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Design and the Open Knowledge Movement
https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/saumyaa-naidu-design-and-the-open-knowledge-movement
<b>With the objective of connecting the open knowledge movement with design, the Access to Knowledge team at the Centre for Internet and Society co-organised the Wikigraphists Bootcamp India 2018 with the Wikimedia Foundation during September 28-30, 2018 in New Delhi. The event was held at the School of Design at Ambedkar University Delhi. As part of the bootcamp, a panel discussion was held in order to bring together design practitioners, educators, open knowledge contributors, and design students to explore how design and open knowledge communities can engage with each other. In this post, Saumyaa Naidu shares the learnings from the panel discussion aimed at exploring the potential collaborations between design and the open knowledge movement.</b>
<p> </p>
<h4><a href="#1">Introduction</a></h4>
<h4><a href="#2">Exchange between Design Academics and Open Knowledge</a></h4>
<h4><a href="#3">Potential Means of Engagement with Open Knowledge in Design Practice</a></h4>
<h4><a href="#4">Applications of Open Knowledge in Design Education</a></h4>
<h4><a href="#5">Conclusion</a></h4>
<hr />
<h2 id="1">Introduction</h2>
<p>Design has historically been functioning in a closed paradigm, both with regard to practice and education. The design process, resources, and products are largely proprietary and limit who can access them. On the other hand, increased use of digital technology offers the potential for greater access and knowledge sharing. In this setting, a dialogue on design and openness becomes essential. There is a need to build sensitivity among designers towards <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_knowledge">open knowledge</a> and open access practices. Such an exchange can not only allow for design resources and products to be available in the open domain, but also help designers build an extensive shared knowledge base.</p>
<p>With the objective of connecting the open knowledge movement with design, the Access to Knowledge team at the Centre for Internet and Society co-organised the <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikigraphists_Bootcamp_(2018_India)">Wikigraphists Bootcamp India 2018</a> with the <a href="https://wikimediafoundation.org/">Wikimedia Foundation</a> from 28th to 30th September, 2018 in New Delhi. The event was held at the School of Design at Ambedkar University Delhi. As part of the bootcamp, a panel discussion was held in order to bring together design practitioners, educators, open knowledge contributors, and design students to explore how design and open knowledge communities can engage with each other.</p>
<p>The discussion was preceded by an introduction to the open knowledge movement and its potential in creating access and inclusion, by <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Satdeep_Gill">Satdeep Gill</a>. Satdeep is a community outreach coordinator for India at the Wikimedia Foundation. He is also one of the founding members of <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Punjabi_Wikimedians">Punjabi Wikimedians</a> User Group. Satdeep was the programme leader for the Wikiconference India in 2016. The introduction provided a brief history of copyrights and the beginning of the copyleft movement. It discussed creative commons licensing and the role of Wikipedia in the open knowledge movement.</p>
<p>The panel included <a href="http://www.aud.ac.in/faculty/permanent-faculty/detail/137">Suchitra Balasubrahmanyan</a>, <a href="http://www.matratype.com/">Pooja Saxena</a>, and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Shyamal">Shyamal</a>. Suchitra Balasubrahmanyan is the dean at the <a href="http://www.aud.ac.in/academic/schools/sd">School of Design in Ambedkar University Delhi (AUD)</a>. Her research has been on multiple areas such as history of craft and design, and design education in India. Her practice focuses on social communication design. Pooja Saxena is a typeface and graphic designer whose work centres on multi-script design. She has designed an Ol Chiki typeface for Santali language which is available for free and open use. Pooja also teaches typography at several design schools including <a href="https://pearlacademy.com/">Pearl Academy</a>, <a href="http://www.nid.edu/index.html">National Institute of Design</a>, and <a href="http://srishti.ac.in/">Srishti school of Art, Design, and Technology</a>. Shyamal is an independent researcher and an ornithologist. He has been contributing to Wikipedia for over fifteen years now. In addition to his contributions about the biodiversity of birds, he has also created several illustrations relating to the same. The panel was moderated by Saumyaa Naidu, a designer and researcher at the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS).</p>
<p>The discussion was aimed at addressing three primary questions around design and the open knowledge movement; how academic materials in design inform unstructured or open knowledge spaces and in what ways do these unstructured spaces come back into design education?, what are the potential means of engagement with open knowledge in design practice?, and in what ways can it be applied in design education?<br /><br /></p>
<h2 id="2">Exchange between Design Academics and Open Knowledge</h2>
<p>The discussion began with an enquiry into the challenges faced in the design of knowledge production and the knowledge production of design. It was directed at understanding the various ways in which design education and academia interact with open knowledge. Prof. Suchitra responded by saying that it is still early days for such an interaction to take place as the discipline of design itself is very proprietary in its approach. The work created in different areas of design is often guarded. Locating the discussion at the School of Design in AUD, she suggested that the Social Design course, which looks at the social application of design, believes in socially produced knowledge and contributing to it. However, the university is constrained by the academic environment which does not facilitate the open exchange of knowledge. There is a culture of copyright and protection of work in academia, and heavy funding is required for journal subscriptions. There is an imbalanced gatekeeping of knowledge as countries like India, which have weaker currencies, cannot access this knowledge or contribute to it. The social design community, a small community yet, is interested in making this knowledge freely accessible, in community participation, in co-designing, and in challenge the idea of one ‘super-designer’ who gets all the credit.</p>
<p>Open knowledge spaces such as Wikipedia often make their way into classrooms when students use these resources for assignments. It was pointed out by Prof. Suchitra that there is a lack of regard among students for giving due attribution to material taken from such platforms. Social Sciences universities also consider Wikipedia as an unreliable source, and discourage its use. There is a need to build the culture of knowledge sharing, borrowing, and contribution. She believes that this should be initiated at the level of school education, and not just design schools, so it is internalised at an early stage. She also shared an epistemological concern regarding such a cultural shift in design as it is commonly believed that the knowledge designers produce belongs to them and their livelihoods are connected to it. Hence, open knowledge and open source are antithetical to the profession. This means that the profession itself has to be imagined differently. The social design programme, in this regard, is trying to ensure that when students create work based on interactions with a community, also go back and present it to the community. This is to say that the work produced cannot be exclusively owned by the designers.</p>
<p>The open knowledge movement in India is closely tied to accessibility of information in Indian languages. The availability of a design knowledge base in Indian languages was discussed in this context. Prof. Suchitra explained that most design education in India is in English and is borrowed from another cultural and geographical setting. Design is a discipline of making, and making has its own language. In that sense, the act and content of design transcends language. But, it is the pedagogy which is held by language. The act of making, which is ubiquitous, and is done naturally by everybody, gets held back when it comes to the transmission in different languages. There can be sanskritised words for design terminology, but the vocabulary of everyday use should be applied to represent this knowledge. The School of Design is looking for ways in which important and more provocative texts in design can be made available in other Indian languages. When students are exploring a career in design and they want to learn about it, the information about courses, programmes, and universities should also be available in their language.</p>
<p>The students at AUD recently demanded that education at the university be provided in multiple languages. Since AUD is funded by the Delhi state government, the students want the medium of instruction to include languages of the state (Hindi, Urdu, and Punjabi) apart from English. However, in order to accomplish this, the university would require multilingual teachers. At a personal level, Prof. Suchitra feels that the medium of instruction cannot be monolingual, and that it is good to be multilingual. There is also the conflict that it doesn’t do justice to either languages, and there is no neat answer yet. She believes that technology provides some answers in the sense that students can access the material through translations in whichever language they prefer. Being located in Delhi, the university attracts students from all parts of the country, so it needs to be multilingual in different ways. Technology can intervene and provide a layer by which access can be given in the language of one’s choice. She inferred that this is not a question of one or two languages, but of languages everywhere.<br /><br /></p>
<h2 id="3">Potential Means of Engagement with Open Knowledge in Design Practice</h2>
<p>Presently, there is limited participation from design practitioners on open knowledge platforms. From the perspective of a design practitioner and educator, Pooja Saxena explained that apart from Wikipedia, designers use The Noun Project, which offers both free and paid ways to use icons. She mentioned how students also use this platform but it appears that they are not as interested in contributing to it. They are guarded about the work they create but are fine with using someone else’s work that is available for free. Pooja suggested a much needed change in the understanding that open knowledge simply means that it is open for use. It must be seen as a community which one needs to engage with in whichever capacity and give back to. Agreeing with Prof. Suchitra, Pooja also observed that students fail to give fair attribution when any work is available for free. There is a lack of training and communication around attribution among designers. Regarding open source softwares meant for image making and creating illustrations, Pooja said that despite her several attempts of using them, she has always gone back to proprietary softwares. She believes that there are not enough people contributing to making these open source applications better to work with. A middle path she recommended for designers is creating work in formats which can be edited across applications, so that the work created can be built upon in any application, and is not bound by a proprietary software.</p>
<p>As an experienced Wikipedian, Shyamal also stressed upon the idea of finding ways to productively give back to the open knowledge community. He talked about the opportunities that design students have in terms of creating quality images and graphics, and making them available for public use. An example of such an opportunity could be creating clipart or icons that can be used for roadside signages or other such public resources. Another possibility he proposed was publishing rough drafts or discarded work on platforms like Wikipedia, so it can be refined and used by others. It is not well known that aside from the textual part of Wikipedia, there exists a larger environment which includes projects like Wikidata, which is a semantic database, and Wikimedia Commons, which is meant for a variety of media such as images, video, audio, and even 3D models now. This offers a variety of options to designers to make their work available for open use. Another aspect that Shyamal brought attention to in this regard is to make the work available in a way that it can be easily found by others, by effectively using metadata and writing appropriate descriptions.</p>
<p>A relevant example of engagement of design with the open knowledge community was shared by Pooja through her type design project. This included designing a typeface family for the Ol Chiki script, which is used to write in the Santhali language. The project was initiated by Subhashish Panigrahi at CIS in order to set up the Santhali Wikipedia. But, at the time there were no unicode compliant fonts available for Ol Chiki. This was a clear example of how a design intervention in the form of a typeface could lead to knowledge being shared and possibly even created in the future. The project was then funded by the Access to Knowledge programme at CIS. Pooja described the process of designing the typeface. She mentioned that even though the Santhali language is spoken by over 6 million people, Ol Chiki is not a commonly used script. The script itself was invented less than a hundred years ago, which meant that there is little documentation available of the script to look at. The team then engaged with the community to understand how they would like the letters to look like, and whether the letters in the font were correct. This was done through comprehensive feedback forms to test the letters and ask specific questions around their form and placement. The exercise was repeated a number of times to get accurate letters.</p>
