The Centre for Internet and Society
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OCR and OER – update
https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/education-okfn-subhashish-panigrahi-september-25-2015-ocr-and-oer-update
<b>We welcome this short posting from Subhashish Panigrahi which updates a 2014 posting of his on Indic Language Wikipedias as Open Educational Resources at http://education.okfn.org/indic-language-wikipedias-as-open-educational-resources/</b>
<p> </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">To read the blog post published by Open Education Working Group, see <a class="external-link" href="http://education.okfn.org/ocr-and-oer-update/">here</a>.</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify;">Subhashish Panigrahi (<a href="http://twitter.com/subhapa">@subhapa</a>) is an educator, author, blogger, Wikimedian, language activist and free knowledge evangelist based in Bengaluru (often called Bangalore), India. After working for a while at the Wikimedia Foundation’s India Program he is currently at the <a href="https://cis-india.org">Centre for Internet and Society</a>‘s <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge">Access To Knowledge program</a>. He works primarily in building partnership with universities, language research and GLAM (Gallery, Library, Archive and Museums) organizations for bringing more scholarly and encyclopedic content under free licenses, designs outreach programs for South Asian language Wikipedia/Wikimedia projects and communities. He wears many other hats: Editor for Global Voices Odia, Community Moderator of Opensource.com, and Ambassador for India in OpenGLAM Local. Subhashish is the author of a piece “Rising Voices: Indigenous language Digital Activism” in the book <a href="http://meson.press/books/digital-activism-in-asia-reader" target="_blank">Digital Activism in Asia Reader</a>.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify;">Google’s OCR and its use by Wikimedians in South Asia</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Some time back on the <a href="https://support.google.com/drive/answer/176692" target="_blank">OCR project support</a> network, Google had announced that the Google drive could be used for <a href="https://support.google.com/drive/answer/176692" target="_blank">Optical Character Recognition</a> (OCR). The software now works for over 248 world languages (including all the major South Asian languages). Though the exact pattern of development of the software is not clear, some of the Wikimedians reported that there is improvement over time in the recognition of their native languages Malayalam and Tamil. The recent encounter has been with a simple, easy to to use and robust software that can detect most languages with over 90% accuracy.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The OCR technology extracts text from images, scans of printed text, and even handwriting to some extent, which means that the text can be extracted pretty much from any old book, manuscript, or image. This certainly brings hope to most Indian languages as there is a lot to digitize. Most of the major Indian languages have plenty of non-digitized literature and the existing OCR systems are not as good as Google when so many languages are concerned as a whole.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Google’s OCR engine is probably using aspects of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesseract_%28software%29" target="_blank">Tesseract</a>, an OCR engine released as free software, or <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OCRopus" target="_blank">OCRopus</a>, a free document analysis and optical character recognition (OCR) system that is primarily used in <a href="https://books.google.com/" target="_blank">Google Books</a>. Developed as a community project during 1995-2006 and later <a href="https://code.google.com/archive/p/tesseract-ocr/" target="_blank">taken over by Google</a>, Tesseract is considered one of the most accurate OCR engines and works for over 60 languages. The source code is available <a href="https://github.com/tesseract-ocr" target="_blank">on GitHub</a>.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The <a href="https://support.google.com/drive/answer/176692" target="_blank">OCR project support page</a> offers additional details on preserving character formatting for things like bold and italics after OCR in the output text.</p>
<blockquote style="text-align: justify;">
<p>When processing your document, we attempt to preserve basic text formatting such as bold and italic text, font size and type, and line breaks. However, detecting these elements is difficult and we may not always succeed. Other text formatting and structuring elements such as bulleted and numbered lists, tables, text columns, and footnotes or endnotes are likely to get lost.</p>
</blockquote>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The user-end interaction of the OCR software currently is rather simple. The user has to upload an image of the scan in any image format (.jpg, .png, .gif, etc.) or PDF to the Google Drive. Upon completion of the uploading, opening the file in Google Drive shows both the image and the converted text in the same document.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">One of the most popular free and open digitization platforms, <a href="https://wikisource.org/wiki/Main_Page" target="_blank">Wikisource</a> currently hosts hundreds or thousands of free books which are either out of copyright or under Creative Commons licenses (CC-by or CC-by-SA) allowing users to digitize.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">While OCR works quite well for Latin based languages, many other scripts do not get OCRed perfectly. So, the Wikisourcers (Wikisource contributors) often have to type the text.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Thus the new Google OCR might be useful both for the Wikisource community and many others who are in the mission of digitizing old text and archiving them.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The image below shows a screen from a tutorial to convert text in the <a title="Odia language" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odia_language" target="_blank">Odia language</a> from a scanned image using Google’s OCR.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/education-okfn-subhashish-panigrahi-september-25-2015-ocr-and-oer-update'>https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/education-okfn-subhashish-panigrahi-september-25-2015-ocr-and-oer-update</a>
</p>
No publishersubhaOpen Educational ResourcesOpennessAccess to Knowledge2016-06-18T17:09:22ZBlog EntrySoftware Freedom Pledge
https://cis-india.org/openness/software-freedom-pledge-2015
<b>On September 19, 2015, celebrated globally as Software Freedom Day, a number of enthusiasts got together and collectively took a pledge.</b>
<br />
<p>We, who have gathered together for <a href="http://softwarefreedomday.org/">Software Freedom Day 2015</a>, believe that software freedom is both a matter of ethical principle as well as a matter of pragmatism, and is necessary for a democratic, open society.</p>
<p>We believe that it is desirable that all people, but especially governments, use, contribute to, and spread open standards, free/libre/open source software, open APIs, openly-licensed content (including open data, open access, and open education resources), leading to a vibrant public domain, and ensure that all of the above are accessible for all, including persons with disabilities and other marginalised sections of society.</p>
<p>Given that, we pledge to:</p>
<ul>
<li>use and spread free software amongst our family, friends, and neighbours, both in person and virtually.</li>
<li>demand that services we use in turn use open standards and open APIs, and thus be available for all using free/libre/open source software, without the payment of any royalties.</li>
<li>raise the issue of software freedom with our democratic representatives, to seek that they in turn respect and promote these principles.</li>
<li>as far as possible, making our own work openly available, and seek to convince our employers, publishers, producers, and other persons who might be in a position to restrict </li>
<li>work against any laws, policies — corporate or governmental — or technical restrictions that seek to prevent people from full exercise of their rights, and which are contrary to the above principles.</li>
</ul>
<br />
<br />
<p>Signed by:</p>
<p>Abhaya Agarwal <br />
Ananth Subray <br />
Asutosha Sarangi <br />
Chirag Sarthi J <br />
Prakash Hebballi <br />
Pranesh Prakash <br />
Ralph Andrade <br />
Subhashish Panigrahi <br />
Tito Dutta <br />
Veethika Mishra</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/openness/software-freedom-pledge-2015'>https://cis-india.org/openness/software-freedom-pledge-2015</a>
</p>
No publisherpraneshOpen StandardsOpen SourceAccess to KnowledgeFLOSSOpen ContentFOSSEventTechnological Protection Measures2015-09-25T12:26:09ZBlog EntrySoftware Freedom Day 2015, Bengaluru
https://cis-india.org/openness/events/software-freedom-day-2015-bengaluru
<b>We are celebrating Software Freedom Day in Bengaluru this 19 September 2015.
Time & Date: 3 pm, 19 September 2015
Venue: Centre for Internet and Society,
194, 2nd C Cross, Domlur 2nd Stage,
Bengaluru 560071</b>
<p> </p>
<iframe src="https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1Qdb-P7rPv98IMdGa5U2axPHZn1Kd2lycOqCKzVrrZsE/viewform?embedded=true" frameborder="0" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" height="500" width="760">Loading...</iframe>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/openness/events/software-freedom-day-2015-bengaluru'>https://cis-india.org/openness/events/software-freedom-day-2015-bengaluru</a>
</p>
No publishersubhaOpenness2020-05-02T16:38:31ZEventAugust 2015 Bulletin
https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/august-2015-bulletin
<b></b>
<p style="text-align: justify;">We are happy to share with you the eighth issue of the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) newsletter (August 2015). The past editions of the newsletter can be accessed at <a href="http://cis-india.org/about/newsletters">http://cis-india.org/about/newsletters</a>.</p>
<hr />
<h2 style="text-align: justify;">Highlights</h2>
<table class="grid listing">
<tbody>
<tr>
<th>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Researchers at Work programme has published a book titled <a href="http://cis-india.org/raw/digital-activism-in-asia-reader"><em>Digital Activism in Asia Reader</em></a> exploring in detail digital activism in Asia. The Reader was edited by Nishant Shah, P.P. Sneha, and Sumandro Chattapadhyay with support from Anirudh Sridhar, Denisse Albornoz, and Verena Getahun.</li></ul>
<ul style="text-align: justify;">
<li>The <a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/raw/civil-society-organisations-and-internet-governance-in-india-open-review">pre-publication drafts of two sections</a> written by Sumandro Chattapadhyay for the third volume (2000-2010) of the <em>Asia Internet History</em> series edited by Prof. Kilnam Chon have been posted for open-review process.</li>
<li>As part of the 'Studying Internets in India' series, RAW published blog entries on <a href="http://cis-india.org/raw/blog_governing-speech-on-the-internet">Governing Speech on the Internet</a> and <a href="http://cis-india.org/raw/blog_mock-calling">Mock-Calling - Ironies of Outsourcing and the Aspirations of an Individual</a>. </li></ul>
<ul style="text-align: justify;">
<li style="text-align: justify;">NVDA team <a href="http://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/training-in-e-speak-hindi">conducted a workshop</a> at Jeevan Jyoti School for the Blind, Varanasi from August 26 to 28, 2015. Eighty five students and 13 teachers took part in the training programme. NVDA team had conducted another <a href="http://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/report-on-training-in-espeak-marathi">workshop</a> earlier in Nashik. The workshop was conducted in June. A batch of 17 Special Educators and teachers of the blind attended the workshop.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Maggie Huang, Arpita Sengupta and Paavni Anand as part of the Pervasive Technologies project <a href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/comparative-transparency-review-of-collective-management-organisations-in-india-uk-usa"> co-authored a research paper </a> that seeks to compare the publicly available information on the websites of music collective management organizations ("CMOs") operating within India, the United States, and the United Kingdom.</li>
<li style="text-align: left;">
Amulya Purushothama, Nehaa Chaudhari and Varun Baliga in a blog entry have delved into the question of
what the mandate of the <a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/national-ipr-policy-series-what-have-sectoral-innovation-councils-been-doing-on-ipr">Sectoral Innovation Council</a> is, what its activities are, and what vision for IPR development in India has it put forth. An RTI Application has been filed by CIS to attain information on these issues.</li></ul>
<ul style="text-align: justify;">
<li style="text-align: justify;"> <a href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/mhrd-ipr-chair-series-introduction">In a blog post</a>, Amulya Purushothama announced our new MHRD IPR Chair Series and has charted the sequence of events, starting from the establishment of MHRD IPR Chairs, to discussions surrounding their purpose and functioning, to concerns surrounding the lack of information about the IPR Chairs, the first round of RTIs that CIS had filed in regard to this and the responses it solicited. </li>
<li style="text-align: justify;"> Subhashish Panigrahi <a href="http://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/kisorachandrananachampu-on-odia-wikisource">interviewed Prateek Pattanaik</a>. Prateek has not just digitized as many as 54 Odia-language poetry dating early 18th century but has also annotated, both poetic and prosaic translation in his blogs "Sri Jagannatha" and "Utkal Sangeet". He has also published a complete book "Kisora chandranana champu" on Odia Wikisource. A recent entrant into the Odia Wikimedia community, Prateek is also the youngest Odia Wikimedian.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Rohan George and Elonnai Hickok in a blog post <a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/are-we-throwing-our-data-protection-regimes-under-the-bus">analyzed consent, big data and data protection</a> that examines in detail why the principle of consent is providing us increasingly less of an aegis in protecting our data.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Elonnai Hickok, Vipul Kharbanda and Vanya Rakesh on behalf of CIS submitted a <a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/cis-comments-and-recommendations-to-human-dna-profiling-bill-2015">clause-by-clause comments</a> on the Human DNA Profiling Bill that was circulated by the Department of Biotechnology on June 9, 2015.</li>
<li>Sunil Abraham, Elonnai Hickok and Tarun Krishnakumar co-authored an article titled <a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/security-privacy-transparency-and-technology">Security: Privacy, Transparency and Technology</a>. The article was published by Observer Research Foundation, Digital Debates 2015: CyFy Journal Volume 2.</li>
<li>Elonnai Hickok in a blog post titled <a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/review-of-policy-debate-around-big-data-and-internet-of-things"> A Review of the Policy Debate around Big Data and Internet of Things </a>has done an analysis as to how regulators and experts across jurisdictions are reacting to Big Data and Internet of Things.</li>
<li>The Supreme Court of India has deemed it fit to refer the question of the very existence of a fundamental right to privacy to a Constitution Bench to finally decide the matter, and define the contours of such right if it does exist. Vipul Kharbanda analyses this in a <a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/right-to-privacy-in-peril">blog entry</a>. </li>
<li>Experts and regulators across jurisdictions are examining the impact of Big Data practices on traditional data protection standards and principles. This will be a useful and pertinent exercise for India to undertake as the government and the private and public sectors begin to incorporate and rely on the use of Big Data in decision making processes and organizational operations. Elonnai Hickok has <a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/big-data-and-information-technology-rules-2011">provided an initial evaluation of how Big Data could impact India's current data protection standards</a>. </li></ul>
<ul style="text-align: justify;">
<li> Elonnai Hickok <a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/comparison-of-the-human-dna-profiling-bill-2012-with-cis-recommendations-sub-committee-recommendations-expert-committee-recommendations-and-the-human-dna-profiling-bill-2015">has provided a comparison of Human DNA Profiling Bill 2012 vs. the Human DNA Profiling Bill 2015</a>, CIS's main recommendations vs. the 2015 Bill, Sub-Committee Recommendations vs. the 2015 Bill, and the Expert Committee Recommendations vs. the 2015 Bill. </li>
<li> CIS <a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/cis-submission-to-unga-wsis-review">submitted its comments</a> to the non-paper on the UNGA Overall Review of the Implementation of the WSIS outcomes, evaluating the progress made and challenges ahead.</li>
<li>In a policy brief, Vipul Kharbanda <a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/policy-paper-on-surveillance-in-india">has analyzed the different laws regulating surveillance at the state and central level in India and calls out ways in which the provisions are unharmonized</a>. The brief then provides recommendations for the harmonization of surveillance law in India. </li>
<li>Hardnews interviewed Sunil Abraham about the future of the internet in India. The <a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/hardnewsmedia-august-10-2015-abeer-kapoor-net-neutrality-india-is-a-keybattle-ground">article was published in their August edition</a>.</li></ul>
<ul style="text-align: justify;">
<li> Shyam Ponappa in an <a href="https://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/organizing-india-blogspot-august-6-2015-shyam-ponappa-those-dropped-calls"> Op-ed published by Business Standard </a> has given an analysis on the reasons of the number of dropped calls on our mobile phones. </li></ul>
</th>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<h2><a href="http://cis-india.org/accessibility">Accessibility and Inclusion</a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Under a grant from the Hans Foundation we are doing a project on developing text-to-speech software for 15 Indian languages. The progress made so far in the project can be accessed <a href="http://cis-india.org/accessibility/resources/nvda-text-to-speech-synthesizer">here</a>. The project on creating a national resource kit of state-wise laws, policies and programmes on issues relating to persons with disabilities in India got over and the compilation has been printed.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify;">NVDA and eSpeak</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Monthly Updates</strong></p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify;">
<strong> </strong>
<li><strong> </strong><a href="http://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/august-2015-nvda-report.pdf">August 2015 Report</a> (Suman Dogra; July 31, 2015). </li></ul>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Event Reports</strong></p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify;">
