Centre for Internet and Society

April 2015 Bulletin

praskrishna — 2015-05-31T04:29:24Z

Newsletter for the month of April below.

We are happy to share with you the fourth issue of the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) newsletter (April 2015). The past editions of the newsletter can be accessed at http://cis-india.org/about/newsletters.

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Highlights
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CIS received 35 engaging abstracts in response to the call for essays on 'Studying Internet in India'. The final essays will be published from June onwards. The ten selected abstracts can be read at http://cis-india.org/raw/studying-internet-in-india-selected-abstracts/ .

CIS submitted its comments to the National Informatics Centre on April 30, 2015 bringing to notice the negligible progress on the front for making Indian government websites conform to the notified standards, and gave recommendations to take the initiatives forward.
Nehaa Chaudhari has prepared a consolidated report that tracks the development of India's National IPR Policy and the requests by CIS to the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion under the RTI Act and responses elicited from the Department.

Institute of Odia Studies and Research organised 2nd National Language Conference beginning on March 30, 2015 and ending on April 2, 2015 at the Institute of Physics, Bhubaneswar. This conference was organised in collaboration with the Department of Tourism and Culture. Subhashish Panigrahi presented a paper in Odia language in this conference as part of a panel discussion related to Odia language computing.

Sunil Abraham's article titled "Shreya Singhal and 66A" was published in Economic and Political Weekly Vol-L No.15. Vidushi Marda helped in doing the research.

Sunil Abraham in an article in DNA titled " Multiple Aspects Need to be Addressed as the Clamour Grows for Network Neutrality " tells readers that there are four violations of Network Neutrality that are considered particularly egregious.

Jyoti Panday prepared an analysis of the Supreme Court judgement in Shreya Singhal and what it does for intermediary liability in India.
In February 2015, CIS had requested DeitY under RTI Act to provide information clarifying the procedures for blocking in India. The response elicited from DeitY has been published.

CIS sent a joint response to the TRAI Consultation Paper on Regulatory Framework for Over-the-top (OTT) services with scholars from Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. The response was sent on March 27, 2015.

► Vacancies at CIS

CIS is seeking applications for:

Internship : CIS is providing opportunities for students enrolled in graduate programmes to undertake internship at its offices in Bangalore and Delhi. Eligible candidates are welcome to participate in our internship programme.

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Accessibility and Inclusion
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Under a grant from the Hans Foundation we are doing two projects. The first project is on creating a national resource kit of state-wise laws, policies and programmes on issues relating to persons with disabilities in India. CIS in partnership with CLPR (Centre for Law and Policy Research) compiled the National Compendium of Policies, Programmes and Schemes for Persons with Disabilities (29 states and 6 union territories). The publication has been finalised and is being printed. The draft chapters and the quarterly reports can be accessed on the project page. The second project is on developing text-to-speech software for 15 Indian languages. The progress made so far in the project can be accessed here.

►NVDA and eSpeak

# Monthly Updates

April 2015 Report (Suman Dogra; April 30, 2015).

# Language Testing Reports

Hindi Language (Nirmita Narasimhan; April 10, 2015).
Gujarati Language (Nirmita Narasimhan; April 16, 2015).
Oriya Language (Nirmita Narasimhan; April 30, 2015).

►Other

# Submission

Comments to the GIGW (Nirmita Narasimhan; April 30, 2015).

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Access to Knowledge
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As part of the Access to Knowledge programme we are doing two projects. The first one (Pervasive Technologies) under a grant from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) is for research on the complex interplay between pervasive technologies and intellectual property to support intellectual property norms that encourage the proliferation and development of such technologies as a social good. The second one (Wikipedia) 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.

# Blog Entries

Methodology: Patent Landscaping in the Indian Mobile Device Market (Rohini Lakshané; November 10, 2014). The list of standards and specifications found in sub-USD-100 Internet-enabled mobile phones sold in India" (Annexure 2 in the post) has been updated .
Conference on Standards Settings Organizations (SSO) and FRAND, NLSIU (Rohini Lakshané; April 5, 2015).
National IPR Policy Series: RTI Requests by CIS to DIPP + DIPP Responses (Nehaa Chaudhari; April 15, 2015).
Pervasive Technologies Project Working Document Series: Literature Review on IPR in Mobile app development (Anubha Sinha; April 29, 2015).

Media Coverage

CIS gave inputs for the following:

One reason startups are moving out of India (Evelyn Fok and Varun Aggarwal; The Times of India; April 10, 2015). This was also mirrored in Economic Times .
Indian businesses crave IP certainty, but better patent values are tempting them overseas (IAM Magazine; April 28, 2015).

►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).

# Participation in Event

2nd National Language Conference, Bhubaneswar (Organized by Institute of Odia Studies and Research; Institute of Physics; Bhubaneswar; March 30 - April 2, 2015). This conference was organised in collaboration with the Department of Tourism and Culture. Subhashish Panigrahi presented a paper in Odia language in this conference as part of a panel discussion related to Odia language computing.

# Blog Entries

Hindustani Language: We Are Wikipedia (Syed Muzamiluddin; April 10, 2015).
ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଭାଷା ପାଇଁ ଡିଜିଟାଲ ଅସୁବିଧା (Subhashish Panigrahi; April 15, 2015).
Wikipedia Campus at Oxford College (Subhashish Panigrahi; April 28, 2015).

# News and Media Coverage

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

Odia waits for Google Translate debut - Nine Indian languages available (Anwesha Ambaly; Telegraph; April 6, 2015).
Now you can search Google in Kannada, in your handwriting (Apurva Venkat; Bangalore Mirror; April 18, 2015).

►Openness

# Event Co-organized

NASA International Open Data Challenge 2015 (Co-organized by CIS and Team Indus; Bangalore; April 11-12, 2015).

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Internet Governance
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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 International Development Research Centre (IDRC)) is on surveillance and freedom of expression (SAFEGUARDS). The second one (under a grant from MacArthur Foundation) is on studying the restrictions placed on freedom of expression online by the Indian government.

►Freedom of Expression

India's Apex Court in a landmark decision struck down section 66A of the IT Act. The judgment provided great relief for advocates of freedom of speech on the Internet. The development attracted lots of media coverage to which CIS gave its inputs:

# Articles

Shreya Singhal and 66A (Sunil Abraham; Economic and Political Weekly Vol-L No.15; April 11, 2015). Vidushi Marda helped in doing the research.
Don't Do Nothing. Take a Stand on Net Neutrality. (T. Vishnu Vardhan; NDTV; April 13, 2015).
Multiple Aspects Need to be Addressed as the Clamour Grows for Network Neutrality (Sunil Abraham; DNA; April 16, 2015).
The Hazards of a Non-neutral Internet (Geetha Hariharan; April 18, 2015). A modified version of the blog entry was published as an article titled " A must for free speech " in the Week.

# Blog Entries

The Supreme Court Judgment in Shreya Singhal and What It Does for Intermediary Liability in India? (Jyoti Panday; April 11, 2015).
DeitY says 143 URLs have been Blocked in 2015; Procedure for Blocking Content Remains Opaque and in Urgent Need of Transparency Measures (Jyoti Panday; April 29, 2015).

# Event

Freedom of Expression in a Digital Age: Effective Research, Policy Formation & the Development of Regulatory Frameworks in South Asia (Organized by Center for Global Communication Studies at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania, Observer Research Foundation and CIS; Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi; April 21, 2015).

# Participation in Event

Financial Express hosts #NetNeutralityDebate: 'Price discrimination can be allowed, but not for the same packet of data' (New Delhi; April 24, 2015). Pranesh Prakash participated in the discussion.

►Privacy

# Participation in Event

Privacy International Network Meeting (Organized by Privacy International, UK; April 22 - 23, 2015). Sunil Abraham attended the meeting.

►Miscellaneous

# Announcement

IIGF Recruitment : The National Internet Exchange of India (NIXI) conducted walk-in interviews on May 16, 2015 at NIXI Jasola office, Flat No. 6B, 6th Floor, Uppals M6 Plaza, New Delhi. NIXI sought candidates to fill the posts of Technology Analyst, Policy Analyst, Research Associate and Executive Assistants.

# Participation in Events

Global Conference on Cyberspace 2015 (Co-organized by Dutch Government, City of the Hague and One Conference; The Hague, Netherlands; April 16 - 17, 2015). Sunil Abraham was a panelist. He also participated in an expert roundtable conference .
CII Digital India Summit (Organized by Confederation of Indian Industries; Taj Mahal Hotel and Pragati Maidan, New Delhi; April 21 and 24, 2015). Pranesh Prakash attended the summit.

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

'Smack' the Trolls! (Marianne De Nazareth; The Citizen; March 31, 2015).
The block heads (Sibi Arasu; Hindu Businessline; April 3, 2015).
Smriti Irani brings back focus on voyeurism prevailing in our country (Amrita Madhukalya; DNA; April 6, 2015).
Surveillance rises, privacy retreats (Namrata Acharya; Business Standard; April 12, 2015).
People voice their support for net neutrality, say Internet a utility not a luxury (IBN Live; April 13, 2015).
Net neutrality: Trai receives over 2 lakh mails (Sandhya Soman and Jayanta Deka; April 14, 2015).
Net neutrality: Debate rages on (Surabhi Aggarwal; Business Standard; April 11, 2015)
Net neutrality debate rages (Lalatendu Mishra and Pradeesh Chandran; The Hindu; April 15, 2015).
Net neutrality: Net activism packs a punch (Sandhya Soman; The Times of India; April 19, 2015).
Net Neutrality debate in India: Here are all the arguments you need to know (Indian Express; April 23, 2015).
Freedom struggle 2.0 (Zara Khan; Hindu; April 25, 2015).
Cry, you nasty trolls (Prasun Chaudhari; The Telegraph; April 26, 2015). Net Neutrality: The argument continues (Deepak Ajwani and Debojyoti Ghosh; Forbes India Magazine; April 29, 2015).

