Centre for Internet and Society

Wikimania 2013: The International Wikimedia Conference

praskrishna — 2013-08-29T06:30:54Z

Wikimania is the annual international conference of the Wikimedia movement. It's organized by a different local team each year. In 2013 the conference took place in the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Wikimania allows the community and the general public to learn about and share their experiences with free knowledge initiatives all over the world. T. Vishnu Vardhan and Subhashish Panigrahi participated in the event.

Click to read the details published on the Wikimania website.

The previous conferences were held in Frankfurt, Germany (2005), Boston, USA (2006), Taipei, Taiwan (2007), Alexandria, Egypt (2008), Buenos Aires, Argentina (2009), Gdańsk, Poland (2010), Haifa, Israel (2011), and Washington, D.C., USA (2012).

Picture: Wikimania 2013. Official site, CC-BY-SA 3.0

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/wikimania-2013

Wikimedia Asia Meeting

praskrishna — 2013-08-29T10:14:36Z

T.Vishnu Vardhan and Subhashish Panigrahi from the Access to Knowledge team at CIS participated in the Wikimedia Asia meeting in Hong Kong on August 10, 2013.

Note: An unedited transcript of the entire conversation can be downloaded below.

Click to see the file (Plain Text, 7Kb)

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/wikimedia-asia-meeting

Wikipedia writes a new script

praskrishna — 2013-09-04T06:27:27Z

Wikipedia is available in over 30 Indian languages. Add Konkani to that list. The Centre for Internet and Society has just completed a programme of training students to write for Konkani Wikipedia.

The article was published in the Goan on August 24, 2013.

They sat listening to Subhashish Panigrahi, learning how to seamlessly flow from English to Konkani. Panigrahi walked around the room, 40 sets of eyes and ears followed him eagerly, latching on to his every word. Then the team moved into a small conference room at the new Central Library, where they sat down to work on a few articles in Konkani. The reason: Because Wikipedia has a new language – Konkani.

When on February 4, 1987, Konkani in Devnagri script was declared the official language of Goa according to the Goa Daman and Diu Official Language Act, 1987, little did the officials know that one day, one of the largest web-based encyclopaedias would want the encyclopaedia to be available also in Konkani for the 30, 00000 or so Konkani language speakers over the world.

Wikipedia, a multi-lingual, web-based, free content encyclopaedia is available in over 30 Indian languages and several languages of other nations. The project to begin a Konkani Wikipedia began in 2006. “Sadly, even after seven years of inception, Konkani Wikipedia has only 90 articles,” says Nitika Tandon, of the CIS-A2K (Centre for Internet & Society, Access to Knowledge) team. The CIS is a movement for open access to web-based information. “Rather than being open receivers of knowledge, we want people to be active producers of knowledge,” she adds. The CIS has selected five Indian languages to uplift and Konkani is one of them.

Carlos Fernandes, the Curator of the Central Library said, “We supported it because this will maintain the culture and develop the language using technology. Articles in Konkani language will be available to people all over the world and thus should one want to research something in Konkani, his search will not be limited to the books of the library.” Another project by the CIS team to make Konkani more well-known is digitising the 4-volume Konkani encyclopaedia published by the Goa University. “This encyclopaedia will be uploaded by this team and will be available under the creative commons licence,” says Dr Gopakumar, the university Librarian.

The programme covered aspects like how Wikipedia works, how to edit articles, how to type in Devnagri, how to create a new article, etc. “We are learning how to about editing and writing in Wikipedia. The 40 students are of MA part 2, and the group is divided into two. The first 20 will work on the first two days and the others will work on the last two,” says Fr Luis Xavier Gomes who is doing his MA in Konkani at Goa University. Fr Gomes will be writing on Konkani tiatr and Konkani cantar after having researched and referenced about the same.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/thegoan-joyce-dias-august-24-2013-wikipedia-writes-a-new-script

Krishnarajapet Wikipedia Workshop (Coverage in Prajavani)

praskrishna — 2013-09-05T05:50:24Z

Prajavani covered the Kannada Wikipedia workshop organised by the CIS-A2K team and the Kannada Sahitya Parishat of KR Pet., on August 12, 2013. A scanned version of the report is produced below.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/prajavani-august-12-2013-krishnarajapet-workshop

Kannada Wikipedia Workshop at SDM

praskrishna — 2013-09-12T06:16:36Z

The Department of Journalism and Mass Communication, SDM College, Ujire is holding a wiki workshop on September 15, 2013. Dr. U.B. Pavanaja from CIS-A2K team is participating in this workshop.

The workshop is being held to teach post-graduate students studying Journalism and Mass Communication on contributing and editing Wikipedia. The students will be particularly trained to edit Kannada Wikipedia.

More about SDM College, Ujire here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/kannada-wiki-workshop-sdm

Konkani Wikipedia makes headway

praskrishna — 2013-09-17T06:07:54Z

The first floor of the Krishnadas Central Library has been bustling with activity for the last four days. A closer look reveals the concentration, thought and precision that is put into each letter of the Devnagri script Konkani they type. Still further and you realise it’s a Wikipedia site that final year MA Konkani students of Goa University are busy with.