<strong> </strong>
<li><strong> </strong><a href="http://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/report-on-training-in-espeak-marathi">Training in eSpeak Marathi</a> (Organized by NVDA team; National Association for the Blind; Nashik; June 22 - 23, 2015). <em>The workshop was held in the month of June but the report got published later in August.</em> </li>
<li> <a href="http://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/training-in-e-speak-hindi">Training in eSpeak Hindi</a> (Organized by NVDA team; Jeevan Jyoti School for the Blind; Varanasi; August 26 - 28, 2015). </li></ul>
<h2><a href="http://cis-india.org/a2k">Access to Knowledge</a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify;">As part of the Access to Knowledge programme we are doing two projects. The first one (Pervasive Technologies) under a grant from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) is for research on the complex interplay between pervasive technologies and intellectual property to support intellectual property norms that encourage the proliferation and development of such technologies as a social good. The second one (Wikipedia) under a grant from the Wikimedia Foundation is for the growth of Indic language communities and projects by designing community collaborations and partnerships that recruit and cultivate new editors and explore innovative approaches to building projects.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify;">Pervasive Technologies</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Blog Entries</strong></p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify;">
<strong> </strong>
<li><strong> </strong><a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/patent-landscaping-in-the-indian-mobile-device-market"><strong> </strong>Methodology: Patent Landscaping in the Indian Mobile Device Market </a> (Rohini Lakshané; November 10, 2014). <em>This blog post published last year has been recently updated</em>. </li>
<li> <a href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/comparative-transparency-review-of-collective-management-organisations-in-india-uk-usa"> Comparative Transparency Review of Collective Management Organisations in India, United Kingdom and the United States </a> (Maggie Huang, Arpita Sengupta and Paavni Anand; August 1, 2015). </li></ul>
<h3 style="text-align: justify;">Other (Copyright and Patent)</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Blog Entries</strong></p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify;">
<strong> </strong>
<li style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/cci-participation-at-the-upcoming-3rd-international-conference-on-ipr-and-competition" class="external-link">CCI Participation at the Upcoming 3rd International Conference on IPR and Competition</a> (Amulya Purushothama; August 5, 2015). CIS wrote to the Competition Commission of India Chairman on August 5, 2015 about participation at a conference organised by Ericsson and concerns regarding conflict of interest. We also had several other NGOs sign on to the letter. </li>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/mhrd-ipr-chair-series-introduction">MHRD IPR Chair Series: Introduction</a> (Amulya Purushothama; August 10, 2015). Aditya Garg assisted in research and writing. </li>
<li> <a href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/national-ipr-policy-series-what-have-sectoral-innovation-councils-been-doing-on-ipr"> National IPR Policy Series: What Have the Sectoral Innovation Councils Been Doing on IPR </a> (Nehaa Chaudhari and Varun Baliga; August 13, 2015). Amulya Purushothama assisted with research and writing. </li></ul>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Media Coverage</strong></p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify;">
<strong> </strong>
<li><a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/news/times-of-india-rema-nagarajan-august-6-2015-competition-commission-of-india-chairman-participation-in-assocham-conference-raises-conflict-of-interests">Competition Commission of India chariman's participation in Assocham conference raises conflict of interests</a> (Rema Nagarajan; The Times of India; August 6, 2015).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/news/business-standard-august-6-2015-dilasha-seth-and-deepak-patel-assocham-event-sparks-row-over-conflict-of-interest-by-cci">Assocham event sparks row over conflict of interest by CCI</a> (Dilasha Seth and Deepak Patel; Business Standard; August 6, 2015).</li></ul>
<h3 style="text-align: justify;">Wikipedia</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify;">As part of the <a href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/access-to-knowledge-program-plan">project grant from the Wikimedia Foundation</a> we have reached out to more than 3500 people across India by organizing more than 100 outreach events and catalysed the release of encyclopaedic and other content under the Creative Commons (CC-BY-3.0) license in four Indian languages (21 books in Telugu, 13 in Odia, 4 volumes of encyclopaedia in Konkani and 6 volumes in Kannada, and 1 book on Odia language history in English).</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Blog Entry</strong></p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify;">
<strong> </strong>
<li><strong> </strong><a href="http://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/kisorachandrananachampu-on-odia-wikisource"><strong> </strong>Odia Wikisource has a new Wikisourcer, and he is the youngest in the Odia Wikimedia community! </a> (Subhashish Panigrahi; August 21, 2015). </li></ul>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Events Co-organized</strong></p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify;">
<strong> </strong>
<li><strong> </strong><a href="http://cis-india.org/openness/events/rare-telugu-religious-and-historical-work-preserved-at-annamacharya-library-to-come-on-wikisource"><strong> </strong>Annamaya Library edit-a-thon </a> (Organized by CIS-A2K and Telugu Wikipedia Community; August 6, 2015; Andhra Loyola College; Vijaywada). </li>
<li> <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/International_workshop_on_digitization_and_archiving,_Jadavpur_University"> International Workshop on Digitization and Archiving </a> (Organized by CIS-A2K and Wikipedia Community; August 19 - 21, 2015). Rahmanuddin Shaik was one of the trainers. </li></ul>
<h3 style="text-align: justify;">FOSS</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Participation in Events</strong></p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify;">
<strong> </strong>
<li style="text-align: justify;"><a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/openness/events/workshop-on-digital-collaborations-in-tamil-language-tamil-virtual-university-chennai">Workshop on digital collaborations in Tamil-language, Tamil Virtual Chennai</a> (Organized by Tamil Virtual University, Anna University Campus, Chennai; August 8 - 9, 2015). Dr. U.B. Pavanaja atttended this event. </li>
<li><a href="http://pn.ispirt.in/event/open-innovation-entrepreneurship-and-our-digital-future/">Open Innovation, entrepreneurship, and our digital future </a> (Organized by iSpirit; Bangalore; August 13, 2015). Rohini Lakshané attended the event. Rohini wrote a <a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/we-need-to-proactively-ensure-that-people-cant-file-representatives-of-the-creativity-of-a-foss-community"> report on this </a> . </li></ul>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Media Coverage</strong></p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">CIS gave its inputs to the following:</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify;">
<li><a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/openness/news/telugu-wiki-edit-a-thon-at-alc">Telugu Wikipedia Edit-a-thon at ALC</a> (Eenadu; August 6, 2015)</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/openness/news/telugu-wiki-editathon-alc">Telugu Wiki Edit-a-thon in ALC</a> (Eenadu; August 6, 2015)</li>
<li><a href="http://www.thehansindia.com/posts/index/2015-08-07/Rare-Telugu-religious-and-historical-work-preserved-at-Annamacharya-library-to-come-on-Wikisource-168454">Rare Telugu religious and historical work preserved at Annamacharya library to come on Wikisource! </a> (The Hans India; August 7, 2015). </li>
<li> <a href="http://cis-india.org/openness/news/mangalorean-dotcom-august-13-2015"> ಗ್ರಾಮೀಣ ಪ್ರದೇಶದ ಆರ್ಥಿಕ ಪ್ರಗತಿಯಿಂದ ದೇಶದ ಆರ್ಥಿಕ ಪ್ರಗತಿ ಸಾಧ್ಯವಾಗುತ್ತದೆ. </a> (Mangalorean.com; August 13, 2015). </li>
<li> <a href="http://cis-india.org/openness/news/karavali-karnataka-august-14-2015"> ವಿಕಿಪಿಡಿಯ ಮುಕ್ತವಾಗಿ ಬಳಸಿ: ಡಾ.ಪವನಜ </a> (Karavali Karnataka; August 14, 2015). </li>
<li> <a href="http://cis-india.org/openness/news/sahil-online-august-14-2015"> ಬೆಳ್ತಂಗಡಿ:ಎಲ್ಲಾ ಕಾಲಕ್ಕೂ ಲಭ್ಯ ಇರುವ ಸ್ವತಂತ್ರ ಹಾಗೂ ಮುಕ್ತ ವಿಶ್ವಕೋಶ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯಾ-ಪವನಜ </a> (SahilOnline; August 14, 2015). </li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/openness/news/the-hindu-august-23-2015-talamaddale-on-august-23">Talamaddale on August 23</a> (Hindu; August 16, 2015).</li></ul>
<h2><a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance">Internet Governance</a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify;">As part of its research on privacy and free speech, CIS is engaged with two different projects. The first one (under a grant from Privacy International and International Development Research Centre (IDRC)) is on surveillance and freedom of expression (SAFEGUARDS). The second one (under a grant from MacArthur Foundation) is on studying the restrictions placed on freedom of expression online by the Indian government.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify;">Privacy</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Article</strong></p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify;">
<strong> </strong>
<li><strong> </strong><a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/security-privacy-transparency-and-technology">Security: Privacy, Transparency and Technology</a> (Sunil Abraham, Elonnai Hickok and Tarun Krishnakumar; Observer Research Foundation, <a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/security-privacy-transparency-technology.pdf">Digital Debates 2015: CyFy Journal Volume 2</a> ; August 19, 2015). </li></ul>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Submission</strong></p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify;">
<strong> </strong>
<li><strong> </strong><a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/cis-comments-and-recommendations-to-human-dna-profiling-bill-2015"><strong> </strong>CIS Comments and Recommendations to the Human DNA Profiling Bill, June 2015 </a> (Elonnai Hickok, Vipul Kharbanda and Vanya Rakesh; August 27, 2015). </li></ul>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Blog Entries</strong></p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify;">
<strong> </strong>
<li><strong> </strong><a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/policy-paper-on-surveillance-in-india">Policy Paper on Surveillance in India</a> (Vipul Kharbanda; August 3, 2015). </li>
<li style="text-align: justify;"> <a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/comparison-of-the-human-dna-profiling-bill-2012-with-cis-recommendations-sub-committee-recommendations-expert-committee-recommendations-and-the-human-dna-profiling-bill-2015"> Comparison of the Human DNA Profiling Bill 2012 with: CIS recommendations, Sub-Committee Recommendations, Expert Committee Recommendations, and the Human DNA Profiling Bill 2015 </a> (Elonnai Hickok; August 10, 2015). </li>
<li> <a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/right-to-privacy-in-peril">Right to Privacy in Peril</a> (Vipul Kharbanda; August 13, 2015). </li>
<li> <a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/responsible-data-forum"> Responsible Data Forum: Discussion on the Risks and Mitigations of releasing Data </a> (Vanya Rakesh; August 26, 2015). </li>
<li> <a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/are-we-throwing-our-data-protection-regimes-under-the-bus"> Are we Throwing our Data Protection Regimes under the Bus? </a> (Elonnai Hickok and Rohan George; August 29, 2015). </li>
<li> <a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/supreme-court-order-is-a-good-start-but-is-seeding-necessary"> Supreme Court Order is a Good Start, but is Seeding Necessary? </a> (Elonnai Hickok and Rohan George; August 29, 2015). </li></ul>
<h3 style="text-align: justify;">Big Data</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Blog Entries</strong></p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify;">
<strong> </strong>
<li><strong> </strong><a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/big-data-and-information-technology-rules-2011"><strong> </strong>Big Data and the Information Technology (Reasonable Security Practices and Procedures and Sensitive Personal Data or Information) Rules 2011 </a> (Elonnai Hickok; August 11, 2015). </li>
<li> <a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/review-of-policy-debate-around-big-data-and-internet-of-things"> A Review of the Policy Debate around Big Data and Internet of Things </a> (Elonnai Hickok; August 17, 2015). </li></ul>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Participation in Event</strong></p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify;">
<strong> </strong>
<li><strong> </strong><a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/the-changing-landscape-of-ict-governance-and-practice-convergence-and-big-data"><strong> </strong>The Changing Landscape of ICT Governance and Practice - Convergence and Big Data </a> (Co-organized by Innovation Center for Big Data and Digital Convergence, Yuan Ze University, Taiwan; August 24 - 25, 2015). Sharat Chandra Ram was granted the <a href="http://www.cprsouth.org/2015/02/call-for-applications-2015-young-scholar-awards/">Young Scholar Award 2015</a> to attend the<em>Young Scholar Workshop</em> followed by main <a href="http://www.cprsouth.org/"><em>CPRSouth2015 conference</em> (Communication Policy Research South) conference</a>. </li></ul>
<h3 style="text-align: justify;">Free Speech and Expression</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Submission</strong></p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify;">
<strong> </strong>
<li><strong> </strong><a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/cis-submission-to-unga-wsis-review">CIS submission to the UNGA WSIS+10 Review</a> (Jyoti Panday; August 9, 2015), </li></ul>
<h3 style="text-align: justify;">Cyber Security</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Upcoming Event</strong></p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify;">
<strong> </strong>
<li><strong> </strong><a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/events/bangalore-chapter-meet-of-dsci-september-26-2015">Bangalore Chapter Meet of DSCI</a> (Co-organized by DSCI and CIS; September 26, 2015). Melissa Hathaway, Commissioner, Global Commission for Internet Governance and Sunil Abraham will be speaking at this event. </li></ul>
<h2><a href="http://cis-india.org/telecom">Telecom</a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify;">CIS is involved in promoting access and accessibility to telecommunications services and resources and has provided inputs to ongoing policy discussions and consultation papers published by TRAI. It has prepared reports on unlicensed spectrum and accessibility of mobile phones for persons with disabilities and also works with the USOF to include funding projects for persons with disabilities in its mandate:</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Op-ed</strong></p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify;">
<strong> </strong>
<li><strong> </strong><a href="https://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/organizing-india-blogspot-august-6-2015-shyam-ponappa-those-dropped-calls">Those Dropped Calls</a> (Shyam Ponappa; Business Standard; August 5, 2015 and Organizing India Blogspot; August 6, 2015). </li></ul>
<h2><a href="http://cis-india.org/raw">Researchers at Work</a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The Researchers at Work (RAW) programme is an interdisciplinary research initiative driven by contemporary concerns to understand the reconfigurations of social practices and structures through the Internet and digital media technologies, and vice versa. It is interested in producing local and contextual accounts of interactions, negotiations, and resolutions between the Internet, and socio-material and geo-political processes:</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Books</strong></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify;">
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/raw/digital-activism-in-asia-reader">Digital Activism in Asia Reader</a> (edited by Nishant Shah, P.P. Sneha, and Sumandro Chattapadhyay, with support from Anirudh Sridhar, Denisse Albornoz, and Verena Getahun; August 8, 2015).</li></ul>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Books Chapters</strong></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify;">
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/raw/civil-society-organisations-and-internet-governance-in-asia-open-review">Civil Society Organisations and Internet Governance in Asia - Open Review </a> (Sumandro Chattapadhyay; Asia Internet History Vol. 3, edited by Prof. Kilnam Chon). Comments are invited.</li>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/raw/civil-society-organisations-and-internet-governance-in-india-open-review">Civil Society Organisations and Internet Governance in India - Open Review </a> (Sumandro Chattapadhyay; Asia Internet History Vol. 3, edited by Prof. Kilnam Chon). Comments are invited.</li></ul>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Accepted Paper Abstract</strong></p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify;">
<strong> </strong>
<li><strong> </strong><a href="http://cis-india.org/raw/studying-the-emerging-database-state-in-india-accepted-abstract"><strong> </strong>Studying the Emerging Database State in India: Notes for Critical Data Studies </a> (Sumandro Chattapadhyay; August 2, 2015). <em>The paper has been provisionally accepted</em>. </li></ul>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Blog Entries</strong></p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify;">
<strong> </strong>
<li><strong> </strong><a href="http://cis-india.org/raw/blog_mock-calling">Mock-Calling - Ironies of Outsourcing and the Aspirations of an Individual</a> (Sreedeep; August 6, 2015). </li>
<li> <a href="http://cis-india.org/raw/blog_governing-speech-on-the-internet"> Governing Speech on the Internet: From the Free Marketplace Policy to a Controlled 'Public Sphere' </a> (Smarika Kumar; August 28, 2015). </li></ul>
<h2><a href="http://cis-india.org/news">News & Media Coverage</a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify;">CIS gave its inputs to the following media coverage:</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify;">
<li><a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/business-standard-kanika-datta-august-1-2015-why-the-dna-bill-is-open-to-misuse-sunil-abraham">Why the DNA Bill is open to misuse: Sunil Abraham</a> (Kanika Datta; Business Standard; August 1, 2015) </li>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/the-times-of-india-august-2-2015-karthikeyan-hemalatha-porn-ban">Porn ban: People will soon learn to circumvent ISPs and govt orders, expert says </a> (Karthikeyan Hemalatha; The Times of India; August 2, 2015). </li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/idg-news-service-august-2-2015-indian-govt-orders-isps-to-block-857-porn-websites">Indian government orders ISPs to block 857 porn websites</a> (John Ribeiro; IDG News and PC World; August 2, 2015)</li>
