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These are the search results for the query, showing results 151 to 165.
Tactical Media 3.0--FOSS: The Dynamics of Freedom
https://cis-india.org/news/tactical-media-3.0-foss-the-dynamics-of-freedom
<b>CIS Executive Director Sunil Abraham will speak at 'Tactical Media 3.0--Foss: The Dynamics of Freedom', a workshop on techniques and philosophy of Free and Open Source Software, 27 July to 1 August, Jadavpur University, Kolkata. </b>
<p> <img class="image-inline image-inline" src="../advocacy/openness/Tactical_Media3.jpg/image_preview" alt="tactical" height="421" width="635" /></p>
<p>The Media Lab, Jadavpur University presents Tactical Media 3.0--FOSS: The Dynamics of Freedom, a workshop on techniques and philosophy of Free and Open Source Software<br /> July 27 – Aug 1, 2009, 3-30 to 7-30 pm, Vivekananda Hall</p>
<p><br />Free and Open Source software is one of the greatest tools in the hands of those who wish to challenge the notions of intellectual property (IP) and market-driven logics of human exchange. The Internet has opened up the space for a world-wide collective that believes in enriching each other’s lives through art and knowledge free from narrow conceptions of ownership and privilege. It has given rise to a new creativity on a global scale, from globally shared alternatives to profit-driven initiatives, towards a hope of re-inventing the commons in the 21st century.</p>
<p><br />Tactical Media 3.0 is the third chapter in the workshop series on Tactical Media. It will be dedicated to training in Linux-based tools and discussion on the philosophy, economics and politics of FOSS. The resource persons will be Prof. Nandinee Mukherjee and her colleagues from the (JU-FOSS Resource Centre), Jadavpur University, Sunil Abraham, (Director-Policy), Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore, and Sri Dipankar Das, (Senior Lecturer, Jaipuria College), University of Calcutta.</p>
<p><br />For participation please send a CV and covering letter by July 23 to:</p>
<p><br />The Media Lab office (ph: 033-2414-6222), Subarna Jayanti Bhavan,</p>
<p>Jadavpur University (main campus)</p>
<p>or email <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:medialabju@gmail.com">medialabju@gmail.com</a></p>
<p><br />Seats are limited. Selected candidates shall be charged a nominal fee of Rs. 300.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/news/tactical-media-3.0-foss-the-dynamics-of-freedom'>https://cis-india.org/news/tactical-media-3.0-foss-the-dynamics-of-freedom</a>
</p>
No publishersachiaOpenness2011-04-02T15:42:29ZNews ItemSwatantra 2014: Fifth International Free Software Conference, Kerala
https://cis-india.org/openness/news/swatantra-2014-icfoss-december-18-20-2014-fifth-international-free-software-conference-in-kerala
<b>ICFOSS, Govt. of Kerala organized the fifth international Free Software Conference at Hotel Hycinth by Sparsa, Trivandrum from December 18 - 20, 2014. The Centre for Internet and Society was one of the organizations supporting the event. Prof. Subbiah Arunachalam was a speaker and made a presentation on Open Science.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Click to download Prof. Arunachalam's presentation on Open Science <a href="https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/open-science.ppt" class="internal-link">here</a>. For more details see the ICFOSS <a class="external-link" href="http://icfoss.in/fs2014/">web page</a>. T. Vishnu Vardhan chaired a session on Wikimedia and Access to Knowledge in India and Rahimanuddin Shaik co-presented on Making DLI Accessible. The programme schedule can be <a class="external-link" href="http://icfoss.org/fs2014/program_details.html#Wikipedia/Wikimedia">seen here</a>.</p>
<hr />
<h2 style="text-align: justify; ">Theme: Free Software for a Free World</h2>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">About Swatantra 2014</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">After India's first-ever Free Software event, “Freedom First!” that was convened in Trivandrum in 2001, Kerala had organized international Free Software conferences in 2005, 2008, and 2011. These conferences were an occasion to highlight Kerala's achievements in the domain of Free Software, as well as to bring together the community to discuss priorities and action items.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">ICFOSS is proud to present the fifth international Free Software conference of Kerala, Swatantra 2014, scheduled during 18-20 December 2014 at Thiruvananthapuram.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The theme of the conference is “Free Software for a Free World”. This reflects emerging concerns that citizens and communities face vis-a-vis privacy, online rights & freedoms, and security at the global level. Free Software provides a viable alternative to proprietary software which often compromises on these aspects. Further, Free Software also provides a technologically robust and cost effective alternative to other genres of software for all public uses, notably in Academia, Government, and personal computing, and even in the Arts & Culture domains.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">International dignitaries participating at the Conference include Dr. Richard Stallman and Ms. Nina Paley. Several luminaries from the FOSS world within the country are also expected to take part.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">About 150-200 Free Software enthusiasts, including practitioners, developers, researchers, academics, students, as well as representatives from civil society institutions, industry and the Government are expected to participate in the three-day conference.</p>
<h3>Supported by</h3>
<ul>
<li>FSF-India </li>
<li>Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore </li>
<li>SFLC.IN, Delhi </li>
<li>Swathanthra Malayalam Computing </li>
<li>FOSSEE, IIT-B</li>
<li>SPACE</li>
<li>DCBB, Kerala University </li>
<li>Spoken Tutorials, IIT-B</li>
<li>IEEE Kerala Section</li>
</ul>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/openness/news/swatantra-2014-icfoss-december-18-20-2014-fifth-international-free-software-conference-in-kerala'>https://cis-india.org/openness/news/swatantra-2014-icfoss-december-18-20-2014-fifth-international-free-software-conference-in-kerala</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaOpennessFOSS2014-12-28T02:44:19ZNews ItemSurvey of Estimates of Economic Value of Open Government Data
https://cis-india.org/openness/survey-of-estimates-of-economic-value-of-open-government-data
<b>This is a survey of estimates of economic value of open government data, and public sector information in general, across regions, countries, and sectors offered by several reports published during the last decade. The survey is undertaken by Ömer Faruk Sarı, a student of Business Administration at Koc University in Istanbul, Turkey, and research intern with CIS. </b>
<p> </p>
<h2>Introduction</h2>
<p>This is a survey of economic value estimates of open government data, and public sector information in general, by consultancy groups and government bodies across the world. The first part of the post lists estimates from different regions and countries, while the second part collects estimates for different sectors. Major reports surveyed in this study include the 'MEPSIR: Measuring European Public Sector Information Resources' report (2006), 'The Value of Spatial Information' report by ACIL Tasman (2008), 'Review of Recent Studies on PSI Re-Use and Related Market Developments' report by Graham Vickery (2012), 'Market Assessment of Public Sector Information' report by Deloitte (2013), 'Open Data: Unlocking Innovation and Performance with Liquid Information' by McKinsey (2013), 'Big and Open Data in Europe: A Growth Engine or a Missed Opportunity?' by Warsaw Institute for Economic Studies (2014), and 'Open for Business: How Open Data can Help Achieve the G20 Growth Target' report by Omidyar Network (2014).</p>
<p><strong>Note about Exchange Rate:</strong>The monetary values stated in these reports vary by years and currencies. The original estimates are mentioned in the currency concerned followed by the converted amount in US Dollar (using exchange rate of the same year) provided within brackets. The exchange rates concerned are mentioned at the bottom of the post.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Countries and Regions</h2>
<h3>Global</h3>
<p>McKinsey estimates global economic value of open data as USD 3.2 Trillion for seven sectors - Education, Transportation, Consumer Products, Electricity, Oil and Gas, Healthcare, and Consumer Finance. [1]</p>
<h3>European Union</h3>
<p>Pira International Ltd. et al, in 2000, estimated the monetary value of open data for EU countries as EUR 68 Billion (USD 76 Billion). [2]</p>
<p>Zangenberg and Company, estimated this number for EU countries as for minimum EUR 29 Billion (USD 38 Billion) and for an upper limit of EUR 143 Billion (USD 188 Billion). [3]</p>
<p>The Warsaw Institute for Economic Studies (WISE Institute) estimates the economic value of open data in EU, as increase in GDP by 2020, as EUR 206 Billion (USD 253 Billion). [4]</p>
<p>Graham Vickery estimated this number as EUR 200 Billion (USD 264 Billion) in 2012. [5]</p>
<p>In 2006, MEPSIR, in their report for European Commission, mentioned EUR 27 Billion (USD 36 Billion) could be gained by use of open data. [6]</p>
<p>McKinsey, in their report in 2013, estimated the monetary value of open data for EU countries as USD 900 Billion. [1]</p>
<iframe src="http://ajantriks.github.io/cis/charts/2015.08_open-data-value-eu/index.html" frameborder="0" height="300" width="700"></iframe>
<h3>G20</h3>
<p>For G20 countries taken together, Omidyar Network estimates the economic value of open data as USD 2.6 Trillion. [7]</p>
<h3>Australia</h3>
<p>Omidyar Network, in their study on business value of open data, estimated the potential of open data for Australia as AUD 3.4 Billion (USD 2.8 Billion). [7]</p>
<p>In 2008, ACIL Tasman estimated the potential economic value of open data for Australia as AUD 1.4 Billion (USD 938 Million). [8]</p>
<p>John Houghton's estimation for the monetary value of open data is AUD 195 Million (USD 197 Million). [9]</p>
<h3>Denmark</h3>
<p>Zangenberg and Company, in 2011, estimated the economic value of open data for Denmark as DKK 520 Million (USD 92 Million). [3]</p>
<h3>France</h3>
<p>SerdaLAB, in 2009, estimated EUR 1.57 Billion (USD 2.3 Billion) can be gained by open data in France. [10]</p>
<h3>Germany</h3>
<p>In 2011, Dr, Martin Fornefeld et al estimated the economic value of open data for Germany as EUR 1.7 Billion (USD 2.2 Billion), only for geo-information. [11]</p>
<p>The POPSIS study estimated this number as EUR 3.2 Million (USD 4.2 Million), in the same year, 2011. [12]</p>
<h3>Norway</h3>
<p>Graham Vickery's report mentions the potential value of open data as NOK 260 Million (USD 43 Million). [5]</p>
<h3>Spain</h3>
<p>The Proyecto Aporta (Spanish open data portal project) study estimated the economic value of the infomediary sector in Spain as EUR 330-550 Million (USD 452-753 Million), in 2012. [13]</p>
<h3>The Netherlands</h3>
<p>In 2011, the POPSIS study estimated the economic potential that can be gained from open data in Netherlands as EUR 78 Million (USD 102 Million). [12]</p>
<h3>United Kingdom</h3>
<p>Deloitte, in their report, estimated the value of open data as GBP 6.2-7.2 Billion (USD 10-11.8 Billion) for United Kingdom. [14]</p>
<p>Rufus Pollock, in 2011, estimated GBP 4.5-6 Billion (USD 7-9.3 Billion) that can be unlocked by use of open data. [15]</p>
<p>Dot-Econ's estimation for monetary value of open data in United Kingdom is EUR 590 Million (USD 778 Million). [16]</p>
<h3>United States</h3>
<p>McKinsey's estimation, in 2013, for the value that can be unlocked by open data in United States is quite remarkable at USD 1.1 Trillion. [1]</p>
<p>Pira International Ltd. et al, in 2000, estimated the value as EUR 750 Billion (USD 838 Billion). [2]</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Data Types and Sectors</h2>
<h3>Consumer Finance</h3>
<p>McKinsey estimates USD 210-280 Billion, globally, for the consumer finance sector. [1]</p>
<p><strong>Based on McKinsey's Report:</strong> The estimate for G20 countries is USD 169 Billion; for Australia, the estimate is AUD 4.2 Billion (USD 4.3 Billion).</p>
<h3>Consumer Products</h3>
<p>Across the globe, with the use of open data McKinsey estimates USD 520-1470 Billion can be generated from services of consumer products. [1]</p>
<p><strong>Based on McKinsey's Report:</strong> G20 countries, in total, have a potential value of USD 419 Billion for this sector; the value is estimated at AUD 10 Billion (USD 10.2 Billion) for Australia.</p>
<h3>Education</h3>
<p>McKinsey estimates that USD 890-1180 Billion can be generated alone in education sector, across the globe. [1]</p>
<p><strong>Based on McKinsey's Report:</strong> Open data in the education sector in G20 countries can generate USD 717 Billion; for Australia, value of open data in education sector is estimated to be AUD 14 Billion (USD 14.2 Billion).</p>
<h3>Electricity</h3>
<p>McKinsey estimates USD 340-580 Billion, across the globe. [1]</p>
<p><strong>Based on McKinsey's Report:</strong> For electricity sector, USD 193 Billion is estimated for G20 countries; estimate for Australia for electricity sector depending on open data is AUD 6.7 Billion (USD 6.8 Billion).</p>
<h3>Geospatial Data</h3>
<p>Dr. Nam D. Pham estimates the potential value of Geo-spatial information in US as USD 96 Billion. [17]</p>
<p>In the report by Pira International Limited et al, the economic value of geo-spatial information in EU estimated as EUR 36 Billion (USD 40 Billion). [2]</p>
<p>Fornefeld et al estimates the value of geo-spatial information in Germany as EUR 1.7 Billion (USD 2.2 Billion). [11]</p>
<p>The POPSIS study estimates the economic value of Meteorological data re-use market in Netherlands as EUR 10 Million (USD 13 Million). [12]</p>
<p>Graham Vickery estimates (in 2012) NOK 72 Million (USD 12 Million) can be generated in Norway through geo-spatial information. [5]</p>
<p>The Proyecto Aporta study estimates potential value of geo-spatial information in Spain as EUR 183 Million (USD 240 Million). [13]</p>
<p>ACIL Tasman in their report, estimated that as a direct result of the uptake of spatial technologies New Zealand’s real GDP increased by NZD 1.2 Billion (USD 670 Million) in 2008 through productivity-related gains as a result of the increasing adoption of modern spatial information technologies since 1995. [8]</p>
<p>In the United Kingdom, a 'supply-side' assessment estimated the market size and growth potential for geographic information (GI) products and services. The market size in year 2007 was estimated to be GBP 657 Million (USD 1.32 Billion). [18]</p>
<p>Based on PwC's study in 2010, John Houghton estimates the value of spatial data in Australia as AUD 25 Million (USD 25.3 Million). [9]</p>
<p>Ordnance Survey of UK estimates the economic value of open data published by the same agency as GBP 2.9-6.1 Million (USD 4.5-9.5 Million). [19]</p>
<iframe src="http://ajantriks.github.io/cis/charts/2015.08_open-geo-data-value/index.html" frameborder="0" height="400" width="700"></iframe>
<h3>Healthcare</h3>
<p>Globally, USD 300-450 Billion is the estimate of McKinsey, depending on open data use in healthcare sector.[1]</p>
<p><strong>Based on McKinsey's Report:</strong> Open data in the healthcare sector can generate USD 242 Billion for G20 countries; estimate for Australia is AUD 5.9 Billion (USD 6 Billion).</p>
<h3>Oil and Gas</h3>
<p>McKinsey estimates USD 240-510 Billion that can be generated through open data for the oil and gas sector, across the globe. [1]</p>
<p><strong>Based on McKinsey's Report:</strong> Oil and gas sector, with the use of open data, can generate USD 169 Billion for G20 countries; the value for Australia is estimated to generate AUD 4.8 Billion (USD 4.9 Billion).</p>
<h3>Transportation</h3>
<p>McKinsey estimates the value of transportation sector with the use of open data as USD 720-920 Billion for the transportation sector, globally. [1]</p>
<p><strong>Based on McKinsey's Report:</strong> G20 countries altogether can generate USD 580 Billion in transportation sector; estimate of the value of open data in the transportation sector in Australia is AUD 18 Billion (USD 18.2 Billion).</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Reference</h2>
<p>[1] Manyika, James, et al. 2013. Open Data: Unlocking Innovation and Performance with Liquid Information. McKinsey Global Institute. October. Accessed from <a href="http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/business_technology/open_data_unlocking_innovation_and_performance_with_liquid_information">http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/business_technology/open_data_unlocking_innovation_and_performance_with_liquid_information</a>.</p>
<p>[2] Pira International Ltd. et al. 2000. Commercial exploitation of Europe’s Public Sector Information - Executive Summary. European Commission, Brussels. Aceeseed from <a href="ftp://ftp.cordis.europa.eu/pub/econtent/docs/2000_1558_en.pdf">ftp://ftp.cordis.europa.eu/pub/econtent/docs/2000_1558_en.pdf</a>.</p>
<p>[3] Zangenberg and Company. 2011, Kvantificering af værdien af åbne offentlige data (Quantifying the Value of Open Government Data). Report Prepared for the Danish National Information Technology and Telecom Agency. Accessed from <a href="https://digitaliser.dk/resource/1021067/artefact/Kvantificering+af+den+erhvervsm%c3%a6ssige+v%c3%a6rdi+af+%c3%a5bne+offentlige+data+-+Zangenberg2011.pdf">https://digitaliser.dk/resource/1021067/artefact/Kvantificering+af+den+erhvervsm%c3%a6ssige+v%c3%a6rdi+af+%c3%a5bne+offentlige+data+-+Zangenberg2011.pdf</a>.</p>
<p>[4] Buchholtz, Sonia, et al. 2014. Big and Open Data in Europe: A Growth Engine or a Missed Opportunity? demosEUROPA – Centre for European Strategy and Warsaw Institute for Economic Studies. Accessed from <a href="http://www.bigopendata.eu/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/bod_europe_2020_full_report_singlepage.pdf">http://www.bigopendata.eu/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/bod_europe_2020_full_report_singlepage.pdf</a>.</p>
<p>[5] Vickery, Graham. 2012. Review of Recent Studies on PSI Re-Use and Related Market Developments. European Commission, Brussels. Accessed form <a href="http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/newsroom/cf//document.cfm?doc_id=1093">http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/newsroom/cf//document.cfm?doc_id=1093</a>.</p>
<p>[6] Dekkers, Makx, et al. 2006. MEPSIR: Measuring European Public Sector Information Resources - Final Report of Study on Exploitation of Public Sector Information – Benchmarking of EU Framework Conditions. European Commission, Brussels. Accessed from <a href="http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/newsroom/cf/document.cfm?doc_id=1198">http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/newsroom/cf/document.cfm?doc_id=1198</a>.</p>
<p>[7] Lateral Economics. 2014. Open for Business: How Open Data can Help Achieve the G20 Growth Target. Omidyar Network. June. Accessed from <a href="https://www.omidyar.com/sites/default/files/file_archive/insights/ON%20Report_061114_FNL.pdf">https://www.omidyar.com/sites/default/files/file_archive/insights/ON%20Report_061114_FNL.pdf</a>.</p>
<p>[8] ACIL Tasman. 2008. The Value of Spatial Information: The Impact of Modern Spatial Information
Technologies on the Australian Economy. March. Accessed from <a href="http://www.crcsi.com.au/assets/Resources/7d60411d-0ab9-45be-8d48-ef8dab5abd4a.pdf">http://www.crcsi.com.au/assets/Resources/7d60411d-0ab9-45be-8d48-ef8dab5abd4a.pdf</a>.</p>
<p>[9] Houghton, John. 2011. Costs and Benefits of Data Provision. Report to the Australian National Data Service. September. Accessed from <a href="http://www.ands.org.au/resource/houghton-cost-benefit-study.pdf">http://www.ands.org.au/resource/houghton-cost-benefit-study.pdf</a>.</p>
<p>[10] Guerre, Louise, et al. 2009. Le marché de l’information électronique professionnelle en France. SerdaLAB. Presentation at CCIP on January 27. Accessed from <a href="http://www.fnps.fr/Public/Article/File/DOCUMENTS/Presentation_ET_IEP09_270109.pdf">http://www.fnps.fr/Public/Article/File/DOCUMENTS/Presentation_ET_IEP09_270109.pdf</a>.</p>
<p>[11] Fornefeld, Martin, et al. 2011. Die europäische Gesetzgebung als Motor für das deutsche GeoBusiness (European Legislation as a Driver for German GeoBusiness). Accessed from <a href="http://www.micus.de/pdf/MICUS_GeoBusiness-BMWi.pdf">http://www.micus.de/pdf/MICUS_GeoBusiness-BMWi.pdf</a>.</p>
<p>[12] Citadel Consulting et al. 2011. POPSIS: Pricing Of Public Sector Information Study - Models of Supply and Charging for Public Sector Information (ABC) - Final Report. European Commission. October. Accessed from <a href="http://ec.europa.eu/newsroom/dae/document.cfm?doc_id=1158">http://ec.europa.eu/newsroom/dae/document.cfm?doc_id=1158</a>.</p>
<p>[13] Ministry of Finance and Public Administration et al. 2012. Characterization Study of the Infomediary Sector. Proyecto Aporta. Accessed from <a href="http://datos.gob.es/sites/default/files/files/Estudio_infomediario/121001%20RED%20007%20Final%20Report_2012%20Edition_vF_en.pdf">http://datos.gob.es/sites/default/files/files/Estudio_infomediario/121001%20RED%20007%20Final%20Report_2012%20Edition_vF_en.pdf</a>.</p>
<p>[14] Deloitte. 2013. Market Assessment of Public Sector Information. Report to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, Government of UK. Accessed from <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/198905/bis-13-743-market-assessment-of-public-sector-information.pdf">https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/198905/bis-13-743-market-assessment-of-public-sector-information.pdf</a>.</p>
<p>[15] Pollock, Rufus. 2010. Welfare Gains from Opening up Public Sector Information in the UK. University of Cambridge. Accessed from <a href="http://rufuspollock.org/economics/papers/psi_openness_gains.pdf">http://rufuspollock.org/economics/papers/psi_openness_gains.pdf</a>.</p>
<p>[16] DotEcon. 2006. The Commercial Use of Public Information (CUPI). Report OFT861. Office of Fair Trading, Government of UK. Accessed from <a href="http://www.opsi.gov.uk/advice/poi/oft-cupi.pdf">http://www.opsi.gov.uk/advice/poi/oft-cupi.pdf</a>.</p>
<p>[17] Pham, Nam D. 2011. The Economic Benefits of Commercial GPS Use in the U.S. and the Costs of Potential Disruption. June. Accessed from <a href="http://www.gpsalliance.org/docs/GPS_Report_June_21_2011.pdf">http://www.gpsalliance.org/docs/GPS_Report_June_21_2011.pdf</a>.</p>
<p>[18] Coote, Andrew, and Les Rackham. 2008. An Assessment of the Size and Prospects for Growth of the UK Market for Geographic Information Products and Services. ConsultingWhere. Accessed from <a href="http://www.consultingwhere.com/wp-content/uploads/resources/UK_Market_Assessment_v11_Final.pdf">http://www.consultingwhere.com/wp-content/uploads/resources/UK_Market_Assessment_v11_Final.pdf</a>.</p>
<p>[19] Carpenter, John, and Phil Watts. 2013. Assessing the Value of OS OpenData™ to the Economy of Great Britain - Synopsis. Ordnance Survey. June. Accessed from <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/207692/bis-13-950-assessing-value-of-opendata-to-economy-of-great-britain.pdf">https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/207692/bis-13-950-assessing-value-of-opendata-to-economy-of-great-britain.pdf</a>.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Exchange Rates</h2>
<p>Note: Exchange rates are taken for December of the year concerned.</p>
<table>
<tbody>
<tr>
<th>Euro per 1 US Dollar</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>2000</td>
<td>0.8947</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>2006</td>
<td>0.7580</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>2009</td>
<td>0.6868</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>2010</td>
