Centre for Internet and Society

Arduino Introductory Workshop at CIS

Priya Kuber — 2012-05-01T07:50:08Z

The Centre for Internet & Society organised a hands-on-free Arduino workshop in its office on March 3, 2012. Video is now online!

The month of March in 2012 has been an eventful month for hardware enthusiasts in Bangalore. With open source hardware catching up in a big way, a free workshop on "An introduction to Arduino" seemed to be the perfect choice. Its announcement drew a considerable response. The audience was filtered from various backgrounds. Pramode CE[1] of Recursive Labs[2] covered most of the basics, beginning with the basics of arduino to how the code interacts with the sensors. Starting with flashing LEDs to the use of serial port to basic sensors like LDRs he took around the whole basic system with ease. Click for more details.

About 20 people participated in this workshop. These included interaction designers, artists and those enthusiastic to get started with creative projects but with no prior experience with electronics, interfacing and all that hack talk. The workshop provided a general understanding of instructional programming languages, and served as a platform for creative people who didn't have a technical background but wanted to translate their wildest techno-ideas to reality in a snap.

The event also marked the beginning of the CIS hack-lab.

VIDEOS

[1].https://twitter.com/#!/pramode_ce
[2]. http://recursive-labs.com/

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/arduino-workshop-report

‘Some Indian laws could be challenging’

praskrishna — 2012-11-19T04:40:46Z

Wikipedia’s founder member Erik Möller says their principle is not to decide the map of India, but to explain that there is a controversy.

This article was published in Bangalore Mirror on November 15, 2012.

Erik Möller, vice-president engineering and product development, Wikimedia Foundation, is one of the founder members of Wikipedia, along with Jimmy Wales, since it started in 2001. Möller was in Bangalore over the weekend to speak at a technical seminar at the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), a local chapter of Wikimedia. He spoke about India’s role in the growth of Wikipedia not just in the sub-continent, but globally.

BM: How significant is India in the Wikipedia movement?
EM: Very significant and growing. I don’t have the data on exact number of editors based in India. However currently, 2.4 per cent of all Wikipedia edits globally are made from India. As a comparison, the UK’s is 6.5 per cent. India has overtaken Australia and (narrowly) Brazil since last year. In the 2011 fundraiser, India reached the top 10 of countries giving to the Wikimedia Foundation, with 39,000 donors from India giving the equivalent of $360,468. The 2012 fundraiser will be launched in a few days. (Interestingly, India is the only developing nation in the Top 10 contributing nations).

Does the financial support from India surprise you?
Of course not. You are a country of a billion people (laughs). I think Wikipedia appeals to a lot of cultural sensibilities, sharing of knowledge and culture. I think people here want to share.

Where does India stand in the future of Wikipedia’s roadmap?
India was identified as one of three global priority areas in our 2010-15 strategic plan (alongside Brazil and Arabic language countries). While there are active Wikipedia communities in many Asian countries, India continues to be the Foundation’s main focus area in (non-Arabic) Asia through the “Access To Knowledge (A2K)” programme conducted by CIS as our local partner, funded via a grant from the Wikimedia Foundation.

From the standpoint of freedom to internet access, what do you think of Indian laws?

Depending on your interpretation, specific laws in India could be challenging, particularly in areas of mapping (geographically). We are concerned about those things, but have to run with it. We consider ourselves specifically (governed by) US laws from where we are legally published. But then, Wiki is not an advocacy organisation that goes around telling people which politician to vote for. As Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales said, it’s very important all people become educated on the issues. It’s not up to us to decide what’s the correct map of India, of course, but it is up to us to explain there is a controversy.

Are you constantly bombarded with litigation world over?

Surprisingly not.

What are the big developments happening in Wikipedia?

We are currently running two pilot projects – Wikidata and Wikivoyage. For example, today you can find out the GDP of each country on Wikipedia but cannot query and arrange countries by GDP size. Wikidata will allow you to do that. Similarly, Wikivoyage will provide matter-of-fact information on local sites that are of interest to travellers.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/bangalore-mirror-article-kalyan-subramani-nov-15-2012-some-indian-laws-could-be-challenging

Profit by Sharing: Anatomy of an Open Source Hardware Business

praskrishna — 2012-10-17T09:58:06Z

Ian Lesnet, founder of DangerousPrototypes will give a lecture on open hardware and open source at the Centre for Internet & Society office in Bengaluru on October 24, 2012, 3.00 p.m. to 5.00 p.m.

Dangerous Prototypes

Dangerous Prototypes started as a hobby on a kitchen table, but now five team members develop new open source electronics projects every month. Open source hardware means every part of an electronic device design can be changed and reused in other projects. Despite giving everything away to users and competitors, open source hardware businesses still flourish. Learn how Dangerous Prototypes started, our development process, the underlying open source business philosophy, and how the business is structured today.

Key Concepts

Open hardware businesses grow by sharing. Companies share design information with customers, the customers create communities that give improvements and fixes back to the company. Sharing is mutually beneficial to the company and community.

An open development process is a further extension of open hardware. The company designs products publicly, with active support and input from the community. Sharing extends to design review, improvements, and even testing before the project is launched.

Ian Lesnet

Ian builds a new open hardware project every month at DangerousPrototypes.com. Copies of the projects are available from Seeed Studio's open hardware manufacturing service.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/events/anatomy-of-an-open-source-hardware-business

Comments on the Statistical Disclosure Control Report

Srinivs Kodali and Amber Sinha — 2019-03-13T00:28:44Z

This submission presents comments by the Centre for Internet and Society, India (“CIS”) on the Statistical Disclosure Control Report published on March 30th by Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation.

1. PRELIMINARY

CIS is thankful for the opportunity to put forth its views.
This submission is divided into three main parts. The first part, ‘Preliminary’, introduces the document; the second part, ‘About CIS’, is an overview of the organization; and, the third part contains the ‘Comments’.

2. ABOUT CIS

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, freedom of speech and expression, intermediary liability, digital privacy, and cybersecurity.

CIS values the fundamental principles of justice, equality, freedom and economic development. This submission is consistent with CIS' commitment to these values, the safeguarding of general public interest and the protection of India's national interest at the international level. Accordingly, the comments in this submission aim to further these principles.

3. Comments

3.1 General Comments

As a non-profit organisation we recognize the importance of the efforts by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) to make the data you collect available to the public in open formats with relevant information about reliability of statistical estimates.

We at CIS have recently released a report titled “Information Security Practices of Aadhaar (or lack thereof): A documentation of public availability of Aadhaar Numbers with sensitive personal financial information”. We encountered several central and state government departments collecting socioeconomic data from citizens, linking it with Aadhaar and even publishing them in exportable data formats like EXCEL and MS ACCESS Databases. While we understand this issue primarily concerns to Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), the lack of standards around information/statistical disclosure are a general threat to transparency in a democracy and privacy of individuals. Going through the report we understand the committee is unable to prescribe a standard for other ministries and departments until they try and pilot these standards within Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation. This delay in prescribing the standards can be really dangerous in the current circumstances of massive data collection by government departments and linking all the databases with a unique identifier, Aadhaar Number. At the same time we understand the importance of data dissemination to be carried out and we recommend the following for improving the standards around data disclosure control.

