Centre for Internet and Society

Odia Wikipedia Set to Celebrate 13 Years of Volunteer Contributions

subha — 2015-08-22T16:54:53Z

Odia Wikipedia, one of the first of several Indian language Wikipedia projects, is ready to celebrate 13 glorious years of free knowledge contribution on June 3.

Read the original post published by Global Voices on May 31, 2015 here. For event details click here: https://or.wikipedia.org/s/sml

Beginning in 2002 — a year after the world's largest online encyclopedia, the English Wikipedia, was launched — Odia Wikipedia has grown to be the largest content repository in the Odia language available in Unicode* on the Internet.

With about 17 active editors (also known as “uikiali”) spread across various parts of India and abroad, and over 8,800 articles, the project has become more than just an encyclopedia. The voluntary editor community has put its efforts into acquiring valuable Creative Commons (CC) licensed content by lobbying copyright holders/authors to relicense copyrighted content under CC licenses.

It has also engaged with over 2,000 people by organizing various outreach programs including the globally accredited pedagogic program the Wikipedia Education Program (WEP).

For its 13th anniversary the community is planning to release a character-encoding converter that promises to unlock massive amounts of content from government portals as well as journals, newspapers and magazines that have their content in non-Unicode character encoding that prevents user searching and reuse of digital-based content.

Odia language is spoken by more than 40 million people in the Indian state of Odisha (the 9 ^th largest Indian state by territory), its neighboring states and the Odia diaspora living outside India.

With over 5,000 years of literary heritage, it has been recognized as one of the oldest South Asian languages and has been given the status of a “classical language” by the Indian government.

However, the language has not gathered as much traction in terms of online presence as it might have.

Almost all the online newspapers in Odia are available either in non-Unicode and proprietary encoding systems, or as images. This makes them completely invisible as far as a search engine is concerned.

The same goes for the state government's official portals that either lack Odia-language content or have content in legacy encoding systems. To address these issues, a bunch of character encoding converters that convert text typed using various non-Unicode encoding systems to Unicode are incorporated on Odia Wikipedia.

With this new tool, the community aims at a mass conversion of content from all available sources — from newspapers and magazines to government journals and portals — into Unicode, so this content can be used in order to enrich Odia Wikipedia and generally improve the language's reach online.

Odia Wikipedia was not content-rich until the beginning of 2011, when editor activity began to pick up.

Since then it has expanded its content massively, with topics ranging from the essentials of medical science to the cuisine of Odisha.

The growth in readership of the project is a great example of how content is driving the internet. A project that was virtually unknown a few years back with monthly page views in the low thousands recorded 8,08,834 page views in March 2015 alone.

The Wikimedia community is gathering in Odisha's capital Bhubaneswar this June 3 to celebrate Odia Wikipedia becoming a teenager.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/global-voices-may-31-2015-subhashish-panigrahi-odia-wikipedia-set-to-celebrate-13-years-of-volunteer-contributions

How the Odia Wikimedia community is enriching Wikipedia with character encoding technology

subha — 2015-06-14T11:51:46Z

Last year, I wrote about the development of Odia language character encoding converters that the Wikipedia community was working on. These converted text into Unicode, a universal encoding standard. These converters have now been made available for use, just in time for today’s thirteenth anniversary of the Odia Wikipedia.

The original blog post published on Wikimedia Blog is here.

Character encoding is used to represent a collection of characters through an encoding system, and is used in computation, data storage, and transmission of textual data. Fonts in different scripts used to have several different encoding systems before the onset of Unicode.

However, most media outlets—as well as the state government—are still using old encoding systems for Odia. These require the installation of a particular font using the same encoding system to read documents. Unicode makes this much easier, as most modern computers come with Unicode fonts preinstalled.

A character encoding converter is generally used to convert from one encoding system to another. Massive amounts of content, not archived on a regular basis, could now be converted to Unicode and, in turn, provide Wikipedia editors with easily accessible sources to create new articles and enhance existing ones.

The Odia language is spoken by over 40 million people in eastern India, accross various Indian cities, and by expatriates abroad. It is one of the oldest languages in South Asia, and is recognized as a “classical language” by the Indian government. The Odia Wikipedia celebrates its thirteenth anniversary today, June 3.

However, the “classical language” status has not yet boosted knowledge production or use of the language on the Internet. Almost all online newspapers and state publications, such as Odia-language journals, public announcements, and information portals, host their content in various legacy character encodings that do not allow users to easily access and share information. This has, unsurprisingly, proven to be a major hurdle for the small Odia Wikimedia community, who hope to enrich their project with Odia-language citations.

To help solve these problems, the community tried using two encoding converters. These were previously developed by friends from Srujanika, a non-profit based in Bhubaneswar, Odisha, that works on promoting science education in school curricula in the Odia language, as well as the digitization of early Odia literature. These converters became the building blocks on top of which Wikimedian Manoj Sahukar built converters after massively rewriting their code. I was also part of the re-building process, from the initial development of the converters to the design of their interface, and I helped to design handouts teaching new users how to use them.

The community played a major role in promoting the converters on social media. An op-ed in the Odia newspaper Samaja helped to reach out to more people unaware of the uses for Unicode. Many Internet users did not realize that they had been sharing knowledge on their blogs or social media using various legacy encodings, which neither appear in search engines nor allow anyone to share them in an accessible way.

By converting news and articles from newspapers and magazines as test cases, the converters were improved over time. Citing Odia-language sources wasn’t so easy before: making use of any content from a local newspaper could take hours.

From September 2014 to March 2015, a small project ran to convert text from several newspapers and magazines, so that they could be used as citations in articles in the Odia Wikipedia — this is important because, when these sources are not available in Unicode, search engines and Wikipedia users can have difficulty finding them.

Because the converters were hosted separately on Google Drive, it was difficult to have them all in one central place. Odia Wikipedians wanted their Wikipedia to host a single converter, where a user could select the appropriate input encoding. Wikimedian and developer Jnanaranjan Sahu came up with a responsive, wiki-based converter that went live on May 12 and is now available for use. The converter now enables the choice of source encoding from a drop-down menu, and converts the input into Unicode. Issues with this conversion process can be reported via Google Spreadsheet.

Combining five different converters into one, Jnanaranjan says, was a necessary next step in development: “When I found that there are different URLs for different converters, and that the URLs lead to a bunch of different sites, it seemed quite messed up. It would have been difficult for users to locate each of the converters. I thought it would be easier for users if they could find all the encoding converters for Odia on one page on their home wiki. So, I tried to tweak the source code and design this converter.”

He also explains that several newspapers whose news is encoded in older systems are now rich information sources. "Converting them and using the information to add more citations to Wikipedia could help to achieve the dream of every single person being able to contribute more information to the Odia Wikipedia," he says, "so all human knowledge may be available in our language."

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/wikimedia-blog-subhashish-panigrahi-june-4-2015-odia-wikipedia-community-is-enriching-wikipedia-with-character-encoding-technology

ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିପିଡିଆ: ନୂତନ ଯୁଗର ଆରମ୍ଭ

subha — 2016-06-18T18:19:41Z

My op-ed on Odia Wikipedia and its journey of 13 years was published in Odia daily "The Samaja".

୨୦୦୧ ମସିହା, ଇଣ୍ଟରନେଟ ଜରିଆରେ ଭାଷା ସହ ଭାଷାକୁ, ଚଳଣି ସହ ଚଳଣିକୁ, ଲୋକଙ୍କସହ ଲୋକଙ୍କୁ ଯୋଡ଼ିବାର ପଥ ସଳଖ ହେଉଥାଏ । ତେବେ ଆଜିଭଳି ସେତେବେଳକୁ ଇଂରାଜୀ ଭାଷା ଓ ଆମେରିକାର ପତିଆରା ଜଗତରେ କାହିଁରେ କେତେ । ତେଣୁ ଇଣ୍ଟରନେଟରେ ମଧ୍ୟ ଆମେରିକା ଓ ଇଂରାଜୀ ଛାମୁଆ ଥାନଟିକି ମାଡ଼ି ବସିଥାନ୍ତି । ଏ ବେଳକୁ ଆମେରିକାର ଦୁଇ ଯୁବକ ଜିମି ଉଏଲସ ଆଉ ଲାରି ସାଙ୍ଗର ନୂଆ ଏକ କଳ୍ପନା ସହ ପ୍ରକଳ୍ପଟିଏ ଆରମ୍ଭ କଲେ । କଳ୍ପନା ଥିଲା ଅଧିକରୁ ଅଧିକ ଲୋକଙ୍କୁ ଏକ ଏନସାଇକ୍ଲୋପିଡ଼ିଆ ସମ୍ପାଦନା କରିବାର ସୁଯୋଗ ଦେବା । ଏହି ମିଳିତ ସମ୍ପାଦନାରୁ ଯେଉଁ ପ୍ରକଳ୍ପଟି ଜନ୍ମିଲା ସେ ହେଲା ଉଇକିପିଡିଆ । ସେତେବେଳକୁ ଏନ୍‍ସାଇକ୍ଲୋପିଡ଼ିଆ ବ୍ରିଟାନିକା ସବୁ ଲାଇବ୍ରେରି ଆଉ ଏପରିକି ଇଣ୍ଟରନେଟରେ ଗାଦି ମାଡ଼ିବସିଥାଏ, ତା'ପୁଣି ପୁରୁଖା ସମ୍ପାଦକମାନଙ୍କ ସମ୍ପାଦନା ଓ ସଂକଳନରେ ପୁଷ୍ଟ ହୋଇ । ତା' ଆଗରେ କିନ୍ତୁ ଉଇକିପିଡିଆ ସଦମ୍ଭେ ମୁଣ୍ଡ ଟେକିଲା, ଆଉ ୨୦୦୨ବେଳକୁ ଏହା ଜଗତର ବାକି ଭାଷାରେ ମଧ୍ୟ ଆରମ୍ଭ ହେଲା । ଏ ଭାଷା ଭିତରେ ଓଡ଼ିଆ, ପଞ୍ଜାବୀ, ମାଲାୟାଲାମ ଓ ଅହମିୟା ପ୍ରଥମ ଭାରତୀୟ ଭାଷାର ଉଇକିପିଡିଆ ଭାବେ ସାମିଲ ହେଲେ । ନୂଆ ଚାରୋଟି ପ୍ରକଳ୍ପ ସିନା ଆରମ୍ଭ ହେଲା, ହେଲେ କେବଳ ମାଲାୟାଲାମକୁ ଛାଡ଼ି ବାକି ତିନିଟି ଭାଷାରେ ଅଧିକ ଲୋକ ଯୋଡ଼ିହେବା, ନୂଆ ପ୍ରକଳ୍ପ ଲିଖନ, ସମ୍ପାଦନ ଆଦି କାମ ଆଗେଇଲା ନାହିଁ । ଓଡ଼ିଆ ପାଇଁ ଏକ ବିଡ଼ମ୍ବନା ୨୦୧୧ ଯାଏ ଲାଗିରହିଲା । ତେବେ ୨୦୧୧ ବେଳକୁ ଜଣେ କେରଳୀ ଉଇକିଆଳି (ଉଇକିପିଡିଆ ସମ୍ପାଦକ) ସିଜୁ ଆଲେକ୍ସଙ୍କ ଉତ୍ସାହରେ କିଛି ଓଡ଼ିଆ ବେଙ୍ଗାଲୁରୁଠାରେ ଏକାଠି ହେଲେ । ୮ ବର୍ଷ ଧରି ସ୍ଥାଣୁ ହୋଇ ପଡ଼ିଥିବା ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିପିଡିଆ ଘରେ ପଢ଼ୁଆଁ ଥର କଲମ ବୁଲିଲା । ଧୀରେଧୀରେ ଅଧିକରୁ ଅଧିକ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଏଥିରେ ଯୋଡ଼ିହେଲେ, ଏ ସମସ୍ତ ଉଇକିଆଳି ନିଜ ଉତ୍ସାହରେ ଆଉ ବିନା ପାରିଶ୍ରମିକରେ ଲେଖିଚାଲିଲେ । ମାସକୁ ମାତ୍ର କେଇ ହଜାର ଲୋକ ଆଗରୁ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିପିଡିଆ ପଢ଼ୁଥିଲେ । ଆଜି ସାଢ଼େ ଆଠ ଲକ୍ଷରୁ ଅଧିକ ଲୋକ ଏହାର ମାସିକ ପାଠକ । ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଭାଷାରେ ଇଣ୍ଟରନେଟରେ ଥିବା ବିଶାଳତମ ୱେବସାଇଟ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିପିଡିଆ ସମ୍ପୂର୍ଣ୍ଣ ମାଗଣାରେ or.wikipedia.org ରେ ଉପଲବ୍ଧ । ଆଉ ସବୁଠୁ ମଜାର କଥା ହେଉଛି ଏହା କେବେବି ସମ୍ପୂର୍ଣ୍ଣ ନୁହେଁ । ଛପା ବନ୍ଧା ବହିରେ ଏମିତି ନୂଆନୂଆ ଘଟଣା ଛପା ହେବା ବେଳକୁ ବରଷେ ବିତିଯାଏ । ହେଲେ ଉଇକିପିଡିଆରେ ନିମିଷକେ କୌଣସି ବିଷୟ ଜାଣିଥିବା ଲୋକଟିଏ ନୂଆ ଖାତାଟିଏ ଖୋଲି ଏ ଘଟଣାକୁ ଲିପିବଦ୍ଧ କରିପାରେ ।

