The Centre for Internet and Society
https://cis-india.org
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Report on the Progress in Assamese Language Testing
https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/report-on-progress-in-assamese-language-testing
<b>The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) is doing a project on developing a text-to-speech software in 15 Indian languages. This blog post captures the key updates of the work done by CIS team for Assamese language.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Assamese was added to eSpeak by the Indian team. Rules for the language were introduced and after testing and review, modifications were carried out to ensure basic support. The present document lists issues which were addressed under this project.</p>
<ol>
<li>Pronunciation rule changes for - 40 - 49. 52 - 56 57 - 59 61 - 64 66 - 69 72 - 75 78 - 80 82 - 86 88 - 89 92 – 99 were corrected.</li>
<li>Pronunciation rule for Hundreds _0C rule were also added and improved.</li>
<li>Conjunctives in asamese were added.</li>
<li>Simple Assamese words following general rules of pronunciation were reviewed.</li>
<li>Finalized pronunciation of joint words.</li>
<li>Modification of rules for (sO) becoming (hO) when in the beginning of the word was done.</li>
<li>Modification of rules for /Ja falaa was done.</li>
<li>Revised the rules for /khio.</li>
<li>Fixed the pronunciation of individual alphabets.</li>
<li>Fixed the pronunciations of "ব" when a vowel is suffixed.</li>
<li>Fixed the pronunciation of "ূ" suffixed to a consonant.</li>
<li>Fixed the pronunciations of "ৱ" in words.</li>
<li>Fixed the pronunciation of a few words with combination of three consonants.</li>
<li>Fixed the pronunciation of "চ" and "ছ" in a word.</li>
<li>Fixed the pronunciations of "ষ" in a word.</li>
<li>Words end with "ত" has an additional sound of "ো" were removed.</li>
<li>The pronunciations of "স", "শ" and "ষ" when it is contracted with another consonant (juktakhor) in a word was made similar to Bengali pronunciation (utcharon).</li>
<li>Pronunciations of "প্ৰ", "ক্ৰ", "শ্ৰ", "ত্ৰ", "গ্ৰ", etc in a word without any suffix of vowel was made clear.</li>
<li>Pronunciation of words ending with "jophola (য)" were rectified.</li>
<li>Pronunciations of Words with "jophola" in the middle were corrected.</li>
</ol>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/report-on-progress-in-assamese-language-testing'>https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/report-on-progress-in-assamese-language-testing</a>
</p>
No publishernirmitaNVDAAccessibilityE-Speak2015-04-05T16:16:05ZBlog EntryReport on eSpeak Tamil Computing with NVDA Training Workshop in Tirunelveli
https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/report-on-training-using-espeak-tamil-with-nvda-training-tirunelveli
<b>The training workshop by the NVDA team was held at Anne Jane Askwith Higher Secondary School for the Visually Impaired, Palayamkottai, Tirunelveli from June 3 - 7, 2015. Sixteen delegates attended the workshop.</b>
<h2 style="text-align: justify; ">Inauguration</h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The eSpeak Tamil Computing with NVDA Training workshop planned for 5 days (3<sup>rd</sup> June 2015 to 7<sup>th</sup> June 2015) extensively for visually challenged college students and teachers was <b>inaugurated</b> on 3<sup>rd</sup> June 2015 morning by Mr. V. Jayakumar. District Project Officer for Rural Women Development, Tirunelveli. Mr. J Kingston James Paul, Principal of the School gave the Welcome Address. Mr. S. Shankar Subbiah, Assistive Technology Consultant and representative of National Association for Blind, New Delhi and The Centre for Internet & Society, Bangalore, the sponsors of the workshop explained the purpose of the Workshop with the need for Tamil computing becoming necessity among the visually challenged in the present educational and employment context. Mr. Periadurai, the Co-ordinator of the Workshop gave the Vote of Thanks and emphasized on using NVDA in Government given Cost Free Laptops as it is preloaded and supports Tamil language too. He thanked the sponsors as this is first of its kind organized in this region for the visually challenged students as hands on training.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The Training Hall in the School served as the venue for training. In order to facilitate the participants with more concentrated and time efforts, High Tea with Snacks and Lunch were also served for the Training days at the Venue. The Girl students numbering 10 who came from neighboring Districts were given free accommodation in the School. Morning breakfast and Evening Dinner was provided by the Organizers. There were volunteers from Smile Charitable Trust, Tirunelveli who gave Laptops to those students did not have and also assisted the Trainees, who were new to computer. The participant trainees numbering to 16 were from Tirunelveli district and nearby districts like Kanyakumari, Tuticorin, Virudhunagar and Ramanathapuram of Tamilnadu state.</p>
<h2 style="text-align: justify; ">Workshop Schedule</h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The workshop began with Resource persons, Mr. Pandiyaraj, Mr. G. Kumaresan and Mr. S Shankar Subbiah continuing with the training activities on their expertise areas. The below were the activities conducted during the training period.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b> </b></p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Day 1: June 3, 2015</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Forenoon</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>The whole group of Trainees had few who were new to computers, few with knowledge on operating until the level of Notepad and few in an advanced level working on MS Word and Internet.</li>
<li>A general overview on Operating System, Applications available in Windows, Screen readers and other Assistive Technology like OCR, Scan and Read applications available for Visually Challenged were dealt with.</li>
<li>NVDA was loaded in Laptops who did not have them installed previously and Tamil language keyboard settings was added.</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Afternoon</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>The group was divided in to three groups. First without prior knowledge on computers were given training on Keyboard mapping and basic computer operation commands through NVDA.</li>
<li>The second group was given practices on NVDA shortcuts, Windows operations and an introduction to Word.</li>
<li>The third group was given exercises to work efficiently on using MS Word through Shortcuts and Tamil computing introduction through passages to read.</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b> </b></p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Day 2: June 4, 2015</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Forenoon</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>Tamil keyboard layout mapping of Microsoft Windows for default Unicode Tamil Font typing were introduced to all the trainees by the Resource person and it was decided to use Notepad for uniform training.</li>
<li>The whole group of Trainees were trained to identify the keys for vowels and consonants of Tamil language, type and practice by themselves with the volunteers supporting them, when they had difficulties.</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Afternoon</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>The Trainees were trained to identify the keys for combinations of vowels for typing and practicing by themselves as few of them wanted more time. Combinations with two letter, three letter, four letter word units given as dictation to those who were bit advanced in their typing skills.</li>
<li>A play and learn session was organized to say the keystrokes for vowels and consonants at the end for memorizing. </li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b> </b></p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Day 3: June 5, 2015</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Forenoon</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>The Trainees were trained by giving large sets of four, five and bigger letter units of words to type and practice as a revision. </li>
<li>It was followed up by smaller phrases and then sentences to be typed by the Trainees.</li>
<li>The trainees at this point of time, were introduced with short cuts for navigation within the text, spell check, cut, copy, paste commands. Almost everyone were in the same page at this point of time, regarding Tamil typing skills. And, now they were allowed to use Notepad or MS Word, whichever is comfortable for them.</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Afternoon</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>The trainees were made to listen to the Tamil text paragraphs with the help of NVDA screen-reader supported by eSpeak voice.</li>
<li>The trainees were suggested to type out the phrases listened on a separate document.</li>