3.2 Integrity of Information and Data

We agree with the committee that the error rates need to be kept in mind while designing practices to convert raw data. But we request the process of changes being made be actively measured and documented. In case of errors being computed, guidelines can be made to decrease the possibilities of misinterpretation of errors causing loss of integrity of information. Statistics are important for decision making in governance, errors in computations can be biased towards millions of people. Statistical biases are important to be looked into while converting data from its raw format to make sure there are no damage caused by information.

3.3 Data Security

One of the important issues around storage and publication of Aadhaar information is the lack of masking standards. With the availability of data from multiple departments, it is possible to reconstruct identification details by linking data from multiple databases. It is recommended to bring masking standards while personally identifiable micro data is being published. There is an urgent need for departments to also look at auditing access to information and tracking sharing of information. It is recommended the department digitally signs all the information and documents being published or shared by them to keep track of who had accessed the information and verifying the authenticity of information.

We request the department to define what exactly is “usage for statistical purposes only” and recommend standards to control and restrict usage of information for this purpose. It is important they design frameworks or mechanisms to allow others to report violations around this. This process should be transparent and documented heavily.

3.4 Anonymization of microdata

We recommend the data being collected be anonymized at source to evade the possibility of the accidental disclosure of personally identifiable information. While the current anonymization efforts have been helpful, with steady increase in data mining and classification algorithms and practices it is recommended to evolve the standards around this area.

3.5 Data Dissemination

Data dissemination is an important aspect for district statistics officers, we recommend they actively communicate their work through monthly newsletters, quarterly workshops to help improve the conversations around statistics and at the same time engage with the users who would benefit from the data.

We also recommend that data when being published includes metadata of collection, modification, storage and other important information. Also the information needs to be published in open formats which does not require proprietary software to be used to open them. At the same time data should be published in multiple formats like CSV, XLS, PDF,

The committee also recognizes the need for having data users part of discussions around important decisions and be part of committees. We would like the department to recognize our efforts and consider us for future committee representations.

Thank you for this opportunity and we look forward to work with you in future.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/comments-on-the-statistical-disclosure-control-report

Train The Trainer 2017

Manasa Rao — 2017-06-07T08:43:19Z

The Centre for Internet and Society’s Access to Knowledge program conducted its annual flagship event, Train The Trainer(TTT), between 19 to 22 February, 2017 at Jayamahal Palace, Bengaluru. The three day residential workshop focussed on training participants to develop the skills and attributes required for conducting events and outreach activities while also, eventually, taking on leadership roles within their respective language communities. The aim of the program is to groom such leadership skills among the Indian Wikimedia community members. 19 participants from nine different language communities from the Indian subcontinent attended the workshop.

The pre-event session on the evening of the 19th consisted of fun games for participants to break the ice and get to know one another. As the evening wound down, the participants, who were invited to bring sweets and savouries from their cities and towns, set up a sweets table. This activity was inspired from Wikimedia Deutschland's candy table at Wikimedia Conference 2015. The idea is to hold an exciting sweet tasting session as the participants attend the workshop. Participants enthusiastically shared trivia about the delicacies they brought to the event and exchanged notes on the various recipes.

Sweets table at TTT 2017/ Image By Manasa Rao/ CC-BY-SA 4.0

Day 1: Introductory discussions, event planning & WikiConference India case study

The first day of the workshop started with a welcome address from the organisers and a formal introductory session for all those present. The participants introduced themselves and spoke about the one Wikipedian they are most inspired by. This was a platform for both participants and organisers to understand each other and their motivation to be a part of the free knowledge movement. Participants also shared the nature of their work on Wikimedia and their pet projects. Most importantly, they spoke about the challenges they have overcome in their journey as a Wikipedian. Pabitra Kumar Panda(User:pkp05) of Odia Wikipedia spoke about how he began editing Wikipedia on his phone using public hotspots in his city(Puri). “I love editing Wikipedia so much that I used to sit for hours together and edit on the street using the wi-fi available. I completely lost track of time,” he said. Another participant, Sumita Roy(User: Sumita Roy Dutta), spoke of how she learned to combine her love for trekking and Wikipedia. She uploads extensively categorised photos on Wikimedia Commons from every trek in order to help potential trekkers or travellers who may wander off the beaten path in the Himalayas.

The interaction gradually transitioned into an activity where participants were asked to present their expectations over the next few days and for the year ahead. Participants were divided into five groups with one CIS-A2K team member at each table to facilitate discussions or clarify doubts. Sanskrit Wikipedian Sidharth Dhodapkar(User:Siddharthdhodapkar) pointed out that while focussing on language communities is important, general outreach activities should also be conducted simultaneously so as to not miss out languages like Sanskrit that are rarely spoken today. Suyash Dwivedi(User:Suyash.dwivedi), an active contributor to Wikimedia Commons, stated that the need of the hour was localisation of global best practices that serve as a guideline for volunteers across Indic language Wikipedias.

Participants presenting their group projects/ Image By Indrajit Das/ CC-BY-SA 3.0

Notably, many participants brought up the need for a more concentrated Wikipedia effort in the domain of education in India. Paramjit Singh(User:param munde), a school teacher from Punjab explained how his students would stand to benefit from a reliable learning platform available online. “We need to explore ways by which we can convert Wikipedia articles into basic educational resources at the school level, keeping Indic languages in mind,” he said. Frederick Noronha(User:Fredericknoronha), a journalist from Panaji and English Wikipedia contributor, urged the participants to tap into digital resources already made available by the National Council of Educational Research and Training. Adding to that, Dr. Manavpreet Kaur, Punjabi Wikipedian and forensic scientist, said that students can be taught animal kingdoms, for example, with the help of “Categories” (of photos) on Wikimedia Commons. Reiterating the need for expert knowledge on subjects, Ramakrishna Reddy Palagiri(User: Palagiri) pointed out that these subject expert articles must be translated across the Indic language Wikipedias. These interactions helped the CIS-A2K team understand the various ways in which we can expand our support providing infrastructure to the Indic language communities.

The first master class session began with CIS-A2K team members, Tanveer Hasan and Tito Dutta, talking about Wikimedia Foundation grants. They elaborated on the two types of grants offered by WMF: individual grants and grants for groups and organisations. They answered questions about the practical nature of processing the grants and the expenses covered by these grants. Participants seemed most interested in the procedure of applying to and receiving the Rapid Project Grant that is commonly requested for edit-a-thons, contests, equipments and events, with a funding of USD 1500- 2000 approximately.

This was followed by a session on “Essentials of Conducting an Event” by long time Wikipedian (Retd.) Col. Ashwin Baindur. The session mapped the connect between the spirit of conducting an event and the logistical challenges trainers and volunteers must be prepared to face. He pointed out that professional administrative support and preparedness leads to Wikipedians feeling a sense of purpose. He related a quote from his personal experience and said, “the more you sweat in peace(i.e.planning and preparation), the less you bleed in war(i.e. the actual event). Participants were glad the presentation touched upon new topics such as generating enthusiasm through pre-work, dividing participants into groups so as to facilitate healthy exchanges and following up with sharing of the event’s documentary resources and feedback.

The day came to an end with Dr. Manavpreet Kaur’s presentation on WikiConference India. She put forth a case study on how they prepared for and conducted the pan India event in 2016. This presentation went through the administrative process and challenges as well as tips that helped conduct such a large scale conference.

