The Centre for Internet and Society
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October 2015 Bulletin
https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/october-2015-bulletin
<b>Our newsletter for the month of October is below.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) is happy to share the tenth issue of CIS newsletter (October 2015). It has been a significant month for us. There have been crucial public debates on the violation of digital privacy of individuals and institutions, discussions on India’s national policy on access to knowledge rights, and re-examination of bans on access to internet services imposed by various state governments in India. CIS kept itself engaged with research on these topics from a public interest perspective. Previous editions of the newsletter can be accessed at <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;"></ul>
<ul>
<li>NVDA team <a href="http://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/report-on-use-of-espeak-bengali-with-nvda">conducted a training programme</a> in West Bengal in the month of September. Fourteen delegates attended the programme. Nirmal Verma was the trainer.</li>
<li>Nehaa Chaudhari <a href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/national-ipr-policy-series-quick-observations-on-the-leaked-draft-of-the-national-ipr-policy">authored an article</a> that provides insights into the final draft of India’s National IPR Policy.</li>
<li>Odia Wikisource celebrated its first anniversary in Bhubaneswar. The event was prominently covered in various news channels. Subhashish Panigrahi <a href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/mybhubaneswar-october-25-2015-subhashish-panigrahi-odia-wikisource-celebrates-its-first-anniversary-in-bhubaneswar">wrote a blog post</a>.</li></ul>
<ul>
<li>In 2013, the interview project “WikipediansSpeak” was launched in response to observations that many noteworthy Wikimedians were being underrepresented both locally and globally. For improving their visibility and reach, CIS-A2K <a href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/wikimedia-blog-october-9-2015-subhashish-panigrahi-telugu-library-catalog-project-wikipedians-speak">interviewed Telugu Wikimedian Viswanadh B.K</a>.</li></ul>
<ul>
<li>CIS <a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/crowdsourcing-incidents-of-communication-privacy-violation-in-india">initiated an effort</a> to crowdsource incidents of violation of digital, online and telephonic privacy of persons and organizations in India and shared the full list of public incidents under CC-BY-SA international license.</li></ul>
<ul>
<li>Sunil Abraham <a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/the-week-november-1-2015-sunil-abraham-connected-trouble">wrote a column in the Week</a> telling readers that internet of things phenomenon is based on a paradigm shift from thinking of the internet merely as a means to connect individuals, corporations and other institutions to an internet where all devices in (insulin pumps and pacemakers), on (wearable technology) and around (domestic appliances and vehicles) humans beings are connected.</li></ul>
<ul>
<li>Pranesh Prakash, Padmini Baruah and Jyoti Panday <a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/do-we-need-a-unified-post-tranistion-iana">wrote a blog post</a> that questions the division of the three IANA functions — names, numbers and protocols — given that there is no no real technical stability to be gained from a unified Post Transition IANA.</li></ul>
<ul>
<li>CIS <a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/global-multistakeholder-community-neither-global-nor-multistakeholder">analysed five main mailing lists</a> where the IANA transition plan was formulated. The research found that the discussions around IANA transition have not been driven by the “global multi-stakeholder community”, but mostly by males from industry in North America and Western Europe.</li></ul>
<ul>
<li>In recent months, there was a spree of bans on access to Internet services in Indian states, for different reasons. State governments relied on Section 144 of Criminal Procedure Code for imposing the bans. Geetha Hariharan and Padmini Baruah in a <a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/the-legal-validity-of-bans-on-internet-part-i">blog post</a> argued that Section 69A of the Information Technology Act, 2000 should be evoked if necessary and not that of the Criminal Procedure Code.</li>
<li>Zero Draft of the UN General Assembly's Overall Review of implementation of WSIS Outcomes was released on October 9. CIS <a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/comments-on-the-zero-draft-of-the-un-general-assembly2019s-overall-review-of-the-implementation-of-wsis-outcomes-wsis-10">responded to the call with its comments</a>.</li>
<li>Shyam Ponappa’s <a href="http://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/business-standard-october-1-2015-shyam-ponappa-digital-india-now-to-work">monthly column published in the Business Standard</a> talks about Digital India and the Prime Minister’s visit to the Silicon Valley.</li></ul>
<ul>
<li>CIS has announced the Internet Researchers’ Conference (IRC 2016), an annual conference series. The <a href="http://cis-india.org/raw/irc16-call">first edition is expected to take place from February 25 to 27, 2016</a> (yet to be confirmed). CIS invites you to propose sessions for the conference by Sunday, November 15, 2015.</li></ul>
<p style="text-align: justify;">---------------------------------------------- <br /> <a href="http://cis-india.org/accessibility">Accessibility and Inclusion</a><br /> ----------------------------------------------<br /> 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>.</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 class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/october-2015-report">October 2015 Report</a> (Suman Dogra; October 31, 2015).</li></ul>
<p style="text-align: justify;"># Event Report</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify;">
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/report-on-use-of-espeak-bengali-with-nvda">Training in use of eSpeak Bengali with NVDA</a> (Organized by CIS; Turnstone Matruchaya, Siligudi, West Bengal; September 7 – 9, 2015). The report was published in the month of October.</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;">►Pervasive Technologies</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"># Blog Entries</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify;">
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/compilation-of-mobile-phone-patent-litigation-cases-in-india">Compilation of Mobile Phone Patent Litigation Cases in India</a> (Rohini Lakshané; March 15, 2015). This post was recently updated.</li>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/comparison-of-national-ipr-strategy-september-2012-national-ipr-strategy-july-2014-and-draft-national-ip-policy-december-2015">Comparison of National IPR Strategy September 2012, National IPR Strategy July 2014 and Draft National IP Policy, December 2014</a> (Amulya Purushothama; October 15, 2015).</li>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/national-ipr-policy-series-quick-observations-on-the-leaked-draft-of-the-national-ipr-policy">National IPR Policy Series: Quick Observations on the Leaked Draft of the National IPR Policy</a> (Nehaa Chaudhari; October 18, 2015).<br /><br /></li></ul>
<p style="text-align: justify;"># Participation in Event</p>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/news/ipex-2015">IPEX 2015</a> (Organized by the Confederation of Indian Industry, APTDC and TDPC; September 25 - 26, 2015; Hotel Westin, Chennai). Rohini Lakshané attended the event.<br /><br /></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/a2k/blogs/wikimedia-blog-october-9-2015-subhashish-panigrahi-telugu-library-catalog-project-wikipedians-speak">WikipediansSpeak: Telugu-language library catalog project helps Wikipedia grow</a> (Subhashish Panigrahi; October 11, 2015). This was published on Wikimedia blog in two languages <a href="https://blog.wikimedia.org/2015/10/09/telugu-library-catalog-project/">English</a> and <a href="https://goo.gl/J3Nkch">Ukranian</a>.</li>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/a-kannada-wikipedia-brochure-for-newbies">A Kannada Wikipedia brochure for newbies</a> (U.B. Pavanaja; October 19, 2015).</li>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/mybhubaneswar-october-25-2015-subhashish-panigrahi-odia-wikisource-celebrates-its-first-anniversary-in-bhubaneswar">Odia Wikisource to Celebrate Its First Anniversary in Bhubaneswar</a> (Subhashish Panigrahi; Mybhubaneswar.com; October 24, 2015).</li></ul>
<p style="text-align: justify;"># Op-ed</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify;">
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/samaja-october-25-2015-subhashish-panigrahi-need-for-an-odia-language-wikisource">ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିପାଠାଗାରର ଆବଶ୍ୟକତା</a> (Need for an Odia-language Wikisource) (Subhashish Panigrahi; Samaja; October 25, 2015).</li></ul>
<p style="text-align: justify;"># Media Coverage</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">CIS gave its inputs to the following:</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify;">
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/openness/news/b13b21b3cb3fb06-b09b07b15b3fb2ab3eb20b3eb17b3eb30b30-b06b2cb36b4db5fb15b24b3e-b38b2eb3eb1c">ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିପାଠାଗାରର ଆବଶ୍ୟକତା ସମାଜ</a> (Full Odisha.com; October 24, 2015).</li>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/openness/news/bhubaneswarbuzz-odia-wikisource-celebrates-1st-anniversary-this-25th-october">Odia Wikisource celebrates 1st anniversary this 25th October</a> (Bhubaneswar Buzz; October 24, 2015).</li>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/openness/news/odisha-sun-times-october-25-2015-odisha-wikisource-to-celebrate-its-first-anniversary-tommorrow">Odia Wikisource to celebrate its first anniversary tomorrow!</a> (Odisha Sun Times; October 25, 2015).</li>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/openness/news/orissadiary-october-25-2015-odia-language-classics-could-now-be-read-from-phones-tablets-and-computers">Odia language classics could now be read from phones, tablets and of course from computers!</a> (Orissadairy; October 25, 2015).</li>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/openness/news/pioneer-october-26-2015-odia-wikisource-to-hold-1st-anniversary">Odia Wikisource to Hold 1st Anniversary</a> (Pioneer; October 26, 2015).</li>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/openness/news/guerilla-glam">Otago Southland are the Coolest</a> (Library and Information Association of New Zealand; October 26, 2015). The submission was accepted for <a href="https://wikimania2015.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submissions/How_to_do_GuerillaGLAM">Wikimania 2015</a>.</li>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/openness/news/medianama-sneha-johari-october-29-2015-india-and-france-to-digitise-manuscripts-artworks-and-archives">India & France to digitise manuscripts, artworks & archives</a> (Medianama; October 29, 2015).</li></ul>
<p style="text-align: justify;">----------------------------------------------- <br /> <a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance">Internet Governance</a><br /> -----------------------------------------------<br /> 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;">►Big Data</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"># Article</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify;">
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/the-week-november-1-2015-sunil-abraham-connected-trouble">Connected Trouble</a> (Sunil Abraham; November 1, 2015). </li></ul>
<p style="text-align: justify;"># Upcoming Event</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify;">
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/events/big-data-in-the-global-south-international-workshop">Big Data in the Global South International Workshop</a> (Organized by Institute for Technology and Society of Rio de Janeiro; Hotel Windsor Florida, Rua Ferreira Viana, Flamengo, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; November 16 – 17, 2015). Sunil Abraham and Vipul Kharbanda will be speaking at this event.</li></ul>
<p style="text-align: justify;">►Privacy</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"># Blog Entries</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify;">