<li>The settings of NVDA to change Voice, rate and other settings were given for practice to do themselves as a revision. </li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b> </b></p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Day 4: June 6, 2015</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Forenoon</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>The trainees were introduced to toggle language between English and Tamil for bilingual content typing and practice.</li>
<li>Next training on file operations like simple formatting, folder creation, saving the file in Unicode format to required folder and retrieval of the particular file. Similarly, for navigating, opening the file saved and continuing editing. </li>
<li>The Trainees were given a home work to listen a Tamil content, type and save it as a separate file.</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Afternoon</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>Introduction to HTML, various tags and formatting that can be done, Forms and fields, Email Clients and Browsers were given to the Trainees. Usage of Tamil in Internet, and the browsers supporting the Unicode formatted content and the NVDA development efforts to support Internet browsing was discussed.</li>
<li>Introduction on DAISY books and knowledge sharing on the available resources to read a DAISY book was done.</li>
<li>Demonstration on using Android based tablets and mobile phones to access the Tamil DAISY books given to the Trainees using Bookshare.org. The Trainees were also given information to subscribe for Bookshare membership and Book search and retrieval.</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b> </b></p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Day 5: June 7, 2015</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Forenoon</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li> The trainees were given information on Higher Education options available as well as career opportunities ahead in Government and Private Sector. The trainees were explained of various scholarship and assistive devices schemes as they had a request have a session on this.</li>
<li>This was followed up with a game based assessment for their Computer skills and Tamil computing knowledge imparted through training. It was a two hour session, with initial 45 minutes being spent as a chain to say the right keystrokes for letters, keystrokes for different words and make a sentence using the keystrokes for Tamil alone. The next 45 minutes concentrated on their bilingual word processing skills, shortcuts, file operations, formatting through interactive questions, and group quiz. These the students felt like a revision and practiced them on their Laptops too.</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b> </b></p>
<h2 style="text-align: justify; ">The Valedictory Function</h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">After the Lunch, The eSpeak Tamil Computing with NVDA Training workshop conducted for 5 days (3<sup>rd</sup> June 2015 to 7<sup>th</sup> June 2015) had a great Valedictory function presided by Mr. T. Manoharan, District Officer for Welfare of Differently Abled, Tirunelveli. The District Officer, also felicitated the gathering and distributed the Certificates to the participants. Few students demonstrated their Tamil computing skills to the District Officer by operating on Laptop. He was happy to note that and informed the Trainees he would discuss with the higher authorities to organize more such Workshops during the holidays or after Laptop being distributed. He thanked the organizers for choosing Tirunelveli and invited the local TV media reporter immediately to make a record of it. This would be shared in his sensitization programme for Government officials to create awareness on potential capabilities of the Visually Impaired if training opportunities were given particularly in computers. The certificates were distributed to the Trainees thereafter. The Principal of the School, Mr. Kingston also gave a felicitation talk on how the training have to be further continued through practice. He thanked the sponsors and organizers for a timely measure to use the Summer holidays much useful for the Trainees by learning Tamil computing. Vote of thanks to CIS, NAB and the organizers was given by Mr. Periadurai, the Co-ordinator. The training that one such programme to be conducted in Tirunelveli as per the District Officer felt much useful and requested to extend in coming Holidays ended up with the National Anthem.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Previously, the Tamil equivalent ‘Dinamani’ of The New Indian Express covered with a one fourth page content of the Training programme interacting with the students and the coordinator. A scanned copy of this news is attached herewith.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b> </b></p>
<h2 style="text-align: justify; ">Feedback</h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Ms. Gnanam, a Tamil Teacher felt it would be now easy to type her lesson plans in Tamil and she could read more e-text novels available in Tamil. Also, do emails in Tamil. She thanked the Organizers for a good stay in their old school and a useful training with her friends coming together.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Ms. Keerthika, a graduate who exhibited her typing talent to the Officer was happy and felt that this day was a markable in Life for her. The five days training introduced her to many shortcuts not known to her and also gave her more confidence now for using computers in her higher studies and career.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The mother of Ms. Anna Sundari, felt that it was a great opportunity for all the trainees as they were able to spend their time much useful. And, as mother is happy to see her Girl typing in Tamil all their names. She thanked the organizers for the workshop in a nearby district and wanted one such run regularly in the school. This would help the students in their education, reduce dependency on scribes, readers and work independently.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/report-on-training-using-espeak-tamil-with-nvda-training-tirunelveli'>https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/report-on-training-using-espeak-tamil-with-nvda-training-tirunelveli</a>
</p>
No publishernirmitaNVDAAccessibilityE-Speak2015-07-12T07:50:27ZBlog EntryNVDA e-Speak Text-to-Speech Project Update (March 2014)
https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/nvda-e-speak-update-march-2014
<b>CIS in partnership with the Daisy Forum of India is engaged in a project supported by The Hans Foundation to develop enhancements to the open source screen reader for Windows NVDA (Non Visual desktop Access) and e-Speak text-to-speech synthesiser in 15 Indian languages.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Under the NVDA project, we have been working in the past year on issues relating to Excel, Power Point and MS Outlook. The issues which have been fixed are:</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>3680 : Read all formula in excel sheet (NVDA+f7).</li>
<li>3681 : Read all comments in excel sheet (NVDA+f7).</li>
<li>Finished implementation for 'viewing modes' supported like Cells-Flat, Row-Cells, Column-Cells, etc.</li>
<li>Pressing NVDA+f7 will print a dialog box. This has a choice to show cells with comment or formula. Pressing 'Enter' at any selection in the tree will close dialog and select cell or area.</li>
<li>3231: NVDA incorrectly speaks previously entered but later deleted characters when the space bar is pressed in PowerPoint.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">#3538: Office 2010, NVDA now reads the selected symbols in the insert|symbols dialog box in Word and Excel 2010.</li>
<li>#2921: In Excel, NVDA will say 'has comment' if the cell has a comment in it.</li>
<li>#3043 : In Excel, Ctrl+A doesn't notify the change in selection.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">#1938 : In word 2007 and 2010, NVDA does not automatically speak the error text in the spell checker dialog after the first time the dialog is launched if the focus is already in the error text field.</li>
<li>Ctrl + Up and Down arrows in Word now skip blank paragraphs.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">#3431: Spell check in Word 2010 now reads the correct context error text instead of reading all bolded text in the context.</li>
<li>#3290: Bulleted text is now correctly read with Ctrl+Up and Down arrows.</li>
<li>#1686: Protected documents are now read in Word 2010.</li>
<li>#649: Status bar in Word Office 2010 is now read.</li>
<li>#2816: Auto complete suggested contacts in Outlook 2010 are now read.</li>
<li>2047: Language detection in Word is available now.</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Some of these fixes are available in NVDA and can be downloaded from <a href="http://www.nvaccess.org">www.nvaccess.org</a>. The info about these fixes can be checked in what’s new section of the application at the website.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">We have also been working on some documentation for the project, primarily FAQs to cater to the community’s needs for users switching from Jaws to NVDA which is available at <a class="external-link" href="http://code.google.com/p/saksham-projects/wiki/Tutorials">http://code.google.com/p/saksham-projects/wiki/Tutorials.</a></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The project wiki is available at <a href="http://code.google.com/p/saksham-projects/wiki/WikiContrib">http://code.google.com/p/saksham-projects/wiki/WikiContrib.</a></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">We are also working on the development of e-speak text-to-speech synthesisers for the following languages:</p>
