP) with the aim of encouraging and increasing the participation of the disabled in the formal workforce.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/news/hindu-october-27-2017-five-from-bengaluru-get-helen-keller-awards

First Meeting on a National Policy for Web Accessibility

nirmita — 2011-08-25T08:38:03Z

The first meeting to discuss having a national policy for web accessibility to ensure universal and inclusive participation was held at the Centre for Internet and Society's office on 7 November 2008. It was aimed at formulating an action plan to work with the government and other private and public bodies to ensure conformity to accessibility standards for web sites.

The first meeting to discuss making compliance with web accessibility standards a part of the national policy agenda was held today (7 November 2008) at the CIS office. Fifteen participants representing organizations from the disability sector, media and law firms came together to discuss the why, what and how of mandatory compliance with web accessibility standards for Indian government web sites.

The meeting started off with brief introductions of the participants, followed by a presentation by Rahul Gonsalves introducing the concept of and need for web accessibility standards amongst web developers. In his presentation, Rahul gave some examples of the kinds of problems faced by different users of the net and simple solutions to solve these problems. Speaking from the perspective of a web designer, he pointed out that while the total cost of creating an accessible web site is merely about 2-3% more than a normal web site, revamping an existing web site to make it conform to accessibility standards is a more complicated and expensive task. He further clarified that for a website to be accessible, it is not merely enough that it is created in accordance with accessibility standards; all future additions and modifications must be made with accessibility in mind. Hence, persons working on the web site should be initiated into creating accessible web pages.

The second presentation of the day was by Jayna Kothari of Ashira Law Services. Jayna, a lawyer who is well known for taking up disability related cases in Bangalore, talked about the Persons with Disabilities (Equal Opportunities, Protection of Rights and Full Participation) Act 1995 (PWD Act) and highlighted provisions of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities which came into force in May 2008. She began by talking about the right to access information being a fundamental right guaranteed by Article 19 of our constitution and gave references to various sections in the PWD Act. The Act calls for the setting up of Central and State Co-ordination Committees to ensure that action is taken to give effect to the provisions of the PWD Act and that an accessible, barrier free and inclusive environment is created for persons with disabilities in all spheres such as health, education, employment, transportation, etc. Jayna also highlighted that article 9 of the UNCRPD called for persons with disabilities to have an equal right to access to information and communication. Hence the mandate was not restricted to government web sites only. She opined that we could potentially work with the State and Central Co-ordination Committees to include web accessibility on their agenda of urgent requirements.

Mr Ganesh of Samarthanam Trust for the Disabled talked about intervention at the level of educational organizations and training institutes. He said that instead of merely discussing strategies which are designed to target the Government and get its attention, we also need to work on building awareness amongst the coming generation of web site developers and appeal to schools, training institutes like the NIIT and other educational organizations and centres of learning to disseminate awareness about accessibility right from the beginning. The approach, in other words, has to be both top-down and bottom-up. Ushajee Peri from the Alternative Law Forum (ALF) talked briefly about the Right to Information Act (2005) and said that since the right to information is a fundamental right, we need to carefully analyse provisions of the Act under which we could push for web accessibility.

Mr. L. Subramani from the Deccan Herald talked in brief about media strategy and about how publications could help in creating awareness and pressure. Finally, Meenu Bambani from MPhasiS talked about the 11th Five Year Plan and cited various provisions from it which called for specific measures for disabled persons. After an entire chapter devoted to disability, nothing has as yet been achieved in the year since the plan came into force, even though India has ratified the UNCRPD. Meenu called for immediate action to push the Government for implementation of the chapter on disability in the 11th Five Year Plan. As per the plan, each Government department was to allocate 3% of its funds for supporting disabled persons; this has not been done so far. Meenu believes that 3 December, which is usually celebrated as the World Disabilities Day, should this year be spent in introspection on what we have not achieved and on how we can push the state and government authorities to take their international and national commitments with respect to disabled persons seriously.

There was also a brief discussion on how laws in different countries accommodated web accessibility. For instance in the USA, Section 508 requires web sites of all federal agencies to comply with web accessibility guidelines. In the UK, the Code of Conduct which was brought out by the Disabilities Rights Commission (DRC) under the Disabilities Discrimination Act 2002 (DDA) mandates that persons with disabilities should have the right to access goods, services, facilities and premises on an equal basis as others. Section 2.14 lists the different kinds of services and 2.17 specifically says that a website is a provision of service and hence should be accessible. PAS 78 lays down guidelines for web developers for creating accessible web sites. While some participants expressed curiosity about the actual number of disabled persons using the internet in India, it was generally understood that only by making web sites more accessible could we widen the net of disabled users and enhance universal access and participation.

Another area for intervention was presented by Sunil Abraham in the form of a discussion on the national policy for Open Standards. Sunil said that CIS had given an addendum to the response to the draft national policy on open standards which specifically dealt with web accessibility for disabled and elderly persons. By ensuring that WCAG compliance is inserted in the presentation layer of the Government Interoperability Framework (GIF), which the Government is shortly expected to release, we could make a definite and substantial intervention.

The final conclusions of the meeting were that there were different areas and scopes for intervention and they all had to be simultaneously pursued by different groups. Everyone agreed that we should try and work with the National Informatics Centre (NIC) to make all government web sites accessible. Almost all participants felt that while it was not possible to impose web accessibility standards on private entities, we need not restrict ourselves to government web sites in our recommendations and should include at least public listed companies as well. Mr. Subramani felt that working with NASSCOM might be useful for that. Finally it was also decided that an appeal for web accessibility would be put out by CIS at the Walkathon to be organized by Samarthanam on 6 December, since it would be a good platform for spreading awareness and gaining support amongst disabled users, public authorities, organizations and the public at large.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/first-meeting-on-a-national-policy-for-web-access-for-all

February 2017 Newsletter

praskrishna — 2017-05-20T12:46:41Z

Welcome to the February 2017 newsletter of the Centre for Internet & Society (CIS).