<td>0.7562</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>2011</td>
<td>0.7599</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>2013</td>
<td>0.7296</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>2014</td>
<td>0.8123</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>British Pound per 1 US Dollar</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>2006</td>
<td>0.5095</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>2011</td>
<td>0.6415</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>2013</td>
<td>0.6106</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>2014</td>
<td>0.6397</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Australian Dollar per 1 US Dollar</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>2008</td>
<td>1.4919</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>2011</td>
<td>0.9874</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>2014</td>
<td>1.2144</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>New Zealand Dollar per 1 US Dollar</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>2008</td>
<td>1.7923</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Norwegian Krone per 1 US Dollar</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>2010</td>
<td>5.9774</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Danish Krone per 1 US Dollar</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>2011</td>
<td>5.6495</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/openness/survey-of-estimates-of-economic-value-of-open-government-data'>https://cis-india.org/openness/survey-of-estimates-of-economic-value-of-open-government-data</a>
</p>
No publisherÖmer Faruk SarıOpen Government DataDigital EconomyOpen DataEconomicsOpenness2015-08-22T08:42:30ZBlog EntrySunil Abraham - Key Listener Speech at Wikimedia Summit 2019
https://cis-india.org/openness/sunil-abraham-key-listener-speech-at-wikimedia-summit-2019
<b>The Wikimedia Summit 2019 – formerly known as "Wikimedia Conference" or "Chapters Meeting" – took place on 29–31 March 2019 in Berlin. Sunil Abraham made a speech at the summit organized in Berlin. </b>
<p>Sunil answers a series of questions at <span>the closing session of the Wikimedia Summit 2019</span>:</p>
<h3>What stands out?</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Money. Creative Commons revenues are pegged at 2.4 million dollars. Mozilla Foundation gets 24 million dollars. Wikimedia Foundation gets 91 million dollars. So the job of pulling off the "Big Open" or the "creation of the meta movement" or "the movement of movements" is primarily the responsibility of the Wikimedia community given the scale of resources it is able to mobilize. For example, the Open Access movement has lost funding as its key donor Open Society Foundation after supporting the movement for 17 years is unable to support any further. The Wikipedia movement can easily save the global access movement by just allocating 1 million dollar for it.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">What concerns me?</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Homogenization. Homogenization of time frames, homogenization of process. Should we, for example, stagger the time period for online community consultation on the draft recommendations, so that there is less 'consultation fatigue' By homogenizing the processes at the Summit, it would be risking infantilizing the community. Would this meeting have been more exciting and useful, if Working Groups had the freedom to fork the process, and do what works for them.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">What have I learned from my own journey and work?</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Working with lawyers for the last 10 years, has led me to appreciate tests over principles. For example, in the open standards movement there is a constant question: is this particular standard an open standard? <span>There, free software acts as the canary in the coal mine: If we cannot implement a standard using free software, then it is not an open standard. </span><span>Working with lawyers for the last 10 years, has led me to appreciate tests over principles. For example, in the open standards movement there is a constant question: is this particular standard an open standard?There, free software acts as the canary in the coal mine: If we cannot implement a standard using free software, then it is not an open standard.</span></p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">What have you learned that could be useful for the strategy process?</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">From the process architect I have learned that we shouldn't focus on solving /this/ particular instance of the problem, we should focus on working on developing processes that solve these problems in the future. So, the emphasis is on process fixes. This is really the bleeding edge of regulatory theory these days. Since we are in Germany, I must mention the name of the German academic Gunther Teubner who developed this concept of reflexive regulation 26 years ago in his article 'Substantive and Reflexive Elements in Modern Law.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">What would you suggest to improve the strategy process?</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The core of responsive regulation is community consultation processes. However, closing the loop on the consultation process is critical, otherwise participants feel that they have wasted time providing feedback. For example, the Indian telecom regulator first issues a consultation paper. Then solicits the first round of feedback, then solicits a second round of counter comments then they hold round tables, and, finally, they issue the recommendation or the regulation. But when they do that, they make sure they close the loop.They provide reasoned explanations for why suggestions were rejected. This might have to happen at both stages for this strategy development process. The working groups will have to say why they rejected certain pieces of feedback, and also the board will have to explain why they rejected certain recommendations from the working groups.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">What would be your wish for this movement?</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">As we enter adulthood as a movement, it is important that we do not lose our youthful idealism. Idealism at two levels: ambition and vocabulary. Global civil society is broadly divided into two groups. Those who work on tractable problems, like getting rid of polio. And those who work on intractable problems, like saving and developing democracy. When monitoring and evaluation becomes a primary management lens for our movement, it shouldn't make us more and more risk-averse. <span>Let us not focus on the easy problems let us always focus, as a movement, on the hard problems. When it comes to vocabulary, I am not totally sure that phrases like 'product experience', 'target markets', and 'Knowledge as a Service' is the vocabulary of the movement. </span><span>Maybe, we need to think of two types of vocabulary, External facing vocabulary and internal facing vocabulary.</span></p>
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<h3>Watch the Video</h3>
<p><iframe frameborder="0" height="288" src="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikimedia_Summit_2019_-_Key_listener_Sunil_Abraham.webm?embedplayer=yes" width="512"></iframe></p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span>Video, via Wikimedia Commons, source: </span><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikimedia_Summit_2019_-_Key_listener_Sunil_Abraham.webm" target="_blank">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikimedia_Summit_2019_-_Key_listener_Sunil_Abraham.webm</a>. <br /><span>Author, </span><a class="gmail-m_-4889359088796478559gmail-new" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Anna_Rees_(WMDE)&action=edit&redlink=1" target="_blank" title="User:Anna Rees (WMDE) (page does not exist)">Anna Rees (WMDE)</a><span>: Uploader: </span><a class="gmail-m_-4889359088796478559gmail-mw-userlink" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Cornelius_Kibelka_(WMDE)" target="_blank" title="User:Cornelius Kibelka (WMDE)">Cornelius Kibelka (WMDE)</a><span>, This file is licensed under the <a class="gmail-m_-4889359088796478559extiw" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/en:Creative_Commons" target="_blank" title="w:en:Creative Commons">Creative Commons</a> <a class="gmail-m_-4889359088796478559gmail-text gmail-m_-4889359088796478559external" href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International</a> license.</span></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/openness/sunil-abraham-key-listener-speech-at-wikimedia-summit-2019'>https://cis-india.org/openness/sunil-abraham-key-listener-speech-at-wikimedia-summit-2019</a>
</p>
No publishersunilOpennessWikipedia2019-05-04T03:34:15ZBlog EntrySummary of the Minutes of the Workshop on Biodiversity Informatics
https://cis-india.org/openness/summary-of-the-minutes-of-the-workshop-on-biodiversity-informatics
<b>The Western Ghats Portal team had organized a one-day workshop to explore the contemporary state of biodiversity informatics as expressed in three spheres: technology behind biodiversity informatics, scientific commons and policy and biodiversity portals in India. It hoped to provide an opportunity to interact and learn from similar endeavors in this emerging discipline. The workshop was held at Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and Environment (ATREE), Bangalore on 25 November 2011.</b>
<p>There were 5 speakers and 10 panelists representing as many portal
initiatives, participating at the venue or via WebEx, addressing an
audience of 75 comprising of students, researchers, representatives from
governmental bodies and technological platforms.The entire day’s
sessions were peppered with questions and discussions, directed to the
presenters as also within the members of the audience.</p>
<p>The technology session presented an Indian initiative, Bhuvan, a
geospatial data alternative to GoogleEarth that was pertinent to the
India centric audience. The second presentation was the Atlas of Living
Australia, an international endeavor that was able to give a broad
overview of how government funding for the sharing of government data on
a public platform was able to source large information and present it
for open access on a portal. The project aims to serve a variety of
users from scientists, citizen scientists to policy makers and activists
in biodiversity and conservation. The WGP was presented by a discussion
of architecture and design of participation interface for recording and
accumulating biodiversity observation data. The scientific commons and
policy session covered a wide range of topics: the interpretation of the
Indian laws for portal developments across disciplines, the
governmental policies that may hinder the development of Open source
platforms, the creative commons licenses and how they work for
scientific data, and whether developing a biodiversity commons would
help the community at large.</p>
<p>Global initiatives in the area of scientific commons were presented.
Views from the participants on various aspects and the practicality of a
legal framework were discussed. There are plans to discuss and evolve a
draft of a charter for scientific commons that would be relevant for
biodiversity and conservation. A clearly articulated and agreed data
policy is also one of the deliverables of the project.</p>
<p>The third session centred on the experience of India-centric
biodiversity portals. Two of the panelists presented their portals and
attended the session over WebEx from the United States. A spectrum of
portals was presented. Some of them were focused on single taxa, or a
theme focus from medicinal plants to thematic citizen science
initiatives. The IBP and WGP were presented as broad based with large
collections of spatial data and species data. Perspective plans of large
biodiversity portal initiatives, like the GBIF node for India, INBIF,
were outlines to showing the things that may come in the next few years.</p>
<p>The discussions revolved around scientific rigor versus citizen
participation, large-scale projects v/s small-scale focused portals, and
maintaining quality with crowd sourced data. Ideas about how peer
recognition and scientific status could be achieved were discussed.
Focused portals closely managed by experts to provide valuate
biodiversity and species data were discussed, with methods of
maintaining quality and curating data. The event concluded by
discussions of how each portal can maintain its identity and focus but
at the same time evolve mechanisms for interoperability and exchange of
information. There were open discussions on whether we can network and
provide easy toolkits for building focused participation sites.</p>
<h2>Minutes of the Workshop on Biodiversity Informatics</h2>
<h3>Objectives of the Workshop</h3>
<p>Over the last few years, Biodiversity Informatics has emerged as a
field to aggregate and consolidate biodiversity information across the
world. With the increased penetration of the Internet into developing
economies, and the widespread adoption of web technologies, biodiversity
informatics has spawned an impressive variety of initiatives. These
initiatives range from global knowledge bases and networks, national
initiatives, eco-region based initiatives, as well as sharply focused
initiatives which address a single species or event. There have been
tangible advantages for stakeholders from these initiatives which has
inspired many other endeavors. Success stories exist at both global and
local level, and learning from these experiences can help one understand
the multi-faceted nature of this discipline.</p>
<p>The Western Ghats Portal team organized a one-day workshop to explore
the contemporary state of biodiversity informatics as expressed in
three spheres: i) technology behind biodiversity informatics, ii)
scientific commons and policy and iii) biodiversity portals in India.
The workshop was intended to bring together technologists, open data
policy experts, leaders of portal initiatives and user groups and
stakeholders to meet and discuss experiences and approaches to
Biodiversity Informatics.</p>
<p>Seventy five participants attended the workshop covering governmental
agencies, NGO’s, academic institutes, student groups, CEPF grantees and
other relevant stakeholders. There were 5 speakers and 10 panelists
representing as many portal initiatives, participating at the venue or
via WebEx from the continents of Australia and North America.</p>
<h3>Plenary I: Technology behind biodiversity informatics - 0930 - 1115 hrs</h3>
<p>This session was introduced by Dr.B.Ramesh of the French Institute of
Pondicherry, who welcomed the participants of the workshop. He
highlighted the growth of Biodiversity Informatics leveraging the
Internet. In this emerging discipline, stressed the need to take stock
of the latest developments in the area.</p>
<p><strong>Development of Information System, Open Data standards, Archive and Geospatial solutions, Visualization in Bhuvan - M. Arulraj</strong>, National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC), Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO).</p>
<p>Arulraj gave an overview of the Bhuvan project, ISRO’s geo-portal
serving as a rich geteway to Indian earth observations. The project was
launched in August 2009 and has made rapid strides since then to expose
earth observation images and thematic maps on the Indian sub-continent.
The Bhuvan project has multiple modules, which include 3-D and 2-D
visualizations; a data archive and data download; thematic land use and
land cover maps; a mobile application; and a discussion forum. The
project is in active development and in beta, but is adding many
features and data to the portal. In addition to data dissemination it
provides a webGIS platform with the ability to do analyses and create
geographical layers by users. The Bhuvan portal conforms to the national
map policy while exposing spatial information and imagery through its
evolving portal.</p>
<p>Arulraj explained the architecture of the portal and surveyed the
webGIS and open source technologies that were available. A demo terminal
of Bhuvan was exposed during the lunch session. During the discussions
on map policy, Arulraj quoted that as per Remote Sensing Data Policy
(RSDP)-2011, all satellite data of resolutions up to 1 m shall be
distributed on a nondiscriminatory basis and on “as requested basis” by
NRSC/ISRO.</p>
<p><strong>Architecture and design of participation interfaces - Anand Janakiraman</strong>, Western Ghats Portal</p>
<p>Anand Janakiram spoke about the design of participation interfaces
for the Western Ghats portal. The intent was to engage with user groups
on the user interfaces and usability of an observation interface, where
users will be able to upload a multi-media object; provide a location
for the observation; make a species call with a certain level of
confidence; and provide notes and comments on the observation. The
observation will be rated by the crowd. Species calls could be changed
if necessary and agreed or disagreed upon.</p>
<p>Various rating systems were discussed. These included a 5 or ten star
rating system, like movie rating systems; a multi-dimensional rating
system like in Wikipedia; a “like” rating system that is used in many
sites; and an expert based rating system. There was a lot of discussion
on rating systems among the participants concerning the necessity of an
expert based system; the wisdom of the public in identifications; a
simple and easy to use rating system on the portal.</p>
<p><strong>Challenges on the emerging discipline of Biodiversity Informatics - Donald Hobern</strong>, Atlas of Living Australia - Web participation.</p>
<p>Donald Hobern participated in the session from Australia over the
Internet. His talk and presentation was viewed by the participants via
two-way WebEx where he answered questions and interacted with the
audience.</p>
<p>Donald presented the Australian Government supported
multi-institutional project called the Atlas of Living Australia (ALA).
The ALA is a multi-institutional project with large funding to build a
comprehensive biodiversity site focused on Australia. The conceptual
model for the portal is to build a platform that will aggregate
biodiversity information resources from specimen records, field
observations, literature, images, experts and amateurs. The information
will be integrated as species pages, distributions, regional atlases,
and nomenclature. Through this, the portal aims to serve a whole range
of users ranging from researchers, taxonomists, land-use planners, and
conservation and park managers.</p>
<p>Donald explained the typical specimen, field occurrence and
occurrence data and how it is the data is presented via collections. He
also explained the services to manage sensitive data and name services
available to the public through APIs. The ALA also has rich mapping
tools that help relate biodiversity to spatial parameters like rainfall,
temperature and other abiotic and biotic factors.</p>
<p>ALA also develops user communities among various stakeholders that
include resource management groups, conservation groups, ecological
researchers, environmental agencies, field naturalists and taxonomy
researchers. They also develop specific use cases and applications for
each of these groups.</p>
<p>The questions and interaction session was animated, even though it
was on the Internet. One of the issues raised was that the ALA seems to
be building an all encompassing and comprehensive portal, without any
particular focus theme or focus group. How was the planning of features
and functions being done? Donald’s response was the portal team would
build functions that they thought would be useful and then engage with
user groups to better and fine-tune the application. They engage with
user groups about functions on the portal.</p>
<p>The Western Ghats Portal team would like to thank Donald Hobern for
his active participation in the workshop with a valued presentation on
the state-of-the-art of a comprehensive biodiversity portal.</p>
<h3>Plenary II: Scientific commons and policy - 1130 - 1300 hrs</h3>
<p>The session was chaired by Dr. Ravi Chellam of the Madras Crocodile
Bank Trust. Ravi introduced the session and the speakers. The idea was
to generate discussions on data sharing policy among the participants in
the context of the Indian legal framework of map policy, biodiversity
act, intellectual property, scientific creative commons, and the culture
and attitude of Indian scientists. Ravi suggested that the session
should lead to further discussions to evolve a policy for data sharing
among biodiversity and conservation researchers and to evolve a charter
for the best practices among the community.</p>
<p><strong>Commons in the context of Biodiversity Information - Danish Sheikh</strong>, Alternative Law Forum</p>
<p>Danish Sheikh from the Alternate Law Forum (ALF) discussed the
creative commons and stressed that it maintains the copyright of the
contributor. Creative Commons only specifies the terms of sharing the
information and in today’s Internet driven world open access to
information was essential. With a complex legal framework of creative
commons, map policy, biodiversity act, and research interests of
individuals, for sharing biodiversity data we must consider property
versus propriety. The sharing of information on the portal must be seen
from the non-commercial and academic nature of the information as well
as the use of data for social good of conservation. Government data in
the form of maps and reports should be sharable on an artistic license
and they could be deployed on the portal. In the sharing of biodiversity
information, there are no concrete cases of violations of laws and thus
there are no examples to learn from.</p>
<p>Danish Sheikh had prepared a draft of declaration to be discussed and
agreed upon by the community. This was to be circulated to the
participants, comments solicited and a broad consensus evolved on the
best practices for sharing biodiversity information. The discussions
centered on the map policy and the need to carefully study the map
policy and the biodiversity act from a legal perspective and arrive at a
policy for the portal that will conform to the laws and acts in India.</p>
<p><strong>Open data in the scientific realm - Sunil Abraham</strong>, Centre for Internet and Society</p>
<p>Sunil Abraham from the Center for Internet and Society (CIS) spoke on
various national and international initiatives on open data in the
scientific realm. National consultations and discussions have been going
on towards evolving a National Data Sharing and Accessibility Policy
(NDSAP) among scientists and researchers in the country. The principle
of the policy is based on openness, flexibility, transparency, legal
conformity, protection of intellectual property, formal responsibility,
and professionalism. Based on these principles, various definitions have
evolved. He stressed upon a clear articulation of non-sharable data in
the negative list based upon the legal framework and Right to
Information Act; restricted access data and open access data.</p>
<p>Sunil Abraham also discussed various international initiatives on
scientific data sharing especially in the ecology and biodiversity
realm. He spoke of the Eye on Earth initiative for evolving a sharing
policy, the framework of the Shared European Environment Information
System (SEIS) and various standards for data sharing.</p>
<p>Discussions were around the issues of motivations for data sharing
and building social networks and peer encouragement for data sharing. He
opined that there was no recipe for engaging the crowd towards building
and participating on social networks and sharing information.</p>
<p>Sunil also suggested that the community should evolve a best
practices policy document by discussions and debates among themselves.