<ol style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>Hindi, </li>
<li>Bengali, </li>
<li>Telugu, </li>
<li>Malayalam, </li>
<li>Sindhi, </li>
<li>Punjabi, </li>
<li>Gujrati, </li>
<li>Oriya, </li>
<li>Asamese and </li>
<li>Manipuri.</li>
</ol>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">They are all in different stages of development. We are near to closing our work on Gujrati this month. The issues which we have worked on are:</p>
<ol style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>Introduction of Gujarati in e-speak.</li>
<li>The following issues were identified by the reviewer and closed:</li>
</ol>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>Character support for Gujarati language was introduced.</li>
<li>Introduced rules for Gujarati language.</li>
<li>Gujarati numbers have been introduced and set according to the feedback received. </li>
<li>Several other changes made.</li>
<li>Fixed the R sound which was sounding inappropriate when at the end of a word.Fixed the number sound 200 according to the feedback received.</li>
<li>Problems with half characters where the half characters come before the same full character have been fixed.</li>
<li>e-Speak could not join sounds of these two characters: ka, ch, tta, ta.</li>
<li> The character name of the character [anna] has been modified according to the feedback received.</li>
<li>Number 2 has been modified when it comes as the third character from the right. </li>
<li>The name of two characters: [Hnna], [ ણ ], [adda] [ ડ઼ ] was modified according to the feedback received. </li>
<li>The phoneme sound of letter [Gnna] [ જ્ઞ ] has been modified according to feedback received.</li>
<li>Phoneme [ra] [ર] has been improved because at the end of a Word it was pronounced wrongly.</li>
<li>When [Va] [વ] comes at the end of the word the matra was sounding wrong. This has been fixed.</li>
<li>Incorrect pronnounciations: All words which ended with "Va" like Sarva Maanava Daanava Sarva Kharava Jakhava, etc., have been fixed. </li>
</ul>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/nvda-e-speak-update-march-2014'>https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/nvda-e-speak-update-march-2014</a>
</p>
No publishersumanE-SpeakAccessibilityText-to-SpeechNVDA2014-04-09T06:27:07ZBlog EntryNVDA & eSpeak Team Members
https://cis-india.org/accessibility/resources/nvda-e-speak-team-profiles
<b>Listed below are profiles of the team members working on the NVDA and eSpeak project.</b>
<h2>NVDA Team Members</h2>
<h3>Dipendra Manocha</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Dipendra Manocha is working with the DAISY Consortium which is working in the area of providing publications in accessible formats to persons who cannot read normal print. He is the lead of training and technical support and coordinates <a class="external-link" href="http://www.daisy.org">DAISY Consortium’s</a> projects in developing countries. He is member of the Executive Committee of the World Blind Union and is managing trustee of <a class="external-link" href="http://www.saksham.org">Saksham</a>. He is the president of the <a class="external-link" href="http://www.daisyindia.org">DAISY Forum of India</a> which is a network of 92 organisations in India serving the persons with blindness and low vision. .</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Since 1993, he has been working for the mission of providing technology solutions to limit the limitations of persons with blindness. Key areas of his contribution include computer training to open new areas in education and employment, Indian Language braille translation and screen reading software, DAISY standards for production and distribution of digital talking, braille and e-text books in South Asian Countries.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Awards</b></p>
<ul>
<li>National Award by Government of India</li>
<li>Lakshmipat Singhania National Leadership award by IIM Lucknow</li>
<li>IBN-7 Super Idal award</li>
<li>Sitaram Jindal Foundation award</li>
</ul>
<h3>Manish Aggarwal</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Manish has over 14 years of extensive software industry experience successfully leading large teams to design and implement complex business-critical information technology solutions. In his last 12 years at Sapient, Manish has worked for various clients in the Automotive, Healthcare, finance and Insurance industries. Manish also works with CIS on the open source NVDA screen reader project. The purpose of this project is to improve the free NVDA screen reader considering the specific requirements of Indian users and Indian language speaking blind users.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Siddharth Gupta</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Siddharth strives to make a difference to the lives of the Visually Impaired persons by making data and information accessible to them. In NVDA, he has made contribution towards Indian Language Phonetics , Unicode Symbols like Mathematical Symbols, Symbols used in Physics, Chemistry, Emoticons and other frequently used Symbols. He has also tried to improve the accessibility of MS Excel. Siddhartha hails from Uttarakhand. He is a graduate in Computer Science Engg. Currently, he is a Project Associate at IIT Delhi. Prior to this, he was SAP ABAP developer at Infosys.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Dinesh Kaushal</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Dinesh is currently working for the development of NVDA, an open source screen reader. He has more than 10 year’s experience in assistive technology development and accessibility implementation. Dinesh pioneered development of Hindi screen reader in India allowing persons with blindness to read / write in Hindi independently. He also spearheaded Braille development for Mobile devices for Code Factory and helped many people with blindness all over the world to communicate with other people without significant barriers. Dinesh successfully lead more than 100 accessibility projects in Wipro and helped Wipro win many awards including National Award for the best accessible website.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Suman Dogra</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Suman Dogra has experience in accessibility testing on various accessibility products such as screen reader, PACMate, Open Book, MAGic etc. She has involved in non-profit management working in teams to provide various facilities related to technologies and employment to the differently abled persons. In NVDA project, she is involved in testing, training and coordinating the language testing.</p>
<hr />
<h2>eSpeak Team Members</h2>
<h3>Mahesh Inder Singh Khosla</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Mahesh is a resident of Punjab, heading the Digitizing Programme for the Reference Library with Punjab Government. His deep interest in language and technology made him study Masters in Punjabi and to understand the ancient language base he studied Religious scriptures and did his Masters in Religious Science too. Having lost his vision at an early age Mahesh had to struggle hard to learn computers. He has created Punjabi Unicode based Keyboard Layout for the benefit of his community. With all his acquired knowledge on languages and strong technical interest, he worked on Punjabi TTS and in the year 2013, joined as a developer in CIS to contribute in the development of other Indian languages. He is now working on Gujarati, Marathi, Kashmiri and Kannada. He is making the software named espeak for Indian languages for the whole team and its users. Apart from language development and building the programme, he is giving technical support to the language team and is also involved in managing the bug tracking system.<br /><br />Mahesh is an active Social Worker. He is the Secretary of Navchetna Institute for the Blind which is working to support visually challenged children providing free boarding and lodging along with free education. He is also the Chief Organising Secretary of Welfare Association for the Visually Challenged Employees giving technical support for the benefit of the visually challenged employees so that they are able to perform well in their workplace. He has been honoured by a lot of local Societies for his contribution in different fields. (Lions Club, Dedicated Brothers, Rainbow Club, Triveni, Sahitya kalash, Bharat Netraheen Samaj, Welfare Association for the Visually Challenged Employees).</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Prasenjit Sen</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Prasenjit is associated with Mahiti. He has 20 years of experience. He manages many projects. Mahiti has worked with numerous organisations since 1998 making a social impact from local to global level. To support them, Mahiti has produced websites, web portals, mobile applications, management information systems, print and online communication material including appeals and short films. Mahiti.org is integrated with Mahiti Infotech that's known to provide end-to-end IT solutions to businesses around the world. Together Mahiti a group of 50+ technocrats and sociologists committed to support social change through imaginative use of technology and creative communication.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Mahiti is strong advocate of principles for free and open source and it actively contributes to the FOSS movement.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Dr. Homiyar Mobedji</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Dr. Homiyar is the CEO of National Association for the Blind, New Delhi. He is the training coordinator for NVDA project. He has extensive experience in the non government social work sector. He has worked for Enable India Bangalore, Technical Training Institute of the Pune and Blind Men’s Association, Gujarat. He also worked for physiotherapy college for the blind, Mumbai.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/accessibility/resources/nvda-e-speak-team-profiles'>https://cis-india.org/accessibility/resources/nvda-e-speak-team-profiles</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaAccessibilityNVDA2015-01-22T01:13:57ZPageKonkani voice to guide the blind