<li> <a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/bbc-news-august-3-2015-india-blocks-access-to-857-porn-sites"> India blocks access to 857 porn sites </a> (BBC; August 3, 2015). </li>
<li> <a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/financial-times-james-crabtree-august-3-2015-india-launches-crackdown-on-online-porn"> India launches crackdown on online porn </a> (James Crabtree; Financial Times; August 3, 2015). </li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/hindustan-times-august-3-2015-siladitya-ray-proxies-and-vpns">Proxies and VPNs: Why govt can't ban porn websites?</a> (Siladitya Ray; August 3, 2015; Hindustan Times)</li>
<li> <a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/the-times-of-india-august-4-2015-anahita-mukherji-nanny-state-rules-porn-bad-for-you"> Nanny state rules porn bad for you </a> (Anahita Mukherji; The Times of India; August 4, 2015). </li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/business-standard-august-4-2015-ban-on-pornography-temporary-says-government">Ban on pornography temporary, says government</a> (Business Standard; August 4, 2015)</li>
<li> <a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/the-australian-news-august-5-2015-amanda-hodge-porn-block-in-india-sparks-outrage"> Porn block in India sparks outrage </a> (Australian; August 5, 2015). </li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/the-wall-street-journal-august-5-2015-sean-mclain-indian-porn-ban-is-partially-lifted-but-sites-remain-blocked">Indian Porn Ban is Partially Lifted But Sites Remain Blocked</a> (Sean Mclain; Wall Street Journal; August 5, 2015)</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/open-magazine-august-7-2015-ullekh-np-genetic-profiling">Genetic Profiling: Is it all in the DNA?</a> (Ullekh N.P.; The Open Magazine; August 7, 2015)</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/desi-blitz-august-7-2015-nazhat-khan-india-partially-lifts-porn-ban">India partially lifts Porn Ban?</a> (Nazhat Khan; DESI blitz; August 7, 2015)</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/hardnewsmedia-august-10-2015-abeer-kapoor-net-neutrality-india-is-a-keybattle-ground">Net Neutrality: India is a Key Battleground</a> (Abeer Kapoor; Hardnews; August 10, 2015)</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/hindustan-times-august-20-2015-aloke-tikku-stats-from-2014-reveal-horror-of-scrapped-section-66-a-of-it-act">Stats from 2014 reveal horror of scrapped section 66A of IT Act</a> (Aloke Tikku; Hindustan Times; August 20, 2015).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/the-times-of-india-sandhya-soman-august-23-2015-the-seedy-underbelly-of-revenge-porn">The seedy underbelly of revenge porn</a> (Sandhya Soman; The Times of India; August 23, 2015).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/the-hindu-businessline-august-28-p-anima-the-new-tattler-in-town">The new tattler in town</a> (P. Anima; Hindu Businessline; August 28, 2015).</li></ul>
<h2><a href="http://cis-india.org/">About CIS</a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) is a non-profit organisation that undertakes interdisciplinary research on internet and digital technologies from policy and academic perspectives. The areas of focus include digital accessibility for persons with diverse abilities, access to knowledge, intellectual property rights, openness (including open data, free and open source software, open standards, open access, open educational resources, and open video), internet governance, telecommunication reform, digital privacy, and cyber-security. The academic research at CIS seeks to understand the mediation and reconfiguration of social and cultural processes and structures by the internet and digital media technologies.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">► Follow us elsewhere</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify;">
<li>CIS - Twitter:<a href="http://twitter.com/cis_india"> http://twitter.com/cis_india</a></li>
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<p style="text-align: justify;"><br />► Support Us</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Please help us defend consumer / citizen rights on the Internet! Write a cheque in favour of 'The Centre for Internet and Society' and mail it to us at No. 194, 2nd 'C' Cross, Domlur, 2nd Stage, Bengaluru - 5600 71.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">► Request for Collaboration:</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">We invite researchers, practitioners, artists, and theoreticians, both organisationally and as individuals, to engage with us on topics related internet and society, and improve our collective understanding of this field. To discuss such possibilities, please write to Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, at <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:sunil@cis-india.org">sunil@cis-india.org</a> (for policy research), or Sumandro Chattapadhyay, Research Director, at <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:sumandro@cis-india.org">sumandro@cis-india.org</a> (for academic research), with an indication of the form and the content of the collaboration you might be interested in. To discuss collaborations on Indic language Wikipedia projects, write to Tanveer Hasan, Programme Officer, Access to Knowledge, at <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:tanveer@cis-india.org">tanveer@cis-india.org</a>.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><em>CIS is grateful to its primary donor the Kusuma Trust founded by Anurag Dikshit and Soma Pujari, philanthropists of Indian origin for its core funding and support for most of its projects. CIS is also grateful to its other donors, Wikimedia Foundation, Ford Foundation, Privacy International, UK, Hans Foundation, MacArthur Foundation, and IDRC for funding its various projects. </em></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/august-2015-bulletin'>https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/august-2015-bulletin</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaAccess to KnowledgeTelecomAccessibilityInternet GovernanceResearchers at Work2015-10-27T00:25:02ZPageJuly 2015 Bulletin
https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/july-2015-bulletin
<b>Our newsletter for the month of July is below:</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">We are happy to share with you the seventh issue of the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) newsletter (July 2015). The past editions of the newsletter can be accessed at <a href="http://cis-india.org/about/newsletters">http://cis-india.org/about/newsletters</a>.</p>
<h2 style="text-align: justify; ">Highlights</h2>
<table class="grid listing">
<tbody>
<tr>
<th>
<ul>
<li>NVDA team <a href="http://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/report-on-training-in-e-speak-marathi">conducted a training at SIES College, Sion, Mumbai</a>. Thirty-four delegates attended the training programme.</li>
</ul>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>A training workshop was held at <a href="http://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/report-on-training-using-espeak-tamil-with-nvda-training-tirunelveli">Anne Jane Askwith Higher Secondary School</a> for the Visually Impaired, Palayamkottai, Tirunelveli by NVDA team. Sixteen delegates participated in this.</li>
<li>Konkani Wikipedia is the second Wikimedia project after Odia Wikisource that has gone live out of incubation. The project stayed in the incubation for nine long years and the community has gone through a long debate to have a Wikipedia of their own. Subhashish Panigrahi has <a href="http://cis-india.org/openness/blog/konkani-wikipedia-goes-live">blogged on this highlighting the three Konkani Wikimedians</a>.</li>
<li>The 30<sup>th</sup> Session of the WIPO Standing Committee on Copyrights and Related Rights was held in Geneva from June 29 to July 3. Nehaa Chaudhari prepared a statement about the negotiations on the <a href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/statement-by-the-centre-for-internet-and-society-india-on-the-broadcast-treaty-at-sccr-30">Proposed Treaty for Broadcasting Organisations</a>.</li>
<li>Sumandro Chattapadhyay <a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/hindustan-times-july-15-2015-sumandro-chattapadhyay-iron-out-contradictions-in-the-digital-india-programme">wrote an article in the Hindustan Times</a> about India’s “Digital India” initiative to develop communication infrastructure, government information systems, and general capacity to digitise public life in India.</li>
<li>CIS published the <a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/technology-business-incubators">first draft of its analysis on technology business incubators</a> ("TBI") in India. The report prepared by Sunil Abraham, Vidushi Marda, Udbhav Tiwari and Anumeha Karnatak looks at operating procedures, success stories and lessons that can be learnt from TBIs in India.</li>
<li>Pranesh Prakash did a <a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/clearing-misconceptions-dot-panel-net-neutrality">brief analysis</a> about the Department of Telecommunications Panel Report on Net Neutrality.</li>
<li>CIS has participated in the Expert Committee for DNA Profiling constituted by the Department of Biotechnology in 2012 for the purpose of deliberating on and finalizing the draft Human DNA Profiling Bill and appreciates this opportunity. <a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/dna-dissent">CIS has prepared a dissent note to the Expert Committee on DNA Profiling</a>.</li>
<li>In the last few decades, all major common law jurisdictions have decriminalised non-procreative sex – oral and anal sex (sodomy) – to allow private, consensual, and non-commercial homosexual intercourse. Bhairav Acharya <a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/privacy-autonomy-sexual-choice-common-law-recognition-of-homosexuality">brought out the developments from across the world in a blog entry</a>. </li>
<li>As part of its project on mapping cyber security actors in South Asia and South East Asia, CIS conducted interviews with a <a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/cis-cybersecurity-series-part-22-anonymous">Tibetan security researcher and information activist</a> and <a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/cis-cybersecurity-series-part-24-2013-shantanu-ghosh">Shantanu Ghosh, Managing Director, Symantec Product Operations, India</a>.</li>
<li>CIS, the Observer Research Foundation, the Internet Policy Observatory, the Centre for Global Communication Studies and the Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania had organized a conference in April in New Delhi. The findings have been condensed in a report titled “<a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/freedom-of-expression-in-a-digital-age">Effective research, policy formulation, and the development of regulatory frameworks in South Asia</a>”.</li>
<li>Pranesh Prakash in a research paper titled <a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/regulatory-perspectives-on-net-neutrality">Regulatory Perspectives on Net Neutrality</a> gives an overview on why India needs to put in place net neutrality regulations, and the form that those regulations must take to avoid being over-regulation.</li>
<li>Rakshanda Deka undertook an analysis <a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/anti-spam-laws-in-different-jurisdictions">on the anti-spam laws in different jurisdictions</a>. This analysis is a part of a larger attempt at formulating a model anti-spam law for India by analysing the existing spam laws across the world.</li>
<li style="text-align: left; ">As part of the 'Studying Internets in India' series, RAW has published blog entries on <a href="http://cis-india.org/raw/blog_whatsapp-and-the-creation-of-a-transnational-sociality">WhatsApp and the Creation of a Transnational Sociality</a>; <a href="http://cis-india.org/raw/blog_users-and-the-internet">Users and the Internet</a>; <a href="http://cis-india.org/raw/blog_effective-activism">Effective Activism: The Internet, Social Media, and Hierarchical Activism in New Delhi</a>; <a href="http://cis-india.org/raw/blog_studying-the-internet-discourse-in-india-through-the-prism-of-human-rights">Studying the Internet Discourse in India through the Prism of Human Rights</a>; and <a href="http://cis-india.org/raw/blog_understanding-tagores-music-on-youtube">'Originality,' 'Authenticity,' and 'Experimentation': Understanding Tagore’s Music on YouTube</a>.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">The National Optic Fibre Network, a part of the Government's Digital India Initiative, has been in the news since the recent Expert Committee Report. Aditya Garg in a blog entry <a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/funding-of-national-optic-fibre-network-who-is-accountable">examined the accountability of the funding of the project</a>.</li>
</ul>
</th>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<h2><a href="http://cis-india.org/accessibility">Accessibility and Inclusion</a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Under a grant from the Hans Foundation we are doing two projects. The first project is on creating a national resource kit of state-wise laws, policies and programmes on issues relating to persons with disabilities in India. CIS in partnership with CLPR (Centre for Law and Policy Research) compiled the National Compendium of Policies, Programmes and Schemes for Persons with Disabilities (29 states and 6 union territories). The publication has been finalised and is being printed. The draft chapters and the quarterly reports can be accessed on the <a href="http://cis-india.org/accessibility/resources/national-resource-kit-project">project page</a>. The second project is on developing text-to-speech software for 15 Indian languages. The progress made so far in the project can be accessed <a href="http://cis-india.org/accessibility/resources/nvda-text-to-speech-synthesizer">here</a>.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">NVDA and eSpeak</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Monthly Updates</b></p>
<p><b> </b></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<b> </b>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/july-2015-report.pdf">July 2015 Report</a> (Suman Dogra; July 31, 2015).</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Event Reports</b></p>
<p><b> </b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><i>The training programmes were held in June and the reports were published in July</i>:</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/report-on-training-using-espeak-tamil-with-nvda-training-tirunelveli">Tamil Computing with NVDA Training Workshop</a> (Organized by NVDA team: Anne Jane Ask with Higher Secondary School for the Visually Impaired, Palayamkottai, Tirunelveli; June 3 – 7, 2015).</li>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/report-on-training-in-e-speak-marathi">Training in eSpeak Marathi</a> (Organized by NVDA team; SIES College, Sion, Mumbai; June 28, 2015).</li>
</ul>
<h2><a href="http://cis-india.org/a2k">Access to Knowledge</a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">As part of the Access to Knowledge programme we are doing two projects. The first one (Pervasive Technologies) under a grant from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) is for research on the complex interplay between pervasive technologies and intellectual property to support intellectual property norms that encourage the proliferation and development of such technologies as a social good. The second one (Wikipedia) under a grant from the Wikimedia Foundation is for the growth of Indic language communities and projects by designing community collaborations and partnerships that recruit and cultivate new editors and explore innovative approaches to building projects.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Submission / Comment</b></p>
<p><b> </b></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<b> </b>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/statement-by-the-centre-for-internet-and-society-india-on-the-broadcast-treaty-at-sccr-30">Statement by the Centre for Internet and Society on the Broadcast Treaty at SCCR 30</a> (Nehaa Chaudhari; July 2, 2015).</li>
</ul>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Wikipedia</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">As part of the <a href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/access-to-knowledge-program-plan">project grant from the Wikimedia Foundation</a> we have reached out to more than 3500 people across India by organizing more than 100 outreach events and catalysed the release of encyclopaedic and other content under the Creative Commons (CC-BY-3.0) license in four Indian languages (21 books in Telugu, 13 in Odia, 4 volumes of encyclopaedia in Konkani and 6 volumes in Kannada, and 1 book on Odia language history in English).</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Blog Entries</b></p>
<p><b> </b></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<b> </b>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/openness/blog/reading-devanagri-konkani-wikipedia-in-kannada-script">Reading Devanagari Script based sites like Konkani Wikipedia in Kannada Script</a> (Dr. U.B. Pavanaja; July 13, 2015).</li>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/openness/blog/konkani-wikipedia-goes-live">Konkani Wikipedia Goes Live After 'Nine Years' of Incubation</a> (Subhashish Panigrahi; July 18, 2015).</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Events Co-organized</b></p>
<p><b> </b></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<b> </b>
<li>Christ University Undergraduate Programme (Organized by CIS-A2K; Bangalore; July 1 - 8, 2015). Students were initiated into the Wikimedia activities with hands on sessions of typing on Wikisource. Faculty of the Christ University helped the A2K team in deciding on the texts that were to be typed. These texts will provide much needed impetus for Wikisource related activities in Indian Languages. Wikipedia Education Programme at Christ University received support from Ravishankar.A of the Tamil Wikimedia community and Sayant Mahato from Sanskrit Wikimedia community.</li>
<li>Aloysius College (Organized by CIS-A2K; Mangalore; July 1 – 4, 2015). Tulu and Kannada Wikipedia workshops were conducted in St. Aloysis College, Mangalore. Tulu Wikipedia is in Incubator and a small community is growing in Mangalore. Pavanaja U.B. and Rahmanuddin Shaik participated in this events.</li>
<li>Media Wiki Train the Trainer Program (Organized by CIS-A2K; Bangalore; June 24 – 27, 2015): A four-day long train-the-trainer program aimed at building leadership among technical contributors to Indic language Wikimedians in the areas of bugs, bots--Pywikipedia and Auto Wiki Browser, various MediaWiki tools, and translations. Ravishankar A. from Wikimedia India, MediaWiki developers Pavithra H., Yogesh Omshivaprakash H.L. and Harsh Kothari, and Tamil Wikimedian Dineshkumar Ponnusamy provided support for the event.</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Participation in Events</b></p>
<p><b> </b></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<b> </b>