Day 2: Excursion to Cubbon Park & the Wikipedian’s ethos

Participants at Cubbon Park/ Image By Manasa Rao/ CC-BY-SA 4.0

The second day involved an excursion for the participants who were geared up to go to Cubbon Park, Bangalore. This was a nature walk conducted by long time Wikipedian, Shyamal Lakshminarayan(User:Shyamal). The organic discussions that took place during the excursion surrounded conducting photo-thons and GLAM activities that drew on local heritage and biodiversity. The participants visited the Government Museum near the park and Shyamal explained the importance of knowing about the available resources of knowledge for every Wikipedian. “It’s cheaper to put wrong information on the web, so physically visiting libraries to find relevant information will help you judge the credibility of a source,” he said. At the late afternoon session back at the conference venue, participants were introduced to the Internet Archive while Col. Baindur helped the participants understand easy reference templates. Participants were even taught hacks that they could use to cultivate new editors. For example, while uploading Commons images with different categories is important, someone who doesn’t know how to do it may still upload the images with the basic categories so that other users may add detailed categories. A new Wikimedian may initially find this useful as he/she is learning the ropes. Reflecting on the morning’s excursion, the participants were encouraged to ponder on the more philosophical question: how does knowledge on Wikipedia reflect the reality around us?

Day 3: Global Initiatives, Gender Gap Bridging on Indic Wikipedias & Feedback

The final day of Train The Trainer 2017 began with a masterclass on global initiatives that the participants could learn from and adapt to their communities. Some of the methodologies for improving community consultation were discussed such as needs assessment, outreach activities and surveys. The participants (who would all ideally be prepared to take on the role of trainers) were introduced to Learning Patterns and how they could document the lessons they have learned regardless of the outcome of their event. Another global strategy, global engagement, was also discussed in detail. Participants were asked to make the fullest use of traditional and social media in promoting their events, whether online or offline. Participants were introduced to Share-A-Fact, an inbuilt option on the Wikipedia mobile application which allows the sharing of any sentence or phrase as per the reader’s choice from a Wikipedia article onto any social media or email application. This is imposed over a photo from the article along with a link to the article itself. Participants who were active on social media pointed out that the social media handle of CIS-A2K team had shared these quick facts during the excursion the previous day.

Ravi Ayakannu conducting a session on photo contests/ Image By Indrajit Das/ CC-BY-SA 3.0

Following this, Ravi Ayakannu, long time Tamil Wikipedia community member held a session on conducting photo contests such as Wiki Loves Monuments and Wiki Loves Food. He explained that these are held online and help keep the volunteers motivated without requiring their physical presence. Mr. Ayakannu advised the participants to be inclusive in their approach to awarding best photos such as awards for diversity, creativity, etc. He suggested that organisers must give themselves ample time before adjudging the photos and the organisers could involve someone from Commons. "These contests would also get professional non-Wikimedian photographers involved and hence produce high quality images", he added. For promoting the photo contest, Mr. Ayakannu suggested site banners on Wikipedia.

The final session of the workshop was on Wikipedia and Women. Ting Yi Chang, CIS-A2K research intern, working on exploring ways to bridge the gender gap on Indian Wikipedias conducted the session. Participants were introduced to global initiatives for bridging both the women-related content and male to female editor ratio gap on Wikipedia. While speaking on her soon to be published gender gap bridging toolkit(inspired by User:Keilana's Systemic bias kit) for Indic Wikipedias, Ting Yi noted, "women are not periphery subjects and we must avoid treating it as such." Participants appeared interested to learn about projects such as Women in Red that makes an effort to add women-related content on Wikipedia. The session also reminded participants to organize community events during commemorative events such as Women's History Month in March. The following are a few global initiatives on Gender Gap Bridging:

1. Women's History Month

2. Art and Feminism

3. Wiki Women's User Group

The session was followed by activities that were aimed at sensitizing the participants and urging them to think critically on issues they could potentially face as organizers, both on and off wiki, regarding the participation of women or women-related content. The session came to an end with a free-wheeling discussion among participants about the various scenarios, biases and mindsets they need to be aware of while attempting to bridge the gender gap on Wikipedia and related projects.

As the three day event drew to a close, the participants shared some of their key takeaways and follow-up action points which included cross-community collaborations and mentorship at least at the regional level, encouraging informal/ semi-formal opportunities for community members to mingle and share their ideas with one another among others.

To watch videos of the event, please click here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/train-the-trainer-2017

Digitisation, Wikimedia Commons and Wikisource Orientation Workshop at Vigyan Ashram, Pabal, Pune District

Subodh Kulkarni — 2017-06-07T08:37:48Z

A digitization workshop was held at Vigyan Ashram, following the success of the introductory workshop in February.

On 5 February, an introductory Wikipedia orientation program was held in partnership with Vigyan Ashram, for 15 youths from Pabal and surrounding villages in Shirur, Maharashtra. Given the keen interest and enthusiasm of the participants, a follow up workshop was held on 3 April, 2017.

This workshop was attended by 30 participants who were trained on Wikimedia projects such as Wikimedia Commons and Wikisource. They were given an orientation on digitization and OCR tools as well. The workshop aims to enable the training of resource persons who can go onto be employed at libraries and museums in order to help with their digitization efforts. The scanning of old encyclopedias in Marathi has also been proposed for the Wiktionary project.

Participants were taught how to upload books from the Internet Archive to Wikimedia Commons. Subsequently,there was also a demonstration of transferring books from Commons to Wikisource. There are two ways of doing this: the page by page OCR process or converting a complete book through OCR4Wikisource. As OCRS4Wikisource program runs only on Linux, limitation of machines at the event was a hurdle in providing all the participants a hands on experience. Therefore, the scanning activity could not be completed.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/digitisation-wikimedia-commons-and-wikisource-orientation-workshop-at-vigyan-ashram-pabal-pune-district

Marathi Wikipedia Symposium at Gokhale Institute Of Politics & Economics

Subodh Kulkarni — 2017-06-07T08:45:18Z

A strategic symposium on Marathi Wikipedia and its sister projects was conducted on 29 April, 2017

The Marathi Wikipedia community held a symposium at the Gokhale Instititute of Politics and Economics on 29 April, 2017. This was an attempt to bring together various stakeholders for developing a strategic plan for Marathi language wiki projects such as Wikipedia, and especially Marathi Wikisource and Wiktionary. Over 70 persons were involved in the strategic planning efforts to take Wikisource and Wiktionary to existing Marathi Wikipedians and the general public at large. Eminent ecologist, Prof. Madhav Gadgil served as a resource persons for this event.

Gokhale Institute Of Politics & Economics and Rawat's Nature Academy took lead in organising this symposium. CIS-A2K facilitated the process. A total of 50 eminent personalities from various fields such as literature, linguistics, journalism, science forums, publishers, librarians, State Language & Culture Department honchos, active citizen forums working on different issues etc. took active part in the proceedings. They aim to act as anchors in future. According to the needs of Wikimedia projects, 12 Action Groups have been formed. Planning further sessions for May and June has begun over a common email thread.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/marathi-wikipedia-symposium-at-gokhale-institute-of-politics-economics

Thematic Edit-a-thon at J.P.Naik Centre for Education & Development, Pune

Subodh Kulkarni — 2017-06-07T08:59:43Z

A Marathi Wikipedia workshop was held at the J.P. Naik Centre for Education and Development in Pune recently.