https://cis-india.org/accessibility/news/the-times-of-india-garuee-malkarnekar-august-9-2015-konkani-voice-to-guide-the-blind
<b>Those visually-impaired and well-versed only with the language of Konkani, now need not worry. Neither their blindness nor the language barrier will come between them and the use of mobile phones, computers and other technology.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The article by Gauree Malkarnekar was <a class="external-link" href="http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/goa/Konkani-voice-to-guide-the-blind/articleshow/48407716.cms">published in the Times of India</a> on August 9, 2015.</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Konkani will soon join 50-odd languages from across the globe, whose text will be recognized by the online engines for the visually impaired that converts text on mobile phone and computer screens into speech, enabling the blind to use the devices. The bank of sounds of Konkani alphabets for this purpose has been developed by Delhi-based NGO Saksham with the help of staffers of Goa's state central library at Patto, Panaji.<br /> <br /> Users will be able to take the benefit of the initiative and have Konkani texts read out to them by making use of the open source or free for use text to speech engine eSpeak.<br /> <br /> "Saksham, under Centre for Internet Society in Bangalore, is on the quest to enable text in all Indian languages to be converted into speech for the visually-impaired. We approached them to begin work on Konkani as we realized that while Romi Konkani can be read out because of its Roman alphabets, there was no correct pronunciation of the Devanagri Konkani sounds. The Marathi and Hindi alphabets have a different sound," said Taha Haaziq, incharge of the resource room for the disabled at Goa's central library.<br /> <br /> A staffer of the library spoke out the entire range of sounds of Devanagri Konkani alphabets, which was recorded and sent by the library to the NGO in Delhi in January, based on which the sounds for use on eSpeak were developed.<br /> <br /> "Work is nearly complete and Konkani speaking visually-impaired the world over will be able to benefit from this initiative. Regular Konkani speakers who prefer to use the text to speech option on their mobile phones instead of reading can also make use of Konkani version of eSpeak," said Haaziq.<br /> <br /> The text to speech will also help the blind in the use of refreshable Braille display, which enables the visually-impaired to use computers as the display text on their screens are read out to them, in this case, now in Konkani said Central library curator Carlos Fernandes.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/accessibility/news/the-times-of-india-garuee-malkarnekar-august-9-2015-konkani-voice-to-guide-the-blind'>https://cis-india.org/accessibility/news/the-times-of-india-garuee-malkarnekar-august-9-2015-konkani-voice-to-guide-the-blind</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaAccessibilityNVDA2015-10-04T06:53:52ZNews ItemJoint Report on Training of the Use of eSpeak in Hindi with NVDA
https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/training-on-use-of-espeak-hindi-nvda
<b>The training programmes were conducted at the National Association for the Blind, New Delhi on February 5 and 6, 2015 and Blind Relief Association, Delhi on February 13 and 14, 2015. Fifteen participants attended the first training programme at National Association for the Blind. Seventeen participants attended the second training programme held at Blind Relief Association.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The training at National Association for the Blind, Delhi had representations from organizations serving the blind and visually impaired from all across Delhi. Those who took part were either heads of IT Department or computer instructors. The aim of inviting the IT heads and computer instructors was to promote the use of NVDA in their training programmes and also facilitate reading and writing in Hindi.<br /><br />The training programme at Blind Relief Association was mainly attended by special educators for the blind. The aim of promoting use of NVDA and knowledge of reading and writing in Hindi using eSpeak amongst these special educators was that these special educators would be working closely with the blind community. If the special educators are sensetized, the use of regional languages can be maximized.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">List of Participants at National Association for the Blind</h3>
<table class="listing grid">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>
<p align="right">1</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Bharti Kalra</p>
</td>
<td>
<p><a href="mailto:bhartikalra56@gmail.com">bhartikalra56@gmail.com</a> <span> </span></p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Computer Instructor, National Association for the Blind</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p align="right">2</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Jaikaran</p>
</td>
<td>
<p><a href="mailto:dhaiajaikaran@gmail.com">dhaiajaikaran@gmail.com</a> <span> </span></p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Gail India Pvt. Ltd.</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p align="right">3</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Shivani</p>
</td>
<td>
<p><a href="mailto:shivaniharit@redifmail.com">shivaniharit@redifmail.com</a> <span> </span></p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Student, National Association for the Blind</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p align="right">4</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Shabnam</p>
</td>
<td>
<p><a href="mailto:shabnamdumh@gmail.com">shabnamdumh@gmail.com</a> <span></span></p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Research Assistant, National Association for the Blind</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p align="right">5</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Neetu</p>
</td>
<td>
<p><a href="mailto:ng.neetugoyal@gmail.com">ng.neetugoyal@gmail.com</a> <span></span></p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Computer Instructor, National Association for the Blind</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p align="right">6</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Dr. R.S. Chauhan</p>
</td>
<td>
<p><a href="mailto:chauhan.ddn@gmail.com">chauhan.ddn@gmail.com</a> <span></span></p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Freelancer</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p align="right">7</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Varsha singh</p>
</td>
<td>
<p><a href="mailto:varshactet@gmail.com">varshactet@gmail.com</a> <span></span></p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Volunteer, National Association for the Blind</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p align="right">8</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Neelu Suneja</p>
</td>
<td>
<p><a href="mailto:sunejaneelu@gmail.com">sunejaneelu@gmail.com</a> <span></span></p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Head, IT Department, Blind Relief Association</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p align="right">9</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Rajpal</p>
</td>
<td>
<p><a href="mailto:rajpal007@gmail.com">rajpal007@gmail.com</a> <span></span></p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Senior Computer Instructor, Blind Relief Association</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p align="right">10</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Ganesh Bhatt</p>
</td>
<td>
<p><a href="mailto:bhattg526@gmail.com">bhattg526@gmail.com</a> <span></span></p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Student, National Association for the Blind</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p align="right">11</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Maneesh sharma</p>