Dear readers,

We are pleased to bring you the Centre for Internet & Society's February newsletter. Previous issues of the newsletters can be accessed here.

Highlights
Submitted comments on the Vision Document 2030 published by the Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities in February 2017. Our submission recommended that the vision articulate more clearly in terms of quantifiable targets what it seeks to achieve at different points of time and that these targets are not so minimally set as to undermine the aims of the Act and the national commitments outlined therein. Ting-Yi Chang wrote an article on the state of women editors in Wikipedia. In a write-up published by Your Story on February 7, Ting-Yi explored the reasons for the low percentage of women centric articles on the social media platform and how could the gender gap be bridged. In a research paper Anisha Gupta has assessed the privacy protections under 15 e-governance schemes. The paper analysed the schemes rolled out by the government, starting from 2010. Amber Sinha, Vanya Rakesh and Vidushi Marda authored a research paper that has sought to understand the most effective way of researching Big Data in the Global South. The second edition of the Internet Researchers' Conference, an annual conference initiated by CIS to bring researchers, academicians and others on a common platform to share insights and chart the way foreword was held in Bengaluru. Divij Joshi and Aditya Chawla in a report studied five Indian telecommunication companies and three Indian online service providers. The report has evaluated the practices and policies of companies which provide internet infrastructure or internet services, and are integral intermediaries to the everyday experience of the internet in India. General Data Protection Regulation (EU) 2016/679 was passed, which shall replace the present Data Protection Directive DPD 95/46/EC. This step is likely to impact the way of working for many organisations. In this light CIS requests you to take part in a survey aimed at understanding how various organisations view the changes in the Data Protection Regime in the European Union.

CIS in the news:

India WhatsApp Privacy Fight May Affect Multinationals (Nayanima Basu; Bloomberg BNA; February 1, 2017).
Crowdsourced innovation for government projects and services is easier said than done (Kunal Talgeri; The Times of India; February 3, 2017).
Giving out your fingerprint for Aadhar payments is as bad as telling the seller your banking password (Nimish Sawant; First Post Tech 2; February 3, 2017).
Don't dive headlong into money-making schemes on the internet (Sanjay Kumar Singh; Business Standard; February 7, 2017).
Indian public concerned about fingerprint payment scheme (Rawlson King; Biometricupdate.com; February 9, 2017).
India's Aadhaar with biometric details of its billion citizens is making experts uncomfortable (Mashable India; February 14, 2017).
No Genie At Your Fingertips (Arindam Mukherjee; Outlook; February 20, 2017).
LinkedIn will help people in India train for semi-skilled jobs (John Riberio; IDG News Service and mirrored on CIO Blog; February 21, 2017).
India To Let Private Companies Access Citizens’ Biometric Data (Joshua Kopstein; Vocativ; February 21, 2017).
Is Your Aadhar Biometrics Safe? Firms Accused Of Storing Biometrics And Using Them Illegally (Outlook; February 24, 2017).

CIS members wrote the following articles:

Digital Native: Do not go Gently into the Good Night (Nishant Shah; Indian Express; February 9, 2017).
Digital Native: Who will Watch the Watchman? (Nishant Shah; Indian Express; February 19, 2017).
Can the Judiciary Upturn the Lok Sabha Speaker’s Decision on Aadhaar? (Amber Sinha; Wire; February 21, 2017).

Jobs

Policy Officer (Cyber Security)
Senior Policy Officer (Cyber Security)
Internship - Application accepted throughout the year
Survey Participants for Research on Musician Livelihood

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Accessibility & Inclusion
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India has an estimated 70 million persons with disabilities who don't have access to read printed materials due to some form of physical, sensory, cognitive or other disability. As part of our endeavour to make available accessible content for persons with disabilities, we are developing a text-to-speech software in 15 languages with support from the Hans Foundation. The progress made so far in the project can be accessed here.

Submission

Comments on Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities 'Vision Document 2030' (Nirmita Narasimhan; February 28, 2017).

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Access to Knowledge
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Our Access to Knowledge programme currently consists of two projects. The Pervasive Technologies project, conducted under a grant from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), aims to conduct research on the complex interplay between low-cost pervasive technologies and intellectual property, in order to encourage the proliferation and development of such technologies as a social good. The Wikipedia project, which is under a grant from the Wikimedia Foundation, is for the growth of Indic language communities and projects by designing community collaborations and partnerships that recruit and cultivate new editors and explore innovative approaches to building projects.

►Wikipedia

As part of the project grant from the Wikimedia Foundation we have reached out to more than 3500 people across India by organizing more than 100 outreach events and catalysed the release of encyclopaedic and other content under the Creative Commons (CC-BY-3.0) license in four Indian languages (21 books in Telugu, 13 in Odia, 4 volumes of encyclopaedia in Konkani and 6 volumes in Kannada, and 1 book on Odia language history in English).

Blog Entries

Marathi Wikipedia Edit-a-thon (Subodh Kulkarni; February 8, 2017)
Only 8.5pc of Wikipedia Editors are Women. How do we fix the Gender Gap on the Internet? (Ting-Yi Chang; February 9, 2017).
WikiTungi: Bhubaneswar City Wiki Community Turns 1 (Sailesh Patnaik; February 27, 2017).

Event Organized

Marathi Wikisource & Digitisation Workshop (Organized by CIS, Maharashtra Granthottejak Sanstha, Maharashtra Knowledge Corporation Limited and Jnana Prabhodini; Jnana Prabodhini, Sadashiv Peth, Pune; February 17, 2017 and C Trade Tower, Senapati Bapat Road, Pune; February 18, 2017).

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Internet Governance
-----------------------------------

As part of its research on privacy and free speech, CIS is engaged with two different projects. The first one (under a grant from Privacy International and IDRC) is on surveillance and freedom of expression (SAFEGUARDS). The second one (under a grant from MacArthur Foundation) is on restrictions that the Indian government has placed on freedom of expression online.