<li> <a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/contestations-of-data-ecj-safe-harbor-ruling-and-lessons-for-india">Contestations of Data, ECJ Safe Harbor Ruling and Lessons for India</a> (Jyoti Panday; October 14, 2015).</li>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/crowdsourcing-incidents-of-communication-privacy-violation-in-india">Crowdsourcing Incidents of Communication Privacy Violation in India</a> (Sumandro Chattapadhyay; October 16, 2015).</li></ul>
<p style="text-align: justify;"># Event Organized</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify;">
<li> <a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/events/communication-rights-in-the-age-of-digital-technology">Communication Rights in the Age of Digital Technology</a> (Organized by CIS; Deck Suite Hall, 5th Floor, Habitat Centre, Lodhi Road, Near Air Force Bal Bharti School, New Delhi; October 30, 2015).</li></ul>
<p style="text-align: justify;"># Participation in Events</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify;">
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/the-changing-landscape-of-ict-governance-and-practice-convergence-and-big-data">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 Young Scholar Workshop followed by main <a href="http://www.cprsouth.org/"><em>CPRSouth2015 conference</em> (Communication Policy Research South) conference</a>.</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/porn-panic-ban-a-conversation-on-sexual-expression-pornography-sexual-exploitation-consent?searchterm=Porn.+Panic">Porn. Panic. Ban: A Conversation on Sexual Expression, Pornography, Sexual Exploitation, Consent</a> (Organized by Point of View and the Internet Democracy Project; New Delhi; October 28 - 30, 2015). Rohini Lakshané was a speaker. Tanveer Hasan also attended this conference.</li></ul>
<p style="text-align: justify;">►Free Speech and Expression</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"># Submission</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify;">
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/comments-on-the-zero-draft-of-the-un-general-assembly2019s-overall-review-of-the-implementation-of-wsis-outcomes-wsis-10">Comments on the Zero Draft of the UN General Assembly’s Overall Review of the Implementation of WSIS Outcomes (WSIS+10)</a> (Geetha Hariharan with inputs from Sumandro Chattapadhyay, Pranesh Prakash, Sunil Abraham, Japreet Grewal and Nehaa Chaudhari; October 16, 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/the-legal-validity-of-bans-on-internet-part-i">The Legal Validity of Internet Bans: Part I</a> (Geetha Hariharan and Padmini Baruah; October 8, 2015).</li>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/the-legal-validity-of-internet-bans-part-ii">The Legal Validity of Internet Bans: Part II</a> (Geetha Hariharan and Padmini Baruah; October 8, 2015).</li>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/peering-behind-the-veil-of-icanns-didp-ii">Peering behind the veil of ICANN's DIDP</a> (II) (Padmini Baruah; October 15, 2015).</li>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/global-multistakeholder-community-neither-global-nor-multistakeholder">The 'Global Multistakholder Community' is Neither Global Nor Multistakeholder</a> (Pranesh Prakash; October 20, 2015).</li>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/do-we-need-a-unified-post-tranistion-iana">Do we need a Unified Post Transition IANA?</a> (Pranesh Prakash, Padmini Baruah and Jyoti Panday; October 23, 2015).</li></ul>
<p style="text-align: justify;"># Event Organized</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify;">
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/events/cyber-security-policy-research">Cyber Security Policy Research</a> (CIS, New Delhi; October 18, 2015). Tim Maurer gave a talk.</li></ul>
<p style="text-align: justify;"># Participation in Events</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify;">
<li> <a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/cyfy-2015-india-conference-on-cyber-security-and-internet-governance">Cyfy 2015: The India Conference on Cyber Security and Internet Governance</a> (Organized by Observer Research Foundation; Hotel Tajmansingh; New Delhi; October 14 – 16, 2015). Sunil Abraham was a panelist in the session "Protection of Intellectual Property and Business Secrets in the Knowledge Economy".</li>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/icann-54">ICANN 54</a> (Organized by ICANN; INEX - Ireland’s Internet Neutral Exchange, Dublin; October 18 – 22, 2015). Pranesh Prakash, Snehashish Ghosh, Jyoti Panday and Padmini Baruah participated in the event.</li></ul>
<p style="text-align: justify;">--------------------------------<br /> <a href="http://cis-india.org/telecom">Telecom</a><br /> --------------------------------</p>
<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;"># Op-ed</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify;">
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/business-standard-october-1-2015-shyam-ponappa-digital-india-now-to-work">Digital India - Now to Work</a> (Shyam Ponappa; Business Standard; October 1, 2015; Organizing India Blogspot; October 2, 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;"># Submission</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify;">
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/raw/wheres-my-data-submission-for-knight-news-challenge-2015">Where's My Data? Submission for Knight News Challenge 2015</a> (Sumandro Chattapadhyay; October 1, 2015). CIS is contributing to this submission.</li></ul>
<p style="text-align: justify;"># Blog Entry</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify;">
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/raw/cis-featured-in-building-expertise-to-support-digital-scholarship-report">Building Expertise to Support Digital Scholarship: A Global Perspective</a> (Vivian Lewis, Lisa Spiro, Xuemao Wang, and Jon E. Cawthorne; October 16, 2015). CIS was featured in this report.</li></ul>
<p style="text-align: justify;"># Upcoming Event</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify;">
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/raw/irc16-call">First Edition of Internet Researchers' Conference</a> (IRC) 2016 - Studying Internet in India: Call for Sessions (Organized by CIS; New Delhi; February 25 – 27, 2016).</li></ul>
<p style="text-align: justify;">--------------------------------- <br /> <a href="http://cis-india.org/news">News & Media Coverage</a><br /> ---------------------------------<br /> 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/hindu-october-3-2015-divya-gandhi-the-rise-and-rise-of-slacktivism">The rise and rise of slacktivism</a> (Divya Gandhi; Hindu; October 3, 2015).</li>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/the-times-of-india-sujit-john-and-shilpa-phadnis-october-6-2015-modi-valley-hug-sparks-swadeshi-talk">Modi's Valley hug sparks swadeshi talk</a> (Sujit John and Shilpa Phadnis; The Times of India; October 6, 2015).</li>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/rebateszone-october-7-2015-top-50-technology-blogs-in-india">CIS in Top 50 Tech Blogs of India</a> (rebateszone; Ocotber 7, 2015).</li>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/the-hindu-october-8-2015-suhrith-parthasarathy-access-at-the-cost-of-net-neutrality">Access at the cost of Net neutrality?</a> (Suhrith Parthasarathy; Hindu; October 8, 2015).</li>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/the-times-of-india-amulya-gopalakrishnan-october-9-2015-dadri-reopens-debate-on-online-hate-speech">Dadri reopens debate on online hate speech</a> (Amulya Gopalakrishnan; The Times of India; October 9, 2015).</li>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/outlook-india-october-12-2015-arindam-mukherjee-how-to-win-friends-fb-style">How To Win Friends, FB Style</a> (Arindam Mukherjee; Outlook; October 12, 2015).</li>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/livemint-october-15-2015-apurva-vishwanath-saurabh-kumar-supreme-court-provides-partial-relief-for-aadhaar">Supreme Court provides partial relief for Aadhaar</a> (Apurva Vishwanath and Saurabh Kumar; October 15, 2015).</li>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/bbc-october-16-2015-digital-india-did-modi-get-it-wrong-in-silicon-valley">Digital India: Did Modi get it wrong in Silicon Valley?</a> (Ayeshea Perera; BBC News; October 16, 2015).</li>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/financial-express-prabhu-mallikarjunan-october-28-2015-net-advocacy-body-probing-linkages-between-telcos-and-facebooks-auto-play-video-option">Net advocacy body probing linkages between telcos and Facebook’s auto-play video option</a> (Prabhu Mallikarjunan; Financial Express; October 28, 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 style="text-align: justify;">
<li>Twitter:<a href="http://twitter.com/cis_india"> http://twitter.com/cis_india</a></li>
<li>Twitter - Access to Knowledge:<a href="https://twitter.com/CISA2K"> https://twitter.com/CISA2K</a></li>
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<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 sunil@cis-india.org (for policy research), or Sumandro Chattapadhyay, Research Director, at sumandro@cis-india.org (for academic research), with an indication of the form and the content of the collaboration you might be interested in. To discuss collaborations on Indic language Wikipedia projects, write to Tanveer Hasan, Programme Officer, at <a href="mailto:tanveer@cis-india.org">tanveer@cis-india.org</a>.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">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.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/october-2015-bulletin'>https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/october-2015-bulletin</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaNewsletter2016-06-18T17:59:14ZPageଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିପାଠାଗାରର ଆବଶ୍ୟକତା (Need for an Odia-language Wikisource)
https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/samaja-october-25-2015-subhashish-panigrahi-need-for-an-odia-language-wikisource
<b>This post is about the Odia library movement and the conventional archival, touch-bases on the problems with dissemination of knowledge with more public domain books that are entering into the "rare and perishing" category, a comparative study of the conventional and new medium--like Wikisource--for book archival. It sheds light on how Wikisource functions as a collaborative platform in engaging with readers for digitizing books that are yet to be digitized.</b>
<p><img src="https://cis-india.org/home-images/Samaja.jpg/@@images/0b5d3acc-f31c-4a64-9e2b-1e84a9e05bc8.jpeg" alt="null" class="image-inline" title="Samaja" /></p>
<p>The op-ed was published in Samaja on October 25, 2015.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/samaja-october-25-2015-subhashish-panigrahi-need-for-an-odia-language-wikisource'>https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/samaja-october-25-2015-subhashish-panigrahi-need-for-an-odia-language-wikisource</a>
</p>
No publishersubhaCIS-A2KOdia WikisourceAccess to Knowledge2015-12-15T08:21:59ZBlog EntryOpen Access Week Round-Up
https://cis-india.org/openness/news/open-otago-october-27-2015-open-access-week-round-up
<b>Here is a round-up of events held at the University of Otago over Open Access Week. Subhashish Panigrahi made a presentation for the staff members of libraries across New Zealand. The event was organised by the University of Otago.</b>
<p> </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">From 3-4pm Subhashish Panigrahi [<a href="https://twitter.com/subhapa">@subhapa</a>], based in Bangalore, described the concept of <a href="https://blogs.otago.ac.nz/openotago/2015/10/06/how-to-do-guerilla-glam/" target="_blank">How to do Guerrilla GLAM</a>. Given the emergence of Wikipedian in Residence projects overseas and at particular institutions in NZ (see a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3b8X2SQO1UA&index=1&list=PLitfMzpMy7R93xPXqURuog_ahAwTq8hQO" target="_blank">recent panel at NDF 2015</a>), we were intrigued by what he had to say.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">It was an interesting session which generated much discussion. For those of us in NZ where we are fortunate to have institutions where there is a relatively high rate of access to collections – I’m thinking even at the library catalogue level – the thought that guerrilla activity may be necessary to surface collection items without the intervention of institution staffers may be surprising and possibly confronting! Subhashish did stress this guerrilla activity in no way violates copyright or licencing agreements, but seeks to make cultural items in GLAMs openly available to the public, where possible by partnering with institutions. The fact that many institutions do not have the resources to digitize cultural items, he posits, leaves the door open for guerrilla activity by skilled volunteers.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">One participant in the session succinctly described Guerrilla GLAM as being self-authorizing activity vs institutional authorizing activity. I understand this to mean that rather than institutions engaging their own staff or volunteers, or crowd sourcing new volunteers to digitise their content, the Guerilla GLAMers come to them. There may well be communities in NZ or small GLAMs that have no digital record of their collections. Communities and institutions in this situation may well find it helpful to engage some interested Guerrilla GLAMers to help them out.</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify;">