CIS should be seen as a service provider and advocate for evolving a
shared policy and lobbying with government if necessary. But the
biodiversity community should provide the lead in this effort and the
CIS would only be advisory.</p>
<h3>Plenary III - Biodiversity portals in India - 1400 - 1700 hrs</h3>
<p>The session was moderated by MD Madhusudan of the Nature Conservation
Foundation, Mysore. Over the last few years there has been a multitude
of portals focused on aggregating and publishing biodiversity
information of the Indian sub-continent. Some of these portals are
focused upon a region or taxa or subject of interest and some portals
address a wider canvas of issues on biodiversity and conservation. The
session was focused on presentations by each of the portals, presenting
the key features and focus of their portals; the experience of building
and running the portals; key lessons learnt and future plans for the
portal.</p>
<p>The response for the sessions on biodiversity was enthusiastic. Over
12 portal initiatives were presented. Some of the presentations were by
participants in the United States, who run portals on India. The
presentations and participation was done over WebEx sessions overcoming
the challenge of different time zones.</p>
<p>Madhusudhan moderated the session, keeping focus, and allowing time for discussions and debates.</p>
<p><strong>V.B Mathur</strong>, Indian Biodiversity Information Facility (InBIF)</p>
<p>VB Mathur presented plans for a GBIF node to be set up in India at
the Wildlife Institute of India called Indian Biodiversity Facility
(InBIF). The project is just being initiated and is conceived as a broad
and participative initiative to address the challenges to conservation
in the 21st century India. With a growing economy, the objective is to
provide biodiversity information to build sustainable development for
larger and inclusive populations of India. The InBIF has developed a
vision and mission statement and will produce a concept paper by a
consultative process by next year 2012. InBIF recognizes that such an
inclusive biodiversity portal will require significant funding and the
involvement of already present biodiversity portals. InBIF proposes to
seek substantial funding based on the concept paper via the 12th
Five-Year-Plan period starting 2012-2013.</p>
<p><strong>Suhel Quader</strong>, Season Watch (<a class="external-link" href="http://www.seasonwatch.in/">http://www.seasonwatch.in</a>), Migrant Watch (<a class="external-link" href="http://www.migrantwatch.in/">http://www.migrantwatch.in</a>)</p>
<p>Suhel Quader presented two portals Seasons Watch and Migrant Watch
focused on citizen science initiatives. The Seasons Watch portal is
focused on the observation and recording of seasons as revealed by
trees, by their fruiting, flowering and leaf fall patterns. About 100
species are observed all over the country. Migrant Watch observes the
arrival and departure of migrant bird species across the sub-continent.
Both these large citizen science efforts are focused on the recording
and understanding of seasons to create a base-line of data on seasons
and their variations. These sites are driven by questions and
hypotheses. The sites have an active citizen participation. The portals
are planning to expand significantly into school networks. The data
generated by citizens are freely available on the portals and it
encourages others to download, explore, analyze and publish analysis on
the data accumulated on the portal.</p>
<p>Sanjay Molur, Pterocount (<a class="external-link" href="http://www.pterocount.org/">http://www.pterocount.org/</a>)</p>
<p>Sanjay Molur presented Pterocount a South Asian bat monitoring
program. The project is aimed at creating awareness about bat
conservation issues and developing data on the status of South Asian bat
populations. There are about 3500 species of bats and data on the bat
roosts and their populations is collected through online portals as well
as offline forms. The information from all these sites will be compiled
and analyzed for trends in the population of bats, to identify key
threats to roosts and to provide recommendations for their conservation.
The data collected is contributed to the IUCN and is shared with other
researchers under creative commons licenses. The study is currently
focused on a single bat species Pteropus giganteus, but plans to expand
to other bat species as well.</p>
<p><strong>Suma Tagadur</strong>, Foundation for Revitalisation of Local Health Traditions (<a class="external-link" href="http://envis.frlht.org/">http://envis.frlht.org</a>)</p>
<p>Sathya Sangeetha presented the medicinal plants’ envis site
maintained by the Foundation for Revitalisation of Local Health
Traditions. The site is focused on the development of a database for
medicinal plants with details of taxonomy, local names, status,
distribution and trade. The site undertakes a systematic update for 12
medicinal plants per year. They also study the conservation status of
medicinal plants and help in the identification of a plant red list.
They have plans to develop a children’s portal for increasing awareness
of medicinal plants among children. With a focused agenda, the site has a
specific and valuable role in biodiversity and conservation of India.</p>
<p><strong>Ramesh BR</strong> - Western Ghats Portal (<a class="external-link" href="http://www.thewesternghats.in/">http://www.thewesternghats.in/</a>)</p>
<p>BR Ramesh presented the Western Ghats Portal. This is a relatively
young initiative launched about six months ago building on the India
Biodiversity Portal. The focus of the portal is to collect biodiversity
and conservation information on the Western Ghats, a biodiversity
hotspot. The portal has a map module, a species pages module, a
collaborative module and integrative theme pages. The portal has
aggregated significant available data on the Western Ghats and deployed
it on the portal. The portal plans to add an observation recording
interface and campaign for large scale participation on the portal, and
species identification keys.</p>
<p><strong>Shwetank Verma</strong>, Biodiversity of India, formerly Project Brahma (<a class="external-link" href="http://www.biodiversityofindia.org/">http://www.biodiversityofindia.org</a>)</p>
<p>Shwetank Verma presented the Biodiversity of India Portal. The portal
is developed and managed completely by voluntary effort, and is aimed
at being a wiki resource on the biodiversity of India. The site
aggregates data on Indian biodiversity from various public sites and
presents it attractively on the portal. It has an effective search
engine LigerCat that helps index all information on the portal. It aims
to add and enrich information on the human and cultural aspects of
species and their uses. The portal is keen on networking and sharing
information with other biodiversity sites by building necessary APIs for
interactions between various biodiversity sites.</p>
<p><strong>Krushnamegh Kunte</strong>, ifoundbutterflies (<a class="external-link" href="http://ifoundbutterflies.org/">http://ifoundbutterflies.org/</a>) web participation</p>
<p>Krushnamegh Kunte presented the ifoundbutterfiles portal over a WebEx
session from the United States. ifoundbutterflies is a community site
on the butterflies of India. It contains information on species pages,
life cycle pages, photographs, and identification keys of over 600
species of butterflies in India. All information is carefully peer
review and curated a team of biologists studying and researching
butterflies. The data is assuredly authenticated and verified and will
form a reliable source of butterfly information on India. </p>
<p><strong>Vijay Barve</strong>, DiversityIndia (<a class="external-link" href="http://diversityindia.org/">http://diversityindia.org/</a>) web participation</p>
<p>Vijay Barve presented the DiversityIndia, a social network group over
a WebEx session from the United States. The effort started off as a
yahoo group and then moved to facebook as a more convenient platform to
share information on the biodiversity of India. It plans to aggregate
the information posted in these groups into a site that will maintain
and develop biodiversity databases. The group is open to sharing
information and resources with other portals working on the biodiversity
of India.</p>
<p><strong>Deepak Menon</strong>, India Water Portal (<a class="external-link" href="http://www.indiawaterportal.org/">http://www.indiawaterportal.org/</a>)</p>
<p>Samuel Rajkumar presented the India Water Portal. Their portal is
supported by campaigning for participation and awareness among various
fora on water resources. The features include a question bank and an
interaction with experts on water; a data repository on water; and a
children’s section. The portal is currently working on a data project
aimed at accumulating a large repository of water related data on the
portal for open access. The portal intends on expanding with a map
component and a data visualization module.</p>
<p><strong>Chitra Ravi</strong>, India Biodiversity Portal (<a class="external-link" href="http://indiabiodiversity.org/">http://indiabiodiversity.org/</a>)</p>
<p>Chitra Ravi presented the India Biodiversity Portal. The portal was
started in 2008 after the first phase of portal development. Over the
past year, the portal has been enriched with checklists and species
pages. The portal is closely integrated with the Western Ghats Portal
sharing the platform, its features and the data. A comparison of the
availability of data in EOL showed that for the lesser known flora and
fauna, there is very little information publicly available. The portal
expects to fill this gap, by generating rich species and distribution
content for Indian species.</p>
<p><strong>M.D. Madhusudhan</strong>, Status of Golden Jackals in India</p>
<p>MD Madhusudhan presented a focused and time-based project on the
Golden Jackals on India. The site campaigned and crowd sourced on the
current and historical occurrence of the golden jackal in India. The
enthusiasm for participation was evident with large data collection. The
data was analyzed and made available publicly and freely to whoever
wanted to use the data. There was a need felt for a generic portal to
support such focused time-based crowd sourcing and citizen science
efforts.</p>
<p><strong>K.Sankara Rao</strong>, Centre for Ecological Sciences, IISc</p>
<p>K Sankara Rao, presented the Center for Ecological Sciences’ creation
of a virtual herbarium database from the rich herbarium available at
the Institute. The herbarium is Father Saldhana’s collection on the
flora of Karnataka and has the best representation of plant specimens of
Karnataka. The effort to digitize the herbarium is a passionate project
that will make the herbarium resources to be more widely available.
Sankara Rao requested volunteers to come forward and work on the
project.</p>
<p><strong>Discussions and summary of the day:</strong></p>
<p>The discussions centered on a range of topics and concerns for
Biodiversity Informatics in India. They focused on the following themes:</p>
<p>Large and comprehensive portals versus narrow and focused portals.
While focused portals seem efficient in achieving their objectives,
large portals are trying to explore different mechanisms of harnessing
and disseminating information. While such large and comprehensive
portals are necessary, they will require larger efforts, longer periods
and significant funding to deliver useful content in biodiversity.</p>
<p>Participation and Quality. There were different views on crowd
sourcing information and validation mechanisms. The importance of
expert-driven efforts on ensuring quality was appreciated, while there
was recognition that amateur naturalists and hobbyists could be very
knowledgeable and reliable.</p>
<p>The scientific status of a portal can be enhanced with careful expert
driven peer review mechanism. Portals could also serve as repositories
for data papers publications and citations that would be valued by the
scientific community. Target users for the portal. Discussions on target
users for the portal covered the whole spectrum from specialists and
scientists to activists and concerned citizens. A biodiversity portal
was expected to provide information to a variety of users and
stakeholders, including managers and policy makers.</p>
<p>Data exchange between portals: There was a general consensus on the
interaction and exchange of data among portals. This was heartening to
note, but since all the portals are new and evolving, mechanisms of
exchange and building APIs for exchange was lower in priority for most
portals. However, all portals were open to sharing information. Many of
the citizen science portals have made their data public and
downloadable.</p>
<p>There were discussions on larger projects like the WGP to engage in
technology facilitation for various citizen science projects. This was
discussed and opportunities for such technology facilitation need to be
explored.</p>
<p>Various mechanisms, such as quiz competitions, interaction with
experts, bio-blitzes, campaigns and road shows; to involve and engage
citizens on the portal were discussed. There were open-ended discussions
on how each portal can maintain its identity and focus, but at the same
time evolve mechanisms for interoperability and exchange of
information, and on whether we can network and provide easy tool kits
for building focused participation sites.</p>
<p>Dr. Prabhakar, concluded the event with a thank you note and by
expressing hope that the biodiversity conservation community can build
together on the momentum the workshop has created.</p>
<h2>List of participants present at the Workshop on Biodiversity Informatics, 25th November, 2011, ATREE, Bangalore</h2>
<table class="plain">
<thead>
<tr>
<th>Sr.No</th>
<th>Name</th>
<th>Affiliation</th>
<th>Role</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>1<br /></td>
<td>Abhisheka</td>
<td>Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE)</td>
<td>Audience</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 2</td>
<td>Ajith Ashokan</td>
<td>Mar Athanasios College for Advanced Studies Tiruvalla<br />(MACFAST), Kerala</td>
<td>Audience</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 3</td>
<td>Amruta</td>
<td>Research and Action in Natural Wealth<br />Administration (RANWA)</td>
<td>Audience</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 4</td>
<td>Anand Janakiraman</td>
<td>Western Ghats Portal</td>
<td>Speaker</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 5</td>
<td>Aneesh A</td>
<td>Ashoka Trust for Research<br />in Ecology and the<br />Environment (ATREE)</td>
<td>Audience</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 6</td>
<td>Anup Prasad K S</td>
<td>TCS, Bangalore</td>
<td>Audience</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 7</td>
<td>Anuradha S</td>
<td>University of Maryland,<br />College Park</td>
<td>Audience</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 8</td>
<td>Aravind N A</td>
<td>Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the<br />Environment (ATREE)</td>
<td>Audience</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 9</td>
<td>Asha.A</td>
<td>Centre for Ecological<br />Sciences - Indian Institute of<br />Science (IISc)</td>
<td>Audience</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 10</td>
<td>Ashwini H S</td>
<td>Kuvempu University</td>
<td>Audience</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 11</td>
<td>Avinash K S</td>
<td>Kuvempu University</td>
<td>Audience</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 12</td>
<td>Baiju Raj</td>
<td>Agra bear rescue facility</td>
<td>Audience</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 13</td>
<td>Balasubramanian D</td>
<td>French Institute of Pondicherry</td>
<td>Audience</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 14</td>
<td>Baranidharan.K</td>
<td>Forest College and<br />Research Institute</td>
<td>Audience</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 15</td>
<td>Chitra Ravi</td>
<td>Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the<br />Environment (ATREE)</td>
<td>Panelist</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 16</td>
<td>Danish Sheikh</td>
<td>Alternate Law Forum</td>
<td>Speaker</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 17</td>
<td>Deepak Menon<br /></td>
<td>ARGHYAM<br /></td>
<td>Panelist</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 18</td>
<td>Devayani Khare</td>
<td>French Institute of Pondicherry</td>
<td>Audience</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 19</td>
<td>Dharnidharan</td>
<td>French Institute of Pondicherry</td>
<td>Audience</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 20</td>
<td>Dinesh T B</td>
<td>Servelots Infotech Pvt. ltd</td>
<td>Audience</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 21</td>
<td>Dr. B R Ramesh</td>
<td>French Institute of Pondicherry</td>
<td>Panelist</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 22</td>
<td>Dr. Bhaskar Acharya</td>
<td>Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE)</td>
<td>Audience</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 23</td>
<td>Dr. Chikkaswamy</td>
<td>Om Bioscience Research</td>
<td>Audience</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 24</td>
<td>Dr. Easa</td>
<td>Asia Biodiversity Conservation Trust (ABCT)</td>
<td>Audience</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 25</td>
<td>Dr. Gautam Talukdar</td>
<td>Wildlife Institute of India</td>
<td>Audience</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 26</td>
<td>Dr. Gladwin Joseph</td>
<td>Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE)</td>
<td>Audience</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 27</td>
<td>Dr. Jagdish Krishnaswamy</td>
<td>Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE)</td>
<td>Audience</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 28</td>
<td>Dr. K N Ganeshaiah</td>
<td>University of Agricultural Sciences, Bangalore</td>
<td>Panelist<br /></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 29</td>
<td>Dr. Karthikeyan Vasudevan</td>
<td>Wildlife Institute of India</td>
<td>Audience</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 30</td>
<td>Dr. L Shashikumar</td>
<td>Jnana Bharathi, Bangalore University</td>
<td>Audience</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 31</td>
<td>Dr. M H Swaminath</td>
<td>Addl. Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (Wildife)</td>
<td>Audience</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 32</td>
<td>Dr. M Sanjappa</td>
<td>Botanical Survey of India(BSI)</td>
<td>Audience</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 33</td>
<td>Dr. N S Hallikhed</td>
<td>BISB</td>
<td>Audience</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 34</td>
<td>Dr. R Sukumar</td>
<td>Centre for Ecological Sciences (CES), IISc</td>
<td>Audience</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 35</td>
<td>Dr. Ravi Chellam</td>
<td>Madras Crocodile Bank Trust</td>
<td>Speaker</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 36</td>
<td>Dr. V B Mathur</td>
<td>Wildlife Institute of India</td>
<td>Panelist</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 37</td>
<td>G Areendran</td>
<td>Wildlife Institute of India</td>