</td>
<td>
<p><a href="mailto:sharma.manish445@gmail.com">sharma.manish445@gmail.com</a> <span></span></p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Student, National Association for the Blind</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p align="right">12</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Mohammad Sajid</p>
</td>
<td>
<p><a href="mailto:mdsajidsdp11@gmail.com">mdsajidsdp11@gmail.com</a> <span></span></p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Student</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p align="right">13</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Sanjeev Luthra</p>
</td>
<td>
<p><a href="mailto:sanjeevluthra737@gmail.com">sanjeevluthra737@gmail.com</a> <span></span></p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Student</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p align="right">14</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Nilesh varma</p>
</td>
<td>
<p><a href="mailto:nileshvarma940@gmail.com">nileshvarma940@gmail.com</a> <span></span></p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Student</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p align="right">15</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Irfan Mir</p>
</td>
<td>
<p><a href="mailto:meererfan@gmail.com">meererfan@gmail.com</a> <span></span></p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Student</p>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">List of Participants at Blind Relief Association</h3>
<table class="listing grid">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>
<p align="right">1</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Rajpal</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>E-1/11B, Om Vihar Extn, Uttam Nagar</p>
</td>
<td>
<p><a href="mailto:rajpal007@gmail.com">rajpal007@gmail.com</a></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p align="right">2</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Arun Tiwari</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Village Poterganj, Post Pathwali, Dist Gaunda</p>
</td>
<td>
<p><a href="mailto:Mrtiwari1982@gmail.com">Mrtiwari1982@gmail.com</a></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p align="right">3</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Rishoo Singh</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>House No.44, Meethapur, Badarpur</p>
</td>
<td>
<p><a href="mailto:mr.rsingh2908@gmail.com">mr.rsingh2908@gmail.com</a></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p align="right">4</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Vijay Tiwari</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>House No.62, Gokhle Nagar, Konch, Dist Jalaun</p>
</td>
<td>
<p><a href="mailto:tiwarivijay322@gmail.com">tiwarivijay322@gmail.com</a></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p align="right">5</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Shiv Kumar</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Village Post Padri, Distt Rewa</p>
</td>
<td>
<p><a href="mailto:shivkumarrawat144@gmail.com">shivkumarrawat144@gmail.com</a></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p align="right">6</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Sonia Setia</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>742/3, Ward No-14, GuruNanak Pura, Rohtak</p>
</td>
<td>
<p><a href="mailto:soniasetia1986@gmail.com">soniasetia1986@gmail.com</a></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p align="right">7</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Sandeep Kumar</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Satyara ganj, Behind Bus stand, Dist. Rewa</p>
</td>
<td>
<p><a href="mailto:sandeepkumarj61@gmail.com">sandeepkumarj61@gmail.com</a></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p align="right">8</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Rini Singh</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>village post Jhanjhara, Pasraha, Dist. Khagriya</p>
</td>
<td>
<p><a href="mailto:rinisingh2792@gmail.com">rinisingh2792@gmail.com</a></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p align="right">9</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Rajbhan Saket</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Gram Atarala Kala, Tehsil Hanmana, Dist. Rewa</p>
</td>
<td>
<p><a href="mailto:rajbhan591@gmail.com">rajbhan591@gmail.com</a></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p align="right">10</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Rajbala Bhagel</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Dubey Gas Agency, Dayalbagh, Agra</p>
</td>
<td>
<p><a href="mailto:rajbalabhagel@gmail.com">rajbalabhagel@gmail.com</a></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p align="right">11</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Priyanka Devi</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Town jhinjhana, Dist. Shamli</p>
</td>
<td>
<p><a href="mailto:kashyappriyanka250@gmail.com">kashyappriyanka250@gmail.com</a></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p align="right">12</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Pramod Kumar</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Gram Atroley,Post Lakhua, Dist. Ghaziabad</p>
</td>
<td>
<p><a href="mailto:pkpramodpk9@gmail.com">pkpramodpk9@gmail.com</a></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p align="right">13</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Mritunjay Kumar</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Hingua, Miyatala, Dist. Chappra</p>
</td>
<td>
<p><a href="mailto:mritunjay1942@gmail.com">mritunjay1942@gmail.com</a></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p align="right">14</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Mary Mini</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>AICB, Braille Bhawan, sector-5, Rohini</p>
</td>
<td>
<p><a href="mailto:minimary1994@gmail.com">minimary1994@gmail.com</a></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p align="right">15</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Avnish Kumar</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>N166/122, J.J. Camp, Badli</p>
</td>
<td>
<p><a href="mailto:avnishk910@gmail.com">avnishk910@gmail.com</a></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p align="right">16</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Hidayat Husen</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>House No.311, Zakir Hussain Ward, Gohalpur, Jabalpur</p>
</td>
<td>
<p><a href="mailto:Hidayatansari420@gmail.com">Hidayatansari420@gmail.com</a></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p align="right">17</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Biranchi Sahoo</p>
</td>
<td>
<p>Japharapur, G.P Khairabad, Dist. Jajpur</p>
</td>
<td>
<p><a href="mailto:Biranchi.caviodisha@gmail.com">Biranchi.caviodisha@gmail.com</a></p>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/training-on-use-of-espeak-hindi-nvda'>https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/training-on-use-of-espeak-hindi-nvda</a>
</p>
No publishernirmitaAccessibilityNVDA2015-03-19T01:24:34ZBlog EntryJanuary 2015 Bulletin
https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/january-2015-bulletin
<b>Our newsletter for the month of January can be accessed below.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) welcomes you to the first issue of the newsletter (January 2015). Archives of our newsletters can be accessed at: <a href="http://cis-india.org/about/newsletters">http://cis-india.org/about/newsletters</a>.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Highlights </b></p>
<ul>
<li>Forbes India in an article titled “<a href="http://forbesindia.com/article/special/minds-that-%28should%29-matter/39289/2">Minds that (should) matter</a>” names Sunil Abraham as one of the Thinkers who best explain a rapidly-changing India to the world (and the world to India).</li>
</ul>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li> Subhashish Panigrahi <a href="https://cis-india.org/openness/news/opensource-2015-award-winners">won the 2015 Opensource.com Community Awards</a> under the category 'People's Choice Awards'. </li>
<li> Sumandro Chattapadhyay <a href="https://cis-india.org/openness/blog/sumandro-chattapadhyay.pdf">has joined CIS team</a> as Research Director. Sumandro has replaces Nishant Shah who stepped down from the position. </li>
<li> Rishika on behalf of CIS <a href="http://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/disability-exceptions-in-copyright-legislations"> prepared an analysis of the disability exceptions in Copyright Legislations </a> . The blog post provides in detail the country-wise exceptions in copyright legislations. </li>
<li> NVDA team <a href="https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/report-on-training-e-speak-malayalam-with-nvda">conducted a training programme</a> on Malayalam eSpeak with NVDA in Thiruvananthapuram on January 24 and 25, 2015. Chakshumathi's main trainer Akhil M. took eSpeak Malayalam classes and Dr. Homiyar took classes on NVDA and accessible equipment.</li>