This article by Diana Fernandes was published in OHeraldO on August 24, 2013. Nitika Tandon is quoted.

A follow up to the Konkani Wikipedia workshop that was held earlier last month at St. Xavier’s College, Mapusa and King’s school, Margao, the Centre for Internet and Society ( CIS) in its Access to Knowledge ( A2K) initiative were back to try and bring to life a seven year incubation Konkani Wikipedia page.

The final year MA Konkani students were busy typing away at their screen as I went to pay them a visit. Nitika Tandon, Goa in- charge from the CIS- A2K team says Goan students have shown the most interest so far. Priyadarshini Tadkodkar, Head of Department at Goa University says she’s thrilled for the project as it will not only help students update and reach out to other writers but also help in popularising Goa’s mother tongue.

“ So far there was nothing in Konkani on Wikipedia. There are so many articles about Goa in English but not in Konkani. Those who do not know only to read or develop their Konkani skills can probably use this.

Also for the students it’s an opportunity for them to discuss their thoughts with other editors,” says Tadkodkar.

The last time she was in the state, Tandon says people were more inclined to hear of the English Wikipedia rather than Konkani, but sees this workshop as a definite success story.

Students were visibly interested in not only writing about Goa but to change the way people look at Goa. “ Goa is only seen as beaches, parties and cheap liquor. There is so much more. Like Goa’s unique cuisine or its famous personalities like D D Kosambi,” says Supriya.

“ People say that Konkani will die in another 20 – 25 years. I see this as an opportunity to save it,” says another student John.

Articles written by the students will be assessed by Madhavi Sardesai, editor of Jaan, a Konkani literary journal, after which students will be asked to make the corrections online.

A total of 38 students attended over the span of two days. Each session comprised eight hours of training a day. Topics discussed during the workshop included basics of Wikipedia and the status of Konkani Wikipedia as well as typing in Devnagri script, the sort of articles that are required for the site and using references other than Facebook and how to site them in the article.

“ Forty- two pages of content were generated in two days and have already been put up on the site. The students love it. Students who came in the first batch wanted to join the second one simply because they want to write. Though they don’t get credit for this workshop as part of the syllabus students are indeed interested,” says Tandon.

Though a total of 140 articles on topics ranging from Goa’s heritage, culture, traditions and famous personalities have been uploaded, she says it requires at least five contributors to add to the existing database regularly.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/epaperoheraldo-august-24-2013-diana-fernandes-konkani-wikipedia-makes-headway

Goa University to make available online Konkani Wikipedia, within 6 months

praskrishna — 2013-10-03T09:35:55Z

Thick heaps of the four volumes of Konkani language ‘vishwakosh’ or encyclopedia , till now available only in hard copy, will now attain a modern access.

This blog post was published by Jagran Josh on September 30, 2013. CIS signed an MoU with Goa University for digitizing Konkani Vishwakosh under Creative Commons license.

The four volumes of encyclopaedia work, initially started by prominent Goan writer and academician late Manoharrai Sardessaiat of Goa University, will now be accessed in digitized format, alongside forming a base for a Konkani Wikipedia.

As mentioned by officials, the Konkani Wikipedia is to be ready to access within upcoming six months. With this, Goa University has turned out to be the first varsity in the nation to enter into a creative commons licence that will permit copyrighted produced data by an Indian university accessible to internet users and open to modification (wiki), making Goa University a victory of sorts of free information.

The university has signed a three-year MoU (Memorandum of Understanding) with the Centre for Internet and Society's Access to Knowledge Programme. This centre represents Wikipedia in India, and now also the Konkani Wikipedia project.

After Google, Facebook and Yahoo, Wikipedia is the fourth most used asset on the internet which operates as an internet based encyclopaedia. Over Wikipedia, any of the users can upload new information and can also update or amend an existing topic. The Konkani Wikipedia is also planned to offer similar privileges to its users. GU's Konkani department and the centre will manage the development from the university campus.

"The Konkani vishwakosh covers all realms of knowledge like any other encyclopedia. The Konkani Wikipedia will act as a digitized repository of knowledge for future generations and Konkani speakers across the world. I look forward to the pleasure of going to the internet and clicking away to access a Konkani Wikipedia," GU vice-chancellor Satish Shetye said.

Shetye told, GU is delighted to relate with Wikipedia, which has become a global trend breaking the monopoly of publishers and transforming the way of sharing of knowledge into a democratic process.

GU registrar Vijayendra Kamat mentions, "At present, it takes time for a page with information in a regional language to download because they are usually found in the form of scanned pages, which are accessible as images and not text. The Konkani Wikipedia will make the text accessible as is the case of any English text on the internet”.

The Konkani vishwakosh, containing four large volumes of total of 3,632 pages, is a work of period of 14 years. It was edited by late Manoharrai Sardessai followed by the editor Tanaji Halarnkar. For the compilation process, GU Staff members, Ranjan Naik, Kalpana Naik, Kanchan Mordekar, Surekha Naik, Mukesh Thali and Shailendra Mehta contributed to it.