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

# Blog Entries

Studying Internet in India: Selected Abstracts - CIS received thirty five engaging abstracts in response to the call for essays on 'Studying Internet in India.' The final essays will be published from June onwards. These are the ten selected abstracts: Studying the Internet Discourse in India through the Prism of Human Rights (by Deva Prasad); Indic Scripts and the Internet (by Dibyajyoti Ghosh); The Internet in the Indian Judicial Imagination (by Divij Joshi); Dharmasala Networked (by Laird Brown); WhatsApp Economy (by Maitrayee Deka); Citizens and their Internet (by Purbasha Auddy); The Many Lives and Sites of Internet in Bhubaneswar (by Sailen Routray); Quantity over Quality: Social Media and the New Class System in India (by Sarah McKeever); Governing Speech on the Internet: Transforming the Public Sphere through Policymaking (by Smarika Kumar).

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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:

# Submission

Response to TRAI Consultation Paper on Regulatory Framework for Over-the-Top (OTT) Services (Pranesh Prakash; March 27, 2015). The response was sent in March but mirrored on our website recently.

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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. To discuss collaborations on Indic language Wikipedia, write to T. Vishnu Vardhan, Programme Director, A2K, at vishnu@cis-india.org.

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

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/april-2015-bulletin

Odia Wikipedia workshop in Puri, Odisha sparks creation of informal Wikipedia group WikiTungi

Sailesh Patnaik — 2016-01-12T05:28:14Z

The first ever Odia Wikipedia workshop in Odisha's historic town of Puri finally shaped in on this December 20. With 25 participants contributing to Odia Wikipedia this day, more Wikipedia outreach in the city were planned.

Organised at the Premier Institute of Computer Studies (PICS), this workshop saw many students from technical background including four female participants. The Google Local Guides group of Bhubaneswar collaborated with us in organising this workshop. Thanks to long time Odia Wikimedian Dr Subas Chandra Rout to spare time and taking pain in coming all the way from Bhubaneswar to mentor the new editors. Only 10-12 participants could sign up on the spot because of IP address throttle that we could not fix beforehand. Otherwise the event went well and after a week, many of the participants have turned out to be active on Odia Wikipedia which is pretty exciting.

We planned to organise a meetup once in two month at Puri with the focus on improving at least 20-25 articles related to to the city and district during the meetup. There was a three-minute coverage of the workshop on Odisha Television (OTV) and a brief report of the workshop was published on Odisha Reporter.

As part our effort in chronicling the voice of the Wikipedia community in the WikipediansSpeak series, we reached out to Wikimedians Dr. Subas Chandra Rout and Snehasish Nayak after the workshop. Dr Rout shares his interactions and future plans to expand the Odia Wikimedia community:

Subhashish Panigrahi (SP): Thank you so much for mentoring these new Wikimedians! How was your overall experience working with them?
Subas Chandra Rout (SRR): The participants were, indeed, very enthusiastic. They not just were good listeners when we were presenting but contributed well after we demonstrated.

SP: How often do you think we should come back here and work with the same set of participants?
SRR: I think one more visit to ensure that they feel more integrated with the larger Odia Wikimedia community and help them contribute more. Face-to-face interaction will also help them feel more comfortable to share the kind of problems they might have been facing.

SP: What kind of problems did they face during the workshop? How did you help them with those problems?
There were certain technical/logistics problems which kind of made us keep the workshop limited to more demonstration by us and less practice by them. Sailesh seems be following up with them as some of them have already started editing Wikipedia actively.

Snehasish Nayak, organiser of the event and a new active Wikimedian of the Odia community—it is worth mentioning that Snehasish has 360 edits on Odia Wikipedia already—shares more about himself, his interests and ideas for future projects:

Subhashish Panigrahi (SP): How and when you got introduced to Odia Wikipedia? Did you know about it before or heard from someone before you formally got an orientation?
Snehasish Nayak (SN): The first time I got to know about Odia Wikipedia was during the Google I/O 2015 event. It was Sailesh Pattnaik who introduced me to Odia Wikipedia. My Wikipedia journey started in December 2015, when Sailesh asked me for some help to conduct a Odia Wikipedia in my hometown Puri.

SP: You graduated as an engineer. Many engineers in India do not even contribute much to language related work, especially the ones that are not paid for. What drives you to contribute so much that you have crossed 360 edits in just three weeks?
SN: From my school days, Wikipedia has been good friend to me. I don’t remember in how many projects Wikipedia has come to my rescue. And in return Wikipedia never asked for anything. I felt it would be the best platform to share free knowledge across the globe.Odia being my native language and it being a very old language needs contribution from the youth like me. In the era of digital revolution Odia Wikipedia has the potential of empowering every single Odia with the sum of the world's knowledge any time of in any place. If anyone asks me about what I am getting in return because of my contribution, my first answer would be "knowledge". I have learnt quite a lot after I started contributing to Odia Wikipedia. And after each contribution, it gives me a great feeling that I have done something useful for the world”. It inspires me to contribute more and more...

SP: You have recently started working and promoting about WikiTungi Puri. Can you share little more about it? What it will do? How it will benefit the Odia language?
SN: With the coming of our group, WikiTungi Puri, we are going to organize more workshops, meetups and other outreach programs in and around Puri. But the work will never be limited only to the city. We are always ready to collaborate with the global community. At Puri, We have plans to design thematic outreach activities in some of the educational institutions of Puri and we would like to invite them to be part of WikiTungi Puri. We have plans to bring the "Odia Wikiquote" live out of the Incubator wiki. We have started working on designing of training materials for the new editors. I have a great feeling that we are going to have more and more active contributors joining us in the near future.

From the place where see it from, Odia Wikipedia is becoming a pioneer of bringing digital technology for taking our language to a whole new level!

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/odia-wikipedia-takes-puri

Odia Wikipedia Workshop at KISS

praskrishna — 2014-01-16T06:52:36Z

A day long Odia Wikipedia workshop for post-graduate students and faculty members is being organized by the Centre for Internet and Society's Access to Knowledge (CIS-A2K) team at the Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences (KISS) on January 10.

Subhashish Panigrahi is conducting the workshop.

ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆ:କର୍ମଶାଳା/ଭୁବନେଶ୍ୱର/୮

ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆ ରୁ

ଭୁବନେଶ୍ୱରସ୍ଥିତ ଆଦିବାସୀ ଆବାସିକ ଅନୁଷ୍ଠାନ KISS (କଳିଙ୍ଗ ଇନଷ୍ଟିଚୁଟ ଅଫ ସୋସିଆଲ ସାଇସେନ୍ସ)ଠାରେ ଏଠାକାର ଶିକ୍ଷକ ଓ ସ୍ନାତକୋତ୍ତର ଛାତ୍ରଛାତ୍ରୀମାନେ ଆଦିବାସୀମାନଙ୍କର ଭାଷା, ଚଳଣି ଓ ଜନ‌ଜୀବନ ବାବଦରେ ଅନେକ ଗବେଷଣାଭିତ୍ତିକ ପ୍ରସଙ୍ଗ ଏକାଧିକ ଭାଷାରେ ଲେଖିବାର ଏକ ପ୍ରକଳ୍ପ ଆରମ୍ଭ କରାଯାଇଛି । ପ୍ରାରମ୍ଭିକ ପର୍ଯ୍ୟାୟରେ ଏହି ନ‌ଥିକରଣ ତିନୋଟି ଭାଷାରେ (ଓଡ଼ିଆ, ଇଂରାଜୀ ଓ ହିନ୍ଦୀ)ରେ କରାଯାଇ KISS ୱେବସାଇଟରେ ଉପଲବ୍ଧ କରାଯିବ । ଏହି ପ୍ରସଙ୍ଗସମୂହ ଜ୍ଞାନ‌କୋଷ ପରିସରରେ ଥିବାରୁ ଏସବୁକୁ ଉଇକିକରଣ କରି ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆର ପ୍ରସଙ୍ଗସବୁକୁ ସମୃଦ୍ଧ କରିବା ନିମନ୍ତେ ଏହି ଏହି କର୍ମଶାଳାର ଆୟୋଜନ କରାଯାଇଛି । ନ‌ଭେମ୍ବର ୧୪ (ଗୁରବାର‌) ଦିନ ସକାଳ ୧୧:୦୦ ରେ ଅନୁଷ୍ଠିତ ହୋଇ ଥିବା ପ୍ରଥମ କର୍ମଶାଳାରେ ଯୋଗଦେଇଥିବା ଶିକ୍ଷକ ଓ ସ୍ନାତକୋତ୍ତର ଛାତ୍ରଛାତ୍ରୀମାନଙ୍କ ନିମନ୍ତେ ଏହା ଏକ ଉନ୍ନତ କର୍ମଶାଳା । ଏଥିରେ ସେମାନଙ୍କୁ ଦିଆଯାଇଥିବା ପ୍ରସଙ୍ଗଗୁଡ଼ିକୁ ସେମାନେ ସମ୍ପାଦନା କରି ସେଥିରେ ଅଧିକ ତ‌ଥ୍ୟ ଯୋଡ଼ି ତାହାକୁ ଉନ୍ନ୍ତ କରିବେ । ସମ୍ପାଦନା ପରେ ଆଗାମୀ ଯୋଜନା ବଆବଦରେ ଆଲୋଚନା କରାଯିବ ।

ଏଥିରେ କଣ କଣ ଶିଖିବାକୁ ମିଳିବ?