►Privacy

Research Papers

Comparison of General Data Protection Regulation and Data Protection Directive (Aditi Chaturvedi and Edited by Leilah Elmokadem; February 7, 2017).
Ranking Digital Rights in India (Divij Joshi and Aditya Chawla; February 12, 2017).

Privacy Gaps in India's Digital India Project (Anisha Gupta; edited by Amber Sinha; February 21, 2017).

Survey

Survey on Data Protection Regime (Aditi Chaturvedi and Elonnai Hickok; February 10, 2017).

Participation in Events

Surveillance in India: Policy and Practice (Organized by National Institute of Public Finance and Policy; New Delhi; February 9, 2017). Pranesh Prakash was a speaker.
T20 Mumbai 2017: Dialogue on the Emerging World Economy (Organized by Gateway House, Indian Council on Global Relations; Mumbai; February 13 - 14, 2017). Elonnai Hickok attended the event.

►Big Data

Research Paper

Big Data in Governance in India: Case Studies (Amber Sinha, Vanya Rakesh and Vidushi Marda and Edited by Elonnai Hickok, Sumandro Chattapadhyay and Sunil Abraham; February 19, 2017).

►Freedom of Expression and Cyber Security

Participation in Event

Digital Security for Journalists (February 2 and 3, 2017). Pranesh Prakash conducted two workshops on consecutive days. The first one organized by IndiaSpend was held in their office. The second one organized by a fellow with the International Center Journalists was held in the Hindustan Times office.
Securing Digital Payments: Imperatives for a Growing Ecosystem (Organized by ORF and Koan Advisory; The Claridges, New Delhi; February 3, 2017). Udbhav Tiwari attended the round-table conference.
Fake News, Rumors & Online Content Regulation (Organized by Medianama and Mint; India Habitat Centre; February 22, 2017). Japreet Grewal and Amber Sinha attended the event.

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Telecom
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CIS is involved in promoting access and accessibility to telecommunications services and resources, and has provided inputs to ongoing policy discussions and consultation papers published by TRAI. It has prepared reports on unlicensed spectrum and accessibility of mobile phones for persons with disabilities and also works with the USOF to include funding projects for persons with disabilities in its mandate:

Article

A Pathfinding Approach for Digital India (Shyam Ponappa; Business Standard; January 31, 2017 and Organizing India Blogspot; February 1, 2017).

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Researchers at Work
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The Researchers at Work (RAW) programme is an interdisciplinary research initiative driven by an emerging need to understand the reconfigurations of social practices and structures through the Internet and digital media technologies, and vice versa. It aims to produce local and contextual accounts of interactions, negotiations, and resolutions between the Internet, and socio-material and geo-political processes:

Event Organized

Internet Researchers' Conference 2017 (Organized by the Centre for Information Technology and Public Policy and CIS; International Institute of Information Technology, Bengaluru; March 3 - 5, 2017).

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About CIS
-----------------------------------
The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) is a non-profit organisation that undertakes interdisciplinary research on internet and digital technologies from policy and academic perspectives. The areas of focus include digital accessibility for persons with disabilities, access to knowledge, intellectual property rights, openness (including open data, free and open source software, open standards, open access, open educational resources, and open video), internet governance, telecommunication reform, digital privacy, and cyber-security. The academic research at CIS seeks to understand the reconfigurations of social and cultural processes and structures as mediated through the internet and digital media technologies.

► Follow us elsewhere

Twitter: http://twitter.com/cis_india
Twitter - Access to Knowledge: https://twitter.com/CISA2K
Twitter - Information Policy: https://twitter.com/CIS_InfoPolicy
Facebook - Access to Knowledge: https://www.facebook.com/cisa2k
E-Mail - Access to Knowledge: a2k@cis-india.org
E-Mail - Researchers at Work: raw@cis-india.org
List - Researchers at Work: https://lists.ghserv.net/mailman/listinfo/researchers

► Support Us

Please help us defend consumer and 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, artists, and theoreticians, both organisationally and as individuals, to engage with us on topics related internet and society, and improve our collective understanding of this field. To discuss such possibilities, please write to Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, at sunil@cis-india.org (for policy research), or Sumandro Chattapadhyay, Research Director, at sumandro@cis-india.org (for academic research), with an indication of the form and the content of the collaboration you might be interested in. To discuss collaborations on Indic language Wikipedia projects, write to Tanveer Hasan, Programme Officer, at tanveer@cis-india.org.

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

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/february-2017-newsletter

February 2014 Bulletin

praskrishna — 2014-04-07T07:27:46Z

The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) welcomes you to the second issue of its newsletter (February) for the year 2014:

-------------------------------
Highlights
-------------------------------

We published revised chapters for the states of Mizoram, Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Himachal Pradesh and Haryana, as part of our National Resource Kit project.
In the concluding blog post of a three-part study Ananth Padmanabhan looks at the Indian law in the Copyright Act and the Information Technology Act, and concludes that both those laws restrain courts and private companies from ordering an ISP to block a website for copyright infringement.
Telugu Wikipedia celebrated its 10^th anniversary. An event was co-organized in Vijaywada to celebrate the same.
The second Institute on Internet and Society was held in Pune from February 11 to 17. The proceedings from the workshop are captured in a blog post.
CIS announced an Open Call for Comments for the latest draft of the Privacy Bill, 2013 prepared by Bhairav Acharya.
Forbes India published its “30 Under 30 List”. Pranesh Prakash is featured in the list.
As part of the Making Change Project, Denisse Albornoz wrote a blog post that compares the production behind a performance with the process of storytelling.
Beli gives an introduction to spectrum sharing. The post looks at GSM and CDMA, and touches upon LTE, and how they might share spectrum.

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Jobs
-----------------------------------------------
CIS is seeking applications for the post of Program Officer (Access to Knowledge): http://bit.ly/1fnydB0. There are two vacancies for this post and it is full-time based in Delhi. To apply, please send your resume to Sunil Abraham (sunil@cis-india.org), Nirmita Narasimhan (nirmita@cis-india.org) and Pranesh Prakash (pranesh@cis-india.org) with three writing samples of which at least one demonstrates your analytic skills, and one that shows your ability to simplify complex policy issues.