Konkani vishwakosh or encyclopedia covers, concisely presented world information with special weight given on information on Goa, Konkani, Goan culture, folklore, history, geography etc. The Wikipedia is offered in 20 Indian languages that includes Telugu, Assamese, Marathi, but not in language Konkani so far.

Interested Students, Professors or anyone else could contribute to this Konkani Encyclopaedia project by enrolling online at bit.ly/konkanivishwakosh, before 05 October 2013.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/jagranjosh-september-30-2013-goa-university-to-make-available-online-konkani-wikipedia-within-6-months

Research papers will be available in public domain

praskrishna — 2012-02-17T05:38:36Z

IIT-Madras intends to make circle of knowledge complete, writes Vasudha Venugopal in this article published in the Hindu on 15 February 2012. Prof. Subbiah Arunachalam is quoted in the article.

2012-13 was declared the year of science by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh last year, and there is a lot of effort being made all over the country to not only intensify the quantity and quality of research but also ensure greater access for all. For instance, IIT-Madras plans to make available its research papers in all disciplines online, in the public domain. The institute already provides e-learning through online web and video courses in engineering, science and humanities streams through NPTEL.

The attempt now is to convince faculty members to upload their research papers into the institution's repository, says Mangala Sunder Krishnan, Web Coordinator (NPTEL). The move will not only benefit students and faculty members but will also help the circle of knowledge to be complete, he says.

What IIT- Madras plans to do is follow an Open Access policy that would make the access of journals and scientific research public and many other educational organisations plan to follow suite. “Most research publications stay locked up in commercial journals and are inaccessible to many. Open Access is the best way to ensure that research produced in the developing world gets wider visibility,” says Francis Jayakanth, a library-trained scientific assistant based at the National Centre for Science Information, the information centre of the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. Mr. Jayakanth has been instrumental in creating an institutional repository ePrints@IISc that has over 32,000 publications by researchers.

Subbiah Arunachalam, distinguished fellow at the Centre for Internet and Society explains: “A research produced by the Tuberculosis Research Centre in Chennai which would be of great relevance to researchers, say in a university in Maharashtra, may not be even noticed by the scientists there. Both groups receive funds from the same source - Government of India - and yet what one does is not easily accessible to the other. “Open Access would bridge that gap and make information available to everyone,” he says.

Open Access repositories would help authors place their papers in an interoperable institutional open access archive and anyone with an Internet connection can access it. Researchers say that in most reputed journals, it takes almost six months to get a paper published, and most insist that the paper is removed from the internal repository of the author's institution once it is published. “But 70 per cent of the publishers are now fine with the authors taking the pre-print of their paper uploaded in the repository. And since in open access, every thing is peer reviewed, the quality is never compromised,” says Mr. Jayakanth.

While institutions such as IIT- Madras subscribe to over 2,000 journals, many colleges under Anna University and University of Madras have access to just about 1,500 journals. “There is almost Rs.10 -12 lakh that the institution spends on journal subscriptions so unless there is funding, many self-financed colleges prefer not to subscribe to journals and go for a few mandatory ones prescribed by AICTE. Students and researchers have no way to acquaint themselves with recent updates,” says D. Krishnan, professor, Anna University.

Even if you go through consortiums, you have to spend Rs.20 lakh which many smaller R&D organisations cannot afford to, adds P. Ramamoorthy, librarian at Sameer- Centre for Electromagnetics, a government-funded research agency. “The restrictions imposed by many commercial publishers do not allow one to legally share the published output of his result with his colleague. Open access will relive authors of such hassles,” he says.

The original article was published in the Hindu

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/research-papers-in-public-domain

Documentation and Wikipedia Contribution — A One Day Workshop

praskrishna — 2013-11-12T04:20:37Z

On November 14, the CIS-A2K team is organizing a one day orientation workshop on 'Documentation and Wikipedia Contribution' at the Kalinga Institute of Social Studies (KISS), Bhubaneswar from 10.30 a.m. to 5.00 p.m.

ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆ ରୁ

ଭୁବନେଶ୍ୱରସ୍ଥିତ ଆଦିବାସୀ ଆବାସିକ ଅନୁଷ୍ଠାନ KISS (କଳିଙ୍ଗ ଇନଷ୍ଟିଚୁଟ ଅଫ ସୋସିଆଲ ଷ୍ଟଡିଜ)ଠାରେ ଏଠାକାର ଶିକ୍ଷକ ଓ ସ୍ନାତକୋତ୍ତର ଛାତ୍ରଛାତ୍ରୀମାନେ ଆଦିବାସୀମାନଙ୍କର ଭାଷା, ଚଳଣି ଓ ଜନ‌ଜୀବନ ବାବଦରେ ଅନେକ ଗବେଷଣାଭିତ୍ତିକ ପ୍ରସଙ୍ଗ ଏକାଧିକ ଭାଷାରେ ଲେଖିବାର ଏକ ପ୍ରକଳ୍ପ ଆରମ୍ଭ କରାଯାଇଛି । ପ୍ରାରମ୍ଭିକ ପର୍ଯ୍ୟାୟରେ ଏହି ନ‌ଥିକରଣ ତିନୋଟି ଭାଷାରେ (ଓଡ଼ିଆ, ଇଂରାଜୀ ଓ ହିନ୍ଦୀ)ରେ କରାଯାଇ KISS ୱେବସାଇଟରେ ଉପଲବ୍ଧ କରାଯିବ । ଏହି ପ୍ରସଙ୍ଗସମୂହ ଜ୍ଞାନ‌କୋଷ ପରିସରରେ ଥିବାରୁ ଏସବୁକୁ ଉଇକିକରଣ କରି ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆର ପ୍ରସଙ୍ଗସବୁକୁ ସମୃଦ୍ଧ କରିବା ନିମନ୍ତେ ଏହି ଏହି କର୍ମଶାଳାର ଆୟୋଜନ କରାଯାଇଛି । ନ‌ଭେମ୍ବର ୧୪ (ଗୁରବାର‌) ଦିନ ସକାଳ ୧୧:୦୦ ରେ ଅନୁଷ୍ଠିତ ହେବାକୁ ଥିବା ଏହି କର୍ମଶାଳାରେ ୧୨ ଜଣ ଶିକ୍ଷକ ଓ ୩୨ ଜଣ ସ୍ନାତକୋତ୍ତର ଯୋଗଦେଇ ଓଡ଼ିଆରେ ଟାଇପ କରିବା ଓ ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆ ବାବଦରେ ତାଲିମ ଗ୍ରହଣ କରିବେ ।

Click to read the full details published on the Wiki meta page here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/events/documentation-and-wikipedia-contribution

Tenth Anniversary of Kannada Wikipedia: Vijayavani Coverage

praskrishna — 2013-11-20T07:16:23Z

Vijayavani published a report of the forthcoming tenth anniversary celebration of Kannada Wikipedia on November 17.

The details of the event can be found here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/tenth-anniversary-kannada-wikipedia-vijayavani-report

October 2013 Bulletin

praskrishna — 2014-01-04T04:31:01Z

Our newsletter for the month of October 2013 can be accessed below.

Highlights

The National Resource Kit team is pleased to bring you its research for the states of Delhi, Madhya Pradesh and Arunachal Pradesh, and the Union Territory of Daman and Diu.
The Department of Electronics and Information Technology invited comments on the Framework on the proposed adoption of Open Source Software in E-Governance Systems. CIS gave its feedback.
The Access to Knowledge team in collaboration with the Goa University re-released the Konkani Vishwakosh under Creative Commons License CC-BY-SA-3.0.
Sunil Abraham, Pranesh Prakash and Chinmayi Arun participated in the Internet Governance Forum held in Bali, Indonesia from October 21 to 25. Overall CIS spoke in 7 panels.
In an article on Spy Files, Maria Xynou examines the legality of India’s surveillance technologies and their potential connection to India’s central monitoring system.
A clause-by-clause comments on the Working draft version of the Human DNA Profiling Bill, 2012 was sent to the Ministry of Science and Technology.
CIS started the first Privacy Watch in India. The map includes data on the UID, NPR and CCTNS schemes, installation of CCTV cameras and the use of drones throughout the country.

Accessibility

As part of our project (under a grant from the Hans Foundation) on creating a national resource kit of state-wise laws, policies and programmes on issues relating to persons with disabilities in India, we bring you draft chapters for the states of Madhya Pradesh and Arunachal Pradesh, and the union territory of Daman and Diu. With this we have completed compilation of draft chapters for 24 states and 5 union territories. Feedback and comments are invited from readers for the following chapters:

National Resource Kit

The Daman and Diu Chapter (by Anandhi Viswanathan, October 28, 2013).
The Arunachal Pradesh Chapter (by CLPR, October 29, 2013).
The Madhya Pradesh Chapter (by Anandhi Viswanathan, October 30, 2013).
The Delhi Chapter (by Anandhi Viswanathan, October 31, 2013).

Note: All of these are early drafts and will be reviewed and updated.

Survey (Other Organisation)

Accessibility of Banks and Financial Services Institutions: A Global Survey (posted by Nilofar Ansher, October 20, 2013). G3ict and Scotiabank, requests senior managers, COO / CEOs, Managing Directors, IT Directors, HR Directors, and accessibility professionals from banks and financial services companies to participate.

Blog Entry

Bengali eSpeak Aids in Disaster Management (by Anirudh Sridhar, October 15, 2013).

Access to Knowledge

The Access to Knowledge programme addresses the harms caused to consumers and human rights, and critically examines Open Government Data, Open Access to Scholarly Literature, and Open Access to Law, Open Content, Open Standards, and Free/Libre/Open Source Software. We produced a column in the Economic and Political Weekly, submitted our feedback on Framework on Open Source Software Adoption in E-Governance Systems, and conducted 3 Wikipedia workshops:

Article

The Fight for Digital Sovereignty (by Sunil Abraham, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol-XLVIII No. 42, October 19, 2013).

Blog Entries

Mobile Phone Patents: Prior Art Survey (by Nehaa Chaudhari, October 23, 2013).
Ambiguity in the App Store: Understanding India’s emerging IT sector in light of IP (by Samantha Cassar, October 24, 2013).