<p>Through this process, Pooja made a key observation on perfection. Designers are often trained to share or show their work only when they think it is perfect. But, in the case of the typeface, it was impossible to achieve something even close to being finished without showing it and seeking help from the community. The project also led to inspiring a design student from the National Institute of Design, who belongs to the Santhal community, to create letters in Ol Chiki script as part of the <a href="http://www.36daysoftype.com/">‘36 days of type’</a> challenge on Instagram. The typeface thus, can contribute towards such projects as well. Pooja concluded that the typeface being available for free can also lead to students making a version of it that serves their purpose better.</p>
<p>Further on open typefaces for Indian languages, Shyamal spoke about the several issues regarding the use of Indian languages, specific to Wikipedia and in general as well. He correlated the lack of academic disciplines in Indian languages with the lack of vocabulary of technical terms. Several people also oppose borrowing words from other languages. In an example of needing to translate the labels of an illustration of a four-stroke engine into an Indian language, the engineer would not know the terms in that language, and the language expert will not know enough about engineering. Shyamal suggested transliterating English words as a first step, so that somebody who doesn’t know English can understand what the word sounds like. Another technical concern is the use of open source fonts of Indian languages for better compatibility on Wikimedia Commons. The platform replaces proprietary fonts with equivalent open source ones during the process of uploading. This changes the typesetting in the illustration in terms of spacing between the letters and sentences, and the resulting design can end up looking different from the intended one. Hence, it is important to include identification and use of open source fonts as part of the learning process in design.</p>
<p>Shyamal further talked about the need to create more awareness about copyright. He explained that the fact that anything we create is automatically copyrighted is not really understood by most people. People posting images on Facebook and Instagram would allow others to use their work when asked, but would hesitate to give a written permission. It would be useful to license out the work. This lack of copyright awareness hinders the creation of a vast visual database on Wikimedia Commons. There is little visual information available online about objects, monuments, maps, places, etc. in India. The advantage of using systems like Wikipedia is that you can geotag places, you can semantically describe them so that people who speak other languages can find that content. The value of availability of such content online for an outsider is not well understood yet. As a practice, when learning something new, Shyamal himself tries to add it on Wikipedia or on related projects, so that it can be of use to anyone else looking for it as well.</p>
<p>On encouraging designers to contribute to open knowledge, Pooja advised that designers can contribute through side projects or self-initiated projects as they are not looking to make any money from them to begin with, and would be able to share the work for free. These side projects can take the form of resources or tools that other people can use to build something else. She also pointed out that it is not necessary that designers cannot get paid to do open work, and shared the example of the Ol Chiki typeface, which was paid for by a patron. There are also organisations that commission projects which are supposed to be available for free use because those organisations need that product to be available for free. Google fonts for example, commissions the typefaces to designers which are eventually available as free and open fonts. It is important for designers to be aware that such opportunities exist, and that they need to be sought.<br /><br /></p>
<h2 id="4">Applications of Open Knowledge in Design Education</h2>
<p>The discussion led to several suggestions on involving design students in the open knowledge movement. Pooja recommended that students can be encouraged to make their assignments available on Wikimedia Commons. Design students are often expected to work on projects that address problems that exist in the real world. In most cases, these projects remain with the students and not get implemented in the real world. If such projects were available on open platforms like Wikimedia Commons, they can be taken forward by others who are tackling the same concerns. It is also something that design students would benefit from because their work will be publicly available.</p>
<p>In order to address the disregard for attributions pointed out earlier, Prof. Suchitra stressed upon the need to build a culture among design students to attribute fairly. This would allow for acceptable acknowledgement to someone who has produced work and contributed it to the open domain. She added that this is being initiated in other design spaces such as the Decolonise Design group, which some design faculties are a part of. The group looks at ways of finding different cultural anchors for design. One such project is where design faculties have gotten together to share design assignments, in order to see what kind of assignments we set in the classroom for teaching various kinds of concepts in design. The faculties are trying to form an international platform where teaching methods can be shared and a bank of design assignments can be created. These methods and assignments are otherwise considered proprietary.</p>
<p>Prof. Suchitra also talked about the onus on public funded educational institutions to make their work available on open platforms, at least in projects which have a larger use. The Industrial Design Centre (IDC), Powai already has a portal on which design related educational material is available for anyone who is interested. They offer an online course in design which anyone can register for and attend. It is only for the certification at the end of the course, that one needs to pay to take an exam. Design courses otherwise tend to be quite expensive. She mentioned that the School of Design at AUD has been contemplating sharing the thesis work that students produce on <a href="https://www.academia.edu/">Academia</a>, a platform for academics to share research papers, where it can be downloaded for free. This allows for the work to be viewed by people outside the school, which is a significant step for young designers. Design as a profession fundamentally does not allow sharing, and this certainly needs to change. She gave the example of textiles, where the traditional artworks and motifs are picked up from different sources and placed on fabrics. Such reuse borders on unethical practice. Therefore, we need to identify the boundaries of open source. The ethical aspects of it need to be opened up and discussed, otherwise it can lead to asymmetrical knowledge practices. The attribution or acknowledgement that the work individually or culturally belongs to somebody, needs to be recognised.</p>
<p>On the learning by doing approach in design education, Pooja raised the concern that there is a lack of attention towards ‘learning by reading’. Design related reading materials are not available on open platforms and in different languages. She suggested that even if the readings are available in English, it is also useful for them to be available in a vocabulary that is more acceptable for someone for whom it is not their first language. Further, the ‘doing’ is also framed by a certain perspective, and often that perspective is quite closed. It does not take into account where the students is coming from. For example, a branding assignment for a product for new mothers does not consider how eighteen year old students would understand the product without any interaction with the users. It doesn’t ask why does it have to be branding to begin with. It also limits the objective to ‘selling something’ while there are other ways in which design can intervene. In the assignments where students engage with a community, there is often a clear asymmetry between the students and the people they are designing for. There is a vast gap in the knowledge and experience shared by the two. Consequently, students are forced to either assert themselves in this community or misrepresent themselves. This also takes away from students wanting to share their work on open platforms. Pooja recommended that they would be more willing to put the work out in the open when they are working with their own community because they can then see how it affects people in a much more direct way.<br /><br /></p>
<h2 id="5">Conclusion</h2>
<p>The discussion brought forward various intersections in design and open knowledge, and the possible ways in which the two can lend to each other. Broader interventions such as a cultural shift in design around sharing work and discussing its ethical aspects, availability of academic material in design on open platforms and in different Indian languages, sensitivity around fair attribution and copyrights among designers, and designers seeking out or self initiating projects that contribute to the open domain were discussed. In terms of specific steps, ideas including design practitioners creating works in formats which are editable on open applications, adding more visual content on platforms like Wikimedia Commons, creating and using more open typefaces in Indian languages, and students sharing their assignments on open platforms were considered. Other ways of engagement with design education could be through internships and workshops that demonstrate the need for open knowledge systems.</p>
<p>During the interaction with the audience, another key concern was brought up by Govind Sivan, a student at the School of Design at AUD. He spoke about the prevalent approach in design schools of giving primary importance to originality. Students work towards thinking of unique ideas and any similarity between their own and a classmate’s assignment is seen as a failure of creativity. Such an approach goes on to curb shared knowledge and collaborative working, and needs to be changed in order to make way for openness in design. Prof. Suchitra also advised that there is more value to design in thinking of it as a collaborative project.</p>
<p>Design is also gradually opening up its process to include the people being designed for through open research methods such as co-design and participatory design. All aspects of a design process such as need identification, data gathering, and the end product can be <a href="https://www.designsociety.org/publication/34842/Three+layers+of+openness+in+design%3A+Examining+the+open+paradigm+in+design+research">conceptualised</a> for openness. These directions can be explored by both designers and the open knowledge community for the creation of a greater and more accessible knowledge base.</p>
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<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/saumyaa-naidu-design-and-the-open-knowledge-movement'>https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/saumyaa-naidu-design-and-the-open-knowledge-movement</a>
</p>
No publishersaumyaaAccess to KnowledgeFeaturedDesignOpennessEducationHomepage2019-04-01T12:13:00ZBlog EntryRejuvenating India’s Rivers the Wiki Way
https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/subodh-kulkarni-rejuvenating-indias-rivers-the-wiki-way
<b>Tarun Bharat Sangh (TBS), an organisation working on rejuvenation of rivers in India, has began documentation of rivers on Wiki, especially to draw attention to and mitigate the crisis of toxic deposits facing more than 40 rivers in India. The work was started by Jal Biradari, TBS’s Maharashtra based group, in Sangli district with the help of the Access to Knowledge (CIS-A2K) team of CIS. Here is the report from the first pilot workshop conducted by CIS-A2K during 22-25 December 2018 at Tarun Bharat Sangh Ashram, in Alwar, Rajasthan.</b>
<p> </p>
<h4>Events details on Wikimedia <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CIS-A2K/Events/Workshop_of_river_activists_at_Tarun_Bharat_Sangh,_Bhikampura,_Rajasthan">meta page</a></h4>
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<h2>The Workshop</h2>
<p>As per a <a href="http://www.indiaenvironmentportal.org.in/files/file/status_trace_toxic_materials_indian_rivers.pdf">Government of India report</a> 42 rivers in India are polluted with toxic heavy metal deposits in them. To mitigate this crisis Tarun Bharat Sangh (TBS), an organization working on rejuvenation of rivers in India began documentation of rivers on Wiki. The work was started by TBS’s Maharashtra based group Jal Biradari in Sangli district with the help of the Access to Knowledge team of CIS (CIS-A2K).</p>