ତେବେ ସବୁ ଲୋକଙ୍କୁ ଲେଖିବାର ସୁଯୋଗ ଦେଲେ ଅନେକ ଅଦରକାରୀ ଲେଖାରେ ଯେ ଉଇକିପିଡିଆ ଭରୁଥିବା ଏ ଆଶଙ୍କା ଅମୂଳକ ନୁହେଁ । ତେବେ ଉଇକିପିଡିଆ କିଛି ନିୟମାବଳୀ ଭିତରେ କାମ କରେ । ସଭିଙ୍କୁ ଲେଖିବାର ସ୍ୱାଧୀନତା ମିଳିଛି ସତ, କିନ୍ତୁ ଲେଖାଯାକ ଗପ କବିତା କିମ୍ବା ନିଜର ସ୍ତୁତି ନହେଇ କେବଳ ଜ୍ଞାନକୋଷଭିତ୍ତିକ, ଅର୍ଥାତ କୌଣସି ଜଣାଶୁଣା ସ୍ଥାନ, ଘଟଣା କିମ୍ବା ବ୍ୟକ୍ତିବିଶେଷଙ୍କ ଉପରେ ଲେଖାହୁଏ । ପ୍ରାସଙ୍ଗିକତା ନଥାଇ ଲେଖାଯାଉଥିବା ଅନେକ ଅମୂଳକ ଲେଖାକୁ ହଟାଇ ଦେବାରେ ପୁରୁଖା ପରିଚାଳକମାନେ ସଦା ଜାଗତିଆର । ତା'ଛଡ଼ା ଲେଖାରେ ଏକ ଜଣାଶୁଣା ଲେଖକଙ୍କ କିମ୍ବା ପ୍ରକାଶନର ବହି, ପତ୍ରତ୍ରିକା, ଖବରକାଗଜରେ ଆଗରୁ ପ୍ରକାଶିତ ବିଷୟର ଆଧାରରେ ସେ ବହି/ ଖବରକାଗଜର ନାମ ସହ ଉଇକିପିଡିଆ ପ୍ରସଙ୍ଗମାନ ଲେଖାଯାଏ । ତେଣୁ ଆଗରୁ ପ୍ରକାଶିତ ହୋଇନଥିବା, ନିଜର ମୌଳିକ ରଚନା କିମ୍ବା ଗବେଷଣା ଉଇକିପିଡିଆରେ ସ୍ଥାନ ପାଏନାହିଁ । କୌଣସି ଏନସାଇକ୍ଲୋପିଡିଆକୁ ଟିକେ ଆଡ଼େଇ ଦେଖିବା ତା'ହେଲେ ଏକଥା ବୁଝାପଡ଼େ ଯେ କେବଳ ବିଷୟର ପୁଙ୍ଖାନୁପୁଙ୍ଖ ବଖାଣ ଛଡ଼ା କୌଣସି ସାହିତ୍ୟିକ କଳ୍ପନା କିମ୍ବା ବିଶେଷଣର ବିନ୍ୟାସ ସେଥିରେ ନଥାଏ । ଏ ନିୟମଟି ଉଇକିପିଡିଆ ଖୁବ୍‍ କଡ଼ାକଡ଼ି ମାନିଥାଏ । ତେବେ ସ୍ୱେଚ୍ଛାସେବୀଙ୍କ ସମୟ ବି ସୀମିତ । ଆଉ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିପିଡିଆ ଭଳି ପ୍ରକଳ୍ପରେ ଉଇକିଆଳି ହାତଗଣତିକୁ ସକ୍ରିୟ ପରିଚାଳକ ମାତ୍ର ଜଣେ କି ଦୁଇ । ଏଣୁ ଆଖିରୁ ଗୋଟେ ଯୋଡ଼େ ଭୁଲ ବାଦପଡ଼ିବା ସ୍ୱାଭାବିକ । ଅଧିକ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ନିଜ ଉତ୍ସାହରେ ଏଥିରେ ଯୋଗଦିଅନ୍ତେ ଯଦି ତାଙ୍କ ସମାଗମରେ ଲେଖାସବୁ ଅଧିକଥର ସମ୍ପାଦିତ ହୁଅନ୍ତା । ଆଉ ସେ ମନ୍ଥନରୁ ଲେଖା ସରସ ଓ ଅଧିକ ତଥ୍ୟସମ୍ବଳିତ ହୁଅନ୍ତା । ତେବେ ଏ ଏକ ଆନ୍ଦୋଳନ । ଉଇକିପିଡିଆ ଭଳି ଏକ ବିଶ୍ୱସ୍ତରୀୟ ପ୍ରକଳ୍ପ ବାବଦରେ ସୁଦୂରରେ ରହିଥିବା ଓଡ଼ିଆଙ୍କୁ ଜଣାଇବାର ଉଦ୍ୟମ ଚିରନ୍ତନ । ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଭାଷାଟିକୁ ଖାଲି ଶାସ୍ତ୍ରୀୟ ମାନ୍ୟତା ଦେଇ ସିଂହାସନରେ ବସାଇଦେଲେ ହେବନାହିଁ, ବ୍ୟାବହାରିକ ସ୍ତରରେ କିପରି ଏହା ଅଧିକ ଲୋକଙ୍କ ହାତପାହାନ୍ତାରେ ପହଞ୍ଚିବ ତା ପାଇଁ ବାଟ କଢ଼ାଇବାକୁ ହେବ । ଇଣ୍ଟରନେଟ ଯୋଗେ ଆମ ଭାଷାରେ ଜାଣିବା ପାଇଁ ଲୋକେ କମ୍ପ୍ୟୁଟର-ମୋବାଇଲ ଆଦିର ବ୍ୟବହାର ନକଲେ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଭାଷା ଯେ ଚିରକାଳ ସେ ଗାଦିରେ ଉଇଓଡ଼ଶଙ୍କ ଜୀବସାର ହୋଇ ରହିଯିବ ।

ଉଇକିପିଡିଆର ଇତିହାସ ଆମ ପୂର୍ଣ୍ଣଚନ୍ଦ୍ର ଭାଷାକୋଷର ଆରମ୍ଭ ସହ ଅନେକାଂଶରେ ମିଶେ । ଭାଷାକୋଷର ସଂକଳକ ଗୋପାଳ ଚନ୍ଦ୍ର ପ୍ରହରାଜ ଥିଲେ ଜଣେ ଓକିଲ । ହେଲେ ଓଡ଼ିଶାର ଅଞ୍ଚଳଅଞ୍ଚଳ ବୁଲି ଶବ୍ଦଖୋଜାର ସଉକ ତାଙ୍କୁ ଏତେ ଘାରିଥିଲା ଯେ ନିଜର ସାଥିମାନଙ୍କୁ ଏକାଠି କରି ଏ କାମଟି ଆରମ୍ଭ କରିଥିଲେ । ଦଳବଦ୍ଧ କାମ ସବୁ ପାଣ୍ଡୁଲିପିର ରୂପ ନେଲା । ପ୍ରହରାଜେ ପୁଣି ଖୋଜିବସିଲେ ତାକୁ ଛପାଇବା ପାଇଁ । ରାଜାଙ୍କ ପୃଷ୍ଠପୋଷକତାରେ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଭାଷାର ବିଶାଳତମ ଲେକ୍ସିକନ ସେଠୁ ଜନମିଲା । କହିବା ବାହୁଲ୍ୟ ଯେ ନିଜେ ଗୋପାଳ ଚନ୍ଦ୍ର ପ୍ରହରାଜ କିମ୍ବା ତାଙ୍କ ସାଥି କେହି ଲେଖକ କିମ୍ବା ସମ୍ପାଦକ ନଥିଲେ । ହେଲେ ୩୦ ଶତକରେ ଛପା ଏ ସଂକଳନରୁ ଅଧିକ ବଡ଼ ଗ୍ରନ୍ଥ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଭାଷାରେ ଆଜି ବି ତିଆରି ହୋଇପାରିନାହିଁ । ଇଚ୍ଛାଶକ୍ତି ଖୁବ୍‍ ଦମ୍ଭିଲା ହେଲେ ସାଧାରଣ ଲୋକ କି ଅସାଧାରଣ କାମ କରିପାରନ୍ତି ତାହା ଉଇକିପିଡିଆ ଓ ପୂର୍ଣ୍ଣଚନ୍ଦ୍ର ଭାଷାକୋଷର ଦୃଷ୍ଟାନ୍ତରୁ ଅନେକ ଶିଖିବାକୁ ମିଳେ ।

ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିପିଡିଆରେ ଏବେ ୮୭୦୦ରୁ ଅଧିକ ପ୍ରସଙ୍ଗର ସମ୍ଭାର ଆଉ ଏହା ନିତିନିୟମିତ ୧୫ରୁ ଅଧିକ ଉଇକିଆଳିଙ୍କ ଦେଇ ସମ୍ପାଦିତ । ଏହି ଜୁନ ୩ ତାରିଖରେ ପ୍ରକଳ୍ପଟି ୧୩ ବର୍ଷର କିଶୋରରେ ପରିଣତ ହେଉଛି ।

ସେଣ୍ଟର ଫର ଇଣ୍ଟରନେଟ ଏଣ୍ଡ ସୋସାଇଟି, ବେଙ୍ଗାଲୁରୁ

psubhashish@gmail.com

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/the-samaja-op-ed-subhashish-panigrahi-odia-wikipedia-journey-13-years

Konkani Wikipedia Goes Live After 'Nine Years' of Incubation

subha — 2016-06-18T18:15:05Z

Konkani Wikipedia is the second Wikimedia project after Odia Wikisource that has gone live out of incubation. The project stayed in the incubation for nine long years and the community has gone through a long debate to have a Wikipedia of their own. Here is a blog highlighting three Konkani Wikimedians and an advocate of the Wikipedia movement whose efforts finally paid off.

Read the original blog entry published on Wikimedia Blog on July 15, 2015 here.

The Goan Konkani Wikipedia (available at gom.wikipedia.org) has gone live after spending nine long years in incubation.

An Indo-Aryan language, of the Indo-European family of languages, Konkani is the official language of Goa. It is a minority language in other Indian states, such as Maharashtra, Karnataka, northern Kerala, Dadra and Nagar Haveli, and Daman and Diu. It is spoken by about 7.4 million people.

Konkani can be written in five different scripts: Devanagari—officially used by the Government of Goa—as well as Latin (locally known as Romi Konkani), Kannada, Malayalam, and Persian. Of these, the Goan Antruz dialect of the language, in the Devanagari script, is considered standard by the Indian constitution.

The Konkani Wikipedia has many heroes, as we see them. Melissa Simoes and Darshan Kandolkar are two of the many long-term contributors who joined during the Konkani Wikipedia @ Goa University program and are still active even after the program formally concluded. Darshan is an assistant professor at the Government College Pernem in Goa. His professor at Goa University, Dr. Madhavi Sardesai—who passed away last year—played a vital role in inspiring him to go for higher studies in Konkani. Darshan realized that there is a lot to be written in Konkani when he was introduced to Wikipedia, and after that, he became dedicated to contributing to the project.

“I would like to bring more students as contributors to our Konkani Wikipedia,” Darshan says. “My aim is to start with my students at Government College Pernem. Being an alumnus of Goa University, I also want my juniors there to join our community and enrich Konkani Wikipedia.”

“I have a dream to start a project for the freedom fighters of Goa and involve a diverse set of people, from students to journalists and columnists. I also want to build partnership with educational institutions so we could engage with the students for a longer run and the existing Konkani community could mentor them,” he continues.

“Being a new Wikipedia project, Konkani Wikipedia needs more quality measures and the articles have to grow to good quality articles with more images and templates, I want to take it to the level of English Wikipedia with both quantitative and qualitative growth in articles!”

The Konkani Wikimedia community has been using social media actively to promote the Konkani Wikipedia project, and to celebrate the successes of its contributors. After Melissa became the top contributor to the project, her fellow editor Luis Gomes congratulated her. That brought Melissa into the spotlight, gaining the attention of editors from the global Wikimedia community. The community is continuing a tradition to rewarding the most prolific contributor of each month as the “Wikipedian of the Month”.

Melissa was introduced to the Wikipedia program at her university where the target for each participating student was to write one article each about a village in Goa. “I wrote my article just for the sake of the marks, but never bothered to think about why I am writing it. After the program was over, I became inactive on Wikipedia.

“After some time, I met Father [Luis Gomes] in parish and then Darshan and Father inspired me to resume editing. Then, it became an addiction and I never stopped even for a day. I would come back from work and sit in front of my computer.

“Now, I am a teacher, and my fellow teachers are mostly women. I would like to introduce the Goan Konkani Wikipedia to them so they could also contribute to Wikipedia,” Melissa says.

As Konkani Wikipedia went live, long term Wikimedian Fredrick Noronha, an early advocate of Konkani Wikipedia, said, “It is a wonderful feeling to see the Goan Konkani Wikipedia live. I would like to congratulate all who have been involved in some or the other way with the making of Konkani Wikipedia live from the days of its inception and incubation.

“I am not a great contributor or even a language expert. I come from a content background and found my interest in Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons and Creative Commons long ago. But this helped me to associate myself in some way with the Konkani Wikipedia incubator. I am happy that CIS-A2K chipped in to help build a community and help it grow in collaboration with the Goa University.

“Students of the Konkani department in the university are the real heroes to take this effort forward by filling the Wikipedia incubator with more editing activity to which the institutional backing acted as catalyst,” he added.