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Accessibility and Inclusion
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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 Mizoram, Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Himachal Pradesh and Haryana. With this we have completed compilation of draft chapters for 35 states.

Based upon discussion with the office of the Chief Commissioner for Persons with Disabilities (CCPD) the following chapters were revised:

► National Resource Kit Chapter

The Mizoram Chapter (by CLPR, February 5, 2014): http://bit.ly/1eUSvxW
The Dadra & Nagar Haveli Chapter (by CLPR, February 6, 2014): http://bit.ly/1mv3YhJ
The Haryana Chapter (by Anandhi Viswanathan, February 10, 2014): http://bit.ly/1dVOiKI
The Himachal Pradesh Chapter (by Anandhi Viswanathan, February 12, 2014): http://bit.ly/1jSk03x

► Other

# Participation in Events

National Consultation on Inclusion of Persons with Disabilities in Development Process (organized by CBM India in collaboration with United Nations Solution Exchange for Gender Community, WHO Regional office for South-East Asia, New Delhi, February 12, 2014). Anandhi Viswanathan participated in a panel discussion. She made a presentation on the National Resource Kit project: http://bit.ly/OlkHVq.
Zero Project Conference on Accessibility: Innovative Policies and Practices for Persons with Disabilities (organized by Essl Foundation, the World Future Council and the European Foundation Centre, United Nations Office, Vienna, February 27 and 28, 2014). Pranesh Prakash spoke on Affordable Text-to-Speech Software from India: http://bit.ly/1czo32s. Nominations on e-speak were recognised as examples of innovative practices and policies from India. Pranesh Prakash was also a speaker on Copyright Exception for Accessible Formats: http://bit.ly/1l8HRth.

-----------------------------------------------------------
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.

# Analyses

Can Judges Order ISPs to Block Websites for Copyright Infringement? (Part 2) (by Ananth Padmanabhan, February 5, 2014): http://bit.ly/1cddoKm. Analyses the law laid down by the U.S. Supreme Court and the Delhi High Court on secondary and contributory copyright infringement.
Can Judges Order ISPs to Block Websites for Copyright Infringement? (Part 3) (by Ananth Padmanabhan, February 5, 2014): http://bit.ly/1g35mDg. Analyses the Indian law in the Copyright Act and the Information Technology Act.

# Participation in Events

2nd International Conference on Managing Intellectual Property Rights and Strategy (MIPS 2014) (organized by Shailesh J. Mehta School of Management, IIT Bombay with support from the Ministry of Human Resources Development IPR Chair Project, Government of India): http://bit.ly/PsPEbq.
Consultation on Institutional Arrangements for IP management under MHRD (organized by the Planning Commission and Ministry of Human Resource Development, New Delhi, February 21, 2014). Nehaa Chaudhari participated in this consultation: http://bit.ly/1fTCoar.
National Conference on Use of Technology in Higher Education (organized by the Ministry of Human Resource and Development and Planning Commission in partnership with Microsoft Research and British Council, Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, February 25, 2014): http://bit.ly/P6u78i. Nehaa Chaudhari participated in the event as a panelist in the session on "Future of Content Creation".

# Media Coverage

Pranesh Prakash: Influencing India's IP Laws (by Samar Srivastava, Forbes India, February 15, 2014): http://bit.ly/1kBzLMq.

The following has been done under grant from the Wikimedia Foundation (http://bit.ly/SPqFOl). As part this project (http://bit.ly/X80ELd), we organised 4 workshops in the month of January, published an article in DNA, and signed a memorandum of understanding with KIIT University and Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences to further the development of Odia Wikipedia:

►Wikipedia

# Articles / Blog Entries

Odia Language's Presence in Digital Media and Wikipedia's Role (by Subhashish Panigrahi, The Samaja, March 2, 2014): http://bit.ly/1ieF3sC.
Indian Wikimedia community coordinates Women’s History Month (by Netha Hussain and Jeph Paul, Wikimedia Foundation, March 6, 2014): http://bit.ly/1cyRfqf,

# Events Co-organized

Cinemathon2014 Bangalore (organized by Pad.ma and CIS-A2K, CIS, Bangalore, February 8-9, 2014): http://bit.ly/MRRkZz.
Tewiki 10th Anniversary (organized by CIS-A2K and Telugu Wikipedia community, February 15, 2014): http://bit.ly/1iI2Pxs. T. Vishnu Vardhan and Rahmanuddin Shaikh were speakers at the event.
Cinemathon2014 Mumbai (organized by Pad.ma and CIS-A2K, CAMP Studio, Mumbai, February 15-16, 2014): http://bit.ly/P5YGL8.
Wikipedia Mangalore Workshop (organized by Roshini Nilaya and CIS-A2K, Mangalore, February 26, 2014). Dr. U.B.Pavanaja gave a presentation on Wikipedia with a special focus on students and women.

CIS gave its inputs to the following media coverage:

# Media Coverage

Father-son duo promote Punjabi online (by Jatinder Preet, Sunday Guardian, February 1, 2014): http://bit.ly/1l87b2h.
୧୦ ବର୍ଷରେ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ୱିକିପିଡିଆ (Rabibara Sambad (Sunday supplement of Odia newspaper The Sambad), February 9, 2014): http://bit.ly/1igMynn. This is a feature about Odia Wikipedia's 10th anniversary and the story of a dead volunteer community reviving after 8 years.
Wikipedia Mangalore Workshop (Prajavani, February 27, 2014): http://bit.ly/1gVMG6f.

# Participation in Event

The Dynamics of Education to Employment Journey: Opportunities and Challenges (organized by KIIT School of Management, KIIT University, Bhubaneswar, February 21-22, 2014). T. Vishnu Vardhan gave a talk: http://bit.ly/1ePwqHc.

Event Organized

Wiki Women's Workshop (ICG – Dona Paula, Goa, March 9, 2014): http://bit.ly/MRRJLy. The event is being organized as part of the commemoration of the International Women's Day.