A Marathi Wikipedia workshop was conducted in conjunction with VIgyan Ashram, a social work organization on 9 May, 2017. This was held at the J.P. Naik Centre for Education and Development. Vigyan Ashram conducts courses on Introduction to Basic Technology (IBT) or Multi Skill Foundation Course in various schools for integrating socially useful productive work with school curriculum. The goal of Wikipedia edit-a-thon was to attempt to integrate these objectives with Wikipedia Education Program and develop long term strategies. It also aims to build resources in the field of appropriate rural technologies on Marathi Wikipedia and equip its participants with the skills necessary to contribute to Wikipedia.

A total of 23 IBT coordinators from 18 schools(of 9 districts) participated in the workshop.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/thematic-edit-a-thon-at-j-p-naik-centre-for-education-development-pune

Cancel the Subscription

Subbiah Arunachalam — 2012-05-09T03:44:50Z

It has been a slow but steady move to make scholarship freely available, writes Prof. Arunachalam in an article published by the Indian Express on May 8, 2012.

Most of us spend a few hundred rupees a year on the magazines we buy for leisure reading or for keeping abreast of current affairs. But if you are a scientist, you may be shelling out a few thousand rupees for the journal your professional society publishes for its members. Of course, if you are a serious researcher, you may have to read or refer to many journals, not two or three. And you will depend on your institution’s library for those journals.

Till 20-30 years ago, most academic libraries, at least in the West, did not find it difficult to subscribe to most journals needed by the scientists in their institutions. Then things started changing and journal subscription prices started skyrocketing — some costing $20,000-40,000 — leading to what librarians call the serials crisis. Much of the price rise was caused by commercial publishers, such as Elsevier, Springer and Wiley. These three control most of the 24,000 science, technology and medicine journals and publish more than 40 per cent of all journal articles today. Elsevier reported a profit of 37 per cent of its revenue in 2011 (up from 36 per cent in 2010); the profit of the other two is no less than 30 per cent despite the recession.

A few years ago, academic librarians, even in the US, had to cut down their budgets for books and monographs to keep journal subscriptions going. Early this year, Harvard, reputed to have the richest endowment among universities, announced that it was finding it to difficult to hold on to its subscriptions and requested its faculty to publish their work in “open access journals” which would be free to read and to resign from publications that keep articles behind paywalls. The irony of it all was summed up nicely by Professor Robert Darnton, director of libraries at Harvard: “We faculty do the research, write the papers, referee papers by other researchers, serve on editorial boards, all of it for free, and then we buy back the results of our labour at outrageous prices.”

A few months ago, a Fields Medal winner, mathematician Timothy Gowers of Cambridge, made it publicly known that he had stopped publishing in, refereeing for and being on the editorial boards of journals published by Elsevier. Gowers created a website called The Cost of Knowledge and close to 11,000 scientists from around the world have signed it already, pledging to boycott Elsevier journals.

Cost, however, is only part of the issue. A more serious issue is the exclusive control enjoyed by publishers over how research gets distributed and shared. They demand that authors surrender copyright to the papers they publish and use it to throttle scholarly communication and hinder the progress of science. It is common sense that if we make scholarly information freely available it will reach a larger audience and help advance further research and lead to wider economic benefits.

The boycott had a salutary effect. Elsevier withdrew its lobbying for the rather absurd Research Works Act, which, if passed in the US Congress, would kill public access to federally funded research and reverse the mandate of the National Institutes of Health putting in one go all the 21 million freely available records in the PubMed library into a fee-to-see system.

Long before Gowers’s boycott of Elsevier and Harvard’s request to its faculty, there have been many stellar initiatives to usher in an era of open access to science and scholarship. For example, all seven research councils in the UK have mandated open access to research funded by them. So has the Wellcome Trust, the world’s largest private-sector funder of life science research. Apart from these funder mandates, there are many institutional mandates, including the ones at ICRISAT, Hyderabad, the National Institute of Oceanography, Goa, and the National Institute of Technology, Rourkela. All these developments have been meticulously chronicled by the philosophy professor, Peter Suber, in the US and the technology writer, Richard Poynder, in the UK.

Recently, the British government enlisted the cooperation of Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales to help make all taxpayer-funded academic research in Britain available online to anyone who wants to read or use it. Says David Willetts, minister for universities and science: “Giving people the right to roam freely over publicly funded research will usher in a new era of academic discovery and collaboration, and will put the UK at the very forefront of open research.”

In India, though, there appears to be very little enthusiasm among the leaders of the science establishment. Neither the office of the principal scientific adviser nor the department of science and technology seems to have shown any interest in mandating open access to taxpayer-funded research. The National Knowledge Commission has recommended mandating open access to all publicly funded research, but it is not clear who will implement the recommendation. Right now, it is left to individuals to promote open access in India.

The writer is with the Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore

Read the original article in the Indian Express

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/cancel-the-subscription

Future of Democracy

praskrishna — 2014-02-26T08:32:42Z

The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) and Tactical Tech Collective invite you to a talk by Smari McCarthy at CIS office in Bangalore on Monday, March 3, 2014 at 6.30 p.m.

Smari McCarthy

Smari McCarthy is an information activist, free software developer and author. He has worked globally on issues of democratic participation, information security, access to information, civil liberties, and social and economic justice. He is a founder and a board member of the International Modern Media Institute (IMMI), founder of the Shadow Parliament Project, co-founder of the Icelandic Digital Freedoms Society, the Constitutional Analysis Support Project (CAST) and the Icelandic Pirate Party. He has worked on developing and spreading digital fabrication technology through Fab Labs and Hacker Spaces. As of August 2013, he lives in London where he works with Thoughtworks on decentralization of the Internet and counter surveillance measures for the public.

Click to download the brochure here

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/events/future-of-democracy

Konkani Wikipedia next?

praskrishna — 2013-08-01T08:32:37Z

A quarter of the world’s Konkani speakers live in Goa. Which is why it should cheer us up to know that a Konkani Wikipedia is being shaped up. But unless more and more of us contribute, the project might never go online.

This article by Diana Fernandes was published in OHeraldO, the largest circulated English daily in Goa, on July 27, 2013. T. Vishnu Vardhan is quoted.

Konkani has never had its own Wikipedia site like Hindi (hi.wikipedia.org) or Sanskrit (sn.wikipedia.org). So the good news is that efforts are underway since 2006, the bad news is it hasn’t made any progress in the last seven years.

The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) is however hoping to change this. As part of the project being funded by the Wikipedia Foundation, San Francisco, CIS through their Access to Knowledge (A2K) programme plan to bring to life a full fledged Konkani Wikipedia site with the Devanagari script.

But Vishnu Vardhan, programme director, is quick to add, "This is no way trying to resolve the script issue. We are simply creating a place where people from the Konkani speaking community can contribute as well as read Konkani online."

Considering the complexity of the language, which is also written in Kannada, Malayalam and Perso Arabic, Konkani has many obstacles to over come before this project reaches fruition.

A balanced and practical approach of developing the content on the Konkani Wikipedia will be focused upon, say the organisers. For this, the A2K will look at generating content and build a community around the official Konkani script — Devanagari. Though they will also accept any other script, which will either be translated into the Devanagari script or remain as it is.