<li>The webinar links and chat are available here <a href="http://connect.otago.ac.nz/p4j21g554ny/" target="_blank">connect.otago.ac.nz/p4j21g554ny/</a></li>
<li>The slides are also available separately here <a href="http://slides.com/psubhashish/how-to-do-guerrilla-glam/fullscreen#/" target="_blank">http://slides.com/psubhashish/how-to-do-guerrilla-glam/fullscreen#/</a></li></ul>
<ul style="text-align: justify;"></ul>
<hr />
<p><a class="external-link" href="https://blogs.otago.ac.nz/openotago/2015/10/27/open-access-week-round-up/">Click to read the blog post published by the University of Otago</a>.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/openness/news/open-otago-october-27-2015-open-access-week-round-up'>https://cis-india.org/openness/news/open-otago-october-27-2015-open-access-week-round-up</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaCIS-A2KOpen AccessAccess to Knowledge2015-12-15T08:21:01ZNews ItemOdia Wikisource to Celebrate Its First Anniversary in Bhubaneswar
https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/mybhubaneswar-october-25-2015-subhashish-panigrahi-odia-wikisource-celebrates-its-first-anniversary-in-bhubaneswar
<b>Odia Wikisource, a sister project of Odia Wikipedia and a free online Odia-language library is celebrating its first anniversary in Bhubaneswar tomorrow i.e., 25th October, 2015. </b>
<p>The blog post was originally published by <a class="external-link" href="http://mybhubaneswar.com/odia-wikisource-anniversary/">Mybhubaneswar.com</a> on October 24, 2015.</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify;">Available online at <a href="https://or.wikisource.org/">or.wikisource.org</a>, the project finally went live in last year on October 20 after being incubated over two years.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">In a nutshell, it not just provides free and open access to readers to access text that are out of copyright or available under free license, but also allows them to contribute in either digitizing copyright-free text or correcting mistakes made by others.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">All the contributors to the project are volunteers and are fondly called “uikiali” in Odia. These volunteers follow certain guidelines to check through the content digitized by others to make sure there is no copyrighted text posing copyright violation, correct typos and other grammatical mistakes and incorrect attribution.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Authors and copyright holders are also encouraged to provide permission in re-licensing their work under free licenses like <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/">CC-BY</a>/<a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/us/">CC-by-SA</a> licenses so that some of their content becomes available online and fill the large gap of the Odia books online to some extent.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><img src="https://cis-india.org/home-images/copy_of_OdiaWikisource.jpg/@@images/adc19f07-3071-4965-bd45-41802a86f038.png" alt="null" class="image-inline" title="Odia Wikisource" /></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Last year, the Wikimedia community in Odisha did a remarkable job in bringing as many as 141 books from multiple authors relicensed under the above mentioned licenses where we, the Centre for Internet and Society’s Access To Knowledge program, as an institution, could play a role in reaching out to many authors and convincing them for a small contribution to the society.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Pankajmala Sarangi, the most active contributor to the project elaborated saying, there is a great dearth of Odia books online. I try to buy some time from personal and office time to continue my contribution. After all, I started from an all-time Odia classic “<a href="https://or.wikisource.org/wiki/Index:Chha_mana_atha_guntha.pdf">Cha’mana Athaguntha</a>” by <a href="https://or.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fakir_Mohan_Senapati">Fakir Mohan Senapati</a>”.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" class="callout">“The Odia language classics could now be read from phones, tablets and of course from computers”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Many important books that are out of copyright are making their appearance on the Odia Wikisource. “Wikisource is different than Wikipedia as the former is published writing republished online whereas on Wikipedia it is more of aggregating information published elsewhere in an encyclopaedic manner”, says Dr. Subas Chandra Rout, a long time Wikimedian.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Odia Wikisource’s administrator Mrutyunjaya Kar welcomes everyone taking interest in Odia library movement in particular and Odia language in general to join this event that is being held at the Institute on Management of Agricultural Extension (IMAGE), Siripura, Bhubaneswar at 5 pm tomorrow.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/mybhubaneswar-october-25-2015-subhashish-panigrahi-odia-wikisource-celebrates-its-first-anniversary-in-bhubaneswar'>https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/mybhubaneswar-october-25-2015-subhashish-panigrahi-odia-wikisource-celebrates-its-first-anniversary-in-bhubaneswar</a>
</p>
No publishersubhaCIS-A2KOdia WikisourceAccess to Knowledge2015-12-15T08:19:56ZBlog EntryWikipediansSpeak: Telugu Language Library Catalog Project Helps Wikipedia Grow
https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/wikimedia-blog-october-9-2015-subhashish-panigrahi-telugu-library-catalog-project-wikipedians-speak
<b>In 2013, the interview project “WikipediansSpeak” was launched in response to observations that many noteworthy Wikimedians were being underrepresented both locally and globally. Not just them personally—their work, and the communities they represent, were also unknown to the Wikimedia community and the outside world. </b>
<p>This was published on Wikimedia blog in two languages <a class="external-link" href="https://blog.wikimedia.org/2015/10/09/telugu-library-catalog-project/">English</a> and <a class="external-link" href="https://goo.gl/J3Nkch">Ukranian</a>.</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify;">Wikimedia Foundation’s fundraising campaigns were the biggest inspiration for the project. From video-only interviews, this is an attempt at different ways of interviews, and is the first interview showcasing a Telugu Wikimedian: <a title="w:te:User:విశ్వనాధ్.బి.కె." href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/te:User:%E0%B0%B5%E0%B0%BF%E0%B0%B6%E0%B1%8D%E0%B0%B5%E0%B0%A8%E0%B0%BE%E0%B0%A7%E0%B1%8D.%E0%B0%AC%E0%B0%BF.%E0%B0%95%E0%B1%86.">Viswanadh B.K.</a>, who was an Individual Engagement (IEG) Grantee last year and has continued to be active in outreach.</p>
<dl style="text-align: justify;"><dt><em><strong>Recently, you attended a Telugu Wikipedia workshop for the Botany-major undergraduate students at <a title="w:Andhra Loyola College" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andhra_Loyola_College">Andhra Loyola College</a>, <a title="w:Vijayawada" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vijayawada">Vijayawada</a>, <a title="w:Andhra Pradesh" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andhra_Pradesh">Andhra Pradesh</a>. Would you like to talk a little bit about your participation, how the program was designed, the activities there and the output? How are you planning to mentor the students in the future?</strong></em></dt></dl>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The staff and students are quite enthusiastic, and the students are dedicating considerable time to learning, and reflecting their learning, while editing the <a title="te:" href="https://te.wikipedia.org/wiki/">Telugu Wikipedia</a>. However, they need more training on basics of Wikipedia, as well as on policies and guidelines. Without that, they might end up creating low quality articles that the community will face problems cleaning up. <a title="Special:MyLanguage/CIS-A2K" href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/CIS-A2K">Centre for Internet and Society’s Access To Knowledge</a> program (CIS-A2K), that has been organizing these sessions in the college, should seek out more support from the Telugu Wikimedia community so that the experienced editors could mentor these students. I feel it would be a good idea to award the students and faculty with certificates. These small little things often motivate many.</p>
<dl style="text-align: justify;"><dt><em><strong>What part should the community and CIS-A2K be playing in the Wikimedia movement? What could and should we do for the Telugu community?</strong></em></dt></dl>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Many in our community do not know how programs like CIS-A2K work. Maybe there is a need to provide some kind of orientation for them which will help them to understand how they could approach CIS asking for support. This process could also help the community understand CIS’s activities and its programmatic implementation. More collaboration, and understanding of the program among the community, will improve involvement in CIS’s activities as well as CIS’s understanding of the community.</p>
<dl style="text-align: justify;"><dt><em><strong>You were the second Telugu Wikipedian to be awarded with an Individual Engagement Grant (IEG). How did it go, and what did you achieve? Based on your own experience, how are you planning to groom this year’s applicants from Telugu and other Indian language Wikimedia communities?</strong></em></dt></dl>
<p style="text-align: justify;">This IEG was my dream come true! Back in 2009, I <a href="http://godaavari.blogspot.in/2009/05/blog-post.html">blogged</a> about the potential of opening up library catalogs on the Internet for people to search for books. It took shape with my grant project: <a title="Grants:IEG/Digitization of Important Libraries Book Catalog in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana" href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG/Digitization_of_Important_Libraries_Book_Catalog_in_Andhra_Pradesh_and_Telangana">“Digitization of Important Libraries Book Catalog in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana”</a>. I worked on an <a title="w:te:వికీపీడియా:వికీప్రాజెక్టు/తెలుగు గ్రంథాలయం/గ్రంథాలయ పుస్తకాల జాబితా" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/te:%E0%B0%B5%E0%B0%BF%E0%B0%95%E0%B1%80%E0%B0%AA%E0%B1%80%E0%B0%A1%E0%B0%BF%E0%B0%AF%E0%B0%BE:%E0%B0%B5%E0%B0%BF%E0%B0%95%E0%B1%80%E0%B0%AA%E0%B1%8D%E0%B0%B0%E0%B0%BE%E0%B0%9C%E0%B1%86%E0%B0%95%E0%B1%8D%E0%B0%9F%E0%B1%81/%E0%B0%A4%E0%B1%86%E0%B0%B2%E0%B1%81%E0%B0%97%E0%B1%81_%E0%B0%97%E0%B1%8D%E0%B0%B0%E0%B0%82%E0%B0%A5%E0%B0%BE%E0%B0%B2%E0%B0%AF%E0%B0%82/%E0%B0%97%E0%B1%8D%E0%B0%B0%E0%B0%82%E0%B0%A5%E0%B0%BE%E0%B0%B2%E0%B0%AF_%E0%B0%AA%E0%B1%81%E0%B0%B8%E0%B1%8D%E0%B0%A4%E0%B0%95%E0%B0%BE%E0%B0%B2_%E0%B0%9C%E0%B0%BE%E0%B0%AC%E0%B0%BF%E0%B0%A4%E0%B0%BE">extensive project, digitizing the catalogs</a> of five libraries—a total of 300,000 books—in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. I learned a lot, and <a title="Special:MyLanguage/Grants:Learning patterns/Dealing with authorities for institutional partnerships" href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Grants:Learning_patterns/Dealing_with_authorities_for_institutional_partnerships">documented</a> part of my learning, which talks about the ways one should go about partnering with Indian institutions. I believe, my interaction with fellow Wikimedians must have helped them to better their grants applications this year. And I am hoping that I will continue to support more friend from my community and country in the future.</p>