<p>Realizing the potential of the project TBS decided to integrate this as training module in their capacity building workshops conducted at Bhikampura in Rajasthan. The first pilot workshop was conducted by CIS-A2K during 22-25 December 2018 at Tarun Bharat Sangh Ashram, Bhikampura, Alwar in Rajasthan for 34 participants from eight states of India. Dr. Rajendra Singh, Maulik Sisodiya and Subodh Kulkarni, CIS-A2K were the facilitators. The objectives behind organizing the workshop was to build an open knowledge resource on water related issues in all Indian languages, document the river basins of India, train volunteers working in the sector to work in Wikimedia projects, open street mapping exercises and photo walks along the river and post free content on Commons and Wikisource projects.</p>
<p>The documentation structure for river basin was decided through participatory process. The participants were divided into 6 groups for working on 6 river basins of Arvari district. The resource material available with TBS in the form of maps, reports, training booklets was used to prepare the schematic maps of each river basin. The water bodies such as ponds, manmade structures like dams were also listed.</p>
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<th><img src="https://cis-india.org/home-images/WorkshopofRiverActivities.jpg/@@images/e336ea4b-9b8b-4b22-a647-79950225f98e.jpeg" alt="null" class="image-inline" title="Workshop on River Activities" /></th>
<th><img src="https://cis-india.org/home-images/WorkshopofWaterActivities.jpg/@@images/d96a9ca9-4520-4d09-9eb4-f215492c8839.jpeg" alt="null" class="image-inline" title="Workshop on Water Activities" /></th>
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<td style="text-align: center;" colspan="2"><em>Activists during the workshop conducted by TBS in Alwar, Rajasthan in December 2018</em><br /><br /></td>
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<p>After this pre-work, the training on Wikipedia editing started. The participants worked in sandboxes first on their articles. The manual of style, giving offline and online references and categorisation were discussed and practiced on sandboxes. The Commons session started with elaborate discussion on copyrights, licenses and encyclopedic content. The images were uploaded on Commons and used in the articles. The articles in the sandboxes were presented by each working group. Taking into consideration various suggestions, appropriate modifications were done. The finished new articles and the additional content into existing articles were then moved in the main namespace of respective language Wikipedia. TBS has decided to re-license 30 books and training material on river in CC-BY-SA. Participants who attended the workshop have started contributing in various languages.<br /><br /></p>
<h2>Participants' Feedback</h2>
<blockquote style="text-align: justify;" class="quoted">“Rivers are essential for existence of life in land. Keeping its sanctity and health is very important. The Wikimedia workshop gave an insight on river pollution issues and the importance of reviving them. As Wikipedia is an open platform it can create a larger impact by reaching out to the society.” - <a title="en:Username:Mrityunjay1010" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Username:Mrityunjay1010">Mrityunjay1010</a></blockquote>
<blockquote style="text-align: justify;" class="quoted">“The wiki-workshop on "Rivers on Wiki" has been my maiden experience in the context of generalizing the knowledge for common good. The workshop gave me a lens to see the usage of Wikipedia in regional languages as a medium for environmental consciousness building as well as conservation. Wikipedia as a means for social audit was also another enriching experience in that workshop.” - <a title="en:Username:Simantabharati" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Username:Simantabharati">Simantabharati</a></blockquote>
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<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/subodh-kulkarni-rejuvenating-indias-rivers-the-wiki-way'>https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/subodh-kulkarni-rejuvenating-indias-rivers-the-wiki-way</a>
</p>
No publishersubodhCIS-A2KAccess to KnowledgeWikimediaWikipediaFeaturedHomepage2019-04-01T13:18:33ZBlog EntryMarathi Language Fortnight Workshops 2019
https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/marathi-language-fortnight-workshops-2019
<b>Maharashtra is a state which is rich in diversity in terms of language and culture seen in its various regions such as Konkan, Marathwada, Western Maharashtra, Northern Maharashtra and Vidarbha. Awareness needs to be created to make Wikimedia movement inclusive and diverse in these geographical regions as well as in their social strata. </b>
<h3>Collaboration for organizing events</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The Centre for Internet & Society’s Access to Knowledge wing (CIS-A2K) launched the concept of organizing state-wide workshops to spread awareness and train editors in the nitty-gritties of Wikipedia editing and creating digital content. The campaign is now regularly conducted by Rajya Marathi Vikas Sanstha (RMVS), the language department of Maharashtra government with support from CIS-A2K and various institutions.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">These events were conducted during the Marathi language fortnight (1 – 15 January 2019) upto Marathi Language Day on 27 February 2019. The objectives of the event such as creating awareness about digital knowledge in Marathi, open knowledge resources and Wikimedia projects; explaining the history of Wiki movement; training participants in basic editing skills in Wikipedia; exploring ways to find reliable references; presenting article structure, were broadly covered in the sessions. Trainers also explained participants on copyright, community guidelines, uploading images, and so on.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span style="text-align: justify; ">CIS-A2K had collaborated with the state language department from 2017 onwards. In the first series of workshops, three events were conducted. In the second series in 2018 six workshops out of a total 17 workshops were conducted across the state. In the year 2019, the awareness spread to more educational institutions located in different regions of the state. In the third series, CIS-A2K conducted five workshops out of total 21 workshops conducted. CIS facilitated the process and supported some workshops remotely.</span></p>
<h3><span>The Workshops</span></h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><img src="https://cis-india.org/home-images/SangliWorkshop.png/@@images/ac8d36b2-0bb1-483c-917b-09b99f4dc5cb.png" alt="Sangli workshop" class="image-left" title="Sangli workshop" /></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "> </p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span>The first workshop was conducted at Chintamanrao College of Commerce at Sangli. The awareness session about open knowledge sources and Wikimedia projects was organized for students and faculty in the beginning of workshop. After this one hour session, actual skill training in Wikipedia editing was done for three hours for 24 participants. They created the account and learnt the editing and image upload on Commons. The practice was done in sandboxes before working in main namespace. The students of pre-university course and graduate course attended the workshop. The commerce and management related articles were edited.</span></p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; "><span><img src="https://cis-india.org/home-images/KolhapurWorkshop.png/@@images/e0343faf-e757-452b-bc12-ae44cbbfd087.png" alt="Kolhapur workshop" class="image-right" title="Kolhapur workshop" /><br />The second workshop was conducted at Shivaji University, Kolhapur. The Marathi language department took the initiative to organize this workshop for the second consecutive year. The participants were selected from 4 colleges affiliated to university. The faculty was also actively involved. The introductory session was attended by 50 students. The editing training of three hours was conducted in computer lab, in which 24 new users participated. The editors practiced the manual of style, providing links and references, etc. on their sandboxes before working on the main namespace articles. The editors mostly worked on locally relevant topics.</span></p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; "> </p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "> </p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span><img src="https://cis-india.org/home-images/DayanandCollegeWorkshop.png/@@images/5aec339d-eed9-4cfe-98dd-8b47a0a2cd8a.png" alt="Dayanand college workshop" class="image-left" title="Dayanand college workshop" /><br /><br />The third workshop was conducted in Dayanand College at Solapur. This institution organized this event for the second consecutive year. The thematic discussion on history of Solapur was facilitated by a senior editor of Sakal newspaper. The plan for documentation of local festival - </span><i>Gadda Yatra</i><span> and history of Solapur was discussed. It is proposed to start this activity with thematic workshop. Total 15 new and old users participated in the workshop.</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "> </p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "> </p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><img src="https://cis-india.org/home-images/SolapurWorkshop.png/@@images/0bcdf350-1af5-43a8-8e2a-ac7eebc4678c.png" alt="" class="image-right" title="" /></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span style="text-align: justify; "><br />The fourth workshop was conducted at Mass Communication & Journalism department of Solapur University. The faculty of this department took the initiative to organize this event for the second time. Total 25 new and old users participated in the workshop. The participants edited the articles related to journalism and also uploaded the images on Commons. Some editors completed the task of adding references to articles. After the meeting with the faculty, group of post graduate students were assigned 50 articles about reputed Marathi newspapers. They will complete this task as part of their online academic submissions.</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "> </p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "> </p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "> </p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "> </p>
<p style="text-align: center; "><img src="https://cis-india.org/home-images/KaranjaLad.png/@@images/c87be0c1-110b-41f1-a21b-28c4df9cd0ab.png" alt="Karanja Lad" class="image-inline" title="Karanja Lad" /></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The fifth wokshop was conducted at SSSKR Innani College at Karanja Lad in district Washim. This was the first Wikipedia programme in this region of the state. As it was the first Wiki event, we decided to organise a two day workshop. The management and faculty participated actively in this workshop. In the workshop, references and images were added to existing articles about local heritage, tourist places and personalities. The images were uploaded to newly created categories - Karanja Lad and SSSKR Innani College on Commons. Over 100 members participated in this two day event, while 45 users edited actively on Wikimedia projects.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Follow-up</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">After the workshop, quarterly refresher sessions are planned in these institutions. The active students' WhatsApp groups will be formed for support and online training sessions. This cadre of Wiki Guides would facilitate the programs for other students. The meeting with faculty and board of studies would be held for integration of Wikimedia activities with the academic assignments.</p>
<hr />
<p>More info check out the <a class="external-link" href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CIS-A2K/Events/Marathi_Language_Fortnight_Workshops_(2019)">Meta report</a>.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/marathi-language-fortnight-workshops-2019'>https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/marathi-language-fortnight-workshops-2019</a>
</p>
No publishersubodhOpennessFeaturedMarathi WikipediaAccess to Knowledge2019-03-01T00:39:33ZBlog EntryInternet Speech: Perspectives on Regulation and Policy
https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/events/internet-speech-perspectives-on-regulation-and-policy
<b>The Centre for Internet & Society and the University of Munich (LMU), Germany are jointly organizing an international symposium at India Habitat Centre in New Delhi on April 5, 2019</b>
<p><img src="https://cis-india.org/home-images/FreeSpeechSymposium_Poster_02.jpg/@@images/89fe6323-7608-482a-8072-dc241e9f0fda.jpeg" alt="Free Speech Poster" class="image-inline" title="Free Speech Poster" /></p>
<hr />
<p><a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/files/free-speech-symposium-agenda"><b>Click to download the agenda</b></a></p>
<p> </p>
<p><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/files/free-speech-symposium-agenda"> </a></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/events/internet-speech-perspectives-on-regulation-and-policy'>https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/events/internet-speech-perspectives-on-regulation-and-policy</a>
</p>
No publisherakritiFreedom of Speech and ExpressionInternet GovernanceFeaturedInternet FreedomEvent2019-04-01T16:38:54ZEventWelcome to r@w blog!