Speaking about the workshop, Vardhan says Goa was the perfect launch pad for the project. Among the 24 lakh Konkani speaking population around the world, Goa accounts for 6 lakh, the highest.

The CIS plans to have free lectures around the state to any interested group of people to spread the news of contributing articles related to famous personality, place, a cultural aspect, religion, history or sociology. But then comes the task of which script do people contribute in.

The current incubator has 52 Devanagari, 32 Romi and 2 Kannada articles. The project received its maximum number of edits in 2007 08 and has been reducing over the subsequent years.

The aim of the project is to get more articles. "Presently, we are telling people to simply contribute articles, whether in Devanagari or Romi. But since Devanagari is the state approved script, it is preferred in that script."

Vardhan believes that removing it from the incubation stage and having a live Wikipedia site will be a start. But for which he says, a community is necessary.

"Wikipedia is a community website and without one, there would be no exchange of information," he says. At present, the incubator has 86 articles but the aim is to increase this number with as many articles as possible.

Once armed with enough articles to go live, Vardhan says, the engineering department at Wikipedia can be approached about creating a multiple script converter that converts any of the scripts into any other desired one. The problem however is that there isn’t enough motivation and interest in the language itself.

"Only if the team at Wikipedia (US) sees the demand for different scripts in Konkani will they consider the multiple script converters," says Vardhan.

A similar challenge was faced by other wikis, like the Kashmiri Wikipedia, which used Pashto, Sharada and Devanagari scripts. Punjabi had the Gurmukhi script used in India and the Shahmukhi script that’s used in Pakistan. Solutions to them included an automatic converter, multiple writing system and creating separate wikis for each script.

CIS has also organised a Kannada workshop in Udupi for a Kannada Wikipedia. The other languages that the Wikipedia Foundation has asked them to work on are Telugu, Odia, and Bengali.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/oheraldo-july-27-2013-diana-fernandes-konkani-wikipedia-next

A Kannada Wikipedia Workshop at Sagara

pavanaja — 2014-03-25T08:51:36Z

On Sunday, July 28, 2013, a day-long Kannada Wikipedia workshop was conducted at Sagara, Shimoga Dist, Karnataka by the Centre for Internet and Society's Access to Knowledge (CIS-A2K) team. In this post, I share with you the happenings from the workshop.

Video

Some months ago, I got a phone call from Chinmaya M Rao from Sagara, Shimoga District requesting me to conduct a Kannada Wikipedia workshop at Sagara. He informed me that there are quite a good number of writers in that area who are interested in adding content to Kannada Wikipedia but don't know how to. Many telephonic discussions followed, many dates were considered, changed, iterated and finally the workshop was organised on Sunday, July 28, 2013. The programme was inaugurated by Shri Kagodu Thimmappa, Speaker of the current Legislative Assembly of Karnataka. Famous Kannada writer Naa D'Souza was the chief guest. Shri G.T. Shridhar Sharma, President of Kannada Times Media World, presided over the function. The programme was jointly organised by CIS and Kannada Times Media World, Sagara.

	Speaking after inaugurating the workshop, Shri Kagodu Thimmappa said "the basic knowledge of technology has become important as one could get ample, accurate information on various topics, and current affairs of the world in a minute all languages, including Kannada. It is the onus of the people of the sate to preserve and promote the use of Kannada language." (Deccan Herald, Shimaga edition, July 30, 2013). Naa D'Souza mentioned how earlier knowledge was the monopoly of some particular sections of the society and how technology has transformed knowledge into an asset of all the people irrespective of caste, race, religion, region and financial status.
Seen above is a picture of Shri Kagodu Thimmappa inagurating the workshop

I then gave a brief introduction to Wikipedia and Kannada Wikipedia. There are many encylopaedias in Kannada but very few are regularly updated. They are seldom digitised. People who add content to Kannada Wikipedia are in search of authentic information. These are available in many encylopaedias brought in by various academies, associations and universities funded by the Government of Karnataka. People of the state have a right on these content. I requested Shri Kagodu Thimmappa to bring them under the Creative Commons License so that the active Kannada Wikipedians can make use of them to add content into Kannada Wikipedia. Shri Kagodu Thimmappa promised to look into this.

After the inauguration, the actual presentation by me started at a cybercafe run by Istam Computers. It was raining heavily. Participants walked for 5 minutes in heavy rain to reach the venue. The presentation went on till lunch time. The place was very congested. One participant, B. V. Ravindranath, who is a practicing Chartered Accountant at Sagara, offered his place to conduct the hands-on workshop. Hence, all participants went to the new venue which was quite comfortable. Participants did the hands-on editing of Wikipedia till 7.30 p.m. Eleven persons participated in the workshop and edited actively. Some were seen editing Kannada Wikipedia regularly after the workshop.
Dr. U.B. Pavanaja is seen sharing a light moment with participants from the workshop in the above picture.

After the inauguration, the actual presentation by me started at a cybercafe run by Istam Computers. It was raining heavily. Participants walked for 5 minutes in heavy rain to reach the venue. The presentation went on till lunch time. The place was very congested. One participant, B. V. Ravindranath, who is a practicing Chartered Accountant at Sagara, offered his place to conduct the hands-on workshop. Hence, all participants went to the new venue which was quite comfortable. Participants did the hands-on editing of Wikipedia till 7.30 p.m. Eleven persons participated in the workshop and edited actively. Some were seen editing Kannada Wikipedia regularly after the workshop.

Dr. U.B. Pavanaja is seen sharing a light moment with participants from the workshop in the above picture.

An active Kannada Wikipedian, B S Chandrashekhar from Sagara, who has more than 4500 edits on Kannada Wikipedia to his credit was felicitated during the inauguration function. He is 79 years old. Despite his old age, he actively paticipated in the workshop till the end and learnt many intricacies which he was otherwise unaware of.

In the end, I would like to personally thank Chinmay Rao and G. T. Shridhar Sharma of Kannada Times who toiled a lot in organising the wokrshop. Also thanks to B. V. Ravindranath, CA, who provided the venue for the hands-on workshop.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/kannada-wiki-workshop-at-sagara

July 2013 Bulletin

praskrishna — 2013-08-21T09:30:32Z

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

The Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) welcomes you to the seventh issue of its newsletter for the year 2013. In this issue we bring you a report on the Institute on Internet and Society held in the month of June, comments submitted by us to the Office of the Controller General of Patents Designs and Trademarks on the draft guidelines on computer related inventions, report from the fifth privacy roundtable meeting held in Kolkata, updates from Kannada Wikipedia workshops held in Hubli and Sagara, a report on Digital Humanities for higher education, media coverage, and information on our forthcoming events.

Archives of our newsletters are here. Our policies on Ethical Research Guidelines, Non-Discrimination and Equal Opportunities, Privacy, Terms of Website Use and Travel can be accessed here.

Jobs
CIS is inviting applications for the posts of Developer (NVDA Screen Reader Project). To apply for this post, send in your resume to Nirmita Narasimhan (nirmita@cis-india.org). CIS is also seeking applications for the post of Policy Associate (Internet Governance). To apply send your resume to Sunil Abraham (sunil@cis-india.org) and Pranesh Prakash (pranesh@cis-india.org).