Fredrick feels there are major challenges that the community now has to start taking measures for: “The macrolanguage is written in multiple scripts. Out of five of the scripts three—Devanagari, Romi/Latin and Kannada—are actively used in printing and publication currently. People using all the scripts should be equally participating in a movement like Wikipedia to take their languages to other native speakers using Wikipedia as a digital tool.

“The second challenge is with the contributors. Goa, being home to majority of the Konkani language speakers, has English education from the primary level. This means many have a great level of technical ability. The technical contributor community here would be of great use to Konkani Wikipedia if tapped,” he adds.

“The technical contributors are eager to contribute but have not been approached in a manner that would interest them. Similarly the Konkani authors who are helping propagate the language to masses have sadly no or very little clue about Wikipedia’s existence in Konkani. This disparity is stopping a massive flow of local encyclopedic content to the Konkani Wikipedia. Unless we tap into the technological and the linguistic groups it will be only a tip of the iceberg.”

Fredrick explains that the the current Konkani Wikipedia community is primarily made up of students of Goa University. “This is both good and bad,” he says. “Having young and enthusiastic students as Wikipedia editors is helping the project to leap forward, which might not have happened if the faculty were targeted instead. There is, however, a great need for diversification.

“The approach to bring in authors in the 60–70 years age group will vary from the approach to bring in, for example, technical people. Our outreach strategies should ultimately fulfill both the literary and technological contributors, so that their work can help us to both grow content and to solve the problem of the multiple scripts, respectively,” Fredrick adds.

The Konkani Wikipedia community is organizing a public seminar on July 18 at Goa University to celebrate the launch of the Konkani Wikipedia and to pay tribute to Dr. Madhavi Sardesai, who always dreamed of the Konkani Wikipedia getting out of incubation.

Video


Wikimedian Darshan Kandolkar shares his experience of contributing to Konkani Wikipedia. Video in Konkani. Video by Wikimedia India, freely licensed under CC-BY-SA 4.0.

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

Odia Wikisource has a new Wikisourcer, and he is the youngest in the Odia Wikimedia community!

subha — 2015-08-21T17:40:56Z

Prateek Pattanaik (User:Shrijagannatha on Odia Wikisource) is a young researcher of Odia literature and Odissi music. He has not just digitized as many as 54 Odia-language poetry dating early 18th century but has also annotated, both poetic and prosaic translation in his blogs “Sri Jagannatha” and “Utkal Sangeet”. He has also brought a complete book “Kisora chandranana champu” on Odia Wikisource. A recent entrant into the Odia Wikimedia community, Prateek is also the youngest Odia Wikimedian. He has also digitized 18-19th century 54 poem written by various poets.

Right after Prateek finished his first digitization of an entire book “Kishorachandranana Champu” by Baladeba Ratha (1779-1845 AD) on the Odia Wikisource (or.wikisource.org), Subhashish Panigrahi caught up with Prateek asking him about his passion for Odia literature and Odissi music.

Subhashish Panigrahi (SP): Hi Prateek, please tell little bit about yourself?
Prateek Pattanaik (PP): I live among the pristine hills of Damanjodi, in the district of Koraput, Odisha, with my parents. My mother, Mrs.Pallabi Mohapatra, is a teacher in Delhi Public School, Damanjodi, where I study. My father, Mr. Dipak Kumar Pattanaik, is lecturer in Botany in the Government College, Koraput. Currently I'm studying in 11^th standard in the Science Stream.

SP: What influenced you to take so much interest in Odia literature and Odissi music?
PP: When I was young, my grandfather, Dr. P. C. Mohapatra, would tell me bedtime stories that recounted the exploits of Lord Jagannatha – tales about King Indradyumna, Chodaganga Deva, Jayadeva, the Panchasakha; those of Dasia Bauri, Salabega; about how Lord Jagannatha would wander hopelessly in hunger, banished by Lakshmi; how he would chase the eggplant-plucking lady, enchanted by her rendition of the Gita Govinda. Those tales fascinated my imagination, and attracted me towards the Lord. And thus it began, my endless journey of discovering the infinite cult that surrounded the smiling Gods at Puri.

As a kid I brought a triad made of neem wood from Puri. I would worship them, and dress them in the Beshas, costumes of Lord Jagannatha, using thermocole and paints- I smeared sandalwood paste on them and covered them with tiny blankets during winter. My mother inspired me – she was the typical Odia homemaker – from making “Pana” on the “Makara Sankranti” to making 'pithas', a large variety of traditional delicacies. And I would offer all of them to my Lords. She made herbal oils for my Lords when they were ill with fever. She would never say no to me no matter how unrealistic my demands. She tried her hand even at making the traditional “patta chitra” canvases for me to draw.

During my summer vacations, I would unconditionally rush to Koraput to my grandparents, and I still do. My Grandmother, Mrs. Kanak Lata Sabat, who is an Odia-language teacher, taught me the Odia alphabet when I was very young. My father would bring me pictures of Lord Jagannatha from the Temple stall outside the Puri Temple. I became famous in my entire family for my ability to tell them apart without seeing their name. I was stubborn – I told him to buy those Odia books even when I did not know how to read. And those were the first books I read in Odia- filled with vivid descriptions of the Beshas of the Lord; with simple lines from the Odia Bhagabata to complex lines from medieval poets. When I asked my grandmother to tell me who was this man called Upendra Bhanja, whom the books praised no end, she revealed to me the master he was, and told me about his unbeatable command over the words he spoke.

I grew up to being automatically attracted to Odissi Music – which I would hear amidst songs of the Gita Govinda in local Temples, and Patachitras- filled in the soaring structures of the Puri Temple. I myself figured out how to do those paintings, and began by singing songs of Bhajan Samrat Bhikari Bal. Later, I heard of age-old classics from my grandma again – songs which she had learnt while in the third standard- “Ki Shobha go Kunje”, “Galani ta Gala Katha” and so on. I learnt them myself, and began going to my sir who would explain to me the nuances of Odissi Classical Music.

When I was in ninth standard, the Jagannatha temple of Koraput came forward to use my PowerPoint presentations on the Jagannatha cult that I had made them for my pleasure, during my leisure time. They took them and printed them, and made a public exhibition. It was praised no end. I became somewhat of a child-size know-it-all of the Jagannatha cult, but I saw there was still more to discover.

SP: How you started learning about “Champu”?
PP: The word “Champu” itself attracted me. It had a distinct ring to it, an alien-sounding word that was never used in real life. My father told me it was a song in which each line started with the same letter. I asked him to show it to me. He could not. He himself had not seen more than a single song. And when the truth dawned on me that it was not 'a' song- it was a collection of 34 songs, after the 34 letters of the Odia alphabet, I had to get my hands on it. Fortunately, the “Open Access to Oriya Books” (OAOB) project by Srujanika had tons of Odia books digitized and hosted on the website http://oaob.nitrkl.ac.in, and I could finally behold what it was. I was amazed – I ran my eyes down the 'Ka' song,and read “Ka-Ka-Ka-Ka”. What talent! My god, who wrote this? Kabisurya. Kabisurya who? Kabisurya Baladeba Ratha. I discovered the man and was similarly amazed by folktales of his talent.

When I saw the 'Ga' song was the same song my Grandma loved – I was again amused. I knew that all the while! Above each song, it was written 'Raga so and so'. So all of these could be sung. But how could I learn how to sing them? A single recorded CD, from the busstand taught me. In a year, I could sing it entirely. I understood the depth of the lines from the simple commentary below them, and was disappointed by how less known they were in this day and age. I thought what I could do – I sung them at the temple during the Ratha Jatra, and they were an instant hit! People longed to hum those ancient tunes. But they could not. These songs were outdated, no one sung them except a few maestros of Odissi Classical Music, and no one could comprehend them. But people loved them. They did not know what they meant, exactly but they sure did get the feeling. And that was what mattered.

SP: From spending your entire childhood to creating two blogs with so much annotation on these early writings, and using social media to popularize them, to bringing them on Wikisource, what made this leap?
PP: One fine day, it struck me that the same way I made PowerPoint slides, I could make something digital. Why not a website which anyone can see? Wouldn't that breathe new life into the traditional melodies? Good. And so over a span of two long years, I typed out the entire Champu and created two websites; Shri Jagannatha (shrijagannatha.wordpress.com) for the Jagannatha cult, and later, Utkal Sangeet (utkalsangeet.wordpress.com) for the classical songs. The Utkal Sangeet project was a great learning experience, I used tags, so that you could find any song, view it on any device, sort songs by Raga, Tala, Poet, Book, etc. I translated songs, and uploaded their recordings as well.

SP: Did you ever share your work with other fellow researchers? You must have struggled to find these resources, isn't it?
PP: U.S. Researcher in Ethnomusicology at U.C. Davis, Dr. David Dennen AKA 'David Uncle',was the first and only person who helped me. He himself has submitted his PhD Thesis on the Kishora Chandrananda Champu, from villages to research centers. He sent me tons of research books in digital form, painfully scanning them himself only for me, from locations like Australia and America. None from Odisha even assisted; the people at the Odisha state museum refused to let a child like me to see their manuscripts, and none of the research institutions even responded in an email. David uncle constantly inspired me to carry on further, not being swayed away. He encouraged me constantly, and he is as important to this project, on the Champu, as my very own parents.

Then in February 2015, it struck me that I could use social networking to propagate the richness of the Cult at Puri – the grandeur in literature, dance, music, art, sculpture, food and all. I started a new Twitter handle @shrijagannatha, and linked it with my site. Now the handle has 820 followers within 6 months. Many Twitter users have been very appreciative, and they became family now. From the Grandfather @nidhi_budha to the 'untimely gourd' @akala_kushmanda, they post random tweets about Odisha to digitization of the Odia script, with which I struggled greatly at the beginning. This soul, devoted to a similar cause as me, was @subhapa, Subhasish Panigrahi, an active volunteer in the Odia Wikipedia, one of the founding fathers. After months, Persuaded by the Wikimedians, I too contributed the entire text of the Kishorachandrananda Champu to the Odia Wikisource by using my Utkal Sangeet project. It is a collaborative project, which will blossom healthily. Since so many people visit the Wikimedia projects, my small contribution to this free online library could probably quench their literary thirst.

SP: What are your plans to expand your work on Wikisource?
PP: In the future, I plan to make my site even more accessible for the layman. I have a few ideas as of now, to make the ideas reach out to everyone, even someone as young as me. I want to be an active, useful member of this online digital movement for Odia language, and go on with my task forever.

SP: Thanks Prateek for taking time to share such an inspiring and insightful story. Would you like to add more about expanding project for digitizing such valuable literature?
PP: As for my future plans, I would like to type out other such works of Kabisurjya Baladeba Ratha, like his “Ratnakara Champu”, “Premodaya Champu” and even the satirical “Hasyakallola”. I would definitely contribute the same to Wikisource. The books being rare, they may be lost if not saved. I would like to translate the Kishora Chandrananda Champu, the main one, into English in its entirety – word by word, retaining its true essence so that the Western Audience and even people of their states can understand the marvel it is. Now, I'm researching on various commentaries and references so that I can write my own. The form itself is rare, and more so, such an intricately interwoven part of the typical 'Odia' identity that it cannot be ignored. Let the world glance upon the talents of (Upendra) Bhanja and Kabisurya (Baladeba Ratha) and identify that a small, peaceful state in the East has been the birthplace for such great art.
Thanks!

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/kisorachandrananachampu-on-odia-wikisource

Indian government includes open source in RFPs

subha — 2016-06-18T18:18:54Z

The Government of India has implemented a remarkable new policy-level change for open source software (OSS) deployment.

The Ministry of Communication and Information Technology has asked that open source software-based applications be included in Requests for Proposals (RFPs) for all new procurements. Note there is not a plan at this time to replace existing proprietary systems with open source software.

As stated, the policy will "adopt open standards and promote open source and open technologies" in order "to prepare India for a knowledge based transformation into a digitally empowered society and a knowledge economy."

Three major objectives of the new policy for OSS:

To provide a policy framework for rapid and effective adoption of OSS
To ensure strategic control in e-Governance applications and systems from a long-term perspective
To reduce the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) of projects

In addition to adopting open source and open standards, the Indian Government is also emphasizing on opening up the source code without any royalty for the community to use, modify and redistribute the original/modified software. This is compliant with the Creative Commons (CC) licenses.

Proprietary software (labeled as "closed source software" and "CSS" in the policy document) would only be permitted for demonstrated urgent/strategic need or lack of expertise or non-availability of open source software. The suppliers then are not bound to use open source software, though it is preferred over proprietary per this policy change. The policy document also mentions government collaborating with local and international open source communities for software development

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/open-source-subhashish-panigrahi-june-8-2015-indian-govt-includes-open-source-in-rfps

The Newly Updated Indic Keyboard App Now Supports 22 Asian Languages

subha — 2016-06-18T18:21:03Z

This blog post was written in my personal capacity.

The blog post was published by Global Voices on June 12, 2015.

The Indic Project, which belongs to the Indian non-profit Swathanthra Malayalam Computing (SMC), has released a new and significantly upgraded version of its input app “Indic Keyboard” for the Android mobile operating system. This major update comes roughly one year after the app's initial release in March 2014.

Indic Keyboard now supports 22 Asian languages, including 18 Indian languages apart from English, and 54 input layouts. The 23 supported languages are Assamese, Arabic, Bengali, Burmese, English, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri, Malayalam, Manipuri, Maithili, Marathi, Mon, Nepali, Odia, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Santali, Sinhala, Tamil, Telugu, and Urdu. On its company blog, SMC lists the various features included in the new update:

Addition of 7 new languages and several new layouts.
We now support 23 languages and 54 layouts in total.
All new Setup wizard makes it simpler for you to get started.
Material design, ability to changes themes.
Material white, Material dark, Holo blue and Holo white themes are available.
Intelligent word suggestion for transliteration – type faster with fewer keystrokes.
For languages with complex letters we now have the ability to type ZWJ and ZWNJ characters directly.
Arabic keyboard – by popular demand.
Code base is updated to support Android Lollipop edition.
A number of bug fixes (e.g. 1 and 2).

