Centre for Internet and Society

R2R - 1

radha — 2009-09-29T05:38:00Z

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/home-images/right-to-read-campaign-chennai/R2R%20-1.jpg

R2R - Delhi

radha — 2010-04-21T05:56:11Z

Photos

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/home-images/r2r-delhi

Quantifying India's research output - Public Lecture by Prof. Subbiah Arunachalam

radha — 2011-04-02T14:54:51Z

International Strategic and Security Studies Programme, IISc. Bangalore, is organizing a Public lecture by Prof. Subbiah Arunachalam on Friday, Sept 25th, on Quantifying India's research output.

International Strategic and Security Studies Programme

National Institute of Advanced Studies

Indian Institute of Science Campus,Bangalore -12

Public Lecture

Date: Friday, September 25, 2009

Speaker: Prof. Subbiah Arunachalam

Distinguished Fellow, Center For Internet & Society, Bangalore

Visiting Professor, Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Chennai

Email: subbiah.arunachalam@gmail.com

Chairperson: Dr .Lalitha Sundareshan

Visiting Professor

Title: Quantifying India's research output
Time: 11:30 am
Venue: Conference Hall 2

Abstract: Science policy makers around the world are keen to assess the research performed by different countries, institutions and even individuals. Much of such work is based on databases and is based on the premise that the literature of science is a mirror of science. A number of scientometricists have used Science Citation Index (Web of Science) and other (subject-based) databases for such studies. Often they depend on publication and citation counts. Unfortunately, many of them are not aware of the nuances involved in such studies. In this talk we will look at science indicators with special reference to India and the developing countries.

All are invited to attend

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/quantifying-indias-research-output-public-lecture-by-prof.-subbiah-arunachalam

Pushing the buttons for social change

radha — 2011-04-02T15:09:10Z

IMMENSE POTENTIAL: With its myriad applications, a mobile phone can be used as an instrument of social change. Meet on how mobile technology can be a power tool to this end - An article in The Hindu on 01st September 2009

BANGALORE: We have all seen the popular television advertisement that claims that mobile phone technology can be much more than a communication device and be used as a powerful tool for social change.

Here is a platform that brings together technology enthusiasts and non-governmental organisations, working in various social sectors, to drive this change.

The one-day camp, Mobile Tech 4 Social Change, to be held on September 4, aims at exploring the power of mobile technology to advance social change goals.

Organised by the Centre for Internet and Studies, in collaboration with Women’s Learning Partnership, Mobile Monday and Mobile Active, it will include informative and interactive sessions on the subject.

It will be held from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. at the Mother Tekla Auditorium on Brunton Road.

Participating NGOs will discuss problems and different ways to use, deploy, develop and promote mobile technology in health, advocacy, economic development, environment, human rights, and citizen media to name a few areas.

According to the Cellular Operators’ Association of India, there has been a growth in the number of subscribers by 1.86 per cent in July 2009 in the metros alone.

“A report on the impact of mobile phones in India reveals that Indian States with high mobile penetration can be expected to grow faster than those with lower mobile penetration rates, namely, 1.2 percentage points for every 10 per cent increase in the penetration rate.

This conference is a step in understanding how this can be taken forward,” says Sunil Abraham of the Centre for Internet and Studies. Participants for Mobile Tech 4 Social Change bar camps will include nonprofits, mobile applications developers, researchers, donors, intermediary organisations, and mobile operators.

While NGOs can gain information on various mobile applications and collaborate with those working in the core field of mobile technologies, enterprises can align their social responsibilities and use this potentially powerful medium.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/pushing-the-buttons-for-social-change

Pushing Buttons

radha — 2011-04-02T13:56:28Z

The coolest device of the decade – From brick-sized to size zero, the cell phone changed our lives forever – an article by Deepa Kurup, The Hindu, 1st Jan, 2010.

Bangalore: Today, it no longer makes news to see your neighbourhood vegetable vendor taking orders on his mobile phone, or for that matter a mason at work as he chatters away on his cellphone.

A decade ago this was unthinkable.

The 10 years which have gone by have found a great leveller in technology, the cell phone being the most ubiquitous of them all. Cellphones crossed over from overpriced, shoebox-sized, upper-class accessory to an affordable easy-to-use gadget for staying connected, getting entertained and, for many, even a way of life. The long queues outside the PCO booth and scrambling for those elusive one-rupee coins is now history. The cellphone is literally in every hand. As of November 2009, India, with the world’s second largest population, registered 506.4 million cellphone connections, (543 million, including landlines), second only to China. Which means half our population has the device.