Accessibility

CIS is doing two projects in partnership with the Hans Foundation. One is to create a national resource kit of state-wise laws, policies and programmes on issues relating to persons with disabilities in India and another for developing a screen reader and text-to- speech synthesizer for Indian languages:

National Resource Kit for Persons with Disabilities
CIS and the Centre for Law and Policy Research (CLPR) are working in this project. Draft chapters have been published. Feedback and comments are invited from readers for the chapters on Punjab, Uttarakhand, Maharashtra and Chandigarh:

The Punjab Chapter (by Anandhi Viswanathan, July 31, 2013).
The Uttarakhand Chapter (by Anandhi Viswanathan, July 31, 2013).
The Chandigarh Chapter (by CLPR, July 31, 2013).
The Maharashtra Chapter (by Anandhi Viswanathan, July 31, 2013).

Note: All the chapters published on the website are early drafts and will be reviewed and updated.

Access to Knowledge and Openness

The Wikimedia Foundation has given a grant to CIS to support and develop the growth of Indic language communities and projects by community collaborations and partnerships. This is being carried out by the Access to Knowledge team based in Delhi. CIS is also doing a project (Pervasive Technologies) on examining the relationship between production of pervasive technologies and intellectual property. CIS also promotes openness including open government data, open standards, open access, and free/libre/open source software through its Openness programme.

Access to Knowledge (Previously IP Reforms)

Comments

Comments on the Draft Guidelines for Computer Related Inventions (by Puneeth Nagaraj, July 31, 2013). The comments were submitted to the office of the Controller General of Patents Designs & Trademarks, Mumbai on July 26, 2013.

Event Participated

An International Conference on Interface between Intellectual Property and Competition Law (organized by ASSOCHAM, July 12, 2013). Nehaa Chaudhari participated in the conference and shares select notes in a blog post.

Access to Knowledge (Wikipedia)
The A2K team consists of three members based in Bangalore: T. Vishnu Vardhan, Dr. U.B. Pavanaja and Subhashish Panigrahi and one team member Nitika Tandon who is working from Delhi office.

Event Organised

A Kannada Wikipedia Workshop (organized by CIS-A2K team, July 21, 2013, Hubli). Dr. U.B. Pavanaja gave training to the participants on Wikipedia. Leading newspapers like the Times of India, Vijaya Karnataka, Deccan Herald, VijayaVani, Prajavani, Samyukta Karnataka and HosaDiganta covered the event. Scanned versions of the published articles can be viewed here.
A Kannada Wikipedia Workshop at Sagara (organized by CIS-A2K team, Sagara, July 28, 2013). Dr. U.B. Pavanaja gave a talk on Wikipedia and Kannada Wikipedia.

Event Co-organised

Telugu Wiki Academy at Centre for Good Governance (organized by CIS-A2K and Telegu Wikipedia Community, Centre for Good Governance, Jubilee Hills, Hyderabad, April 9, 2013). T. Vishnu Vardhan participated in this event.

Note: The event was organized in April but report got published only in July.

Event Participated

Free Software (organized by Free Software Movement of Karnataka in partnership with Jnana Vikas Institute of Technology, Bidadi, July 24, 2013). Dr. U.B. Pavanaja made a presentation on Wikipedia.

Ongoing Event

A Workshop on Posting Articles in Kannada on Wikipedia (organised by the Centre for Proficiency Development Placement Service, University of Mysore, CPDPS premises, Manasagangotri, August 6, 2013). Dr. U.B. Pavanaja is conducting a workshop. The announcement was made in an article by R. Krishna Kumar in the Hindu on August 2, 2013.

Press Coverage

Konkani Wikipedia next? (by Diana Fernandes, OHeralO, July 27, 2013). T. Vishnu Vardhan is quoted.

Openness

Events Organised

Delhi: Digital Activism in Europe (The Sarai Programme, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, New Delhi, July 8, 2013). Bernadette Längle gave a talk about the hacker scene and digital activism in Europe, with a focus on the Chaos Computer Club.
Open Hardware Lab: Play & Invent + Bonus Film Screening (CIS, Bangalore, August 4, 2013). There was a film screening of Theremin: An Electronic Odyssey at the event.

Internet Governance

CIS began two projects earlier this year. The first one on facilitating research and events on surveillance and freedom of expression is with Privacy International and support from the International Development Research Centre, Canada. The second one on mapping cyber security actors in South Asia and South East Asia is with the Citizen Lab, Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto and support from the International Development Research Centre, Canada:

SAFEGUARDS Project
Events Organised

Delhi: Learn to Secure Your Online Communication! (IIC, DU Campus, Delhi, July 6, 2013). A cryptoparty was held in Delhi.
Dharamsala: Learn to Secure Your Online Communication! (Dharamsala, July 13, 2013). A cryptoparty was held in Dharamsala. This was also covered in an article published in the Caravan on August 1, 2013.
Privacy Roundtable Meeting (co-organized by CIS, DSCI, and FICCI, Kolkata, July 13, 2013). An event report was written by Maria Xynou.
The Hackers Way of Reshaping Policies (CIS, Bangalore, August 2, 2012). Bernadette Langle gave a talk on privacy.

Events Participated In

Biometrics or bust? India's Identity Crisis (organised by the Oxford Internet Institute, Oxford University Press, July 2, 2013). Malavika Jayaram participated as a speaker on UID and Privacy.
DSCI Best Practices Meet 2013 (organized by DSCI, Anna Salai, Chennai, July 12, 2013). Kovey Coles attended the meeting.
Achieve Cyber Security Together (organized by the Confederation of Indian Industries, Chennai, July 13, 2013). Kovey Coles attended this event.

Ongoing / Upcoming Events

The Phishing Society: Why 'Facebook' is more dangerous than the Government Spying on You - A Talk by Maria Xynou (CIS, Bangalore, August 7, 2013). Maria Xynou will give a talk on phishing society.
Learn to Protect your Online Activities! (ACJ - Asian College of Journalism, Second Main Road (Behind M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation), Taramani, Chennai, August 7, 2013).
Privacy Meeting: Brussels – Bangalore (CIS, Bangalore, August 14, 2013). Gertjan Boulet and Dariusz Kloza will give a talk on privacy.
Privacy Round Table, New Delhi (co-organised with FICCI and DSCI, FICCI, Federation House, Tansen Marg, New Delhi, August 24, 2013).

Columns

How Surveillance Works in India (by Pranesh Prakash, New York Times, July 10, 2013).
Can India Trust Its Government on Privacy? (by Pranesh Prakash, New York Times, July 11, 2013).
Parsing the Cyber Security Policy (by Chinmayi Arun, The Hoot, and cross-posted in Free Speech Initiative, July 13, 2013).

Blog Entries

The Difficult Balance of Transparent Surveillance (by Kovey Coles, July 10, 2013).
Moving Towards a Surveillance State (by Srinivas Atreya, July 15, 2013).
More than a Hundred Global Groups Make a Principled Stand against Surveillance (by Elonnai Hickok, July 31, 2013).
The Audacious ‘Right to Be Forgotten’ (by Kovey Coles, July 31, 2013).

Interview

An Interview with Reijo Aarnio: Maria Xynou conducted an interview with Reijo, the Finnish Data Protection Ombudsman.