https://cis-india.org/raw/welcome-to-raw-blog
<b>We from the researchers@work programme at the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) are delighted to announce the launch of our new blog, hosted on Medium. It will feature works by researchers and practitioners working in India and elsewhere at the intersections of internet, digital media, and society; and highlights and materials from ongoing research and events at the researchers@work programme.</b>
<p> </p>
<h4>r@w blog: <a href="https://medium.com/rawblog" target="_blank">Visit</a> (Medium)</h4>
<hr />
<h3>A space for reflections on internet and society, r@w blog is also an attempt to facilitate conversations around contemporary debates and foster creative engagement with research and practice through text, images, sounds, videos, code, and other media forms offered by the internet.<br /><br /></h3>
<h3>r@w blog opens with an essay on ‘<a href="https://medium.com/rawblog/information-offline-labour-surveillance-and-activism-in-the-indian-it-ites-industry-903c71567d1a" target="_blank">Information Offline: Labour, Surveillance, and Activism in the Indian IT & ITES Industry</a>’ by Rianka Roy - as part of an <a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/call-for-essays-offline" target="_blank">essay series</a> exploring social, economic, cultural, political, infrastructural, and aesthetic dimensions of the "offline" - and audio recording from a session titled <a href="https://medium.com/rawblog/iloveyou-167665a5145a" target="_blank">#ILoveYou</a> by Dhiren Borisa and Dhrubo Jyoti, which was part of the <a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/irc18" target="_blank">Internet Researchers’ Conference 2018 - #Offline</a>.<br /><br /></h3>
<h3>We will publish our (including commissioned/supported) writings and works on this blog, as well as submitted and compiled materials. Please write to raw[at]cis-india[dot]org to submit your works to be considered for publication. Copyright to all material published on this blog are owned by CIS and author(s) concerned, and they are shared under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.</h3>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/raw/welcome-to-raw-blog'>https://cis-india.org/raw/welcome-to-raw-blog</a>
</p>
No publishersneha-ppHomepageRAW BlogResearchers at WorkFeaturedInternet Studies2019-01-02T11:48:04ZBlog EntrySilicon Plateau: Volume Two
https://cis-india.org/raw/silicon-plateau-volume-two
<b>Silicon Plateau is an art project and publishing series that explores the intersection of technology, culture and society in the Indian city of Bangalore. Each volume of the series is a themed repository for research, artworks, essays and interviews that observe the ways technology permeates the urban environment and the lives of its inhabitants. This project is an attempt at creating collaborative research into art and technology, beginning by inviting an interdisciplinary group of contributors (from artists, designers and writers, to researchers, anthropologists and entrepreneurs) to participate in the making of each volume.</b>
<p> </p>
<h4>Download the book: <a href="https://files.cargocollective.com/c221119/SiliconPlateau_VolumeTwo.epub">Epub</a> and <a href="https://files.cargocollective.com/c221119/SiliconPlateau_VolumeTwo.pdf">PDF</a></h4>
<hr />
<p><em>Silicon Plateau Volume 2</em> explores the ecosystem of mobile apps and their on-demand services. The book investigates how apps and their infrastructure are impacting our relationship with the urban environment; the way we relate and communicate with each other; and the way labour is changing. It also explores our trust in these technologies, and their supposed capacity to organise things for us and make them straightforward—while, in exchange, we relentlessly feed global corporations with our GPS data and online behaviours.</p>
<p>The sixteen book contributors responded to a main question: what does it mean to be an app user today—as a worker, a client, or simply an observer?</p>
<p>The result is a collection of stories about contemporary life in Bangalore; of conversations and deliberations on how we behave, what we sense, and what we might think about when we use the services that are offered to us on demand, through just a tap on our mobile screens.</p>
<p>Website: <a href="https://siliconplateau.info/" target="_blank">siliconplateau.info</a></p>
<h4>Contributors</h4>
<p>Sunil Abraham and Aasavri Rai, Yogesh Barve, Deepa Bhasthi, Carla Duffett, Furqan Jawed, Vir Kashyap, Saudha Kasim, Qusai Kathawala, Clay Kelton, Tara Kelton, Mathangi Krishnamurthy, Sruthi Krishnan, Vandana Menon, Lucy Pawlak, Nicole Rigillo, Yashas Shetty, Mariam Suhail</p>
<h4>Editors</h4>
<p>Marialaura Ghidini and Tara Kelton</p>
<h4>Publisher</h4>
<p>Institute of Network Cultures, Amsterdam, in collaboration with the Centre for Internet and Society, India, 2018. ISBN: 978-94-92302-29-8</p>
<h4>Book and Cover Design</h4>
<p>Furqan Jawed and Tara Kelton</p>
<h4>Copyediting</h4>
<p>Aditya Pandya</p>
<h4>Supported by</h4>
<p>Jitu Pasricha, Bangalore; Aarti Sonawala, Singapore; and the Centre for Internet and Society, India.</p>
<hr />
<p>Cross-posted from <a href="https://networkcultures.org/blog/publication/silicon-plateau-volume-two/" target="_blank">Institute of Network Cultures</a>.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/raw/silicon-plateau-volume-two'>https://cis-india.org/raw/silicon-plateau-volume-two</a>
</p>
No publishersneha-ppSilicon PlateauRAW PublicationsWeb CulturesFeaturedPublicationsResearchers at Work2019-03-13T01:01:27ZBlog EntryClarification on the Information Security Practices of Aadhaar Report
https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/clarification-on-the-information-security-practices-of-aadhaar-report
<b>We are issuing a second clarificatory statement on our report titled “Information Security Practices of Aadhaar (or lack thereof): A documentation of public availability of Aadhaar numbers with sensitive personal financial information” published on May 1, 2017. </b>
<p> </p>
<h4>The report concerned can be accessed <a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/information-security-practices-of-aadhaar-or-lack-thereof-a-documentation-of-public-availability-of-aadhaar-numbers-with-sensitive-personal-financial-information-1">here</a>, and the first clarificatory statement (dated May 16, 2017) can be accessed <a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/clarification-on-information-security-practices-of-the-aadhaar-report/">here</a>.</h4>
<hr />
<p>This clarificatory statement is being issued in response to reports that misrepresent our research. In light of repeated questions we have received, which seem to emanate from a misunderstanding of our report, we would like to make the following clarifications.</p>
<ol>
<li>Our research involved documentation and taking illustrative screenshots (included in our report) of public webpages on the four government websites listed in our report. These screenshots were taken to demonstrate that the vulnerability existed.<br /><br /></li>
<li>The figure of 130-135 million Aadhaar Numbers quoted in our Report are, as clearly stated, derived directly by adding the aggregate numbers (of beneficiaries/individuals whose data were listed in the three government websites concerned) and published by the portals themselves in the MIS reports publicly available on the portals. The numbers are as follows:<br /><br />
<ul>
<li>10,97,60,343 from NREGA,<br /><br /></li>
<li>63,95,317 from NSAP, and<br /><br /></li>
<li>2,05,60,896 from Chandranna Bima (screenshots included in the report).<br /><br /></li></ul>
<strong>We did not arrive at this number by downloading data ourselves but by adding the figures on the government websites. To our knowledge, no harm, financial or otherwise has been caused to anyone due to the public availability. Further, it must be noted that we published the report only after ascertaining that the websites in questions had masked or removed the data. Therefore our report only points to the possibility that there could be harm caused by malicious actors before the data was taken down. However, we are not aware of any such cases of exploitation, nor do we suggest so anywhere in our report.</strong></li></ol>
<p>We sincerely hope that this clarification helps with a clearer comprehension of the argument and implications of the said report. We urge those who are using our report in their research to reach out to us to prevent the future misinterpretation of the report.</p>
<p><em>— Amber Sinha and Srinivas Kodali</em></p>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/clarification-on-the-information-security-practices-of-aadhaar-report'>https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/clarification-on-the-information-security-practices-of-aadhaar-report</a>
</p>
No publisherAmber Sinha and Srinivas KodaliFeaturedHomepageAadhaar2018-11-05T12:08:06ZBlog EntryWikisource Handbook for Indian Communities
https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/wiki-source-handbook-for-indian-communities
<b>Wikisource is one of the trending Wikimedia projects. Many new editors and new books to Indic language Wikisource's get added over a period of time. However, new editors as well as existing editors face numerous problems while working with the content online. The Centre for Internet & Society's Access to Knowledge (CIS-A2K) team, to help the editors, has created this Handbook. CIS invites feedback to the first draft of this Handbook. CIS-A2K will continue to work with the Wikipedia communities to improve their efforts towards developing Wikisource. </b>
<h2>Preface</h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Currently, CIS-A2K is working with five Indian-languages Wikimedia communities (Kannada, Konkani, Marathi, Odia, and Telugu) and one focus project area (Wikisource with punjabi community). While working with the above mentioned Indic Wikimedia communities, we noticed that there are many similarities between the issues and challenges faced by these communities. So, we decided to create this “Wikisource Handbook for Indian Communities”.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">At first, we went through the Wikisource of each language and noted the status. Then we talked to Indic Wikipedians to know more about the Wikisource related issues that they are facing. We also asked for the feedback on the first draft of this handbook. Our actual work will start after the release of this book, when we’ll work with the communities to improve their efforts towards developing Wikisource.</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Click to download the <b><a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/files/wikisource-handbook-for-indian-communities">Wikisource Handbook for Indian Communities</a></b> co-authored by Bodhisattwa Mandal and Ananth Subray P V. with graphics support from Saumya Naidu.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/wiki-source-handbook-for-indian-communities'>https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/wiki-source-handbook-for-indian-communities</a>
</p>
No publisherBodhisattwa Mandal and Ananth Subray P. V.CIS-A2KAccess to KnowledgeWikimediaWikipediaFeaturedHomepage2018-09-19T02:18:40ZBlog EntryICANN Diversity Analysis