Submission

Feedback on the Framework on OSS Adoption in E-Governance Systems (by Nehaa Chaudhari, October 26, 2013). In September, 2013, the DeitY invited comments on the Framework on the proposed adoption of Open Source Software in E-Governance Systems. CIS gave its feedback.

Events Participated In

OSOD 2013: International Workshop on Open Science and Open Data (organised by Indian Statistical Institute, Bangalore, October 7, 2013). Nehaa Chaudhari participated as a panelist and gave a presentation on Government Accessibility and Copyright Conundrum.

National Conference on Opening up by Closing the Circle: Strengthening Open Access in India (co-organised by UNESCO, Central Library, Jawaharlal Nehru University and the Commonwealth Educational Media Centre for Asia, October 21, 2013). Nehaa Chaudhari was a panelist in the discussion on "Why Open Access?". She gave a presentation on 'Pondering Copyright and Recasting Openness'.

Note: The following has been done under grant from the Wikimedia Foundation (http://bit.ly/SPqFOl). As part this project (http://bit.ly/X80ELd), we held 3 Wikipedia workshops in October:

Event Co-organised

Re-release of Konkani Vishwakosh under CC-BY-SA 3.0 (organised by Goa University and CIS-A2K, Goa University Conference Hall, September 26, 2013). Nitika Tandon has blogged about the event.

Events Organised

Workshop on Wikipedia in the Indian Undergraduate Language Classrooms (October 1, 203, Christ University, Bangalore). Dr. U.B. Pavanaja conducted the workshop.
Train the Trainer — Four-day long Residential Programme (October 3 – 6, 2013, CEO Center, Gubbi, Bangalore. CIS-A2K Team conducted the workshop. Seventeen people participated in the event.
Konkani Vishwakosh Digitization (Goa University, October 19-20, 2013). CIS-A2K team conducted the workshop. Thirty-seven people participated in the event.

Events Participated In

Re-sourcing Indian Cinema: Humanities Research, New Archives and Collaborative Knowledge Production (organised by the Centre for Contemporary Studies and the Centre for Study of Culture and Society, October 29, 2013). T. Vishnu Vardhan gave a talk on “Let Cinephiles Collaborate: Pleasures and Perils of Indian Film History on Wikipedia”.

Media Coverage

CIS gave its inputs for the following media coverage:

Mangalore: Konkani writers resolve to form all-India forum at JKS conference (Daijiworld, October 1, 2013).
Wikipedia in Indian Languages on Mobile Phones (by Megha Prakash, Sci Dev Net, October 15, 2013).
कोंकणी विश्‍वकोश ‘विकिपीडिया’वर (Navprabha Daily, October 22, 2013). A detailed article about the digitalization of Konkani Vishwakosh.

Internet Governance

CIS is doing a project (under a grant from Privacy International and International Development Research Centre (IDRC)) on conducting research on surveillance and freedom of expression (SAFEGUARDS). So far we have organised seven privacy round-tables and drafted the Privacy (Protection) Bill. This month we bring you clause-by-clause comments on the Human DNA Profiling Bill, 2012, and a map monitoring privacy in India. As part of its project (funded by Citizen Lab, Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto and support from the IDRC) on mapping cyber security actors in South Asia and South East Asia we did an interview with Anja Kovacs on cyber security. With this we have completed a total of 10 video interviews:

Internet Governance Forum

Sunil Abraham, Pranesh Prakash and Chinmayi Arun participated in the Internet Governance Forum held in Bali, Indonesia in the month of October. Overall, CIS spoke in 7 panels:

Charting the Charter: Internet Rights and Principles Online (organised by IRP Coalition, October 22, 2013). Pranesh Prakash was a panelist.
Fair process frameworks for cross-border online spaces (organised by the Internet & Jurisdiction Project, Civil Society of France, Western Europe and Others Group and Internet & Jurisdiction Project, Civil Society of Germany, Western Europe and Others Group, October 22, 2013). Sunil Abraham and Chinmayi Arun were panelists for this workshop.
Removing Barriers to Connectivity: Connecting the Unconnected (organised by Internet Society and ETNO, October 23, 2013). Pranesh Prakash was a panelist.
FOSS: Smart Choice for Developing Countries (organised by TechNation and Open Source Alliance of Central Asia, October 23, 2013). Sunil Abraham spoke on FOSS and IT Growth Policies in South Asia.
Privacy: from regional regulations to global connections? (organised by Internet Society, Bali, October 24, 2013). Sunil Abraham was one of the panelists.
Human rights, freedom of expression and free flow of information on the Internet (a Focus Session on Openness, October 24, 2013). Pranesh Prakash was a speaker at this event.
Taking Stock: Emerging Issues - Internet Surveillance (a session on Internet Surveillance, October 25, 2013). Pranesh Prakash made intervention in this session.
Tweets from Bali IGF 2013: To enable research by those who didn't want to mess around with Twitter's APIs, CIS has made available tweets from the IGF as downloadable .CSV files.

Privacy

Magazine Article

What India can Learn from the Snowden Revelations (by Elonnai Hickok, Yahoo, October 23, 2013). The title of the article was changed in the version published by Yahoo.