<dl style="text-align: justify;"><dt><em><strong>What drove you, over the years, to work on a project like this digitizing library catalogs? Were there any additional learning and benefits from this project?</strong></em></dt></dl>
<p style="text-align: justify;">In this digital age, people searching for books on the Internet might have developed the notion that if a book is not available online, it doesn’t exist. I have been experiencing this very issue while looking for evidence notability and citations on the Telugu Wikipedia. Many Wikipedia editors argue for citing at least the name of the book when the book is not available online. This pushed me to create a central catalog that will benefit Wikipedians, researchers, and readers. In the process of creating the catalog, I also managed to develop strong relations with several cultural organizations. These include <a href="http://kathanilayam.com">Kathanilayam</a>, a dedicated organization collecting every Telugu story; the Annamayya Library, which developed into a great cultural center in Guntur, Andhra Pradesh; and the Suryaraya Vidyananda Library, whose collection is enriched with rare manuscripts and important books. I touch based with them then, and they are slowly becoming household names for other Wikimedians for their library-related needs. We can see the potential of strong partnerships and synergy with these libraries.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><em> </em></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/wikimedia-blog-october-9-2015-subhashish-panigrahi-telugu-library-catalog-project-wikipedians-speak'>https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/wikimedia-blog-october-9-2015-subhashish-panigrahi-telugu-library-catalog-project-wikipedians-speak</a>
</p>
No publishersubhaCIS-A2KOdia WikipediaAccess to Knowledge2015-12-15T08:06:52ZBlog EntryOtago Southland are the Coolest
https://cis-india.org/openness/news/guerilla-glam
<b>LIANZA Otago Southland are delighted to announce our speaker, Subhashish Panigrahi (@subhapa), from the Centre for Internet and Society’s Access To Knowledge programme, will be tuning in via the interwebs from India to share his vision of Guerilla GLAM, describe case studies of these initiatives in India, as well as touching on the creation of documentaries, learning resources and promotional material from acquired content.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><a class="external-link" href="http://www.lianza.org.nz/article/otago-southland-are-coolest">This was published by Library and Information Association of New Zealand</a>. The submission was accepted for <a class="external-link" href="https://wikimania2015.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submissions/How_to_do_GuerillaGLAM">Wikimania 2015</a>.</p>
<hr style="text-align: justify;" />
<p style="text-align: justify;">Subha believes “this presentation will be useful for those who can mobilize a small team of volunteers equipped with digital camera, access to local cultural institutions and some level of expertise of curating data.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Read more about Subha and the abstract for his talk here <a href="https://blogs.otago.ac.nz/openotago/2015/10/06/how-to-do-guerilla-glam/">https://blogs.otago.ac.nz/openotago/2015/10/06/how-to-do-guerilla-glam/</a></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Please share this event with your other GLAM networks!</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify;">Event Details</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify;">How to do Guerilla GLAM / Subhashish Panigrahi @subhapa <<a href="https://twitter.com/subhapa">https://twitter.com/subhapa</a>>Tuesday 20 October, 3.00pm NZDT In Dunedin: Conference Room 3, 1st floor University of Otago Central Library, 65 Albany Street, Dunedin<<a href="http://www.otago.ac.nz/library/locations/#central">http://www.otago.ac.nz/library/locations/#central</a>></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Online: via Adobe Connect<<a href="https://connect.otago.ac.nz/sarah/?launcher=false">https://connect.otago.ac.nz/sarah/?launcher=false</a>>. [No software required, just click the link and sign in as a guest. Please ensure you are logged in before 3pm and have read the participant notes on screen] The session will be recorded.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify;">Pre - presentation preparation - entirely optional</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify;">If you’re planning on attending Subhashish’s webinar and want to know more about using Wikipedia in your GLAM, you might be interested in watching this first.</p>
<ol style="text-align: justify;">
<li>This blog post from Alex Stinson<<a href="https://twitter.com/sadads">https://twitter.com/sadads</a>> from the Wikimedia Foundation<<a href="https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Home">https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Home</a>>, entitled "Librarian as Teacher: ways to use Wikipedia"<<a href="http://interlibnet.org/2015/10/07/librarian-as-teacher-ways-to-use-wikipedia/">http://interlibnet.org/2015/10/07/librarian-as-teacher-ways-to-use-wikipedia/</a>>, specifically regarding her discussion about GLAM-wiki</li>
<li>A recording of the September webcast by Phoebe Ayers<<a href="http://if%20you%E2%80%99re%20planning%20on%20attending%20subhashish%E2%80%99s%20webinar%20and%20want%20to%20know%20more%20about%20using%20wikipedia%20in%20your%20glam%2C%20you%20might%20be%20interested%20in%20watching%20this%20first./">http://if%20you%E2%80%99re%20planning%20on%20attending%20subhashish%E2%80%99s%20webinar%20and%20want%20to%20know%20more%20about%20using%20wikipedia%20in%20your%20glam%2C%20you%20might%20be%20interested%20in%20watching%20this%20first./</a>>, a librarian at MIT and former member of the Wikimedia Foundation’s Board of Trustees about the basics of editing Wikipedia especially for Librarians.<a href="https://join.onstreammedia.com/play/sparc/7087-edit-a-thon-training-09.30">https://join.onstreammedia.com/play/sparc/7087-edit-a-thon-training-09.30</a></li></ol>
<hr style="text-align: justify;" />
<h2 style="text-align: justify;">How to do Guerilla GLAM</h2>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Open Access Week (19-25 October) is fast approaching and we have a number of events in store – one I’m keen to tell you about now is a webinar we have planned entitled, “How to do Guerilla GLAM”.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Our speaker, Subhashish Panigrahi <a href="https://twitter.com/subhapa">@subhapa</a>, from the Centre for Internet and Society’s Access To Knowledge programme will be tuning in via the interwebs from India to share his vision, case studies of Guerilla GLAM initiatives in India, as well as touching on the creation of documentaries, learning resources and promotional material from acquired content.</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify;">
<li>GLAM = Galleries Libraries Archives and Museums</li>
<li>Guerilla Glam = “getting the most out from cultural institutions where collaboration and long term engagement has high cost and time implications.”</li></ul>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Subha believes “this presentation will be useful for those who can mobilize a small team of volunteers equipped with digital camera, access to local cultural institutions and some level of expertise of curating data.” Read more about Subha and the abstract for his talk below.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Details of the event</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">How to do Guerilla GLAM / Subhashish Panigrahi <a href="https://twitter.com/subhapa">@subhapa<br /> </a>Tuesday 20 October, 3.00pm NZDT<br /> Conference Room 3, 1st floor <a href="http://www.otago.ac.nz/library/locations/#central" target="_blank">University of Otago Central Library, 65 Albany Street, Dunedin</a><br /> Or join us via <a href="https://connect.otago.ac.nz/sarah/?launcher=false" target="_blank">Adobe Connect</a>. [Please ensure you are logged in before 3pm and have read the participant notes on screen]</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">We will be recording this session and Subha has given permission for us to make the recording and his slides available here on the blog. We encourage participants to ask questions via the chat facility in Adobe Connect, or to tweet questions using #OAWeek #AOASG.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Abstract</strong><br />Building partnership with galleries, libraries, archives and museums (collectively known as GLAM institutions) is a great way of funneling the cultural content acquisition and bringing open access to such valuable data. But it is not that easy given the complications each country has in terms of formal agreement, organizational framework, etc. This presentation will detail about the learning curve of institutional partnership building, leveraging personal contacts in small scale GLAM projects and bringing in several indie-projects to cut implication cost, and execute low-cost models.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">During this presentation I will present two case studies of contrasting nature: India’s first GLAM project at the National Crafts Museum, New Delhi, and various small-scale collaborative projects. Where the first one would have learning from the six months long project, the second one will draw inspirations from many initiatives that have really no cost or low cost implication and less implementation time involved.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">At times, institutional collaborations become liabilities and labor intensive with low Return on Investment. Training staff and implementing GLAM projects are not always easy and retaining contributors is a challenge. Alternatively Guerrilla GLAM could be thought of when having a Wikimedian-in-Residence is not feasible. This presentation will be useful for those who can mobilize a small team of volunteers equipped with digital camera, access to local cultural institutions and some level of expertise of curating data.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Making documentaries and building narratives based on acquired content to creating learning resources and promotional materials will be another aspect of this presentation. Building partnerships with many federal or private institutions also needs sustained long-term engagement and volunteer time is not always enough to devote for a long term GLAM project. This presentation will detail about going the guerrilla way to acquire data from GLAM institutions. This will involve low cost models, leveraging various factors, and getting the most out from cultural institutions where collaboration and long term engagement has high cost and time implications.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>About Subhashish</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Subhashish Panigrahi is an India based educator, author, blogger, Wikimedian, language activist and free knowledge evangelist. Earlier with Wikimedia Foundation’s India Program and currently at the <a href="http://cis-india.org/" target="_blank">Centre for Internet and Society</a>‘s <a href="http://cis-india.org/a2k" target="_blank">Access To Knowledge</a> program, Panigrahi works on building partnership with universities, language research and GLAM (Gallery, Library, Archive and Museums) organizations for bringing more scholarly and encyclopedic content under free licenses, designing outreach programs for South Asian language Wikipedia/Wikimedia projects and communities.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The other hats he wears are as the Editor for Global Voices Odia, Community Moderator of Opensource.com, and Ambassador for India in OpenGLAM Local, Juror of 2015 American Alliance of Museum Muse Awards, and member of OER 2016 Standing Committee. He has presented in various Indian and international conferences on the free knowledge, GLAM and Open Access movement. Panigrahi has authored of “Rising Voices: Indigenous language Digital Activism” in <a href="http://meson.press/books/digital-activism-in-asia-reader" target="_blank">Digital Activism in Asia Reader</a> and was winner of the 2015 Opensource.com People’s Choice Award. Subhashish is available on Twitter at <a href="https://twitter.com/subhapa">@subhapa</a> and over email at psubhashishatgmaildotcom for more discussion.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/openness/news/guerilla-glam'>https://cis-india.org/openness/news/guerilla-glam</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaCIS-A2KAccess to KnowledgeWikimediaWikipediaGLAM2015-12-15T08:06:13ZNews ItemUnable to read Odia on your android device? Don’t fret!