https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/icann-diversity-analysis
<b>The by-laws of The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) state that it is a non-profit public-benefit corporation which is responsible at the overall level, for the coordination of the “global internet's systems of unique identifiers, and in particular to ensure the stable and secure operation of the internet's unique identifier systems”. As key stakeholders of ICANN are spread across the world, much of the communication discussing the work of ICANN takes place over email. This analysis of the diversity of participation at the ICANN processes, through a study of their mailing lists, was undertaken by Paul Kurian and Akriti Bopanna.</b>
<p> </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The by-laws of The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) state that it is a non-profit public-benefit corporation which is responsible at the overall level, for the coordination of the “global internet's systems of unique identifiers, and in particular to ensure the stable and secure operation of the internet's unique identifier systems”.<a href="#_ftn1"><sup><sup>[1]</sup></sup></a>Previously, this was overseen by the Internet Assigned Number Authority (IANA) under a US Government contract but in 2016, the oversight was handed over to ICANN, as a global multi-stakeholder body.<a href="#_ftn2"><sup><sup>[2]</sup></sup></a> Given the significance of the multistakeholder nature of ICANN, it is imperative that stakeholders continue to question and improve the inclusiveness of its processes. The current blog post seeks to focus on the diversity of participation at the ICANN process.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">As stakeholders are spread across the world, much of the communication discussing the work of ICANN takes place over email. Various [or X number of ] mailing lists inform members of ICANN activities and are used for discussions between them from policy advice to organizational building matters. Many of these lists are public and hence can be subscribed to by anyone and also can be viewed by non-members through the archives.</p>
<p>CIS analysed the five most active mailing lists amongst the working group mailing lists from January 2016 to May 2018, namely:</p>
<ol><li>Outreach & Engagement,</li>
<li>Technology,</li>
<li>At-Large Review 2015 - 2019,</li>
<li>IANA Transition & ICANN Accountability, and</li>
<li>Finance & Budget mailing lists.</li></ol>
<p style="text-align: justify;">We looked at the diversity among these active participants by focusing on their gender, stakeholder grouping and region. In order to arrive at the data, we referred to public records such as the Statement of Interests which members have to give to the Generic Names Supporting Organization(GNSO) Council if they want to participate in their working groups. We also used, where available, ICANN Wiki and the LinkedIn profiles of these participants. Given below are some of the observations we made subsequent to surveying the data. We acknowledge that there might be some inadvertent errors made in the categorization of these participants, but are of the opinion that our inference from the data would not be drastically affected by a few errors.</p>
<h4>The following findings were observed:</h4>
<ul>
<li>A total of 218 participants were present on the 5 mailing lists that were looked at.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Of these,, 92 were determined to be active participants (participants who had sent more than the median number of mails in their working group) out of which 75 were non-staff members. </li></ul>
<h4>Among the active non-staff participants:</h4>
<ul>
<li>Out of the 75 participants, <strong>56</strong> (<strong>74.7%</strong>) were male and <strong>19</strong> (<strong>25.3%</strong>) were female.<br /><img src="https://cis-india.org/home-images/Gender.png" alt="null" class="image-inline" title="Gender" /><br /><br /><img src="https://cis-india.org/home-images/StakeholderGroup.png" alt="null" class="image-inline" title="Stakeholder Group" /></li>
<li style="text-align: justify;"><strong>57.3%</strong> were identified to be members of the industry and technological community and 1.3% were identified as government representatives. 8.0% were representatives from Academia, 25.3% represented civil society and the remaining 8.0% were from fields that were uncategorizable with respect to the above, but were related to law and consultancy.<br /><img src="https://cis-india.org/home-images/Region.png" alt="null" class="image-inline" title="Region" /></li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Only 14.7% of the participants were from Asia while the majority belonged to Africa and then North America with 24% and 22.7% participation respectively</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Within Asia, we identified only one active participant from China.</li></ul>
<h3>Concerns</h3>
<ul>
<li>The vast number of the people participating and as an extension, influencing ICANN work are male constituting three fourth of the participants.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">The mailing list are dominated by individuals from industry.. This coupled with the relative minority presence of the other stakeholders creates an environment where concerns emanating from other sections of the society could be overshadowed.</li>
<li>Only 14.7% of the participants were from Asia, which is concerning since 48.7% of internet users worldwide belong to Asia.<a href="#_ftn1"><sup><sup>[3]</sup></sup></a></li>
<li>China which has the world’s largest population of internet users (700 million people)<a href="#_ftn2"><sup><sup>[4]</sup></sup></a> had only one active participant on these mailing lists.</li></ul>
<p style="text-align: justify;">ICANN being a global multistakeholder organization should ideally have the number of representatives from each region be proportionate to the number of internet users in that region. In addition to this, participation of women on these mailing lists need to increase to ensure that there is inclusive contribution in the functioning of the organization. We did not come across any indication of participation of individuals of non binary genders.</p>
<hr align="left" size="1" width="100%" />
<p><a href="#_ftnref1"><sup><sup>[1]</sup></sup></a> https://cis-india.org/telecom/knowledge-repository-on-internet-access/icann</p>
<p><a href="#_ftnref2"><sup><sup>[2]</sup></sup></a> https://www.icann.org/news/announcement-2016-10-01-en</p>
<p><a href="#_ftnref3"><sup><sup>[3]</sup></sup></a> https://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm</p>
<p><a href="#_ftnref4"><sup><sup>[4]</sup></sup></a> https://www.internetworldstats.com/stats3.htm</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/icann-diversity-analysis'>https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/icann-diversity-analysis</a>
</p>
No publisherakritiICANNFeaturedHomepageInternet Governance2018-08-29T11:19:46ZBlog EntryNew Contexts and Sites of Humanities Practice in the Digital (Paper)
https://cis-india.org/raw/new-contexts-and-sites-of-humanities-practice-in-the-digital-paper
<b>The ubiquitous presence of the ‘digital’ over the couple of decades has brought with it several important changes in interdisciplinary forms of research and knowledge production. Particularly in the arts and humanities, the role of digital technologies and internet has always been a rather contentious one, with more debate spurred now due to the growth of fields like humanities computing, digital humanities (henceforth DH) and cultural analytics. Even as these fields signal several shifts in scholarship, pedagogy and practice, portending a futuristic imagination of the role of technology in academia and practice on the one hand, they also reflect continuing challenges related to the digital divide, and more specifically politics around the growth and sustenance of the humanities disciplines. A specific criticism within more recent debates around the origin story of DH in fact, has been its Anglo-American framing, drawing upon a history in humanities computing and textual studies, and located within a larger neoliberal imagination of the university and academia. While this has been met with resistance from across different spaces, thus calling for more diversity and representation in the discourse, it is also reflective of the need to trace and contextualize more local forms of practice and pedagogy in the digital as efforts to address these global concerns. This essay by Puthiya Purayil Sneha draws upon excerpts from a study on the field of DH and related practices in India, to outline the diverse contexts of humanities practice with the advent of the digital and explore the developing discourse around DH in the Indian context.</b>
<p> </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">This essay was published in <a href="http://iias.ac.in/ojs/index.php/summerhill/article/view/116" target="_blank">Vol 22 No 1 (2016): SummerHill</a>, Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla. Edited by Dr. Bindu Menon. Download the essay <a href="http://iias.ac.in/ojs/index.php/summerhill/article/view/116/99" target="_blank">here</a> (PDF).</p>
<hr />
<h3><strong>Abstract</strong></h3>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The last couple of decades have seen an increasing prevalence of digital technologies and internet in the study and practice of arts and humanities. With the growth of fields like humanities computing, digital humanities (henceforth DH) and cultural analytics, there has been a renewed interest in the increasing role of the ‘digital’ in interdisciplinary forms of research and knowledge production. DH in particular has become a field of much interest and debate in different parts of the world, including in India. Globally, in the last two decades, there have been several efforts to organize the discourse around this field which seeks to explore various intersections between humanities and digital methods, spaces and tools1. But DH also continues to remain a bone of contention, with several perspectives on what exactly constitutes its methodology and scope, and most importantly its epistemological stake.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">A specific criticism has been the Anglo-American framing of DH, located within a larger neoliberal imagination of the university and the higher education system at large. As a result, the connection of these two threads—a history of DH located in humanities computing and textual studies and its contextualization within the American university—is often represented as the history of DH. This has been met with resistance from several scholars and practitioners across the world calling for more global perspectives on the field. Drawing upon excerpts from a recently completed study on mapping the field of DH and related practices in India, this essay will attempt to outline the diverse contexts of humanities practice emerging with the digital turn, along with a reading of some of the global debates around DH to understand the discourse around the field in the Indian context.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/raw/new-contexts-and-sites-of-humanities-practice-in-the-digital-paper'>https://cis-india.org/raw/new-contexts-and-sites-of-humanities-practice-in-the-digital-paper</a>