<td>Audience</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 38</td>
<td>G Muthu Sankar</td>
<td>French Institute of Pondicherry</td>
<td>Audience</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 39</td>
<td>Harinandanan P V</td>
<td>Mar Athanasios College for Advanced Studies Tiruvalla (MACFAST), Kerala</td>
<td>Audience</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 40</td>
<td>Jagadish</td>
<td>Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE)</td>
<td>Audience</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 41</td>
<td> Jyotish M S</td>
<td>Mar Athanasios College for Advanced Studies Tiruvalla (MACFAST), Kerala</td>
<td> Audience</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 42</td>
<td> Kavitha A</td>
<td>Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE)</td>
<td> Audience</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 43</td>
<td> Kiran M C</td>
<td>Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE)</td>
<td> Audience</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 44</td>
<td> Krushnamegh Kunte</td>
<td> Harvard University</td>
<td>Panelist <br /></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 45</td>
<td> M Arulraj</td>
<td>National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC), Hyderabad</td>
<td> Speaker</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 46</td>
<td> M D Madhusudan</td>
<td> Nature Conservation Foundation</td>
<td> Audience</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 47</td>
<td> M Sathya Sangeetha</td>
<td>Foundation for Revitalisation of Local Health Traditions</td>
<td> Audience</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 48</td>
<td> Madhura Niphadkar</td>
<td>Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE)</td>
<td> Audience</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 49</td>
<td> Meganath V</td>
<td>Mar Athanasios College for Advanced Studies Tiruvalla (MACFAST), Kerala</td>
<td> Audience</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 50</td>
<td> Naveena N L</td>
<td>University of Agricultural Sciences, GKVK, Bangalore</td>
<td> Audience</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 51</td>
<td> Nishadh</td>
<td>Salim Ali Centre for Ornithology and Natural History</td>
<td> Audience</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 52</td>
<td> Prashanth M B</td>
<td>Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE)</td>
<td> Audience</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 53</td>
<td> Priti Gururaj</td>
<td> Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE)</td>
<td> Audience</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 54</td>
<td> Prof. K Sankara Rao</td>
<td>Centre for Ecological Sciences - Indian Institute of Science (IISc)</td>
<td> Audience</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 55</td>
<td> R C Prasad</td>
<td> Spatial Informatics Lab, IIITHyderabad</td>
<td> Audience</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 56</td>
<td> Radhika Santhanam</td>
<td> Śramani</td>
<td> Audience</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 57</td>
<td> Rahul Yadava</td>
<td>Strand Life Sciences<br /></td>
<td> Audience</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 58</td>
<td> Rajan Pilakandy</td>
<td> Salim Ali Centre for Ornithology and Natural History</td>
<td> Audience</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>59</td>
<td> Rakesh K N</td>
<td>Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE)</td>
<td> Audience</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 60</td>
<td> Ramesh Kannan</td>
<td>Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE)</td>
<td> Audience</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 61</td>
<td> Ravikanth</td>
<td>Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE)</td>
<td> Audience</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 62</td>
<td> Sabah Rubina</td>
<td>Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE)</td>
<td> Audience</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 63</td>
<td> Samuel Rajkumar</td>
<td> Independent web-developer</td>
<td> Audience</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 64</td>
<td> Sangeetha Sathya</td>
<td> FRLTH-IAIM</td>
<td> Audience</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 65</td>
<td> Santosh S Gaikwad</td>
<td>Salim Ali Centre for Ornithology and Natural History</td>
<td> Audience</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 66</td>
<td> Seena Narayanan K</td>
<td>Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE)</td>
<td> Audience</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 67</td>
<td>Senthilkumar Umapathy</td>
<td> Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE)</td>
<td> Audience</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 68</td>
<td> Shashank P R</td>
<td> University of Agricultural Sciences, GKVK, Bangalore</td>
<td> Audience</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 69</td>
<td> Shrinivas K R</td>
<td> Kuvempu University</td>
<td> Audience</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 70</td>
<td> Shwetank Verma</td>
<td> Indian Institute of Science (IISc)</td>
<td> Panelist</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 71</td>
<td> Sivarajan</td>
<td> French Institute of Pondicherry</td>
<td> Audience</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 72</td>
<td> Sreerupa Sen</td>
<td>Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE)</td>
<td> Audience</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 73</td>
<td> Suhel Quader</td>
<td> National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS)</td>
<td> </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 74</td>
<td> Suma Tagadur</td>
<td> Foundation for Revitalisation of Local Health Traditions</td>
<td> Panelist</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 75</td>
<td> Sunil Abraham</td>
<td> Centre for Internet and Society</td>
<td> Speaker</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 76</td>
<td> Supriya K S</td>
<td>National Center for Biological Sciences</td>
<td> Audience</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 77</td>
<td> T Bala</td>
<td> Keystone Foundation - Flora of Nilgiri</td>
<td> Audience</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 78</td>
<td> Veeranagappa P</td>
<td>University of Agricultural Sciences, GKVK, Bangalore</td>
<td> Audience</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 79</td>
<td> Vidyadhar Atkore</td>
<td>Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE)</td>
<td>Audience <br /></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> 80</td>
<td> Vijay Barve</td>
<td> Diversity India</td>
<td> Panelist</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
Also see <a href="https://cis-india.org/news/bio-diversity-informatics-workshop" class="external-link">Western Ghats Portal: Workshop on Biodiversity Informatics </a>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/openness/summary-of-the-minutes-of-the-workshop-on-biodiversity-informatics'>https://cis-india.org/openness/summary-of-the-minutes-of-the-workshop-on-biodiversity-informatics</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaOpen DataOpenness2012-01-30T16:24:40ZBlog EntrySubmitted Comments on the Telangana State Open Data Policy 2016
https://cis-india.org/openness/comments-on-the-telangana-state-open-data-policy-2016
<b>Last month, the Information Technology, Electronics & Communications Department of the Government of Telangana released the first public draft of the Telangana State Open Data Policy 2016, and sought comments from various stakeholders in the state and outside. The draft policy not only aims to facilitate and provide a framework for proactive disclosure of data created by the state government agencies, but also identify the need for integrating such a mandate within the information systems operated by these agencies as well. CIS is grateful to be invited to submit its detailed comments on the same. The submission was drafted by Anubha Sinha and Sumandro Chattapadhyay.</b>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Download the submitted document: <a href="http://cis-india.org/openness/files/cis-telangana-state-open-data-policy-v-1-submission/at_download/file">PDF</a>.</strong></p>
<hr />
<h3><strong>1. Preliminary</strong></h3>
<p><strong>1.1.</strong> This submission presents comments and recommendations by the Centre for Internet and Society (“CIS”) <strong>[1]</strong> on the proposed draft of the Telangana Open Data Policy 2016 (“the draft policy”). This submission is based on Version 1 of the draft policy shared by the Information Technology, Electronics & Communications Department, Government of Telangana (“the ITE&C Department”).</p>
<p><strong>1.2.</strong> CIS commends the ITE&C Department for its generous efforts at seeking inputs from various stakeholders to draft an open data policy for the state of Telangana. CIS is thankful for this opportunity to provide a clause-by-clause submission.</p>
<h3><strong>2. The Centre for Internet and Society</strong></h3>
<p><strong>2.1.</strong> 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 reconfiguration of social processes and structures through the internet and digital media technologies, and vice versa.</p>
<p>2.2. This submission is consistent with CIS’ commitment to safeguarding general public interest, and the interests and rights of various stakeholders involved. The comments in this submission aim to further the principle of citizens’ right to information, instituting openness-by-default in governmental activities, and to realise the various kinds of public goods that can emerge from greater availability of open (government) data. The submission is limited to those clauses that most directly have an impact on these principles.</p>
<h3><strong>3. Comments and Recommendations</strong></h3>
<p><em>This section presents comments and recommendations directed at the draft policy as a whole, and in certain places, directed at specific clauses of the draft policy.</em></p>
<h3>3.1. Defining the Scope of the Policy in the Preamble</h3>
<p><strong>3.1.1.</strong> CIS observes and appreciates that the ITE&C Department has identified the open data policy as a catalyst for, and as dependent upon, a larger transformation of the information systems implemented in the state, to specifically ensure that these information systems.</p>
<p><strong>3.1.2.</strong> CIS commends the endeavour of the draft policy to share data in open and machine-readable standards. To further this, it will be useful for the preamble to explicitly mandate proactive disclosure in both human-readable and machine-readable formats, using open standards, and under open license(s).</p>
<p><strong>3.1.3.</strong> CIS recommends that the draft policy state the scope of the policy at the outset, i.e. in the Preamble section of the document. This will provide greater clarity to the stakeholders who are trying to ascertain applicability of the draft policy to their data.</p>
<p><strong>3.1.4.</strong> CIS commends the crucial mandate of creating data inventory within every state government ministry / department. We further recommend that the draft policy also expressly states the need to make these inventories publicly accessible.</p>
<p><strong>3.1.5.</strong> CIS commends the draft policy’s aim to build a process to engage with data users for better outcomes. We suggest that the draft policy also enumerates the “outcomes” of such engagement, in order to provide more clarity. We recommend that these “outcomes” include greater public supply of open government data in an effective, well-documented, timely, and responsible manner.</p>
<p><strong>3.1.6.</strong> Further, CIS suggests that the draft policy define “information centric and customer centric data” to provide more clarity to the document, as well as its scope and objectives.</p>
<h3>3.2. Provide Legal and Policy References</h3>
<p><strong>3.2.1.</strong> Strengthening transparency, predictability, and legal certainty of rules benefits all stakeholders. Thus, as far as possible, terms in the draft policy should use pre-existing legal definitions. In case of ambiguities arising after the implementation of the policy, consistency in definitions will also lead to greater interpretive certainty. It must be noted that good quality public policies which promote legal certainty, lead to better implementation.</p>
<p><strong>3.2.2.</strong> CIS observes that the draft policy re-defines various terms in Section 4 that have already been defined in National Data Sharing and Accessibility Policy (“NDSAP”) 2012 <strong>[2]</strong>, the Right to Information 2005 (“RTI Act”) <strong>[3]</strong>, and IT (Reasonable security practices and procedures and sensitive personal data or information) Rules 2011 <strong>[4]</strong>. We strongly recommend that the draft policy uses the pre-existing definitions in these acts, rules, and policies.</p>
<p><strong>3.2.3.</strong> Further, CIS observes that while certain sections accurately reflect definitions and parts from other acts, rules and policies, such sections are not referenced back to the latter. These sections include, but are not limited to: Sections 3, 7, 8, 4 (definitions of Data set, Data Archive, Negative list, Sensitive Personal data). We strongly recommend that accurate legal references be added to the draft policy after careful study of the language used.</p>
<h3>3.3. Need for More Focused Objective Statement</h3>
<p><strong>3.3.1.</strong> While the draft policy has a very comprehensive statement of its objectives, including "<em>all issues related to data in terms of the available scope of sharing and accessing spatial and non-spatial data under broad frameworks of standards and interoperability</em>," it may consider offering a more focused statement of its key objective, which is to provide a policy framework for proactive disclosure of government data by the various agencies of the Government of Telangana.</p>
<p><strong>3.3.2.</strong> Further, the objective statement must clearly state that the policy enables publication of data created by the agencies of the Government of Telangana, and/or by private agencies working in partnership with public agencies, using public funds as open data (that is, using open standards, and under open license). The present version of the objective statement mentions "<em>sharing</em>" and "<em>accessing</em>" the data concerned under "<em>broad frameworks of standards and interoperability</em>" but does not make it clear if such shared data will be available in open standards, under open licenses, and for royalty-free adaptation and redistribution by the users concerned.</p>
<h3>3.4. Suggestions related to the Definitions</h3>
<p><strong>3.4.1.</strong> The term “Data” has not been defined in accordance with NDSAP 2012. We suggest that the definition provided in NDSAP is followed so as to ensure legal compatibility.</p>
<p><strong>3.4.2.</strong> The term “Sensitive Personal Data” seems to have been defined on the basis of the definition provided in the IT (Reasonable security practices and procedures and sensitive personal data or information) Rules 2011. Please add direct reference so as to make this clear. We further suggest that the term “Personal Information”, also defined in the same IT Rules, is also included and referred to in the draft policy, so that not only Sensitive Personal Data is barred from disclosure under this policy, but also Personal Information (that is "<em>any information that relates to a natural person, which, either directly or indirectly, in combination with other information available or likely to be available with a body corporate, is capable of identifying such person</em>") <strong>[5]</strong>.</p>
<p><strong>3.4.3.</strong> The term “Negative List” is defined in a manner that allows the state government ministries and agencies to identify which data are to be considered as non-shareable without any reference to an existing policy framework that list acceptable grounds for such identification. The term must be defined more restrictively, as this definition can allow an agency to avoid disclosure of data that may not be legally justifiable as non-shareable or sensitive. Thus, we recommend a more limited definition which may draw upon the RTI Act 2005, and specifically consider the factors mentioned in Sections 8 and 9 of the Act as the (only) set of acceptable reasons for non-disclosure of government data.</p>
<p><strong>3.4.4.</strong> The terms “Shareable Data” and “Sensitive Data” are used in several places in the draft policy but are not defined in Section 4. Both these terms are defined in NDSAP 2012. We suggest that both these terms be listed in Section 4, in accordance with the respective definitions provided in NDSAP 2012.</p>
<p><strong>3.4.5.</strong> The terms “Data Archive”, “Data Acquisition”, “Raw Data”, “Standards-Compliant Applications”, and “Unique Data” are defined in Section 4, but none of these terms appear elsewhere in the draft policy. We suggest that these terms are either better integrated into the document, or may not be defined at all.</p>
<h3>3.5. Rename Section 6 to Focus on Implementation of the Policy</h3>
<p><strong>3.5.1.</strong> Though the Section 6 is named as “Shareable Data”, it instead categorically lists down how the policy is to be implemented. This is a very welcome step, but the Section title should reflect this purpose of the Section.</p>
<p><strong>3.5.2.</strong> The decision proposed in the draft policy to make it mandatory for "<em>each funding organization</em>" to "<em>highlight data sharing policy as preamble in its RFPs as well as Project proposal formats</em>" is much appreciated and commendable. For a clearer and wider applicability of this measure, we recommend that this responsibility should apply to all state government agencies, including agencies where the state government enjoys significant stake, and all public-private partnerships entered into by the state government agencies, and not only to "<em>funding organizations</em>" (a term that has also not been defined in the draft policy).</p>
<p><strong>3.5.3.</strong> While the Section details out various measures and steps of implementation of the policy, it does not clarify which agency and/or committee would have the authority and responsibility to coordinate, monitor, facilitate, and ensure these measures and steps. Not only governmental representatives but also non-governmental representatives may be considered for such a committee.</p>
<h3>3.6. Host All Open Government Data in the State Portal</h3>
<p><strong>3.6.1.</strong> We observe that the Section 6 indicates that , the designated domain for the open government data portal for the state of Telangana, will only store metadata related to the proactive disclosed data sets but not the data sets themselves. This is further clarified in Section 10. We strongly urge the ITE&C Department to reconsider this decision to not to store the actual open data sets in the state open government data portal itself but in the departmental portals. A central archive of the open data assets, hosted by the state open government data portal, will allow for more effective and streamlined management of the open data assets concerned, including their systematic backing-up, better security and integrity, permanent and unique disclosure, and rule-driven updation. This would also reduce the burden upon all the government agencies, especially those that do not have a substantial IT team, to run independent department-specific open data portals.</p>