Tharoor’s take

Twitter-politician Shashi Tharoor regaled the audience at a recent conference, TED India, about this story of a coconut vendor in his home state of Kerala. He wanted a tender coconut and called a vendor he knew, only to discover the man was high up on a coconut palm, still connected to his cellphone!

Old timers still talk about the miles of red tape and the years it took to get a basic landline connection.

So while globally the noughties were about crowdsourcing, micro and macro blogging, e-books, file sharing or the “cloud”, in India, even the internet is only barely there. With a staggeringly low penetration, pegged at around seven to eight percent (over 80 million), the web is not a patch on the omnipresent cellphone.

The next decade

Sunil Abraham, Director of Bangalore-based Centre for Internet and Society, insists that the cellphone will also define the decade that begins today. And like that clever advertisement, text-to-voice and voice recognition can and will be big in providing access to the unlettered, disabled and forgotten sections, he explains.

“Data services and geographic positioning services (GPS) show great promise in connecting the poor to the state and the market,” he said.

On a more futuristic, and indulgent note, Mr. Abraham says micro-projection systems that will work on walls and mobiles will forefront projects in those rural areas with limited or no electricity. This may be the only way to reach the unbanked with mainstream or community currencies, he adds.

Link to the original article

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/pushing-buttons

Prof.Pradoshnath

radha — 2009-11-19T10:48:42Z

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/home-images/pradosh%20photo.jpg

Print Impairment and Copyrights

radha — 2011-04-02T14:49:19Z

An article by Swaraj Paul Barooah - SPICY IP (Google groups)

There have recently been discussions by the CIS (The Center for Internet and Society) over some important issues relating to the intercourse of copyright protection and accessibility of content. Bringing up important points about the lack of access that certain categories of people have to printed material, they seek to approach the government for appropriate amendments to the present copyright laws. They have broadly defined 'print impaired’ people as those who cannot access standard printed material due not only visual impairment which composes the largest part of this group, but also other reasons such as dyslexia, paralysis, and other learning and physically challenged people. (In connection to this, readers may recall the post by Sumathi on the WIPO Treaty for the Blind being kept on hold earlier this year)

According to the WHO, there are about 314 million visually impaired people in the world, and about 70 million of these are in India (and one should keep in mind that these are just the documented statistics). Totally, there are about 400 million people in the world who suffer from some sort of print impairment. The primary problem that these people are facing is the lack of material which is suitable for their consumption. According to CIS, only 0.5% of the books in India are available in one or more alternative formats. The exclusion of easy availability of such material is effectively leading to a 3 stage process of marginalization of these people from society due to the artificial dependencies created, powerlessness as a result of this and these two together are resulting in the limiting of their capability expansion which could’ve occurred in the presence of the accessible material.

Currently, though the technology exists to transpose books into alternative formats such as braille or audio-books, which provide easier access for the print impaired, copyright laws are proving a hindrance to publishers, as this would technically constitute an infringement. The process to seek approval is a long and tedious one, which creates unnecessary barriers to access to information. As Rahul Cherian of CIS points out, there are also no national policies or action plans to ensure that these people have methods of accessing publications. He also points out in his article here that while there is no specific exception mentioned in the Copyright Act,

"Indian courts have routinely upheld the rights of persons with disability and the Supreme Court has specifically recognized that the “right to life” as enshrined in Article 21 of the Constitution includes right to dignity including basic necessities such as reading and writing[1] The right to education has also been recognised as a fundamental right. For print impaired persons to enjoy their fundamental rights, it is essential that they have access to material, including but not limited to educational material, in accessible formats. In this context it can be argued that the fundamental rights of Print Impaired Persons are being infringed because the Copyright Act, 1957, does not provide exceptions and limitations for the benefit of Print Impaired Persons."

Further more, India has already signed and ratified the UN Convention on Rights of Persons with Disabilities wherein ensuring accessibility is one of the principle guiding points. The Bombay HC, in Ranjit Kumar Rajak Vs State Bank of India, has also read in provisions from this convention, stating it as law. You can see a further analysis of the legal framework in Rahul Cherian's article here.

A welcome initiative that CIS has taken in this regard is the Right to Read Campaign. Together with their endeavor of raising awareness of this pressing issue of lack of accessibility of material, they are also preparing a white paper giving suggestions and advice to the government as to what kind of changes should be made to the Copyright Act. As mentioned in a previous post, the required changes have been considered for the Amendment Act, but this is just hearsay and there is no specific information available as to the current proceedings of this. The campaign also is pushing for the Indian government to support the World Blind Union which is promoting the Treaty for the Blind at the WIPO.