https://cis-india.org/openness/news/odisha-sun-times-september-28-2015-ruby-nanda-unable-to-read-odia-on-your-android-device
<b>If you get only boxes in place of Odia fonts in your Android device then it does not support the language. So you need to install Odia font in your smart phone; one way is to root it, but it’s not without cons.</b>
<p> </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The article by Ruby Nanda was published in <a class="external-link" href="http://odishasuntimes.com/2015/09/28/unable-to-read-odia-on-your-android-device-dont-fret/">Odisha Sun Times</a> on September 28, 2015. Subhashish Panigrahi was quoted.</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify;">Rooting means breaking and getting full rights into the entire operating system of your Android. If done right it can turn you into a super user and open a wealth of opportunities with your handheld device. But, rooting is a complex process and definitely not for a newbie, as rooting leads to loss of warranty, security issues and a wrong move can turn it into a paperweight.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">“Rooting is not advisable as it is bit complicated and turns your phone warranty void”, says Subhashish Panigrahi, Programme Officer at the Centre for Internet and Society, an NGO. By far the easiest way to read Odia is by installing Firefox Browser for your android mobile, he added.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Nihar Kumar Dalai, IT professional, has found an easy hack and with Panigrahi, he has designed a free licensed tutorial by which one can easily read Odia language in their smart phones.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">“Odia fonts are supported only in the latest android 5.1.1 update, but people using android devices with older version may not have Odia fonts and can see only the boxes. We see many people seeking help to resolve this problem on Twitter and Facebook. With missing Odia fonts, people may end up writing Odia in Roman script, said Dalai.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">“There has been very positive response from people who have tried this method. I’m happy to play a very small part for this cause, the IT professional added.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">So if you are unable to read or write Odia in your android handheld then no sweat, just try out these simple steps and enjoy the fun of reading and writing Odia in your mobile.</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify;">
<li>Install Mozilla Firefox browser for Android on your phone from Google Play.</li>
<li>Launch Firefox and go to the Oriya fonts package Add-Ons page and select “Add to Firefox”</li>
<li>Click on Install</li>
<li>Eureka! Now Odia fonts appear on your android device instead of unrecognizable boxes.</li></ul>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Click here to watch the tutorial:</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://www.google.com/url?q=https%3A%2F%2For.wikipedia.org%2Fs%2Fucf&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNEVXipqv4vk1v0UT8LSU4pCrZc1bA">https://or.wikipedia.org/s/ucf</a></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Once you’re able to read and write Odia, you can use any online Odia transliteration service e.g. TypeOdia (on Firefox browser), iBUS on Linux, Microsoft’s Indic language Input Tool, Google Input Tool.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">P.S: This method only works on Firefox Browser for Android and not on any other Apps. Android jellybean 4.3 version also supports Odia but there might be issues which are fixed by 5.1.1.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/openness/news/odisha-sun-times-september-28-2015-ruby-nanda-unable-to-read-odia-on-your-android-device'>https://cis-india.org/openness/news/odisha-sun-times-september-28-2015-ruby-nanda-unable-to-read-odia-on-your-android-device</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaCIS-A2KOdia WikipediaAccess to Knowledge2015-12-15T08:04:39ZNews ItemSeptember 2015 Bulletin
https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/september-2015-bulletin
<b></b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">We are happy to share with you the ninth issue of the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) newsletter (September 2015). It has been a significant month for public debates on the digital future of governance, citizenship, and economy in India, led by conversations around the draft National Encryption Policy, the Aadhaar number as a basis for provision of welfare services, the investigation of Google for potential abuse of market dominance by the Competition Commission of India, and the Guidelines for Examination of Computer Related Inventions released by the Indian Patents Office. We were busy engaging with these issues, and more.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">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; ">Sumandro Chattapadhyay, Research Director</p>
<blockquote><b><a href="http://cis-india.org/raw/irc16-call">Internet Researchers' Conference (IRC) 2016 - Studying Internet in India</a></b><br /> With great excitement, we are announcing the beginning of an annual conference series titled Internet Researchers' Conference (IRC), the first edition of which is to take place in Delhi during February 25-27, 2016 (yet to be confirmed). We invite you to propose sessions for the conference by Sunday, November 15, 2015.</blockquote>
<p> </p>
<hr />
<h2 style="text-align: justify; ">Highlights</h2>
<table class="grid listing">
<tbody>
<tr>
<th>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>CIS sent an <a href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/open-letter-on-intellectual-property-rights-issues-during-your-visit-to-the-united-states-of-america-in-september-2015">Open Letter</a> to Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his US visit, requesting him to urge USA to ratify the Marrakesh Treaty.</li>
<li>During the month, NVDA team organized training programmes for the visually impaired at <a href="http://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/espeak-training-in-hindi-language-1">Kullu</a>, <a href="http://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/report-on-5-day-tot-for-training-in-use-of-espeak-kannada-with-nvda">Bangalore</a> and <a href="http://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/report-on-the-training-in-the-use-of-espeak-hindi-with-nvda">Ranchi</a>.</li>
<li>Nehaa Chaudhari in a <a href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/pervasive-technologies-working-document-series-research-questions-and-a-literature-review-on-actor-network-theory">blog post</a> laid out a series of research questions, potentially seeking to apply actor-network theory as a research methodology.</li>
<li>Recently, the Indian Patents Office released the Guidelines for Examination of Computer Related Inventions (“2015 Guidelines/ Guidelines”) in an attempt to clarify examination of software related patents in India. Anubha Sinha <a href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/comments-on-the-guidelines-for-examination-of-computer-related-inventions-cris">analysed the 2015 Guidelines</a>. Read on to understand how the new guidelines will potentially lead to an increase in software patenting activity by expanding the scope of patentable subject matter – in negation of the legislative intent of section 3(k) of the Indian Patents Act, 1970.</li>
<li>As a part of its content donation initiative, <a href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/cis-brings-nadustunna-charithra-magazine-under-by-cc-by-sa-licence">CIS has brought Nadustunna Charithra magazine under CC BY SA licence</a>. CIS-A2K has received 74 issues as of now from the Telugu Jaati foundation.</li>
<li>Sunil Abraham’s article titled Hits and Misses with the Draft Encryption Policy was published in <a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/the-wire-26-09-2015-sunil-abraham-hits-and-misses-with-draft-encryption-policy">The Wire</a> on September 26, 2015.</li>
<li>Vidushi Marda in a blog post titled <a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/data-flow-in-unique-identification-scheme-of-india">Data Flow in the Unique Identification Scheme of India</a> analysed the data flow within the UID scheme and highlighted the vulnerabilities at each stage.</li>
<li>Vanya Rakesh in a blog post titled <a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/human-dna-profiling-bill-2012-vs-2015">Human DNA Profiling Bill 2012 v/s 2015 Bill</a> has analysed the Human DNA Profiling Bill introduced in 2012 with the provisions of the 2015 Bill.</li>
<li>CIS sought information from ICANN on their revenue streams by sending them a second request under their Documentary Information Disclosure Policy. This request and their response have been <a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/didp-request-12-revenues">described in a blog post</a> by Aditya Garg.</li>
<li>CIS has <a href="http://cis-india.org/raw/wheres-my-data-submission-for-knight-news-challenge-2015">submitted a joint proposal</a> with DataMeet and Oorvani for the Knight News Challenge 2015. We are proposing the development of "an application for users to search for locally-relevant data, discuss missing data, demand data, explore and respond to data demands by others, and start data crowd-sourcing exercises."</li>
<li>CIS made its submission on CCWG-Accountability 2nd Draft Proposal on Work Stream 1 Recommendations to ICANN's CCWG-Accountability.</li>
<li>Pranesh Prakash, on behalf of CIS, <a href="http://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/comments-on-dot-panel-report-via-mygov">submitted comments</a> to the Department of Telecom Panel’s report on net neutrality via MyGov. Prakash states that the report displays a far better understanding of the underlying issues than the TRAI consultation paper did, and is overall a good effort at balancing the different sides.</li>
<li>Shyam Ponappa’s monthly column titled More on Those Dropped Calls was <a href="http://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/business-standard-september-3-2015-shyam-ponappa-more-on-those-dropped-calls">published by Business Standard</a>.</li>
</ul>
</th>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
</ul>
<hr />
<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>.</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>September 2015 Report (Suman Dogra; September 30, 2015).</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Event Reports</b></p>
<p><b> </b></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<b> </b>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/report-on-the-training-in-the-use-of-espeak-hindi-with-nvda">Training in the use of eSpeak Hindi with NVDA</a> (Organized by CIS and Lakshay for the Differently Abled; September 29 – 30, 2015; Ranchi). The event was conducted online by Dr. Homiyar over skype, with local support from Mritunjay Kumar and Zainab.</li>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/report-on-5-day-tot-for-training-in-use-of-espeak-kannada-with-nvda">5 day TOT for Training in Use of eSpeak Kannada with NVDA</a> (Organized by CIS, Mithra Jyoti, Enable India and NFB, Bangalore; September 21 – 25, 2015; Bangalore).</li>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/espeak-training-in-hindi-language-1">eSpeak Training in Hindi Language</a> (Organized by CIS and National Association for the Blind; Kullu; September 3 – 4, 2015).</li>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/training-in-espeak-marathi">Training in eSpeak Marathi</a> (Organized by CIS; Atmadepam Society; August 22 – 23, 2015). <i>The report was published in the month of September.</i></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; "><b>Blog Entries</b></p>
<p><b> </b></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<b> </b>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/pervasive-technologies-working-document-series-research-questions-and-a-literature-review-on-actor-network-theory">Pervasive Technologies: Working Document Series - Research Questions and a Literature Review on the Actor-Network Theory</a> (Nehaa Chaudhari; September 5, 2015).</li>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/faq-cis-proposal-for-compulsory-licensing-of-critical-mobile-technologies">FAQ: CIS Proposal for Compulsory Licensing of Critical Mobile Technologies</a> (Rohini Lakshané; September 25, 2015).</li>