<h3>3.7. Reconsider the Section on Data Classification</h3>
<p><strong>3.7.1.</strong> While it is clear that the Section 7 on Data Classification follows the classification of various data sets created, managed, and/or hosted by government agencies offered in the NDSAP 2012, it is not very clear what role this classification plays in functioning and implementation of the draft policy. While Open Access and Registered Access data may both be considered as open government data that is to be proactively disclosed by the state government agencies via the state open government data portal, the Restricted Access data overlaps with the kinds of data already included in the Negative List defined in the draft policy (and elsewhere, like the RTI Act 2005). Further, the final sentence in this Section ensures that all data users provide appropriate attribution of the source(s) of the data set concerned, which (though is an important statement) should not be part of this Section on Data Classification. We suggest reconsideration of inclusion of this Section.</p>
<h3>3.8. Reconsider the Section on Technology for Sharing and Access</h3>
<p><strong>3.8.1.</strong> While it is clear that the Section 8 on Technology for Sharing and Access is adapted from the Section 9 of the NDSAP 2012, the text in this Section seems to be not fully compatible with other statements in this draft policy. For example, the Section states that "<em>[t]his integrated repository will hold data of current and historical nature and this repository over a period of time will also encompass data generated by various State Government departments</em>." However, the draft policy states in Section 10 that "<em>data.telangana.gov.in will only have the metadata and data itself will be accessed from the portals of the departments</em>."</p>
<p><strong>3.8.2.</strong> We strongly urge the ITE&C Department to revise this Section through close discussion with the NDSAP Project Management Unit, National Informatics Centre, which is the technical team responsible for developing and managing the portal, since the present version of this Section lists the original feature set of the portal as envisioned in 2012 but does not reflect the most recent feature set that has been already implemented in the portal concerned.</p>
<h3>3.9. Current Legal Framework (Section 9) should List to Relevant Acts, Rules, Policies, and Guidelines</h3>
<p><strong>3.9.1.</strong> CIS observes that the draft policy attempts to lay out the applicable legal framework in Section 2 and 9 of the draft policy, and submits that the legal framework is incomplete and recommends that the draft policy lists all the following relevant acts, rules, policies and guidelines:</p>
<ol type="A">
<li>National Data Sharing and Accessibility Policy, 2012<br /><br /></li>
<li>Right to Information Act, 2005<br /><br /></li>
<li>Information Technology Act, 2002<br /><br /></li>
<li>Information Technology (Reasonable security practices and procedures and sensitive personal data or information) Rules, 2011.<br /></li></ol>
<p><strong>3.9.2.</strong> CIS submits that apart from the policies mentioned above, the implementation of the draft policy is intricately linked to concepts of "open standards," "open source software," "open API," and "right to information." These concepts are governed by specific acts and policies, and are applicable to government owned data, as follows:</p>
<ol type="A">
<li><strong>Adoption of Open Standards:</strong> CIS observes that the draft policy draws on the importance of building information systems for interoperability and greater information accessibility. Interoperability is achieved by appropriate implementation of open standards. Thus, CIS submits that the Policy on Open Standards for e-Governance <strong>[6]</strong> which establishes the guidelines for usage of open standards to ensure seamless interoperability, and the Implementation Guidelines of the National Data Sharing and Accessibility Policy, 2012 <strong>[7]</strong> should be mentioned in the draft policy.<br /><br /></li>
<li><strong>Adoption of Open Source Software:</strong> The Policy on Adoption of Open Source Software for Government of India states that the "<em>Government of India shall endeavour to adopt Open Source Software in all e-Governance systems implemented by various Government organizations, as a preferred option in comparison to Closed Source Software</em> <strong>[8]</strong>." As the draft policy proposed to guide the development of information systems to share open data is being developed and implemented both by the Government of Telangana and by other agencies (academic, commercial, and otherwise), it must include an explicit reference and embracing of this mandate for adoption of Open Source Software, for reasons of reducing expenses, avoiding vendor lock-ins, re-usability of software components, enabling public accountability, and greater security of software systems.<br /><br /></li>
<li><strong>Implementation of Open APIs:</strong> CIS observes that the draft policy refers to Standard compliant applications in Section 4. CIS suggests that final version of the policy refer to and operationalise the Policy on Open Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) for Government of India <strong>[9]</strong>. This will ensure that the openly available data is available to the public, as well as to all the government agencies, in a structured digital format that is easy to consume and use on one hand, and is available for various forms of value addition and innovation on the other. Refer to Official Secrets Act, 1923: The Official Secrets Act penalises a person if he/she "<em>obtains, collects, records or publishes or communicates to other person any secret official code or password, or any sketch, plan, model, article or note or other document or information which is calculated to be or might be or is intended to be, directly or indirectly, useful to an enemy for which relates to a matter the disclosure of which is likely to affect the sovereignty and integrity of India, the security of the State or friendly relations with foreign States</em> <strong>[10]</strong>." CIS submits that this Act should be referred to in this context of ensuring non-publication of the aforementioned data.<br /></li></ol>
<h3>3.10. Mandate a Participatory Process for Developing the Implementation Guidelines</h3>
<p><strong>3.10.1.</strong> We highly appreciate and welcome the fact that the draft policy emphasises rapid operationalisation of the policy by mandating that the ITE&C Department will prepare a detailed implementation guideline within 6 months of the notification of this policy, and all state government departments will publish at least 5 high value datasets within the next three months. Just as an addition to this mandate, we would like to propose that it can be suggested that the ITE&C Department undertakes a participatory process, with contributions from both government agencies and non-government actors, to develop this implementation guideline document. We believe that opening up government data in an effective and sustainable manner, for most government agencies, involves a systematic change in how the agency undertakes day-to-day data management practices. Hence, to develop productive and practical implementation guidelines, the ITE&C Department needs to gather insights from the other state government agencies regarding their existing data (and metadata) management practices <strong>[11]</strong>. Further, participation of the non-government actors in this process is crucial to ensure that the implementation guidelines appropriately identify the high value data sets, that is data sets that should be published on a priority basis.</p>
<h3>3.11. Defer the Decision about Roles of Data Owners, Generators, and Controllers</h3>
<p><strong>3.11.1.</strong> As the draft policy does not specifically define the terms “Data Owners”, “Data Generators”, and “Data Controllers”, and the Section 11 only briefly describes some of the roles of these types of actors, we suggest removal of this discussion and the decision regarding the specific roles and functions of the Data Owners / Generators / Controllers from the draft policy itself. It will be perhaps more appropriate and effective to define these terms, as well as their roles and functions, in the implementation guidelines to be prepared by the ITE&C Department after the notification of the open data policy, since these terms relate directly to the final designing of the implementation process.</p>
<p><strong>3.12.</strong> CIS is grateful to the ITE&C Department for this opportunity to provide comments, and would be honoured to provide further assistance on the matter.</p>
<h3><strong>Endnotes</strong></h3>
<p><strong>[1]</strong> See: <a href="http://cis-india.org/" target="_blank">http://cis-india.org/</a>.</p>
<p><strong>[2]</strong> See: <a href="http://data.gov.in/sites/default/files/NDSAP.pdf" target="_blank">http://data.gov.in/sites/default/files/NDSAP.pdf</a>.</p>
<p><strong>[3]</strong> See: <a href="http://rti.gov.in/webactrti.htm" target="_blank">http://rti.gov.in/webactrti.htm</a>.</p>
<p><strong>[4]</strong> See: <a href="http://meity.gov.in/sites/upload_files/dit/files/GSR313E_10511(1).pdf" target="_blank">http://meity.gov.in/sites/upload_files/dit/files/GSR313E_10511(1).pdf</a>.</p>
<p><strong>[5]</strong> See Section 2 (1) (i) of IT (Reasonable security practices and procedures and sensitive personal data or information) Rules 2011.</p>
<p><strong>[6]</strong> See: <a href="https://egovstandards.gov.in/sites/default/files/Published%20Documents/Policy_on_Open_Standards_for_e-Governance.pdf" target="_blank">https://egovstandards.gov.in/sites/default/files/Published%20Documents/Policy_on_Open_Standards_for_e-Governance.pdf</a>.</p>
<p><strong>[7]</strong> See: <a href="https://data.gov.in/sites/default/files/NDSAP_Implementation_Guidelines_2.2.pdf" target="_blank">https://data.gov.in/sites/default/files/NDSAP_Implementation_Guidelines_2.2.pdf</a>.</p>
<p><strong>[8]</strong> See: <a href="http://deity.gov.in/sites/upload_files/dit/files/policy_on_adoption_of_oss.pdf" target="_blank">http://deity.gov.in/sites/upload_files/dit/files/policy_on_adoption_of_oss.pdf</a>.</p>
<p><strong>[9]</strong> See: <a href="http://deity.gov.in/sites/upload_files/dit/files/Open_APIs_19May2015.pdf" target="_blank">http://deity.gov.in/sites/upload_files/dit/files/Open_APIs_19May2015.pdf</a>.</p>
<p><strong>[10]</strong> See: <a href="http://www.archive.india.gov.in/allimpfrms/allacts/3314.pdf" target="_blank">http://www.archive.india.gov.in/allimpfrms/allacts/3314.pdf</a>, Sections 2 (2) and 3 (1) (c).</p>
<p><strong>[11]</strong> A similar process was undertaken by the IT Department of the Government of Sikkim when developing the implementation guideline document. The ITE&C Department may consider discussing the matter with the said department to exchange relevant learnings.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/openness/comments-on-the-telangana-state-open-data-policy-2016'>https://cis-india.org/openness/comments-on-the-telangana-state-open-data-policy-2016</a>
</p>
No publishersumandroOpen DataOpen Government DataFeaturedPoliciesOpennessHomepage2016-09-01T05:49:51ZBlog EntrySubmitted Comments on the 'Government Open Data Use License - India'
https://cis-india.org/openness/submitted-comments-on-the-government-open-data-use-license-india
<b>The public consultation process of the draft open data license to be used by Government of India has ended yesterday. Here we share the text of the submission by CIS. It was drafted by Anubha Sinha, Pranesh Prakash, and Sumandro Chattapadhyay.</b>
<p> </p>
<p><em>The following comments on the 'Government Open Data Use License - India' was drafted by Anubha Sinha, Pranesh Prakash, and Sumandro Chattapadhyay, and submitted through the <a href="https://www.mygov.in/group-issue/public-consultation-government-open-data-use-license-india/">MyGov portal</a> on July 25, 2016. The original submission can be found <a href="https://www.mygov.in/sites/default/files/mygov_146946521043358971.pdfh">here</a>.</em></p>
<hr />
<h2>I. Preliminary</h2>
<ol>
<li>This submission presents comments by the Centre for Internet and Society (“<strong>CIS</strong>”) <strong>[1]</strong> on the draft Government Open Data Use License - India (“<strong>the draft licence</strong>”) <strong>[2]</strong> by the Department of Legal Affairs.<br /><br /></li>
<li>This submission is based on the draft licence released on the MyGov portal on June 27, 2016 <strong>[3]</strong>.<br /><br /></li>
<li>CIS commends the Department of Ministry of Law and Justice, Government of India for its efforts at seeking inputs from various stakeholders prior to finalising its open data licence. CIS is thankful for the opportunity to have been a part of the discussion during the framing of the licence; and to provide this submission, in furtherance of the feedback process continuing from the draft licence.</li></ol>
<h2>II. Overview</h2>
<ol start="4">
<li>The Centre for Internet and Society is a non-governmental organisation engaged in research and policy work in the areas of, inter alia, access to knowledge and openness. This clause-by-clause submission is consistent with CIS’ commitment to safeguarding general public interest, and the interests and rights of various stakeholders involved. Accordingly, the comments in this submission aim to further these principles and are limited to those clauses that most directly have an impact on them.</li></ol>
<h2>III. Comments and Recommendations</h2>
<ol start="5">
<li><strong>Name of the Licence:</strong> CIS recommends naming the licence “Open Data Licence - India” to reflect the nomenclature already established for similar licences in other nations like the UK and Canada. More importantly, the inclusion of the word ‘use’ in the original name “Government Open Data Use License” is misleading, since the licence permits use, sharing, modification and redistribution of open data.<br /><br /></li>
<li><strong>Change Language on Permissible Use of Data:</strong> The draft licence uses the terms “Access, use, adapt, and redistribute,” which are used in UNESCO’s definition of open educational resources, whereas, under the Indian Copyright Act <strong>[4]</strong>, it should cover “reproduction, issuing of copies,” etc. To resolve this difference, we suggest the following language be used: “Subject to the provisions of section 7, all users are provided a worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive licence to all rights covered by copyright and allied rights, for the duration of existence of such copyright and allied rights over the data or information.”<br /><br /></li>
<li><strong>Add Section on the Scope of Applicability of the Licence:</strong> It will be useful to inform the user of the licence on its applicability. The section may be drafted as: “This licence is meant for public use, and especially by all Ministries, Departments, Organizations, Agencies, and autonomous bodies of Government of India, when publicly disclosing, either proactively or reactively, data and information created, generated, collected, and managed using public funds provided by Government of India directly or through authorized agencies.”<br /><br /></li>
<li><strong>Add Sub-Clause Specifying that the Licence is Agnostic of Mode of Access:</strong> As part of the section 4 of the draft licence, titled ‘Terms and Conditions of Use of Data,’ a sub-clause should be added that specifies that users may enjoy all the freedom granted under this licence irrespective of their preferred mode of access of the data concerned, say manually downloaded from the website, automatically accessed via an API, collected from a third party involved in re-sharing of this data, accessed in physical/printed form, etc.<br /><br /></li>
<li><strong>Add Sub-Clause on Non-Repudiability and Integrity of the Published Data:</strong> To complement the sub-clause 6.e. that notes that data published under this licence should be published permanently and with appropriate versioning (in case of the published data being updated and/or modified), another sub-clause should be added that states that non-repudiability and integrity of published data must be ensured through application of real/digital signature, as applicable, and checksum, as applicable. This is to ensure that an user who has obtained the data, either in physical or digital form, can effectively identify and verify the the agency that has published the data, and if any parts of the data have been lost/modified in the process of distribution and/or transmission (through technological corruption of data, or otherwise).<br /><br /></li>
<li><strong>Combine Section 6 on Exemptions and Section 7 on Termination:</strong> Given that the licence cannot reasonably proscribe access to data that has already been published online, it is suggested that it would be better to simply terminate the application of the licence to that data or information that ought not to have been published for grounds provided under section 8 of the RTI Act, or have been inadvertently published. It should also be noted that section 8 of the RTI Act cannot be “violated” (as stated in Section 6.g. of the draft licence), since it only provides permission for the public authority to withhold information, and does not impose an obligation on them (or anyone else) to do so. The combined clause can read: “Upon determination by the data provider that specific data or information should not have been publicly disclosed for the grounds provided under Section 8 of the Right to Information Act, 2005, the data provider may terminate the applicability of the licence for that data or information, and this termination will have the effect of revocation of all rights provided under Section 3 of this licence.”<br /><br /></li>
<li>It will be our pleasure to discuss these submissions with the Department of Legal Affairs in greater detail, supplement these with further submissions if necessary, and offer any other assistance towards the efforts at developing a national open data licence.</li></ol>
<hr />
<p><strong>[1]</strong> See: <a href="http://cis-india.org/">http://cis-india.org/</a>.</p>
<p><strong>[2]</strong> See: <a href="https://www.mygov.in/sites/default/files/mygov_1466767582190667.pdf">https://www.mygov.in/sites/default/files/mygov_1466767582190667.pdf</a>.</p>
<p><strong>[3]</strong> See: <a href="https://www.mygov.in/group-issue/public-consultation-government-open-data-use-license-india/">https://www.mygov.in/group-issue/public-consultation-government-open-data-use-license-india/</a>.</p>
<p><strong>[4]</strong> See: <a href="http://www.copyright.gov.in/Documents/CopyrightRules1957.pdf">http://www.copyright.gov.in/Documents/CopyrightRules1957.pdf</a>.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/openness/submitted-comments-on-the-government-open-data-use-license-india'>https://cis-india.org/openness/submitted-comments-on-the-government-open-data-use-license-india</a>
</p>