Another great initiative which they have taken is in the form of an online platform which they have just launched. Seeking to be part of the solution as well, the site aims to provide a platform where print impaired people can upload and share their collections with other print impaired people, subject to the end user terms. The idea behind this is that since there is so much difficulty in making alternative materials available, the ones that have been made available should be made more easily available for sharing purposes. Earlier branded as Readable.in , the site is now www.BookBole.com . In the short time period that this site has been up, they have already had visitors from 54 different countries and uploads have been made in 34 different languages. In fact, there have also been requests from other countries requesting if the service could be launched in a local language.

This effort by CIS is indeed applauded by our Spicy IP team. You can also support this cause on their campaign site at http://www.righttoread.in

Link to the article in SPICY IP

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/print-impairment-and-copyrights

Print Access

radha — 2011-08-22T13:12:51Z

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/publications/Print_Access.pdf

Print - Access

radha — 2011-08-22T13:13:07Z

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/publications/Print%20Access.ppt

Preserving Digital Memories: A Patrimonial Approach

radha — 2011-04-05T04:19:32Z

The Centre for Internet & Society and The Centre for Contemporary Studies, Bangalore cordially invite you to a public lecture and discussion by Dr. Bruno Bachimont, on Preserving Digital Memories: A Patrimonial Approach, on 10th December, 2009 from 4pm to 6pm.

Dr. Bachimont is visiting India as a part of the “Bonjour French Science” framework constructed by the Embassy of France in India. He comes from a well-known technology university in France and has a background in computer science and philosophy. He is a researcher in the fields of Cognitive Science and Knowledge Engineering and has been very active in instrumenting connections between Philosophy, Science and Technology in the French Higher Education environment.

Sponsored by
The Centre for Internet & Society, Bangalore
The Centre for Contemporary Studies, Bangalore

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/events/preserving-digital-memories-a-patrimonial-approach

Present, tense: Future classrooms

radha — 2011-04-02T14:11:51Z

An article by Nishant Shah in the December issue of Teacher Plus - the magazine for the contemporary teacher.

In the world of education, the emergence of Wikipedia – an online, user generated, knowledge production referencing system – has drawn strong battle lines. The divide is fairly well drawn between those who swear by Wikipedia and those who swear at it. On the one hand are the students and teachers (more students than teachers) who look upon the democratic modes of knowledge production, the easy access to information, and the multiple perspectives that get embedded in the global system of producing knowledge, as one of the most revolutionary moments in the history of teaching and research in the world. On the other hand are the teachers and students (more teachers than students) who grow green in the face, pointing out the errors and problems within Wikipedia, often layering their objections with much more complex problems of plagiarism, lack of research ethics and absence of rigour.

Especially in classrooms, where students often bring in information retrieved from Wikipedia to cope and engage with their curricula, there seems to be a strained sense of tension where the students are increasingly depending upon Wikipedia (or other such user generated knowledge production spaces) for their first introductions to different knowledges, and the teachers, used to the sacredness of books and library based research, feel a sense of despair at the click-copy-paste cultures that the students bring to the classrooms. This tension between the students and the teachers, and the concern over authenticity and accuracy, is symptomatic of a much larger changing relationship between students and teachers within academia in emerging information societies.

While it is possible to, almost infinitely, perpetuate these debates, there is a certain transformative moment which is being lost in the cacophony that emerges from both the sides trying to prove their points, and often delving into pointless, albeit intelligent, chatter. It is this moment that I am interested in articulating, because it captures, for me, a change in the learning-teaching environments in classrooms that is not very clearly articulated in the Wikipedia (or at a much larger level, Internet) and education debates.

The classroom, across cultures and geographies has been marked by a romantic imagination of being a hallowed space of elevated learning and knowledge. While this is indeed true, it is necessary to place the classroom in another more pragmatic context of Knowledge production industries and services. While there are often certain intangible and affective bonds of faith between the teacher and the students, it is necessary to remind ourselves that the classroom is essentially a site of knowledge industries, where certain information, knowledge and skills are transferred from the teacher – who serves as the access point to relevant data – to the students who need to be trained and taught into becoming possessors of knowledge.

And it is this particular relationship that the Internet technologies are changing – this hitherto accepted role of the teacher as the bearer of knowledge and the student as a recipient of the same. I want to look at three particular ways in which Wikipedia and other similar spaces have challenged our understanding of the classroom and the teacher-student relationship in the traditional classrooms.