<li><a href="https://wikimania2015.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania">Wikimania 2015</a> (Organized by Wikimedia Foundation; Mexico City; July 15 - 19, 2015): A whole day was dedicated for evaluation of strategies and activities by various major stakeholders of the Wikimedia movement. Community members who lead major activities, Wikimedia chapters, affiliate organizations and Wikimedia Foundation itself took part in the discussions. There were several group activities, exchange of ideas focused on project and community level outreach and other activities, tools and techniques, and best practices. Subhashish Panigrahi participated in this event and gave a talk on <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:How_to_do_Guerrilla_GLAM_-_presentation_in_Wikimania_2015,_Mexico_City.pdf">How to do Guerrilla GLAM</a>. Subhashish Panigrahi was a panelist along with Rohini Lakshané in the session “<a href="https://wikimania2015.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submissions/Edit-a-thons_for_bridging_the_gender_gap_on_Wikimedia">Edit-a-thons for Bridging the Gender Gap on Wikimedia: A Panel Discussion</a>”. An Indic Meet-up was also organized. Wikimedians from India, Bangladesh and Nepal representing various language communities, Wikimedia India, Wikimedia Bangladesh, Wikimedia Nepal, and Access to Knowledge (CIS-A2K) gathered to discuss about various challenges, cross-community collaborative projects, organizing larger events, and strategies to grow the Wikimedia movement in South Asia.</li>
<li>Classical Languages in the Digital Era Conference (Organized by Central Institute of Indian Languages, Mysore; July 17, 2015) Tanveer Hasan participated in this conference aimed at discussing about the future of Indian classical languages in the digital era. </li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Media Coverage</b></p>
<p><b> </b></p>
<ul>
<b> </b>
<li><a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/openness/news/the-times-of-india-july-5-2015-not-many-contributors-for-kannada-centric-wiki-page">Not many contributors for Kannada-centric Wiki page</a> (The Times of India, July 5, 2015)</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/openness/news/indian-express-july-5-2015-upload-more-kannada-articles-on-wikipedia">Upload More Kannada Articles on Wikipedia</a> (Indian Express, July 5, 2015)</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/openness/news/kannada-wikipedia-workshop-july-4-2015-coverage-in-udayavani">Kannada Wikipedia Workshop in Mangaluru</a> (Udayavani; July 5, 2015)</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/openness/news/kannada-wikipedia-workshop-july-5-2015-coverage-in-prajavani">Kannada Wikipedia Workshop in Mangaluru</a> (Prajavani; July 5, 2015)</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Staff Movement</b></p>
<p><b> </b></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<b> </b>
<li>Tito Dutta, Luis Gomes and Abhinav Garule have joined the CIS-A2K team as Programme Associates from March this year. Tito is working for internal documentation and resource building, and Luis and Abhinav are implementing the Konkani and Marathi work plan respectively along with community liaison.</li>
</ul>
<h2><a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance">Internet Governance</a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">As part of its research on privacy and free speech, CIS is engaged with two different projects. The first one (under a grant from Privacy International and International Development Research Centre (IDRC)) is on surveillance and freedom of expression (SAFEGUARDS). The second one (under a grant from MacArthur Foundation) is on studying the restrictions placed on freedom of expression online by the Indian government.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Free Speech and Expression</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Blog Entries</b></p>
<p><b> </b></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<b> </b>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/regulatory-perspectives-on-net-neutrality">Regulatory Perspectives on Net Neutrality</a> (Pranesh Prakash; July 8, 2015). Vidushi Marda and Tarun Krishnakumar assisted Pranesh Prakash in this.</li>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/policy-in-india-community-custom-censorship-and-future-of-internet-regulation">Free Speech Policy in India: Community, Custom, Censorship, and the Future of Internet Regulation</a> (Bhairav Acharya; July 13, 2015).</li>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/net-neutrality-and-law-of-common-carriage">Net Neutrality and the Law of Common Carriage</a> (Bhairav Acharya; July 14, 2015).</li>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/freedom-of-expression-in-a-digital-age">Freedom of Expression in a Digital Age</a> (Geetha Hariharan and Jyoti Panday; July 14, 2015). CIS, the Observer Research Foundation, the Internet Policy Observatory, the Centre for Global Communication Studies and the Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania organized this conference on April 21, 2015 in New Delhi. Elonnai Hickok edited the report.</li>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/clearing-misconceptions-dot-panel-net-neutrality">Clearing Misconceptions: What the DoT Panel Report on Net Neutrality Says</a> (and Doesn't) (Pranesh Prakash; July 21, 2015).</li>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/role-of-intermediaries-in-counting-online-abuse">Role of Intermediaries in Countering Online Abuse</a> (Jyoti Panday; July 31, 2015). This got published as two blog entries in the NALSAR Law Tech Blog. Part 1 can be accessed <a href="https://techlawforum.wordpress.com/2015/06/30/role-of-intermediaries-in-countering-online-abuse-still-a-work-in-progress-part-i/">here</a> and Part 2 <a href="https://techlawforum.wordpress.com/2015/06/30/role-of-intermediaries-in-countering-online-abuse-still-a-work-in-progress-part-ii/">here</a>.</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Event Co-organized</b></p>
<p><b> </b></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<b> </b>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/events/a-public-discussion-on-criminal-defamation-in-india">A Public Discussion on Criminal Defamation in India</a> (Organized by CIS, the Network of Women in Media, India; and Media Watch; Bangalore; July 29, 2015). The event was a public discussion about the continued criminalisation of defamation in India.</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Participation in Event</b></p>
<p><b> </b></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<b> </b>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/round-table-discussion-on-whois">Roundtable discussion on WHOIS</a> (Organized by Department of Electronics & Information Technology (DeitY), Govt. of India; July 28, 2015; New Delhi). Sunil Abraham and Vidushi Marda participated in the discussion remotely. Aditya Garg attended in person.</li>
</ul>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Privacy</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Blog Entries</b></p>
<p><b> </b></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<b> </b>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/anti-spam-laws-in-different-jurisdictions">Anti-Spam Laws in Different Jurisdictions: A Comparative Analysis</a> (Rakshanda Deka; July 2, 2015).</li>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/dna-dissent">A Dissent Note to the Expert Committee for DNA Profiling</a> (Elonnai Hickok; July 17, 2015). Click for <a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/dna-bill-functions.pdf">DNA Bill Functions</a>, <a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/dna-list-of-offences.pdf">DNA List of Offences</a>, and <a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/cis-note-on-dna-bill.pdf">CIS Note on DNA Bill</a>. A modified version was published by <a href="http://bangalore.citizenmatters.in/articles/dna-bill-problems-issues-inputs-from-bangalore">Citizen Matters Bangalore</a> on July 28.</li>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/privacy-autonomy-sexual-choice-common-law-recognition-of-homosexuality">Privacy, Autonomy, and Sexual Choice: The Common Law Recognition of Homosexuality</a> (Bhairav Acharya; July 18, 2015).</li>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/aadhaar-vs-social-security-number">Aadhaar Number vs the Social Security Number</a> (Elonnai Hickok; July 21, 2015).</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Participation in Event</b></p>
<p><b> </b></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<b> </b>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/best-practices-meet-2015">7th Best Practices Meet 2015</a> (Organized by Data Security Council of India; Bangalore; July 9 – 10, 2015). Sunil Abraham was a panelist in the session "Architecting Security for transformation to Digital India". Elonnai Hickok was a panelist in the session "Steering privacy in the age of extreme innovation technology & business models."</li>
</ul>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Cyber Security</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Videos</b></p>
<p><b> </b></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<b> </b>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/cis-cybersecurity-series-part-22-anonymous">Cyber Security Series Part 23</a> (Purba Sarkar; July 13, 2015). CIS interviews a Tibetan security researcher and information activist.</li>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/cis-cybersecurity-series-part-24-2013-shantanu-ghosh">Cyber Security Series Part 24</a> (Purba Sarkar; July 15, 2015). CIS interviews Shantanu Ghosh, Managing Director, Symantec Product Operations, India, as part of the Cybersecurity Series.</li>
</ul>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Miscellaneous</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Article</b></p>
<p><b> </b></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<b> </b>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/hindustan-times-july-15-2015-sumandro-chattapadhyay-iron-out-contradictions-in-the-digital-india-programme">Iron out contradictions in the Digital India programme</a> (Sumandro Chattapadhyay; Hindustan Times; July 28, 2015).</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Research Paper</b></p>
<p><b> </b></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<b> </b>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/technology-business-incubators">First draft of Technology Business Incubators: An Indian Perspective and Implementation Guidance Report</a> (Sunil Abraham, Vidushi Marda, Udbhav Tiwari and Anumeha Karnatak; July 25, 2015).</li>
</ul>
<h2><a href="http://cis-india.org/telecom">Telecom</a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">CIS is involved in promoting access and accessibility to telecommunications services and resources and has provided inputs to ongoing policy discussions and consultation papers published by TRAI. It has prepared reports on unlicensed spectrum and accessibility of mobile phones for persons with disabilities and also works with the USOF to include funding projects for persons with disabilities in its mandate:</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Op-ed</b></p>
<p><b> </b></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<b> </b>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/business-standard-op-ed-july-2-2015-shyam-ponappa-centrality-of-cash-flows">The Centrality of Cash Flows</a> (Shyam Ponappa; Business Standard; July 1, 2015 and Organizing India Blogspot; July 2, 2015).</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Blog Entry</b></p>
<p><b> </b></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<b> </b>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/funding-of-national-optic-fibre-network-who-is-accountable">Funding of National Optic Fibre Network (NOFN) - Who's Accountable?</a> (Aditya Garg; July 17, 2015).</li>
</ul>
<h2><a href="http://cis-india.org/raw">Researchers at Work</a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The Researchers at Work (RAW) programme is an interdisciplinary research initiative driven by contemporary concerns to understand the reconfigurations of social practices and structures through the Internet and digital media technologies, and vice versa. It is interested in producing local and contextual accounts of interactions, negotiations, and resolutions between the Internet, and socio-material and geo-political processes:</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Blog Entries</b></p>
<p><b> </b></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<b> </b>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/raw/blog_whatsapp-and-the-creation-of-a-transnational-sociality">WhatsApp and the Creation of a Transnational Sociality</a> (Maitrayee Deka; July 1, 2015).</li>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/raw/blog_users-and-the-internet">Users and the Internet</a> (Purbasha Auddy; July 10, 2015).</li>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/raw/blog_effective-activism">Effective Activism: The Internet, Social Media, and Hierarchical Activism in New Delhi</a> (Sarah McKeever; July 16, 2015).</li>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/raw/blog_studying-the-internet-discourse-in-india-through-the-prism-of-human-rights">Studying the Internet Discourse in India through the Prism of Human Rights</a> (Deva Prasad M.; July 22, 2015).</li>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/raw/blog_understanding-tagores-music-on-youtube">'Originality,' 'Authenticity,' and 'Experimentation': Understanding Tagore’s Music on YouTube)</a> (Ipsita Sengupta; July 27, 2015).</li>
</ul>
<h2><a href="http://cis-india.org/news">News & Media Coverage</a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">CIS gave its inputs to the following media coverage:</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/cio-july-1-2015-irctc-aadhaar-play-can-violate-sc-order-and-derail-national-security">'IRCTC’s Aadhaar play can violate SC order and derail National Security'</a> (Shubhra Rishi; CIO.IN; July 1, 2015).</li>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/catch-news-july-2-2015-the-digital-divide-pros-and-cons-of-modi-s-latest-big-initiative">The Digital Divide: pros and cons of Modi's latest big initiative</a> (Suhas Munshi; July 2, 2015).</li>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/the-statesman-rakesh-kumar-july-13-2015-corporate-push-modis-billion-digital-dream">Corporate push to Modi’s Rs.4.5-billion digital dream</a> (Rakesh Kumar; The Statesman; July 13, 2015).</li>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/huffington-post-july-16-2015-betwa-sharma-criminal-defamation-the-urgent-cause-that-has-united-rahul-gandhi-arvind-kejriwal-and-subramanian-swamy">Criminal Defamation: The Urgent Cause That has United Rahul Gandhi, Arvind Kejriwal and Subramanian Swamy</a> (Betwa Sharma; Huffington Post; July 15, 2015).</li>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/five-nations-one-future">Five Nations, One Future?</a> (Bjorn Ludtke, Ellen Lee, Jaideep Sen, Gwendolyn Ledger, David Nicholson, and Jesko Johannsen; Voestalpine; July 18, 2015).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/the-scariest-bill-in-parliament-is-getting-no-attention-2013-here2019s-what-you-need-to-know-about-it">The scariest bill in Parliament is getting no attention – here’s what you need to know about it</a> (Nayantara Narayanan; Scroll.in; July 24, 2015)</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/livemint-nikita-mehta-july-29-2015-regulation-misuse-concerns-still-dog-dna-profiling-bill">Regulation, misuse concerns still dog DNA profiling bill</a> (Nikita Mehta; Livemint; July 29, 2015)</li>
</ul>
<hr />
<h2><a href="http://cis-india.org/">About CIS</a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) is a non-profit organisation that undertakes interdisciplinary research on internet and digital technologies from policy and academic perspectives. The areas of focus include digital accessibility for persons with diverse abilities, access to knowledge, intellectual property rights, openness (including open data, free and open source software, open standards, open access, open educational resources, and open video), internet governance, telecommunication reform, digital privacy, and cyber-security. The academic research at CIS seeks to understand the mediation and reconfiguration of social and cultural processes and structures by the internet and digital media technologies.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">► Follow us elsewhere</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>CIS - Twitter:<a href="http://twitter.com/cis_india"> http://twitter.com/cis_india</a></li>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">We invite researchers, practitioners, artists, and theoreticians, both organisationally and as individuals, to engage with us on topics related internet and society, and improve our collective understanding of this field. To discuss such possibilities, please write to Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, at sunil@cis-india.org (for policy research), or Sumandro Chattapadhyay, Research Director, at sumandro@cis-india.org (for academic research), with an indication of the form and the content of the collaboration you might be interested in. To discuss collaborations on Indic language Wikipedia projects, write to Tanveer Hasan, Programme Officer, Access to Knowledge, at <a href="mailto:tanveer@cis-india.org">tanveer@cis-india.org</a>.</p>
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For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/july-2015-bulletin'>https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/july-2015-bulletin</a>
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No publisherpraskrishnaAccess to KnowledgeTelecomAccessibilityInternet GovernanceResearchers at Work2015-11-21T16:23:52ZPageOdia Wikisource has a new Wikisourcer, and he is the youngest in the Odia Wikimedia community!
https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/kisorachandrananachampu-on-odia-wikisource
<b>Prateek Pattanaik (User:Shrijagannatha on Odia Wikisource) is a young researcher of Odia literature and Odissi music. He has not just digitized as many as 54 Odia-language poetry dating early 18th century but has also annotated, both poetic and prosaic translation in his blogs “Sri Jagannatha” and “Utkal Sangeet”. He has also brought a complete book “Kisora chandranana champu” on Odia Wikisource. A recent entrant into the Odia Wikimedia community, Prateek is also the youngest Odia Wikimedian. He has also digitized 18-19th century 54 poem written by various poets.</b>
<p class="ctl"><em>Right after Prateek finished his first digitization of an entire book “<a class="external-link" href="http://or.wikisource.org/wiki/କିଶୋରଚନ୍ଦ୍ରାନନ୍ଦ_ଚମ୍ପୂ">Kishorachandranana Champu</a>” by Baladeba Ratha (1779-1845 AD) on the Odia Wikisource (<a class="external-link" href="http://or.wikisource.org"><span class="external-link">or.wikisource.org</span></a>), Subhashish Panigrahi caught up with Prateek asking him about his passion for Odia literature and Odissi music.</em></p>
<blockquote class="quoted"><strong>Subhashish Panigrahi (SP)</strong>: Hi Prateek, please tell little bit about yourself?<br /><strong>Prateek Pattanaik (PP)</strong>: I live among the pristine hills of Damanjodi, in the district of Koraput, Odisha, with my parents. My mother, Mrs.Pallabi Mohapatra, is a teacher in Delhi Public School, Damanjodi, where I study. My father, Mr. Dipak Kumar Pattanaik, is lecturer in Botany in the Government College, Koraput. Currently I'm studying in 11<sup>th</sup> standard in the Science Stream.</blockquote>
<p class="ctl"> </p>