</p>
No publishersneha-ppDigital KnowledgeResearchFeaturedPublicationsDigital HumanitiesResearchers at Work2019-12-06T05:03:33ZBlog EntryInternet Shutdown Stories
https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/internet-shutdown-stories
<b>The Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) has published a collection of stories of the impact of internet shutdowns on people's lives in the country. This book seeks to give a glimpse into the lives of those directly affected by these internet shutdown experiments. When seen in a larger context, we hope that the stories in this book also demonstrate that access to the internet and freedom of speech is not just about an individual’s rights, but are also required for the collective good. This is a project funded by Facebook and MacArthur Foundation, and the stories were provided by 101 Reporters. Case studies from the states of Jammu & Kashmir, Haryana, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Telangana, West Bengal, Tripura, Manipur, Nagaland, and Uttar Pradesh have been highlighted in this compilation.</b>
<p> </p>
<h4>Read the report here: <a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-shutdown-stories/at_download/file">Download</a> (PDF)</h4>
<p>The report is shared under Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International license.</p>
<h4>Edited by Debasmita Haldar, Ambika Tandon, and Swaraj Barooah</h4>
<h4>Print Design by Saumyaa Naidu</h4>
<h4>Advisor: Nikhil Pahwa, Founder and Editor at <a href="https://www.medianama.com/" target="_blank">MediaNama</a></h4>
<hr />
<h2>Foreword</h2>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Aside from the waves of innovation that the digital revolution brought with it, the ever increasing pervasiveness of the internet has had a tremendous impact on empowerment and freedoms in society. We are seeing unprecedented levels of access to information, along with a democratization of the means of creation, production and dissemination of information to anyone with an internet connection. This in turn has greatly amplified, and in many cases even created the ability, particularly for those traditionally left in the margins, to more meaningfully participate in their global as well as local societies. Recognising the significance of the internet to the freedom of expression as well as for the development and exercising of human rights more broadly, the United Nations Human Rights Council unanimously passed a resolution confirming internet access being a fundamental human right.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Simultaneously however, we are seeing Indian states discover and experiment with their power to clamp down on these new modes of communication for a variety of reasons, ranging from the ill-intentioned to the ill-informed. An internet shutdown tracker maintained by the Software Freedom Law Centre, shows that the number of shutdowns in India is increasing every year, with 70 shutdowns reported in 2017,and 45 shutdowns already <a class="external-link" href="https://internetshutdowns.in/">reported from 1st Jan, 2018 to 4th May, 2018</a>. These shutdowns also come at a significant economic cost. A 2016 <a class="external-link" href="http://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/intenet-shutdowns-v-3.pdf">Brookings report</a> estimates that India faced a loss of about $968 million due to internet shutdowns. However, the democratic harms we have been accruing are more difficult to quantify and demonstrate.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">This book seeks to give a glimpse into the lives of those directly affected by these internet shutdown experiments. From Jammu and Kashmir to Telangana, from Gujarat to Nagaland, we have collected 30 stories from across the country for an up-close look at how the everyday lives of common citizens have been impacted by internet shutdowns and website blocks. From CRPF members posted in Srinagar who use the internet to connect with their family, to students who have been cut off from education resources for competitive exams; from the disruptions in day to day life brought about by non-functional bank services in Darjeeling, to stock brokers in Ahmedabad who faced costly slowdowns; the idea of a Digital India is facing severe setbacks with these continuously increasing internet shutdowns.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">When seen in a larger context, we hope that the stories in this book also demonstrate that access to the internet and freedom of speech is not just about an individual’s rights, but are also required for the collective good. The diversity of perspectives and activities that a healthy democracy demands is not met by the versioning of dominant narratives, but by allowing for, if not directly encouraging, the voices and activities of the unheard, oppressed and marginalised. We hope that in the telling of these personal stories of the day-to-day of people affected by such internet shutdowns, this book joins in the effort to position the dehumanized internet kill switches more aptly as dangers to democracy.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Sunil Abraham</strong><br />Executive Director<br />The Centre for Internet and Society</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/internet-shutdown-stories'>https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/internet-shutdown-stories</a>
</p>
No publisherambikaFeaturedHomepageInternet GovernanceCensorship2019-09-03T09:57:40ZBlog EntryWhat’s up with WhatsApp?
https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/asia-times-april-20-2018-aayush-rathi-sunil-abraham-what-s-up-with-whatsapp
<b>In 2016, WhatsApp Inc announced it was rolling out end-to-end encryption, but is the company doing what it claims to be doing?</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The article by Aayush Rathi and Sunil Abraham was published in <a class="external-link" href="http://www.atimes.com/article/whats-up-with-whatsapp/">Asia Times</a> on April 20, 2018.</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Back in April 2016, when WhatsApp Inc announced it was rolling out end-to-end encryption (E2EE) for its billion-plus strong user base as a default setting, the messaging behemoth signaled to its users it was at the forefront of providing technological solutions to protect privacy.</p>
<p class="p4" style="text-align: justify; ">Emphasized in the security white paper explaining the implementation of the technology is the encryption of both forms of communication – one-to-one and group and also of all types of messages shared within such communications – text as well as media.</p>
<p class="p4" style="text-align: justify; ">Simply put, all communication taking place over WhatsApp would be decipherable only to the sender and recipient – it would be virtual gibberish even to WhatsApp.</p>
<p class="p4" style="text-align: justify; ">This announcement came in the backdrop of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/feb/17/apple-ordered-to-hack-iphone-of-san-bernardino-shooter-for-fbi">Apple locking horns with the FBI</a> after being asked to provide a backdoor to unlock the San Bernardino mass shooter’s iPhone. This further reinforced WhatsApp Inc’s stand on the ensuing debate between the interplay of privacy and security in the digital age.</p>
<p class="p4" style="text-align: justify; ">Kudos to WhatsApp, for there is <a href="http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/FreedomOpinion/Pages/CallForSubmission.aspx">growing discussion</a> around how encryption and anonymity is central to enabling secure online communication which in turn is integral to essential human rights such as those of freedom of opinion and expression.</p>
<p class="p4" style="text-align: justify; ">WhatsApp may have taken encryption to the masses, but here we outline why WhatsApp’s provisioning of privacy and security measures needs a more granular analysis – is the company doing what it claims to be doing? Security issues with WhatsApp’s messaging protocol certainly are not new.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Man-in-the-middle attacks</h3>
<p class="p4" style="text-align: justify; ">A <a href="https://eprint.iacr.org/2017/713.pdf">study</a> published by a group of German researchers from Ruhr University highlighted issues with WhatsApp’s implementation of its E2EE protocol to group communications. Another <a href="https://courses.csail.mit.edu/6.857/2016/files/36.pdf">paper</a> points out how WhatsApp’s session establishment strategy itself could be problematic and potentially be targeted for what are called man-in-the-middle (MITM) attacks.</p>
<p class="p4" style="text-align: justify; ">An MITM attack takes the form of a malicious actor, as the term suggests, placing itself between the communicating parties to eavesdrop or impersonate. The Electronic Frontier Foundation also <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/10/where-whatsapp-went-wrong-effs-four-biggest-security-concerns">highlighted</a> other security vulnerabilities, or trade-offs, depending upon ideological inclinations, with respect to WhatsApp allowing for storage of unencrypted backups, issues with WhatsApp’s web client and also with its approach to cryptographic key change notifications.</p>
<p class="p4" style="text-align: justify; ">Much has been written questioning WhatsApp’s shifting approach to ensuring privacy too. Quoting straight from <a href="https://www.whatsapp.com/legal/#privacy-policy-affiliated-companies">WhatsApp’s Privacy Policy:</a> “We joined the Facebook family of companies in 2014. As part of the Facebook family of companies, WhatsApp receives information from, and shares information with, this family of companies.” Speaking of Facebook …</p>
<p class="p4" style="text-align: justify; ">Culling out larger issues with WhatsApp’s privacy policies is not the intention here. What we specifically seek to explore is right at the nexus of WhatsApp’s security and privacy provisioning clashing with its marketing strategy: the storage of data on WhatsApp’s servers, or ‘blobs,’ as they are referred to in the technical paper. Facebook’s rather. In WhatsApp’s words: “Once your messages (including your chats, photos, videos, voice messages, files and share location information) are delivered, they are deleted from our servers. Your messages are stored on your own device.”</p>
<p class="p4" style="text-align: justify; ">In fact, this non-storage of data on their ‘blobs’ is emphasizes at several other points on the official website. Let us call this the deletion-upon-delivery model.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">A simple experiment</h3>
<p class="p4" style="text-align: justify; ">While drawing up a rigorous proof of concept, made near-impossible thanks to WhatsApp being a closed source messaging protocol, a simple experiment is enough to raise some very pertinent questions about WhatsApp’s outlined deletion-upon-delivery model. It should, however, be mentioned that the Signal Protocol developed by Open Whisper Systems and pivotal in WhatsApp’s rolling out of E2EE is <a href="https://github.com/signalapp">open source</a>. Here is how the experiment proceeds:</p>