ଓଡ଼ିଆରେ ଟାଇପିଂ
ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆରେ. ସମ୍ପାଦନା
ଆଗାମୀ ଯୋଜନା

ସ୍ଥାନ ଓ ସମୟ

KISS (କଳିଙ୍ଗ ଇନଷ୍ଟିଚୁଟ ଅଫ ସୋସିଆଲ ସାଇସେନ୍ସ), ଭୁବନେଶ୍ୱର
ଜାନୁଆରି ୧୦ (ଶୁକ୍ରବାର‌), ସକାଳ ୦୯:୦୦

ଏହି କର୍ମଶାଳାରେ ଭାଗ ନେଉଥିବା ଉଇକିଆଳିଗଣ

--ସୁଭାସିସ ପାଣିଗାହି (ମୋ ସାଙ୍ଗେ କ‌ଥାବାର୍ତ୍ତା)

ଅନୁଷ୍ଠାନର ଶିକ୍ଷକ ଓ ଛାତ୍ରଛାତ୍ରୀଗଣ

କାମ ବିତରଣ

ନଭେମ୍ବର ମାସର କର୍ମଶାଳାରେ ଭାଗନେଇଥିବା ସମସ୍ତ ଶିକ୍ଷକ ଓ ଛାତ୍ରଛାତ୍ରୀମାନଙ୍କୁ ୧୧ଟି ଛୋଟ ଛୋଟ ଦଳରେ ଭାଗ କରାଯାଇଥିଲା । ପ୍ରତିଟି ଦଳ ଏକ ପ୍ରସଙ୍ଗ ଉପରେ ମିଳିତ କାମ ଆରମ୍ଭ କରିବେ । ତଳେ ପ୍ରସଙ୍ଗର ନାମ ଓ ଶିକ୍ଷକ ତ‌ଥା ଛାତ୍ରଛାତ୍ରୀଙ୍କ ନାମ ଦିଆଗଲା । ଆଜିର କର୍ମଶାଳାର ସମସ୍ତ ଅଂଶଗ୍ରହଣକାରୀ ନିଜ ନିଜର ପ୍ରସଙ୍ଗରେ କିଛି ଲେଖା ଆରମ୍ଭ କରିଛନ୍ତି । ଏହି କର୍ମଶାଳାରେ ସେମାନେ ଏହି ଲେଖାଗୁଡ଼ିକ ସମୂର୍ଣ୍ଣ କରିବେ ।

ପ୍ରସଙ୍ଗ ନାମ	ଶିକ୍ଷକଙ୍କ ନାମ	ଶିକ୍ଷକଙ୍କ ନାମ	ଛାତ୍ର/ଛାତ୍ରୀଙ୍କ ନାମ	ଛାତ୍ର/ଛାତ୍ରୀଙ୍କ ନାମ
ସାନ୍ତାଳୀ ଲୋକସଂସ୍କୃତି	ମହତ ଶତପ‌ଥୀ		ରୁକ୍ମଣ ବରିହା	ସମ୍ବାରୀ ମୁର୍ମୁ
ହୋ ପରବ			ତରଣୀସେନ ସାମଡ
ହୋ ଜନ‌ଜାତିର ପର୍ବପର୍ବାଣୀ	ଦୀପ୍ତିରଞ୍ଜନ ବେହେରା		ସୂର୍ଯ୍ୟମଣି ସଏ	ତରଣୀସେନ ସାମଡ
ହୋ ଜନ‌ଜାତିର ବିବାହ ପ୍ରଥା‎	ସୌମିତ୍ରୀ ସାମନ୍ତରାୟ			ଜଗଦୀଶ କୁମାର ସିଂ
ଲାଞ୍ଜିଆ ସଉରା ଜନ‌ଜାତିର ଘର‎	ପ୍ରୀତିନନ୍ଦା ରାୟ		ସୁବାସ ଚନ୍ଦ୍ର ସାମଲ	ଗିରିଜା ଶଙ୍କର ମଲିକ
ସାନ୍ତାଳୀ ପର୍ବପର୍ବାଣୀ	ସାଇ ବିଶ୍ୱନାଥ ତ୍ରିପାଠୀ	ପ୍ରିୟମ୍ବଦା ସ୍ୱାଇଁ		କାପୁରା ସୋରେନ
ସାନ୍ତାଳୀ ସଙ୍ଗୀତ	ନୀଳିମା ସାମନ୍ତ	ସୁଜ୍ଞାନୀ ରଥ	ବାସୁଦେବ ମାରାଣ୍ଡି
ସାନ୍ତାଳୀ ଜନ ଜାତିର ଜୀବନ ଜୀବିକା	ଶୁଭଲକ୍ଷ୍ମୀ ମହାନ୍ତି		କ୍ରିଷ୍ଣା ସୋରେନ	ମହେନ୍ଦ୍ର ବେଶ୍ରା
ମୁଣ୍ଡା ଜନ‌ଜାତି			ସରୋଜିନୀ ସିଂ

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/events/odia-wikipedia-workshop-kiss-january-10-2014

Report from India: Relicensing books under CC

subha — 2014-05-05T09:13:15Z

My name is Subhashish Panigrahi. I am an educator currently working in the community and communication front at The Centre for Internet and Society’s Access To Knowledge program (CIS-A2K), an India-based catalyst program to grow Indic language communities for Wikipedia and its sister projects. Prior to my work at CIS, I worked for the Wikimedia Foundation’s India Program, a predecessor to the current CIS-A2K project.

Read the original published on Creative Commons Blog on April 18, 2014 here.

While building ties with higher education and research organizations, I also try to get educational and encyclopedic resources licensed under Creative Commons licenses so that communities can use them to enrich Wikimedia projects. Currently, there is a low level of content available across all the Indic languages and the need for Unicode-based content is extremely crucial.

	While negotiating with authors for relicensing their books in Creative Commons license, I started identifying certain motivation areas for any author for such free content donation. Some of the authors, publishers, and copyright holders have started learning about open access to scholarly publications. However, the readers who are likely to buy a hard copy of a book are likely to buy it even when a free, virtual version is available – that’s the idea authors who are skeptical about CC licenses need to understand.

While negotiating with authors for relicensing their books in Creative Commons license, I started identifying certain motivation areas for any author for such free content donation. Some of the authors, publishers, and copyright holders have started learning about open access to scholarly publications. However, the readers who are likely to buy a hard copy of a book are likely to buy it even when a free, virtual version is available – that’s the idea authors who are skeptical about CC licenses need to understand.

Open source book publishing in India has gained much interest and focus, primarily because of the lack of foresight of the possibilities that are tied to the release of books. It was Pratham Books that first came up with the brilliant idea of “One book book in every child’s hand.” The subsequent release of multilingual books under free licenses was the beginning of a new era in Indian publication.

Book publishers should also think of the target readers of print and web media. Releasing content in free licenses doesn’t affect the mainstream print publications. When it comes to books, there is always a scope for reprinting and making money. After negotiations with two authors and getting 13 books about children’s literature, travelogues, popular science, and linguistic and historical research, I am sure the publishing community has not been educated in the right way about providing free access to content.

It generally takes a long time and effort to negotiate with the copyright holders to get the books out with a CC-BY-SA tag. But it is a permanent and a significant value addition for the open knowledge movement. I believe with more online readers and reviewers getting complete access to books, authors gain more respect in the society and popularity which in turn helps them to sell more of the reprints. Two prime fears are keeping many publishers away from releasing their books online for free: the fear of going out of business and the fear of losing ownership of content. But at the same time, some of the publishers are becoming aware of the mass media outreach and winning hearts of many readers by releasing content for free without copyright restrictions.

Case studies:

Release of a four-volume encyclopedia in Konkani

In 2013, Goa University released Konkani Vishwakosh, a Konkani-language encyclopedia in CC-BY-SA 3.0 license that they had published. This is the largest encyclopedia compiled in the language. The book is being digitized on Konkani WikiSource and content from it is being used to enrich the Konkani version of Wikipedia. The project additionally brought about 20 active contributors for digitization.

Release of 11 Odia language books

11 books from Odia author and academic Dr. Jagannath Mohanty were re-released under the CC BY-SA 3.0 license by the “Manik-Biswanath Smrutinyasa,” a trust founded by Dr. Mohanty for literary discussions and upbringing new writers. His wife and trust’s current chairman Allhadmohini Mohanty formally gave written permission to release and digitize these books. The Odia Wikimedia community is planning to involve undergraduate students of an indigenous educational institution, Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences, to digitize these books. The trust is also reaching out to publishers who published more than 150 of the author’s books to give permission for re-releasing them under a CC license.

Relicensing “Classical Odia” under a free license

The book is heavy and expensive for any normal reader. Enormous copies were sold after Odia was declared as the sixth Indian classical language; however, this did not stop the authors Dr. Debiprasanna Pattanayak and Subrat Prusty from changing the license term from All Rights Reserved to CC-BY-SA 3.0. 600-plus pages full of historical documents and manuscripts along with many undiscovered areas of Odia language’s literary heritage of more than 2500 years are now going to go on WikiSource and enrich Wikipedia articles apart from being great resource for language researchers.

Relicensing books and conversion of ISCII to Unicode font

Two Odia language books by linguist Subrat Prusty, “Jati, Jagruti O Pragati” and “Bhasa O Jatiyata,” have been relicensed. These are few of those thousand books in those the text are typed with fonts with ISCII standard and not Unicode. ISCII standard fonts have glyphs with Indic characters that are actually replacements of the Latin characters by Indic characters. So, a computer with one particular font not installed will display absurd characters. The publication and printing industries still use these fonts as the desktop publishing software package they use for typeset do not have Unicode engine to render the fonts properly. The conversion from these ISCII fonts to Unicode is a way that is going to be used for digitizaing these books to convert the entire book with searchable Unicode content.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/creative-commons-subhashish-panigrahi-april-18-2014-report-from-india-relicensing-books-under-creative-commons

Bharat Majhi Writings Now Available Under a Creative Commons License

subha — 2014-11-07T15:34:38Z

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

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

Agadhu Duari
Saralarekhaa
Murtikaara
Mahanagara Padya
Highwayre Kuhudi

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

Video

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

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

October 2015 Bulletin

praskrishna — 2016-06-18T17:59:14Z

Our newsletter for the month of October is below.

The Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) is happy to share the tenth issue of CIS newsletter (October 2015). It has been a significant month for us. There have been crucial public debates on the violation of digital privacy of individuals and institutions, discussions on India’s national policy on access to knowledge rights, and re-examination of bans on access to internet services imposed by various state governments in India. CIS kept itself engaged with research on these topics from a public interest perspective. Previous editions of the newsletter can be accessed at http://cis-india.org/about/newsletters.

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Highlights
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NVDA team conducted a training programme in West Bengal in the month of September. Fourteen delegates attended the programme. Nirmal Verma was the trainer.
Nehaa Chaudhari authored an article that provides insights into the final draft of India’s National IPR Policy.
Odia Wikisource celebrated its first anniversary in Bhubaneswar. The event was prominently covered in various news channels. Subhashish Panigrahi wrote a blog post.

In 2013, the interview project “WikipediansSpeak” was launched in response to observations that many noteworthy Wikimedians were being underrepresented both locally and globally. For improving their visibility and reach, CIS-A2K interviewed Telugu Wikimedian Viswanadh B.K.

CIS initiated an effort to crowdsource incidents of violation of digital, online and telephonic privacy of persons and organizations in India and shared the full list of public incidents under CC-BY-SA international license.