Media Coverage

Google brings tabs to sneak advertisements into your inbox (by Indu Nandakumar, Economic Times, July 30, 2013). Sunil Abraham is quoted.
How the world’s largest democracy is preparing to snoop on its citizens (by Leslie D' Monte and Joji Thomas Philip, July 3, 2013). Sunil Abraham is quoted.
Geeks have a solution to digital surveillance in India: Cryptography (by Joanna Lobo, DNA, July 7, 2013). Pranesh Prakash is quoted.
India's centralised snooping system facing big delays (by Phil Muncaster, The Register, July 9, 2013). CIS is mentioned in this article.
India’s Central Monitoring System: Security can’t come at cost of privacy (by Danish Raza, FirstPost, July 10, 2013). Sunil Abraham is quoted.
Is CMS a Compromise of Your Security? (by Rohin Dharmakumar, Forbes India magazine, July 12, 2013). Sunil Abraham is quoted.
Snooping technology: Will CMS work in India? (by Pierre Fitter, FirstPost, July 17, 2013). Pranesh Prakash is quoted.
सावधान आपके प्रोफ़ाइल पर है पुलिस की नज़र! (by Parul Aggarwal, BBC, July 18, 2013). Pranesh Prakash is quoted.
Your life's an open Facebook (by Shikha Kumar, DNA, July 21, 2013). Sunil Abraham is quoted.
Concerns over central snoop (by Aloke Tikku, Hindustan Times, June 28, 2013). Sunil Abraham is quoted.
Your telco could help spy on you (by Joji Thomas Philip, Leslie D'Monte and Shauvik Ghosh, LiveMint, July 30, 2013). Sunil Abraham is quoted.

DNA Profiling Bill
A sub-committee has been constituted as per the recommendations of the Expert Committee of DNA Profiling Bill. The sub-committee will have a meeting in Hyderabad on August 6, 2013. Sunil Abraham is one of the members of the sub-committee.

Cyber Stewards Project
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.

Video Interviews

Part 3: Interview with Eva Galperin (July 10, 2013).
Part 4: Interview with Marietje Schaake (July 11, 2013).
Part 5: Interview with Amelia Andersdotter (July 12, 2013).
Part 6: Interview with Lhadon Tethong (July 15, 2013).
Part 7: Interview with Jochem de Groot (July 18, 2013).
Part 8: Interview with Jeff Moss (July, 23, 2013).

Cyber Security
Blog Entries

India's National Cyber Security Policy in Review (by Jonathan Diamond, July 31, 2013).
Guidelines for the Protection of National Critical Information Infrastructure: How Much Regulation? (by Jonathan Diamond, July 31, 2013).

Free Speech, Expression and Censorship
Column

You Have the Right to Remain Silent (by Nishant Shah, July 22, 2013).

Event Participated In

Connaught Summer Institute on Monitoring Internet Openness and Rights (organized by the Munk School of Global Affairs, Bloor Street West, July 23, 2013). Malavika Jayaram participated in this event and spoke on "India's Civil Liberties Crisis: Digital Free Will in Free Fall".

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 www.internet-institute.in.

Event Organised

Institute on Internet and Society: Event Report (supported by Ford Foundation, Golden Palms Resort, Bangalore, June 8 – 14, 2013). Pranesh Prakash, Bernadette Längle, Vir Kamal Chopra, AK Bhargava, Ananth Guruswamy, Archana Gulati, Chakshu Roy, Elonnai Hickok, Gaurab Raj Upadhaya, Helani Galpaya, Michael Ginguld, Dr. Nadeem Akhtar, C. Nandini, Dr. Nirmita Narasimhan, Dr. Nishant Shah, Parminder Jeet Singh, Ravikiran Annaswamy, Dr. Ravina Aggarwal, Satyen Gupta, Dr. Subbiah Arunachalam, Sunil Abraham, Tulika Pandey and T. Vishnu Vardhan were speakers at the event. The presentations and videos can now be accessed in this report.

Telecom

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:

Newspaper Column

Building Up vs Tearing Down (by Shyam Ponappa, July 3, 2013, originally published in the Business Standard, and also mirrored in Organizing India Blogspot).

Digital Humanities

We are 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.

Event Co-organised

Digital Humanities for Indian Higher Education (co-organised by HEIRA, CSCS, Tumkur University, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai and CIS, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, July 13, 2013).

Event Organised

Digital Humanities Talk (CIS, Bangalore, July 31, 2013). Sara Morais gave a talk on the advantages and problems in doing digital humanities work.

Event Participated In

Political Economy, Activism and Alternative Economic Strategies (organized by the International Institute of Social Studies, Erasmus University of Rotterdam, The Hague, July 9 – 13, 2013). Nishant Shah presented his paper on paper on Citizen Action in the Time of Network.

Blog Entries

Designing Change? Gatekeepers in Digital Humanities (by Sara Morais, July 2, 2013).
Towards Critical Tool-building (by Sara Morais, July 12, 2013).

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.

Get short, timely messages from us on Twitter
Join the CIS group on Facebook
Visit us at http://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

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/july-2013-bulletin

Beyond Property Rights: Thinking About Moral Definitions of Openness

praskrishna — 2013-08-07T09:43:35Z

It is hard for Westerners to realize just how much we take for granted about intellectual property, and in particular, how much the property owner’s perspective--be it a corporation, government or creative artist--is embedded in our view of the world as the natural order of things.

This blog post by David Eaves was published in TECH President on August 6, 2013. Sunil Abraham is quoted.

While sharing and copying technologies are disrupting some of the ways we understanding “content,” when you visit a non-Western country like India, the spectrum of choices become broader. There is less timidity wrestling with questions like: should poor farmers pay inflated prices for patented genetically-engineered seeds? How long should patents be given for life-saving medicines that cost more than many make in a year? Should Indian universities spend millions on academic journals and articles? In the United States or other rich countries we may weigh both sides of these questions--the rights of the owner vs. the moral rights of the user--but there’s no question people elsewhere, such as in India, weigh them different given the questions of life and death or of poverty and development.

Consequently, conversations about open knowledge outside the supposedly settled lands of the “rich” often stretch beyond permission-based “fair use” and “creative commons” approaches. There is a desire to explore potential moral rights to use “content” in addition to just property rights that may be granted under statutes.

A couple of months ago I sat down in Bangalore with Sunil Abraham, the founder and executive director of the Center for Internet & Society (CIS) there, to talk about the center, and his views on the role of technology and openness in politics and society. One part of our conversation led to this WeGov column on “I Paid a Bribe” and the challenge of fighting corruption in India using technology. Here I want to reflect further on how Sunil and his counterparts may be radically challenging how we should think about open information more generally.

As we talked, Sunil outlined how people and organizations were using “open” methodologies to advance social movements or create counter power. To explain his view he sketched out the following “map” of IP rights and freedoms to show people use and view the different “permissions” (some legal, some illegal).

As a high-level overview this map offers a general list of the tools at the disposal of citizens interested in playing with intellectual property, particularly as they pursue social justice issues.

At the top of the chart are the various forms of “permissions” that a property owner may (or may not) grant you. Thus at the far left sits the most restrictive IP regime and, as you move right, the user gets more and more freedoms (or, if you take the perspective of property owners, property loses more and more of its formal legal protections and a different notion, of “moral rights,” arises).

The second row divides the permissions and the actors along what Sunil believes is one of the most important permissions - the requirement to attribute (or the freedom not to).