<p class="p4" style="text-align: justify; "><i>Rick sends Morty an attachment.</i></p>
<p class="p4" style="text-align: justify; "><i>Morty then switches off the data on her mobile device.</i></p>
<p class="p4" style="text-align: justify; "><i>Rick downloads the attachment, an image.</i></p>
<p class="p4" style="text-align: justify; "><i>Subsequently, Rick deletes the image from his mobile device’s internal storage.</i></p>
<p class="p4" style="text-align: justify; "><i>Rick then logs into a WhatsApp’s web client on his browser. (Prior to this experiment, both Rick and Morty had logged out from all instances of the web client)</i></p>
<p class="p4" style="text-align: justify; "><i>Upon a fresh log-in to the web client and opening the chat with Morty, the option to download the image is available to Rick.</i></p>
<p class="p4" style="text-align: justify; ">The experiment concludes with bewilderment at WhatsApp’s claim of deletion-upon-delivery as outlined earlier. The only place from which Morty could have downloaded the image would be from Facebook’s ‘blobs.’ The attachment could not have been retrieved from Morty’s mobile device as it had no way of sending data and neither from Rick’s mobile device as it no longer existed in the device’s storage.</p>
<p class="p4" style="text-align: justify; ">As per the Privacy Policy, the data is stored on the ‘blobs’ for a period of 30 days after transmission of a message only when it can’t be delivered to the recipient. Upon delivery, the deletion-upon-delivery model is supposed to kick in.</p>
<p class="p4" style="text-align: justify; ">Another straightforward experiment that leads to a similar conclusion is seeing the difference in time taken for a large attachment to be forwarded as opposed to when the same large attachment is uploaded. Forwarding is palpably quicker than uploading afresh: non-storage of attachments on the ‘blob’ would entail that the same amount should be taken for both.</p>
<p class="p4" style="text-align: justify; ">The plot thickens. WhatsApp’s Privacy Policy goes on to state: “To improve performance and deliver media messages more efficiently, such as when many people are sharing a popular photo or video, we may retain that content on our servers for a longer period of time.” The technical paper offers no help in understanding how WhatsApp systems assess frequently shared encrypted media messages without decrypting it at its end.</p>
<p class="p4" style="text-align: justify; ">A possible explanation could be the usage of metadata by WhatsApp, which it discloses in its Privacy Policy while simultaneously being sufficiently vague about the specifics of it. That WhatsApp may be capable of reading encrypted communication through the inclusion of a backdoor bodes well for law enforcement, but not so much for unsuspecting users.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">The weakest link in the chain</h3>
<p class="p4" style="text-align: justify; ">Concerns about backdoors in WhatsApp’s product have led the French government to start developing their <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-privacy/france-builds-whatsapp-rival-due-to-surveillance-risk-idUSKBN1HN258">own encrypted messaging service</a>. This will be built using Matrix – an open protocol designed for real-time communication. Indeed, the Privacy Policy lays out that the company “may collect, use, preserve, and share your information if we have a good-faith belief that it is reasonably necessary to respond pursuant to applicable law or regulations, to legal process, or to government requests.”</p>
<p class="p4" style="text-align: justify; ">The Signal Protocol is the undisputed gold standard of E2EE implementations. It is the integration with the surrounding functionality that WhatsApp offers which leads to vulnerabilities. After all, a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. Assuming that the attachments stored on the ‘blobs’ are in encrypted form, indecipherable to all but the intended recipients, this does not pose a privacy risk for the users from a technological point of view.</p>
<p class="p4" style="text-align: justify; ">However, it is easy lose sight of the fact that the Privacy Policy is a legally binding document and it specifically states that messages are not stored on the ‘blobs’ as a matter of routine. As a side note, WhatsApp’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Service are refreshing in their readability and lack of legalese.</p>
<p class="p4" style="text-align: justify; ">As we were putting the final touches to this piece, <a href="https://wabetainfo.com/whatsapp-allows-to-redownload-deleted-media/#more-2781">news from <i>WABetaInfo</i></a>, a well-reputed source of information on WhatsApp features, has broken that newer updates of WhatsApp for Android are permitting users to re-download media deleted up to three months back. WhatsApp cannot possibly achieve this without storing the media in the ‘blobs,’ or in other words, in violation of its Privacy Policy.</p>
<p class="p4" style="text-align: justify; ">As the aphorism goes: “When the service is free, you are the product.”</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/asia-times-april-20-2018-aayush-rathi-sunil-abraham-what-s-up-with-whatsapp'>https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/asia-times-april-20-2018-aayush-rathi-sunil-abraham-what-s-up-with-whatsapp</a>
</p>
No publisherAayush Rathi and Sunil AbrahamSocial MediaPrivacyInternet GovernanceFeaturedWhatsAppHomepage2018-04-23T16:45:51ZBlog EntryGovernment gives free publicity worth 40k to Twitter and Facebook
https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/government-giving-free-publicity-worth-40-k-to-twitter-and-facebook
<b>We conducted a 2 week survey of newspapers for links between government advertisement to social media giants. As citizens, we should be worried about the close nexus between the Indian government and digital behemoths such as Facebook, Google and Twitter. It has become apparent to us after a 2 week print media analysis that our Government has been providing free publicity worth Rs 40,000 to these entities. There are multiple issues with this as this article attempts at pointing out.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><img src="https://cis-india.org/home-images/TotalAdvertisementExpenditure.jpg" alt="null" class="image-inline" title="Total Advertisement Expenditure" /></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">We analyzed 5 English language newspapers daily for 2 weeks from March 12<sup>th</sup> to 26<sup>th</sup>, one week of the newspapers in Lucknow and the second week in Bangalore. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Alphabet backed services such as Youtube and Google Plus were part of our survey. Of a total of 33 advertisements (14 in Lucknow+19 in Bangalore), Twitter stands out as the most prominent advertising platform used by government agencies with 30 ads but Facebook at 29 was more expensive. In order to ascertain the rates of publicity, current advertisement rates for Times of India as our purpose was to solely give a rough estimation of how much the government is spending.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Advertising of this nature is not merely an inherent problem of favoring some social media companies over others but also symptomatic of a bigger problem, the lack of our native e-governance mechanisms which cause the Government to rely and promote others. Where we do have guidelines they are not being followed. By outsourcing their e-governance platforms to Twitter such as TwitterSeva, a feature created by the Twitter India team to help citizens connect better with government services, there is less of an impetus to construct better <a class="external-link" href="https://factordaily.com/twitter-helping-india-reboot-public-services-publicly/">websites of their own</a>.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">If this is so because we currently do not have the capacity to build them ourselves then it is imperative that this changes. We should either be executing government functions on digital infrastructure owned by them or on open and interoperable systems. If anything, the surveyed social media platforms can be used to enhance pre-existing facilities. However, currently the converse is true with these platforms overshadowing the presence of e-governance websites. Officials have started responding to complaints on Twitter, diluting the significance of such complaint mechanisms on their respective department’s portal. Often enough such features are not available on the relevant government website. This sets a dangerous precedent for a citizen management system as the records of such interactions are then in the hands of these companies who may not exist in the future. As a result, they can control the access to such records or worse tamper with them. Posterity and reliability of such data can be ensured only if they are stored within the Government’s reach or if they are open and public with a first copy stored on Government records which ensures transparency as well. Data portability is an important facet to this issue as well as being a right consumers should possess. It provides for support of many devices, transition to alternative technologies and lastly, makes sure that all the data like other public records will be available upon request through the Right to Information procedure. The last is vital to uphold the spirit of transparency envisioned through the RTI process since interactions of government with citizens are then under its ambit and available for disclosure for whomsoever concerned.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Secondly, such practices by the Government are enhancing the monopoly of the companies in the market effectively discouraging competition and eventually, innovation. While a certain elite strata of the population might opt for Twitter or Facebook as their mode of conveying grievance, this may not hold true for the rest of the online India population.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Picking players in a free market is in violation of technology and vendor neutrality, a practice essential in e-governance to provide a level playing field for all and competing technologies. Projecting only a few platforms as de facto mediums of communication with the government inhibits the freedom of choice of citizens to air their grievances through a vendor or technology they are comfortable with. At the same time it makes the Government a mouthpiece for such companies who are gaining free publicity and consolidating their popularity. Government apps such as the SwachBharat one which is an e-governance platform do not offer much more in terms of functionality but either reflect the website or are a less mature version of the same. This leads to the problem of fracturing with many avenues of complaining such as the website, app, Twitter etc. Consequently, the priority of the people dealing with the complaints in terms of platform of response is unsure. Will I be responded to sooner if I tweet a complaint as opposed to putting it up on the app? Having an interoperable system can solve this where the Government can have a dashboard of their various complaints and responses are then made out evenly. Twitter itself could implement this by having complaints from Facebook for example and then the Twitter Seva would be an equal platform as opposed to the current issue where only they are favored.