So far, the updated keyboard is enjoying a warm response from users:

20,000 people upgraded Indic Keyboard in first 2 days after its new release.

— Jishnu (@jishnu7) May 30, 2015

Brilliant for #Android users interested in writing in their mother tongue. Indic Keyboard v 2.0 supports 23 languages http://t.co/ZVoWuMPFai

— Karthik Subramanian (@chennaikat) May 29, 2015

One commenter writes:

Vernacular computing is a blocker for the complete roll out of computers and Internet to the world. Projects like these are welcome patches to fix that issue.

Typing on touch-screens can be rethought. Especially when it comes to Indic languages which have about double the number of characters compared to English. We shouldn’t constrain our minds to think in traditional layouts. Transliteration is a very good idea. But it puts the dependency back on English. We need radicalize the input methods for non-English languages and avoid the dependence of English altogether.

Anivar Aravind, Executive Director of Indic Project at SMC, and Jishnu Mohan, a Project Administrator at SMC, recently sat down with Rising Voices to discuss the updated app.

Rising Voices (RV): What was the objective behind bringing this mobile app for Indian languages? What has been Indic Project's core motivation?

Anivar Aravind (AA): Indic project focuses on community powered Research and Development of free and open source Indian language information infrastructure for majority of India that does not speak English. “It is pretty clear that unlike most other countries, India will be a “mobile-first” country because the first computing device for most Indians will be the mobile and not the PC.

RV: Why you think language display and input are important for Indian users?

AA: Unavailability of Indian Language interfaces, keyboards and fonts limits freedom of expression of people in their native languages and prevents them from tapping the full potential offered by smart phones and Internet. We believe all mobile users must able to read and write in their native language using their choice of layout. Indic Keyboard is coming as a part of our effort for digital inclusion on the mobile frontier.

RV: What is the reach of the app at this moment?

AA: Indic Keyboard received good user base of 168K+ downloads so far, primarily based on user reviews, without any advertisements and promotions.

RV: Can you share how Indic Keyboard was conceived and has grown?

AA: Indic Keyboard was started as a personal project by Malayalam-language computing advocate and developer Jishnu Mohan in 2013, is later upscaled into a community project collecting Indian language layouts suitable for mobile devices, updated and maintained by the free and open source community.

RV: Jishnu, as the core developer on this project, can you tell us how you overcame major roadblocks while designing Indic Keyboard?

Jishnu Mohan (JM): Absence of fonts in Android operating system was the major roadblock in increasing the language coverage. Android 4.4 supported only few Indian scripts, but some vendors like Samsung included more Indian language scripts. So we decided to go with 16 language support in Indic Keyboard 1.0 version last year. Since Android 5.1 has increased script coverage, we were able to support more languages in this 2.0 release.

RV: What were the other major challenges you faced, Anivar?

AA: The initial challenges of bringing a mobile input layout were many; from building dictionaries to the user interface. Google's Android Open Source Project (AOS) was used as a base for building this app where the keyboards that were integrated came from various sources. Keyboard layouts are not copyrighted and this was very useful for us to use a popular layout like Tamil99 for Tamil or another popular layout like Lekhani that was developed by the Odia Wikimedia community.

Happy to see Script support for Odiya , Saurashtra , Meetri Mayek, Lepcha, Limbu, Ol chikki (Santhali), Sylheti Nagari In Android 5.1

— indicproject (@indicproject) March 15, 2015

RV: How was Indic Project started and what have been its major accomplishments, so far?

AA: During 2005-2008 major ground work was done for localization support in Indic languages and overall improvement of communication using Indian languages. By 2009 web based technology were became our focus which oriented towards building and improving mobile applications for more users reading and writing in their native Indian languages. The project upscaling and 1.0 release of project was part of with the SMC-ICFOSS collaboration as a part of Department of Telecommunications (DIT) Android R & D Project of the Government of India. The project also received another grant from ICFOSS via Government of Kerala's Malayalam Computing project.

RV: What can you tell us about your work in policy-level lobbying and negotiations?

AA: We have done some work in policy front and recently submitted a policy brief requesting the government to mandate the inclusion of at least one Indian language font and one keyboard layout of all 22 official languages recognized as per 8th schedule of the Indian constitution in all smart phones and tablets selling in India.

RV: How did you reach so many users? What are your future promotion plans?

AA: The most important reason why Indic Keyboard reached out to 200k users with over 100k downloads is because of it not bringing up new keyboard layouts where as almost all other mobile input apps have their own proprietary layouts that users take time to learn and use.

RV: What are the difficulties of reaching out to masses of people?

AA: Many of the layouts were already popular and it was an added benefit for the primarily targeting people who know about inputting in their languages. Partnerships with mobile manufacturers and integrators this year for adoption of these keyboards. So users can get Indian language experience via vendor firmware itself without any extra download. Indic Keyboard liberated Indian language input in mobile devices and we want to port the same experience to all emerging mobile platforms.

RV: Are there any final comments or bit of information you'd like to share?

AA: Continuing research and development in this domain including ability to download of dictionaries for user preferred languages, increasing coverage to all 22 official languages in India, developing an free software library for gesture typing and building support for predictive input will be our main focus in the future.

As a promoter and developer of free and open source language technology, SMC plans to focus more on cross-platform mobile input-library-building and policy-level adoption for language input and other language technology advancements in the near future. SMC says it's currently in talks with the Indian government about mandating native keyboards on smart phones.

The keyboard can be downloaded from the Google Play store at http://j.mp/indicmal and also from the software repository at Gitlab at https://gitlab.com/smc/indic-keyboard.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/the-newly-updated-indic-keyboard-app-now-supports-22-asian-languages

Konkani Wikipedia — Climbing up the Indian Language Ladder?

subha — 2013-10-25T07:16:30Z

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

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

Incubation

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

Day 1: Building the Blocks

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

Intro Yourself

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

Editing Time

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

Game Time

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

Rat and Frog Game

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

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

Guide for Konkani Wikipedia editing with typing layouts

Day 2: Climbing up the Ladder

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

Day 3: Fresh Batch, New Start

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

Day 4: No Need to Say Good Bye!

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

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

Media Coverage

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

Video


Rusita Paryekar speaks about Konkani Wikipedia

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

Why It's Essential To Grow Indian-Language Wikipedias

subha — 2016-05-28T06:52:53Z

On 15 January, Wikipedia, the free online encyclopaedia celebrated its 15th birthday, meeting this milestone with 36 million articles in more than 290 languages (the English-language Wikipedia alone has crossed the 5-million article mark). But here I want to address some major questions that we need to ask as Indians.

This was published by Huffington Post on January 25, 2016. Also mirrored on Global Voices on February 26, 2016. The post was translated into Greek by Maria Souli. It was translated into Spanish by Daniela Diaz and into Russian by GV Russian

First, what is the state of Indian-language Wikipedia projects? What does India have to take from and give to Wikipedia?

With the growth of free and open source software in India, people are equipped with more freedom than ever. Especially with the recent federal policy-level changes, the nation is enjoying better collaboration with people of different cultures speaking different languages.

According to UNESCO, 197 of the total of 1652 Indian languages are dying despite having a long literary and linguistic heritage.

However, there is a huge gap in the access to knowledge on the internet domain. Of a population of about 1.26 billion only about 15-18% people are connected online, largely from mobile devices. A tiny fraction of this population comprises the technical community. It would be useful to have a metric on the percentage of this community's contribution to grow the languages of this country and its cultural heritage.

Wikipedia as a family

Wikipedia is not just an encyclopaedia. It is also a "family" of several other Open Knowledge members. Wikipedia itself is available in over 290 languages, but it also has other multilingual sister projects such as Wikisource (an online library of many public domain and other important texts), Wikimedia Commons (the world's largest repository of media files and documents), Wikibooks (a free library of educational textbooks), Wikivoyage (a free and open travel guide) and Wiktionary (a database of various languages).

These projects don't just house millions of images, videos, documents and texts, but allow anyone to contribute their knowledge to this ever deepening pool of information. Four Indian languages made an early entry to the Wiki-world back in 2002 -- Assamese, Malayalam, Odia and Punjabi.

Language neutrality

According to UNESCO, 197 of the total of 1652 Indian languages are dying despite having a long literary and linguistic heritage. It's quite shocking. In a blog post on content localisation, social entrepreneur Rajesh Ranjan asks if free and open source software can help save these dying languages. In the context of Wikipedia, there are already 23 South Asian-language projects. Out of these 20 are languages listed in the 8th schedule of the Constitution of India. Many might not have noticed that the "en" in the URL of Wikipedia that denotes the language code of English could be altered with "or" for Odia Wikipedia or "pa" for Punjabi Wikipedia.

Most Wikipedia projects in Indian language projects are relatively small compared to their counterparts. But the Wikimedia communities are thriving.

There are a fairly large number of native speakers waiting out there to access knowledge in their own languages.

When only parts of government websites are available in Hindi, the Hindi Wikipedia has crossed 10 million articles already. The Tamil and Malayalam Wikipedia communities have played a central part in implementing Wikipedia basics learning in the state-run school syllabus. Needless to say that these communities have played a significant role in implementing several free and open source software by pushing for policy-level change. Many Indian languages are in the pipeline to become active Wikipedia projects under the scope of the Wikimedia Incubator.

Maithili Wikipedia and Goan Konkani Wikipedia are the two Indian-language Wikipedias that have gone live in recent years. The world has seen how digital activism has brought a new life to the Hebrew language. There are a fairly large number of native speakers waiting out there to access knowledge in their own languages. Wikipedia could be a great tool for digital activism with openness and sharing.

Addressing gender bias in Wikipedia: Implications for India

India tops South Asia in the gender inequality index in the entire South Asia. The female literacy rate is an alarmingly low 65.46% as compared to 82.14% for men. This disparity is evident in many other sectors as well as in politics.

Digital India aims at digital literacy and availability of digital resources/services in Indian languages. This is closely aligned with the Wikimedia movement's goal....

But gender bias is not just a problem in India. The global free and open source software (FOSS) community has always been worried about the low presence of women contributors -- in the range of 2-5% range. Wikimedia Foundation's former executive director admitted that Wikipedia, like many other collaborative and open projects, does not have a conducive environment for women. But the Wikimedia community and Wikimedia Foundation are both working on improving this state of affairs. Indian-language Wikipedia projects are directly impacted by this global drive, be it the Women's History Month edit-a-thon where Wikipedia content largely related to women are improved every year or the Lilavati's Daughters project where biographies of Indian women scientists were created and enriched in Wikipedia projects.

Complementing Digital India

With a population of over 354 million netizens India still has a long way to go in increasing Indian language content on the web. The Government of India's new campaign Digital India aims at digital literacy and availability of digital resources/services in Indian languages. This is closely aligned with the Wikimedia movement's goal to provide free access to the sum of all human knowledge. In addition to Wikipedia, many other open educational resources and free knowledge projects that are not already a part of the Digital India campaign signal the need for the federal-run campaign to be more collaborative and open. Community-government collaborations like the NROER project to make NCERT books under Creative Commons licenses and IT@School project in the state of Kerala to provide education using free and open tools have gained massive traction and helped more Indian language content come online.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/huffington-post-subhashish-panigrahi-january-25-2016-why-its-essential-to-grow-indian-language-wikipedias

କେତେ ମାଗଣା ଫେସବୁକର ଫ୍ରି ବେସିକ୍ସ?

subha — 2016-01-28T07:23:37Z

This opinion piece in Odia on Facebook's Free Basics App was published in Odisha.com. The post highlights several user security and privacy that Free Basics is violating apart from violating net neutrality. It also brings the parallel of Airtel Zero and Free Basics with the Grameenphone project by Mozilla in Bangladesh and the worldwide Wikipedia Zero projects.

Read the original article published in Odisha.com here.