Sunil Abraham wrote a column in the Week telling readers that internet of things phenomenon is based on a paradigm shift from thinking of the internet merely as a means to connect individuals, corporations and other institutions to an internet where all devices in (insulin pumps and pacemakers), on (wearable technology) and around (domestic appliances and vehicles) humans beings are connected.

Pranesh Prakash, Padmini Baruah and Jyoti Panday wrote a blog post that questions the division of the three IANA functions — names, numbers and protocols — given that there is no no real technical stability to be gained from a unified Post Transition IANA.

CIS analysed five main mailing lists where the IANA transition plan was formulated. The research found that the discussions around IANA transition have not been driven by the “global multi-stakeholder community”, but mostly by males from industry in North America and Western Europe.

In recent months, there was a spree of bans on access to Internet services in Indian states, for different reasons. State governments relied on Section 144 of Criminal Procedure Code for imposing the bans. Geetha Hariharan and Padmini Baruah in a blog post argued that Section 69A of the Information Technology Act, 2000 should be evoked if necessary and not that of the Criminal Procedure Code.
Zero Draft of the UN General Assembly's Overall Review of implementation of WSIS Outcomes was released on October 9. CIS responded to the call with its comments.
Shyam Ponappa’s monthly column published in the Business Standard talks about Digital India and the Prime Minister’s visit to the Silicon Valley.

CIS has announced the Internet Researchers’ Conference (IRC 2016), an annual conference series. The first edition is expected to take place from February 25 to 27, 2016 (yet to be confirmed). CIS invites you to propose sessions for the conference by Sunday, November 15, 2015.

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Accessibility and Inclusion
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Under a grant from the Hans Foundation we are doing a project on developing text-to-speech software for 15 Indian languages. The progress made so far in the project can be accessed here.

►NVDA and eSpeak

# Monthly Updates

October 2015 Report (Suman Dogra; October 31, 2015).

# Event Report

Training in use of eSpeak Bengali with NVDA (Organized by CIS; Turnstone Matruchaya, Siligudi, West Bengal; September 7 – 9, 2015). The report was published in the month of October.

►Pervasive Technologies

# Blog Entries

Compilation of Mobile Phone Patent Litigation Cases in India (Rohini Lakshané; March 15, 2015). This post was recently updated.
Comparison of National IPR Strategy September 2012, National IPR Strategy July 2014 and Draft National IP Policy, December 2014 (Amulya Purushothama; October 15, 2015).
National IPR Policy Series: Quick Observations on the Leaked Draft of the National IPR Policy (Nehaa Chaudhari; October 18, 2015).

# Participation in Event

IPEX 2015 (Organized by the Confederation of Indian Industry, APTDC and TDPC; September 25 - 26, 2015; Hotel Westin, Chennai). Rohini Lakshané attended the event.

►Wikipedia

# Blog Entries

WikipediansSpeak: Telugu-language library catalog project helps Wikipedia grow (Subhashish Panigrahi; October 11, 2015). This was published on Wikimedia blog in two languages English and Ukranian.
A Kannada Wikipedia brochure for newbies (U.B. Pavanaja; October 19, 2015).
Odia Wikisource to Celebrate Its First Anniversary in Bhubaneswar (Subhashish Panigrahi; Mybhubaneswar.com; October 24, 2015).

# Op-ed

ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିପାଠାଗାରର ଆବଶ୍ୟକତା (Need for an Odia-language Wikisource) (Subhashish Panigrahi; Samaja; October 25, 2015).

# Media Coverage

CIS gave its inputs to the following:

ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିପାଠାଗାରର ଆବଶ୍ୟକତା ସମାଜ (Full Odisha.com; October 24, 2015).
Odia Wikisource celebrates 1st anniversary this 25th October (Bhubaneswar Buzz; October 24, 2015).
Odia Wikisource to celebrate its first anniversary tomorrow! (Odisha Sun Times; October 25, 2015).
Odia language classics could now be read from phones, tablets and of course from computers! (Orissadairy; October 25, 2015).
Odia Wikisource to Hold 1st Anniversary (Pioneer; October 26, 2015).
Otago Southland are the Coolest (Library and Information Association of New Zealand; October 26, 2015). The submission was accepted for Wikimania 2015.
India & France to digitise manuscripts, artworks & archives (Medianama; October 29, 2015).

►Big Data

# Article

Connected Trouble (Sunil Abraham; November 1, 2015).

# Upcoming Event

Big Data in the Global South International Workshop (Organized by Institute for Technology and Society of Rio de Janeiro; Hotel Windsor Florida, Rua Ferreira Viana, Flamengo, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; November 16 – 17, 2015). Sunil Abraham and Vipul Kharbanda will be speaking at this event.

►Privacy

# Blog Entries

Contestations of Data, ECJ Safe Harbor Ruling and Lessons for India (Jyoti Panday; October 14, 2015).
Crowdsourcing Incidents of Communication Privacy Violation in India (Sumandro Chattapadhyay; October 16, 2015).

# Event Organized

Communication Rights in the Age of Digital Technology (Organized by CIS; Deck Suite Hall, 5th Floor, Habitat Centre, Lodhi Road, Near Air Force Bal Bharti School, New Delhi; October 30, 2015).

# Participation in Events

The Changing Landscape of ICT Governance and Practice - Convergence and Big Data (Co-organized by Innovation Center for Big Data and Digital Convergence, Yuan Ze University, Taiwan; August 24 – 25, 2015). Sharat Chandra Ram was granted the Young Scholar Award 2015 to attend the Young Scholar Workshop followed by main CPRSouth2015 conference (Communication Policy Research South) conference.
Porn. Panic. Ban: A Conversation on Sexual Expression, Pornography, Sexual Exploitation, Consent (Organized by Point of View and the Internet Democracy Project; New Delhi; October 28 - 30, 2015). Rohini Lakshané was a speaker. Tanveer Hasan also attended this conference.

►Free Speech and Expression

# Submission

Comments on the Zero Draft of the UN General Assembly’s Overall Review of the Implementation of WSIS Outcomes (WSIS+10) (Geetha Hariharan with inputs from Sumandro Chattapadhyay, Pranesh Prakash, Sunil Abraham, Japreet Grewal and Nehaa Chaudhari; October 16, 2015).

# Blog Entries

The Legal Validity of Internet Bans: Part I (Geetha Hariharan and Padmini Baruah; October 8, 2015).
The Legal Validity of Internet Bans: Part II (Geetha Hariharan and Padmini Baruah; October 8, 2015).
Peering behind the veil of ICANN's DIDP (II) (Padmini Baruah; October 15, 2015).
The 'Global Multistakholder Community' is Neither Global Nor Multistakeholder (Pranesh Prakash; October 20, 2015).
Do we need a Unified Post Transition IANA? (Pranesh Prakash, Padmini Baruah and Jyoti Panday; October 23, 2015).

# Event Organized

Cyber Security Policy Research (CIS, New Delhi; October 18, 2015). Tim Maurer gave a talk.

# Participation in Events

Cyfy 2015: The India Conference on Cyber Security and Internet Governance (Organized by Observer Research Foundation; Hotel Tajmansingh; New Delhi; October 14 – 16, 2015). Sunil Abraham was a panelist in the session "Protection of Intellectual Property and Business Secrets in the Knowledge Economy".
ICANN 54 (Organized by ICANN; INEX - Ireland’s Internet Neutral Exchange, Dublin; October 18 – 22, 2015). Pranesh Prakash, Snehashish Ghosh, Jyoti Panday and Padmini Baruah participated in 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:

# Op-ed

Digital India - Now to Work (Shyam Ponappa; Business Standard; October 1, 2015; Organizing India Blogspot; October 2, 2015).

# Submission

Where's My Data? Submission for Knight News Challenge 2015 (Sumandro Chattapadhyay; October 1, 2015). CIS is contributing to this submission.

# Blog Entry

Building Expertise to Support Digital Scholarship: A Global Perspective (Vivian Lewis, Lisa Spiro, Xuemao Wang, and Jon E. Cawthorne; October 16, 2015). CIS was featured in this report.

# Upcoming Event

First Edition of Internet Researchers' Conference (IRC) 2016 - Studying Internet in India: Call for Sessions (Organized by CIS; New Delhi; February 25 – 27, 2016).

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

The rise and rise of slacktivism (Divya Gandhi; Hindu; October 3, 2015).
Modi's Valley hug sparks swadeshi talk (Sujit John and Shilpa Phadnis; The Times of India; October 6, 2015).
CIS in Top 50 Tech Blogs of India (rebateszone; Ocotber 7, 2015).
Access at the cost of Net neutrality? (Suhrith Parthasarathy; Hindu; October 8, 2015).
Dadri reopens debate on online hate speech (Amulya Gopalakrishnan; The Times of India; October 9, 2015).
How To Win Friends, FB Style (Arindam Mukherjee; Outlook; October 12, 2015).
Supreme Court provides partial relief for Aadhaar (Apurva Vishwanath and Saurabh Kumar; October 15, 2015).
Digital India: Did Modi get it wrong in Silicon Valley? (Ayeshea Perera; BBC News; October 16, 2015).
Net advocacy body probing linkages between telcos and Facebook’s auto-play video option (Prabhu Mallikarjunan; Financial Express; October 28, 2015).

---------------------------------
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 diverse abilities, 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
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 / 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.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/october-2015-bulletin

A Wikipedia Workshop at NMAIT

subha — 2013-01-04T16:30:28Z

The Centre for Internet & Society, Delhi collaborated with Metawings Institute to spread the words about Wikipedia for Indian languages. A one-day workshop was organized to educated the students on contributing to Wikipedia on December 21, 2012. About 170 engineering students took part in this event.

The workshop began with interaction with the students about their understanding. I asked few questions like what is Wikipedia, who edits articles on Wikipedia, is it paid or free, did they ever try to edit Wikipedia, etc. I took them through a presentation to explain basics of Wikipedia, five pillars, notability and copyright issues related to vandalism. One of the students were called to create his user account. Students were showed the simpler sign up process. To explain how articles are edited we introduced errors in the article on Bengaluru and made it the capital of India for few minutes! Students were explained how Wikipedia editors correct mistakes like these in real time and correct facts are published in Wikipedia. A majority of the students asked about the authenticity of articles which is open to anyone. So I got a chance to refresh the page and show how the error introduced was reverted within a few minutes.