<li>The Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion, Government of India invited comments on the First Draft of India's National IPR Policy. CIS made its <a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/national-ipr-policy-series-cis-comments-to-the-first-draft-of-the-national-ip-policy">submission</a>.</li>
<li>As part of the Pervasive Technologies project, Nehaa Chaudhari has produced a research methodology document <a href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/pervasive-technologies-project-working-document-series-document-2-literature-review-on-competition-law-ipr-access-to-100-mobile-devices-1"> which maps the existing literature around questions of competition law intersecting with intellectual property law on the specific issue of enabling access to sub hundred dollar mobile devices </a> .</li>
<li>Maggie Huang, an intern at CIS as part of the Pervasive Technologies project has written <a href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/beyond-alcohol-and-angel-investors">a blog entry</a> which documents, synthesizes, and analyses learnings from attending various music industry trade conferences.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>CIS-A2K team on December 28, 2014 <a href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/telugu-wikimedia-hackathon-2014">organized a MediaWiki hackathon event</a> for Telugu Wikimedia community members to enhance their skills and understanding of technical matters related to MediaWiki usage. The theme of the workshop was “Mediawiki, its extensions and tools to work around” and it aimed at allowing Wikipedians to use MediaWiki tools more effectively.</li>
</ul>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>Subhashish Panigrahi authored an op-ed that highlights the need for taking Odia language to the international fora instead of keeping it confined in the books. The op-ed was <a href="http://cis-india.org/openness/blog/op-ed-samaja-jan-2015">published in the Samaja</a> on January 30, 2015. </li>
</ul>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li> A <a href="https://cis-india.org/openness/blog/indian-national-academy-journals-december-2014-subbiah-arunachalam-perumal-ramamoorthi-subbiah-gunasekaran-heads-i-win-tails-you-lose"> journal article </a> by Subbiah Arunachalam, Perumal Ramamoorthi and Subbiah Gunasekaran the steps taken by scientists and librarians in the West to reclaim ease of access to research findings with what is happening in India along with a few suggestions was published by the Indian National Science Academy Journals. </li>
<li> The Supreme Court, in <i>Sabu George v. Union of India and Ors</i>. (WP (C) 341/2008), is looking into the presence of material regarding pre-natal sex determination on search engines such as Google, Bing, and Yahoo that has been falling foul of section 22 of the Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act, 1994 as amended in 2002. Geeta Hariharan and Balaji Subramanian <a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/search-engine-and-prenatal-sex-determination">analyse this in their blog post</a>.</li>
<li>As part of its Making Methods for Digital Humanities project, CIS-RAW organized two consultations on new figures of learning in the digital context. For a proposed journal issue on the theme of 'bodies of knowledge' which draws upon these conversations, participants were invited to write short sketches on these figures of learning. Tejas Pande <a href="http://cis-india.org/raw/figures-of-learning-the-visual-designer2">wrote an abstract which examines</a> the figure of the visual designer, and emerging practices of mapmaking. </li>
</ul>
<h2><a href="http://cis-india.org/accessibility">Accessibility and Inclusion</a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">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 <a href="http://cis-india.org/accessibility/resources/national-resource-kit-project">project page</a>. 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 <a href="http://cis-india.org/accessibility/resources/nvda-text-to-speech-synthesizer">here</a>.</p>
<h3>NVDA and eSpeak</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Monthly Update</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li> <a href="https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/january-2015-nvda-report.pdf">January 2015 Report</a> (Suman Dogra; January 31, 2015). </li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Event Organized</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li> <a href="https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/report-on-training-e-speak-malayalam-with-nvda">Training of Malayalam eSpeak with NVDA</a> (Co-organized by CIS, DAISY Forum of India and Chakshumathi Assistive Technology Centre; Thiruvananthapuram; January 24-25, 2015). </li>
</ul>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Other</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Blog Entries</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li> <a href="https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/disability-exceptions-in-copyright-legislations"> Disability Exceptions in Copyright Legislations </a> (Rishika; January 12, 2015). </li>
<li> <a href="https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/response-to-rti-applications-from-different-states-on-accessibility"> Response to RTI Applications from Different States on Accessibility </a> (Anandhi Viswanathan; January 31, 2015). </li>
</ul>
<h2><a href="http://cis-india.org/a2k">Access to Knowledge</a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">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.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Pervasive Technologies</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">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:</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Blog Entries</b></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li> <a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/pervasive-technologies-project-working-document-series-document-2-literature-review-on-competition-law-ipr-access-to-100-mobile-devices-1"> Pervasive Technologies Project Working Document Series: Document 2 Literature Review on Competition Law + IPR + Access to < $100 Mobile Devices </a> (Nehaa Chaudhari; January 1, 2015). </li>
<li> <a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/relationship-between-app-developers-and-app-platforms-an-intellectual-property-perspective"> Relationship between App Developers and App Platforms: An Intellectual Property Perspective </a> (Anubha Sinha; January 7, 2015). </li>
<li> <a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/beyond-alcohol-and-angel-investors"> Beyond Alcohol and Angel Investors: Building Business Models in an Age of Mobile Music Streaming (Conference Learnings) </a> (Maggie Huang; January 20, 2015). </li>
<li> <a href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/the-development-of-the-national-ipr-policy"> National IPR Policy Series: The Development of the National IPR Policy </a> (Nehaa Chaudhari; January 22, 2015). </li>
<li> <a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/rti-responses-mhrd-ip-chairs-details-of-funding-and-expenditure"> RTI Responses - MHRD IP Chairs: Details of Funding & Expenditure </a> (Nehaa Chaudhari; January 31, 2015). </li>
<li> <a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/national-ipr-policy-series-cis-comments-to-the-first-draft-of-the-national-ip-policy"> National IPR Policy Series: CIS Comments to the First Draft of the National IP Policy </a> (Nehaa Chaudhari; January 31, 2015). </li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Participation in Events</b></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li> <a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/seventh-global-ip-convention">Global Intellectual Property Convention</a> (Organized by ITAG Solutions; Mumbai; January 15 - 17, 2015). Rohini Lakshané attended the event. </li>
<li> <a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/library-and-information-professionals-summit-2015"> Library and Information Professionals Summit (LIPS) 2015 </a> (Organized by Society for Library Professionals, National Law University Delhi with UN Information Centre for India & Bhutan and Special Library Association (USA), Asian Chapter; January 23 - 24, 2015; New Delhi). Nehaa Chaudhari was on a panel discussing Internet Technology and Challenges for Libraries in IPR Regime. She made a presentation on <a href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/news/library-and-information-professionals-summit-2015">Technology (Internet?), Libraries and the Law (?)</a>. </li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Upcoming Event</b></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li> <a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/announcing-the-institutional-partner-for-the-global-congress-on-intellectual-property-and-the-public-interest-2015"> Announcing the Institutional Partner for the Global Congress on Intellectual Property and the Public Interest 2015 </a> (Organized by the National Law School of India University; New Delhi; December 2015). </li>