ଗତ ଦୁଇ ସପ୍ତାହ ସାରା ଇଣ୍ଟରନେଟରେ ନିଆଁ ଲାଗିଛି । ସାରା ଦେଶରୁ ଲୋକେ ନିଆଁରେ ପତଙ୍ଗ ଝାସ ଦେଲା ଭଳି ଫେସବୁକର ନୂଆ ପ୍ରକଳ୍ପ ଫ୍ରି ବେସିକ (Free Basics) ବିରୋଧରେ ଭିନ୍ନ ଭିନ୍ନ ଧରଣର ମତ ଦେଇଚାଲିଛନ୍ତି।

ପ୍ରଧାନମନ୍ତ୍ରୀ ମୋଦିଙ୍କ ଆମେରିକା ଗସ୍ତ କାଳରେ ସେଠାରେ ଜୁକରବର୍ଗଙ୍କ ସାଙ୍ଗେ ଭେଟି ଫେସବୁକର ମିଳିତ ସହଯୋଗରେ ଭାରତରେ ସାଧାରଣ ଲୋକଙ୍କ ପାଇଁ ଜ୍ଞାନ ବିତରଣ ଓ ସୂଚନା ପହଞ୍ଚାଇବା ବାବଦରେ ଆଲୋଚନ କରିଥିଲେ।

ଫେସବୁକ ଏହାକୁ ଭାରତରେ ନିଜର ଚେର ମୋଟା କରିବାର ଏକ ସୁଯୋଗ ଭାବେ ବ୍ୟବହାର କରିବାକୁ ଉଦ୍ୟମ କଲା । ଫେସବୁକର ପ୍ରତିଷ୍ଠାତା ମାର୍କ ଜୁକରବର୍ଗ ଏହି ଫ୍ରି ବେସିକ୍ସ ସମ୍ପର୍କରେ ଘୋଷଣା କରିବାର ଦୁଇ ସପ୍ତାହ ନ ପୁରୁଣୁ ଟେଲିକମ ରେଗୁଲେଟରି ଅଥରିଟି ଅଫ ଇଣ୍ଡିଆ (ଟ୍ରାଇ) ପାଖରେ ସାଢ଼େ ଚାରି ଲକ୍ଷ ପାଖାପାଖି ଇମେଲ ଏହାକୁ ରୋକିବା ଲାଗି ପହଞ୍ଚି ସାରିଲାଣି ।

ଜନନେତା ଓ ଇନଫୋସିସର ସହ ପ୍ରତିଷ୍ଠାତା ନନ୍ଦନ ନୀଳକେଣିଙ୍କ ଠାରୁ ଆରମ୍ଭ କରି ମିଡ଼ିଆନାମାର ପ୍ରତିଷ୍ଠାତା ନିଖିଳ ପାଉଆ, ଭେଞ୍ଚର କ୍ୟାପିଟାଲିଷ୍ଟ ମହେଶ ମୂର୍ତ୍ତି, ଇଣ୍ଟରନେଟ ଆକ୍ଟିଭିଷ୍ଟ ସୁନୀଳ ଆବ୍ରାହାମ, ପ୍ରଣେଶ ପ୍ରକାଶଙ୍କ ଯାଏ ସଭିଏଁ ଏହା ପଛରେ ଫେସବୁକ ଲାଭକାରୀ ମନୋଭାବ ନିହିତ ଅଛି ବୋଲି ଦର୍ଶାଇ ଏହି ଉଦ୍ୟମକୁ କଡ଼ା ନିନ୍ଦା କରିଛନ୍ତି।

ତେବେ କଣ ଏ ଫ୍ରି ବେସିକ୍ସ? କାହିଁକି ଏତେ ବିବାଦ ?

ଫେସବୁକ ବ୍ୟବହାର କରୁଥିବା ଉଣାଅଧିକେ ସଭିଏଁ ଜାଣୁଥିବେ ସେ କେଡ଼େ ଅଠାକାଠି! ଫେସବୁକର ପ୍ରାୟ ବ୍ୟବହାକାରୀ ହେଲେ ଯୁବବର୍ଗର । ତେବେ ଅନ୍ୟ ବଯସର ଲୋକେ ମଧ୍ୟ ଫେସବୁକ ବ୍ୟବହାର କରିଥାନ୍ତି । ଖୁବ କମ ସମୟରେ ଅଧିକ ଲୋକଙ୍କ ସଙ୍ଗେ ମିଶିବା, ଗପିବା ଆଦି ସୁବିଧା ପାଇବା ଯୋଗୁଁ ଅନେକେ ଫେସବୁକ ପ୍ରେମରେ ପଡ଼ିଯାଆନ୍ତି ।

ସରଳ ଭାଷାରେ କହିଲେ ଫେସବୁକ ଇଣ୍ଟରନେଟରେ ଉପଲବ୍ଧ ଏକ ହାଟ ବଜାର । ଲୋକେ ସେଠି କିଛି ସମୟ କାଟିବା ପାଇଁ, ଚିହ୍ନା-ଅଚିହ୍ନା ଲୋକଙ୍କ ସହ ମିଶିବା ପାଇଁ, ଆଳାପ-ଆଲୋଚନା ପାଇଁ ଏକାଠି ହୁଅନ୍ତି । ଅଧିକାଂଶ ଆଲୋଚନା କେବଳ ମଜା ମଉଜ ପାଇଁ ହେଲା ବେଳେ କିଛି ଉପଯୋଗୀ ଆଲୋଚନା ମଧ୍ୟ ହୋଇଥାଏ ।

ଫେସବୁକ ଏକ ବିଶାଳ ଲାଭକାରୀ କମ୍ପାନି । ଏହାର ଆଉ ଏକ ସହ ପ୍ରକଳ୍ପ ହେଲା ହୁଆଟ୍ସ ଅପ । ଏହା ଅନଲାଇନ ଚାଟିଂ ପାଇଁ ବ୍ୟବହାର କରାଯାଏ । ଫଟୋ ଭିଡ଼ିଓରୁ ଆରମ୍ଭ କରି ସାଧାରଣ ଚାଟିଂ ନିମନ୍ତେ ଏହା ଖୁବ ଜଣା । ନିକଟରେ ଫେସବୁକ internet.org ନାମକ ଏକ ସହ-ସଙ୍ଗଠନ ଆରମ୍ଭ କରିଛି ।

ଫ୍ରି ବେସିକ୍ସ ହେଲା ଏ ଇଣ୍ଟରନେଟ ଡଟ ଅର୍ଗ ଅଧୀନରେ ଏକ ଯୋଜନା । ତେବେ ଫେସବୁକ ଓ ଫେସବୁକର ସହ-ପ୍ରକଳ୍ପସବୁକୁ ଅଭାବୀ ଦେଶମାନଙ୍କରେ ଅଧିକ ଲୋକପ୍ରିୟ କରିବା ଲାଗି ସେସବୁକୁ ବିନାମୂଲ୍ୟରେ ପହଞ୍ଚାଇବା ପାଇଁ ଏ ଫ୍ରି ବେସିକ୍ସ । ଭାରତ ସମେତ ଜଗତର ୩୦ଟି ଦେଶରେ ଫ୍ରି ବେସିକ୍ସ ଜରିଆରେ ମାଗଣା ସୀମିତ ଫେସବୁକ ସୁବିଧା ଦେବା ଏହାର ଉଦ୍ଦେଶ୍ୟ ।

ଫ୍ରି ବେସିକ୍ସ ଜରିଆରେ ଆଉ କିଛି ମାଗଣା ୱେବସାଇଟ ମଧ୍ୟ ଉପଲବ୍ଧ ହେବ । ତେବେ ଏଠାରେ ଅନେକ ପ୍ରଶ୍ନ ମନରେ ଉଙ୍କିମାରେ? ଏ ମାଗଣା ୱେବସାଇଟସବୁ ବ୍ୟବହାର ପାଇଁ ଲୋଡ଼ା କି ନାଁ ତା’ର ସିଦ୍ଧାନ୍ତ କିଏ ନେବ, ଫେସବୁକ ନାଁ ବ୍ୟବହାରକାରୀ ?

ଫ୍ରି ବେସିକ୍ସ ଅଧୁନା କିଛି ଦେଶରେ ଉପଲବ୍ଧ ହୋଇଥିବା ବେଳେ ଫିଲିପାଇନ୍ସରେ ରହୁଥିବା ଜଣେ ଭାରତୀୟ ଜିତେଶ ଗୋସ୍ୱାମୀ ନିକଟରେ ନିଜେ ନିଜ ମୋବାଇଲରେ ସେଠାର ଫ୍ରି ବେସିକ୍ସ ଇନଷ୍ଟଲ କରି ଯାହା ମତ ଦେଇଛନ୍ତି ତା’ ଭାରୀ ଚିନ୍ତାର ବିଷୟ । ସାଧାରଣ ଫେସବୁକର ଅଧାରୁ ଅଧିକ ସୁବିଧା ଫ୍ରି ବେସିକ୍ସରେ ନାହିଁ ।

ଏଥିରେ ଫେସବୁକ ବାହାରେ ଥିବା ଭିଡ଼ିଓ ମାଗଣାରେ ଦେଖିହେବନି କି ଖବର ଆଦି ସମ୍ପୂର୍ଣ୍ଣ ପଢ଼ିହେବନି । ପୁଣି ମାଗଣାରେ ମିଳିବାକୁ ଥିବା ବାକି ୱେବସାଇଟସବୁ ବାଛିବାରେ ଫେସବୁକର ଏକଚାଟିଆ ଅଧିକାର ରହିବ । ବ୍ୟବହାରକାରୀ କଣ ଚାହାନ୍ତି ନ ଚାହାନ୍ତି ତାହା ଫେସବୁକ ନିର୍ଣ୍ଣୟ କରିବ ।

ଆଉ ଗରୀବ ମାଇପ ସବୁରି ଶାଳୀ ନ୍ୟାୟରେ ଗରୀବଙ୍କୁ ମାଗଣା ତିଅଣର ସୁଆଦ ଚଖାଇ ଫେସବୁକ ସେମାନଙ୍କୁ ଇଣ୍ଟରନେଟ ଯୋଗାଇବା ଆଳରେ କେବଳ ଫେସବୁକର ପରିଧି ଭିତରେ ବାନ୍ଧି ରଖିବ ।

ଫେସବୁକ ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆ Mozilla ଭଳି ଖୋଲା ସଫ୍ଟଓଏର ବ୍ୟବହାର କରେନାହିଁ କି ଲୋକଙ୍କ ଉଦ୍ୟମରେ ତିଆରି ନୁହେଁ । ଏହା ସମ୍ପୂର୍ଣ୍ଣ ଭାବେ ଏକ ଲାଭକାରୀ କମ୍ପାନି । ତେଣୁ ଫେସବୁକର ସବୁ କାମ ଲୋକଙ୍କ ସ୍ୱାର୍ଥ ନୁହେଁ ବରଂ ନିଜ ସ୍ୱାର୍ଥ ହାସଲ ପାଇଁ ।

ଅଭାବୀ ଦେଶର ଲୋକଙ୍କ ମନ ଜିଣିବା ପାଇଁ ଓ ନିଜର ବ୍ୟବହାର କାରୀଙ୍କ ସଂଖ୍ୟା ବଢ଼ାଇବା ପାଇଁ ଏହା ଫେସବୁକର ଏକ ମସୁଧା ବୋଲି ଅନେକ ଚିନ୍ତାଶୀଳ ଲୋକେ ମତ ଦେଇଛନ୍ତି । ଫେସବୁକର ଏହି ଏକ ଚାଟିଆ କାମ ନେଟ ନିଉଟ୍ରାଲିଟି ବା ନେଟ ସମାନତାର ପକ୍ଷପାତୀ ।

ପକ୍ଷପାତ ନ କରି ସବୁ ୱେବସାଇଟକୁ ସମାନ ଭାବେ ଗଣିବା ନେଟ ସମାନତା ନାମରେ ଜଣା । ଫ୍ରି ବେସିକ୍ସରେ ଥିବା ନାନାଦି ଭୁଲ ବିଷୟକୁ ଭଲ ଭାବେ ତନଖି କରିବା ପାଇଁ ନିକଟରେ ଟେଲିକମ ରେଗୁଲେଟରି ଅଥରିଟି ଅଫ ଇଣ୍ଡିଆ (ଟ୍ରାଇ) ଫ୍ରି ବେସିକ୍ସକୁ କିଛି ସମୟ ପାଇଁ ବାସନ୍ଦ କରିଛି ।

ଚତୁର ଫେସବୁକ କେବେ ଚାଷୀମାନଙ୍କୁ ପାଣିପାଗ ଜାଣିବାରେ ଫ୍ରି ବେସିକ୍ସ ସାହାଯ୍ୟ କରିବ ତ କେବେ ଅଭାବୀ ଭାରତୀୟଙ୍କୁ ପରସ୍ପର ସହ ଯୋଡ଼ିବାରେ ସାହାଯ୍ୟ କରିବ ବୋଲି ଦେଶସାରା ସହର ବଜାର ସବୁଠି ଜୋରଦାର ପ୍ରଚାର ଚଳାଇଥିଲା ।

ସବୁ ଖବରକାଗଜରେ ପୂରା ଫର୍ଦ ବିଜ୍ଞାପନ ଆଉ ସବୁ ବସ ରହିବା ସ୍ଥାନରେ ବଡ଼ ବଡ଼ ହୋର୍ଡ଼ିଂ । ଆଉ ଏଥିରେ ସଭିଙ୍କୁ ଅନୁରୋଧ ଥିଲା ଏକ ନମ୍ବରକୁ ମିସ କଲ ଦେଇ ଫ୍ରି ବେସିକ୍ସକୁ ସମର୍ଥନ କରିବା ପାଇଁ । ଏ ପ୍ରଚାର ପ୍ରସାରରେ ୧୦୦ କୋଟିରୁ ଅଧିକ ବୋଧେ ଖର୍ଚ୍ଚ ହୋଇଥିବ! କେଉଁଠୁ ଆଦାୟ ହେବ ଏ ପଇସା? ଫ୍ରି ବେସିକ୍ସର ମାଗଣା ଫେସବୁକ ଓ ବାକି ୱେବସାଇଟକୁ ସୁବିଧା ଦେବାର ଏ ଆଳ ବିରୋଧରେ ଝଡ଼ ଉଠିଛି ।

Savetheinternet.in ନାମରେ ଏକ ୱେବସାଇଟ ତିଆରି କରି ଇଣ୍ଟରନେଟରେ ସମାନତା ପାଇଁ ଲଢ଼ୁଥିବା କର୍ମୀଏ ଏକରକମ ଆନ୍ଦୋଳନ ଆରମ୍ଭ କରିଛନ୍ତି ।