<blockquote class="quoted"><strong>SP</strong>: What influenced you to take so much interest in Odia literature and Odissi music?<br /><strong>PP</strong>: When I was young, my grandfather, Dr. P. C. Mohapatra, would tell me bedtime stories that recounted the exploits of Lord Jagannatha – tales about King Indradyumna, Chodaganga Deva, Jayadeva, the Panchasakha; those of Dasia Bauri, Salabega; about how Lord Jagannatha would wander hopelessly in hunger, banished by Lakshmi; how he would chase the eggplant-plucking lady, enchanted by her rendition of the Gita Govinda. Those tales fascinated my imagination, and attracted me towards the Lord. And thus it began, my endless journey of discovering the infinite cult that surrounded the smiling Gods at Puri.<br /><br />As a kid I brought a triad made of neem wood from Puri. I would worship them, and dress them in the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beshas_of_Jagannath">Beshas</a>, costumes of Lord Jagannatha, using thermocole and paints- I smeared sandalwood paste on them and covered them with tiny blankets during winter. My mother inspired me – she was the typical Odia homemaker – from making “<em>Pana”</em> on the “<em>Makara Sankranti” to </em>making 'pithas', a large variety of traditional delicacies. And I would offer all of them to my Lords. She made herbal oils for my Lords when they were ill with fever. She would never say no to me no matter how unrealistic my demands. She tried her hand even at making the traditional “<em><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pattachitra">patta</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pattachitra">chitra</a></em><em>”</em> canvases for me to draw.<br /><br />During my summer vacations, I would unconditionally rush to Koraput to my grandparents, and I still do. My Grandmother, Mrs. Kanak Lata Sabat, who is an Odia-language teacher, taught me the Odia alphabet when I was very young. My father would bring me pictures of Lord Jagannatha from the Temple stall outside the Puri Temple. I became famous in my entire family for my ability to tell them apart without seeing their name. I was stubborn – I told him to buy those Odia books even when I did not know how to read. And those were the first books I read in Odia- filled with vivid descriptions of the Beshas of the Lord; with simple lines from the Odia Bhagabata to complex lines from medieval poets. When I asked my grandmother to tell me who was this man called Upendra Bhanja, whom the books praised no end, she revealed to me the master he was, and told me about his unbeatable command over the words he spoke.<br /><br />I grew up to being automatically attracted to Odissi Music – which I would hear amidst songs of the Gita Govinda in local Temples, and <em>Patachitra</em>s- filled in the soaring structures of the Puri Temple. I myself figured out how to do those paintings, and began by singing songs of Bhajan Samrat Bhikari Bal. Later, I heard of age-old classics from my grandma again – songs which she had learnt while in the third standard- “<em>Ki Shobha go Kunje”</em>, “<em>Galani ta Gala Katha</em>” and so on. I learnt them myself, and began going to my sir who would explain to me the nuances of Odissi Classical Music.<br /><br />When I was in ninth standard, the Jagannatha temple of Koraput came forward to use my PowerPoint presentations on the Jagannatha cult that I had made them for my pleasure, during my leisure time. They took them and printed them, and made a public exhibition. It was praised no end. I became somewhat of a child-size know-it-all of the Jagannatha cult, but I saw there was still more to discover.<br /></blockquote>
<p class="ctl"> </p>
<blockquote class="quoted"><strong>SP</strong>: How you started learning about “<em>Champu</em>”?<br /><strong>PP</strong>: The word “<em>Champu”</em> itself attracted me. It had a distinct ring to it, an alien-sounding word that was never used in real life. My father told me it was a song in which each line started with the same letter. I asked him to show it to me. He could not. He himself had not seen more than a single song. And when the truth dawned on me that it was not 'a' song- it was a collection of 34 songs, after the 34 letters of the Odia alphabet, I had to get my hands on it. Fortunately, the “<a href="http://oaob.nitrkl.ac.in/view/title/">Open Access to Oriya Books</a>” (OAOB) project by Srujanika had tons of Odia books digitized and hosted on the website http://oaob.nitrkl.ac.in, and I could finally behold what it was. I was amazed – I ran my eyes down the '<em>Ka</em>' song,and read “<em>Ka</em>-<em>Ka</em>-<em>Ka</em>-<em>Ka”</em>. What talent! My god, who wrote this? Kabisurya. Kabisurya who? Kabisurya Baladeba Ratha. I discovered the man and was similarly amazed by folktales of his talent.<br /><br />When I saw the 'Ga' song was the same song my Grandma loved – I was again amused. I knew that all the while! Above each song, it was written '<em>Raga </em>so and so'. So all of these could be sung. But how could I learn how to sing them? A single recorded CD, from the busstand taught me. In a year, I could sing it entirely. I understood the depth of the lines from the simple commentary below them, and was disappointed by how less known they were in this day and age. I thought what I could do – I sung them at the temple during the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratha_Yatra_%28Puri%29"><em>Ratha Jatra</em></a>, and they were an instant hit! People longed to hum those ancient tunes. But they could not. These songs were outdated, no one sung them except a few maestros of Odissi Classical Music, and no one could comprehend them. But people loved them. They did not know what they meant, exactly but they sure did get the feeling. And that was what mattered.<br /></blockquote>
<p class="ctl"> </p>
<blockquote class="quoted"><strong>SP</strong>: From spending your entire childhood to creating two blogs with so much annotation on these early writings, and using social media to popularize them, to bringing them on Wikisource, what made this leap?<br /><strong>PP</strong>: One fine day, it struck me that the same way I made PowerPoint slides, I could make something digital. Why not a website which anyone can see? Wouldn't that breathe new life into the traditional melodies? Good. And so over a span of two long years, I typed out the entire <em>Champu</em> and created two websites; Shri Jagannatha (<a href="http://shrijagannatha.wordpress.com/">shrijagannatha.wordpress.com</a>) for the Jagannatha cult, and later, Utkal Sangeet (<a href="http://utkalsangeet.wordpress.com/">utkalsangeet.wordpress.com</a>) for the classical songs. The Utkal Sangeet project was a great learning experience, I used tags, so that you could find any song, view it on any device, sort songs by Raga, Tala, Poet, Book, etc. I translated songs, and uploaded their recordings as well.</blockquote>
<p class="ctl"> </p>
<blockquote class="quoted"><strong>SP</strong>: Did you ever share your work with other fellow researchers? You must have struggled to find these resources, isn't it?<br /><strong>PP</strong>: U.S. Researcher in Ethnomusicology at U.C. Davis, Dr. David Dennen AKA 'David Uncle',was the first and only person who helped me. He himself has submitted his PhD Thesis on the Kishora Chandrananda Champu, from villages to research centers. He sent me tons of research books in digital form, painfully scanning them himself only for me, from locations like Australia and America. None from Odisha even assisted; the people at the Odisha state museum refused to let a child like me to see their manuscripts, and none of the research institutions even responded in an email. David uncle constantly inspired me to carry on further, not being swayed away. He encouraged me constantly, and he is as important to this project, on the Champu, as my very own parents.<br /><br />Then in February 2015, it struck me that I could use social networking to propagate the richness of the Cult at Puri – the grandeur in literature, dance, music, art, sculpture, food and all. I started a new Twitter handle @<a href="http://twitter.com/shrijagannatha">shrijagannatha</a>, and linked it with my site. Now the handle has 820 followers within 6 months. Many Twitter users have been very appreciative, and they became family now. From the Grandfather @nidhi_budha to the 'untimely gourd' @akala_kushmanda, they post random tweets about Odisha to digitization of the Odia script, with which I struggled greatly at the beginning. This soul, devoted to a similar cause as me, was @subhapa, Subhasish Panigrahi, an active volunteer in the Odia Wikipedia, one of the founding fathers. After months, Persuaded by the Wikimedians, I too contributed the entire text of the Kishorachandrananda Champu to the Odia Wikisource by using my Utkal Sangeet project. It is a collaborative project, which will blossom healthily. Since so many people visit the Wikimedia projects, my small contribution to this free online library could probably quench their literary thirst.</blockquote>
<p class="ctl"> </p>
<blockquote class="quoted"><strong>SP</strong>: What are your plans to expand your work on Wikisource?<br /><strong>PP</strong>: In the future, I plan to make my site even more accessible for the layman. I have a few ideas as of now, to make the ideas reach out to everyone, even someone as young as me. I want to be an active, useful member of this online digital movement for Odia language, and go on with my task forever.</blockquote>
<p class="ctl"> </p>
<blockquote class="quoted"><strong>SP</strong>: Thanks Prateek for taking time to share such an inspiring and insightful story. Would you like to add more about expanding project for digitizing such valuable literature?<br /><strong>PP</strong>: As for my future plans, I would like to type out other such works of <em>Kabisurjya</em> Baladeba Ratha, like his “<em>Ratnakara Champu”</em>, “<em>Premodaya Champu”</em> and even the satirical “<em>Hasyakallola</em>”. I would definitely contribute the same to Wikisource. The books being rare, they may be lost if not saved. I would like to translate the Kishora Chandrananda Champu, the main one, into English in its entirety – word by word, retaining its true essence so that the Western Audience and even people of their states can understand the marvel it is. Now, I'm researching on various commentaries and references so that I can write my own. The form itself is rare, and more so, such an intricately interwoven part of the typical 'Odia' identity that it cannot be ignored. Let the world glance upon the talents of (Upendra) Bhanja and Kabisurya (Baladeba Ratha) and identify that a small, peaceful state in the East has been the birthplace for such great art.<br />Thanks!</blockquote>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/kisorachandrananachampu-on-odia-wikisource'>https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/kisorachandrananachampu-on-odia-wikisource</a>
</p>
No publishersubhaWikimediaAccess to Knowledge2015-08-21T17:40:56ZBlog EntryKonkani Wikipedia Goes Live After 'Nine Years' of Incubation
https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/konkani-wikipedia-goes-live
<b>Konkani Wikipedia is the second Wikimedia project after Odia Wikisource that has gone live out of incubation. The project stayed in the incubation for nine long years and the community has gone through a long debate to have a Wikipedia of their own. Here is a blog highlighting three Konkani Wikimedians and an advocate of the Wikipedia movement whose efforts finally paid off.</b>
<p>Read the original blog entry published on Wikimedia Blog on July 15, 2015 <a class="external-link" href="http://blog.wikimedia.org/2015/07/15/konkani-wikipedia-goes-live/">here</a>.</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify;">The Goan Konkani Wikipedia (available at <a href="https://gom.wikipedia.org">gom.wikipedia.org</a>) has gone live after spending nine long years in incubation.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">An Indo-Aryan language, of the Indo-European family of languages, Konkani is the official language of <a title="w:Goa" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goa">Goa</a>. It is a minority language in other Indian states, such as <a title="w:Maharashtra" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maharashtra">Maharashtra</a>, <a title="w:Karnataka" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karnataka">Karnataka</a>, northern <a title="w:Kerala" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerala">Kerala</a>, <a title="w:Dadra and Nagar Haveli" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dadra_and_Nagar_Haveli">Dadra and Nagar Haveli</a>, and <a title="w:Daman and Diu" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daman_and_Diu">Daman and Diu.</a> It is spoken by about 7.4 million people.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Konkani can be written in five different scripts: Devanagari—officially used by the Government of Goa—as well as Latin (locally known as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konkani_in_the_Roman_script">Romi Konkani</a>), Kannada, Malayalam, and Persian. Of these, the Goan Antruz dialect of the language, in the Devanagari script, is considered <a title="en:Konkani alphabets" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konkani_alphabets">standard</a> by the Indian constitution.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The Konkani Wikipedia has many heroes, as we see them. <a title="gom:User:Melissa Simoes" href="https://gom.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Melissa_Simoes">Melissa Simoes</a> and <a title="gom:User:Darshan kandolkar" href="https://gom.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Darshan_kandolkar">Darshan Kandolkar</a> are two of the many long-term contributors who joined during the <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CIS-A2K/Konkani_Wikipedia_@Goa_University">Konkani Wikipedia @ Goa University</a> program and are still active even after the program formally concluded. Darshan is an assistant professor at the <a title="w:Government College Pernem" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_College_Pernem">Government College Pernem</a> in Goa. His professor at <a title="w:Goa University" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goa_University">Goa University</a>, Dr. Madhavi Sardesai—who passed away last year—played a vital role in inspiring him to go for higher studies in Konkani. Darshan realized that there is a lot to be written in Konkani when he was introduced to Wikipedia, and after that, he became dedicated to contributing to the project.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">“I would like to bring more students as contributors to our Konkani Wikipedia,” Darshan says. “My aim is to start with my students at Government College Pernem. Being an alumnus of Goa University, I also want my juniors there to join our community and enrich Konkani Wikipedia.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">“I have a dream to start a project for the freedom fighters of Goa and involve a diverse set of people, from students to journalists and columnists. I also want to build partnership with educational institutions so we could engage with the students for a longer run and the existing Konkani community could mentor them,” he continues.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">“Being a new Wikipedia project, Konkani Wikipedia needs more quality measures and the articles have to grow to good quality articles with more images and templates, I want to take it to the level of English Wikipedia with both quantitative and qualitative growth in articles!”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The Konkani Wikimedia community has been using social media actively to promote the Konkani Wikipedia project, and to celebrate the successes of its contributors. After Melissa became the top contributor to the project, her fellow editor <a title="incubator:User:Konknni mogi 24" href="https://incubator.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Konknni_mogi_24">Luis Gomes</a> <a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/konkaniwikipedia/permalink/485802771575565">congratulated</a> her. That brought Melissa into the spotlight, gaining the attention of editors from the global Wikimedia community. The community is continuing a tradition to rewarding the most prolific contributor of each month as the “Wikipedian of the Month”.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Melissa was introduced to the Wikipedia program at her university where the target for each participating student was to write one article each about a village in Goa. “I wrote my article just for the sake of the marks, but never bothered to think about why I am writing it. After the program was over, I became inactive on Wikipedia.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">“After some time, I met Father [Luis Gomes] in parish and then Darshan and Father inspired me to resume editing. Then, it became an addiction and I never stopped even for a day. I would come back from work and sit in front of my computer.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">“Now, I am a teacher, and my fellow teachers are mostly women. I would like to introduce the Goan Konkani Wikipedia to them so they could also contribute to Wikipedia,” Melissa says.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">As Konkani Wikipedia went live, long term Wikimedian Fredrick Noronha, an early advocate of Konkani Wikipedia, said, “It is a wonderful feeling to see the Goan Konkani Wikipedia live. I would like to congratulate all who have been involved in some or the other way with the making of Konkani Wikipedia live from the days of its inception and incubation.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">“I am not a great contributor or even a language expert. I come from a content background and found my interest in Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons and Creative Commons long ago. But this helped me to associate myself in some way with the Konkani Wikipedia incubator. I am happy that CIS-A2K chipped in to help build a community and help it grow in collaboration with the Goa University.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">“Students of the Konkani department in the university are the real heroes to take this effort forward by filling the Wikipedia incubator with more editing activity to which the institutional backing acted as catalyst,” he added.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Fredrick feels there are major challenges that the community now has to start taking measures for: “The macrolanguage is written in multiple scripts. Out of five of the scripts three—Devanagari, Romi/Latin and Kannada—are actively used in printing and publication currently. People using all the scripts should be equally participating in a movement like Wikipedia to take their languages to other native speakers using Wikipedia as a digital tool.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">“The second challenge is with the contributors. Goa, being home to majority of the Konkani language speakers, has English education from the primary level. This means many have a great level of technical ability. The technical contributor community here would be of great use to Konkani Wikipedia if tapped,” he adds.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">“The technical contributors are eager to contribute but have not been approached in a manner that would interest them. Similarly the Konkani authors who are helping propagate the language to masses have sadly no or very little clue about Wikipedia’s existence in Konkani. This disparity is stopping a massive flow of local encyclopedic content to the Konkani Wikipedia. Unless we tap into the technological and the linguistic groups it will be only a tip of the iceberg.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Fredrick explains that the the current Konkani Wikipedia community is primarily made up of students of Goa University. “This is both good and bad,” he says. “Having young and enthusiastic students as Wikipedia editors is helping the project to leap forward, which might not have happened if the faculty were targeted instead. There is, however, a great need for diversification.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">“The approach to bring in authors in the 60–70 years age group will vary from the approach to bring in, for example, technical people. Our outreach strategies should ultimately fulfill both the literary and technological contributors, so that their work can help us to both grow content and to solve the problem of the multiple scripts, respectively,” Fredrick adds.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The Konkani Wikipedia community is organizing a <a href="https://www.facebook.com/events/1449555445347537/">public seminar</a> on July 18 at <a href="https://www.unigoa.ac.in/">Goa University</a> to celebrate the launch of the Konkani Wikipedia and to pay tribute to Dr. Madhavi Sardesai, who always dreamed of the Konkani Wikipedia getting out of incubation.</p>