Blog Entries

Concerns Regarding DNA Law (by Bhairav Acharya, October 9, 2013): http://bit.ly/1aoxXM9.
Interview with Big Brother Watch on Privacy and Surveillance (by Maria Xynou, October 15, 2013): http://bit.ly/1cRDMbV.
Interview with Bruce Schneier (by Maria Xynou, October 17, 2013): http://bit.ly/GS6oDX.
An Interview with the Tactical Technology Collective (by Maria Xynou, October 18, 2013): http://bit.ly/1i1lVNo.
Interview with Dr. Alexander Dix (by Maria Xynou, October 23, 2013): http://bit.ly/1a7dgtQ.
Open Letter to Members of the European Parliament of the Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs Committee (by Elonnai Hickok, October 23, 2013): http://bit.ly/17eZntz.
An Interview with Jacob Kohnstamm (by Elonnai Hickok, October 25, 2013): http://bit.ly/17NcQmD.
Spy Files 3: WikiLeaks Sheds More Light on the Global Surveillance Industry (by Maria Xynou, October 25, 2013): http://bit.ly/1d6EmjD.

Comments

Re: The Human DNA Profiling Bill, 2012 (by Bhairav Acharya, October 9, 2013). CIS provided clause-by-clause comments on the on the Working Draft version of the Human DNA Profiling Bill: http://bit.ly/17Jpp63.

Announcement

The India Privacy Monitor Map (by Maria Xynou with assistance from Srinivas Atreya, October 9, 2013). CIS has started a first of its kind Privacy Watch in India. The map includes data on the UID, NPR and CCTNS schemes, as well as on the installation of CCTV cameras and the use of drones throughout the country: http://bit.ly/19A5mCZ.

Event Organised

Privacy Round-table, New Delhi (organised by FICCI, DSCI and CIS, FICCI, Federation House, Tansen Marg, New Delhi, October 19, 2013): http://bit.ly/GAsStr.

Event Participated In

'Free Speech and Media in South Asia: Human Rights Concerns in a Globalizing World (organised by the Programme in Comparative Media Law and Policy, Centre for Socio-Legal Studies, University of Oxford, in collaboration with the Centre for Media and Governance, National Law University, Delhi, Oxford University, October 25, 2013). Chinmayi Arun spoke about “Privacy and Surveillance in India” in a panel discussion: http://bit.ly/18bRGi5.

Cyber Security

Laird Brown, a strategic planner and writer with core competencies on brand analysis, public relations and resource management and Purba Sarkar who in the past worked as a strategic advisor in the field of SAP Retail are working in this project:

Part 11: An Interview with Anja Kovacs (October 15, 2013): http://bit.ly/15EAZOE.

Other IG Updates
Event Organised

Mapping Digital Media: Broadcasting, Journalism and Activism in India (co-organised by Alternative Law Forum, Maraa and CIS, Bangalore International Centre, October 27, 2013). Samantha Cassar has blogged about the event: http://bit.ly/17EVtdw. It was covered by the New Indian Express (http://bit.ly/1dGENE6) and Hindu (http://bit.ly/1bcVUIU) on October 28.

Events Participated In

Religious Pluralism and the Tensions between Freedom of Expression and Respect for the 'Other’ (organised by Reset-Dialogues on Civilizations project, in cooperation with Jamia Millia Islamia, India Habitat Centre, New Delhi, October 10, 2013). Chinmayi Arun was a speaker at the session on “Democracy and the Tension between Freedom of Speech and Respect for the Other’s Religion, Culture, Identity, India and Europe”: http://bit.ly/194dtI7.
Fragmentation in a Democracy: The Role of Social Movements and the Media (organised by the Observer Research Foundation, Delhi and Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung, Berlin at Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi, October 16, 2013). Sunil Abraham was a panelist in the session on “Impact of Media, Social Media & Technology on Democracy / Governance”: http://bit.ly/17e3PZ9.
Internet, Mobile & Digital Economy Conference (IMDEC) 2013 (organised by FICCI, in association with the Ministry of Communications & IT, Government of India, New Delhi, October 25, 2013). Sunil Abraham participated as a speaker in the session on "The Internet We Want: A Multistakeholder Approach": http://bit.ly/1b8QHDD.

New and Media Coverage

CIS gave its inputs to the following media coverage:

Decline in web freedom steepest in India: Report (by Javed Anwer, The Times of India, October 3, 2013): http://bit.ly/1cVOJ99.
Google survey: 37% of urban Indian voters are online (by Anuja and Moulishree Srivastava, Livemint, October 8, 2013): http://bit.ly/1gtqqDY.
The quest for genuine clout on the internet (by Karthik Subramanian, October 13, 2013): http://bit.ly/1b8TdKa.
India believes in Complete Freedom of Cyber Space: Kapil Sibal (by Elizabeth Roche, Livemint, October 14, 2013): http://bit.ly/1fZgwd1.
Location Tracking: Why the Govt-Mobile Manufacturer War Won’t End Soon (by Danish Raza, FirstPost, October 15, 2013): http://bit.ly/HkIvF7.
Bouquets & brickbats for Google's new privacy policy (by Indu Nandakumar, Economic Times, October 18, 2013): http://bit.ly/18Rzkqm.
Bali meet to discuss Internet governance issues (by Moulishree Srivastava, October 22, 2013): http://bit.ly/17I4r3M.
Indian politicians yet to tap voters online: CIS’s Abraham (by Venkatesh Upadhyay, Livemint, October 22, 2013): http://bit.ly/17HRV4s.
Beyond the Searchlight (by Debarshi Dasgupta, October 23, 2013): http://bit.ly/17IitlZ.
Nowhere to hide: Govt making your personal details public (by FirstPost editors, FirstPost, October 28, 2013): http://bit.ly/1dGE6KJ.
Your private data may be online, courtesy govt (by Somesh Jha and Surabhi Agarwal, Business Standard, October 29, 2013): http://bit.ly/HpQRMp.
Saving privacy as we knew it (by Somesh Jha and Surabhi Agarwal, Business Standard, October 29, 2013): http://bit.ly/16HNYwu.
E-governance hopes rise as India crosses 1 billion transactions (by J Srikant, Economic Times, October 29, 2013): http://bit.ly/1cnJIKd.

Digital Humanities

CIS is building research clusters in the field of Digital Humanities. The Digital will be used as a way of unpacking the debates in humanities and social sciences and look at the new frameworks, concepts and ideas that emerge in our engagement with the digital. The clusters aim to produce and document new conversations and debates that shape the contours of Digital Humanities in Asia:

Events Participated In

GFM 2013 (organized by the University of Luneberg, Germany, October 3 – 5, 2013). Dr. Nishant Shah participated in a panel discussion with Wendy Chun, Tom Levine and Geert Lovink, around 'The End of Bibliographies: New Media and Research'. Nishant also participated as a panelist in a panel discussion on 'Open Up: Pragmatism and Politics of Open Access': http://bit.ly/1f9LCOH.
Digitalization of Culture (organized by Leuphana University, Luneberg, October 8, 2013). Dr. Nishant Shah did an introduction keynote to 1600 undergraduate students. A video of the lecture can be accessed here: http://bit.ly/1enWQPv.
RENEW: The 5th International Conference on the Histories of Media Art, Science and Technology (hosted by RIXC Centre for New Media Culture in Riga in partnership with the Art Academy of Latvia, Stockholm School of Economics in Riga and Danube University’s Center for Image Science, October 8 - 11, 2013). Dr. Nishant Shah was a part of the selection committee for the conference and chaired a session on Network Art on October 9: http://bit.ly/17e41aJ.

Blog Entry

A Hitchhikers Guide to the Cyberspace (by Anirudh Sridhar, October 4, 2013): http://bit.ly/1ga8yfH.

Knowledge Repository on Internet Access

CIS in partnership with the Ford Foundation is executing a project to create a knowledge repository on Internet and society. This repository will comprise content targeted primarily at civil society with a view to enabling their informed participation in the Indian Internet and ICT policy space. The repository is available at the Internet Institute website: http://bit.ly/1iQT2UB.

Modules

World Intellectual Property Organisation (by Anirudh Sridhar and Snehashish Ghosh, October 31, 2013). WIPO is a specialized agency of the United Nations which deals with issues related to intellectual property rights throughout the world. Find out more at http://bit.ly/17a8WEk.
An Interview on Internet Governance with Professor Milton Mueller and Jeremy Malcolm (by Anirudh Sridhar, October 31, 2013). Professor Milton Mueller from the Syracuse University School of Information and Jeremy Malcolm, an Information Technology and Intellectual Property Lawyer, spoke about current issues and debates surrounding internet governance: http://bit.ly/17ix3Ro.

About CIS
The Centre for Internet and Society is a non-profit research organization that works on policy issues relating to freedom of expression, privacy, accessibility for persons with disabilities, access to knowledge and IPR reform, and openness (including open government, FOSS, open standards, etc.), and engages in academic research on digital natives and digital humanities.

Follow us elsewhere

Twitter: https://twitter.com/CISA2K

Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/cisa2k

Visit us at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge

E-mail: a2k@cis-india.org

Support Us
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.

Request for Collaboration:
We invite researchers, practitioners, and theoreticians, both organisationally and as individuals, to collaboratively engage with Internet and society and improve our understanding of this new field. To discuss the research collaborations, write to Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, at sunil@cis-india.org or Nishant Shah, Director – Research, at nishant@cis-india.org. To discuss collaborations on Indic language wikipedia, write to T. Vishnu Vardhan, Programme Director, A2K, at vishnu@cis-india.org

CIS is grateful to its donors, Wikimedia Foundation, Ford Foundation, Privacy International, UK, Hans Foundation and the Kusuma Trust which was founded by Anurag Dikshit and Soma Pujari, philanthropists of Indian origin, for its core funding and support for most of its projects.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/october-2013-bulletin

Wikipedia Training Session @ Tiruvur

praskrishna — 2014-01-09T09:52:42Z

A Wikipedia training session was conducted by T. Vishnu Vardhan and Rahmanuddin Shaik at Srivahini College in Tiruvur on December 19, 2013.

About 150 - 200 people attended in each of the two sessions. The event was co-organised by CIS-A2K and the Telugu Wikipedia community.