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Recent events have illustrated how detrimental the storage of data by these giants can be in terms of privacy. Data security concerns are also a consequence of such leaks. Not only is this a long overdue call for a better data protection law but at the same time also for the Government to realize that these platforms cannot be trusted. The hiring of Cambridge Analytica to influence voters in the US elections, based on their Facebook profiles and ancillary data, effectively put the governance of the country on sale by exploiting these privacy and security issues. By basing e-governance on their backbone, India is not far from inviting trouble as well. It is unnecessary and dangerous to have a go-between for matters that pertain between an individual and state.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">As this article was being written, it was confirmed by the Election Commission that they are partnering with Facebook for the Karnataka Assemby Elections to promote activities such as encourage enrollment of Voter ID and voter participation. Initiatives like these tying the government even closer to these companies are of concern and cementing the latter’s stronghold.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><em>Note: Our survey data and results are attached to this post. All research was collected by Shradha Nigam, a Vth year student at NLSIU, Bangalore.</em></p>
<hr />
<h3 style="text-align: justify;">Survey Data and Results</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify;">This report is based on a survey of government advertisements in English language newspapers in relation to their use of social media platforms and dedicated websites (“<strong>Survey</strong>”). For the purpose of this report, the ambit of the social media platforms has been limited to the use of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google Plus and Instagram. The report was prepared by Shradha Nigam, a student from National Law School of India University, Bangalore. <a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/files/cis-report-on-social-media">Read the full report here</a>.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/government-giving-free-publicity-worth-40-k-to-twitter-and-facebook'>https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/government-giving-free-publicity-worth-40-k-to-twitter-and-facebook</a>
</p>
No publisherAkriti BopannaGoogleInstagramPrivacyTwitterYouTubeInternet GovernanceFeaturedGoogle PlusFacebookHomepage2018-04-27T09:52:26ZBlog EntryMaking Humanities in the Digital: Embodiment and Framing in Bichitra and Indiancine.ma
https://cis-india.org/raw/making-humanities-in-the-digital-embodiment-and-framing-in-bichitra-and-indiancine.ma
<b>The growth of the internet and digital technologies in the last couple of decades, and the emergence of new ‘digital objects’ of enquiry has led to a rethinking of research methods across disciplines as well as innovative modes of creative practice. This chapter authored by Puthiya Purayil Sneha (published in 'Making Things and Drawing Boundaries: Experiments in the Digital Humanities' edited by Jentery Sayers) discusses some of the questions that arise around the processes by which digital objects are ‘made’ and made available for arts and humanities research and practice, by drawing on recent work in text and film archival initiatives in India.</b>
<p> </p>
<p>Through an exploration of an online film archive, Indiancine.ma, and a digital variorum of Rabindranath Tagore’s works, Bichitra, developed at Jadavpur University, Kolkata, the chapter engages with the processes of making and studying digital objects as creative and analytical, affective, and embodied. Drawing also on observations from a study on mapping digital humanities work in India, the chapter explores conceptual and material processes of the digital to understand how they affect research and practice in the humanities. These also allow for a new perspectives to understand the condition of digitality we inhabit today, as well as the possibilities it offers for the humanities.</p>
<hr />
<p>This chapter authored by Puthiya Purayil Sneha was published in <a class="external-link" href="https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/making-things-and-drawing-boundaries"><strong>Making Things and Drawing Boundaries: Experiments in the Digital Humanities</strong></a> (2017), edited by Jentery Sayers, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, London.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/raw/making-humanities-in-the-digital-embodiment-and-framing-in-bichitra-and-indiancine.ma'>https://cis-india.org/raw/making-humanities-in-the-digital-embodiment-and-framing-in-bichitra-and-indiancine.ma</a>
</p>
No publishersneha-ppResearchFeaturedPublicationsDigital HumanitiesResearchers at Work2018-06-25T12:50:36ZBlog EntryOn World Water Day - Open Data for Water Resources
https://cis-india.org/openness/on-world-water-day-open-data-for-water-resources
<b>Lack of open data for researchers and activists is a key barrier against ensuring access to water and planning for sustainable management of water resources. In a collaboration between DataMeet and CIS, supported by Arghyam, we are exploring the early steps for making open data and tools to plan for water resources accessible to all. To celebrate the World Water Day 2018, we are sharing what we have been working on in the past few months - a paper on open data for water studies in India, and a web app to make open water data easily explorable and usable. Craig Dsouza led this collaboration, and authored this post.</b>
<p> </p>
<h4>Project Blog: <a href="https://datameet-pune.github.io/open-water-data/" target="_blank">Open Water Data
for Integrated Water Science</a> (External)</h4>
<h4>Open Water Data Paper - Datasets for Water Studies in India Blog - Summary: <a href="https://datameet-pune.github.io/open-water-data/precipitation/2017/12/31/OWD-Paper/" target="_blank">Read</a> (External)</h4>
<h4>Open Water Data Paper - Datasets for Water Studies in India Blog - Full Paper: <a href="https://datameet-pune.github.io/open-water-data/docs/open-water-data-paper.pdf" target="_blank">Read</a> (PDF)</h4>
<h4>Open Water Data Web App: <a href="https://water-data-web-app.appspot.com/" target="_blank">View</a> (External)</h4>
<h4>Open Water Data Web App - Tech Stack: <a href="https://datameet-pune.github.io/open-water-data/tech/2017/12/08/OWD-Web-App-Tech-Stack/" target="_blank">Read</a> (External)</h4>
<h4>Open Water Data Web App - Precipitation Data: <a href="https://datameet-pune.github.io/open-water-data/precipitation/2018/01/05/OWD-Web-App-Precipitation-Data/" target="_blank">Read</a> (External)</h4>
<hr />
<p>The 22nd of March is celebrated internationally as World Water Day. Water is so tightly intertwined in every aspect of our lives that one can only scratch the surface in understanding this resource. Besides directly giving us life, it is a key non-renewable shared resource that dictates whether and how societies can grow and prosper. It has shaped the way civilization arose - on riverbanks and coastal lands. Adequate water of good quality can make or break a child’s early growth. Water available at the right time in the monsoon could shape a family’s fortunes for an entire year.</p>
<p>Unfortunately given the development trajectory of the last century, we have struggled to strike a balance and use water in a sustainable manner. Far too many face the ill effects of this misuse. The challenge with water lies in its nature as a common pool resource, which means that it belongs to everyone. Water is for everyone to benefit from and conversely it is no individual’s responsibility to manage and to ensure its sustainability. While some laws and policies exist to ensure sustainable use of water its fluid (pun intended) and ephemeral nature make those laws very hard to enforce. No one knows for sure how much water lies under the ground and above the surface, we only have estimates. Moreover even these estimates lie in the hands of a few. The Government of India is by far the largest entity that collects data on water across the country. Management of this resource however requires that these data points and the capacity to monitor should be decentralized. The 73rd amendment recognises this by placing the authority to plan and implement local works such as watershed management and drinking water provision under the purview of Panchayats.</p>
<p>To address this shortcoming Datameet and CIS in collaboration have taken first steps with a project to ensure that data and tools to plan for water resources are accessible to all. The strategy within this project has been to seek alternative data sources for water, other than government data much of which still isn’t open data. Two alternatives that have emerged are remote sensing open data and crowdsourced community data. A <a href="https://datameet-pune.github.io/open-water-data/precipitation/2017/12/31/OWD-Paper/" target="_blank">paper</a> put together by the team highlights the numerous sources available for datasets such as rainfall, soil moisture, groundwater levels, reservoir storages, river flows, and water demand including domestic and agricultural water. Besides the paper the team has also put together a first iteration of a <a href="https://datameet-pune.github.io/open-water-data/precipitation/2018/01/05/OWD-Web-App-Precipitation-Data/" target="_blank">web app</a> which seeks to provide these datasets in an easy to use intuitive and interactive format to users in the area of water planning and management. The first dataset available here is <a href="http://chg.geog.ucsb.edu/data/chirps/" target="_blank">CHIRPS</a>: a high resolution daily rainfall dataset for the whole of India.</p>
<p>The plans for this project in the future include making available more datasets (crop maps and Evapotranspiration) and features to access them. In addition to this the goal is also to improve our understanding of the usability of remote sensing water data with efforts to calibrate it with ground observations. A key element of these plans is to develop these resources in collaboration with end users of the data so that the tools are developed with their concerns in mind. <strong>We welcome ideas, queries, feedback, and partnerships - do contact us at <a href="mailto:pune@datameet.org">pune@datameet.org</a></strong>.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/openness/on-world-water-day-open-data-for-water-resources'>https://cis-india.org/openness/on-world-water-day-open-data-for-water-resources</a>
</p>
No publishersumandroOpen Water DataOpen DataOpen ScienceOpen Government DataEnvironmentFeaturedOpennessHomepage2019-01-28T14:41:51ZBlog Entry