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<h2>Video</h2>
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<th style="text-align: center;"><iframe src="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ADarshan_Kandolkar_talks_about_Konkani_Wikipedia.webm?embedplayer=yes" frameborder="0" height="288" width="512"></iframe><br /></th>
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<p>Wikimedian <a title="w:gom:User:Darshan Kandolkar" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/gom:User:Darshan_Kandolkar">Darshan Kandolkar</a> shares his experience of contributing to Konkani Wikipedia. <br />Video in Konkani. <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Darshan_Kandolkar_talks_about_Konkani_Wikipedia.webm">Video</a> by <a title="m:Wikimedia India" href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_India">Wikimedia India</a>, freely licensed under <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en">CC-BY-SA 4.0.</a></p>
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<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/konkani-wikipedia-goes-live'>https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/konkani-wikipedia-goes-live</a>
</p>
No publishersubhaCreative CommonsAccess to KnowledgeWikimediaWikipediaFeaturedKonkani WikipediaHomepage2016-06-18T18:15:05ZBlog EntryJune 2015 Bulletin
https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/june-2015-bulletin
<b>Newsletter for the month of June.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">We are happy to share with you the sixth issue of the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) newsletter (June 2015). The past editions of the newsletter can be accessed at <a href="http://cis-india.org/about/newsletters">http://cis-india.org/about/newsletters</a>.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">------------------------------- <br /> Highlights <br /> -------------------------------</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li> As part of its project on mapping cyber security actors in South Asia and South East Asia, CIS conducted a series of interviews with cyber security actors. <a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/desi-sec-cybersecurity-and-civil-society-in-india"> The interviews were compiled and edited into one documentary </a> . The film was produced by Purba Sarkar, edited by Aaron Joseph, and directed by Oxblood Ruffin features Malavika Jayaram, Nitin Pai, Namita Malhotra, Saikat Datta, Nishant Shah, Lawrence Liang, Anja Kovacs, Sikyong Lobsang Sangay and, Ravi Sharada Prasad. </li>
</ul>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li> CIS conducted a <a href="http://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/report-on-training-using-espeak-tamil-with-nvda-training-tirunelveli"> training on eSpeak Tamil Computing with NVDA in Tirunelveli </a> in the month of June. Sixteen delegates attended the event.</li>
<li>The 30th Session of the World Intellectual Property Organization's ("WIPO") Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights ("SCCR") was held from June 30 to July 3, 2015. CIS was unable to attend the meeting. However, CIS had <a href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/statement-by-the-centre-for-internet-and-society-india-on-the-broadcast-treaty-at-sccr-30"> a statement to make on negotiations on the Proposed Treaty for Broadcasting Organizations </a> .</li>
<li>The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India had called for comments on the technical background paper prepared by the WIPO Secretariat in relation to the Broadcast Treaty. <a href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/comments-on-the-protection-of-broadcasting-organizations-technical-background-paper">CIS submitted its comments</a> .</li>
<li>Rohini Lakshané in a blog post <a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/joining-the-dots-in-indias-big-ticket-mobile-phone-patent-litigation">analysed</a> the commonalities in big-ticket patent infringement lawsuits pertaining to mobile devices. </li>
</ul>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li> Sumandro Chattapadhyay <a href="http://cis-india.org/openness/blog/open-data-intermediaries-in-developing-countries"> co-authored a report on open data intermediaries in developing countries </a> . The report concluded by saying that consideration needs to be given to the presence of multiple intermediaries in an open data ecosystem, each of whom may possess different forms of capital to enable the use and unlock the potential impact of open data.</li>
<li>Odia language Wikipedia has grown to 800k page views in a month. The Odia Wikipedia community gathered in Bhubaneswar on June 3 to celebrate Odia Wikipedia's 13<sup>th</sup> anniversary. Subhashish Panigrahi <a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/openness/blog/opensource-subhashish-panigrahi-may-31-2015-odia-language-wikipedia-page-grows-to-800k-page-views-a-month">wrote about this</a>.</li>
<li>Sunil Abraham in an article titled <a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/livemint-june-22-2015-sunil-abraham-the-generation-of-e-emergency"> "The generation of e-Emergency" </a> published by Livemint on June 22 argued that the next generation of censorship technology is expected to be 'real-time content manipulation' through ISPs and Internet companies.</li>
<li>In two separate blog entries, Jyoti Panday provided insights into IANA Transition Stewardship & ICANN Accountability. The first part gives a <a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/iana-transitition-stewardship-icann-accountability-1"> background to the IANA transition and updates on the ensuing processes in an attempt to familiarise people with the issues </a> at stake and the second part <a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/iana-transition-stewardship-and-icann-accountability-2"> provides an overview of submitted proposals and highlights the areas of concern that will need attention moving forward </a> . </li>
</ul>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li> Sumandro Chattapadhyay <a href="http://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/workshop-on-open-data-for-human-development-2015-06"> co-designed and co-facilitated a workshop for government officials </a> from Bhutan, Maldives, Meghalaya, Sikkim, and Tripura, on open data policy and implementation, organised by UNDP India. </li>
<li> Shyam Ponappa in his <a href="http://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/organizing-india-blogspot-shyam-ponappa-june-4-2015-unfettering-stranded-capacity"> monthly column published in the Business Standard </a> stated that government can't control market forces but can and must fix regulatory issues. </li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">---------------------------------------------- <br /><a href="http://cis-india.org/accessibility">Accessibility and Inclusion</a> <br /> ----------------------------------------------</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Under a grant from the Hans Foundation we are doing two projects. The first project is on creating a national resource kit of state-wise laws, policies and programmes on issues relating to persons with disabilities in India. CIS in partnership with CLPR (Centre for Law and Policy Research) compiled the National Compendium of Policies, Programmes and Schemes for Persons with Disabilities (29 states and 6 union territories). The publication has been finalised and is being printed. The draft chapters and the quarterly reports can be accessed on the <a href="http://cis-india.org/accessibility/resources/national-resource-kit-project">project page</a>. The second project is on developing text-to-speech software for 15 Indian languages. The progress made so far in the project can be accessed <a href="http://cis-india.org/accessibility/resources/nvda-text-to-speech-synthesizer">here</a>.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">►NVDA and eSpeak</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "># Monthly Updates</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li> <a href="http://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/nvda-e-speak-june-2015-report.pdf">June 2015 Report</a> (Suman Dogra; June 30, 2015). </li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "># Language Testing Reports</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li> <a href="http://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/report-on-training-using-espeak-tamil-with-nvda-training-tirunelveli"> Report on eSpeak Tamil Computing with NVDA Training Workshop in Tirunelveli </a> (Organized by NVDA team; Anne Jane Askwith Higher Secondary School for the Visually Impaired, Palayamkottai, Tirunelveli; June 3 - 7, 2015). </li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">►Other</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "># White Paper</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li> <a href="http://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/inclusive-financial-services-global-trends-in-accessibility-requirements"> Inclusive Financial Services - Global Trends in Accessibility Requirements </a> (Nirmita Narasimhan; May 3, 2015). </li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">----------------------------------------------------------- <br /> <a href="http://cis-india.org/a2k">Access to Knowledge</a> <br /> ----------------------------------------------------------- <br /> As part of the Access to Knowledge programme we are doing two projects. The first one (Pervasive Technologies) under a grant from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) is for research on the complex interplay between pervasive technologies and intellectual property to support intellectual property norms that encourage the proliferation and development of such technologies as a social good. The second one (Wikipedia) under a grant from the Wikimedia Foundation is for the growth of Indic language communities and projects by designing community collaborations and partnerships that recruit and cultivate new editors and explore innovative approaches to building projects.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "># Submission / Comments</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li> <a href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/comments-on-the-protection-of-broadcasting-organizations-technical-background-paper"> Comments on the Protection of Broadcasting Organizations: Technical Background Paper Prepared by the WIPO Secretariat </a> (Nehaa Chaudhari; June 28, 2015). </li>
<li> <a href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/statement-by-the-centre-for-internet-and-society-india-on-the-broadcast-treaty-at-sccr-30"> Statement by the Centre for Internet and Society on the Broadcast Treaty at SCCR 30 </a> (Nehaa Chaudhari; June 30, 2015). </li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "># Blog Entries</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li> <a href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/joining-the-dots-in-indias-big-ticket-mobile-phone-patent-litigation"> Joining the Dots in India's Big-Ticket Mobile Phone Patent Litigation </a> (Rohini Lakshané; June 1, 2015). </li>
<li> <a href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/national-ipr-policy-series-indias-national-ipr-policy-what-would-wipo-think"> National IPR Policy Series: India's National IPR Policy - What Would WIPO Think? </a> (Nehaa Chaudhari; June 20, 2015). </li>
<li> <a href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/national-ipr-policy-series-follow-up-rti-to-dipp-on-ipr-think-tank"> National IPR Policy Series: Follow-up RTI to DIPP on the IPR Think Tank </a> (Nehaa Chaudhari; June 25, 2015). </li>
<li> <a href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/us-301-report-a-myopic-view-of-ip-rights">The US 301 Report - A Myopic View of IP Rights</a> (Varun Baliga and Nehaa Chaudhari; June 24, 2015). </li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "># Media Coverage</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">CIS gave inputs for the following:</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li> <a href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/news/the-times-of-india-april-10-2015-evelyn-fok-and-varun-aggarwal-one-reason-startups-are-moving-out-of-india"> One reason startups are moving out of India </a> (Evelyn Fok and Varun Aggarwal; The Times of India; April 10, 2015). This was also mirrored in <a href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/news/economic-times-april-10-2015-evelyn-fok-varun-aggarwal-better-intellectual-property-values-luring-indian-startups-abroad"> Economic Times </a> . </li>
<li> <a href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/news/iam-media-jack-ellis-april-28-2015-indian-businesses-crave-ip-certainty-but-better-patent-values-are-tempting-them-overseas"> Indian businesses crave IP certainty, but better patent values are tempting them overseas </a> (IAM Magazine; April 28, 2015). </li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">►Wikipedia</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">As part of the <a href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/access-to-knowledge-program-plan">project grant from the Wikimedia Foundation</a> we have reached out to more than 3500 people across India by organizing more than 100 outreach events and catalysed the release of encyclopaedic and other content under the Creative Commons (CC-BY-3.0) license in four Indian languages (21 books in Telugu, 13 in Odia, 4 volumes of encyclopaedia in Konkani and 6 volumes in Kannada, and 1 book on Odia language history in English).</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "># Blog Entries</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li> <a href="http://cis-india.org/openness/blog/wikimedia-blog-subhashish-panigrahi-june-4-2015-odia-wikipedia-community-is-enriching-wikipedia-with-character-encoding-technology"> How the Odia Wikimedia community is enriching Wikipedia with character encoding technology </a> (Subhashish Panigrahi; June 14, 2015). </li>
<li> <a href="http://cis-india.org/openness/blog/odia-wikipedia-meets-google-developer-group">Odia Wikipedia meets Google Developer Group</a> (Sailesh Patnaik; June 29, 2015). </li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "># Event Organized</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li> <a href="http://cis-india.org/openness/events/odia-wikipedia-turning-thirteen">Odia Wikipedia Turning 13 this June 3</a> (Organized by CIS-A2K and Odia Wikipedia Community; Institute of Physics, Sachivalaya Marg, Sainik School PO, Gajapati Nagar, Bhubaneswar, Odisha; June 3, 2015). </li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "># Media Coverage</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">CIS gave its inputs for the following:</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li> <a href="http://cis-india.org/openness/news/b2db41b2cb28b47b36b4db71b30b30b47-b13b21b3cb3fb06-b09b07b15b3fb2ab3fb21b3cb3fb06b30-b67b69-b24b2e-b1cb28b4db2eb24b3fb25b3f-b2ab3eb33b28-b68b66b67b6b-b1cb41b28-b69-b24b3eb30b3fb16"> ଭୁବନେଶ୍ୱରରେ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆର ୧୩ ତମ ଜନ୍ମତିଥି ପାଳନ, ୨୦୧୫ ଜୁନ ୩ ତାରିଖ </a> (Odishan.com; June 2, 2015). </li>
<li> <a href="http://cis-india.org/openness/news/orissa-dairy-june-2-2015-odia-wikipedia-celebrates-13-years-of-free-knowledge-contribution-at-bhubaneswar"> Odia Wikipedia celebrates 13 years of free knowledge contribution at Bhubaneswar </a> (Orissadairy.com; June 2, 2015). </li>
<li> <a href="http://cis-india.org/openness/news/fullodisha-june-3-2015-odia-wikipedia-13-years-of-free-knowledge-contribution"> Odia Wikipedia Celebrates 13 Years of Free Knowledge Contribution at Bhubaneswar </a> (FullOdisha.com; June 3, 2015). </li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">►Openness</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "># Blog Entries</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li> <a href="http://cis-india.org/openness/blog/foss-for-public-use-free-and-open-source-software-for-digital-india"> FOSS for Public Use:Free and Open Source Software for Digital India </a> (Anubha Sinha; June 1, 2015). </li>
<li> <a href="http://cis-india.org/openness/blog/workshop-on-open-data-for-human-development-2015-06">Workshop on Open Data for Human Development</a> (Sumandro Chattapadhyay; June 2, 2015). </li>
<li> <a href="http://cis-india.org/openness/blog/open-data-intermediaries-in-developing-countries"> Open Data Intermediaries in Developing Countries - A Synthesis Report </a> (Sumandro Chattapadhyay; June 16, 2015). </li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">----------------------------------------------- <br /> <a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance">Internet Governance</a> <br /> -----------------------------------------------</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">As part of its research on privacy and free speech, CIS is engaged with two different projects. The first one (under a grant from Privacy International and International Development Research Centre (IDRC)) is on surveillance and freedom of expression (SAFEGUARDS). The second one (under a grant from MacArthur Foundation) is on studying the restrictions placed on freedom of expression online by the Indian government.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">►Free Speech and Expression</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "># Article</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li> <a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/livemint-june-22-2015-sunil-abraham-the-generation-of-e-emergency"> The generation of e-Emergency </a> (Sunil Abraham; May 20, 2015). </li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "># Blog Entries</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li> <a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/iana-transitition-stewardship-icann-accountability-1"> IANA Transition Stewardship & ICANN Accountability (I) </a> (Jyoti Panday; June 20, 2015). </li>