ଫେସବୁକର ମିସ କଲ ଅଭିଯାନର କଡ଼ା ଜବାବ ଦେବାପାଇଁ Savetheinternet.in ଓ fsmi.in ନାମକ ଦୁଇଟି ୱେବସାଇଟ ପକ୍ଷରୁ ଜନସାଧାରଣଙ୍କୁ ସଚେତନ କରାଯାଇ ଟ୍ରାଇ ପାଖକୁ ଇମେଲ ପଠାଇବା ଅନୁରୋଧ କରାଯାଇଥିଲା । ଫେସବୁକର କୋଟି କୋଟି ଟଙ୍କା ଖର୍ଚର ମିସ କଲ ଅଭିଯାନରୁ ୧୦ ଲକ୍ଷ ସମର୍ଥନ ମିଳିଥିବା ବେଳେ ବିନା ପଇସାରେ ସାଢ଼େ ଚାରି ଲକ୍ଷରୁ ଅଧିକ ଲୋକ ଇମେଲ ଜରିଆରେ ଫ୍ରି ବେସିକ୍ସକୁ ବିରୋଧ କରି ଟ୍ରାଇକୁ ଇମେଲ କରିଛନ୍ତି ।

ତେବେ ଫେସବୁକର ଏହି ସମର୍ଥନ ସଂଗ୍ରହକୁ ଟ୍ରାଇର ସଭାପତି ଆରଏସ ଶର୍ମା ଘୋର ନିନ୍ଦା କରି କହିଛନ୍ତି ଏଯାବତ ଫେସବୁକ ଯେଉଁ ୧୪ ଲକ୍ଷ ଲୋକଙ୍କୁ ପ୍ରଭାବିତ କରି ସେମାନଙ୍କୁ ମିସ କଲ ଜରିଆରେ ସମର୍ଥନ ଆଣିଛି ତା’ ମୂଲ୍ୟହୀନ ।

୧୦୦ କୋଟି ଟଙ୍କାର କି ଅପଚୟ! ସେତିକି ପଇସାରେ ଶହେ ହଜାର ଲୋକଙ୍କ ମାଗଣାରେ କିଛି ଉପଯୋଗୀ ସାଇଟ ଦେଖିବା ସୁଯୋଗ ଦେଇଥିଲେ ଆହୁରି ଭଲ ହୋଇଥାନ୍ତା ।

ଫ୍ରି ବେସିକ୍ସରେ ଲୁଚି ରହିଥିବା ସବୁଠୁ ବଡ଼ ବିପଦଟି ହେଲା ଫେସବୁକର ତଥ୍ୟ ସଂଗ୍ରହ କାରସାଦି । ବ୍ୟବହାର୍ରକାରୀ କି କି ସାଇଟ ଦେଖିଲେ, କାହା ସଙ୍ଗେ ଗପିଲେ ସେସବୁ ଏହା ତାଙ୍କ ଅଗୋଚରେ ଟିକିନିଖି କରି ହିସାବ ରଖିଥାଏ । ସଳଖେ କହିଲେ ଫେସବୁକରେ ବ୍ୟବହାର କାରୀ ବାପୁଡ଼ାର ବ୍ୟକ୍ତିଗତ ବୋଲି କିଛି ରହିବ ନାହିଁ ।

ଫେସବୁକ ଆରମ୍ଭରୁ ଶବ୍ଦସମ୍ଭାରରେ ଭରା ଏକ ଲମ୍ବା ବିବରଣୀରେ ତଥ୍ୟ ସଂଗ୍ରହରେ ବ୍ୟବହାରକାରୀଙ୍କ କୌଣସି ଅଭିଯୋଗ ନାହିଁ ବୋଲି ଖୁବ ଚତୁର ଭାବେ ତାଙ୍କଠୁ ଅନୁମତି ନେଇଯାଏ । ଅନଭିଜ୍ଞ ବ୍ୟବହାରକାରୀ ପାଠ ଘର ଯାହା ସେଥିରେ ସେ ଏ ଫିକର ବୁଝିବ ବା କିପରି?

ଇଣ୍ଟରନେଟ ଓକିଲ ଇବେନ ମଗଲେନ ଓ ମିସି ଚୌଧୁରୀ ଏକ ଲେଖାରେ ଦୁହେଁ ତନ୍ନ ତନ୍ନ କରି ବିଶ୍ଳେଷଣ କରିଛନ୍ତି ଏ କଥା । ପ୍ରଶ୍ନ ଉଠେ ଯେ ଫେସବୁକ ଧନୀ ଦେଶରେ ଏଭଳି ବେପରୁଆ ଅପସାହସ କରିବକି?

ଏହି ଭଳି ଆଉ ଏକ କୁଟିଳ ବିଷୟ ଥିଲା ଏଆରଟେଲ ଜିରୋ । ଏଆରଟେଲ ଜିରୋ ଆଉ ଫ୍ରି ବେସିକ ଭିତରେ ବଡ଼ ସମାନତା ହେଉଛି ଉଭୟ କମ୍ପାନି କିଛି ୱେବସାଇଟଙ୍କଠାରୁ ବିପୁଳ ପରିମାଣରେ ପଇସା ନେଇ ସେ ୱେବସାଇଟସବୁକୁ ବ୍ୟବହାର କାରୀଙ୍କ ପାଇଁ ମାଗଣାରେ ଯୋଗାଇଥାନ୍ତି ।

ଏଥିରେ ସେବା ଯୋଗାଣକାରୀ ଓ ମାଗଣାରେ ବ୍ୟବହାର କାରୀଙ୍କ ପାଖେ ପହଞ୍ଚୁଥିବା ୱେବସାଇଟସବୁଙ୍କ ସିଧାସଳଖ ସ୍ୱାର୍ଥ ନିହିତ ଥାଏ । ପାଠକଙ୍କୁ ଜ୍ଞାନ ବିତରଣ କରିବାର ତୁଚ୍ଛା ବିଜ୍ଞାପନ ତଳେ ଯେ ଏତେ ଫନ୍ଦି ରହିଛି ତାହା ପାଠକ ବାପୁଡ଼ା ବା ଜାଣିବ କେମନ୍ତେ? ଆଉ ଧନୀ ଦେଶରେ ଏଭଳି ଫିକର ସହଜେ ଧରାପଡ଼ିବ ବୋଲି ଫେସବୁକ ଭଳି କମ୍ପାନି ୩୦ଟି ଅଭାବୀ ଦେଶକୁ ଥୋପ କରିଛି ।

ତେବେ ମାଗଣାରେ କିଛି ୱେବସାଇଟ ଉପଲବ୍ଧ କରାଇବା କିଛି ନୂଆ ନୁହେଁ । ଅତୀତରେ ବଙ୍ଗଳାଦେଶରେ Mozilla (ଫାୟାରଫକ୍ସ ଭଳି ନାନାଦି ଖୋଲା ସଫ୍ଟଓଏର ପରିଚାଳନା କରୁଥିବା ସଙ୍ଗଠନ) ଗ୍ରାମୀଣଫୋନ ନାମକ ଯୋଜନା ଜରିଆରେ ୫ ଲକ୍ଷରୁ ଅଧିକ ଲୋକଙ୍କୁ ଦିନକୁ ୨୦ MBର ଡାଟା ଦେବା ସାରା ଜଗତରେ ଆଲୋଚନା ବିଷୟ ହୋଇଥିଲା ।

ମୋଜିଲା ଓ ମୋବାଇଲ ସେବା ଯୋଗାଣକାରୀ ଟେଲିନର ଏଥି ପାଇଁ ପ୍ରଶଂସାର ପାତ୍ର ହୋଇଥିଲେ । ଅନେକ ଦେଶରେ ସାଧାରଣ ଲୋକେ ବିଭିନ୍ନ ବିଷୟରେ ଜାଣିବାକୁ ପାଉନଥିବାରୁ ଏସଏସମେସ ଓ ଇଣ୍ଟରନେଟ ଯୋଗେ ସାଧାରଣ ଲୋକଙ୍କ ଦ୍ୱାରା ସମ୍ପାଦିତ ଅନଲାଇନ ଜ୍ଞାନକୋଷ ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆ, ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆ ଜିରୋ ପ୍ରକଳ୍ପ ଜରିଆରେ ମାଗଣାରେ ଯୋଗାଇଦିଆଯାଉଛି ।

ଭାରତରେ ମଧ୍ୟ ପରୀକ୍ଷାମୂଳକ ଭାବେ କିଛି ସ୍ଥାନରେ ଏହି ସୁବିଧା ଦିଆଯାଇଛି । ତେବେ ଜ୍ଞାନ ବିତରଣ ପାଇଁ ଏହି ଭଳି ଉଦ୍ୟମ ସବୁରି ଆଦର ପାଆନ୍ତି । କିନ୍ତୁ ନିଜ ସ୍ୱାର୍ଥ ହାସଲ ନିମନ୍ତେ ଜଗତର ହିତ ନାମରେ ଗରୀବଙ୍କ ଗରିବୀକୁ ଥୋପ କରି ଫେସବୁକର ଫ୍ରି ବେସିକ୍ସ କେବଳ ନିନ୍ଦା ପାଇଛି । ଲୋକଙ୍କ ସମର୍ଥନ ପାଇବାକୁ ହେଲେ କିଛି ପରିମାଣରେ ସଚ୍ଚା ହେବାକୁ ଯେ ପଡ଼ିବ ଏ କଥାଟି ଫେସବୁକ ଏବେଠୁ ହେଜିଲେ ଆଗକୁ ମଙ୍ଗଳ ହେବ ।

ଲେଖକ ପରିଚୟ:

ଶୁଭାଶିଷ ପାଣିଗ୍ରାହୀ ବେଙ୍ଗାଳୁରର ସେଣ୍ଟର ଫର ଇଣ୍ଟରନେଟ ଆଣ୍ଡ ସୋସାଇଟିରେ ଭାରତୀୟ ଭାଷାରେ ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆ ଓ ଉଇକିମିଡ଼ିଆ ପ୍ରକଳ୍ପ ତଥା ସ୍ୱେଚ୍ଛାସେବୀ ସମୂହର ବିକାଶ ନିମନ୍ତେ ବିଗତ କିଛି ବର୍ଷ ଧରି କାମ କରୁଛନ୍ତି ।

ଆଗରୁ ଇଂରାଜୀ ସମେତ ବିଭିନ୍ନ ଦକ୍ଷିଣ ଏସୀୟ ଭାଷାରେ ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆର ବିକାଶ ପାଇଁ ସେ ଉଇକିମିଡ଼ିଆ ଫାଉଣ୍ଡେସନରେ ସକ୍ରିୟ ଥିଲେ । ଉଇକିମାନିଆ ହଂକଂ, ଲଣ୍ଡନ ଓ ମେକ୍ସିକୋ ସିଟି, ଓପନ ନଲେଜ ଡେ ବର୍ଲିନ, ଗ୍ଲୋବାଲ ଭଏସେସ ସମିଟ ଫିଲିପାଇନ୍ସ ଆଦି ଦେଶବିଦେଶରେ ଭାଷାର କମ୍ପ୍ୟୁଟରୀକରଣ ଓ ଭାଷା ପାଇଁ ଟେକନୋଲୋଜି ବିକାଶ ସମ୍ବନ୍ଧରେ ସେ ବିଭିନ୍ନ ସମ୍ମିଳନୀରେ ନିଜର ବକ୍ତବ୍ୟ ପ୍ରଦାନ କରିଛନ୍ତି ।

ଦୀର୍ଘ ଦିନ ଧରି ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆ ସହିତ ମୋଜିଲା, ଓପନ ଗ୍ଲାମ, ଗ୍ଲୋବାଲ ଭଏସେସ, ଓପନସୋର୍ସ ଡଟ କମ ଆଦି ବିଶ୍ୱସ୍ତରୀୟ ପ୍ରକଳ୍ପ ସହ ସକ୍ରିୟ ଭାବେ ଜଡ଼ିତ । ଜଣେ ନିୟମିତ ସ୍ତମ୍ଭକାର ଭାବେ ସେ ବିଭିନ୍ନ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଓ ଇଂରାଜୀ ଖବରକାଗଜ, ବ୍ଲଗ ଆଦିରେ ଓ ନିଜ ବ୍ଲଗ http://psubhashish.comରେ ନିଜର ନିବନ୍ଧ ଲେଖନ୍ତି ।ଟୁଇଟରରେ ଶୁଭାଶିଷଙ୍କ ସହ @subhapa ରେ ଯୋଗାଯୋଗ କରିହେବ ।

ସେଣ୍ଟର ଫର ଇଣ୍ଟରନେଟ ଆଣ୍ଡ ସୋସାଇଟି, ବେଙ୍ଗାଳୁର
psubhashish@gmail.com

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/b15b47b24b47-b2eb3eb17b23b3e-b2bb47b38b2cb41b15b30-b2bb4db30b3f-b2cb47b38b3fb15b4db38

ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିପାଠାଗାର: ଓଡ଼ିଆରେ ଡିଜିଟାଲ ପାଠାଗାର ଆନ୍ଦୋଳନର ନୂଆ ମୁହଁ

subha — 2016-01-28T07:25:34Z

Many would be searching for Odia-language books on the internet. Many would feel like correcting typos and other mistakes when found while reading a book, even online. Odia Wikisource is as a platform all those book lovers who want to read Odia books online and want to make more books available online.

The article by Subhashish Panigrahi was published in Your Story on January 12, 2016.