</ul>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Wikipedia</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">As part of the <a href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/access-to-knowledge-program-plan">project grant from the Wikimedia Foundation</a> 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).</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Op-ed</b></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li> <a href="http://cis-india.org/openness/blog/op-ed-samaja-jan-2015"> ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଭାଷା ପାଇଁ ଅନ୍ତର୍ଜାତୀୟ ପ୍ରକଳ୍ପ </a> (Subhashish Panigrahi; The Samaja, January 31, 2015). </li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Blog Entries</b></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li> <a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/telugu-wikimedia-hackathon-2014">Telugu Wikimedia Hackathon 2014</a> (Rahmanuddin Shaik; January 31, 2015). </li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/telugu-wikimedia-hackathon-2014">Telugu Wikimedia Hackathon 2014</a> (Rahmanuddin Shaik; January 31, 2015). <i>The event was conducted on December 28, 2014. However, the blog post was published in January 2015</i>.</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>News and Media Coverage</b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">CIS-A2K team gave its inputs to the following media coverage:</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li> <a href="http://cis-india.org/openness/news/the-hans-india-december-31-2014-works-of-veerasalingam-pantulu-on-web"> Works of Veerasalingam Pantulu on web </a> (Hans India; January 1, 2015). </li>
<li> <a href="http://cis-india.org/openness/news/zee-news-january-9-2015-centre-should-partner-local-communities-in-digital-india"> Centre should partner local communities in 'Digital India': Expert </a> (IANS and mirrored in Zee News; January 9, 2015). </li>
<li> <a href="http://cis-india.org/openness/news/the-times-of-india-january-20-2015-sandhya-soman-musician-donates-gwalior-gharana-songs-to-free-e-library"> Musician donates Gwalior Gharana songs to free e-library </a> (Times of India; January 20, 2015). </li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Announcement</b></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li> <a href="https://cis-india.org/openness/news/opensource-2015-award-winners">2015 Opensource.com Community Awards</a> : Every year, Opensource.com awards people from our community who have excelled in contributing and sharing stories about open source. Subhashish Panigrahi from the CIS-A2K team won the award under the category 'People's Choice Awards'. </li>
<li>CIS-A2K team also <a href="http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesWikipediaTE.htm">published the Telugu Wikipedia Stats tables</a>. Most metrics have been collected from a partial dump (aka stub dump), which contains all revisions of every article, meta data, but no page content.</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Participation in Event</b></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li> <a href="https://cis-india.org/openness/news/citizen-media-summit-2015">Citizen Media Summit 2015</a> (Organized by Global Voices; January 24 - 25, 2015). Subhashish Panigrahi was a speaker. </li>
</ul>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Openness</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Journal Article</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li> <a href="https://cis-india.org/openness/blog/indian-national-academy-journals-december-2014-subbiah-arunachalam-perumal-ramamoorthi-subbiah-gunasekaran-heads-i-win-tails-you-lose"> Heads I Win, Tails You Lose: The Intransigenc of STM Publishers </a> (Subbiah Arunachalam, Perumal Ramamoorthi and Subbiah Gunasekaran; Indian National Science Academy Journals, <i>Proc Indian Natn SciAcad</i> 80 No. 5 December 2014 pp. 919-929). </li>
</ul>
<h2><a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance">Internet Governance</a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Articles and Blog Entries</b></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li> <a href="https://cis-india.org/openness/blog/global-voices-december-30-2014-indians-plead-for-net-neutrality-as-aitel-raises-data-charges"> Indians Plead for #NetNeutrality as Airtel Raises Data Charges </a> (Subhashish Panigrahi; Global Voices; December 30, 2014). <i>The article was published in the month of December but mirrored on CIS website in January</i>. </li>
<li> <a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/global-voices-january-6-2015-subhashish-panigrahi-indian-netizens-criticize-online-censorship-of-jihadi-content"> Indian Netizens Criticize Online Censorship of 'Jihadi' Content </a> (Subhashish Panigrahi; Global Voices; January 6, 2015). </li>
<li> <a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/security-and-surveillance-optimizing-security-while-safeguarding-human-rights"> Security and Surveillance - Optimizing Security while Safeguarding Human Rights </a> (Elonnai Hickok; January 19, 2015). </li>
<li> <a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/search-engine-and-prenatal-sex-determination"> Search Engine and Prenatal Sex Determination: Walking the Tight Rope of the Law </a> (Geetha Hariharan and Balaji Subramanian; January 29, 2015). </li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Event Co-organized</b></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li> <a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/events/security-governments-data-technology-policy"> Security, Governments, and Data: Technology and Policy </a> (Organized by CIS and Observer Research Foundation; January 8, 2015, New Delhi). Sunil Abraham, Pranesh Prakash, Elonnai Hickok, Bhairav Acharya and Nehaa Chaudhari participated in this event. </li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Participation in Events</b></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li> <a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/symposium-on-human-rights-and-internet-in-india"> Symposium on Human Rights and the Internet in India </a> (Organized by the Center for Communication Governance at National Law University, Delhi in collaboration with the UNESCO Chair on Freedom of Communication and Information at the University of Hamburg; New Delhi; January 17, 2015). Bhairav Acharya was a panelist. </li>
<li> <a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/winter-school-on-privacy-surveillance-data-protection"> Winter School on Privacy, Surveillance and Data Protection </a> (Organized by the Centre for Communication Governance (CCG) in collaboration with the UNESCO Chair on Freedom of Communication and Information at the University of Hamburg and the Hans Bredow; Delhi; January 19 - 23, 2015). Bhairav Acharya was a facilitator.</li>
<li> <a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/assocham-national-council-on-it-ites">ASSOCHAM National Council on IT / ITes</a> (Organized by ASSOCHAM; New Delhi; January 30, 2015). Geetha Hariharan participated in the event. </li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Blog Entries</b></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li> <a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/overview-constitutional-challenges-on-itact"> Overview of the Constitutional Challenges to the IT Act </a> (Pranesh Prakash; December 15, 2014). </li>
<li> <a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/reply-to-rti-filed-with-bsnl-regarding-network-neutrality-and-throttling"> Reply to RTI filed with BSNL regarding Network Neutrality and Throttling </a> (Tarun Krishnakumar; December 22, 2014). </li>
</ul>
<h3><a href="http://cis-india.org/news">News & Media Coverage</a></h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">CIS gave its inputs to the following media coverage:</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li> <a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/the-times-of-india-jan-1-2015-kim-arora-government-blocks-32-websites-to-check-isis-propaganda"> Government blocks 32 websites to check ISIS propaganda </a> (Kim Arora; The Times of India; January 1, 2015). </li>
<li> <a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/mumbai-mirror-jaison-lewis-jan-1-2015-internet-users-fume-as-govt-blocks-32-sites"> Internet users fume as govt blocks 32 sites </a> (Jaison Lewis; Mumbai Mirror; January 1, 2015). </li>
<li> <a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/bbc-january-2-2015-india-jihadi-web-blocking-causes-anger"> India 'jihadi' web blocking causes anger </a> (BBC; January 2, 2015). This was also mirrored in <a href="http://thepuffington.com/anger-at-india-website-blocking/">Puffington Post</a>. </li>
<li> <a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/india-today-january-1-2015-govt-cracks-down-on-cyber-jehad-network-blocks-access-to-32-websites"> Govt cracks down on cyber jehad network, blocks access to 32 websites </a> (India Today, January 1, 2015). </li>
<li> <a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/times-of-assam-january-2-2015-indian-govt-still-blocks-websites-india-censorship-on-internet"> Indian Government still blocks 20+ websites - Indian Censorship on Internet </a> (Times of Assam; January 2, 2015). </li>
<li> <a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/hindustan-times-january-20-2015-devanik-saha-indiaspend-350-per-cent-surge-in-cyber-crimes-in-last-3-years"> 350% surge in Cyber crimes in last 3 years </a> (Devanik Saha & Indiaspend.org; Hindustan Times; January 20, 2015). </li>