Above is a picture of the participants from the Wikipedia Workshop at Karkala

The session went on with such interaction and students were explained more about the importance of citing references to add credibility to the facts they can add on Wikipedia articles.

We also had Dr. Ashok Kumar, prof, Computer science department, a wikipedian and columnist for Kannada newspaper Udaya Vani. Dr. Kumar introduced Kannada Wikipedia to the students. At the end of the session I had a discussion with him about organizing more workshops for Kannada Wikipedia and supporting participant students. Special thanks to Metawings for finding the venue and supporting for the event.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/wikipedia-workshop-at-nmait

Kolkata: Tasting the Sweetness of Wikipedia!

subha — 2012-12-04T07:19:54Z

Recently, Access to Knowledge team member Subhashish Panigrahi spent some time with wikipedians in Kolkata. Through this blog post he shares his experience and learning from the interaction. This post explores the journey of three wikipedians — Jayanta Nath, Deepon Saha and Ashwin.

Jayanta Nath and Deepon Saha — Lecture on Bangla Wikipedia

Jayanta is one of the active contributors in Bangla Wikipedia. He has supported community building for Bangla Wikipedia in India. Apart from contributing articles Jayanta supports many wikipedians for fixing technical issues on various language wikis. Deepon is another active wikipedian from Kolkata who contributes mostly to English Wikipedia besides contributing to WikiCommons and Bangla Wikipedia and taking active part in community building in Kolkata and other places. I met both Jayanta and Deepon recently in Kolkata and discussed about Bangla Wikipedia and the role of contributors from India.

Over the last few years Bangla Wikipedia has seen enough growth — growth in number of articles, growth in number of outreach, growth in number of contributors and lot more. However, there is something missing in this list, and that is the growth in number of Bangla editors from India. Sadly, though Bangla speaking people constitute a major part of the intellectual sphere. Bangla Wikipedia has not seen many new faces in the recent past from the Indian subcontinent. "English has become like a mother language of most Bengalis in Kolkata and Bengalis residing in other major cities", expresses Jayanta with grief. "Most of the Bengalis speak and are adhered to Bengali language but the use of language is limited only to speaking. And they no more use Bangla in writing. That is what makes it more difficult to tell them about Bangla Wikipedia", adds Deepon. Bangla Wikipedia in India is facing one more major challenge: media coverage. There is not much coverage about Bangla Wikipedia in Bangla media, especially print media. "I was interviewed by the Times of India, Hindu, Telegraph and few other English newspapers but, surprisingly there was not much coverage in Bangla media. There are almost 12 Bangla newspapers being published from Kolkata and in spite of our efforts the outcome is far below expectation", explains Jayanta. Jayanta feels there is much scope for community building for Bangla Wikipedia in rural West Bengal. Unlike urban Bengal, Bangla is the primary medium of both verbal and written communication.

Computer literacy might be a big hurdle when it comes to spreading words about editing Bangla Wikipedia. But it is difficult to predict about the status of government schools, computer and internet penetration before initiating outreach for rural places. Deepon also suggests about making a small survey in Bangla medium schools in Kolkata to understand the scope for any Bangla education program in those schools. We discussed about the internet penetration to measure and assess the state of Bangla on internet and its public usage. Out of the ten Bangla newspapers only two are available in unicode for their online edition. The state of unicode and online usage of Bangla in unicode is much better in Bangladesh which also explains that Bengalis in Bangladesh are using Bangla to a great extent including reading, writing and upon internet.

Typing is another challenge to be tackled. DTP operators, government offices where Bangla typing is used normally use a different typing scheme and non-unicode fonts (mostly old ISCII or ASCII fonts). "We could bring many Bangla enthusiasts to Bangla Wiki projects by simplifying the typing solution and making people aware about the available typing tools. Simple video tutorials and smaller help pages with easy-to-understand guidelines will be helpful and these should be linked from other pages so the new editors will find them and make use of them to learn editing", adds Deepon.

The Full Story Began with Loads of Curiosity and a Small [Edit] Button!

Deepon was searching for some information online while he discovered the available information on wikipedia is incorrect. He was searching for a help desk to ask to correct it. Suddenly he discovered the "Edit" button, when he clicked on it a new page opened up with a warning: "You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. Please log in or sign up to have your edits associated with a user name, among other benefits." He clicked, signed up and created a new account and corrected the mistake. That was the first time Deepon made his first edit on Wikipedia and never stopped after that.

Ashwin (User:AshLin): Passion to Contribute to Wikipedia still Flying like Butterflies

There was no book available in the early 80s when Ashwin wanted to know more about Indian butterflies. There was no article on Wikipedia about Indian butterflies and there were very less available resource on Indian butterflies. Ashwin along with Shyamal and other enthusiasts collaborated to start working on this project which brought many other contributors. The other project he was quite involved was about Indian snakes. One of his key motivations for contributing to Wikipedia was making the resource about Indian butterflies available for others.

	Ashwin is one of those active contributors from India who are active for the last few years for bringing more editors onboard to write on articles of Indian context, primarily on English Wikipedia. Out of his own passion Ashwin started contributing to several projects like WikiProject Lepidoptera which brought many wonderful articles on Wikipedia. Ashwin is greatly appreaciate for his participation in projects like WikiProject Offline Wikipedia for Indian Schools, Collaborations of the month. Ashwin extended his help to the Pune community when he was in Pune from organizing outreach events to bringing editors onboard to take leadership for new projects. "There is a lot of scope for regional language wikipedians to learn from the English Wikipedia projects. Projects on English Wikipedia involves more people and the lessons would be helpful for other regional language wikipedians and English wikipedians in India are always interested to help", expresses Ashwin. Currently he is in a small wikibreak and will be back soon!

Ashwin is one of those active contributors from India who are active for the last few years for bringing more editors onboard to write on articles of Indian context, primarily on English Wikipedia. Out of his own passion Ashwin started contributing to several projects like WikiProject Lepidoptera which brought many wonderful articles on Wikipedia. Ashwin is greatly appreaciate for his participation in projects like WikiProject Offline Wikipedia for Indian Schools, Collaborations of the month. Ashwin extended his help to the Pune community when he was in Pune from organizing outreach events to bringing editors onboard to take leadership for new projects. "There is a lot of scope for regional language wikipedians to learn from the English Wikipedia projects. Projects on English Wikipedia involves more people and the lessons would be helpful for other regional language wikipedians and English wikipedians in India are always interested to help", expresses Ashwin. Currently he is in a small wikibreak and will be back soon!

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/kolkata-tasting-the-sweetness-of-wikipedia

How we celebrated Software Freedom Day

subha — 2016-10-07T02:02:18Z

A small group of 6 FOSS contributors from communities such as Mozilla, Wikimedia, Mediawiki, Open Street Map and users of FOSS solutions gathered in Bengaluru to celebrate Software Freedom Day. Subhashish Panigrahi who was a part of the event, reports the developments.

What are FOSS, Free Software, Open Source, and FLOSS?

Adopted by noted software freedom advocate Richard Stallman in 1983, free software has many names — free and open source software (FOSS or F/OSS), and Free/Libre and Open-Source Software (FLOSS) are umbrella terms that are used to include both free software and open source software. As defined by the Free Software Foundation — one of the early advocates of software freedom — free software allows users to not only use the software with complete freedom, but also study, modify, and distribute the software and any adapted versions, in both commercial and noncommercial form. The distribution of the software for commercial and noncommercial form however depends on the particular license the software is released under. The Creative Commons licenses have recommendations for a wide array of free licenses that one can choose for the software-related documentations and any creative work they create. Similarly, there are several different open licenses for software and many other works that are related to software development. “Open Source” was coined as an alternative to free software in 1998 by an educational-advocacy organization Open Source Initiative. Open source software is generally created collaboratively, made available with its source code, and it provides the user rights to study, change, and distribute the software to anyone and for any purpose.

Supported by several global organizations like Google, Canonical, Free Software Foundation, Joomla, Creative Commons and Linux Journal, Software Freedom Day draws its inspiration from the philosophy that was grown by people like Richard Stallman who argues that free software is all about the freedom and not necessarily free of cost but provides the liberty to users from [proprietary software developers’] unjust power. SFD encouraged everyone to gather in their own cities (map of places where SFD was organized this year) to: educate people around them about free software, promote it on social media (with the hashtag #SFD2016 this year), hacking with free software, organizing hackathons, running free software installation camps, and even going creative with flying a drone running free software!

In South Asia, there were 13 celebratory events in India, 8 in Nepal, 1 in Bangladesh and 4 in Sri Lanka.

South Asian countries have seen adoption of both free software and open source software, in both individual and organizational level and by the government. The Free Software Movement of India was founded in Bengaluru, India in 2010 to act as a national coalition of several regional chapters working for promoting and growing the free software movement in India. The Indian government has launched the open data portal at data.gov.in, initiated a new policy to adopt open source software, and asked vendors to include open source software applications while making requests for proposals. Similarly, there are many free and open source communities and organizations that are operating from the subcontinent also promote free and open source software like Mozilla India, Wikimedia India, Centre for Internet and Society, Open Knowledge India in India, Mozilla Bangladesh, Wikimedia Bangladesh, Bangladesh Open Source Network, Open Knowledge Bangladesh in Bangladesh, Mozilla Nepal, Wikimedians of Nepal and Open Knowledge Nepal in Nepal, Wikimedia Community User Group Pakistan in Pakistan, Lanka Software Foundation in Sri Lanka.

We promote open source and open web technologies in the country. We are open to associate/work with existing open source or other community-run, public benefit organizations.

“Internet By The People, Internet For The People” (from Mozilla India wiki)

Mohammad Jahangir Alam, a lecturer from Southern University Bangladesh argues in a research paper that the use of open source software can help the government save enormous amount of money that are spent in purchasing proprietary software,

A Large amount of money of government can be saved if the government uses open source software in different IT sectors of government offices and others sectors, Because government is providing computer to all educational institute from school to university level and they are using proprietary software. For this reason government is to expend a large amount of many* for buying proprietary software to run the computers. Another one is government paying significant amount of money to the different vendors for buying different types of software to implement e-Governance project. So, the Government can use open source software for implanting projects to minimize cost of the projects.