ଇଣ୍ଟରନେଟରେ ଅନେକେ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ବହି ଖୋଜୁଥିବେ । ପୁରୁଣା ବହିରେ ପ୍ରକାଶନ ବା ଛାପା-ଜନିତ ଭୁଲ ଭଟକା ଆଖିରେ ପଡ଼ିଲେ ଯେମିତି ଆମେ ବହିରେ କଲମରେ ଗାର ମାରିଦେଉ ଇଣ୍ଟରନେଟରେ ସେମିତି ଭୁଲଟିଏ ଦେଖିଲେ ଭୁଲଟି ସୁଧାରିବାକୁ ହାତ ବଳିବ । ଏ ସବୁ ପ୍ରକାର ଦ୍ୱନ୍ଦର ସମାଧାନ ଏଣିକି ଇଣ୍ଟରନେଟରେ ଉପଲବ୍ଧ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ପାଠାଗାର "ଉଇକିପାଠାଗାର" ଦ୍ୱାରା ସମ୍ଭବ ।

ଭାଷାଟିଏ ବଢ଼ିଲେ ବଢ଼ନ୍ତି ବ୍ୟବହାରୀ । ବଢ଼େ ସେ ଭାଷାର ଅଭିଲେଖ । ଆଉ ଆମ ଭାଷାଟି କେଇ ଶହ-ହଜାର ବର୍ଷ ଭିତରେ ଶାଖା ପ୍ରଶାଖା ମେଲି ଯେ କେଡ଼େ ବିଶାଳ ହୋଇଛି ତାହା ଆମେ ଜାଣୁ । ଭାଷା ନଈଟି ବହୁ ଜାଗା ଦେଇ ବହୁ ବହୁ ଅନେକ ବହି ମଧ୍ୟ ଉତୁରିଉଠିଛି । ସେ ବହିମାନଙ୍କ ଭିତରୁ ଜଣାଶୁଣା ଲେଖକଙ୍କ ବହିଗୁଡ଼ିକ ଭଲ ଭାବେ ସଂରକ୍ଷିତ ହୋଇ ପୁନଃମୁଦ୍ରଣ ହେବା ସହିତ ପିଢ଼ି ପିଢ଼ି ଧରି ପଢ଼ାହେଉଛି । ହେଲେ ଗୁରୁତ୍ତ୍ୱପୂର୍ଣ ତଥ୍ୟ ଥାଇ ମଧ୍ୟ ଅନେକ ବଣମଲ୍ଲୀ ସମ ଉପାଦେୟ ବହି ପ୍ରଚାର ପ୍ରସାର ଅଭାବରୁ ଲୋକଲୋଚନକୁ ଆସିପାରିନାହିଁ । ତା ଛଡ଼ା ଅନେକ ବହି ପ୍ରକାଶକ ଓ ଲେଖକଙ୍କ ସମ୍ବଳ ଅଭାବ ହେତୁ ବା ପାଠକଙ୍କ ଅନାଗ୍ରହ ଯୋଗୁ ସାରା ଓଡ଼ିଶା ବା ଓଡ଼ିଶା ବାହାରକୁ ଯାଇପାରନ୍ତି ନାହିଁ । ଏମିତି ଅବସ୍ଥାରେ ଆମ ଭବିଷ୍ୟତ ପିଢ଼ି ସବୁଯାକ ବହି ନ ହେଲେ ମଧ୍ୟ କିଛି ବହି ପାଇବେ ତ?

ଆଗରୁ ଆମର କୋଠକାଠିଆ ସମାଜ ଥିଲା । ଏକାଠି ବହୁଲୋକ ବସି ଆଳାପ ଆଲୋଚନା କରୁଥିଲେ । ବହି ପଢ଼ାଠୁ ଆରମ୍ଭ କରି ନ୍ୟାୟ ବିଚାର ଯାଏ ସବୁ ହେଉଥିଲା ସେଇଠି । ଆମ ବଡ଼ବଡ଼ୁଆମାନେ ସବୁ ଗୁରୁତ୍ତ୍ୱପୂର୍ଣ୍ଣ ସିଦ୍ଧାନ୍ତ ସେଇଠି ନେଉଥିଲେ । ଅନେକ ସ୍ଥାନରେ ବୁଦ୍ଧଙ୍କ ଛବି ଖୋଜିଲେ ଏବେ ବି ଗଛ ତଳେ ଚଉକିପରେ ଏକାଠି ହୋଇ ଲୋକେ ବିଚାର କରୁଥିବା ଦେଖିବାକୁ ମିଳେ । ପରେ ଭାଗବତ ଟୁଙ୍ଗିରେ ଆମର ଭାଗବତ ପଢ଼ାହେଲା । ସେ ଥିଲା କେଇଘଣ୍ଟା ପାଇଁ ପାଠାଗାର ଆଉ ବାକି ବେଳ ପାଇଁ ଚଳଣି ଆଉ ନ୍ୟାୟଘର । ପରେ ବହିର ଆଲୋଚନାଠାରୁ ସଂଗ୍ରହ ଓ ସଂରକ୍ଷଣ ଲୋଡ଼ା ପଡ଼ିବାରୁ ପାଠାଗାର ଆରମ୍ଭ ହେଲା । ତେବେ ଧୀରେ ଧୀରେ ଲୋକେ ବହି ପଢ଼ାଠାରୁ ଦୂରେଇ ଯିବାରୁ ପାଠାଗାର ବଣମଲ୍ଲୀ ସମାନ ହୋଇପଡ଼ିଲାଣି ।

ଆଜିର ପିଢ଼ି ଯେବେ ପୂରାପୂରି ଡିଜିଟାଲ ମୁହାଁ ହୋଇସାରିଲେଣି ଆମକୁ ବିଚାରିବାକୁ ହେବ ଏ ରାଶି ରାଶି ପୋଥି କାହା ପାଇଁ । ସମାଜଟିଏ ତା'ର ଆଗାମୀ ଭବିଷ୍ୟତର ଆଖିରେ ସପନ ଦେଖେ । ତେଣୁ ଅଧୁନାତନ ପିଢ଼ିର ଆବଶ୍ୟକତାକୁ ଅଣଦେଖା କରି କେବଳ ବହି ଛାପିଲେ ପାଠାଗାର ଯେ ଅଳିଆଗଦାରେ ପରିଣତ ନ ହେବ କିଏ କହିବ?

ଆଗାମୀ ପିଢ଼ି ପାଇଁ କଣ ଲେଖା ହେବ କଣ ଲେଖା ନ ହେବ ଆଉ କିପରି ଲେଖା ହେବ ତାହା ଏକ ଜଟିଳ ବିଷୟ । ଭାଷା କହିଲେ ଖାଲି ସାହିତ୍ୟକୁ ବୁଝାଏ ନାହିଁ ବରଂ ସାହିତ୍ୟ ଭାଷାର ଏକ ଅଂଶ ବୋଲି ଅନେକଙ୍କୁ ବୁଝିବାକୁ ପଡ଼ିବ । ବିଭିନ୍ନ ଧରଣର ରଚନା ଓ ସେସବୁ ସାଇତା ହେବାର ଆବଶ୍ୟକତା ବହୁ ଭାବେ ରହିଛି । ଆମେ ଆଗକୁ ବଢ଼ିବା ବେଳେ ଆଉ ନୂଆ ଭାବିବା ବେଳେ ଆଗରୁ ଘଟିଥିବା ଘଟଣା ଆମ ପାଦ ତଳର ନିଅଁ ଭଳି କାମ କରେ । ତେଣୁ ନୂଆ ପିଢ଼ି ବହିଠାରୁ ଦୂରେଇ ଯାଉଛନ୍ତି ବୋଲି ଚୋରକୁ ମାନ ମାରି ଖପରାରେ ଖାଇବା ବୋକାମି ହେବ । ବେଳେବେଳେ ତାଙ୍କୁ ଅଣଦେଖା କରି କେବଳ ଛପା ବହି ପଢ଼ୁଥିବା ଲୋକଙ୍କ ପାଇଁ ବହି ଛପାହେଉଛି ବୋଲି ବୋଧହୁଏ । କାଗଜ ପରେ ଛପା ବହି ଯେତେ ନିଜର ଲାଗିଲେ ମଧ୍ୟ ଦିନେ ନା ଦିନେ ଚିରିବ କି ଉଇଙ୍କ ଆହାର ହେବ । ଆଉ ଆଗତ ଦିନ ପାଇଁ ତାକୁ ସାଇତି ରଖିବାର ସଳଖ ବାଟଟିଏ ହେଲା ତା'ର ଡିଜିଟାଲ କପି ତିଆରିବା । ଇଂରାଜୀ, ଫ୍ରେଞ୍ଚ, ସ୍ପାନିସ, ଜର୍ମାନ, ଜାପାନୀ ଆଦି ଭାଷାରେ ଲେଖା ପୋଥିପତର ସବୁ ସେଠାର ପାଠକ ଆଜି ବି ଆମ ଭଳି ବହି ଧରି ପଢ଼ିବାକୁ ଭଲ ପାଆନ୍ତି ।

ଲଣ୍ଡନରେ କିଛି ଦିନର ରହଣି କାଳରେ ଦେଖି ଅଭିଭୂତ ହେଲି ସେଠା ଲୋକଙ୍କ ବହି ପଢ଼ାର ସଉକ । ଟ୍ରେନ ଷ୍ଟେସନ ବାଡ଼ାକୁ ଆଉଜି କିଏ ପଢ଼ୁଛି ତ କିଏ ଜନଗହଳି ଥାନରେ କଣଟିଏ ବାଛି ଫରଦ ପରେ ଫରଦ ଲେଉଟଉଛି । କିନ୍ତୁ ସେଠାର ପାଖାପାଖି ସବୁ ନୂଆ ବହି ଉଭୟ ଛପା ଓ ଇ-ବହି ବିକ୍ରୀ ହେଉଛି ।

ନୂଆ ଟେକନୋଲୋଜି ଆସିଗଲା ବୋଲି ପୁରୁଣା ପୂରା ଫୋପାଡ଼ିଦେବା କେବଳ ମଝିମଝିଆ ସମାଜର ଲକ୍ଷଣ । ହେଲେ ଉଚ୍ଚତର ସମାଜରେ ପୁରୁଣା ଓ ନୂଆର ବିଭା ସବୁଠି ଦେଖିବାକୁ ମିଳେ । ତେଣୁ ଆମ ବହିମାନଙ୍କ ବିକ୍ରି କମିଯିବ ବୋଲି ହାଉଳି ଖାଇ ଆମେ ଏକ ପିଢ଼ିକୁ ଆମ ବହିର ବାସନାପାଣିରୁ ବଞ୍ଚିତ କରୁନୁ ତ? ଯଦି ସତରେ ଆମ ପର ପିଢ଼ି ଅମା ବହିଯାକ ନ ପଢ଼ନ୍ତି ତାହେଲେ ଏ ଜାତିର ଇତିହାସରେ ଆମେ ଲାଙ୍ଗୁଡ଼ଜକା ଆଉ ଚିରକାଳ ଦୋଷୀ ହୋଇ ରହିହେବୁ ।

ଆଉ ବହି କିଣି ହାତରେ ଧରି ପଢ଼ୁଥିବା ଲୋକଟି କେବେ ହେଁ ମୋବାଇଲ-ଟ୍ୟାବଲେଟ-କିଣ୍ଡିଲ-କମ୍ପୁଟରରେ ପଢ଼ିବାକୁ ସୁଖ ମଣିବ ନାହିଁ । କିନ୍ତୁ ଫ୍ଲାଇଟରେ ଯିବା ବେଳେ ଲୋଡ଼ା ପଡ଼ିଲେ ଡିଜିଟାଲ ମାଧ୍ୟମରେ ପଢ଼ିବ । ଆଉ ବିଶାଳ ଗ୍ରନ୍ଥର କେଉଁ କୋଣରେ ଲେଖାଟିଏ ଖୋଜିବାକୁ ଚାହିଁଲେ ସବୁ ପୃଷ୍ଠା ନ ଖୋଜି ପାଠକଟିଏ ସଳଖେ ସଳଖେ ଇଣ୍ଟରନେଟରେ ଖୋଜିପାରିବ ।

ବହିର ଡିଜିଟାଲ ରୂପ ତିଆରିବାରେ ସୃଜନିକା ନାମକ ଅନୁଷ୍ଠାନର ଅବଦାନ କାହିଁରେ କେତେ । ପାଖାପାଖି ଦେଢ଼ ଲକ୍ଷ ପୃଷ୍ଠା ସ୍କାନ କରି ସେମାନେ ଅନେକ ଇ-ବହି ତିଆରି କରିସାରିଲେଣି । ୧୮୫୦-୧୯୫୦ ଭିତରେ ଛପା ଓଡ଼ିଆ ପତ୍ରପତ୍ରିକାସବୁ ପ୍ରାୟ ଏଥିରେ ସାମିଲ । odia.org ନାମକ ଆଉ ଏକ ୱେବସାଇଟ କିଛି ନିଜ ଉଦ୍ୟମରେ ଆଉ କିଛି ବାକିମାନଙ୍କ ସହଯୋଗରେ କିଛି ଓଡ଼ିଆ ବହି ଇଣ୍ଟରନେଟରେ ଉପଲବ୍ଧ କରାଇଛନ୍ତି । ଇଣ୍ଟରନେଟ ଆରକାଇଭ (archive.org) ସାଇଟରେ ବହିସବୁ ପିଡ଼ିଏଫ ଭାବେ ଅପଲୋଡ଼ କଲେ ତାହା ମୋବାଇଲ ଓ ଅନ୍ୟାନ୍ୟ ଆକାରରେ ଦେଖିବାକୁ ସୁବିଧା । ହେଲେ ଲୋଡ଼ାଥିଲା ଇଣ୍ଟରନେଟରେ ପାଠାଗାରଟିଏ । ହେଲେ ଇଣ୍ଟରନେଟ ଯେତେବେଳେ ଖାଲି ପାଠକ ରହିଲେ କି ମଉଜ? ଦିଆନିଆ ନଥାଇ ସେ କି ଇଣ୍ଟରନେଟ? ପାଠକ ଯଦି କେଉଁଠି ଭୁଲଟିଏ ଦେଖିଲେ ତାକୁ ବଦଳାଇ ପାରୁଥିବେ ତାହେଲେ ସିନା । ଅନେକେ ହୁଏତ ଜାଣିନଥିବେ ଏ ସମାଧାନର ବାଟଟିଏ ରହିଛି ।

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/b13b21b3cb3fb06-b09b07b15b3fb2ab3eb20b3eb17b3eb30-b13b21b3cb3fb06b30b47-b21b3fb1cb3fb1fb3eb32-b2ab3eb20b3eb17b3eb30-b06b28b4db26b33b28b30-b28b42b06-b2eb41b39b01

Indian Netizens Criticize Online Censorship of ‘Jihadi’ Content

subha — 2015-02-10T02:43:17Z

The article on online censorship by Subhashish Panigrahi was published in Global Voices on January 6, 2015.