</ul>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Other (Copyright and Patent)</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Submission</b></p>
<p><b> </b></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<b> </b>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/comments-on-the-guidelines-for-examination-of-computer-related-inventions-cris">Comments on the Guidelines for Examination of Computer Related Inventions</a> (CRIs) (Anubha Sinha; September 21, 2015).</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Blog Entries</b></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/open-letter-on-intellectual-property-rights-issues-during-your-visit-to-the-united-states-of-america-in-september-2015">Open Letter to PM Modi on Intellectual Property Rights issues on His Visit to the United States of America in September 2015</a> (Pranesh Prakash and Nehaa Chaudhari; September 23, 2015).</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>National Conference: WTO, FTAs and Investment Treaties: Implications for development policy space (Organized by Focus on the Global South, Institute for Studies in Industrial Development (ISID), Madhyam, MSF Access Campaign, National Working Group on Patent Laws and WTO (NWGPL), Public Services International (PSI) – South Asia, South Solidarity Initiative – ActionAid, Third Word Network (TWN), and Forum against FTAs; September 22 – 23, 2015; Institute for Studies in Industrial Development, New Delhi). Nehaa Chaudhari made a presentation on <a href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/copyright-access-to-knowledge-in-fta.pdf">Copyright: Access to Knowledge in Free Trade Agreements?</a></li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/news/ipex-2015">IPEX 2015</a> (Organized by Confederation of Indian Industry, APTDC and TDPC; September 25 - 26, 2015; Chennai). Rohini Lakshané attended the event. </li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Media Coverage</b></p>
<p><b> </b></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<b> </b>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/news/live-law-apoorva-mandhani-september-23-2015-open-letter-from-cis-to-pm-modi-on-intellectual-property-rights-issues-on-his-visit-to-us">Open letter from CIS to PM Modi on Intellectual Property Rights issues on his Visit to US</a> (Apoorva Mandhani; LiveLaw; September 23, 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/a2k/blogs/cis-brings-nadustunna-charithra-magazine-under-by-cc-by-sa-licence">CIS brings Nadustunna Charithra magazine under CC BY SA licence</a> (Tanveer Hasan; September 2, 2015).</li>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/education-okfn-subhashish-panigrahi-september-25-2015-ocr-and-oer-update">OCR and OER – update</a> (Subhashish Panigrahi; Open Education Working Group; September 25, 2015).</li>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/wikimedia-foundation-blog-as-odia-wikipedia-turns-13-what-happens-next">As Odia Wikipedia turns 13, what happens next?</a> (Subhashish Panigrahi; September 26, 2015). This was originally <a href="https://blog.wikimedia.org/2015/08/21/odia-wikipedia-celebrates-13/">published on the Wikimedia Blog</a> on August 21. The post was shared on Wikipedia's official <a href="https://www.facebook.com/wikipedia/posts/10153481749053346">Facebook page</a>, and on Twitter handles [<a href="https://twitter.com/Wikipedia/status/635838494187913216">1</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/Wikimedia/status/635838494200438784">2</a>].</li>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/googles-optical-character-recognition-software-now-works-with-all-south-asian-languages">Google's Optical Character Recognition Software Now Works with All South Asian Languages</a> (Subhashish Panigrahi; September 26, 2015).</li>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/open-source-september-3-2015-subhashish-panigrahi-wikimedia-contributor-shares-his-linux-story">Wikimedia contributor shares his Linux story</a> (Subhashish Panigrahi; September 27, 2015). <i>This article is part of a series called </i><a href="https://opensource.com/tags/my-linux-story"><i>My Linux Story</i></a><i>. To participate and share your Linux story, contact us at: </i><a href="mailto:open@opensource.com"><i>open@opensource.com</i></a><i>. Read the original published by </i><a href="https://opensource.com/life/15/9/my-linux-story-subhashish-panigrahi"><i>Opensource.com</i></a><i> on September 3, 2015.</i></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><a href="http://cis-india.org/openness/events/rare-telugu-religious-and-historical-work-preserved-at-annamacharya-library-to-come-on-wikisource">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>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Media Coverage</b></p>
<p><b> </b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">CIS gave its inputs to the following:</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li> <a href="http://cis-india.org/openness/news/odisha-sun-times-september-28-2015-ruby-nanda-unable-to-read-odia-on-your-android-device">Unable to read Odia on your android device? Don’t fret!</a> (Ruby Nanda; Odisha Sun Times; September 28, 2015).</li>
</ul>
<h2><a href="http://cis-india.org/openness">Openness</a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The advent of the Internet has radically redefined what it means to be open and collaborative. The Internet itself is built upon open standards and free/libre/open source software. Our work in the Openness programme focuses on open data, especially open government data, open access, open education resources, open knowledge in Indic languages, open media, and open technologies and standards - hardware and software. We approach openness as a cross-cutting principle for knowledge production and distribution, and not as a thing-in-itself.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Open Data</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Submission</b></p>
<p><b> </b></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<b> </b>
<li>As one of the general stewards of the process, CIS was invited to take part in the final drafting meeting of the International Open Data Charter held before Con Datos 2015 in Santiago, Chile, but we could not take part in it. Apart from organising two public consultations on the draft Charter in Bengaluru and Delhi, we also submitted our <a href="http://cis-india.org/openness/international-open-data-charter-comments-by-cis">detailed comments</a> on the document. The final version of the <a href="http://opendatacharter.net/" target="_blank">Charter document has been launched</a> at the United Nation General Assembly meeting, on September 27.</li>
</ul>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Free Software</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Blog Entry</b></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/openness/software-freedom-pledge-2015">Software Freedom Pledge</a> (Pranesh Prakash; September 25, 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; "><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/the-wire-26-09-2015-sunil-abraham-hits-and-misses-with-draft-encryption-policy">Hits and Misses With the Draft Encryption Policy</a> (Sunil Abraham; The Wire; September 26, 2015).</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Blog Entries</b></p>
<p><b> </b></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<b> </b>
<li><b> </b><a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/data-flow-in-unique-identification-scheme-of-india">Data Flow in the Unique Identification Scheme of India</a> (Vidushi Marda; September 3, 2015).</li>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/human-dna-profiling-bill-2012-vs-2015">Human DNA Profiling Bill 2012 v/s 2015 Bill</a> (Vanya Rakesh; September 6, 2015).</li>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/open-governance-and-privacy-in-a-post-snowden-world-webinar">Open Governance and Privacy in a Post-Snowden World: Webinar</a> (Vanya Rakesh; September 26, 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/the-changing-landscape-of-ict-governance-and-practice-convergence-and-big-data">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 <i>Young Scholar Workshop</i> followed by main <a href="http://www.cprsouth.org/"><i>CPRSouth2015 conference</i> (Communication Policy Research South) conference</a>.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Free Speech and Expression</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Submission</b></p>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/cis-submission-on-ccwg-accountability-2nd-draft-proposal-on-work-stream-1-recommendations">CIS Submission on CCWG-Accountability 2nd Draft Proposal on Work Stream 1 Recommendations</a> (Pranesh Prakash; September 13, 2015).</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Blog Entries</b></p>
<p><b> </b></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<b> </b>
<li><b> </b><a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/didp-request-11-netmundial-principles">DIDP Request #11: NETmundial Principles</a> (Aditya Garg; September 14, 2015).</li>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/didp-request-12-revenues">DIDP Request #12: Revenues</a> (Aditya Garg; September 14, 2015).</li>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/peering-behind-the-veil-of-icann2019s-didp">Peering behind the veil of ICANN’s DIDP</a> (Padmini Baruah; September 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/asian-regional-consultation-on-the-wsis-10-review">Asian Regional Consultation on the WSIS+10 Review</a> (Organized by The Internet Democracy Project, Bytes for All, APNIC, the Association for Progressive Communications, ISOC, Global Partners Digital and ICT Watch; September 3 – 5, 2015). Jyoti Panday attended the event.</li>
</ul>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">IGF</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The tenth annual IGF meeting will be held in João Pessoa, Brazil, on November 10 - 13, 2015. IGF's MAG has decided to retain the title “Evolution of Internet Governance: Empowering Sustainable Development” as the overarching theme. Sunil Abraham will be a panelist for the following workshops:</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/understanding-and-mitigating-online-hate-speech-and-youth-radicalisation">Understanding and Mitigating Online Hate Speech and Youth Radicalisation</a> (Organized by Council of Europe, Oxford University, OHCHR, Google and ISOC; November 2015).</li>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/transnational-due-process-a-case-study-in-multi-stakeholder-cooperation">Transnational Due Process: A Case Study in Multi-stakeholder Cooperation</a> (Organized by the United Nations; November 2015).</li>
</ul>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Cyber Security</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Event Organized</b></p>
<p><b> </b></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<b> </b>
<li><b> </b><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 gave a talk at this event.</li>
</ul>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Miscellaneous</h3>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/sustainable-smart-cities-india-conference-2015-bangalore">Sustainable Smart Cities India Conference 2015, Bangalore</a> (Vanya Rakesh; September 21, 2015).</li>
</ul>
<h2><a href="http://cis-india.org/telecom">Telecom</a></h2>
<p>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>Submission</b></p>
<p><b> </b></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<b> </b>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/comments-on-dot-panel-report-via-mygov">Comments on the DoT Panel Report via MyGov</a> (Pranesh Prakash; September 26, 2015).</li>
</ul>
<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-september-3-2015-shyam-ponappa-more-on-those-dropped-calls">More on those Dropped Calls</a> (Shyam Ponappa; Business Standard; September 2, 2015 and Organizing India Blogspot; September 3, 2015).</li>
</ul>
<h2><a href="http://cis-india.org/raw">Researchers at Work</a></h2>