No publishersinhaOpen Government DataOpen LicenseOpen DataNDSAPFeaturedOpennessHomepage2016-07-26T09:23:48ZBlog EntrySubhashish Panigrahi joins Open GLAM Working Group
https://cis-india.org/news/open-glam-working-group-members-subhashish-panigrahi
<b>Subhashish recently joined the OpenGLAM Working Group (a global network of people who work to open up cultural data and content.) as a member and OpenGLAM Local (a local affiliate of OKFN's OpenGLAM project) as an ambassador for India. Both the positions will be voluntary. </b>
<h2>OpenGLAM Working Group</h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The OpenGLAM Working Group is a global network of people who work to open up cultural data and content. We run workshops and provide documentation for cultural institutions wanting to open up their data as well as organise events bringing together groups that are committed to building an open cultural commons. The Working Group Members act as a bridge between different organisations and initiatives, and the global network. We meet every month virtually to discuss relevant updates, pressing issues, and next steps to be taken. If you are interested in joining, please get in touch with <a href="mailto:openglam.org">openglam@okfn.org</a>.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Read the full details <a class="external-link" href="http://openglam.org/working-group/">on this page</a>.</p>
<h2 style="text-align: justify; ">Open GLAM Local</h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">OpenGLAM has established several local groups as well as <a class="external-link" href="http://openglam.org/local/">OpenGLAM ambassadors</a> to serve as the local point of contact in their area. They are closely connected to the Local Groups of the Open Knowledge Foundation and work on open culture in these local groups. Subhashish Panigrahi is the local contact in India.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/news/open-glam-working-group-members-subhashish-panigrahi'>https://cis-india.org/news/open-glam-working-group-members-subhashish-panigrahi</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaOpennessWikipediaAccess to KnowledgeWikimedia2014-05-27T09:40:40ZNews ItemStress on posting articles on Kannada Wikipedia
https://cis-india.org/news/hindu-r-krishna-kumar-august-2-2013-stress-on-posting-articles-on-kannada-wikipedia
<b>A workshop to be held on CPDPS premises on August 6.</b>
<hr />
<p class="body" style="text-align: justify; ">This <a class="external-link" href="http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-karnataka/stress-on-posting-articles-on-kannada-wikipedia/article4980552.ece">article by R Krishna Kumar was published in the Hindu on August 2, 2013</a>. Dr. U.B. Pavanaja is quoted.</p>
<hr />
<p class="body" style="text-align: justify; ">For those with knowledge of Kannada and basic computer skills, here is an opportunity for posting articles in Kannada on the collaborative and free Wikipedia and facilitate the growth of Kannada online.</p>
<p class="body" style="text-align: justify; ">To help interested people learn the process of posting their articles on Wikipedia, the Centre for Proficiency Development Placement Service (CPDPS) of the University of Mysore will conduct a one-day workshop on August 6 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.</p>
<p class="body" style="text-align: justify; ">The workshop will be conducted on the CPDPS premises, Manasagangotri, and is being conducted by U.B. Pavanaja of the Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore.</p>
<p class="body" style="text-align: justify; ">Niranjana Vanalli, Director, CPDPS, told <i>The Hindu</i> that though Kannada has got the classical language tag and several Kannada writers have got the Jnanpith, Kannada is among the least represented language on Wikipedia in terms of articles in Indian languages, and this workshop is a small step towards correcting these lacunae.</p>
<p class="body" style="text-align: justify; ">According to Mr. Pavanaja of CIS, Bangalore, though Kannada Wikipedia was launched in June 2003 and this year marks the 10th anniversary of the launch of the website, there are only 14,500 articles in Kannada.</p>
<p class="body" style="text-align: justify; ">This is in contrast to nearly 1,00,000 Hindi articles, 52,000 Telugu articles about 52,000 articles in Tamil, 25,000 in Bengali and 30,000 articles in Malayalam in the Wikipedia. There are over 4.6 million articles in English. German and French are close to English and so it is not merely Kannada but all Indian languages that are lagging behind, said Mr. Pavanaja.</p>
<p class="body" style="text-align: justify; ">However, there is scope for improvement as 13 lakh people visit the Kannada Wikipedia website every month. It definitely means that many people are interested in reading articles in Kannada online, so there is scope for posting more articles for their benefit.</p>
<p class="body" style="text-align: justify; ">Interestingly Wikipedia, which was launched in January 2001, has articles in 22 Indian languages and 256 languages around the world. There are over 3 crore articles and the number is growing by the day.</p>
<p class="body" style="text-align: justify; ">There are other significant aspects to the contribution of Indians to the development of Wikipedia. While Kannadigas have taken to the enrichment of Wikipedia in English their contribution to the enrichment of the Kannada section has been abysmal. Incidentally, there are nearly 16 lakh editors of Wikipedia all over the world of which about 5,500 are Indians and of them 3,300 edit and contribute regularly in English. The remaining 2,200 contribute in Indian languages.</p>
<p class="body" style="text-align: justify; ">According to Mr. Pavanaja, roughly 2 crore Indians regularly visit the Wikipedia site but very few are either contributing or editing.</p>
<p class="body" style="text-align: justify; ">“Indians were definitely taking advantage of Wikipedia as it gets more than 2 crore hits every year. But the number of Indians contributing to enrich the content is less, more so for Kannada”, he added. Mr. Vanalli, who is a professor in the Department of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Mysore, pointed out that it was ironical that the Kannada was the only Indian language to have an encyclopaedia of its own – Kannada Vishwakosha – published by the University of Mysore. But when it comes to the online collaborative project of Wikipedia, Kannada is lagging behind and this should be reversed.</p>
<p class="body" style="text-align: justify; ">The workshop will introduce to the participants the features of Wikipedia, and give hands-on demonstration on how to edit and contribute articles. Participants can bring articles of their choice for editing and posting on Wikipedia. For details, contact Director of CPDPS on 0821-2419337/405 or email omegauom@gmail.com for registration.</p>
<p class="body" style="text-align: justify; "><i><b>The workshop will introduce participants to features of Wikipedia, and give demonstration on how to edit and contribute articles</b></i></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/news/hindu-r-krishna-kumar-august-2-2013-stress-on-posting-articles-on-kannada-wikipedia'>https://cis-india.org/news/hindu-r-krishna-kumar-august-2-2013-stress-on-posting-articles-on-kannada-wikipedia</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaAccess to KnowledgeWikimediaWikipediaWorkshopOpenness2013-08-02T06:27:52ZNews ItemStrategic Issues Emerging from Open Access Dialogues - Final Report
https://cis-india.org/openness/strategic-issues-emerging-from-open-access-dialogues-final-report
<b>A series of discussions - on the Chat Literacy forum of ELDIS and on Twitter - was organised during November 2012 to March 2013 to identify the global challenges in 'Navigating the Complexities of Open Access'. The discussions were facilitated by Eve Gray and Kelsey Wiens, in partnership with The African Commons Project (South Africa) and the Centre for Internet and Society (India), through support from the Institute of Development Studies, Sussex. On behalf of CIS, Sumandro Chattapadhyay co-coordinated and contributed to these discussions.</b>
<p> </p>
<p>The final report of the Open Access Dialogues was published by the Institute of Development Studies, Sussex, and can be accessed <a href="http://www.ids.ac.uk/files/dmfile/OpenAccessDialoguesReport.pdf">here</a>.</p>
<p>A sub-report summarising the experiences and arguments expressed by the Indian participants in the Dialogues was prepared by Sumandro, which can be read below or downloaded <a href="http://cis-india.org/openness/sumandro-c-open-access-dialogues-2013/at_download/file">here</a>.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Strategic issues emerging from the comments of Indian participants</h2>
<h3>1. Lacking OA awareness, even among scholarly communities</h3>
<p>Many, if not all, commentators emphasised the unfortunate lack of awareness about the notion and possibilities of Open Access across India, including among the scholarly and/or higher education related communities. Often the notion of Open Access is quite familiar, especially among scholars, but without a clear understanding of its benefits and how to make one's scholarly works openly accessible.</p>
<h3>2. Uneven geography of OA success stories</h3>
<p>The above point must be read along with strong success stories emerging from Indian OA journals, mostly from science disciplines. A recent study reveals that 970 Indian OA journals are included in the 'Journals Citation Report 2011' (science), and the Impact Factors of these journals are on the rise. This indicates towards a very uneven geography of OA awareness and adoption in India, with the OA agenda being pursued successfully by specific scholarly communities but not translating into widespread support across the higher academia landscape.</p>
<h3>3. Global businesses of scholarly works and complicity of Indian researchers</h3>
<p>The role of global businesses of scholarly works in impending the Open Access agenda in the India was mentioned by most of the commentators. The publication, and especially distribution, of publicly funded research is dominated by global publication houses. Additionally, the complicity of Indian researchers in reinforcing the culture of exclusive and 'prestigious' journals published by global publishers is also well understood and criticised.</p>
<h3>4. Citation Indexes as necessary evil</h3>
<p>While the discussants argued against an over-emphasis on Impact Factors in judging a quality and success of journals, especially for IF being biased against new journals, and thus against newly started OA journals. At the same time, measurement of citations remains a crucial way of understanding readership and impact of scholarly works. There was a strong recommendation of article-level metrics as opposed to journal-level ones. Studies were suggested to argue that article-level impact increases with OA journals. Another concern is bibliographic malpractices, including biases against citing works from Indian (or, developing world) scholars and against citing works published in non-'prestigious' journals.</p>
<h3>5. Open Access must not only be about access to journals</h3>
<p>A strongly expressed opinion was that the OA agenda must move beyond journal publications. The journal-centric approach emphasises the supply side of knowledge but fails to appreciate the demand of knowledge, especially in a country like India where primary and secondary education remain vital challenges. Further, even within higher academic circles, OA agenda must expand into other forms of scholarly works beyond journal essays, such as primary data and other research materials, especially since all such forms are also produced by public funds. Open Access to 'gray literature' (produced by private and non-profit research organisations) is also crucial, as much policy-making tends to be shaped by such works.</p>
<h3>6. Open Access and the consumers of knowledge</h3>
<p>The commentators emphasised the nature of OA to knowledge as a public good. The OA agenda must address the consumers of knowledge outside the university system, and especially across socio-economic classes. While open university education and participation in MOOC-models of learning are on the rise in India, there is a threat that this digital-centric approach reinforced existing digital divides in access to knowledge.</p>
<h3>Policy Suggestions</h3>
<p><strong>1.'Mainstreaming' the OA agenda:</strong> Instead of locating OA as a separate agenda, it will be useful to 'mainstream' it within larger development/research related funding initiatives by making OA publications of research outcomes a necessary grants condition.</p>
<p><strong>2.OA as the entry point to a broader 'open' agenda:</strong> The OA agenda can build upon its existing institutional and governmental acceptance and implementation to promote a broader 'open' agenda, including open sharing of research data, open formats for and sharing of bibliographic data etc.</p>
<p><strong>3.Moving the OA discussion and knowledge organisation beyond higher education communities:</strong> Addressing non-university circuits of learning, of both institutional (primary and secondary education) and non-institutional (informal learning groups around MOOC courses) varieties, is a crucial challenge for the OA agenda in the developing world. Another crucial community of potential OA supporters would be the non-governmental and non-profit organisations working in the field of education in particular, and development in general.</p>
<p><strong>4.Removing policy biases against Open Access journals in academic administration:</strong> Combined global and local efforts remains important to reshape national academic administration policies to stop discrimination against OA publication of scholarly works, such as higher academic benefit for publication in closed 'prestigious' journals.</p>
<p><strong>5.Encouraging and supporting scholarly communities (often with a disciplinary and/or thematic common ground) to undertake OA knowledge production:</strong> Promoting the OA agenda must also adopt a bottom-up strategy in the developing world, and this would require capacity and community building exercises involving local and global scholarly colleagues and enthusiasts gathered around thematic and/or disciplinary focii, as well as institutional and governmental recognition and support.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/openness/strategic-issues-emerging-from-open-access-dialogues-final-report'>https://cis-india.org/openness/strategic-issues-emerging-from-open-access-dialogues-final-report</a>
</p>
No publishersumandroOpennessOpen Access DialoguesOpen Access2015-10-11T04:39:10ZBlog EntrySting job by Hyderabad scientist exposes fake journals
https://cis-india.org/openness/news/business-standard-ians-october-11-2018-sting-job-by-hyderabad-scientist-exposes-fake-journals
<b>Scientists have at last found a cure for Schlodomoniasis -- a deadly brain infection caused by the "inter-galactic parasite Klaousmodium cruzi" -- they claim to have identified for the first time.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The article was published in <a class="external-link" href="https://www.business-standard.com/article/news-ians/sting-job-by-hyderabad-scientist-exposes-fake-journals-118101100439_1.html">Business Standard</a> on October 11, 2018. Subbiah Arunachalam was quoted.</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; "><a class="storyTags" href="https://www.business-standard.com/search?type=news&q=beth+smith" target="_blank">Beth Smith </a>and co-workers at "<a class="storyTags" href="https://www.business-standard.com/search?type=news&q=sanchez+institute" target="_blank">Sanchez Institute </a>for Biomedical Sciences for Doopidoo Research" in <a class="storyTags" href="https://www.business-standard.com/search?type=news&q=morocco" target="_blank">Morocco </a>have published their discovery in three science journals and also reported a novel method called "Magnetic Oddities <a class="storyTags" href="https://www.business-standard.com/search?type=news&q=radiation" target="_blank">Radiation </a>Therapy (MORTY)" to treat the <a class="storyTags" href="https://www.business-standard.com/search?type=news&q=infection" target="_blank">infection.</a> The study was carried out in "Wakandan population".</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">If readers are breaking their heads to understand the startling findings and decipher the strange words like "Wakandan" and "Doopidoo", Farooq Ali Khan, a <a class="storyTags" href="https://www.business-standard.com/search?type=news&q=college+professor" target="_blank">college professor </a>and PhD student in <a class="storyTags" href="https://www.business-standard.com/search?type=news&q=hyderabad" target="_blank">Hyderabad </a>and a co-<a class="storyTags" href="https://www.business-standard.com/search?type=news&q=author" target="_blank">author </a>of the paper, had the last laugh.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">"It was not intended to be a scientific paper," he told this <a class="storyTags" href="https://www.business-standard.com/search?type=news&q=correspondent" target="_blank">correspondent </a>in an email. "It was my sting operation to expose publishers of predatory journals who are churning out fake science for profit."</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Open access journals are supposed to provide an <a class="storyTags" href="https://www.business-standard.com/search?type=news&q=online+platform" target="_blank">online platform </a>for rapid dissemination of latest updates in science and technology. Their publishers don't charge the readers as access to these journals is free, but they charge the authors wanting to have their research papers published in these journals.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Inspired by previous publishing "stings", Khan wanted to test whether open access journals would publish an obviously absurd paper liberally salted with nonsense for the sake of money from gullible authors anxious to publish.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">He created a spoof manuscript titled "Newer Tools to Fight Inter-Galactic Parasites and their Transmissibility in Zygirion Simulation", and submitted it to several suspect journals from the list kept online by <a class="storyTags" href="https://www.business-standard.com/search?type=news&q=jeffrey+beall" target="_blank">Jeffrey Beall </a>-- an <a class="storyTags" href="https://www.business-standard.com/search?type=news&q=associate+professor+and+librarian" target="_blank">associate professor and librarian </a>at the <a class="storyTags" href="https://www.business-standard.com/search?type=news&q=university+of+colorado" target="_blank">University of </a><a class="storyTags" href="https://www.business-standard.com/search?type=news&q=colorado" target="_blank">Colorado </a>who coined the term "predatory journal" -- as a public service to his colleagues.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">All the hilarious fake names like "schleem", "dinglebop" and "schwitinization", that do not make any sense, as well as images and graphs published in the paper, were fabricated.