Click to view the article on Global Voices here.

Indian Netizens Criticize Online Censorship of ‘Jihadi’ Content · Global Voices


Mock-up of a blocked URL (Image: Subhashish Panigrahi, CC-by-SA 3.0)

The Government of India in the last week of 2014 asked Internet service providers (ISPs) to block 32 websites including code repository Github, video streaming sites Vimeo and Dailymotion, online archive Internet Archive, free software hosting site Sourceforge and many other websites on the basis of hosting anti-India content from the violent extremist group known as ISIS.

The blanket block on many resourceful sites has been heavily criticized on social media and blogs by reviving the hashtag #GoIblocks that evolved in the past against internet censorship by the government.

Nikhil Pahwa at MediaNama notes that this time many ISPs published the list of the blocked sites:

Typically, users are not informed about which websites are blocked, so this was a welcome move from the ISP.

“Say No to Censorship. #GOIBlocks” (taken from Facebook page of Free Software Foundation, Tamil Nadu)

In 2012, opposition party leader Narendra Modi (who is now India's Prime Minister) tweeted against the URL blocks by the earlier ruling of India's National Congress when then-Minister of Communications and Information Technology Kapil Sibal ordered to block 300 websites. Many eyebrows were raised when Modi repeated the move this time around.

Internet censorship in India has been increasingly prominent since 1999 when Pakistani newspaper Dawn was blocked by the Videsh Sanchar Nigam Limited for post-Kargil War views against India. These caught heavy criticism from netizens, often under the hashtag #IdiotKapilSibal. Since then there have been many instances of government-mediated censorship, particularly with the enactment of India's Information Technology Act of 2000.

Arvind Gupta, head of Information Technology for India's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, tweeted to clarify that the sites were blocked as advised by the Anti-Terrorism Squad.

Arvind Gupta ✔ @buzzindelhi
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The websites that have been blocked were based on an advisory by Anti Terrorism Squad, and were carrying Anti India content from ISIS. 1/2

3:11 PM - 31 Dec 2014

362 Retweets 82 favorites

After agreeing to remove anti-India content posted by accounts that appeared to have some association with ISIS, weebly.com, vimeo.com, Pastebin, dailymotion.com and gist.github.com were unblocked.

These websites have undertaken not to allow pasting of such propaganda information on their website and also work with the government to remove such material as per the compliance with the laws of land.

- Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, Government of India (posted in Business Standard)

Arvind Gupta ✔ @buzzindelhi
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Action has been initiated to unblock -- http://weebly.com , http://vimeo.com , http://dailymotion.com and (1/2)

12:36 AM - 1 Jan 2015

63 Retweets 25 favorites

Arvind Gupta ✔ @buzzindelhi

gist.github.com :: http://wap.business-standard.com/article/news-ians/government-decides-to-unblock-four-websites-out-of-32-114123101162_1.html … (2/2)

12:36 AM - 1 Jan 2015

39 Retweets 12 favorites

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/global-voices-january-6-2015-subhashish-panigrahi-indian-netizens-criticize-online-censorship-of-jihadi-content

India's Supreme Court Axes Online Censorship Law, But Challenges Remain

subha — 2015-03-27T02:38:20Z

The Supreme Court of India took a remarkable step to protect free expression on March 24, 2015, striking down controversial section 66A of the IT Act that criminalized “grossly offensive” content online. In response to a public interest litigation filed by Indian law student Shreya Singhal, the court made this landmark judgement calling the section “vague”, “broad” and “unconstitutional”. Since Tuesday's announcement, the news has trended nationally on Twitter, with more than 50,000 tweets bearing the hashtags #Sec66A and #66A.

The blog entry by Subhashish Panigrahi was originally published by Global Voices Online on March 25, 2015. Pranesh Prakash is quoted.

Section 66A allowed police to arrest any person who sent online communications deemed “grossly offensive” or known to be false. This has enabled the government take down many websites with allegedly objectionable content. Among various cases since the law was updated in 2008, two people were arrested for making comments on Facebook regarding India's prime minister Narendra Modi and one man was arrested for commenting on public service closures following the death of political leader Bal Thakrey.

The now-defunct Section 66A reads as follows:

66-A. Punishment for sending offensive messages through communication service, etc.
—Any person who sends, by means of a computer
resource or a communication device,—
(a) any information that is grossly offensive or has menacing character; or
(b) any information which he knows to be false, but for the purpose of causing annoyance, inconvenience, danger, obstruction, insult, injury, criminal
intimidation, enmity, hatred or ill will, persistently by making use of such computer resource or a communication device; or
(c) any electronic mail or electronic mail message for the purpose of causing annoyance or inconvenience or to deceive or to mislead the addressee or
recipient about the origin of such messages, shall be punishable with imprisonment for a term which may extend to three years and with fine.

Internet rights advocate and lawyer Pranesh Prakash, who works with the Center for Internet and Society in Bangalore, has been one of the law's most outspoken critics in recent years. Immediately following the ruling, he tweeted:

Nikhil Pahwa, independent journalist and founder of the MeddiaNama blog, offered his take on the ruling:

This is a great decision for freedom of speech in India…66A is far too vague, and lends itself to arbitrary implementation by the police, especially phrases like “grossly offensive”, annoyance, inconvenience, ill will. Remember that even the right to offend is an integral part of free speech.

Journalist and author Sagarika Ghose sarcastically wondered if the government of India would retroactively offer recompense for all of the actions taken against citizens for violating 66A.

Some were playful in their response to the decision. Siddharth Sing set out to “test” the efficacy of the ruling with a tweet mocking prominent public figures in Indian politics:

Section 69, which provides authorities with the power to censor websites that “create communal disturbance, social disorder, or affect India's relationship with other countries” was upheld however. The Court has yet to clarify this decision. CIS India's Pranesh Prakash tweeted:

Unfortunately 69A (website blocking) has been upheld despite many issues, incl lack of transparency. Need to read full judgment to see why.

— Pranesh Prakash (@pranesh_prakash) March 24, 2015

Tuesday's decision comes after the government of India was heavily criticized in January 2015 for blocking 32 websites in the country.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/global-voices-march-25-2014-subhashish-panigrahi-indias-supreme-court-axes-online-censorship-law-but-challenges-remain

South Asia's Largest Wikimedia Conference Kicks Off in India

subha — 2016-08-08T01:39:25Z

Wiki Conference India 2016, the largest gathering of the contributors of Wikipedia (the multilingual online encyclopaedia) and its sister projects called Wikimedia projects, begins August 5 in Landran, in the Indian state of Punjab.

The blog post was published by Global Voices on August 5, 2016.

The conference returns five years after its first iteration in 2011. This year's event is focused on bringing the contributor communities of South Asian and English-language Wikimedia projects from the Indian subcontinent under one roof.

A few hundred participants including 100 scholarship holders from India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka will meet at the Chandigarh Group of College campus, where the conference is being held. Organizers have planned a series of presentations, talks and workshops—related to major topics like gender bias in Wikipedia, technology, global reach, education, volunteer leadership building and engagement and program design—to occupy participants for all three days.

For the separate technical sessions, a pre-event needs assessment survey was conducted widely to collect input about the technical challenges that volunteer contributors are facing. A hackathon is in the works to address some of the major technical challenges of different language communities.

The Wikimedia community in South Asia as a whole and the Wikipedia community, both of which rely on volunteers, are creating a massive repository of freely licensed content in the Indian languages on the Internet. Currently Wikipedia itself is available in about 293 languages. Other Wikimedia projects—Wikisource, a free library; Wiktionary, a multilingual online dictionary; and Wikimedia Commons, the world's largest media repository housing hundreds and thousands of images, audio, video and other media files—will add a few hundred more projects to this list.

Some of the noted guests who are addressing the gathering include Wikimedia Foundation's board member Nataliia Tymkiv, the organization's newly promoted Executive Director Katherine Maher, Punjabi-language poet Surjit Patar, and Internet freedom advocate and Centre for Internet and Society's Executive Director Sunil Abraham.

A Wikipedia edit-a-thon has been running for about a month prior to the conference in 12 Indian language Wikipedias and one European language Wikipedia (Ukrainian Wikipedia). The main languages in this edit-a-thon are Bengali, Hindi, Gujarati, Kannada, Konkani, Malayalam, Odia, Punjabi, Tamil and Telugu. The focus of this sprint is to expand the content reach of Wikipedia on Punjab, Punjabi people, and their language and culture as a symbolic gesture to show gratitude to Punjab where the event is happening. Articles about Punjab or Punjab people in other local languages will help many local readers of Wikipedia learn about Punjab in their own language. So far, more than 1,900 article have been created by about 100 Wikipedians. The edit-a-thon will be also running during the conference so that the participants can also contribute to this activity.

Konkani language is the official language of the Indian state of Goa and is spoken along the western coast of India. In an interview, The Discoverer, an active contributor to the Konkani-language Wikipedia, explained how Wikipedia can unite native speakers who speak different variations of the same language and write in different scripts:

For Konkani Wikipedia to succeed, it is not just a ‘good idea’ for Konkani speakers writing in various scripts to work together on one Wikipedia, but it’s also a necessity and a challenge at the same time. It’s a necessity, because as things stand, no one script has a strong enough community to run a Wikipedia by themselves. It’s a challenge because not everyone can read every script, and it’s important for all the users of a Wikipedia to be able to understand all the content on that site.

The full interview is here.

A team of dedicated organizers who are primarily volunteers and represent several Wikimedia communities from India and three Wikimedia-affiliates—Wikimedia India, Punjabi Wikimedians and Centre for Internet and Society's Access to Knowledge program—are working together to make this event a success.

More details about the event could be found in the event page, and on Facebook and Twitter.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/global-voices-august-5-2016-subhashish-panigrahi-south-asia-largest-wikimedia-conference-kicks-off-in-india

The largest Wikipedia gathering in South Asia kicks off

subha — 2016-08-06T17:11:39Z

Wikimedia Conference 2016Wiki Conference India 2016 (WCI), the largest gathering of contributors to Wikipedia and its sister projects in South Asia, will be held during August 5-7 this year in Chandigarh, India.

This was published Opensource.com on August 5, 2016

The first iteration of this event was five years ago in 2011. The event is focused around South Asian language Wikipedias and Wikimedia projects. Hundreds of participants, including over 100 scholarship holders from India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, will participate in this three-day event. A team of volunteers representing several Wikimedia communities across the country and three Wikimedia affiliates—Wikimedia India, Punjabi Wikimedians and Centre for Internet and Society's Access to Knowledge program—are working together to make this event a success.

Several Wikimedia project and program-related talks, meetups and thematic workshops, focused on technology, program design, volunteer leadership building and engagement, gender gap in Wikipedia, global reach, and education, will keep the participants occupied. There will be separate technical tracks, which were chosen from the results of a pre-event needs assessment survey to ensure that community needs are met. Prior to the conference, a month-long edit-a-thon has been running in twelve South Asian language Wikipedias, and one European language Wikipedia (Ukrainian Wikipedia). The focus of this sprint was to expand the content reach of Wikipedia on Punjab, Punjabi people, and their language and culture as the event is happening in Punjab. So far, more than 1900 articles have been created by about 150 Wikipedians, and the edit-a-thon will be also running during the conference to keep the option of creating more articles open to the participants. Some of the guests includes Wikimedia Foundation's board member Nataliia Tymkiv, the organization's newly promoted executive director Catherine Maher, Punjabi-language poet Surjit Patar and Internet freedom advocate and Centre for Internet and Society's Executive Director Sunil Abraham.

As compared to the last WikiConference India, this conference has more thematic focus, especially on challenges like the gender bias on Wikipedia, and emerging projects like the Wikipedia Education Program. There are as many as six presentations related to gender gap, and six more related to education program.

There has been constant engagement on both on Facebook and Twitter with the hashtag #WCI2016. Some of the most-used basic phrases in the Punjabi language have been recorded and shared to the participants from outside the region to communicate with the locals.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/opensource.com-subhashish-panigrahi-august-5-2016-largest-wikipedia-gathering-in-south-asia-kicks-off

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Indian Netizens Criticize Online Censorship of ‘Jihadi’ Content

India's Supreme Court Axes Online Censorship Law, But Challenges Remain

South Asia's Largest Wikimedia Conference Kicks Off in India

The largest Wikipedia gathering in South Asia kicks off