Openness

# Event Organised

Bitcoin & Open Source with Aaron Koenig (CIS, Bangalore, February 7, 2014): http://bit.ly/1fbN6mP.

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Internet Governance
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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. Gautam Bhatia gives an analysis of the right to privacy from a constitutional perspective. Bhairav Acharya prepared an updated version of the Privacy Protection Bill which was published for comments.

# Call for Comments

The Privacy Protection Bill, 2013 (by Bhairav Acharya, February 25, 2014): http://bit.ly/1g3TwIX. CIS announced an Open Call for Comments to the latest version of the bill.

# Articles

The Internet Way (by Nishant Shah, Biblio Vol. 19 No.8 (1&2), January – February 2014): http://bit.ly/1kBp9gJ. Dr. Nishant Shah's review of the book “The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon” by Bantam Press/Random House Group, London can be found on page 16.
Surveillance and the Indian Constitution - Part 3: The Public/Private Distinction and the Supreme Court’s Wrong Turn (by Gautam Bhatia, Indian Constitutional Law and Philosophy Blog, February 25, 2014): http://bit.ly/1kBosnw. This was originally published on Indian Constitutional Law and Philosophy Blog.
Big Democracy, Big Surveillance: India's Surveillance State (by Maria Xynou, Open Democracy, February 28, 2014): http://bit.ly/1nkg8Ho.
Will You be Paid to Post a Picture? (by Nishant Shah, Indian Express, February 18, 2014): http://bit.ly/P65d8L.

# Blog Entries

February 11: The Day We Fight Back Against Mass Surveillance (by Divij Joshi, February 14, 2014): http://bit.ly/1e7drCV.
Calcutta High Court Strengthens Whistle Blower Protection (by Divij Joshi, February 24, 2014): http://bit.ly/1cG8v7t.
CIS Welcomes 52nd Report on Cyber Crime, Cyber Security, and Right to Privacy (by Elonnai Hickok, February 24, 2014): http://bit.ly/1oviMJ4.
UIDAI Practices and the Information Technology Act, Section 43A and Subsequent Rules (by Elonnai Hickok, February 25, 2014): http://bit.ly/1fbSfep.

# Events Organized

Nullcon Goa Feb 2014 — International Security Conference (organised by Nullcon, Bogmallo Beach Resort, Goa, February 12 – 15, 2014). CIS is one of the sponsors for this event: http://bit.ly/1lrBu5I.
Counter Surveillance Panel: DiscoTech & Hackathon (co-organized by CIS, MIT Centre for Civic Media Co-Design Lab, Tactical Technology Collective, Hackteria.org, and Shristi School of Art, Design and Technology, Bangalore, March 1, 2014): http://bit.ly/NCGMyH

# Participation in Events

First Meeting of the Multistakeholder Advisory Group for India Internet Governance Forum (organized by the Department of Electronics and Information Technology, New Delhi, February 10, 2014). Sunil Abraham participated in this meeting: http://bit.ly/1fKu5xz.
Internet Intermediary Liability: Towards Evidence-based Policy and Regulatory Reform to Secure Human Rights on the internet (organized by Association for Progressive Communications, The Wedgewood, Melville, Johannesburg, February 10-11, 2014): http://bit.ly/1fMAEK2. Elonnai Hickok was a speaker.
Towards an Equitable and Just Internet (organized by IT for Change, New Delhi, February 14-15, 2014). Bhairav Acharya was a speaker: http://bit.ly/1cz9EDt.
Workshop on Media Law & Policy Curriculum Development (organized by the Centre for Communication Governance, National Law University, Delhi and University of Oxford in support with the International Higher Education-Knowledge Economy Partnerships Programme of the British Council, February 16, 2014, National Law University, Delhi): http://bit.ly/1ovoT00. Bhairav Acharya was a speaker.
The Changing Role of the Media in India: Constitutional Perspectives (organized by School of Law, Christ University, February 28, 2014): http://bit.ly/1lB2nTO. Snehashish Ghosh moderated a session at this conference.

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News & Media Coverage
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CIS gave its inputs to the following recent media coverage:

The Dangers of Birdsong (by Namrata Joshi, Outlook, January 25, 2014): http://bit.ly/1kB8J7L.
A Tale of Two Internet Campaigns (by Deepa Kurup, The Hindu, February 11, 2014): http://bit.ly/1lDdRZy.
Dark days for the creative class in India: Siddiqui (by Haroon Siddiqui, thestar.com, February 16, 2014): http://bit.ly/1gdtgbC.
The Forbes India 30 Under 30 List (by Abhilasha Khaitan, Forbes India, February 21, 2014): http://bit.ly/1ovnvKM. Pranesh Prakash features in the list.
India ‘tea parties’ enable politicians to woo urban youth with technology (by Avantika Chilkoti, Financial Times, February 26, 2014): http://bit.ly/1cGfOMm.

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Digital Humanities
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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:

# Blog Entries

Defending the Humanities in the Digital Age (by Nishant Shah, DML Central, February 24, 2014): http://bit.ly/1czdZqg.
Digital Humanities in India- Mapping Changes at the Intersection of Youth, Technology and Higher Education (by Sneha PP, February 21, 2014): http://bit.ly/1qd6xo4.

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Digital Natives
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CIS is doing a research project titled “Making Change”. The project will explore new ways of defining, locating, and understanding change in network societies. Having the thought piece 'Whose Change is it Anyway' as an entry point for discussion and reflection, the project will feature profiles, interviews and responses of change-makers to questions around current mechanisms and practices of change in South Asia and South East Asia:

►Making Change Project

# Blog Entries

Storytelling as Performance: The Ugly Indian and Blank Noise 1 (by Denisse Albornoz, February 24, 2014): http://bit.ly/1jX4qBb.
Storytelling as Performance: The Ugly Indian and Blank Noise 2 (by Denisse Albornoz, February 27, 2014): http://bit.ly/1fKwQil.