Finally, at the bottom, I’ve placed various actors along the spectrum to both show where they might be positioned in the access debate and/or how they use these tools to advance their aims. Thus someone like Lawrence Lessig, the intellectual father of Creative Commons, might support many uses of information as long as the owner gives permission; whereas groups like the Pirate Party or the Yes Men edge further out into uses that may not appear legitimate to a property owner.

Particularly interesting is Sunil’s decision to include non-legal “permissions” such as ignoring the property holders rights in his spectrum of openness. He sees this as the position of the Pirate Party, which he suggests advocates that people should have the right to do what they want with intellectual property even if they don’t have permission, with the exception, interestingly, of ignoring attribution.

He also includes two even more radical “permissions” – counterfeiting, that is claiming that you created the work – and false attribution – assigning your work to someone else! Sunil sees Anonymous as often using the former and the Yes Men as using the latter. “They (the Yes Men) are playing with the attribution layer,” he says, by conducting actions such as their fake DOW press release about the Bhopal disaster.

Pushing the identity envelope
To Sunil, the big dividing line is less about legal vs. illegal but around this issue of attribution. “This is the most exciting area because this (the non-attribution area) is where you escape surveillance,” he declares.

“All the modern day regulation over IP is trying to pin an individual against their actions and then trying to attach responsibility so as to prosecute them,” Sunil says. “All that is circumvented when you play with the attribution layer.”

This matters a great deal for individuals and organizations trying to create counter power – particularly against the state or large corporate interests. In this regard Sunil is actually linking the tools (or permissions) along the open spectrum to civil disobedience. Of course, such “permissions” are also used by states all the time, such as pretending that a covert action was the responsibility of someone else, or simply denying responsibility for some action.

This, in turn, has some interesting implications.

The first is, that it allows Sunil to weave together a number of groups that might not normally be seen as connected because he can map their strategies or tools against a common axis. Thus Lawrence Lessig, the Yes Man, companies and journalists can all be organized based on what “permissions” they believe are legitimate. For example, journalists and new publishers are often seen as fairly pro-copyright (it protects their work) but they are quite happy to ignore the proprietary rights of a government or corporate document and publish its contents, if they believe that action is in the public interest. Hence their position on the spectrum as “willing to ignore proprietary rights.” (Leave aside government arguments that publishing such documents is “stealing” when, at least in the US, they are technically already not subject to copyright.) However, a credible newspaper or journalist would never knowingly attribute a quote or document to a different person. Attribution remains sacred, even when legal proprietary rights are not.

It also tests the notions of who is actually an IP radical. As Sunil notes: “The more you move to the right the more radical you are. Because everywhere on the left you actually have to educate people about the law, which is currently unfair to the user, before you even introduce them to the alternatives. You aren’t even challenging the injustice in the law! On the right you are operating at a level that is liberated from identity and accountability. You are hacking identity.”

Sunil is thus justifying how the use of “illegal” permissions may actually be a form of civil disobedience that can be recognized as legitimate. This is something journalists confront regularly as well. Many are willing to publish “illegally” obtained leaked documents when they believe that may serve the public good. What is ethical is not always legal and so there position on this chart is more nuanced than one might initially suspect.

This is not to say that Sunil doesn’t believe in the effectiveness of legal approaches. For him this map represents a more complete range of choices an activist can choose from as they try to develop their strategy.

“So what you do, and the specific change you are trying to precipitate, you’ll have to determine what strategy you need. Sometimes working within the left hand group is sufficient. Having a non-derivative, non-commercial license to enable students to access academic works, in India, is good enough… But then, to do what the Yes Men did to DOW Chemicals? You have to be over on the right side.”

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/tech-president-august-6-2013-david-eaves-beyond-property-rights-thinking-about-moral-definitions-openness

An open data ecosystem can boost India's GDP by $22 B and double farmer income

Admin — 2018-05-23T14:37:55Z

MeiTY says increased data transparency will drive growth and improve governance across key industry sectors in the time to come.

This was published in Your Story on May 22, 2018.

YES Bank in association with the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has released a study that says an ‘open data ecosystem’ can grow India’s GDP by $22 billion by 2020. It could impact critical sectors like agriculture and double farmer income by reducing wastage and system inefficiencies.

The report titled Open Government, Open Data – Re-imagining India observes that farmers’ income could be twice of what it is in less than five years from now. Universal Health coverage could be strengthened, and micro-loans could be disbursed to millions of MSMEs more effectively through a well-functioning open data ecosystem.

Empirical evidence shows that open data has aided agriculture world over. Combined with agricultural knowledge, remote sensing, and mapping, it helps create early warning systems for farmers. That enables them in “protecting crops from pests and extreme weather, increasing yields, monitoring water supplies, and anticipating changes brought on by climate change,” according to the World Bank.

While India was among the first countries in the world to set up an Open Government Data (OGD) platform that offered open and free access to data and information released by over 100 government departments, there have been loopholes in the project that has led to data being restricted in some cases. At present, OGD houses info-sets from 180,543 ministry resources and is presided over by a hundred-plus data officers.

YES Bank has recommended steps to eliminate the existing gaps and boost usage of OGD to improve governance across sectors. It has also said that emerging technologies like Blockchain, Machine Learning (ML) and the Internet of Things (IoT) would drive further efficiencies in the open data ecosystem, and lead to more tech-focused innovation.

One such innovation has been brought about by Silicon Valley agri startup, Harvesting, that recently launched its India operation. Harvesting uses remote sensing and geo-spatial imagery along with existing farmer data to monitor farmlands, assess them in real-time, and send out reports and analysis to all stakeholders, including farmers, agri lenders, rural banks, and so on.

Harvesting Founder-CEO Ruchit Garg told YourStory,

“There are over 500 million small farm-holders in emerging markets that feed 80 percent of the world. But there is a data asymmetry in the agricultural value chain. Most problems arise because of a massive data deficit. We started to look at how this could be solved by leveraging data and technology.”

Besides industries, the open data is available for citizen access too, and that is important.

Rana Kapoor, MD and CEO, Yes Bank, said,

“Data is collected from citizens for citizen welfare and should therefore be shared with them. Secondly, data like Government budget usage, welfare schemes and subsidies increases transparency, thereby building greater trust.”

YES Bank also recommends more public-private partnerships (PPP) for open data to be fully utilised. It proposes the formation of an Open Data Council comprising representatives from private and public sectors as well as technology service providers. The council would be chaired by MeitY and will work towards the identification of ‘priority sectors’ which require data digitisation.

But, merely having large amounts of open data sets is not enough. The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) sounds a word of caution.

In a separate report titled Open Government Data Study: India, the CIS states,

“To ensure the relevance of open government data, mechanisms have to be put in place to take its benefits to ordinary people and to marginalised communities. Simply putting up raw data will not suffice.”

The report notes that a richer open data ecosystem can be created by harnessing records and information from rural internet kiosks, community e-centres, e-healthcare, geographic information systems (GISs), dairy sector applications, teacher training programmes, online agricultural systems, wireless local loop solutions, databases of rural innovations, land property registrations, women and children’s services, and more.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/news/your-story-sohini-mitter-may-22-2-018-open-data-ecosystem-can-boost-indias-gdp-22-b-double-farmer-income