<li> <a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/iana-transition-stewardship-and-icann-accountability-2"> IANA Transition Stewardship & ICANN Accountability (II) </a> (Jyoti Panday; June 21, 2015). </li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "># Participation in Event</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li> <a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/panel-discussion-on-internet-intermediaries-law-and-innovation"> Panel Discussion on Internet Intermediaries, Law and Innovation </a> (Organized by Confederation of Indian Industries, Google and Centre For Communications Governance, NLU Delhi; New Delhi; June 2, 2015). Jyoti Panday attended the panel discussion. </li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">► Cyber Security</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "># Film</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li> <a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/desi-sec-cybersecurity-and-civil-society-in-india"> DesiSec: Cybersecurity and Civil Society in India </a> (produced by Purba Sarkar, edited by Aaron Joseph, and directed by Oxblood Ruffin). The film features Malavika Jayaram, Nitin Pai, Namita Malhotra, Saikat Datta, Nishant Shah, Lawrence Liang, Anja Kovacs, Sikyong Lobsang Sangay and, Ravi Sharada Prasad. </li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">-------------------------------- <br /><a href="http://cis-india.org/telecom">Telecom<br /></a>-------------------------------- <br /> CIS is involved in promoting access and accessibility to telecommunications services and resources and has provided inputs to ongoing policy discussions and consultation papers published by TRAI. It has prepared reports on unlicensed spectrum and accessibility of mobile phones for persons with disabilities and also works with the USOF to include funding projects for persons with disabilities in its mandate:</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "># Op-ed</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li> <a href="http://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/organizing-india-blogspot-shyam-ponappa-june-4-2015-unfettering-stranded-capacity"> Unfettering Stranded Capacity </a> (Shyam Ponappa; Business Standard; June 3, 2015 and Organizing India Blogspot; June 4, 2015). </li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">-------------------------------- <br /> <a href="http://cis-india.org/raw">Researchers at Work</a> <br /> -------------------------------- <br /> The Researchers at Work (RAW) programme is an interdisciplinary research initiative driven by contemporary concerns to understand the reconfigurations of social practices and structures through the Internet and digital media technologies, and vice versa. It is interested in producing local and contextual accounts of interactions, negotiations, and resolutions between the Internet, and socio-material and geo-political processes:</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "># Blog Entry</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li> <a href="http://cis-india.org/raw/blog_indic-scripts-and-the-internet">Indic Scripts and the Internet</a> (Dibyajyoti Ghosh; June 30, 2015). </li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">--------------------------------- <br /> <a href="http://cis-india.org/news">News & Media Coverage</a> <br /> ---------------------------------</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">CIS gave its inputs to the following media coverage:</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li> <a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/hindustan-times-siladitya-ray-june-4-can-uber-ola-apps-be-blocked"> Can Uber, Ola apps be blocked? Govt fighting cyber odds </a> (Siladitya Ray; Hindustan Times; June 4, 2015). </li>
<li> <a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/economic-times-june-24-2015-neha-alawadhi-govts-stand-on-internet-governance-draws-applause-from-civil-society-organisations"> Government's stand on internet governance draws applause from civil society organisations </a> (Neha Alawadhi; Economic Times; June 24, 2015). </li>
<li> <a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/economic-times-june-24-2015-malavika-murali-and-payal-ganguly-most-emerging-firms-low-on-cyber-security-experts"> Most emerging firms low on cyber security: Experts </a> (Malavika Murali and Payal Ganguly; June 24, 2015). </li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">--------------------------------- <br /><a href="http://cis-india.org/">About CIS</a> <br /> --------------------------------- <br /> The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) is a non-profit organisation that undertakes interdisciplinary research on internet and digital technologies from policy and academic perspectives. The areas of focus include digital accessibility for persons with diverse abilities, access to knowledge, intellectual property rights, openness (including open data, free and open source software, open standards, open access, open educational resources, and open video), internet governance, telecommunication reform, digital privacy, and cyber-security. The academic research at CIS seeks to understand the reconfigurations of social and cultural processes and structures as mediated through the internet and digital media technologies.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">► Follow us elsewhere</p>
<ul>
<li>Twitter: <span class="Object" id="OBJ_PREFIX_DWT348_com_zimbra_url"><span class="Object" id="OBJ_PREFIX_DWT349_com_zimbra_url"><a href="http://twitter.com/cis_india" target="_blank">http://twitter.com/cis_india</a></span></span></li>
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<li><span class="Object" id="OBJ_PREFIX_DWT350_com_zimbra_url"><span class="Object" id="OBJ_PREFIX_DWT351_com_zimbra_url"></span></span>Facebook - Access to Knowledge: <span class="Object" id="OBJ_PREFIX_DWT352_com_zimbra_url"><span class="Object" id="OBJ_PREFIX_DWT353_com_zimbra_url"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/cisa2k" target="_blank">https://www.facebook.com/cisa2k</a></span></span></li>
<li><span class="Object" id="OBJ_PREFIX_DWT352_com_zimbra_url"><span class="Object" id="OBJ_PREFIX_DWT353_com_zimbra_url"></span></span>E-Mail - Access to Knowledge: <a class="mail-link" href="mailto:a2k@cis-india.org"><span class="Object" id="OBJ_PREFIX_DWT354_ZmEmailObjectHandler"><span class="Object" id="OBJ_PREFIX_DWT355_ZmEmailObjectHandler">a2k@cis-india.org</span></span></a></li>
<li><span class="Object" id="OBJ_PREFIX_DWT354_ZmEmailObjectHandler"><span class="Object" id="OBJ_PREFIX_DWT355_ZmEmailObjectHandler"></span></span>E-Mail - Researchers at Work: <a class="mail-link" href="mailto:raw@cis-india.org"><span class="Object" id="OBJ_PREFIX_DWT356_ZmEmailObjectHandler"><span class="Object" id="OBJ_PREFIX_DWT357_ZmEmailObjectHandler">raw@cis-india.org</span></span></a></li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">► Support Us</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Please help us defend consumer / citizen rights on the Internet! Write a cheque in favour of 'The Centre for Internet and Society' and mail it to us at No. 194, 2nd 'C' Cross, Domlur, 2nd Stage, Bengaluru - 5600 71.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">► Request for Collaboration:</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">We invite researchers, practitioners, artists, and theoreticians, both organisationally and as individuals, to engage with us on topics related internet and society, and improve our collective understanding of this field. To discuss such possibilities, please write to Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, at <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:sunil@cis-india.org">sunil@cis-india.org</a> (for policy research), or Sumandro Chattapadhyay, Research Director, at <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:sumandro@cis-india.org">sumandro@cis-india.org</a> (for academic research), with an indication of the form and the content of the collaboration you might be interested in.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><i>CIS is grateful to its primary donor the Kusuma Trust founded by Anurag Dikshit and Soma Pujari, philanthropists of Indian origin for its core funding and support for most of its projects. CIS is also grateful to its other donors, Wikimedia Foundation, Ford Foundation, Privacy International, UK, Hans Foundation, MacArthur Foundation, and IDRC for funding its various projects. </i></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/june-2015-bulletin'>https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/june-2015-bulletin</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaAccessibility2015-09-13T16:10:19ZPageOdia Wikipedia meets Google Developer Group
https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/odia-wikipedia-meets-google-developer-group
<b>This is a guest post by Wikimedian Sailesh Patnaik who has been a ardent contributor in Odia-language Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects and has led outreach and partnership building initiatives to grow the Wikimedia projects in Odia and other Indian languages. In this post Sailesh shares his personal experience from his interaction at the Google Extended I/O organised by Google Developer Group in Bhubaneswar, Odisha. All the views are author’s personal views.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">On this June 14 Google Developer Group Bhubaneswar organised an extended I/O at Bhubaneswar. To my surprise I found that there were more than 60 participants attending the conference. Basanta Kumar Maharana. TELL WHO HE IS, was the speaker in the event. Basanta shared his memories from Google I/O 2015, San Francisco and demonstrated about the new launch and updates of Google. It was quite interesting for me to learn about various Google apps (?) kike Google cardboard, Android M, etc.</p>
<p>In an informal interaction with the host Sanjib Parida, he proposed me to speak about Odia Wikipedia there who came to know about the project while attending <a href="http://or.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:ORWP13">Odia Wikipedia's 13th anniversary</a>.</p>
<p>I started my talk by asking four questions to the audience:</p>
<ol>
<li>How many of the audience know about Wikipedia? (Everyone raised hands.)</li>
<li>Who have copied content from Wikipedia for assignments? (People giggled about it, 50-60% of the participants nodded saying yes!)</li>
<li>Who knows that anyone can “edit” Wikipedia? (the count reduced to about 10-20%)</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Who knows about Odia Wikipedia and contributes in creating and editing articles? (Only 4-5 people said yes, I found 2-3 of them being contributors to Odia Wikipedia)</li>
</ol>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">I started my talk with a brief introduction to the history of Odia Wikipedia and how it was started in 2002 as one of the first four Indic language Wikipedia projects along with Assamese, Malayalam and Punjabi.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Odia Wikipedia was in dormant for the next eight years which was intervened when Wikimedians like Subhashish Panigrahi, Ashutosh Kar, Anshuman Giri, Mrutyunjaya Kar and others started building a community to improve and increase the content of Odia Wikipedia. Now we have grown as a community consisting about 17 active editors and the project has more than 8800 articles. The monthly page view of Odia Wikipedia has grown to more than 800,000 from merely 200,000 in 2011. We have three active Odia-language Wikimedia projects; Odia Wikipedia, the largest Odia online encyclopedia, online library Odia Wikisource, and multilingual online dictionary Odia Wiktionary. Odia Wikipedia community has not limited their work only in editing articles, rather has expanded into many other aspects of Odia computing. On the day of Odia Wikipedia’s 13th anniversary it has launched a converter that can convert many non-Unicode encodings into Unicode. We have been supported by CIS-A2K for many activities to grow our community and the Odia Wikimedia projects. Like Odia Wikipedia we have 20 more Wikipedia projects in other Indic languages and in over 288 languages globally. Hindi Wikipedia among all the Indic Wikipedia projects has the highest number of articles whereas Malayalam Wikipedia has the highest number of quality articles.</p>
<table class="plain">
<tbody>
<tr>
<th><img src="https://cis-india.org/home-images/copy_of_OdiaW1.png" alt="Odia Wiki1" class="image-inline" title="Odia Wiki1" /></th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Pictured above: Participants at the conference organized by the Google Developer Group at Bhubaneswar</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Some of the state governments have been quite open and positive in bringing Wikipedia into academics. The Government of Kerala has introduced Wikipedia contribution in its curriculum for BA and MA students and The Government of Tamilnadu has introduced Tamil Wikipedia to participants at the International Tamil Conference which helped the Tamil Wikimedia community in expanding the community. Awareness and community building are two major challenges for us at this moment. I invited the participants there to take part in the Wikimedia movement.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">I touched upon the Odia input for the audience. While it was quite difficult a few years back for Odia input it is no longer a challenge. With the help of the Android app “Indic Keyboard” we can also edit Odia Wikipedia from mobile phones. I myself have used it for editing Wikipedia, for tweeting and posting Facebook status in Odia. After the talk I was asked a few questions. There are two important ones I would like to share here. To the question “how can I contribute in Odia Wikipedia? Do I have to install any keyboard for it?” I elaborated how anyone can edit and expand articles or create new Wikipedia articles in Odia just by creating a new account and logging in to https://or.wikipedia.org, and how the Wikimedia projects like Wikipedia have an input tool called Universal Language Selector (ULS) enabled in them and one does not need to install any additional input method. I was asked by one from the here is no support from the government at this moment but we are constant effort to collaborate audience about the Government of Odisha helping to grow Odia Wikipedia.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Many participants came and personally greeted me after the event was over. I was really excited to share the news about our (Odia Wikimedia community's plans for creating Bhubaneswar Wiki Group/WikiTungi with two active communities in engineering colleges like CET and KIIT. It was a wonderful experience at Google I/O and I hope to grow our Wikimedia community by collaborating with more like minded communities.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/odia-wikipedia-meets-google-developer-group'>https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/odia-wikipedia-meets-google-developer-group</a>
</p>
No publisherSailesh PatnaikOpennessOdia WikipediaAccess to Knowledge2015-07-16T13:17:07ZBlog Entryଭୁବନେଶ୍ୱରରେ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆର ୧୩ ତମ ଜନ୍ମତିଥି ପାଳନ, ୨୦୧୫ ଜୁନ ୩ ତାରିଖ
https://cis-india.org/openness/news/b2db41b2cb28b47b36b4db71b30b30b47-b13b21b3cb3fb06-b09b07b15b3fb2ab3fb21b3cb3fb06b30-b67b69-b24b2e-b1cb28b4db2eb24b3fb25b3f-b2ab3eb33b28-b68b66b67b6b-b1cb41b28-b69-b24b3eb30b3fb16
<b>ତାରିଖ ଏବଂ ସମୟ: ୨୦୧୫ ଜୁନ ୩ ତାରିଖ, ସନ୍ଧ୍ୟା ୫ ଟା ସ୍ଥାନ: ପଦାର୍ଥ ବିଜ୍ଞାନ ପ୍ରତିଷ୍ଠାନ, ସଚିବାଳୟ ମାର୍ଗ, ଭୁବନେଶ୍ୱର, ଓଡ଼ିଶା କାର୍ଯ୍ୟକ୍ରମ ସବିଶେଷ: https://or.wikipedia.org/s/sml</b>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The article was <a class="external-link" href="http://odishan.com/14971">published in Odishan.com</a> on June 2, 2015.</p>
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<p style="text-align: justify;">ପ୍ରଥମ ଭାରତୀୟ କେତୋଟି ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆ (Wikipedia) ମଧ୍ୟରୁ ଅନ୍ୟତମ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆ ଏହି ମାସ ୩ ତାରିଖରେ ତାହାର ୧୩ ବର୍ଷ ବ୍ୟାପୀ ମୁକ୍ତ ଜ୍ଞାନ ବିତରଣର ମହୋତ୍ସବ ପାଳୁଛି । ଇଂରାଜୀ ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆ ଆରମ୍ଭ ହେବାର ବର୍ଷେ ପରେ ୨୦୦୨ ମସିହାରେ ଆରମ୍ଭ ହୋଇଲା ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆ । ଇଉନିକୋଡ଼ରେ ଉପଲବ୍ଧ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆ ଏ ଭିତରେ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଭାଷାର ବିଶାଳତମ ଅନଲାଇନ ଜ୍ଞାନକୋଷ (ଏନସାଇକ୍ଲୋପିଡ଼ିଆ)ରେ ପରିଣତ ହୋଇଛି । ଭାରତର ବିଭିନ୍ନ ସ୍ଥାନରେ ରହୁଥିବା ପାଖାପାଖି ୧୭ ଜଣ ସକ୍ରିୟ ସମ୍ପାଦକ (“ଉଇକିଆଳି” ନାମରେ ପରିଚିତ)ଙ୍କ ଦେଇ ସମ୍ପାଦିତ ଓ ୮,୮୦୦ରୁ ଅଧିକ ପ୍ରସଙ୍ଗରେ ଭରା ଏହି ପ୍ରକଳ୍ପଟି ଏକ ଜ୍ଞାନକୋଷରୁ ଅନେକ ଉପରେ । ସ୍ୱେଚ୍ଛାରେ ସମ୍ପାଦନ କରୁଥିବା ସମ୍ପାଦକମାନଙ୍କ ଉଦ୍ୟମ ହେତୁ କପିରାଇଟ ଥିବା ଅନେକ ବହିର ଲାଇସେନ୍ସ କ୍ରିଏଟିଭ କମନ୍ସ ଭଳି ମୁକ୍ତ ଲାଇସେନ୍ସରେ ରୂପାନ୍ତରତିକ କରାଯାଇ ସେସବୁକୁ ଇଣ୍ଟରନେଟ ଜରିଆରେ ଅଧିକ ପାଠକଙ୍କ ନିକଟରେ ପହଞ୍ଚାଇବାର ବାଟ ତିଆରି ହୋଇଛି । ଏହା ଛଡ଼ା ଲେଖକ ଓ ସତ୍ୱାଧୀକାରୀ (କପିରାଇଟ ମାଲିକ)ଙ୍କ ସହ ସନ୍ଧି କରି ଅନେକ ଉପାଦେୟ ରଚନା ଇଣ୍ଟରନେଟରେ ଉପଲବ୍ଧ କରାଯାଉଛି । or.wikipedia.org ରେ ଉପଲବ୍ଧ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆରେ ସଭିଙ୍କୁ ସମ୍ପାଦନା କରିବାର ସୁଯୋଗ ଦିଆଯାଇଥାଏ ଯାହା ଫଳରେ ଖବରକାଗଜ, ପତ୍ରିକାଆଦିରେ ଅନେକ ଉପାଦେୟ ବିଷୟରେ ପ୍ରକାଶିତ ଲେଖାମାନଙ୍କ ଆଧାରରେ ନୂଆ ପ୍ରସଙ୍ଗ ତିଆରି ଓ ପୁରୁଣା ପ୍ରସଙ୍ଗର ଉନ୍ନତୀକରଣ କରାଯାଇପାରିବ ।</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">ଉଇକିଆଳିମାନେ ଜଗତରେ ଜଣାଶୁଣା ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆ ଏଜୁକେସନ ପ୍ରୋଗ୍ରାମ ଭଳି ବିଭିନ୍ନ ଶିକ୍ଷଣ କାର୍ଯ୍ୟକ୍ରମ ହାତକୁ ନେଇ ପାଖାପାଖି ୨,୦୦୦ରୁ ଅଧିକ ଲୋକଙ୍କୁ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆରେ ବିଭିନ୍ନ ବିଷୟରେ ଲେଖିବା ବାବଦରେ ଶିଖାଇଛନ୍ତି । ଏହାର ୧୩ ତମ ଜନ୍ମତିଥି ପାଳନ ନିମନ୍ତେ ଉଇକିଆଳି ସମୂହ ଏକ ବିଭିନ୍ନ ସରକାରୀ ଜର୍ଣ୍ଣାଲ, ଖବରକାଗଜ, ପତ୍ରିକା ଆଦିରେ ଥିବା ଅଣ-ଇଉନିକୋଡ଼ ଲେଖାରୁ ଇଉନିକୋଡ଼ରେ ରୂପାନ୍ତର କରିବା ପାଇଁ କ୍ୟାରେକ୍ଟର ଏନକୋଡିଙ୍ଗ କନଭର୍ଟର ବିତରଣ କରିବା ଯୋଜନା କରୁଛି । ଏହା ଫଳରେ ସର୍ଚ ଇଞ୍ଜିନରେ ଉପଲବ୍ଧ ହୋଇନପାରୁଥିବା ଅନେକ ଉପାଦେୟ ଲେଖା ଡିଜିଟାଲ କଣ୍ଟେଣ୍ଟ ଭାବେ ଇଉନିକୋଡ଼ରେ ଉପଲବ୍ଧ ହୋଇ ଇଣ୍ଟରନେଟ ପାଠକମାନଙ୍କ ପଠନଯୋଗୀ ହୋଇପାରିବ ।</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">ଯୋଗାଯୋଗ:<br />odiawiki@gmail.com<br />ମୃତ୍ୟୁଞ୍ଜୟ କର, ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆ ପରିଚାଳକ (ଫୋନ: 9437112371)<br />ଶୈଳେଶ ପଟ୍ଟନାୟକ, ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିଆଳି (ଫୋନ: 7537097770)<br />ସୁଭାସିସ ପାଣିଗ୍ରାହୀ, ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆ ପରିଚାଳକ ଓ ପ୍ରୋଗ୍ରାମ ଅଫିସର, ଆକସେସ ଟୁ ନଲେଜ-ସେଣ୍ଟର ଫର ଇଣ୍ଟରନେଟ ଏଣ୍ଡ ସୋସାଇଟି (08050515339)<br />subhashish@cis-india.org</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/openness/news/b2db41b2cb28b47b36b4db71b30b30b47-b13b21b3cb3fb06-b09b07b15b3fb2ab3fb21b3cb3fb06b30-b67b69-b24b2e-b1cb28b4db2eb24b3fb25b3f-b2ab3eb33b28-b68b66b67b6b-b1cb41b28-b69-b24b3eb30b3fb16'>https://cis-india.org/openness/news/b2db41b2cb28b47b36b4db71b30b30b47-b13b21b3cb3fb06-b09b07b15b3fb2ab3fb21b3cb3fb06b30-b67b69-b24b2e-b1cb28b4db2eb24b3fb25b3f-b2ab3eb33b28-b68b66b67b6b-b1cb41b28-b69-b24b3eb30b3fb16</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaCIS-A2KOdia Wikipedia2016-06-18T18:17:34ZNews ItemOdia Wikipedia celebrates 13 years of free knowledge contribution at Bhubaneswar
https://cis-india.org/openness/news/orissa-dairy-june-2-2015-odia-wikipedia-celebrates-13-years-of-free-knowledge-contribution-at-bhubaneswar
<b>Odia Wikipedia, one of the first of several Indian language Wikipedia projects is ready to celebrate 13 glorious years of free knowledge contribution on June 3. </b>
<p style="text-align: justify;">This was <a class="external-link" href="http://www.orissadiary.com/CurrentNews.asp?id=59414">published in Orissadiary.com</a> on June 2, 2015. Also see <a href="http://odishan.com/14971">http://odishan.com/14971</a> (In Odia)</p>