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Telecom
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Shyam Ponappa, a Distinguished Fellow at CIS is a regular columnist with the Business Standard. The articles published on his blog Organizing India Blogspot is mirrored on our website:

# Newspaper Column

Centre- or State-Driven Development? (by Shyam Ponappa, Business Standard, February 5, 2014, Observer India Blogspot, February 7, 2014): http://bit.ly/1ceuWFS.

# Blog Entry

An Introduction to Spectrum Sharing (by Beli, February 24, 2014): http://bit.ly/NZlknd.

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Knowledge Repository on Internet Access
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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.

►Event Organized

Institute on Internet and Society (organised by Ford Foundation and CIS, Yashada, Pune, February 11-17, 2014): http://bit.ly/1fpTdDS. Bishakha Datta, Ravikiran Annaswamy, Kingsley John, Prof. G. Nagarjuna, Nisha Thompson, Prashant Naik, Nehaa Chaudhari, Bhairav Acharya, Manu Srivastav, Dr. Abhijeet Safai, Payal Malik, Nishant Shah, Laura Stein, Sunil Abraham, Madan Muthu and Chinmayi Arun taught at the institute.

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About CIS
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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

► 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, MacArthur Foundation, IDRC and the Kusuma Trust founded by Anurag Dikshit and Soma Pujari, philanthropists of Indian origin, for its core funding and support for most of its projects.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/february-2014-bulletin

February 2013 Bulletin

praskrishna — 2013-03-11T05:35:46Z

The Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) wishes you a great year ahead and welcomes you to the second issue of its newsletter for the year 2013. In this issue we bring you an overview of our research programs, updates of events organised by us, events we participated in, news and media coverage, and videos of some of our recent events.

Memorial

Rahul Cherian, an expert and policy activist in disability law, intellectual property and technology law passed away due to an illness while on a visit to Goa on February 7, 2013. Rahul was the founder of the Inclusive Planet Centre for Disability and Policy, and a fellow at CIS. He was also a partner at IndoJuris Law Offices in Chennai and was one of the experts who drafted the Treaty for the Visually Impaired currently being negotiated at the World Intellectual Property Organization. The Hindu (February 8, 2013), First Post (February 8, 2013), Legally India (February 7, 2013), and Bar & Bench (February 8, 2013) covered this story. Lawrence Liang wrote an obituary page, A Lightness of Spirit (The Hindu, February 9, 2013) and Nishant Shah wrote a column One For All (Indian Express, February 17, 2013).

CIS organised a memorial function for Rahul Cherian at the TERI, Southern Regional Centre in Bangalore on February 28, 2013.

Jobs
CIS invites applications for the posts of Developer (NVDA Screen Reader Project), Programme Officer (Access to Knowledge and Openness), and Programme Officer (Internet Governance). To apply send your resume to sunil@cis-india.org and pranesh@cis-india.org.

Accessibility

CIS is doing two projects in partnership with the Hans Foundation. One of this is to create a national resource kit of state-wise laws, policies and programmes on issues relating to persons with disabilities in India and another is for developing a screen reader and text-to- speech synthesizer for Indian languages. CIS is also working with the World Blind Union and many other organisations to develop a Treaty for the Visually Impaired helped by the WIPO:

National Resource Kit for Persons with Disabilities

Anandhi Viswanathan from CIS and Manojna Yeluri from the Centre for Law and Policy Research are working in this project. Draft chapters have been published. Feedback and comments are invited from readers for the chapters on Bihar and West Bengal:

The Bihar Chapter (by Manojna Yeluri, February 14, 2013): The state of Bihar is in the process of formulating a comprehensive state policy on disability. The Bihar State Policy on Disability is an extension of the National Policy for Persons with Disabilities and is currently in a draft form awaiting government approval and notification.
The West Bengal Chapter (by Anandhi Viswanathan, February 28, 2013): The state of West Bengal has issued the West Bengal Persons with Disabilities (Equal Opportunities, Protection of Rights and Full Participation) Rules, 1999 to implement the provisions under the central Persons with Disabilities (Protection of Rights, Equal Opportunities and Full Participation) Act, 1995.

Media Coverage

Indian Users’ Perspective On WIPO Negotiations On Treaty For Visually Impaired (by Catherine Saez, Intellectual Property Watch, February 16, 2013). Nirmita Narasimhan is quoted.

Access to Knowledge

The Wikimedia Foundation awarded CIS a two year grant of INR 26,000,000 to support and develop the growth of Indic language communities and projects by community collaborations and partnerships. This is being carried out by the Access to Knowledge team based in Delhi. CIS is also doing a project (Pervasive Technologies) on examining the relationship between production of pervasive technologies and intellectual property. The project researches upon the noteworthy opportunities of the new types of low cost mobile devices, content and services as available in the market.

Wikipedia

Beginning from September 1, 2012, Wikimedia Foundation awarded CIS a two-year grant of INR 26,000,000 to support and develop free knowledge in India. The A2K team consists of four members based in Delhi: T. Vishnu Vardhan, Nitika Tandon, Subhashish Panigrahi and Noopur Raval, and one new team member Dr. U.B. Pavanaja who works from Bangalore office.

New Team Member

Dr. U.B. Pavanaja joined the A2K team as Programme Officer, India Language Initiatives on February 19, 2013. Dr. Pavanaja holds a Master’s degree from Mysore University and Ph.D. from Mumbai University. He was a scientist at Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Mumbai, for about 15 years. He is one of the earliest editors of Kannada Wikipedia. He has to his credit many firsts, viz., first Kannada website, first Kannada online magazine, first Indian language (Kannada) website to receive Golden Web Award, first Indian language (Kannada) editor for Palm OS, first Indian language (Kannada) editor for WinCE device (HP Jornado 720), first Indian language version (Kannada) of universally popular Logo (programming language for children) software, etc. His Kannada logo won the Manthan Award for the year 2006. He was a member of the technical advisory committee setup by the Govt. of Karnataka for Standardization of Kannada on Computers (2000). He is also a member of the Kannada Software Committee of Govt. of Karnataka (2008-current).