<li> <a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/times-of-india-january-31-2015-toi-literary-kicks-off-today"> TOI literary festival kicks off today </a> (The Times of India; January 31, 2015). </li>
</ul>
<h2><a href="http://cis-india.org/raw/digital-humanities">Digital Humanities</a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">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:</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Staff Movement</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li> Sumandro Chattapadhyay has joined CIS as Research Director. His academic interests span over topics of history and politics of informatics in India, new media and technology studies, and data infrastructures and economies. He is also keenly interested in questions and techniques of digital humanities. Recently, Sumandro has completed a study on <a href="http://ajantriks.github.io/oddc/">policy and practices of open data in India</a> as part of the Open Data Research Network managed by the World Wide Web Foundation. He is an involved member of DataMeet, a leading community of open data and data science enthusiasts from India. Sumandro studied economics in Visva-Bharati, Shantiniketan, and in Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He has variously worked on topics of urban development, information technology in governance, data visualisation, and early electronic governance in India with <a href="http://www.mod.org.in/">MOD Institute</a>, <a href="http://www.azimpremjiuniversity.edu.in/SitePages/index.aspx">Azim Premji University</a> and the <a href="http://sarai.net/">Sarai Programme</a> at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies. </li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Blog Entry</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li> <a href="http://cis-india.org/raw/figures-of-learning-the-visual-designer2">Figures of Learning: The Visual Designer</a> (Tejas Pande; January 30, 2015). </li>
</ul>
<h2><a href="http://cis-india.org/">About CIS</a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">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.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">► Follow us elsewhere</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li> Twitter:<a href="https://twitter.com/CISA2K"> </a><a href="https://twitter.com/CISA2K">https://twitter.com/CISA2K</a> </li>
<li> Facebook group: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/cisa2k">https://www.facebook.com/cisa2k</a> </li>
<li> Visit us at:<a href="https://cis-india.org/"> </a> <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge">https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge</a> </li>
<li> E-mail: <a href="mailto:a2k@cis-india.org">a2k@cis-india.org</a> </li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">► Support Us</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">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.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">► Request for Collaboration:</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">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 <a href="mailto:vishnu@cis-india.org">vishnu@cis-india.org</a>.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><i> 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. </i></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/january-2015-bulletin'>https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/january-2015-bulletin</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaAccess to KnowledgeWikipediaAccessibilityInternet GovernanceDigital HumanitiesNVDAOpennessResearchers at Work2015-02-26T17:02:23ZPageeSpeak Training in Hindi Language
https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/espeak-training-in-hindi-language-1
<b>National Association for the Blind, Kullu hosted a 2 day training in the use of eSpeak in Hindi language with NVDA for its special educators, in-service blind, and blind students. The programme was attended by 20 participants who came from all parts of Himachal Pradesh.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The event started with a round of introductions and expectations. Most of the participants expressed their desire to learn Hindi typing in order to either use it in their workplace or use it during their studies.<br /><br />This was followed by an introduction to NVDA. NVDA was new to most of the participants, and they were amazed to know the benefits of NVDA compared to other commercial screen readers.<br /><br />The next session was dedicated to installation of NVDA, introducing different menus and configurations options.<br /><br />This was followed by a comprehension of Hindi text. Barring just 2 candidates, all others were able to understand the text immediately.<br /><br />The day 2 started with Hindi keyboard. Participants were taught the use of Inscript keyboard. They were also taught configuring hindi keyboard in Windows.<br /><br />Writing words and short sentences was the next item in the training, in which most of the participants excelled beyond expectations. Most of them started writing sentences with ease.<br /><br />The post noon session was reserved for spreading awareness about different sources for obtaining accessible reading material, including Bookshare; android and its advantages, different sources for obtaining easy finance for purchase of computers and laptops, information about ADIP schemes.<br /><br />The workshop was covered by E-TV HP and they filmed the participants typing in Hindi.<br /><br />The event ended with a vote of thanks from the President NAB Kullu- Mrs. Shalini Vats.<br /><br /></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/espeak-training-in-hindi-language-1'>https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/espeak-training-in-hindi-language-1</a>
</p>
No publishernirmitaNVDAAccessibilityE-Speak2015-10-04T08:43:22ZBlog EntryBangla eSpeak training with NVDA
https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/bangla-e-speak-training-with-nvda-december-2014
<b>The NVDA team conducted an eSpeak training in Bangla on December 19 and 20, 2014 at Blind Empowerment Foundation (BEA) in Kolkata.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The host BEA, had invited 15 teachers and Computer trainers from all across Kolkata and 1 participant was from NAB Jamshedpur. The event was ably supported by two volunteers who helped in the Bengali typing.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The event began with the round of introductions of the participants. The participants also expressed various reasons for participating in the workshop during the introduction. This was than followed by introduction to NVDA and the importance of an Open Source software compared to piracy.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Out of the 15 participants, only two of the participants were using NVDA in their daily use. Hence the session began with the installation of NVDA and its basic configurations and settings. This was followed by the installation of eSpeak and a demonstration was given as to how to use eSpeak for different language options.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Participants were also shown the different advantages of NVDA, in comparison to other screen readers. This demonstration was received very well by most of the participants, as they had never expected NVDA to perform as well.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The post lunch session was dedicated to reading in Bengali. Each participant was given a word file containing current news items in Bengali. The participants started understanding the eSpeak TTS, but showed some reservations regarding its voice. It was explained in detail the reason for the same and why it was important to introduce NVDA with eSpeak to their students at the initial stage of their training in computers.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The host were very generous in their arrangements for lunch and other refreshments. All the participants enjoyed the hospitality, which included a generous serving of the Bengali fish.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Day 2 started with solving querries from day 1 and than typing was introduced using the Bengali Varnmala typing method. Participants were very receptive to this method and were able to type small sentences withing a few minutes. The volunteers who were helping with the typing also emphasized on special words which included special characters.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The post lunch session was dedicated to problem solving and introduction to various Aids and Appliances. The participants were also informed about the ADIP scheme and the appliances available under it.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The workshop was concluded with a round of photos and thanks from the trainers and the hosts.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/bangla-e-speak-training-with-nvda-december-2014'>https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/bangla-e-speak-training-with-nvda-december-2014</a>
</p>
No publishernirmitaAccessibilityNVDA2015-07-20T15:02:25ZBlog Entry