<p>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>Submission</b></p>
<p><b> </b></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<b> </b>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/raw/wheres-my-data-submission-for-knight-news-challenge-2015">Where's My Data? Submission for Knight News Challenge 2015</a> (Sumandro Chattapadhyay; September 30, 2015). <i>The text of the proposal was prepared by Nisha Thompson of DataMeet, Meera K of Oorvani, and Sumandro Chattapadhyay.</i></li>
</ul>
<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_the-internet-in-the-indian-judicial-imagination">The Internet in the Indian Judicial Imagination</a> (Divij Joshi; September 9, 2015).</li>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/raw/blog_the-many-lives-and-sites-of-internet-in-bhubaneswar">The Many Lives and Sites of Internet in Bhubaneswar</a> (Sailen Routray; September 21, 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/the-hindu-september-1-2015-parshathy-nath-does-this-click-with-you">Does this click with you?</a> (Parshathy J. Nath; The Hindu; September 1, 2015).</li>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/economic-times-september-3-2015-surabhi-agarwal-govt-tie-up-with-global-police-interpol-to-fight-child-pornography">Government may tieup with global police, Interpol to fight child pornography</a> (Surabhi Agarwal; September 3, 2015).</li>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/hindustan-times-september-3-2015-harjeet-inder-singh-sahi-hiding-behind-rules-on-naming-sites-it-banned-govt-reveals-fears">Hiding behind rules on naming sites it banned, govt reveals fears</a> (Harjeet Inder Singh Sahi; September 3, 2015).</li>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/hindu-nikhil-varma-september-9-2015-outrage-before-sharing">Outrage before sharing</a> (Nikhil Verma; The Hindu; September 9, 2015).</li>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/the-week-september-20-2015-shweta-t-nanda-faking-a-stand">Faking a stand</a> (Shweta T. Nanda; The Week; September 20, 2015).</li>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/outlook-september-21-2015-arindam-mukherjee-some-key-words-are-missing">Some Key Words Are Missing</a> (Arindam Mukherjee; Outlook; September 21, 2015).</li>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/the-hindu-september-22-2015-atul-kabra-open-sesame">Open sesame</a> (The Hindu; September 22, 2015).</li>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/livemint-moulishree-srivastava-september-22-2015-india-encryption-policy-draft-faces-backlash">India encryption policy draft faces backlash</a> (Moulishree Srivastava; September 22, 2015)</li>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/first-post-naina-khedekar-september-23-2015-online-outcry-forces-government-to-withdraw-draft-encryption-policy">Online outcry forces government to withdraw draft encryption policy</a> (Naina Khedekar; First Post; September 23, 2015).</li>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/dna-september-23-2015-amrita-madhukalya-encryption-policy-would-have-affected-emails-operating-systems-wifi">Encryption policy would have affected emails, operating systems, WiFi</a> (Amrita Madhukalya; DNA; September 23, 2015).</li>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/business-standard-september-23-2015-govt-presses-undo-button-on-draft-encryption-policy">Govt presses 'undo' button on draft encryption policy</a> (Business Standard; September 23; 2015).</li>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/today-september-24-2015-huge-outcry-forces-india-backtrack-social-media-data-proposal">Huge outcry forces India to backtrack on social media data proposal</a> (Today; September 24, 2015).</li>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/wsj-september-24-2015-newley-purnell-resty-woro-uniar-facebook-free-internet-access-program-in-developing-countries-provokes-backlash">Facebook’s Free Internet Access Program in Developing Countries Provokes Backlash</a> (Newley Purnell and Resty Woro Uniar; The Wall Street Journal; September 24, 2015).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/business-standard-september-26-2015-ahead-of-hosting-modi-facebook-rebrands-internet-dot-org-as-free-basics">Ahead of hosting Modi, Facebook rebrands internet.org as Free Basics</a> (Business Standard; September 26, 2015).</li>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/asian-age-september-27-2015-s-raghotham-and-mayukh-mukherjee-by-weakening-our-security-govt-is-putting-us-at-risk-of-espionage">‘By weakening our security, govt is putting us at risk of espionage’</a> (S. Raghotham and Mayukh Mukherjee; Asian Age; September 27, 2015).</li>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/9ad9be9b09a49c7-9aa9be98199a9b69b0993-9ac9c79b69bf-9b89cd99f9c79b69a89c7-9ab9cd9b09bf-9939af9bc9be987-9ab9be987-99a9be9b29c1-9b99ac9c7">ভারতে পাঁচশোরও বেশি স্টেশনে ফ্রি ওয়াই-ফাই চালু হবে</a> (BBC; September 28, 2015).</li>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/the-register-september-29-2015-kieren-mccurthy-do-you-agree-with-our-fee-hike">Do you agree with our fee hike? Press 1 to answer Yes; or 2 for Yes</a> (Kieren McCarthy; The Register; September 29, 2015).</li>
<li><a href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/the-australian-amanda-hodge-september-29-2015-indian-pm-narendra-modi-digital-dream-gets-bad-reception">Indian PM Narendra Modi’s digital dream gets bad reception</a> (Amanda Hodge; September 29, 2015).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/ndtv-maya-sharma-september-29-2015-what-bengaluru-thinks-of-big-tech-announcements-in-silicon-valley">What Bengaluru Thinks of the Big Tech Announcements in Silicon Valley</a> (Maya Sharma; NDTV; September 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>
<li>Access to Knowledge - Twitter:<a href="https://twitter.com/CISA2K"> https://twitter.com/CISA2K</a></li>
<li>Access to Knowledge - Facebook:<a href="https://www.facebook.com/cisa2k"> https://www.facebook.com/cisa2k</a></li>
<li>Access to Knowledge - E-Mail: <a href="mailto:a2k@cis-india.org">a2k@cis-india.org</a></li>
<li>Researchers at Work - E-Mail: <a href="mailto:raw@cis-india.org">raw@cis-india.org</a></li>
<li>Researchers at Work - Mailing List: <a href="https://lists.ghserv.net/mailman/listinfo/researchers">https://lists.ghserv.net/mailman/listinfo/researchers</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 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>
<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/september-2015-bulletin'>https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/september-2015-bulletin</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaAccess to KnowledgeTelecomAccessibilityInternet GovernanceResearchers at Work2015-11-25T01:55:25ZPageWikimedia contributor shares his Linux story
https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/open-source-september-3-2015-subhashish-panigrahi-wikimedia-contributor-shares-his-linux-story
<b>Computers have fascinated me since childhood, but my first encounter—like many others—was not with Linux. For me, it was with Microsoft Paint. Then, many years later in 2011, it was my Wikipedia mentor, Shiju Alex, who introduced me to Linux. Since then, it's been my life!</b>
<p style="text-align: justify;">If I recall correctly, Ubuntu 10.04.4 LTS (<a href="http://releases.ubuntu.com/10.04/" target="_blank">Lucid Lynx</a>) was my first distro. It was different, light, and fun. And, I would often switch back to Windows for something, then back to Ubuntu. The smoothness—and having a virus-free environment—was wonderful and enticed me to continue on with Linux. Unlike today, Ubuntu was not a graphic-rich distro at the time. I was coding less than I am today, so I was working more with editing images using <a href="http://www.gimp.org/" target="_blank">GIMP</a> and <a href="https://inkscape.org/en/" target="_blank">Inkscape</a>.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Later in 2011, I was in Mumbai for the <a href="https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/India_Hackathon_2011" target="_blank">Wiki Conference India hackathon</a> and got stuck on some jQuery code. I asked someone to help, so he picked up my Windows-based office notebook to look at the code. That person was noted academician and Wikipedian <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:BobCummings" target="_blank">Bob Cummings</a>. After a minute, he looked at me and said, "You are in the wrong OS, boy." On my personal laptop, I was using Linux to create the <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikipedia-logo-v2-or.svg" target="_blank">logo</a> for Odia Wikipedia v.2.0, which is used for <a href="http://or.wikipedia.org/" target="_blank">Odia Wikipedia</a>, so I defended myself saying, "This is my work computer." He quickly responded, "Well you're in the wrong job, my dear friend."</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">That conversation stuck with me, and is one I'll never forget because Bob shook me with a feeling that that there exists a better world outside mine. If I am not a part of that, then I am missing something big.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">So, in 2012, I joined the <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge/old" target="_blank">Wikimedia Foundation's India Program</a> and moved to New Delhi. That exposed me to more free software activists, and of course Linux advocates. My job demanded me to meet more people; both virtually and in real spaces. I would often bump into someone talking about free software and Linux or someone recommending a specific software program to better do a job without bothering much if a Mac or Windows version is available or not. And slowly, that black window with white text, of the Linux terminal, became home. I worked on fixing bugs with an <a href="https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Extension:UniversalLanguageSelector/Input_methods/or-transliteration" target="_blank">input method</a>, and I was already working under the guidance of fellow Wikimedian Junain PV, which helped me create a<a href="https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Extension:UniversalLanguageSelector/Input_methods/or-lekhani" target="_blank"> fresh new input method</a> on MediaWiki. While designing manuals and handouts for new contributors, though Adobe tools were favorite because of the easiness in use, I enjoyed the perfect rendering of South Asian language scripts in Linux based tools.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">My Wikipedia mentor, Shiju Alex, was part of my transformation. He is a great free software enthusiast and encouraged me to use Linux again when I had lost the desire! Then, I installed Virtual Box on my Macbook and a lot of free and open source software like LibreOffice, <a href="http://www.gimp.org/" target="_blank">GIMP</a>, <a href="https://inkscape.org/en/" target="_blank">Inkscape</a>, and my favorite, <a href="http://audacityteam.org/" target="_blank">Audacity</a>.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Today, I use Ubuntu 14.04.2. At work, my colleagues Sunil Abraham and Rahimanuddin Shaik are a resorvoir of inspiration. The difference with Linux is there is a feeling of contributing something back to the hand that feeds you.</p>
<hr style="text-align: justify;" />
<p style="text-align: justify;"><em>This article is part of a series called <a title="My Linux Story" href="https://opensource.com/tags/my-linux-story" target="_blank">My Linux Story</a>. To participate and share your Linux story, contact us at: <a href="mailto:open@opensource.com">open@opensource.com</a>. Read the original published by <a class="external-link" href="https://opensource.com/life/15/9/my-linux-story-subhashish-panigrahi">Opensource.com</a> on September 3, 2015.<br /></em></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" rel="license"> </a></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/open-source-september-3-2015-subhashish-panigrahi-wikimedia-contributor-shares-his-linux-story'>https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/open-source-september-3-2015-subhashish-panigrahi-wikimedia-contributor-shares-his-linux-story</a>
</p>
No publishersubhaWikimediaWikipediaAccess to Knowledge2016-06-18T17:08:19ZBlog EntryAs Odia Wikipedia turns 13, what happens next?