This year, a small group of six of us gathered to celebrate SFD in Bengaluru. The group consisted of FOSS contributors from communities such as Mozilla, Wikimedia, Mediawiki, Open Street Map (OSM), and users of FOSS solutions. Each participant shared their own stories of how they got connected with FOSS and what component it plays in their day-to-day life — from how a father tries to introduce his son to open source software while migrating from proprietary to open source back and forth as his job demands so, to an OSM contributor who truly believes that large scale contributions to open source can make the software as robust as proprietary ones and even better because of the freedom that lie in it. The participants bounced both technical and philosophical questions to each other to gauge the actual usage of FOSS in real life, and how as a society we are moving towards adopting openness. There is a great disconnect in communicating widely about the work that many Indian FOSS and other free knowledge communities are doing, agreed all the participants. So they planned to meet more regularly and try to connect more people using social media and chat groups so that these interactions shape into an annual event to bring all open communities under one roof.

The blog post which was originally published by Mozilla Open Mic on October 6 can be accessed here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/subhashish-panigrahi-mozilla-open-mic-october-6-2016-how-we-celebrated-software-freedom-day

Odia Wikipedia's 10th anniversary at Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences (KISS), Bhubaneswar

praskrishna — 2014-01-30T12:01:22Z

The Centre for Internet and Society's Access to Knowledge along with the Odia Wikipedia community invite you to the tenth anniversary celebrations of Odia Wikipedia t Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences, Bhubaneswar on January 28, 2014 from 10.00 a.m. to 4.00 p.m.

କିଛି ଦିନ ତଳେ କଳିଙ୍ଗ ଇନଷ୍ଟିଚ୍ୟୁଟ ଅଫ ସୋସିଆଲ ସାଇନ୍ସେସଠାରେ କର୍ମଶାଳା ଓ ସ‌ହବନ୍ଧନ ପରେ ସେଠାର କର୍ତ୍ତୃପକ୍ଷ ଓ ଶିକ୍ଷକ ତ‌ଥା ଛାତ୍ରମାନେ ଆମ ସମସ୍ତଙ୍କୁ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆର ୧୦ମ ଜନ୍ମତିଥି ଅନୁଷ୍ଠାନ ପରିସରରେ କରିବା ପାଇଁ ଅନୁରୋଧ କରିଛନ୍ତି । ମୁଁ ଏଥିରେ କେତେଜଣ ବରିଷ୍ଠ ଭାଷା ଗବେଷକ ଓ ଭାଷାବିଦମାନଙ୍କୁ ଅନୁରୋଧ କରିଥିଲି । ଏଯାବତ ସେଣ୍ଟ୍ରାଲ ଇନଷ୍ଟିଚ୍ୟୁଟ ଅଫ ଇଣ୍ଡିଆନ ଲାଙ୍ଗୁଏଜେସ (CIIL), ମହୀଶୂରର ପ୍ରତିଷ୍ଠାତା ଓ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଭାଷାବିଦ ପଦ୍ମଶ୍ରୀ ଦେବୀପ୍ରସନ୍ନ ପଟୃନାୟକ, ଓଡ଼ିଆ ସାହିତ୍ୟ ଏକାଡେମୀର ଅବାହକ ଓ ଭାଷାବିଦ ଡ. ଗୌରହରି ଦାସ ତ‌ଥା ଭାଷା ଗବେଷକ ସୁବ୍ରତ ପୃଷ୍ଟି ସମ୍ମତି ପ୍ରଦାନ କରିଛନ୍ତି । ଦୟାକରି ସମସ୍ତେ ନିଜ ତରଫରୁ ମଧ୍ୟ ଅଧିକ ବରିଷ୍ଠ ଗବେହକମାନଙ୍କୁ ଅନୁରୋଧ କରିବା ସ‌ହିତ ଏଥିରେ ଅଂଶଗ୍ରହଣ କରି ଏହି ସାମୁହିକ ଉଦ୍ୟମକୁ ଫଳବତୀ କରାଇବାରେ ସ‌ହ‌ଯୋଗ କରିବେ ।

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/events/odia-wikipedia-tenth-anniversary-kalinga-institute-of-social-sciences-bhubaneswar

Odia Wikimedia community celebrated Odisha day, bringing 14 copyright free Odia books

praskrishna — 2014-04-04T12:25:46Z

Odia Wikimedia community has celebrated “Odisha day” today at Jayadev Bhawan. Inaugurating this event eminent linguist Padmashree Dr. Debiprasanna Pattanayak said, 'Collaborative effort and open access to knowledge repositories will enrich our language an culture'.

This was published in Odishadiary on March 29, 2014.

Odia Wikipedia has been trying to popularize use of Odia language in the Internet since 2002.

To enrich the online encyclopedia and getting more books digitized Wikipedians are organizing a two day event. Along with Dr. Debiprasanna Pattanayak, Professor Udayanath Sahu, The Odisha Review's editor Dr. Lenin Mohanty, Odisha Bhaskar's editor Pradosh Pattnaik, language researcher Subrat Prusty, Kalinga Institute of Social Science (KISS)'s principal Dr. Madan Mohan Sahu, Manik-Biswanath Smrutinyasa's chairman Allhadmohini Mohanty along with the trust's secretary Brajamohan Patnaik and senior members Sarojkanta Choudhury and Shisira Ranjan Dash.

11 volumes of eminent Odia writer Dr. Jagannath Mohanty were released in free Creative Commons licenses. KISS will be digitizing these books by training their students. Allhadmohini Mohanty formally gave written permission to Odia Wikimedia community for releasing and digitizing these books. Guests released a DVD containing a new Odia Unicode free font designed by OdiaLanguage.com, a new Odia input tool, free softwares and offline Wikipedia.

It was declared that the Odia WikiSource project will be active soon. Odia Wikipedia admin Mrutyunjaya Kar gave the inaugural speech. Subhashish Panigrahi from the Centre for Internet and Society read the annual report and vision of Odia Wikipedia. Chief guest Dr. Debiprasanna Pattanayak discussed about the efforts being laid for bringing Odia language as the sixth Indian classical language. Majority of the Odia publications are not available on the internet and readers are devoid of easily accessible. He discussed about the process of digitization for preserving valuable books that are out of print and the old palm lead manuscripts.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/orissa-diary-march-29-2014-odia-wikimedia-community-celebrated-odisha-day-bringing-14-copyright-free-odia-books

Eight Challenges That Indian-Language Wikipedias Need to Overcome

subha — 2016-03-29T17:05:36Z

Even after a decade of existence, Indian language Wikipedias are not yet known to many Indian language speakers. Wikipedia, being the largest available encyclopedia made in the human history, it what it is today because of the hundreds and thousands of volunteer-editors. But while native-language Wikipedias are becoming game-changers in other corners of the world, the scenario in India is skewed. In my experience, here are a number of challenges that Indian-language Wikipedias are currently facing.

The article was published in the Wire on March 17, 2016. A version of the article was also mirrored by Opensource.com on March 28, 2016.

1. Language communities:

The language communities of many of the Indian languages are such that many of them do not know how to search for information online, in their language typed in their script. Some of these communities even believe that because Google’s home page does not have their script, their language does not exist on the Internet. Starting with five Indian languages as the language of its interface, Google now has has nine Indian languages. But this does not stop a Santali or Manipuri user to search in Unicode Ol chiki (script for Santali) or in Unicode Meithei (script for Manipuri). Google or any search engine for that matter will display anything available in any script on the Internet. But the lack of this very thing is keeping many people away from being connected to the Internet in general and Wikipedia in particular.\

2. Wikipedia’s editor community:

Wikipedia is written by people like you and me. And from writing to editing everything happens voluntarily. As many people do not probably know, or do not try to learn, anybody can correct the mistakes and inaccuracies that exist in many Wikipedia articles. The Wikipedia editor communities for several Indian languages are really small. While these languages are spoken by millions of people, only a handful editors contribute in editing the Wikipedia in these languages. In January this year, the Hindi Wikipedia, for instance, had only 89 editors while the total number of Hindi speakers would be over 550 million.

3. Language input in computers:

A vast majority of people in this country do not know how to type in their own language.. There is also little documentation for users to learn about language input. Even though many government-run schools in India are seeing a proliferation of more computers and Internet access, native language input and several other essential training of basic computing are not widely taught in schools in all states. What is sad is that there is a wide variety of free software for native-language input and the challenges of typing in Indian languages that existed a few years back has almost gone.

4. Language input in mobile devices:

With over 1 billion people with mobile phones, the 15% internet penetration rate will soon grow at a faster pace. This in turn — and also tough competition that compel TSPs to drop data charges — will help many Indians get access to the Internet . If these people are not educated about native language input then they will be victims of the English-centric Internet rather than being able to enjoy the virtue of the same. Many Indians that have smartphones need full Indian language support and especially inbuilt input methods to be able to contribute in their own language Wikipedia.

5. Low availability of Indian-language content on the Internet:

Lack of native language content on the Internet is another major factor in the low adoption of Indian language Wikpedias. As per an Internet and Mobile Association of India survey conducted in 2012, over 6% of the population is left behind from joining the online sphere simply because of lack of content in their languages. Take, for instance, my state odisha.While the Kerala government’s official tourism portal is available in Odia and other Indian languages, the Odisha government’s tourism portal itself has no information in Odia-language today. Our languages are neglected largely in our own states.

6. Mismatch of conventional and new media:

Many conventional media houses still continue to use non-standard variants of the ASCII/ISCII script encoding systems, instead of adopting the Unicode standard. Unicode being a global standard, and having the advantage of unifying the world, has been available for Indian languages for almost 25 years now. But much of our vernacular print media has failed to adopt this. Consequently, many popular Indian-language newspapers are yet to become available in Unicode on the open Internet.

7. Lack of Open Access:

Majority of the information produced on the Internet in general and by the government, in particular, are mostly copyrighted. The paywalled garden of copyright restrictions keeps the information closed and stop people from sharing and learning more. On the contrary, Wikipedia is available under a Creative Commons Share-Alike license which allows anyone to make use of the content and even distribute commercial copies of its content. The idea of opening up information for masses in a free license could make information reach millions of people.