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<p style="text-align: justify;">Beginning in 2002 — a year after the world's largest online encyclopedia, the English Wikipedia, was launched — Odia Wikipedia has grown to be the largest content repository in the Odia language available in Unicode on the Internet at https://or.wikipedia.org. <br /><br />With about 17 active editors (also known as “uikiali”) spread across various parts of India and abroad, and over 8,800 articles, the project has become more than just an encyclopedia. The voluntary editor community has put its efforts into acquiring valuable Creative Commons (CC) licensed content by lobbying copyright holders/authors to relicense copyrighted content under CC licenses.<br /><br />Date and time: 3 June 2015, 5 pm<br />Venue: Institute of Physics, Near Apollo Hospital, Bhubaneswar, Odisha<br />Event details: https://or.wikipedia.org/s/sml<br /><br />It has also engaged with over 2,000 people by organizing various outreach programs including the globally accredited pedagogic program the Wikipedia Education Program (WEP). For its 13th anniversary the community is planning to release a character-encoding converter that promises to unlock massive amounts of content from government portals as well as journals, newspapers and magazines that have their content in non-Unicode character encoding that prevents user searching and reuse of digital-based content.<br /><br />May you have any further questions about the project or the event, please reach us in the contact details mentioned below:<br /><br />Mrutyunjaya Kar, Administrator, Odia Wikipedia (9437112371)<br />Sailesh Patnaik, Editor, Odia Wikipedia (7537097770)<br />Subhashish Panigrahi, Programme Officer, Access To Knowledge (CIS-A2K)<br />subhashish@cis-india.org. 08050515339</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/openness/news/orissa-dairy-june-2-2015-odia-wikipedia-celebrates-13-years-of-free-knowledge-contribution-at-bhubaneswar'>https://cis-india.org/openness/news/orissa-dairy-june-2-2015-odia-wikipedia-celebrates-13-years-of-free-knowledge-contribution-at-bhubaneswar</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaCIS-A2KOdia Wikipedia2016-06-18T18:18:05ZNews ItemHow the Odia Wikimedia community is enriching Wikipedia with character encoding technology
https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/wikimedia-blog-subhashish-panigrahi-june-4-2015-odia-wikipedia-community-is-enriching-wikipedia-with-character-encoding-technology
<b>Last year, I wrote about the development of Odia language character encoding converters that the Wikipedia community was working on. These converted text into Unicode, a universal encoding standard. These converters have now been made available for use, just in time for today’s thirteenth anniversary of the Odia Wikipedia.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The original blog post published on Wikimedia Blog <a class="external-link" href="https://blog.wikimedia.org/2015/06/03/odia-wikipedia/">is here</a>.</p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Character_encoding" title="w:Character encoding">Character encoding</a> is used to represent a collection of characters through an encoding system, and is used in computation, data storage, and transmission of textual data. Fonts in different scripts used to have several different encoding systems before the onset of Unicode.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">However, most media outlets—as well as the state government—are still using old encoding systems for Odia. These require the installation of a particular font using the same encoding system to read documents. Unicode makes this much easier, as most modern computers come with Unicode fonts preinstalled.<br /><br />A character encoding converter is generally used to convert from one encoding system to another. Massive amounts of content, not archived on a regular basis, could now be converted to Unicode and, in turn, provide Wikipedia editors with easily accessible sources to create new articles and enhance existing ones.<br /><br />The Odia language is spoken by over 40 million people in eastern India, accross various Indian cities, and by expatriates abroad. It is one of the oldest languages in South Asia, and is recognized as a “classical language” by the Indian government. The Odia Wikipedia celebrates its thirteenth anniversary today, June 3.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">However, the “classical language” status has not yet boosted knowledge production or use of the language on the Internet. Almost all online newspapers and state publications, such as Odia-language journals, public announcements, and information portals, host their content in various legacy character encodings that do not allow users to easily access and share information. This has, unsurprisingly, proven to be a major hurdle for the small <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odia_Wikipedia" title="w:Odia Wikipedia">Odia Wikimedia</a> community, who hope to enrich their project with Odia-language citations.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">To help solve these problems, the community tried using <a href="https://bitbucket.org/rebati/rebati/downloads">two encoding converters</a>. These were previously developed by friends from Srujanika, a non-profit based in Bhubaneswar, Odisha, that works on promoting science education in school curricula in the Odia language, as well as the digitization of early Odia literature. These converters became the building blocks on top of which Wikimedian <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/or:%E0%AC%AC%E0%AD%8D%E0%AD%9F%E0%AC%AC%E0%AC%B9%E0%AC%BE%E0%AC%B0%E0%AC%95%E0%AC%BE%E0%AC%B0%E0%AD%80:TWO%5E0" title="w:or:ବ୍ୟବହାରକାରୀ:TWO^0">Manoj Sahukar</a> built converters after massively rewriting their code. I was also part of the re-building process, from the initial development of the converters to the design of their interface, and I helped to design handouts teaching new users how to use them.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The community played a major role in promoting the converters on social media. An <a href="http://cis-india.org/openness/blog/article-on-akruti-unicode-converter-in-samaja">op-ed</a> in the Odia newspaper <i>Samaja</i> helped to reach out to more people unaware of the uses for Unicode. Many Internet users did not realize that they had been sharing knowledge on their blogs or social media using various legacy encodings, which neither appear in search engines nor allow anyone to share them in an accessible way.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">By converting news and articles from newspapers and magazines as test cases, the converters were improved over time. Citing Odia-language sources wasn’t so easy before: making use of any content from a local newspaper could take hours.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">From September 2014 to March 2015, a small project ran to convert text from several newspapers and magazines, so that they could be used as citations in articles in the Odia Wikipedia — this is important because, when these sources are not available in Unicode, search engines and Wikipedia users can have difficulty finding them.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Because the converters were hosted separately on <a href="https://22bc339da9ca3e2462414546a715752e4c2c5e0d.googledrive.com/host/0B5rBGd680WZFemVLa3RxY0preE0/">Google Drive</a>, it was difficult to have them all in one central place. Odia Wikipedians wanted their Wikipedia to host a single converter, where a user could select the appropriate input encoding. Wikimedian and developer <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Jnanaranjan_sahu" title="User:Jnanaranjan sahu">Jnanaranjan Sahu</a> came up with a responsive, wiki-based converter that went live on May 12 and is <a href="https://or.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%AC%89%E0%AC%87%E0%AC%95%E0%AC%BF%E0%AC%AA%E0%AC%BF%E0%AC%A1%E0%AC%BC%E0%AC%BF%E0%AC%86:%E0%AC%9F%E0%AD%81%E0%AC%B2/%E0%AC%8F%E0%AC%A8%E0%AC%95%E0%AD%8B%E0%AC%A1%E0%AC%BC%E0%AC%BF%E0%AC%99%E0%AD%8D%E0%AC%97_%E0%AC%95%E0%AC%A8%E0%AC%AD%E0%AC%B0%E0%AD%8D%E0%AC%9F%E0%AC%B0" title="or:ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆ:ଟୁଲ/ଏନକୋଡ଼ିଙ୍ଗ କନଭର୍ଟର">now available</a> for use. The converter now enables the choice of source encoding from a drop-down menu, and converts the input into Unicode. Issues with this conversion process can be reported <a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1_rLp0ijsf5j87v_8wiwGATnXQBg_ktIfXAt_D6wHx9U/edit#gid=0">via Google Spreadsheet</a>.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Combining five different converters into one, Jnanaranjan says, was a necessary next step in development: “When I found that there are different URLs for different converters, and that the URLs lead to a bunch of different sites, it seemed quite messed up. It would have been difficult for users to locate each of the converters. I thought it would be easier for users if they could find all the encoding converters for Odia on one page on their home wiki. So, I tried to tweak the source code and design this converter.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">He also explains that several newspapers whose news is encoded in older systems are now rich information sources. "Converting them and using the information to add more citations to Wikipedia could help to achieve the dream of every single person being able to contribute more information to the Odia Wikipedia," he says, "so all human knowledge may be available in our language."</p>
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For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/wikimedia-blog-subhashish-panigrahi-june-4-2015-odia-wikipedia-community-is-enriching-wikipedia-with-character-encoding-technology'>https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/wikimedia-blog-subhashish-panigrahi-june-4-2015-odia-wikipedia-community-is-enriching-wikipedia-with-character-encoding-technology</a>
</p>
No publishersubha2015-06-14T11:51:46ZBlog EntryIndian government includes open source in RFPs
https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/open-source-subhashish-panigrahi-june-8-2015-indian-govt-includes-open-source-in-rfps
<b>The Government of India has implemented a remarkable new policy-level change for open source software (OSS) deployment.</b>
<p> </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The Ministry of Communication and Information Technology has asked that open source software-based applications be included in Requests for Proposals (RFPs) for all new procurements. Note there is not a plan at this time to replace existing proprietary systems with open source software.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">As <a href="http://deity.gov.in/sites/upload_files/dit/files/policy_on_adoption_of_oss.pdf" target="_blank">stated</a>, the policy will "adopt open standards and promote open source and open technologies" in order "to prepare India for a knowledge based transformation into a digitally empowered society and a knowledge economy."</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Three major objectives of the new policy for OSS:</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify;">
<li>To provide a policy framework for rapid and effective adoption of OSS</li>
<li>To ensure strategic control in e-Governance applications and systems from a long-term perspective</li>
<li>To reduce the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) of projects</li></ul>
<p style="text-align: justify;">In addition to adopting open source and open standards, the Indian Government is also emphasizing on opening up the source code without any royalty for the community to use, modify and redistribute the original/modified software. This is compliant with the Creative Commons (CC) licenses.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Proprietary software (labeled as "closed source software" and "CSS" in the policy document) would only be permitted for demonstrated urgent/strategic need or lack of expertise or non-availability of open source software. The suppliers then are not bound to use open source software, though it is preferred over proprietary per this policy change. The policy document also mentions government collaborating with local and international open source communities for software development</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/open-source-subhashish-panigrahi-june-8-2015-indian-govt-includes-open-source-in-rfps'>https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/open-source-subhashish-panigrahi-june-8-2015-indian-govt-includes-open-source-in-rfps</a>
</p>
No publishersubhaOpennessOpen Source2016-06-18T18:18:54ZBlog EntryOdia Wikipedia Turning 13 this June 3
https://cis-india.org/openness/events/odia-wikipedia-turning-thirteen
<b>The Odia Wikipedia is turning 13 this June 3. To celebrate this long time of the editor community's tireless effort to make it to the largest Odia-language online encyclopedia an event is being organised in Odisha' capital Bhubaneswar. Centre for Internet and Society's Access To Knowledge (CIS-A2K) is proudly sponsoring for this event. Subhashish Panigrahi and Rahmanuddin Shaik are representing CIS at this event.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Over 20 Wikipedians from various corners of India are participating for a public gathering that is planned on June 3 at the Institute of Physics at 5 pm. A day-long internal meetup for the community in the presence of Wikimedia India and CIS-A2K has been planned that focuses on raising consensus for policy and guidelines for Odia Wikipedia, and planning for the activities ahead in the light of successes and learning from failures from the past.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify;">Promotional Banner</h3>
<table class="plain">
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<th><img src="https://cis-india.org/home-images/OdiaWikipedia13bannerCCbySA4.0.png" alt="null" class="image-inline" title="Odia Wikipedia" /></th>
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</tbody>
</table>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/openness/events/odia-wikipedia-turning-thirteen'>https://cis-india.org/openness/events/odia-wikipedia-turning-thirteen</a>
</p>
No publishersubhaAccess to KnowledgeWikimediaWikipediaOdia WikipediaEvent2016-06-18T18:19:22ZEventଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିପିଡିଆ: ନୂତନ ଯୁଗର ଆରମ୍ଭ
https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/the-samaja-op-ed-subhashish-panigrahi-odia-wikipedia-journey-13-years
<b>My op-ed on Odia Wikipedia and its journey of 13 years was published in Odia daily "The Samaja".</b>
<p style="text-align: justify;">୨୦୦୧ ମସିହା, ଇଣ୍ଟରନେଟ ଜରିଆରେ ଭାଷା ସହ ଭାଷାକୁ, ଚଳଣି ସହ ଚଳଣିକୁ, ଲୋକଙ୍କସହ ଲୋକଙ୍କୁ ଯୋଡ଼ିବାର ପଥ ସଳଖ ହେଉଥାଏ । ତେବେ ଆଜିଭଳି ସେତେବେଳକୁ ଇଂରାଜୀ ଭାଷା ଓ ଆମେରିକାର ପତିଆରା ଜଗତରେ କାହିଁରେ କେତେ । ତେଣୁ ଇଣ୍ଟରନେଟରେ ମଧ୍ୟ ଆମେରିକା ଓ ଇଂରାଜୀ ଛାମୁଆ ଥାନଟିକି ମାଡ଼ି ବସିଥାନ୍ତି । ଏ ବେଳକୁ ଆମେରିକାର ଦୁଇ ଯୁବକ ଜିମି ଉଏଲସ ଆଉ ଲାରି ସାଙ୍ଗର ନୂଆ ଏକ କଳ୍ପନା ସହ ପ୍ରକଳ୍ପଟିଏ ଆରମ୍ଭ କଲେ । କଳ୍ପନା ଥିଲା ଅଧିକରୁ ଅଧିକ ଲୋକଙ୍କୁ ଏକ ଏନସାଇକ୍ଲୋପିଡ଼ିଆ ସମ୍ପାଦନା କରିବାର ସୁଯୋଗ ଦେବା । ଏହି ମିଳିତ ସମ୍ପାଦନାରୁ ଯେଉଁ ପ୍ରକଳ୍ପଟି ଜନ୍ମିଲା ସେ ହେଲା ଉଇକିପିଡିଆ । ସେତେବେଳକୁ ଏନ୍ସାଇକ୍ଲୋପିଡ଼ିଆ ବ୍ରିଟାନିକା ସବୁ ଲାଇବ୍ରେରି ଆଉ ଏପରିକି ଇଣ୍ଟରନେଟରେ ଗାଦି ମାଡ଼ିବସିଥାଏ, ତା'ପୁଣି ପୁରୁଖା ସମ୍ପାଦକମାନଙ୍କ ସମ୍ପାଦନା ଓ ସଂକଳନରେ ପୁଷ୍ଟ ହୋଇ । ତା' ଆଗରେ କିନ୍ତୁ ଉଇକିପିଡିଆ ସଦମ୍ଭେ ମୁଣ୍ଡ ଟେକିଲା, ଆଉ ୨୦୦୨ବେଳକୁ ଏହା ଜଗତର ବାକି ଭାଷାରେ ମଧ୍ୟ ଆରମ୍ଭ ହେଲା । ଏ ଭାଷା ଭିତରେ ଓଡ଼ିଆ, ପଞ୍ଜାବୀ, ମାଲାୟାଲାମ ଓ ଅହମିୟା ପ୍ରଥମ ଭାରତୀୟ ଭାଷାର ଉଇକିପିଡିଆ ଭାବେ ସାମିଲ ହେଲେ । ନୂଆ ଚାରୋଟି ପ୍ରକଳ୍ପ ସିନା ଆରମ୍ଭ ହେଲା, ହେଲେ କେବଳ ମାଲାୟାଲାମକୁ ଛାଡ଼ି ବାକି ତିନିଟି ଭାଷାରେ ଅଧିକ ଲୋକ ଯୋଡ଼ିହେବା, ନୂଆ ପ୍ରକଳ୍ପ ଲିଖନ, ସମ୍ପାଦନ ଆଦି କାମ ଆଗେଇଲା ନାହିଁ । ଓଡ଼ିଆ ପାଇଁ ଏକ ବିଡ଼ମ୍ବନା ୨୦୧୧ ଯାଏ ଲାଗିରହିଲା । ତେବେ ୨୦୧୧ ବେଳକୁ ଜଣେ କେରଳୀ ଉଇକିଆଳି (ଉଇକିପିଡିଆ ସମ୍ପାଦକ) ସିଜୁ ଆଲେକ୍ସଙ୍କ ଉତ୍ସାହରେ କିଛି ଓଡ଼ିଆ ବେଙ୍ଗାଲୁରୁଠାରେ ଏକାଠି ହେଲେ । ୮ ବର୍ଷ ଧରି ସ୍ଥାଣୁ ହୋଇ ପଡ଼ିଥିବା ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିପିଡିଆ ଘରେ ପଢ଼ୁଆଁ ଥର କଲମ ବୁଲିଲା । ଧୀରେଧୀରେ ଅଧିକରୁ ଅଧିକ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଏଥିରେ ଯୋଡ଼ିହେଲେ, ଏ ସମସ୍ତ ଉଇକିଆଳି ନିଜ ଉତ୍ସାହରେ ଆଉ ବିନା ପାରିଶ୍ରମିକରେ ଲେଖିଚାଲିଲେ । ମାସକୁ ମାତ୍ର କେଇ ହଜାର ଲୋକ ଆଗରୁ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିପିଡିଆ ପଢ଼ୁଥିଲେ । ଆଜି ସାଢ଼େ ଆଠ ଲକ୍ଷରୁ ଅଧିକ ଲୋକ ଏହାର ମାସିକ ପାଠକ । ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଭାଷାରେ ଇଣ୍ଟରନେଟରେ ଥିବା ବିଶାଳତମ ୱେବସାଇଟ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିପିଡିଆ ସମ୍ପୂର୍ଣ୍ଣ ମାଗଣାରେ or.wikipedia.org ରେ ଉପଲବ୍ଧ । ଆଉ ସବୁଠୁ ମଜାର କଥା ହେଉଛି ଏହା କେବେବି ସମ୍ପୂର୍ଣ୍ଣ ନୁହେଁ । ଛପା ବନ୍ଧା ବହିରେ ଏମିତି ନୂଆନୂଆ ଘଟଣା ଛପା ହେବା ବେଳକୁ ବରଷେ ବିତିଯାଏ । ହେଲେ ଉଇକିପିଡିଆରେ ନିମିଷକେ କୌଣସି ବିଷୟ ଜାଣିଥିବା ଲୋକଟିଏ ନୂଆ ଖାତାଟିଏ ଖୋଲି ଏ ଘଟଣାକୁ ଲିପିବଦ୍ଧ କରିପାରେ ।</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">ତେବେ ସବୁ ଲୋକଙ୍କୁ ଲେଖିବାର ସୁଯୋଗ ଦେଲେ ଅନେକ ଅଦରକାରୀ ଲେଖାରେ ଯେ ଉଇକିପିଡିଆ ଭରୁଥିବା ଏ ଆଶଙ୍କା ଅମୂଳକ ନୁହେଁ । ତେବେ ଉଇକିପିଡିଆ କିଛି ନିୟମାବଳୀ ଭିତରେ କାମ କରେ । ସଭିଙ୍କୁ ଲେଖିବାର ସ୍ୱାଧୀନତା ମିଳିଛି ସତ, କିନ୍ତୁ ଲେଖାଯାକ ଗପ କବିତା କିମ୍ବା ନିଜର ସ୍ତୁତି ନହେଇ କେବଳ ଜ୍ଞାନକୋଷଭିତ୍ତିକ, ଅର୍ଥାତ କୌଣସି ଜଣାଶୁଣା ସ୍ଥାନ, ଘଟଣା କିମ୍ବା ବ୍ୟକ୍ତିବିଶେଷଙ୍କ ଉପରେ ଲେଖାହୁଏ । ପ୍ରାସଙ୍ଗିକତା ନଥାଇ ଲେଖାଯାଉଥିବା ଅନେକ ଅମୂଳକ ଲେଖାକୁ ହଟାଇ ଦେବାରେ ପୁରୁଖା ପରିଚାଳକମାନେ ସଦା ଜାଗତିଆର । ତା'ଛଡ଼ା ଲେଖାରେ ଏକ ଜଣାଶୁଣା ଲେଖକଙ୍କ କିମ୍ବା ପ୍ରକାଶନର ବହି, ପତ୍ରତ୍ରିକା, ଖବରକାଗଜରେ ଆଗରୁ ପ୍ରକାଶିତ ବିଷୟର ଆଧାରରେ ସେ ବହି/ ଖବରକାଗଜର ନାମ ସହ ଉଇକିପିଡିଆ ପ୍ରସଙ୍ଗମାନ ଲେଖାଯାଏ । ତେଣୁ ଆଗରୁ ପ୍ରକାଶିତ ହୋଇନଥିବା, ନିଜର ମୌଳିକ ରଚନା କିମ୍ବା ଗବେଷଣା ଉଇକିପିଡିଆରେ ସ୍ଥାନ ପାଏନାହିଁ । କୌଣସି ଏନସାଇକ୍ଲୋପିଡିଆକୁ ଟିକେ ଆଡ଼େଇ ଦେଖିବା ତା'ହେଲେ ଏକଥା ବୁଝାପଡ଼େ ଯେ କେବଳ ବିଷୟର ପୁଙ୍ଖାନୁପୁଙ୍ଖ ବଖାଣ ଛଡ଼ା କୌଣସି ସାହିତ୍ୟିକ କଳ୍ପନା କିମ୍ବା ବିଶେଷଣର ବିନ୍ୟାସ ସେଥିରେ ନଥାଏ । ଏ ନିୟମଟି ଉଇକିପିଡିଆ ଖୁବ୍ କଡ଼ାକଡ଼ି ମାନିଥାଏ । ତେବେ ସ୍ୱେଚ୍ଛାସେବୀଙ୍କ ସମୟ ବି ସୀମିତ । ଆଉ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିପିଡିଆ ଭଳି ପ୍ରକଳ୍ପରେ ଉଇକିଆଳି ହାତଗଣତିକୁ ସକ୍ରିୟ ପରିଚାଳକ ମାତ୍ର ଜଣେ କି ଦୁଇ । ଏଣୁ ଆଖିରୁ ଗୋଟେ ଯୋଡ଼େ ଭୁଲ ବାଦପଡ଼ିବା ସ୍ୱାଭାବିକ । ଅଧିକ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ନିଜ ଉତ୍ସାହରେ ଏଥିରେ ଯୋଗଦିଅନ୍ତେ ଯଦି ତାଙ୍କ ସମାଗମରେ ଲେଖାସବୁ ଅଧିକଥର ସମ୍ପାଦିତ ହୁଅନ୍ତା । ଆଉ ସେ ମନ୍ଥନରୁ ଲେଖା ସରସ ଓ ଅଧିକ ତଥ୍ୟସମ୍ବଳିତ ହୁଅନ୍ତା । ତେବେ ଏ ଏକ ଆନ୍ଦୋଳନ । ଉଇକିପିଡିଆ ଭଳି ଏକ ବିଶ୍ୱସ୍ତରୀୟ ପ୍ରକଳ୍ପ ବାବଦରେ ସୁଦୂରରେ ରହିଥିବା ଓଡ଼ିଆଙ୍କୁ ଜଣାଇବାର ଉଦ୍ୟମ ଚିରନ୍ତନ । ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଭାଷାଟିକୁ ଖାଲି ଶାସ୍ତ୍ରୀୟ ମାନ୍ୟତା ଦେଇ ସିଂହାସନରେ ବସାଇଦେଲେ ହେବନାହିଁ, ବ୍ୟାବହାରିକ ସ୍ତରରେ କିପରି ଏହା ଅଧିକ ଲୋକଙ୍କ ହାତପାହାନ୍ତାରେ ପହଞ୍ଚିବ ତା ପାଇଁ ବାଟ କଢ଼ାଇବାକୁ ହେବ । ଇଣ୍ଟରନେଟ ଯୋଗେ ଆମ ଭାଷାରେ ଜାଣିବା ପାଇଁ ଲୋକେ କମ୍ପ୍ୟୁଟର-ମୋବାଇଲ ଆଦିର ବ୍ୟବହାର ନକଲେ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଭାଷା ଯେ ଚିରକାଳ ସେ ଗାଦିରେ ଉଇଓଡ଼ଶଙ୍କ ଜୀବସାର ହୋଇ ରହିଯିବ ।</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">ଉଇକିପିଡିଆର ଇତିହାସ ଆମ ପୂର୍ଣ୍ଣଚନ୍ଦ୍ର ଭାଷାକୋଷର ଆରମ୍ଭ ସହ ଅନେକାଂଶରେ ମିଶେ । ଭାଷାକୋଷର ସଂକଳକ ଗୋପାଳ ଚନ୍ଦ୍ର ପ୍ରହରାଜ ଥିଲେ ଜଣେ ଓକିଲ । ହେଲେ ଓଡ଼ିଶାର ଅଞ୍ଚଳଅଞ୍ଚଳ ବୁଲି ଶବ୍ଦଖୋଜାର ସଉକ ତାଙ୍କୁ ଏତେ ଘାରିଥିଲା ଯେ ନିଜର ସାଥିମାନଙ୍କୁ ଏକାଠି କରି ଏ କାମଟି ଆରମ୍ଭ କରିଥିଲେ । ଦଳବଦ୍ଧ କାମ ସବୁ ପାଣ୍ଡୁଲିପିର ରୂପ ନେଲା । ପ୍ରହରାଜେ ପୁଣି ଖୋଜିବସିଲେ ତାକୁ ଛପାଇବା ପାଇଁ । ରାଜାଙ୍କ ପୃଷ୍ଠପୋଷକତାରେ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଭାଷାର ବିଶାଳତମ ଲେକ୍ସିକନ ସେଠୁ ଜନମିଲା । କହିବା ବାହୁଲ୍ୟ ଯେ ନିଜେ ଗୋପାଳ ଚନ୍ଦ୍ର ପ୍ରହରାଜ କିମ୍ବା ତାଙ୍କ ସାଥି କେହି ଲେଖକ କିମ୍ବା ସମ୍ପାଦକ ନଥିଲେ । ହେଲେ ୩୦ ଶତକରେ ଛପା ଏ ସଂକଳନରୁ ଅଧିକ ବଡ଼ ଗ୍ରନ୍ଥ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଭାଷାରେ ଆଜି ବି ତିଆରି ହୋଇପାରିନାହିଁ । ଇଚ୍ଛାଶକ୍ତି ଖୁବ୍ ଦମ୍ଭିଲା ହେଲେ ସାଧାରଣ ଲୋକ କି ଅସାଧାରଣ କାମ କରିପାରନ୍ତି ତାହା ଉଇକିପିଡିଆ ଓ ପୂର୍ଣ୍ଣଚନ୍ଦ୍ର ଭାଷାକୋଷର ଦୃଷ୍ଟାନ୍ତରୁ ଅନେକ ଶିଖିବାକୁ ମିଳେ ।</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିପିଡିଆରେ ଏବେ ୮୭୦୦ରୁ ଅଧିକ ପ୍ରସଙ୍ଗର ସମ୍ଭାର ଆଉ ଏହା ନିତିନିୟମିତ ୧୫ରୁ ଅଧିକ ଉଇକିଆଳିଙ୍କ ଦେଇ ସମ୍ପାଦିତ । ଏହି ଜୁନ ୩ ତାରିଖରେ ପ୍ରକଳ୍ପଟି ୧୩ ବର୍ଷର କିଶୋରରେ ପରିଣତ ହେଉଛି ।</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">ସେଣ୍ଟର ଫର ଇଣ୍ଟରନେଟ ଏଣ୍ଡ ସୋସାଇଟି, ବେଙ୍ଗାଲୁରୁ</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">psubhashish@gmail.com</p>
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For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/the-samaja-op-ed-subhashish-panigrahi-odia-wikipedia-journey-13-years'>https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/the-samaja-op-ed-subhashish-panigrahi-odia-wikipedia-journey-13-years</a>
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No publishersubhaOdia WikipediaAccess to Knowledge2016-06-18T18:19:41ZBlog Entry