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The "Zyrgion simulation", and "intergalactic parasites" are all references to "Rick and Morty" -- a US Cartoon Network's animated science <a class="storyTags" href="https://www.business-standard.com/search?type=news&q=fiction" target="_blank">fiction </a>programme about the misadventures of mad <a class="storyTags" href="https://www.business-standard.com/search?type=news&q=scientist" target="_blank">scientist </a><a class="storyTags" href="https://www.business-standard.com/search?type=news&q=rick+sanchez" target="_blank">Rick Sanchez </a>and his grandson <a class="storyTags" href="https://www.business-standard.com/search?type=news&q=morty+smith" target="_blank">Morty Smith.</a></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Khan, a great fan of "Rick and Morty", submitted the paper with <a class="storyTags" href="https://www.business-standard.com/search?type=news&q=beth+smith" target="_blank">Beth Smith </a>(Rick's granddaughter in the cartoon show) as the corresponding <a class="storyTags" href="https://www.business-standard.com/search?type=news&q=author" target="_blank">author </a>and himself as co-<a class="storyTags" href="https://www.business-standard.com/search?type=news&q=author" target="_blank">author.</a> Two other authors' names were made-up, and Sukant Khurana -- a <a class="storyTags" href="https://www.business-standard.com/search?type=news&q=scientist" target="_blank">scientist </a>at <a class="storyTags" href="https://www.business-standard.com/search?type=news&q=central+drug+research+institute" target="_blank">Central Drug Research Institute </a>in Lucknow, who offered to help Khan in this sting, was another author -- all affiliated to an institution in <a class="storyTags" href="https://www.business-standard.com/search?type=news&q=morocco" target="_blank">Morocco </a>that does not exist.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The so-called "Magnetic Oddities <a class="storyTags" href="https://www.business-standard.com/search?type=news&q=radiation" target="_blank">Radiation </a>Therapy" developed by the authors to treat the brain <a class="storyTags" href="https://www.business-standard.com/search?type=news&q=infection" target="_blank">infection </a>is again nothing but an expansion of "MORTY", a character in the cartoon show.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Anyone with commonsense would have noticed all the nonsense and consigned the paper to trash, but Khan surprisingly found it was accepted for publication by 10 journals for fees ranging from $75 to $650.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">After some bargaining over fees, three scientific journals -- ARC Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences, IOSR Journal of Pharmacy and Biological Sciences, and Clinical <a class="storyTags" href="https://www.business-standard.com/search?type=news&q=biotechnology" target="_blank">Biotechnology </a>and <a class="storyTags" href="https://www.business-standard.com/search?type=news&q=microbiology" target="_blank">Microbiology </a>-- published the paper without a second glance.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Khan says his "scientific prank" was intended to expose the seriousness of predatory journal industry and to create awareness among people who are beginning their careers in science. "These predatory journals are polluting the scientific record with junk science and are also resulting in fake news."</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">"When the Open Access Declaration was drafted in 2002, no one would have imagined that many unscrupulous individuals would pollute the entire system of scholarly communication with predatory journals solely with the idea of making money," Subbiah Arunachalam, <a class="storyTags" href="https://www.business-standard.com/search?type=news&q=renowned+information+scientist" target="_blank">renowned information </a><a class="storyTags" href="https://www.business-standard.com/search?type=news&q=scientist" target="_blank">scientist </a>and Distinguished Fellow of the <a class="storyTags" href="https://www.business-standard.com/search?type=news&q=centre+for+internet" target="_blank">Centre for Internet </a>and Society in Bengaluru, told this <a class="storyTags" href="https://www.business-standard.com/search?type=news&q=correspondent" target="_blank">correspondent </a>in an email.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">"Unfortunately, many Indians -- both individuals and companies -- are in this business," he said. "Predatory journals pose a big threat to the integrity of research."</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">"These are shameful acts by greedy publishers," Subhash Lakhotia, a <a class="storyTags" href="https://www.business-standard.com/search?type=news&q=professor+of+zoology" target="_blank">professor of zoology </a>at the Benaras Hindu University, told this <a class="storyTags" href="https://www.business-standard.com/search?type=news&q=correspondent" target="_blank">correspondent </a>in an email. "Until we stop payments of all kinds of open access charges and modify the present faulty <a class="storyTags" href="https://www.business-standard.com/search?type=news&q=assessment+system" target="_blank">assessment system </a>that relies on numbers of publications, predation in one or the other form would continue."</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/openness/news/business-standard-ians-october-11-2018-sting-job-by-hyderabad-scientist-exposes-fake-journals'>https://cis-india.org/openness/news/business-standard-ians-october-11-2018-sting-job-by-hyderabad-scientist-exposes-fake-journals</a>
</p>
No publisherAdminOpennessOpen AccessAccess to Knowledge2018-10-17T02:06:21ZNews ItemSteps towards Integrated Open Water Data
https://cis-india.org/openness/steps-towards-integrated-open-water-data
<b>Multiplicity of data collection agencies, formats, and disclosure practices and conditionalities make it very difficult to access interoperable and open data about water resources and systems in India. Barriers to accessing water data impede not only academic and applied research on related topics but also public consumption of information and critical decision making. DataMeet and CIS are proud to collaborate on identifying and addressing the challenges to open up and integrate data and information in the water sector. Supported by a generous grant from Arghyam, we are undertaking an initial study of open water data resources in India and taking first steps towards developing a Free and Open Source data portal for water resources information in India. Here is an initial note about the project. The key leaders and contributors of this project are Craig Dsouza, Namita Bhatawdekar, Riddhi Munde, and Jinda Sandbhor, all of whom are members of the Pune Chapter of DataMeet.</b>
<p> </p>
<h4>Project website: <a href="https://datameet-pune.github.io/open-water-data/" target="_blank">https://datameet-pune.github.io/open-water-data/</a></h4>
<h4>Contact: <a href="mailto:pune@datameet.org">pune@datameet.org</a></h4>
<hr />
<h2>The problem statement</h2>
<p>Following devastating precipitation of more than 300mm in 24 hours in early December 2015 the city of Chennai was flooded unlike anything it had seen in recent history. A combination of bad urban planning along with heavy precipitation events had made such eventualities all the more likely. But in the case of such storms what parts of the city are likely to flood? What parts will remain unaffected by the deluge. Specific answers to these questions would help city planners plan better for such emergencies.</p>
<p>Only two months after Chennai was waist deep in water, the city of Latur in 2016 ran dry. The Manjara reservoir, on the river of the same name, the city's source of municipal water supply had not a drop left. With more than 4 months left until the rains would replenish the waters of the dam, the city was now reliant on water being transported in bulk via train tankers from more than 300 kms away, news that made daily headlines. The scale of sugarcane cultivation in the region was being called into question.. Was it possible that lowering the allocation of water to irrigation could have preserved enough water for the city's domestic water needs?</p>
<p>Each of these questions call for answers relating to the exact stock of water resources, and how fast the water flows from one part of the water cycle to another. For example, knowing current soil moisture levels and daily precipitation can we estimate groundwater recharge with a high degree of accuracy? If seasonal groundwater fluctuations and river flows in a watershed or sub-basin is known can we estimate actual quantum groundwater footprint of the crop irrigated with groundwater in that river basin? If new industries are being set up in close proximity to each other what might be the effect of these industries on groundwater stocks in the vicinity.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Towards an (integrated and open) data solution</h2>
<p>Deriving cause-effect links between the scale of use of water in a particular region and its possible effect on the status of water resources in the vicinity is an extremely difficult exercise because water stocks and flows are affected by so many causal links which need to be studied and quantified in an integrated manner. An integral part of any water resource study is developing a water balance model to estimate water availability and water demand.</p>
<p><strong>Water availability</strong></p>
<ul><li>Precipitation in the form of rainfall and snowfall,</li>
<li>Live storage capacity in reservoirs,</li>
<li>Soil moisture,</li>
<li>Groundwater levels (and fluctuation), and</li>
<li>Surface water flows in rivers.</li></ul>
<p><strong>Water use/demand</strong></p>
<ul><li><strong>Domestic water use:</strong> Human Population x estimated per capita consumption (or prescribed norm for domestic water consumption),</li>
<li><strong>Livestock water use:</strong> Livestock population x estimated per capita requirement,</li>
<li><strong>Agriculture and Forests:</strong> Evapotranspiration data (derived from temperatures (daily/monthly), wind speeds, humidity (daily/monthly), soil moisture & type, type of Agricultural land use, stage of plant growth, and</li>
<li><strong>Industry:</strong> Nature of industry and annual production x water required per unit of production.</li></ul>
<p><strong>Overcoming the data challenge</strong></p>
<p>Unknown to many, reasonably high resolution data does exist of these variables both across space and time, as described in detail below. Much of this data though hasn't been made inter-operable. We need tools to model water data, putting together real-time data for water availability and demand onto one platform that can facilitate discussions around it. However what we have are either proprietary river basin modeling software (expensive) OR free open source tools (programming/skill intensive).</p>
<p>They demand:</p>
<ul><li>knowledge of programming or know-how of technical tools and unavoidably</li>
<li>knowledge of the various data sources (to piece together the puzzle)</li></ul>
<p>What if instead, we had access to a tool, open, free, accessible to everyone through a browser (hence no need to download software) and most importantly intuitive to use and understand to someone with little technical or programming knowledge.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>What we propose and who is it for?</h2>
<p>To understand and take the first steps towards developing a completely free and open source data portal for water resources information in India.</p>
<p>Different groups would have different kinds of needs for water data. Researchers for instance tend to think of larger scales (river basins, sub-basins) whereas Gram Panchayat members may not think beyond the village or watershed scale. Hence this proposal aims at macro and micro scales, trying to determine needs at each level and enhancing our platform to meet these different needs.</p>
<p>The project will generate:</p>
<ul><li>A <strong>web app prototype</strong> that will collate secondary data,</li>
<li>A <strong>paper</strong> that outlines sources of data, type of data, level to which available (GP, village, etc.) and nature of the source (Paid/ unpaid/ format available etc.), and</li>
<li>A <strong>model WSP format</strong>, along with indications for what data already exists in secondary sources.</li></ul>
<p>The users of this work will be:</p>
<ul><li>Researchers/Journalists in the water sector, and</li>
<li>Gram Panchayat Members (to effectively develop water security plans, monitor and govern their local water resources).</li></ul>
<p> </p>
<h2>Project Team</h2>
<p>The project team is supported by Nisha Thompson (Director, DataMeet) and Sumandro Chattapadhyay.</p>
<h4>Craig Dsouza</h4>
<p>Craig is an independent researcher in the development sector with a keen interest in water resources and agriculture. He has a Master’s degree in Energy and Environmental Policy (2013) and has worked as a researcher with the Society for Promoting Participative Ecosystem Mgmt, undertaking river basin studies in central and eastern India. Craig believes that the democratization of data and tools to derive insights from it holds tremendous potential for addressing issues of inequity and environmental sustainability in India. He contributes to these efforts as co-ordinator of Datameet-Pune, a city chapter of datameet.org.</p>
<p><strong>GitHub:</strong> <a href="https://github.com/craigdsouza">https://github.com/craigdsouza</a><br />
<strong>Twitter:</strong> <a href="https://twitter.com/dsouza_craig">https://twitter.com/dsouza_craig</a><br />
<strong>Website:</strong> <a href="http://unravellingindia.in/">http://unravellingindia.in/</a></p>
<h4>Namita Bhatawdekar</h4>
<p>Namita is a web developer with 10 years of experience developing web applications and web-based data visualizations. She has worked on developing data Visuaizations for corporate businesses as well as in the research sector. She worked with Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Development (MIT's research lab in Singapore) as a Data Visualization expert where she visualized simulation outputs of autonomous vehicles to evaluate urban transport policies. Her work was showcased in many national and international conferences. She has a keen interest in solving social problems using data and is part of Datameet Pune, city chapter of datameet.org.</p>
<p><strong>GitHub:</strong> <a href="https://github.com/bnamita">https://github.com/bnamita</a><br />
LinkedIn: <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/namitabhatawdekar/">https://www.linkedin.com/in/namitabhatawdekar/</a><br />
<strong>Website:</strong> <a href="https://bnamita.github.io/Portfolio/">https://bnamita.github.io/Portfolio/</a></p>
<h4>Riddhi Munde</h4>
<p>Riddhi is a GIS and Remote Sensing professional with 2.5 yrs of experience. She has a Master's degree in Geoinformatics and Earth Observation from ITC, University of Twente, The Netherlands. Her project experience includes implementing GIS and remote sensing solutions across a number of industries. She is interested in location and remote sensing analytics, ML, Image processing, web based visualizations and is proficient in ArcGIS, QGIS, PostGIS, Web mapping, algorithm development in Python and R and cloud computing. At Datameet she contributes with her know how of remote sensing to further improve data access in water and agriculture.</p>
<p><strong>LinkedIn:</strong> <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/riddhimunde/">https://www.linkedin.com/in/riddhimunde/</a></p>
<h4>Jinda Sandbhor</h4>
<p>Jinda Sandbhor is an action researcher associated with Manthan Adhyayan Kendra, Pune, where he works to document and analyze issues related to the water and energy sectors in India. He actively supports socio-political movements in Maharashtra, Odisha and North Karnataka. In the past he has conducted research studies on water conflicts around rivers and major dams, socio-economic impacts of droughts, impacts of coal based thermal power on water and the local environment. He has been associated with the Datameet-Pune chapter since its beginning in 2015 and here seeks to improve access to data on social and environmental subjects.</p>
<p><strong>Website:</strong> <a href="http://jinda.manthan-india.org/author/jinda/">http://jinda.manthan-india.org/author/jinda/</a></p>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/openness/steps-towards-integrated-open-water-data'>https://cis-india.org/openness/steps-towards-integrated-open-water-data</a>
</p>
No publishersumandroOpen Water DataOpen DataOpen Government DataEnvironmentOpenness2017-11-02T09:58:13ZBlog EntrySteady Steps.....FOSS and the MDG's
https://cis-india.org/news/steady-steps-foss-and-mdgs
<b>Pranesh Prakash was a panelist at this IGF workshop held on November 9, 2012. It was organised by International Center For Free and Open Source Software and Free Software and OpenSource Foundation For Africa.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">IG4D Thematic Cluster 2 "Enabling Environment" Question 1: What does it take to attract investment in infrastructure and enc</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Concise Description of Workshop:</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">This workshop will address some key areas, where Free and open source software has made a milestone, in the last few years to fulfill the Millennium development goal, across the globe. Many a times whenever FOSS is mentioned, , thoughts quickly run to ‘techies’ . In this session , the Panelists will give practical presentations/projects on Free and Open Source Software, outside the technical arena and show how it has changed the face of : 1) Governments:- We will look at, Policy in the area of Open Data, 2) In Academia:- We will look at, Open Education Resources (OER) , FOSS in schools etc, both in Africa and India. 3) In Private Sector- we will look at , Wealth creation, innovation and job creation, just to mention but a few. 1) Secondly we will look at how FOSS is bridging the digital divide, existing between the different age groups more especially the Youth, Women, between the different social circles/media , inclusion of person's with disabilities.etc, through partnerships and rural deployment of FOSS. We will have the privilege to look at initiative(s), in Brazil. 1) Last but not least, It will address, the key policies, that governments should embrace, that would continue to enhance FOSS in the Internet development goal at national level , regional level and at the global level. A rich discussion will be encouraged, from the participants to ensure that the FOSS community understands its strength and role in the internet governance realm, in policy making process and in the privacy, security and openness arena.<br /> <br /> <b>Workshop Agenda</b>:<br /> 1. What Milestone has FOSS made in:<br /> i) Academia<br /> ii) Government<br /> iii) Private Sector<br /> 2. Is FOSS factor to consider in bridging the digital divide?<br /> 3. Regarding the Milestone that FOSS has achieved, should there be national, regional, global.etc policies to ensure a fair palying field it?<br /> - Closing remarks, What actions to be taken, conclusion.</p>