8. People with disabilities:

Many people cannot read, speak and write. India has over 60 million people with some form of hearing impairment. There is a desperate need for a high-quality text-to-speech and speech-to-text engine for people with physical disabilities. Also, these software products have to be free software so that common people, that cannot afford to buy expensive proprietary software like JAWS, can contribute to Wikipedia in their language. Many text-to-speech engines that are available today for Indian languages sound so mechanical that it is difficult for common speakers to use them.

Subhashish Panigrahi is an educator and free knowledge evangelist, and currently works for Communications, Program Capacity & Learning at Wikimedia Foundation, and Access to Knowledge at the Centre for Internet and Society. Portions of this article came from a speech that Panigrahi gave at BHASHA: Indian Languages Digital Festival in New Delhi.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/the-wire-march-17-2016-subhashish-panigrahi-eight-challenges-that-indian-language-wikipedias-need-to-overcome

December 2014 Bulletin

praskrishna — 2015-01-12T16:56:54Z

The Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) wishes you a very happy new year and welcomes you to the twelfth issue of the newsletter (December 2014).

Highlights

CIS prepared a policy brief that identifies the problem areas with the current work flow being used to publish documents and proposes suitable modifications to make them easy to locate, authentic and accessible.
NVDA team conducted two workshops. The first one was held at the Hyderabad Central University for reading and writing in Telugu. The second one was held at the Blind Empowerment Foundation in Kolkata for reading and writing in Bangla.

Nehaa Chaudhari participated in the 29^th WIPO-SCCR held in Geneva from December 8 to 12, 2014 and on behalf of CIS gave statements on the Proposed Treaty for the Protection of Broadcasting Organizations , Limitations and Exceptions for Education, Teaching, Research Institutions and Persons with Disabilities , made a brief pointed intervention on the Broadcast Treaty , and briefly interviewed Prof. Crews on his Updated Study on Limitations and Exceptions for Libraries and Archives .
Nehaa Chaudhari analyses the broadening of definitions/concepts in the Proposed Broadcast Treaty versus those in pre-existing international instruments.
Maggie Huang, an intern at CIS as part of the Pervasive Technologies projects conducted interviews with fabless semiconductor industry professionals in Taiwan. The findings are highlighted in two separate blog entries. The first one explores some of their views on the current intellectual property system and the second explores the tension between market forces and governmental intervention in providing access to mobile technology .
Tejaswini Niranjana, a distinguished fellow at CIS wrote an op-ed in the Hindu telling readers to see the ongoing Sanskrit versus German controversy as a welcome opportunity to discuss the real and persistent problems of our education system.
Vidushi Marda and Bhairav Acharya have co-authored a white paper that seeks to identify aspects of privacy in Islamic Law and demonstrate that the notion of privacy was recognized and protected in traditional Islamic law.
Ashna Ashesh and Bhairav Acharya have produced a white paper seeks to locate privacy in Classical Hindu Law, and by doing so, displace the notion that privacy is an inherently 'Western' concept that is the product of a modernist legal system.
Vipul Kharbanda authored a white paper establishing the relationship between privacy and confidentiality.
Geetha Hariharan in a blog entry examines the constitutional validity of Section 69A and the Blocking Rules.
Shyam Ponappa in an article published by the Business Standard writes that India's current policies for telecommunications don't serve our interests and tells readers what must change.

Accessibility and Inclusion

Under a grant from the Hans Foundation we are doing two projects. The first project is on creating a national resource kit of state-wise laws, policies and programmes on issues relating to persons with disabilities in India. CIS in partnership with CLPR (Centre for Law and Policy Research) compiled the National Compendium of Policies, Programmes and Schemes for Persons with Disabilities (29 states and 6 union territories). The publication has been finalised and is being printed. The draft chapters and the quarterly reports can be accessed on the project page. The second project is on developing text-to-speech software for 15 Indian languages. The progress made so far in the project can be accessed here.

►NVDA and eSpeak

Monthly Update

December 2014 Report (Suman Dogra; December 30, 2014).

Events Organized

Telugu eSpeak Training with NVDA (Organized by NVDA team; Hyderabad Central University, Hyderabad; December 1-2, 2014).
Bangla eSpeak training with NVDA (Organized by NVDA team; Blind Empowerment Foundation, Kolkata; December 19-20, 2014).

Upcoming Event

Training in Use of eSpeak with Malayalam (Co-organized by CIS, DAISY Forum of India and Chakshumathi Assistive Technology Centre; Trivandrum; January 24 - 25, 2015, Trivandrum).

►Other

Blog Entry

Availability and Accessibility of Government Information in Public Domain (Sunil Abraham, Nirmita Narasimhan, Beliappa, and Anandhi Viswanathan; December 9, 2014).

Participation in Event

First meeting of the high level committee on National Policy on Universal Electronic Accessibility (Organized by the Department of Electronics and Information Technology; December 30, 2014; New Delhi). Sunil Abraham participated in this meeting.

Media Coverage

When technology is able but the mindset is not (Governance Now; December 1-15 issue). Sunil Abraham and Nirmita Narasimhan gave their inputs.

Access to Knowledge

As part of the Access to Knowledge programme we are doing two projects. The first one (Pervasive Technologies) under a grant from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) is for research on the complex interplay between pervasive technologies and intellectual property to support intellectual property norms that encourage the proliferation and development of such technologies as a social good. The second one (Wikipedia) 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.

►Pervasive Technologies

As part of the Pervasive Technologies project, Maggie Huang conducted interviews with fabless semiconductor industry professionals in Taiwan. The findings from the samples are highlighted in four part series. The third and fourth parts have been published:

Blog Entries

[Open] Innovation and Expertise > Patent Protection & Trolls in a Broken Patent Regime (Maggie Huang; December 26, 2014).
"Copyright Management in the Age of Mobile Music" - Living Methodology Document (Maggie Huang; December 26, 2014).

►Other

Blog Entries

Nehaa Chaudhari attended the 29^th WIPO-SCCR held in Geneva from December 8 to 12. The following are the outputs:

29th Session of the WIPO SCCR: CIS Intervention on the Proposed Treaty for the Protection of Broadcasting Organizations (Nehaa Chaudhari; December 9, 2014).
29th Session of the WIPO SCCR: CIS- 2nd (brief) Intervention on the Broadcast Treaty (Nehaa Chaudhari; December 11, 2014).
The Broadening of Definitions in the Proposed Broadcast Treaty Compared to Other International Conventions (Nehaa Chaudhari; December 11, 2014).
29th Session of the WIPO SCCR: CIS Intervention: Questions to Prof. Kenneth Crews on his Updated Study on Limitations and Exceptions for Libraries and Archives (Nehaa Chaudhari; December 14, 2014).
29th Session of the WIPO SCCR: Statement on the Limitations and Exceptions for Education, Teaching, Research Institutions and Persons with Disabilities (Nehaa Chaudhari; December 20, 2014).
Protection of Broadcasting Organisations under the Proposed Treaty as Compared to Other International Conventions (Nehaa Chaudhari; December 21, 2014).

Participation in Event

Save the Date - 10 December 2014: The Broadcasting Treaty: A Solution in Search of a Problem? (Organized at WIPO; December 10, 2014). Nehaa Chaudhari was a speaker at this side event. The details were originally published by Knowledge Ecology International.

Media Coverage

SCCR 29: Public Interest Organizations Statements regarding the Broadcasting Treaty (Knowledge Ecology International; December 9, 2014).
SCCR 29 Libraries, Archives and Public Interest NGOs in Q&A with Dr. Crews (Knowledge Ecology International; December 11, 2014).
At WIPO, Study On Copyright Exceptions Stimulates Broad Discussion With Author (Catherine Saez; December 18, 2014).
WIPO Delegates Hear Concerns of NGOs on Exceptions for Libraries (Catherine Saez; IP Watch ; December 19, 2014).

►Wikipedia

Newspaper Article

Beyond the Language Tussle (Tejaswini Niranjana; The Samaja, November 17, 2014).

Blog Entries

Odia Wikisource campus project at Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences (Subhashish Panigrahi; December 3, 2014).
Several Publications Now Available under Creative Commons License (Subhashish Panigrahi; December 28, 2014).
Odia Wikisource workshop at New Delhi (Subhashish Panigrahi; December 30, 2014). The event was organized by CIS in collaboration with "The Intellects" on December 14.

News and Media Coverage

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

Odia Wikipedia (Dhatri; December 1, 2014).
Odia Wikipedia (Odiapua; December 1, 2014).
Access to Rare Books Made Easy (Diana Sahu; Indian Express; December 5, 2014).
Tulu Wikipedia gets some push (Hindu Businessline; December 13, 2014).
Tulu Wikipedia (Kannada Prabha; December 14, 2014).
Tulu Wikipedia (Vijaya Karnataka; December 15, 2014).
Tulu Wikipedia (VijayaVani; December 27, 2014).
Works of Veerasalingam Pantulu on web (Hans India; December 31, 2014).
Wiki Winter Camp - Coverage in Sakshi (Sakshi; December 31, 2014).
Wiki Winter Camp - Coverage in Eenadu (Eenadu; December 31, 2014).

Event Co-organized

Odia Wikisource Sabha 2014 (Co-organized by CIS-A2K and Odia Wikimedia Community; November 28, 2014). Subhashish Panigrahi participated in the event.

Participation in Events

ICT for Development (Organized by Christ University; December 3, 2014). Dr. U.B. Pavanaja was a speaker at this event.
Swatantra 2014: Fifth International Free Software Conference, Kerala (Organized by ICFOSS, Govt. of Kerala; Hotel Hycinth by Sparsa, Trivandrum; December 18 - 20, 2014). T. Vishnu Vardhan chaired a session on Wikimedia and Access to Knowledge in India and Rahimanuddin Shaik co-presented on Making DLI Accessible.

►Openness

Blog Entry

Department of Science and Technology & Department of Biotechnology adopt Open Access Policy (Anubha Sinha; December 29, 2014).

Participation in Events

Tech for Citizen Engagement 2014 (Organized by Omidyar Network; New Delhi; December 11, 2014). Sunil Abraham was a speaker in the session "Rules of Engagement: Emerging Trends in Citizen Outreach".
Swatantra 2014: Fifth International Free Software Conference, Kerala (Organized by ICFOSS, Govt. of Kerala; Hotel Hycinth by Sparsa, Trivandrum; December 18 - 20, 2014). Prof. Subbiah Arunachalam was a speaker and made a presentation on Open Science.