https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/wikimedia-foundation-blog-as-odia-wikipedia-turns-13-what-happens-next
<b>Odia Wikipedia, one of several Indian-language Wikipedia projects, celebrated thirteen years of free knowledge contribution on June 3.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify;">This was originally <a class="external-link" href="https://blog.wikimedia.org/2015/08/21/odia-wikipedia-celebrates-13/">published on the Wikimedia Blog</a> on August 21. The post was shared on Wikipedia's official <a class="external-link" href="https://www.facebook.com/wikipedia/posts/10153481749053346">Facebook page</a>, and on Twitter handles [<a class="external-link" href="https://twitter.com/Wikipedia/status/635838494187913216">1</a> and <a class="external-link" href="https://twitter.com/Wikimedia/status/635838494200438784">2</a>]</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify;">Launched in 2002—just a year after the English Wikipedia was launched—Odia Wikipedia has grown to be the largest content repository in the <a title="w:Oriya language" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oriya_language">Odia language</a> available in Unicode on the Internet. With over 8,900 articles and about <a href="http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesWikipediaOR.htm">17 active editors</a> (also known as “uikiali”) spread across various parts of India and abroad, the project has become more than just an encyclopedia. The voluntary editor community has put its efforts into <a href="http://globalvoicesonline.org/2014/10/18/more-than-40-million-people-await-the-launch-of-odia-wikisource/">acquiring</a> valuable content, re-licensing them under <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/">Creative Commons (CC)</a> licenses, and <a href="https://blog.wikimedia.org/2015/06/03/odia-wikipedia/">building tools</a> for acquiring more encyclopedic content from various sources.</p>
<table style="text-align: justify;" class="invisible">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td style="text-align: justify;">
<p>The community has also engaged over 2,500 people through various outreach programs, such as the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Education_program">Wikipedia Education Program</a>. For its thirteenth anniversary, the community released a <a href="https://blog.wikimedia.org/2015/06/03/odia-wikipedia/">character-encoding converter</a> that promises to unlock massive amounts of content—from government portals to journals, newspapers and magazines that have their content in various legacy encoding systems other than Unicode. This has been a major roadblock in the search for and reuse of digital content in the Odia language.</p>
<p>During our thirteenth anniversary celebrations, the community spent a day assessing community needs, addressing issues, and identifying priority areas to focus on in the future. This was arguably the first time almost the entire community gathered in a physical space. This allowed Odia Wikipedia administrator, and the most active Odia Wikimedian, <a title="User:MKar" href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:MKar">Mrutyunjaya Kar</a> and I to design a <a title="w:or:ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆ:ଜନ୍ମତିଥି/୧୩/ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିଆଳିଙ୍କ ମତାମତ" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/or:%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%9C%E0%AC%A8%E0%AD%8D%E0%AC%AE%E0%AC%A4%E0%AC%BF%E0%AC%A5%E0%AC%BF/%E0%AD%A7%E0%AD%A9/%E0%AC%93%E0%AC%A1%E0%AC%BC%E0%AC%BF%E0%AC%86_%E0%AC%89%E0%AC%87%E0%AC%95%E0%AC%BF%E0%AC%86%E0%AC%B3%E0%AC%BF%E0%AC%99%E0%AD%8D%E0%AC%95_%E0%AC%AE%E0%AC%A4%E0%AC%BE%E0%AC%AE%E0%AC%A4">needs assessment survey</a>. Participating Wikimedians were asked to brainstorm various problems they face in two major areas: editing and outreach.</p>
</td>
<th><img src="https://cis-india.org/home-images/Odia_Wikipedia_stats_FebJuly_2015.svg.png" title="Odia Wikipedia Stats" height="269" width="224" alt="null" class="image-inline" /></th>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p style="text-align: justify;"> </p>
<table style="text-align: justify;" class="invisible">
<tbody>
<tr>
<th><img src="https://cis-india.org/home-images/copy_of_Odia_Wikipedia_stats_FebJuly_2015.svg.png" alt="null" class="image-inline" title="Editing Odia Wikipedia" /></th>
<td style="text-align: justify;">
<p>Two-fifths of participants said that problems with the rendering of Odia characters in different operating systems, ignorance or lack of more documentation about enabling encoding for Odia, input methods and keyboard layouts, and other font- and keyboard-related issues as the major reason for low readership and contribution on Wikipedia.</p>
<p>More than a third instead blamed the lack of good quality content on Wikipedia and the Internet as a whole in the Odia language, in English related to Odia language, and in Odisha on the Internet. A quarter blamed other technical issues, including the lack of mobile input in Odia, for low editorship, while low interest for contributing in Odia language by native language speakers was blamed by eight percent of survey participants.</p>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><a title="w:or:User:User:Aditya Mahar" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/or:User:User:Aditya_Mahar">Aditya Mahar</a>, the second-most active editor on the Odia Wikipedia, feels that the biggest setback for the Odia Wikipedia is a lack of interest in contributing in Odia language. He says many Odia speakers feel that Odia is not needed to acquire and share knowledge.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">“Like many others, I have been very eager to learn and share more about my home state and culture,” he says. “That’s why I started to contribute to the Odia Wikipedia, to tell my people about our rich cultural heritage in my language.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">He adds that he is concerned by the way many have been alienating Odia with the excuse of learning English to connect to the rest of the world. “I want my future generation to find everything they want to learn in Odia—from the history of Odisha, our art, architecture, Odia language and people, and our cultural extravaganza,” he says.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><a title="en:or:User:MKar" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/or:User:MKar">Mrutyunjaya Kar</a>, an administrator on the Odia Wikipedia and the most active contributor, feels that Wikipedia is like a marathon and there is a great need for fresh blood in the community. Asked if the community will ever die out, Mrutyunjaya feels that even with a small community, the Odia Wikipedia community is always going to thrive, even if, in the worst case, only one active Wikipedian remains. So, we badly need new users to pass the baton. For him, community support and bonding with the fellow editors is the most important thing to lead a community.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Mrutyunjaya adds that creating many short articles, known as “stubs”, is a necessary evil and essential for a project like the Odia Wikipedia, as they are drafted as a by-product of collaborative editing.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">“It takes little longer for a small community like Odia to expand and enhance quality of stubs though,” he says. “Many-a-times, new editors learn about Wikipedia editing while creating stubs. However, all the active Wikipedians agreed during the thirteenth anniversary not to create or promote many stubs.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><em><a title="User:Saileshpat" href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Saileshpat">Sailesh Patnaik</a>, Odia Wikimedian</em><br /> <a title="User:Psubhashish" href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Psubhashish"><em>Subhashish Panigrahi</em></a><em>, Odia Wikimedian and Programme Officer, <a title="m:India Access To Knowledge" href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge">Access To Knowledge</a> (CIS-A2K)</em></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/wikimedia-foundation-blog-as-odia-wikipedia-turns-13-what-happens-next'>https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/wikimedia-foundation-blog-as-odia-wikipedia-turns-13-what-happens-next</a>
</p>
No publisherSubhashish Panigrahi and Sailesh PatnaikOdia WikipediaAccess to Knowledge2016-06-18T17:08:41ZBlog EntryOCR 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>
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<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>
<li>Access to Knowledge - Twitter:<a href="https://twitter.com/CISA2K"> https://twitter.com/CISA2K</a></li>
<li>Access to Knowledge - Facebook:<a href="https://www.facebook.com/cisa2k"> https://www.facebook.com/cisa2k</a></li>
<li>Access to Knowledge - E-Mail: <a href="mailto:a2k@cis-india.org">a2k@cis-india.org</a></li>
<li>Researchers at Work - E-Mail: <a href="mailto:raw@cis-india.org">raw@cis-india.org</a></li>
<li>Researchers at Work - Mailing List: <a href="https://lists.ghserv.net/mailman/listinfo/researchers">https://lists.ghserv.net/mailman/listinfo/researchers</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 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>
<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/july-2015-bulletin'>https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/july-2015-bulletin</a>
</p>
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