Above: T. Vishnu Vardhan addressing students at the Srivahini college in Tiruvur.

The following newspapers covered the event on December 19, 2013:

Awareness on Wikipedia, Andhraprabha, December 19, 2013
Wikipedia Helps Spread Knowledge, Eenadu, December 19, 2013
The Many Uses of Wikipedia, Sakshi, December 19, 2013
Awareness on Wikipedia, Prajasakthi, December 19, 2013

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/wikipedia-training-session-tiruvur

Plan for open access to science research

praskrishna — 2014-07-25T07:07:15Z

The policy is open to comments from the public till July 25.

The article by Renuka Phadnis was published in the Hindu on July 22, 2014. T. Vishnu Vardhan gave his inputs.

Ever felt frustrated while reading a science research journal online, only to see the message “to continue reading, subscribe now”? That may soon change.

The Department of Science and Technology and the Department of Biotechnology (DBt) under the Ministry of Science and Technology have drafted a policy that says publicly-funded scientific work published in science journals must adhere to open access (OA) norms, enabling anyone to read online content on science research for free.

OA is an initiative of Open Archives Initiative (OAI), an organisation which works for greater reach and free access to online science research funded by public money.

T. Vishnu Vardhan, Programme Director, Access to Knowledge, Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore, which assisted DST in drawing up the draft policy, said that in the absence of OA norms, commercial publishers were making money with content generated by scientists who used public funds for research.

However, those sceptical of the DST initiative are asking whether availability on the Net is equivalent to “public domain”. Concerns have also been raised about the quality of content provided through OA, as honing raw research material into scholarly journals requires rigour that commands a cost. Ramakrishna Ramaswamy, Fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences, Hyderabad, said it was much more important to make reliable information available to the public, at a reasonable charge, because “the price of keeping it free has a cost”. The draft of the DBT-DST Open Access Policy is open to comments from the public till July 25.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/the-hindu-july-22-2014-renuka-phadnis-plan-for-open-access-to-science-research

Indian Govt looks to provide free access to publicly-funded research works

praskrishna — 2014-07-28T05:34:37Z

Sunil Abraham gave his inputs to the blog entry published in Medianama on July 23, 2014.

Department of Biotechnology (DBT) and Department of Science and Technology (DST), under the Ministry of Science and Technology recently released (pdf) the draft of what is termed as Open Access Policy and has invited comments from the public until July 25, reports The Times of India. Comments can be submitted to madhan@dbt.nic.in.

The objective of this policy is to provide unrestricted access to research work funded by the departments. The draft states that since all funds disbursed by DBT and DST are public funds, it is important that the information and knowledge generated through the use of these funds are made publicly available as soon as possible.

As per the draft, DBT/DST will be creating a central repository wherein grantees can either publish their papers in an open-access journal or post the final accepted manuscript to an online repository. This includes papers funded by the two departments in 2012-13 as well as review articles invited by DBT/DST or author initiated that received funding from these departments.

The draft suggests that the full text of the research paper and metadata of all research projects fully or partially funded by DBT/DST or the projects that utilised infrastructure built with the support of DBT/DST will have to be made publicly available, failing which they wouldn’t be considered for future grants or fellowship opportunities among others.

The department believes that providing free access to these publications through gratis open access repository will enable increasing the distribution of these publications and will ensure that these research can be read and built upon.

Copyright of research papers: The draft also sheds light on copyright issues. It states that research work produced by a scientist as an employee of a government body or private institution the copyright would remain with the respective government body or private institution. However, following the final acceptance of the paper by any journal, it has to be deposited in an open access repository within a period of one week.

The author of the research paper will retain the right to reproduce, distribute, publicly perform, and publicly display the article in any medium for non-commercial purposes. They can also prepare derivative works from the article, and authorise others to make any non-commercial use of the article with credit.

Implications: This is a godsend for students, teachers and institutions that don’t have the means to purchase expensive academic journals. Sunil Abraham, executive director of Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) told TOI that the idea is that taxpayers shouldn’t pay twice to access research funded by taxpayers’ money.

Earlier developments in Open Data

In August 2013 the Department of School Education and Literacy, Ministry of Human Resource Development, the Central Institute of Educational Technology (CIET), and National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) had launched an initiative called National Repository of Open Educational Resources (NROER). The objective was to provide free educational resources to school students under the Creative Common license.

The Union Cabinet had cleared the DST formulated National Data Sharing and Accessibility Policy (NPDSA) back in February 2012. NPDSA was supposed to increase accessibility and ease sharing of non-sensitive data amongst the registered users and their availability for scientific, economic and social developmental purposes. However, very little has been reported on how NPDSA was utilised since then.

Click to read the article published in Medianama here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/medianama-july-23-2014-riddhi-mukherjee-indian-govt-looks-to-provide-free-access-to-public-funded-research-works

Kannada Wikipedia Presentation

praskrishna — 2014-08-06T09:57:48Z

The following is a scanned copy of the media coverage for the Kannada Wikipedia presentation at the Kannada Science Writers workshop at Gulbarga on July 29,2014, in Gulbarga edition of Vijayavani Kannada daily, dated July 30.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/kannada-wikipedia-presentation-vijayavani-coverage