Events Organised

Knowledge Sharing through GLAM at Bangalore (Karnataka Chitrakala Parishad, Kumara Krupa Road, Bangalore, February 25, 2013). Dr. U.B. Pavanaja, Subhashish Panigrahi and Nitika Tandon participated in this event.
Wikimedia Bangalore Meetup @ Indian Institute of Management (Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore (organized in partnership with Wikispeed and NASSCOM). Vishnu Vardhan spoke on the Access to Knowledge project. Noopur Raval participated in the event.

Blog Entries

Creative Commons comes to India (by Subhashish Panigrahi, February 28, 2013).
Fifty-fourth Bangalore Wikimedia Meet-up at IIM, Bangalore (by Noopur Raval, February 28, 2013).
Odia Wikipedia Community Brings Wikipedia Education Program to IIMC, Dhenkanal (by Subhashish Panigrahi, February 28, 2013).
FOSS, Wikimedia and Mozilla Under One Roof at GNUnify 2013, Pune (by Subhashish Panigrahi, February 28, 2013).

Event Reports
CIS organised one Wiki workshop in the month of February 2013. We also bring you the report from an event organised in the month of January:

Celebrating Odia Wikipedia's Ninth Anniversary (organized by the Odia Wiki Community with support from CIS and Academy for Media Learning, January 29, 2013, Bhubaneswar). Few glimpses of the event are available as audio podcasts.
Digital Literacy Workshop at Department of Arts, Delhi University (by Nitika Tandon, February 5, 2013).

Media Coverage

ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆର ନ‌ବମ ଜନ୍ମତିଥି ଅବସରରେ କର୍ମଶାଳା: ଇମିଡ଼ିଆରେ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଭାଷାର ପ୍ର‌ୟୋଗ (Odishan.com, February 4, 2013).
ସମ୍ବାଦ: ଲିପି ବ୍ୟାକରଣ ଓ ମାନକ ଭାଷାର ପ୍ରୟୋଗ ଜରୁରୀ. (Sambad, February, 2013).
Odisha: Workshop organized on 9th Anniversary of Odia language: Application of Odia language in e-media (e India Bureau, March 2, 2013).
Odia Wikipedia’s 9th anniversary (fullOrissa News, February 13, 2013).
Odisha: Workshop organized on 9th Anniversary of Odia language: Application of Odia language in e-media (India Education Diary.com, March 2, 2013). Subhashish Panigrahi is quoted.
Odia language workshop organized on 9th Anniversary of Odia Wikipedia: Application of Odia language in e-media (Odishaviews.com, February 5, 2013). Subhashish Panigrahi is quoted.

Ongoing Events

Wikipedia Workshop @ BITS Goa (BITS Pilani K K Birla Goa Campus, March 7, 2013, 5.30 p.m. to 8.00 p.m.).
A Wikipedia Editing Workshop in Goa (Nirmala Institute of Education, Goa, March 8, 2013, 3 p.m. to 5 p.m.).

Announcement

Sanskrit Wikiquote — Now Available: The Access to Knowledge team at CIS is happy to announce the availability of Sanskrit Wikiquote. Shiju Alex, an ex-team member played an active role in bringing this out. For more info see http://bit.ly/Y9OY9R.

Pervasive Technologies

Event Participated In

International Conference on Contours of Media Governance: Teaching, Disciplinarity, Methodology (organised by Jamia Millia Islamia University with support from Ford Foundation and ICSSR, Centre for Culture, Media & Governance, Jamia Millia Islamia University, New Delhi, February 25 – 27, 2013). Sunil Abraham presented preliminary findings from the Pervasive Technologies project.

Other Openness Updates

Announcements from Other Organizations

Iryna Kuchma wins the second EPT award: The Electronic Publishing Trust for Development announced the winner of its 2nd Annual Award in recognition of the effort made by individuals working in the developing and emerging countries in the furtherance of Open Access (OA) to scholarly publications. Dr. Francis Jayakanth won the inaugural award last year.

HasGeek

HasGeek creates discussion spaces for geeks and has organised conferences like the Fifth Elephant, Droidcon India 2011, Android Camp, etc. HasGeek is supported by CIS and works from the CIS office in Bengaluru.

Event Report & Video

Report of Aaron Swartz Memorial Hacknight (by Zainab Bawa, February 6, 2013). On January 19 and 20, 2013, HasGeek organized a hacknight to commemorate the life and work of Aaron Swartz. Zainab Bawa shares the developments.

Internet Governance

CIS has an agreement with Privacy International, London to facilitate the implementation of activities related to surveillance and freedom of speech and expression. We are also doing a project on examining the indicators of female economic empowerment in the IT industry in India.

Gender

Women in India’s IT Industry (by Jadine Lannon, February 27, 2013)
Women in the IT Industry: Request for Data (by Jadine Lannon, February 28, 2013).

Free Speech & Expression

Analyzing the Latest List of Blocked URLs by Department of Telecommunications (IIPM Edition) (by Snehashish Ghosh, February 14, 2013). The analysis was quoted in FirstPost.
Don’t SLAPP free speech (by Sunil Abraham with inputs from Snehashish Ghosh, Tehelka, February 3, 2013, Issue 9, Volume 10).
Freedom of Expression Gagged (by Chinmayi Arun, Hindu Business Line, February 15, 2013).