Internet Governance

►Privacy

As part of our Surveillance and Freedom: Global Understandings and Rights Development (SAFEGUARD) project with Privacy International we are engaged in enhancing respect for the right to privacy in developing countries. During the month we published the following blog entries:

White Papers

Locating Constructs of Privacy within Classical Hindu Law (Ashna Ashesh and Bhairav Acharya; December 29, 2014).
Relationship between Privacy and Confidentiality (Vipul Kharbanda; December 30, 2014).

Blog Entry

Identifying Aspects of Privacy in Islamic Law (Vidushi Marda and Bhairav Acharya; December 14, 2014).

Upcoming Events

Security, Governments, and Data: Technology and Policy (Co-organized by CIS and the Observer Research Foundation; January 8, 2015; New Delhi).
CPDP 2015 : The eighth international conference on computers, privacy and data protection will be held in Brussels from January 21 to 23, 2015. CIS is a moral supporter of CPDP.

Event Organized

Security and Surveillance: A public discussion on Optimizing Security while Safeguarding Human Rights (CIS; December 19, 2014).

►Free Speech

Under a grant from the MacArthur Foundation, CIS is doing research on the restrictions placed on freedom of expression online by the Indian government and contribute studies, reports and policy briefs to feed into the ongoing debates at the national as well as international level. As part of the project we bring you the following outputs:

Blog Entries

ICANN reveals hitherto undisclosed details of domain names revenues (Geetha Hariharan; December 8, 2014).
Revolving Door Analysis: IANA Stewardship Transition Coordination Group (Lakshmi Venkataraman; December 10, 2014).
Is India's website-blocking law constitutional? - I. Law & procedure (Geetha Hariharan; December 11, 2014).

►Other

Participation in Event

National Seminar on Cyber Security & Cyber Laws - Issues and Concerns (Organized by the Advanced Centre for Research, Development & Training in Cyber Laws & Forensics; National Law School of India University, Bangalore; December 27 - 28, 2014). Sharath Chandra Ram was part of a plenary session on "Multi-Disciplinary Challenges in Ensuring Cyber Security".

Blog Entries

Overview of the Constitutional Challenges to the IT Act (Pranesh Prakash; December 15, 2014).
Reply to RTI filed with BSNL regarding Network Neutrality and Throttling (Tarun Krishnakumar; December 22, 2014).

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

India sees biggest improvement in Internet freedom, says report (Moulishree Srivastava; Livemint; December 5, 2014).
Are Cab Apps safe? (IBN Live; December 8, 2014).
FrndiNeed; an app for passengers' safety (Athira A. Nair; Economic Times; December 10, 2014).
Thank You To Our 2014 Sponsors (Medianama; December 22, 2014).
Why did India fail to discover the ISIS Twitter handle? (Anita Babu; Business Standard; December 26, 2014).
Targeting surveillance (Ajai Sreevatsan; The Hindu; December 28, 2014).
Centre blocks 32 websites for security reasons, restores some later (S. Ronendra Singh; Hindu Businessline; December 31, 2014).
DoT Reportedly Orders Blocking of 32 Websites Including GitHub, Archive.org, SourceForge (NDTV; December 31, 2014).
Govt blocks 32 websites, including Vimeo and Github (Moulishree Srivastava; Livemint; December 31, 2014).
Vimeo, DailyMotion, Pastebin Among Sites Blocked In India For 'Anti-India' Content From ISIS (Jeff Stone; IB Times; December 31, 2014).
Pastebin, Dailymotion, Github blocked after DoT order: Report (Anupam Saxena; The Times of India; December 31, 2014).

Telecom

Newspaper Column

A Road Map for Digital India (Shyam Ponappa; Business Standard; December 3, 2014 and Organizing India Blogspot; December 4, 2014).

Digital Humanities

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

Blog Entry

The Spaces of Digital (P.P.Sneha; December 30, 2014).

About CIS

The Centre for Internet and Society is a non-profit research organization that works on policy issues relating to freedom of expression, privacy, accessibility for persons with disabilities, access to knowledge and IPR reform, and openness (including open government, FOSS, open standards, etc.), and engages in academic research on digital natives and digital humanities.

► Follow us elsewhere

Twitter: https://twitter.com/CISA2K
Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/cisa2k
Visit us at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge
E-mail: a2k@cis-india.org

► Support Us

► Request for Collaboration:

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

Open access platform to save the Odia Indian language

subha — 2014-10-24T15:32:40Z

In February 2014, the Government of India declared the South Asian language Odia as the 6th classical language of India which is one among 22 scheduled languages of India and has a literary heritage of more than 5,000 years. There are documents for more than 3,500 years, and the rest are undocumented oral histories.

The article was published by Opensource.com on October 22, 2014.

The native Odia speakers became hopeful of getting a lot of language related projects implemented to grow the lineage of this long literary heritage and see the language used and spoken globally, not just in literature but in computer and mobile games, interactive computer applications and in other digital media—and to reach the masses as a communicative language.

So far, not many federal initiatives have been put into place, nor a single policy level change has been made, to implement a standard as simple as like Unicode for easy access of information. And, there are very few mobile apps that offer concise and easy to digest content. Overall, there is not much content online that is available in a standard format that is easy to search, access, and reproduce,

Wikisource is here to change that and is working to open up a whole new world of online resources for readers.

With more than 40 million native Odia speakers living in the Indian state of Odisha and its neighboring states and the diaspora in rest of the world—primarily living in countries like the US, UK, UAE, and many of the South and East Asian counties—far less content in the Odia language has been made available on the Internet. The highest is Odia Wikipedia, with 8441 articles created by October 2014. A bigger problem is that though there are a few websites with Unicode content, government portals do not have content in Unicode to make them searchable and reusable. A non-profit Srujanika, with support from two other institutions, has digitized around 740 books under the scope of the project: Open Access to Oriya Books (OAOB), most of which were published between 1850 and 1950. This remains the largest digital archive so far for the Odia language, yet all of the books are scanned PDFs, restricting searchability of the content.

Odia Wikisource is a project that aims for the digitization of rare books that are out of copyright. The project is even allowing authors and publishers to donate their copyrighted work by re-licensing under CC0 or CC BY-SA licenses. The goal is to bring about access to large volumes of books and manuscripts and create more Open Educational Resources (OERs). The single biggest advantage of the Wikisource project at-large is that it makes text for books available in Unicode standard, making it searchable on the web and allows readers to copy and use it elsewhere. Most other conventional archival systems lack this important feature.

Wikisource is run by a volunteers and communities who often retype or prepare the books by Optical Character Recognition (OCR), a technique that converts scanned images of books into text. Participate and contribute to Odia Wikisource by visiting or.wikisource.org, the project is open to all who want to help!

As a Wikimedia project, Odia Wikisource went through a thorough and long approval process for about 1 year and 9 months, as an active incubator project—first by the Language Committee and then by the Wikimedia Foundation's Board. During this incubation phase, the project has digitized three books completely and one partially—thanks to the individual contributors. An educational institution Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences (KISS) in collaboration with the Wikimedia funded Centre for Internet and Society's Access To Knowledge (CIS-A2K) are in the process of digitizing 9 books by the author Dr. Jagannath Mohanty that were re-licensed to CC BY-SA 3.0 earlier this year.

Four new Wikisource contributors joined the project in response to a tweet and a Facebook post by the author to digitize The Odia Bhagabata, classic literature compiled in 14th century. "Content that has already been typed in fonts of various non-Unicode based encoding, now they can be converted by (this) like it was done for The Odia Bhagabata, that was typed and available on the community hosted website Odia.org. New contributors did not face the problem of retyping,” says Manoj Sahukar, who along with the author designed a converter for reading text and transforming into Unicode for The Odia Bhagabata.

Questions for early contributors to Odia Wikisource

Subhashish Panigrahi (SP): You have been with Odia Wikisource since its inception. How you think it will help other Odias?
Mrutyunjaya Kar, a long time Wikimedian who proofreads the books on Odia Wikisource: Odias around the globe will have access to a vast amount of old as well as new books and manuscripts online in the tip of their finger. Knowing more about the long and glorious history of Odisha will become easier.

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

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

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

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/open-source-subhashish-panigrahi-october-22-2014-open-access-platform-to-save-the-odia-indian-language

Making Wikipedia Better

Pooja Saxena and Nirbheek Chauhan — 2013-10-25T07:30:44Z

It wasn’t something that we set out to do when we started working on The Ballot, but one of the most satisfying unintentional side-effects of the project has been the chance to correct facts and figures, and remove inappropriate content from entries related to India and its politics on Wikipedia.

The first oddity we spotted was way back in August, the day we announced The Ballot to the world. The Hindi word “bewajah” (which means “without reason”) was cropping up all over the wiki entry on the United Progressive Alliance (UPA). Nirbheek restored this entry. When we were putting together our post about the representation of women in the Lok Sabha, we noticed errors in the census figures on Wikipedia. Once we had extracted the right numbers from the data available on the census portal, not only did we use them in our post, but we also corrected them in the wiki entry. More recently, some missing information in the info-boxes in the entries on a handful of Indian states gave Pooja the opportunity to make her first ever edits!

These, of course, are just the tip of the iceberg. We have a longer list of issues to fix, and an even longer one for potential improvements. If only we could spare more time and involve more collaborators, a real difference could be made to the quality of Wikipedia entries on Indian politics.

We met Subhashish of the Access to Knowledge programme at CIS yesterday and have some great things planned with him for the coming weeks. Stay tuned!

About The Ballot
The Ballot is a visual compendium of information about the world’s largest democracy. Every week till the general elections in 2014, it will publish easily digestible yet relevant nuggets of information about India, its government and its workings, presented as richly illustrated graphs and charts.

About Pareidolic
Pareidolic is a collection of collaborative projects by Nirbheek Chauhan, a software developer, and Pooja Saxena, a typeface designer. Besides their weekly efforts towards The Ballot, Pareidolic also released a free and open source Devanagari to Bharati Braille Converter this year, which is on its way to supporting several other Indian languages.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/making-wikipedia-better