<div class="field-field-ws-panel field-type-text field">
<div class="field-label">Submitted Workshop Panelists:</div>
<div class="field-items">
<div class="odd field-item">
<p>1. Mr. Satish Babu - ICFOSS, India (Government)- Moderator- Confirmed <br /> 2. Mr. Fernando Botelho- F123.org, Brazil (Remote Participation)- Confirmed<br /> 3. Ms. Anne Rachel Inne, ICANN- Confirmed<br /> 4. Mr. Pranesh Prakash, CIS Bangalore, India- Confirmed <br /> 5. Ms. Mishi Choudhary, Executive Director of International programs at Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC), India- Confirmed<br /> 6. Mr. Yves Miezan Ezo, FOSSFA , CHALA, France- Confirmed<br /> 7.Ms. Nnenna Nwakanma, CEO, Nnenna.org, Cote d' Ivoire- Confirmed</p>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="field-field-ws-rm field-type-text field">
<div class="field-label">Name of Remote Moderator(s):</div>
<div class="field-items">
<div class="odd field-item">Ms. Judy Okite, FOSSFA</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="field-field-assigned-panellists field-type-nodereference field">
<div class="field-label">Assigned Panellists:</div>
<div class="field-items">
<div class="odd field-item"><a href="http://wsms1.intgovforum.org/2012/panellist/babu-satish">Babu - Satish</a></div>
<div class="even field-item"><a href="http://wsms1.intgovforum.org/2012/panellist/botelho-fernando">Botelho - Fernando</a></div>
<div class="odd field-item"><a href="http://wsms1.intgovforum.org/2012/panellist/inne-anne-rachel">INNE - Anne-Rachel</a></div>
<div class="even field-item"><a href="http://wsms1.intgovforum.org/2012/panellist/abraham-sunil">Abraham - Sunil</a></div>
<div class="odd field-item"><a href="http://wsms1.intgovforum.org/2012/panellist/choudhary-mishi">Choudhary - Mishi</a></div>
<div class="even field-item"><a href="http://wsms1.intgovforum.org/2012/panellist/miezan-ezo-yves">Miezan Ezo - Yves</a></div>
<div class="odd field-item"><a href="http://wsms1.intgovforum.org/2012/panellist/nwakanma-nnenna">Nwakanma - Nnenna</a></div>
</div>
</div>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/news/steady-steps-foss-and-mdgs'>https://cis-india.org/news/steady-steps-foss-and-mdgs</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaOpennessInternet Governance ForumInternet Governance2012-12-09T01:11:31ZNews ItemState of Odia Language in Computing and Future Steps
https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/state-of-odia-language-in-computing-and-future-steps
<b>I participated in a "National Level Seminar on, Computer Application and Odia Language" organized by the Institute of Odia Studies and Research in Bhubaneswar on July 6, 2014 as a panelist to discuss about the state of Odia language in computing, work in progress highlighting CIS-A2K's work in the knowledge and education sector and further steps.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">I wrote an article on this for the Sovereign. This can be <a href="https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/subhashish-panigrahi-article-in-souvenir.pdf" class="internal-link">downloaded here</a>. The invitation for the seminar can be <a href="https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/seminar-letter.pdf" class="internal-link">viewed here</a>.</p>
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<h2>କମ୍ପ୍ୟୁଟରରେ ଓଡିଆ ଭାଷାର ସ୍ଥିତି ଓ ଭବିଷ୍ୟତ ପଦକ୍ଷେପ</h2>
<p><b><i>ଓଡ଼ିଆ</i></b><b><i>: </i></b><b><i>କାଲି ଓ ଆଜି</i></b></p>
<p align="JUSTIFY">କମ୍ପୁଟରରେ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଭାଷାର ବ୍ୟବହାର ଆରମ୍ଭ ହେବାର ଦଶନ୍ଧିଟିଏ ବିତିଯାଇଛି । ଏ ଦଶନ୍ଧିର ଶେଷ ଆଡ଼କୁ ଏହି ବର୍ଷ ଫେବ୍ରୁଆରି ୨୦ ତାରିଖରେ ଉଲ୍ଲେଖନୀୟ ଘଟଣାଟିଏ ଘଟିଲା - ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଭାଷା ଷଷ୍ଠ ଭାରତୀୟ ଭାଷା ଭାବେ ଶାସ୍ତ୍ରୀୟ ମାନ୍ୟତା ପାଇଲା । ସାଧାରଣ ମଣିଷର ମାନସିକତା ଦୋହଲେ ଅଦିନିଆ ଝଡ଼ି କିମ୍ବା ନଈ କୂଳ ଲଙ୍ଘିଲେ । ଏ ଶାସ୍ତ୍ରୀୟ ମାନ୍ୟତା ପାଇବା ଥିଲା ସେମିତି ମନ-ଦୋହଲେଇବା ଭଳି ଘଟଣାଟିଏ । ଓଡ଼ିଆ ମାଧ୍ୟମରେ ପଢ଼ୁଥିବା ପିଲାଙ୍କ ମନରେ ଅଧିକ ଚାକିରି ପାଇବାର ନୂଆ ନୂଆ ଆଶାଟିଏ ଗଜୁରିଲା । ଘରୁ ଫେରିଥିବା ପ୍ରବାସୀ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଦୋକାନୀଟିଏ ବେଙ୍ଗାଳୁରୁ ସହରରେ ଥିବା ତା' ଜଳଖିଆ ଦୋକାନ ଆଗରେ ଓଡ଼ିଆରେ ନାମଫଳକଟିଏ ଲଗାଇଲା । ନିର୍ବାଚନରେ ବୋଧେ ପ୍ରଥମଥର ରାଜନୈତିକ ଦଳଟିଏ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ବିଶ୍ୱବିଦ୍ୟାଳୟର ଯୋଜନା ନିର୍ବାଚନ ଇସ୍ତାହାରରେ ସାମିଲ କଲା । ଫେସବୁକରେ, ୱେବସାଇଟରେ ଅନେକ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଏ ଆନନ୍ଦର ଉତ୍ସବ ପାଳନ କଲେ । ତେବେ ଏ ସବୁରି ଆମୋଦ ଭିତରେ ବେଳ ଆସିଛି ଆମ ଏ ଶାସ୍ତ୍ରୀୟ ଓଡ଼ିଆକୁ ଆଧୁନିକ ଜ୍ଞାନକୌଶଳର ତରାଜୁରେ ତଉଲିବା । ଆମ ଭାଷା ଗୋଟେ ପୁରାତନ ଭାଷା, ଆଉ ତା'ର ମାନେ ନୁହେଁ ଯେ ସେ କେବଳ ହାତୀଗୁମ୍ଫାର କାନ୍ଥରେ କିବା ଗୁଡ଼ହାଣ୍ଡିରେ ଲୁଚିରହିବ ଶିଉଳି ଗହଣରେ । ଭାଷାର ଅତୀତ ଯେତେ ପରିପୁଟ, ତା'ର ଅଧୁନା ବ୍ୟବହାରୀଙ୍କ ଉପରେ ନିର୍ଭର କରେ ସେ କେଉଁ ଦିଗରେ ମୁହାଁଇବ - କେବଳ ପୁରାତନ ଭାଷାର ମାନ୍ୟତା ପାଇ ଜେଜେ ହୋଇ କଣ ଘରେ ବସିରହି ଦିନ ଗଣିବ, ନାଁ ଆଧୁନିକ କୌଶଳକୁ ଆପଣେଇ ଆହୁରି ଅଧିକ ବ୍ୟବହାରରେ ଲାଗିବ । ଏକ ଭାଷା ପାଇଁ ସବୁଠାରୁ ବଡ଼ ସମ୍ପତ୍ତିଟି ହେଉଛି ତାକୁ ଦୈନନ୍ଦିନ ବ୍ୟବହାର କରୁଥିବା ଲୋକେ, ବିଶେଷ କରି ତା'କୁ ପଠନ ଓ ଲିଖନରେ ବ୍ୟବହାର କରୁଥିବା ଲୋକେ । ଏ ମୋବାଇଲ, କମ୍ପୁଟର ଓ ଇଣ୍ଟରନେଟର ଯୁଗରେ ଆମ ଭାଷା ଯଦି ଇଂରାଜୀ ସହ ତାଳ ମିଳାଇ ଚାଲି ନ ପାରୁଛି ତାହେଲେ ଆଗାମୀ ପିଢ଼ିଟି ଯେ ଆମ ଭାଷାକୁ ସମ୍ପୂର୍ଣ୍ଣ ପାଶୋରି ନ ପକାଇବ ତାହା ଲେଖକ ହଲପ କରି କହିପାରେ । ଆମ ଭାଷାର ଆଧୁନିକତାର ସ୍ଥିତି ନିର୍ଦ୍ଧାରଣ କରିବା ଓ ଚଳିତ କାମମାନଙ୍କ ବିଷୟରେ ଜାଣି ଆଗାମୀ ଦିନମାନଙ୍କ ପାଇଁ ଯୋଜନାର ରୂପରେଖ ତିଆରିବା ବୋଧେ ଏ ବେଳର ପ୍ରଥମ କାମ ।</p>
<p align="JUSTIFY">ଓଡ଼ିଆ କମ୍ପୁଟରରେ ବ୍ୟବହାର ଉପଯୋଗୀ ହେଲା ଟିକେ ବିଳମ୍ବରେ, ଏକବିଂଶ ଶତାବ୍ଦୀର କିଛି ବର୍ଷ ଆଗରୁ । ବାକି ଭାରତୀୟ ଭାଷା ସେତେବେଳକୁ କମ୍ପୁଟରରେ ଦେଖିବାକୁ ମିଳିଲାଣି । ପ୍ରାରମ୍ଭିକ କାମ ଥିଲା ଓଡ଼ିଆରେ କମ୍ପୁଟରରେ ଟାଇପ କରି ଲେଖିବା ଓ ଆଗର ବ୍ଲକ ଟାଇପିଙ୍ଗ ବଦଳରେ ସହଜରେ ଡିଟିପି କରି ଅଳ୍ପ ସମୟରେ ଛପାଇବା । ସେ ବେଳରେ ସେ ଥିଲା ଗୋଟେ ବିରାଟ ସଫଳତା । ତିଆରି ହୋଇଥିଲା ନାନାଦି ଫଣ୍ଟ (font) । ଫଣ୍ଟ ହେଉଚି କମ୍ପୁଟରରେ ଏକ ଲିପିର ଅକ୍ଷର ସଜାଣି । ଆଉ ସବୁ ଫଣ୍ଟ ଦେଖିବାକୁ ଅଲଗା ଅଲଗା । ତେବେ ଆରମ୍ଭରେ ତିଆରି ହୋଇଥିବା ଫଣ୍ଟସବୁ ତିଆରି ହୋଇଥିଲା ଏକା ଢାଞ୍ଚାରେ - ଇଂରାଜୀ ବା ଲାଟିନ ପରିବାରର ଅକ୍ଷରସବୁର ବଦଳରେ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଅକ୍ଷର ଖଞ୍ଜାଯାଇଥିଲା । ଯାହା ଫଳରେ କିବୋର୍ଡ଼ରେ ଇଂରାଜୀ ଅକ୍ଷରଟିଏ ଟାଇପ କଲେ ଆସୁଥିଲା ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଅକ୍ଷର । ତେବେ ଏକାଧିକ ଫଣ୍ଟ ନିର୍ମାତା ଭିନ୍ନ ଭିନ୍ନ ମାନକ ତିଆରି କରିବା ଫଳରେ ଅନେକ ଗୁଡ଼ିଏ ମାନକର ଫଣ୍ଟ - ଯେଉଁମାନଙ୍କର ନିଜ ନିଜ ଭିତରେ ତାଳମେଳ ନ ଥିଲା - ତିଆରି ହେବାରେ ଲାଗିଲା । ତେଣୁ ଅମୁକ ଫଣ୍ଟରେ ଲେଖା ପାଠ ସମୁକ ଫଣ୍ଟରେ ପଢ଼ିବା ଦୁରୂହ ହୋଇପଡ଼ିଲା । ତେବେ ଅଧିକାଂଶ ଛାପା ଓ ପ୍ରକାଶନ ସଂସ୍ଥା ଆକୃତି ନାମକ ସଫ୍ଟଓଏରଟିଏ ବ୍ୟବହାର କରୁଥିବାରୁ ଅଲଗା କମ୍ପୁଟରରେ ଟାଇପ ହୋଇଥିବା ପାଠ ଭିତରେ ଗୋଟେ ପ୍ରକାର ସମାନତା ଥିଲା । ତେବେ ଏସବୁ ଫଣ୍ଟରେ ଲେଖା ପାଠକୁ ନାଁ ଇମେଲରେ କାହାକୁ ପଠାଇହେଉଥିଲା, ନାଁ ୱେବସାଇଟରେ ବ୍ୟବହାର କରିହେଉଥିଲା, ନାଁ ଗୁଗଲରେ ଖୋଜି ହେଉଥିଲା । ଏହି ସବୁ ଅସୁବିଧାକୁ ସୁଧାରିବା ପାଇଁ ଇଉନିକୋଡ଼ ଫଣ୍ଟ ଆରମ୍ଭ କରାଗଲା । ଏହା ଥିଲା ଅଣ-ଲାଟିନ ଲିପିମାନଙ୍କ ପାଇଁ ଏକ ବରଦାନ । ଏଥିରେ ସବୁ ଲାଟିନ/ଇଂରାଜୀ ଅକ୍ଷର ସହିତ ସବୁ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଅକ୍ଷର ମଧ୍ୟ ରହୁଥିଲା । ଆଉ ଏ ଥିଲା ଏକ ବିଶ୍ୱସ୍ତରୀୟ ମାନକ । ଅର୍ଥାତ କେବଳ ଦୁଇଟି ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଫଣ୍ଟ ଭିତରେ ସମାନତା ନୁହେଁ, ଓଡ଼ିଆ-ଗୁଜୁରାଟୀ ଭିତରେ ମଧ୍ୟ ସମାନତା ରହିଲା । ତେବେ ଆମର ପ୍ରକାଶନ ସଂସ୍ଥାମାନ ଏହାକୁ ବ୍ୟବହାର କରିବା ପାଇଁ ମଙ୍ଗିଲେ ନାହିଁ । କାରଣ ଥିଲା ସେମାନେ ବ୍ୟବହାର କରୁଥିବା ଡିଟିପି ସଫ୍ଟଓଏର (ଆଡୋବି ପେଜମେକର, କ୍ୱାର୍କ ଏକ୍ସପ୍ରେସ ଆଦି)ରେ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଇଉନିକୋଡ଼ରେ ଯୁକ୍ତାକ୍ଷର ଆଦି ଠିକରେ କାମ କରୁନଥିଲା । ଏଣୁ ଲକ୍ଷ ଲକ୍ଷ ପୃଷ୍ଠା ବହିର ମଲାଟ ତଳୁ ବାହାରି କମ୍ପୁଟର ଓ ଇଣ୍ଟରନେଟର ପାଠକମାନଙ୍କ ପଢ଼ାହେବାରୁ ବଞ୍ଚିତ ହେଲା । ଏହାର ଗୋଟେ ବାଟ ଥିଲା ଡିଟିପି ପାଇଁ ବ୍ୟବହୃତ ଫଣ୍ଟକୁ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଇଉନିକୋଡ଼ରେ ରୂପାନ୍ତର କରି ଇଣ୍ଟରନେଟରେ ଉପଲବ୍ଧ କରାଇବା । ବିଡ଼ମ୍ବନା ଏହିକି ଯେ, ଆମ ଖବରକାଗଜମାନେ ତା' ନ କରି ଆପଣେଇଲେ ଲେଖାକୁ ଛବି କରି ନିଜ ୱେବସାଇଟରେ, ଆଉ ଥୋକେ ଡାଇନାମିକ ଫଣ୍ଟ ନାମକ ଆଉ ଏକ ପନ୍ଥା ଧରିଲେ । ଛବି ହେଲେ ଲେଖା ସବୁ ଯେ ଖୋଜିହେବ ନାହିଁ କିବା ଆଉ କେଉଁ କାମରେ ବ୍ୟବହାର କରିହେବ ନାହିଁ ତାହା କହିବା ବାହୁଲ୍ୟ । ଡାଇନାମିକ ଫଣ୍ଟରେ ମୂଳ ସର୍ଭରରୁ ଫଣ୍ଟଟିଏ ଲୋଡ଼ ହେଇଥାଏ, ଯାହା ଫଳରେ ପାଠକର କମ୍ପୁଟରରେ ସେ ଫଣ୍ଟଟି ନ ଥିଲେ ମଧ୍ୟ ସେ ପଢ଼ିପାରେ । କିନ୍ତୁ ନାଁ ସେ ଲେଖାକୁ କପି କରି କାମରେ ଲଗାଇହୁଏ ନାଁ ଗୁଗଲ ସର୍ଚରେ ସେ ଆସେ । ଓଡ଼ିଶାର ପ୍ରାୟ ସମସ୍ତ ପ୍ରକାଶିତ ପାଠ ଭିତରୁ ଅଧା ଇଣ୍ଟରନେଟରେ ଆସେ ନାହିଁ, ଆଉ ଅଧକ ଆସେ ଏମିତିକା ମୃତ ଫରମାଟରେ ଯେ ତା'କୁ ଆଉ କେହି କାମରେ ଲଗାଇପାରିବେ ନାହିଁ । ଯଦି ପାଠକଟିଏ ନିଜ ମୋବାଇଲ କି କମ୍ପୁଟରରେ ଅବାଧରେ ନିଜ ଭାଷା ପଢ଼ିନପାରୁଛି ତାହେଲେ ସେ କେମିତି ଯେ ଭାଷାକୁ ଜାବୁଡ଼ି ଧରିବ ତାହା ଆଲୋଚନାର ବିଷୟ । ପାଠ ବଢ଼ିଲେ ପାଠକମାନଙ୍କୁ ଅଧିକ ପଠନର ସୁଯୋଗ ମିଳିବ, ବିକଳ୍ପ ମିଳିବ ବାଛିବା ପାଇଁ ନିଜ ପସନ୍ଦର ବହିଟିଏ । ଆଉ ତା ଯଦି ହୁଏ ସୁବିଧାରେ ବ୍ୟବହାର କରିହେଉଥିବା ଭଳି ସାଧନରେ ତାହେଲେ ଇଂରାଜୀ ମାଧ୍ୟମରେ ପଢ଼ୁଥିବା ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଘରର ପିଲାଟି ବି ଓଡ଼ିଆରେ ପଢ଼ିବାକୁ ଆଗଭର ହେବ ।</p>
<p align="JUSTIFY">ଉପରେ ବର୍ଣ୍ଣିତ ଅସୁବିଧା - ଅଣ-ଇଉନିକୋଡ଼ରୁ ଇଉନିକୋଡ଼କୁ ଫଣ୍ଟ ରୂପାନ୍ତର କରିବାର ସାଧନଟି ପ୍ରଥମେ ୨୦୧୧ରେ ସୃଜନିକା ଅନୁଷ୍ଠାନ ଦ୍ୱାରା ଲୋକମାନଙ୍କ ପାଇଁ ଖୋଲାରେ ବିତରଣ କରାଯାଇଥିଲା ରେବତୀ ନାମକ କନଭର୍ଟର ଦେଇ । ତେବେ ସେ ସଫ୍ଟଓଏରଟି ମଧ୍ୟ ରକ୍ଷଣାବେକ୍ଷଣା ଅଭାବରୁ ପୁରୁଣା ହୋଇଗଲା ଆଉ ନିକଟ ଅତୀତରେ ଆଉ କିଛି ବନ୍ଧୁଙ୍କ ସହ ମିଶି ଲେଖକ ଏକାଧିକ ଆକୃତି ସାରଳା ଫଣ୍ଟ ତଥା ଶ୍ରୀଲିପି ନାମକ ଆଉ ଏକ ଫଣ୍ଟରୁ ଇଉନିକୋଡ଼ ରୂପାନ୍ତର ପାଇଁ କନଭର୍ଟର ତିଆରି କରିଛନ୍ତି । ଆକୃତି ସାରଳା କନଭର୍ଟରଟି <a href="http://bitly.com/akrutiodia">http://bitly.com/akrutiodia</a> ରେ ଓ ଶ୍ରୀଲିପି କନଭର୍ଟରଟି <a href="http://bitly.com/shreelipi">http://bitly.com/shreelipi</a> ୱେବସାଇଟରେ ଉଭୟ ଅନଲାଇନ ଓ ଅଫଲାଇନରେ ବ୍ୟବହାର ପାଇଁ ସମ୍ପୂର୍ଣ୍ଣ ମାଗଣାରେ ଉପଲବ୍ଧ । ଇଣ୍ଟରନେଟର ଭାଷା ହେଲା ଇଉନିକୋଡ଼, ତାକୁ ଆଦରିଲେ ଆମ ଭାଷାର ସ୍ଥିତି ଯେ ନାହିଁରୁ କାହିଁ ହେବ ତାହା କହିବା ଏ ବିବରଣର ଅତିରଞ୍ଜନ ମାତ୍ର ହେବ ।</p>
<p align="JUSTIFY">ଏ ତ ଗଲା ଫଣ୍ଟ-ଜନିତ ଅସୁବିଧା କଥା । ଏବେ ଆମର ବହିସବୁରେ କି କି ପ୍ରତିବନ୍ଧକ ରହିଛି ତାହା ବିଚାରିବା । ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଭାଷାରେ ଏଯାବତ ଲକ୍ଷାଧିକ ବହି ଲେଖାଯାଇଥିବ । ସେସବୁ ଭିତରୁ କେତେ ଯେ ଉପାଦେୟ ବହି ଅଛି ଆଉ ଅଚିରେ ଏସବୁ ପାଇବାର ବାଟ ଯେ ଅମଡ଼ା ଏକଥାରେ ବୋଧେ ପାଠକେ ଏକମତ ହେବେ । ଆମ ବହିସବୁ ଯଦି ଡିଜିଟାଲ ଲାଇବ୍ରେରି ମାଧ୍ୟମରେ ଖୋଲାରେ ଉପଲବ୍ଧ ହୁଅନ୍ତା ତାହେଲେ ଜ୍ଞାନଲାଭର ପଥ ସୁଗମ ହୋଇପାରନ୍ତା । ବହି ସବୁ ଇଣ୍ଟରନେଟରେ ଉପଲବ୍ଧ କରାଇବାର ସୁବିଧା ବାଟଟିଏ ହେଲା ସେସବୁକୁ ଲେଖା ବା ଟେକ୍ସଟ ରୂପରେ ରଖିବା । ଲେଖାକୁ ଇଣ୍ଟରନେଟ ଯୋଗେ ଖୋଜିହେବ, ପୁନର୍ବ୍ୟବହାର କରିହେବ ଆଉ ବିତରଣ ମଧ୍ୟ କରିହେବ । ଆଉ ଏକ ବାଟ ହେଲା ବହିକୁ ସ୍କାନ କରି ପିଡିଏଫ ରୂପରେ ଉପଲବ୍ଧ କରିହେବ । ପିଡିଏଫ ବହିସବୁ ପଢ଼ିହେଉଥିଲେ ହେଁ ଖୋଜିବା ଆଉ ପୁନର୍ବ୍ୟବହାର କରିବା ପାଖାପାଖି ଅସମ୍ଭବ । ତେବେ ଡିଟିପି ହୋଇଥିବା ବହିକୁ ଫଣ୍ଟ କନଭର୍ଟର ସାହାଯ୍ୟରେ ଇଉନିକୋଡ଼ରେ ରୂପାନ୍ତର କରିହେବ ଯାହା ବହିକୁ ସ୍କାନ କରି ପିଡିଏଫ ତିଆରିଲେ ହୋଇପାରିବ ନାହିଁ । ନ୍ୟାସନାଲ ଇନଷ୍ଟିଚ୍ୟୁଟ ଅଫ ରାଉରକେଲାର ମିଳିତ ସହଯୋଗରେ ୧୯୫୦ ମସିହା ଯାଏ ଛପା ହୋଇଥିବା ୭୪୦ ଖଣ୍ଡ ଉପାଦେୟ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ବହିକୁ ସୃଜନିକା ଅନୁଷ୍ଠାନ ତରଫରୁ ସ୍କାନ କରାଯାଇଛି । ଏଥି ମଧ୍ୟରୁ ୨୪୦ ଖଣ୍ଡ ବହି <a href="http://oaob.nitrkl.ac.in/">oaob.nitrkl.ac.in</a> ରେ ଡାଉନଲୋଡ଼ ପାଇଁ ଉପଲବ୍ଧ । ତେବେ ବହିସବୁ ପ୍ରକାଶକଙ୍କ ଅନୁମତି ବିନା ଇଣ୍ଟରନେଟରେ ରଖିବା କପିରାଇଟ ଆଇନର ଉଲ୍ଲଙ୍ଘନ । ନିକଟରେ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆ ତରଫରୁ ଆୟୋଜିତ "ଓଡ଼ିଶା ଦିବସ ୨୦୧୪" ଅବସରରେ ଭାଷାବିଦ ପଦ୍ମଶ୍ରୀ ଦେବୀପ୍ରସନ୍ନ ପଟ୍ଟନାୟକ ଓ ଭାଷା ଗବେଷକ ସୁବ୍ରତ ପୃଷ୍ଟିଙ୍କ ରଚିତ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଭାଷାର ଗବେଷଣା ତଥ୍ୟ ସମ୍ବଳିତ ଏକ ଇଂରାଜୀ ବହି "Classical Odia" ଓ ଶ୍ରୀଯୁକ୍ତ ପୃଷ୍ଟିଙ୍କ ଦୁଇଟି ଓଡ଼ିଆ ବହି "ଭାଷା ଓ ଜାତୀୟତା" ଏବଂ "ଜାତି, ଜାଗୃତି ଓ ପ୍ରଗତି"କୁ CC-BY-SA ୩.୦ ଲାଇସେନ୍ସରେ ପୁନ-ଲାଇସେନ୍ସ କରିବାର ଅନୁମତି ଦେଲେ । ଏହି ଲାଇସେନ୍ସ ଜଣେ ପାଠକକୁ କେବଳ ବହିଟି ପଢ଼ିବାର ସୁଯୋଗ ଦେଇନଥାଏ, ବରଂ ବହିର ସ୍ରଷ୍ଟାଙ୍କୁ ଶ୍ରେୟ ଦେଇ ବହିର ଲେଖାକୁ ପୁନ-ବ୍ୟବହାର ଓ ବିତରଣ କରିପାରେ । ଏହା ଏକ ଯୁଗାନ୍ତକାରୀ ଓ ଐତିହାସିକ ପଦକ୍ଷେପ । ଯଦି ଆମ ଲେଖକ ଓ ପ୍ରକାଶକ ମାନେ ଏମିତି ଅନୁମତି ଦିଅନ୍ତେ ତେବେ ଅନେକ ଉପାଦେୟ ବହି ଇଣ୍ଟରନେଟରେ ଉପଲବ୍ଧ ହୋଇ ପାଠକର ପଠନ ଭୋକ ମେଣ୍ଟାନ୍ତା । ଶ୍ରୀଯୁକ୍ତ ପୃଷ୍ଟିଙ୍କ ବହି ଦୁଇଟିର ଲେଖାର ଫଣ୍ଟ ରୂପାନ୍ତର ହୋଇ ଏବେ ତାହା ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିପାଠାଗାରରେ ଉପଲବ୍ଧ ହେବ । ଉଇକିପାଠାଗାର ଇଣ୍ଟରନେଟରେ <a href="http://wikisource.org/wiki/Main_Page/Odia">wikisource.org/wiki/Main_Page/Odia</a> ଠାରେ ଉପଲବ୍ଧ ଏକ ଡିଜିଟାଲ ଲାଇବ୍ରେରି ଯେଉଁଥିରେ କପିରାଇଟର ଜଞ୍ଜାଳରୁ ମୁକ୍ତ ବହିମାନ ପାଠକମାନଙ୍କ ପାଇଁ ଖୋଲାରେ ଉପଲବ୍ଧ । ଉଇକିପାଠାଗାରରେ ଆମ ଭାଗବତ, ମହାଭାରତଠାରୁ ଆରମ୍ଭ କରି ବିଜ୍ଞାନ ଓ ଆଇନର ବହିସବୁ ରଖାଯାଇପାରିବ । ବହୁ ବର୍ଷ ଧରି ଛପା ହୋଇନଥିବା ଅନେକ ଉପାଦେୟ ବହି ଯେ କେବଳ ପାଠକମାନଙ୍କ ଅବାଧ ପଠନର ଦିଗନ୍ତଟିଏ ବିସ୍ତାରିବ ତା' ନୁହେଁ, ବରଂ ଆମ ଭାଷାର ଅଧିକ ପାଠ ଇଣ୍ଟରନେଟରେ ଉପଲବ୍ଧ କରାଇ ଓଡ଼ିଆକୁ ଆଉ ପାଞ୍ଚ ବିଶ୍ୱସ୍ତରୀୟ ଭାଷା ସଙ୍ଗେ କାନ୍ଧ ମିଳାଇ ଛିଡ଼ାହେବାକୁ ଭରସା ଦେବ ।</p>
<p align="JUSTIFY">ଖାଲି ବହି ନୁହେଁ ଆମ ଖବରକାଗଜମାନ ମଧ୍ୟ ହେଲେ ଚଳନ୍ତି ଇତିହାସର ରଥଚକ । ବହି, ପତ୍ରିକା ଆଉ ଖବରକାଗଜରୁ ତଥ୍ୟ ନେଇ ଭରିହେବ ଆମ ଭାଷାର ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆକୁ । ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆ ଏକ ଆନ୍ତର୍ଜାତିକ ସଙ୍ଗଠନ ଉଇକିମିଡ଼ିଆର ଅଂଶବିଶେଷ । ଅନେକେ ଇଂରାଜୀ ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆରୁ ନିତି କେତେ ବିଷୟ ପଢୁଥିବେ, ହେଲେ ଥରେ ବୋଧେ ଭାବି ନଥିବେ ଓଡ଼ିଆରେ ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆ ଥିବା ବାବଦରେ । ୨୦୦୨ରୁ ଆରମ୍ଭ ହୋଇ ୨୦୧୧ ଯାଏ ସୁପ୍ତିରେ ଥିଲା ଏହି ଅନଲାଇନ ଜ୍ଞାନକୋଷ । ତେବେ ବେଙ୍ଗାଳୁରୁଠାରେ କେତେଜଣ ଓଡ଼ିଆଙ୍କ ଉଦ୍ୟମରେ ପୁଣି ତେଜିଲା ଆଉ କିଛି ଉତ୍ସାହୀ ଓଡ଼ିଆ, ଓଡ଼ିଶା ଓ ଭାରତର କୋଣ-ସନୁକୋଣରୁ ଏଥିରେ ଭାଗ ନେବା ଆରମ୍ଭ କଲେ । ମାତ୍ର ୧୫ ଜଣ ସ୍ୱେଚ୍ଛାସେବୀ ଉଇକିଆଳି (ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆର ସମ୍ପାଦକ)ଙ୍କ ସମ୍ପାଦିତ ୮,୦୦୦ ରୁ ଅଧିକ ପ୍ରସଙ୍ଗରେ ଭରା ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଭାଷାର ବିଶାଳତମ ଇନଲାଇନ ଜ୍ଞାନକୋଷ । ଜ୍ଞାନକୋଷ ଭିତ୍ତିକ ଲେଖା ବୋଧେ ଗୋପାଳ ପ୍ରହରାଜଙ୍କ ପୂର୍ଣ୍ଣଚନ୍ଦ୍ର ଭାଷାକୋଷ ଓ ବିନୋଦ କାନୁନଗୋଙ୍କ ଜ୍ଞାନମଣ୍ଡଳ ପରେ ଆଉ ସାମୁହିକ ଭାବେ ଲେଖାହୋଇନଥିବ । <a href="http://or.wikipedia.org/">or.wikipedia.org</a>ରେ ଉପଲବ୍ଧ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆରେ ସମସ୍ତେ ଭାଗନେଇ ନୂଆ ପ୍ରସଙ୍ଗ ଗଢ଼ିପାରିବେଓ ଆଗରୁ ଥିବା ପ୍ରସଙ୍ଗର ସମ୍ପାଦନା କରିପାରିବେ । ଅନେକେ ଯେ ଗୁଗଲରେ ଆଉ ଫେସବୁକରେ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଆସୁନାହିଁ ବୋଲି ଗୁମାନ କରିବସନ୍ତି ତାକୁ ଆଣିବାର ଗୋଟେ ବାଟ ହେଲା ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆରେ ନିଜ ଅଞ୍ଚଳ, ପର୍ଯ୍ୟଟନ ସ୍ଥଳ, ନିଜ ପସନ୍ଦରେ ବ୍ୟକ୍ତିତ୍ୱ, ଆମର ଇତିହାସ ଓ ଆହୁରି ଅନେକ ବିଷୟରେ ପ୍ରସଙ୍ଗମାନ ଲେଖିବା ।</p>
<p align="JUSTIFY"><i><b>ଭବିଷ୍ୟତ ପାଇଁ ପନ୍ଥା</b></i><i><b>:</b></i></p>
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<p align="JUSTIFY"><b>ଓଡ଼ିଆ ବହିର ଡିଜିଟାଲ ରୂପ</b><b>: </b>ଉଇକିପାଠାଗାରରେ ଅଚିରେ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ବହି ସବୁକୁ ଡିଜିଟାଲ ରୂପରେ ଲେଖା ଭାବେ ରଖାଯାଇପାରିବ । ତେବେ ବହି ସବୁର ଲାଇସେନ୍ସକୁ Creative Commons Share-Alike କିମ୍ବା Public Domainରେ ପ୍ରକାଶକ କିମ୍ବା ସତ୍ୱାଧିକାରୀଙ୍କ ଅନୁମତି କ୍ରମେ ବଦଳାଇବାକୁ ପଡ଼ିବ ।</p>
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<p align="JUSTIFY"><b>ଓଡ଼ିଆରେ ଅଧିକ ଇଉନିକୋଡ଼ କଣ୍ଟେଣ୍ଟ ତିଆରି</b><b>:</b> ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆ ଏଥିପାଇଁ ଏକ ପ୍ରକୃଷ୍ଠ ସ୍ଥାନ । ଏହା ସମସ୍ତଙ୍କ ପାଇଁ ଖୋଲାଥିବାରୁ ଅଧିକ ସଂଖ୍ୟକ ଲୋକ ମଧ୍ୟ ଏଥିରେ ଲେଖିପାରିବେ । ଏଥିସହିତ ଖବରକାଗଜ, ପତ୍ରପତ୍ରିକା ଆଦି ମଧ୍ୟ ନିଜର ୱେବସାଇଟରେ ଇଉନିକୋଡ଼ରେ ଲେଖାସବୁ ଦେବାକୁ ପଡ଼ିବ ।</p>
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<p align="JUSTIFY"><b>ଓପନସୋର୍ସ ସାଧନର ବ୍ୟବହାର</b><b>: </b>ଅନେକ ଓପନସୋର୍ସ ସଫ୍ଟଓଏର ଏବେ ବ୍ୟବହୃତ ଆଡୋବ ପେଜମେକର ଆଦି ଡିଟିପି ସଫ୍ଟଓଏରର ବିକଳ୍ପ ଭାବେ ବ୍ୟବହାର ହୋଇପାରିବ । ଆକୃତି, ଶ୍ରୀଲିପି ଆଦିର ବଦଳରେ ଡିଟିପି ପାଇଁ ଇଉନିକୋଡ଼ ଫଣ୍ଟ ବ୍ୟବହାର କଲେ ଏବେ ଲେଖା ବିତରଣରେ ଯେଉ ବିରାଟ ଖମାଟିଏ ରହିଛି ତାହା କିଛିକାଂଶରେ ଭରିଯିବ । ସୁଖର କଥା ମାଗଣାରେ ଉପଲବ୍ଧ ଉବଣ୍ଟୁ ଓ ଫେଡୋରା ଭଳି ଓପନସୋର୍ସ ଅପରେଟିଙ୍ଗ ସିଷ୍ଟମ ମାଇକ୍ରୋସଫ୍ଟର ଉଇଣ୍ଡୋଜ XP, ଭିସ୍ତା ଆଦିଠୁ ଯଥେଷ୍ଟ ଅଧିକ ନିରାପଦ ଓ ଭାଇରସ ରହିତ । ବ୍ୟବହାରୀରେ ଏହାକୁ ଆପଣେଇପାରିବେ</p>
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<p align="JUSTIFY"><b>ଓଡ଼ିଆକୁ ବାଧ୍ୟତାମୂଳକ ଭାବେ ପାଠ୍ୟକ୍ରମରେ ରଖିବା</b><b>:</b> ଶିଶୁର ଭାଷା ତା' ବୋଉର ଭାଷା ହେବା ଉଚିତ, ସେଥିପାଇଁ ଏହା ମା'ବୋଲି ମା ମା' ତୁଣ୍ଡର ଭାଷା ବୋଲି ଜଣା । ତଣ୍ଟିଚିପି ପିଲାଟିକୁ ଜନ୍ମ ହେବା ବେଳୁ ଚାକିରି ପାଇଁ ଯୋଗ୍ୟ କରିବାରେ ଯେଉଁ ବୃଥା ପରିଶ୍ରମ ଅଭିଭାବକେ କରୁଛନ୍ତି ତା' ପିଲାଟି ଉପରେ ଜୋର-ଜବରଦସ୍ତି ଏକ ବିଦେଶୀ ଭାଷା ଲଦି ଦେଉଛି । ଏହାର ପ୍ରଭାବରେ ପିଲାର ମାନସିକ ସନ୍ତୁଳନ ବିଗିଡ଼ି ନିଜ ଜାତି, ଅଞ୍ଚଳ, ରାଜ୍ୟ, ଲୋକେ ଆଉ ଏପରିକି ନିଜ ପରିବାର ପ୍ରତି ଛୁଆବେଳୁ ଏକ ପ୍ରକାର ମମତା-ରହିତ ହୋଇଯାଉଛି । ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଶିକ୍ଷା ଶିଶୁ ଶ୍ରେଣୀରୁ ନେଇ ବିଏ-ବିଏସସି ଯାଏ ବାଧ୍ୟତାମୂଳକ ହେଉ । ଓଡ଼ିଶାରେ ବାକି ରାଜ୍ୟ ଭଳି ଏକ ଗବେଷଣାମୂଳକ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ବିଶ୍ୱବିଦ୍ୟାଳୟ ପ୍ରତିଷ୍ଠା ହେଉ । ଏ ଭାଷା ଯଥେଷ୍ଟ ଆଧୁନିକ ପ୍ରେମ କବିତା ଶୁଣିଲାଣି । ଭାଷାର ଅତୀତ, ବର୍ତ୍ତମାନ ଓ ଭବିଷ୍ୟତର ବିଶ୍ଳେଷଣ ଲୋଡ଼ା ।</p>
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<p align="JUSTIFY"><b>ଓଡ଼ିଆ ହେଉ ସରକାରୀ ଭାଷା</b><b>: </b>ଯେତେ ଯାହା ହେଉ ଯଦି ଭାଷାଟିଏ ରାଜଭାଷା ବା ସରକାରୀ କାମରେ ନ ଲାଗିଲା ତାହେଲେ ଭାଷା ପ୍ରତି ଯେତେ ମମତା ଥାଉ, ସାଧାରଣ ଲୋକଟିଏ ବ୍ୟାଙ୍କରୁ ଋଣ ଆଣିବା ବେଳେ କଷ୍ଟେମଷ୍ଟେ ଇଂରାଜୀରେ ଲେଖିବ । ଓଡ଼ିଆ ସରକାରୀ ସ୍ତରରେ ବାଧ୍ୟତାମୂଲକ ହେଲେ ବାହାରୁ ଆସୁଥିବା ଆଇଏଏସ ଅଫିସର ଯେଉଁମାନେ ସରକାରୀ କଳର ମୁଖ୍ୟ, ମଧ୍ୟ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଶିଖିବେ ଓ ଲୋକଙ୍କର ଅସୁବିଧା ବେଶି ବୁଝିବେ । ମଣିଷର ପ୍ରାକୃତିକ ଭାଷା ଯଦି ପଠନ, ଲିଖନ, ସରବରାହ ଓ ଯୋଗାଯୋଗର ଭାଷା ହେଲା ସେ ଭାଷାର ଗତିକୁ ଯେ କେହି ରୋକିପାରିବେ ନାହିଁ ତାହା ଆମ ପାଇଁ ମାଣ୍ଡାରିନ, ଜାପାନୀ, ଥାଇ ଆଦି ଏସୀୟ ଭାଷାମାନଙ୍କଠୁ ଆରମ୍ଭ କରି ଫରାସୀ, ଜର୍ମାନ, ଋଷିଆନ, ଆରବୀ ଆଦି ଛାମୁଆଁ ଭାଷାସମୂହ ଆମ ଆଗରେ ପ୍ରମାଣ କରିଦେଇଛନ୍ତି । ଆଉ ଇଂରାଜୀକୁ ଆମର ଶତ୍ରୁ ନ ମଣି ତା' କାନ୍ଧରେ ଚଢ଼ି ଆମ୍ବ ପାରିବା କୌଶଳଟି ଏ ସାଧବର ଦାୟାଦ ଜାତିକୁ ଶିଖିବାକୁ ପଡ଼ିବ।</p>
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</ul>
<p align="JUSTIFY">ଲେଖକ ପରିଚିତି:</p>
<p align="JUSTIFY">ଶୁଭାଶିଷ ପାଣିଗ୍ରାହୀ ଜଣେ ଶିକ୍ଷା ଗବେଷକ । ସେ ଉଇକିମିଡିଆ ଫାଉଣ୍ଡେସନରୁ ଅନୁଦାନପ୍ରାପ୍ତ ସେଣ୍ଟର ଫର ଇଣ୍ଟରନେଟ ଏଣ୍ଡ ସୋସାଇଟିର ଆକସେସ ଟୁ ନଲେଜରେ ପ୍ରୋଗ୍ରାମ ଅଧିକାରୀ ଭାବେ କମ୍ପୁଟରରେ ଭାରତୀୟ ଭାଷାଶିକ୍ଷା ସମ୍ବନ୍ଧରେ କାମ କରୁଛନ୍ତି । ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆ ଓ Mozilla ତଥା ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଭାଷାରେ ଇଣ୍ଟରନେଟରେ ଲୋକାଲାଇଜେସନର ମାନକ, ଓଡ଼ିଶାରେ ବିଭିନ୍ନ ବିଶ୍ୱବିଦ୍ୟାଳୟ ଓ ଶିକ୍ଷାନୁଷ୍ଠାନରେ ଛାତ୍ରମାନଙ୍କ ପାଇଁ ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆ ସମ୍ପାଦନା ପ୍ରକଳ୍ପ, ବିଶ୍ୱସ୍ତରରେ OpenGLAMର ସଦସ୍ୟ ଓ ଭାରତୀୟ ଆମ୍ବାସାଡର ଭାବରେ ଓ OpenEducation ପ୍ରକଳ୍ପ ମାଧ୍ୟମରେ ଅଧିକ ଜ୍ଞାନର ବିତରଣର ସାଧନ ନିର୍ମାଣ, ଉଇକିମାନିଆ ଭଳି ଆନ୍ତର୍ଜାତୀୟ ସମ୍ମିଳନୀରେ ଭାଗନେଇ ଏସୀୟ ଭାଷାସମୂହ ପାଇଁ ମିଳିତ କାର୍ଯ୍ୟକ୍ରମ ତଥା ନାଗରିକ ସାମ୍ବାଦିକ ସଙ୍ଗଠନ Global Voicesର ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଲିଙ୍ଗୁଆ ମୁଖ୍ୟ ଭାବେ ସେ ଭାଷା ଗବେଷଣା ଓ ଭାଷାର କମ୍ପୁଟରୀକରଣ ପାଇଁ ବିଭିନ୍ନ ସାଧନ ନିର୍ମାଣରେ ସେ ସକ୍ରିୟ ।</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/state-of-odia-language-in-computing-and-future-steps'>https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/state-of-odia-language-in-computing-and-future-steps</a>
</p>
No publishersubhaAccess to KnowledgeWikimediaWikipediaOdia WikipediaOpenness2014-07-28T07:03:46ZBlog EntryState Level Seminar on "Odia alphabet and order teaching in primary education"
https://cis-india.org/openness/news/odia-alphabet-and-order-teaching-in-primary-education
<b>Subhashish Panigrahi participated in a state-level seminar on "Number of Odia characters and order teaching in primary education" (ପ୍ରଥମ ଶ୍ରେଣୀରେ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଅକ୍ଷର ସଂଖ୍ୟା ଓ କ୍ରମଶିକ୍ଷା) co-organised by Institute of Odia Studies and Research, and Odia Bhasa Pratisthan in Bhubaneswar on September 14, 2014. </b>
<p>Subhashish discussed about the applied aspects of Odia language in the context of primary education and need for reforms in the total number and order in the character-set citing problems with computer and internet.</p>
<p>The reports of the event are given below:</p>
<table class="listing">
<tbody>
<tr>
<th><img src="https://cis-india.org/home-images/Prameya1.png" alt="Prameya" class="image-inline" title="Prameya" /></th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Above: Report of the event published in Prameya</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<table class="listing">
<tbody>
<tr>
<th><img src="https://cis-india.org/home-images/Dharitri.png" alt="Dharitri" class="image-inline" title="Dharitri" /></th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Above: Report of the event published in Dharitri</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<table class="listing">
<tbody>
<tr>
<th><img src="https://cis-india.org/home-images/Samaja.png" alt="Samaja" class="image-inline" title="Samaja" /></th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Above: Report of the event published in Samaja</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/openness/news/odia-alphabet-and-order-teaching-in-primary-education'>https://cis-india.org/openness/news/odia-alphabet-and-order-teaching-in-primary-education</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaAccess to KnowledgeWikimediaWikipediaOdia WikipediaOpenness2014-09-30T08:51:05ZNews Item