Media Coverage

Hate speech: ban or ignore? (NDTV, February 5, 2013). Pranesh Prakash, Shivam Vij, and Sanjay Rajoura gave their expert views on the impact of hate speech.
Censorship and sensibility in India (by Samanth Subramanian, February 6, 2013). Pranesh Prakash is quoted.
Online Abuse of Teen Girls in Kashmir Leads to Arrests (by Betwa Sharma, New York Times, February 8, 2013). Pranesh Prakash is quoted.
Indian net service providers too play censorship tricks (by T Ramachandran, The Hindu, February 9, 2013). Sunil Abraham is quoted.
Anonymous joins protests against Internet shutdown in Kashmir (by Indu Nandakumar, Economic Times, February 12, 2013). Sunil Abraham is quoted.
Why was the Gwalior court in such a hurry to block IIPM URLs? (by Danish Raza, FirstPost, February 19, 2013). Snehashish Ghosh’s analysis on blocked website is quoted.
Stop Press Carousel (by Arindham Mukherjee, Outlook, February 22, 2013). Sunil Abraham is quoted.
"All Indian Enterprises should Be Very Worried": Centre for Internet and Society (by Shubhra Rishi, Computer World, February 25, 2013). Pranesh Prakash is quoted.

Events Participated In

Freedom of expression online: identifying and addressing challenges and developing a shared vision and a working partnership: (organized by Wilton Park, Wiston House, Sussex, UK, February 13 – 15, 2013). Pranesh Prakash participated in the event.
9th International Asian Conference (organized by ITech Law, Bangalore, February 14 -15, 2013). Sunil Abraham was a panelist in the session on Censorship of Online Content.

Privacy

2012: Privacy Highlights in India (by Elonnai Hickok, February 12, 2013): Elonnai summarizes the top privacy moments of 2012 in India.
Surveillance Camp IV: Disproportionate State Surveillance - A Violation of Privacy (by Elonnai Hickok and Katitza Rodriguez of Electronic Frontier Foundation February 19, 2013).
BigDog is Watching You! The Sci-fi Future of Animal and Insect Drones (by Maria Xynou, February 25, 2013).

Events Organized

Analyzing the Draft Human DNA Profiling Bill 2012 (March 1, 2013, CIS, Bangalore).
Unique Identity Number (UID), National Population Register (NPR), and Governance (March 2, 2013, TERI Southern Regional Centre, Bangalore).

Event Participated In

The Omnishambles of UID, shrouded in its RTI opacity: CIS sponsored Colonel Mathew Thomas to hold a workshop at the fourth National Right to Information (RTI) organized by the National Campaign for People's Right to Information, held in Hyderabad from February 15 to 18, 2013.

Upcoming Event

DML Conference 2013 (co-organised by CIS and Digital Media & Learning Research Hub Central, Sheraton Chicago Hotel & Towers - Chicago, Illinois, March 14 – 16, 2013).

Internet Access – Knowledge Repository

CIS in partnership with the Ford Foundation was executing the telecom knowledge repository project which included producing and disseminating modules on various aspects of telecommunications including policy, regulations, infrastructure and market. However, from November 2012 there was a change in the mandate of the project. The new repository will cover the history of the internet, technologies involved, principle and values of internet access, broadband market and universal access. It will also touch upon various polices and regulations which has an impact on internet access and bodies and mechanism which are responsible for formulation policies related to internet access. The blog posts and modules will be published in a new website: www.internet-institute.in.

Upcoming Event

We are hosting an “Institute on Internet and Society” in collaboration with the Ford Foundation India, which is to be held from June 8, 2013 to June 14, 2013. Call for registration and relevant details will be announced soon on our website.

Telecom

While the potential for growth and returns exist for telecommunications in India, a range of issues need to be addressed. One aspect is more extensive rural coverage and the other is a countrywide access to broadband which is low. Both require effective and efficient use of networks and resources, including spectrum:

Newspaper Column

The Supreme Court & Spectrum Management (by Shyam Ponappa, Organizing India Blogspot, February 14, 2013, originally published in the Business Standard, February 6, 2013).

Blog Entry

Who Minds the Maxwell's Demon: Revisiting Communication Networks through the Lens of the Intermediary (by Sharath Chandra Ram, February 28, 2013).

Digital Natives

Digital Natives with a Cause? examines the changing landscape of social change and political participation in light of the role that young people play through digital and Internet technologies, in emerging information societies. Consolidating knowledge from Asia, Africa and Latin America, it builds a global network of knowledge partners who critically engage with discourse on youth, technology and social change, and look at alternative practices and ideas in the Global South:

Events Participated In

D:coding Digital Natives - Seminar with Nishant Shah (organized by HUMlab, February 26, 2013). Nishant Shah gave a talk on D:coding Digital Natives at Samhällsvetarhuset.

Video Vortex # 9 Re:assemblies of Video (organized by the Institute of Network Cultures, Post Media Lab, Moving Image Lab, Leuphana, et.al, February 28 – March 2, 2013). Nishant Shah delivered a key note at this event.

Digital Humanities

From 2012 to 2015, the Researchers At Work series is focusing on building research clusters in the field of Digital Humanities. We organised the first Habits of Living workshops in Bangalore last year. The next workshop is being held in Brown University.

Upcoming Event

Habits of Living: Networked Affects, Glocal Effects (organised by CIS and Brown University, March 21 – 23, 2013, Brown University, Rhode Island). Nishant Shah will be speaking at this event.

About CIS

CIS was registered as a society in Bangalore in 2008. As an independent, non-profit research organisation, it runs different policy research programmes such as Accessibility, Access to Knowledge, Openness, Internet Governance, and Telecom. The policy research programmes have resulted in outputs such as the e-Accessibility Policy Handbook for Persons with Disabilities with ITU and G3ict, and Digital Alternatives with a Cause?, Thinkathon Position Papers and the Digital Natives with a Cause? Report with Hivos, etc. We have conducted policy research for the Ministry of Communications & Information Technology, Ministry of Human Resource Development, Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, etc., on WIPO Treaties, Copyright Bill, NIA Bill, etc.

CIS is accredited as an observer at WIPO. CIS staff participates in the Standing Committee for Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR) meetings regularly held in Geneva, and participate in the discussions and comments on them from a public interest perspective. Our Policy Director, Nirmita Narasimhan won the National Award for Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities from the Government of India and also received the NIVH Excellence Award.

Follow us elsewhere

Get short, timely messages from us on Twitter
Join the CIS group on Facebook
Visit us at http://cis-india.org

Support Us

Request for Collaboration

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/february-2013-bulletin