Wikipedia, which is at the centre of the debates, is actually more demonstrative of this changing knowledge structure because of its contours as well as the larger aesthetics and politics it embodies. In the world of Wikipedia, there are no hierarchies of knowledge dependent upon personal credentials or antecedents. All contributors, are, instead, sorted on the basis of their skill for research, writing, and providing evidence. More often than not, an article on Wikipedia is a collaborative effort which plays on the strengths of many different collaborators. Each contributor is not expected to be a proficient scholar with all the required skills. Instead, different contributors take on different roles and help in producing collaborative knowledge. Such a system of knowledge production challenges the dominant understanding of knowledge production and contribution, especially in the school and university set-ups, which are contingent upon individual genius and comprehensive skills.

A space like Wikipedia thus, produces not only a level field of learning, collaborating and sharing knowledge, which is often at logger-heads with the classrooms as we know them, it also leads to a new flow of knowledge. In traditional classroom conditions, the teacher is envisioned as an expert and the flow of information is meant to be one-way, imitating a broadcast model that earlier technologies like print and cinema have embraced. With Wikipedia, there is a shift from education to learning. Everybody on Wikipedia is imagined to be a valuable person who pools his/her skills into a common database, from which knowledge is now produced and perfected. This dismantling of the teacher figure, the placing of the teacher in a condition of learning rather than teaching is the source of much anxiety that internet technologies bring forth. The recognition that the experiences, the skills, and the information that the students have are equally, if not more valuable, in the process of knowledge production and dissemination, is a significant shift in our understanding of the classroom.

The last point that I want to touch upon is the way in which the accepted role of curricula is challenged with the emergence of such easy access to different knowledge systems. For younger users of technology, who are being exposed to alternative voices, politics of dissent and a wider horizon of theory and practice, the prescribed curriculum becomes often restrictive and sometimes redundant. Because information is now easily available, the premium is on knowledge – abilities to analyze, sift, research and thinking through questions – thus changing the role of teachers, especially in schools. Many teachers are often faced with situations where the students have more information at their finger tips than is in the text-book or indeed, is available to the teacher around a particular area. In such instances, new forms of coping with curriculum, novel ways of understanding classroom pedagogies, and creative ways of incorporating the students’ experiences and information in the teaching practices need to be developed.

There is no denying the fact that the emergence of internet technologies are leading to different crises in the classrooms. However, instead of formulating it in binaries – virtual classroom versus physical classroom, Wikipedia versus Encyclopaedia Britannica, Information versus Knowledge, etc. – it is more fruitful to examine the ways in which these technologies are helping us revisit the classroom as one of the most crucial sites of the knowledge industries, and questioning many concepts and ideas that we had taken for granted in our existing education and teaching systems.

The author is the Director – Research at The Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore. He is currently working with the Networked Higher Education Initiative on a project on technology and education on networked campuses in India. He can be reached at itsnishant@gmail.com.

Link to the original article

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/present-tense-future-classrooms

Piracy Boils Down to Convenience

radha — 2011-04-02T15:15:27Z

Commercial Piracy is on the rise. But how big a role does money have to play in the piracy game was the question we asked those seated on either side of the proverbial fence.

“What started out as cassette piracy, several decades ago, has now become a flourishing business, thanks to the invention of CDs and DVDs,” says Mohan Chabria, proprietor, Anand Audio who goes on to add that piracy has drastically increased over the past few years.

“In the earlier days, conducting a raid was easy. There were some professional pirates who could be easily tracked down. Now, the numbers are vast, and it seems like a no-win situation for us. This results in a tremendous loss for the companies,” adds Mohan.

Advertising professional and author Milan Vohra believes that piracy boils down to convenience. “Piracy is about making life easier, especially when it comes to downloading stuff off the net. Personally, I don’t think I have done anything wrong when I download songs from a public site on the Internet and then transfer it onto another portable device.”

Piracy has more to do with economics than convenience for Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, Centre for Internet and Society. “We must remember that the problem came about mainly because the originals were far too expensive for the average person. The common practice today is to download everything and it is tough to eradicate that mindset. Most are not even aware of the laws surrounding piracy,” says Sunil. “It’s not the law,” disagrees Mohan, adding, “My problem is only with commercial piracy. What people do on the net does not affect us too much. It’s those living in rural areas and small towns, who aren’t even aware that they are buying pirated copies that matter. Most of our revenue comes from them,” he elaborates.

Milan and Sunil both agree that original copies must be made affordable and only then can commercial piracy decrease. Though, Mohan feels that audio companies are doing their best in terms of making copies affordable for the public. “We compiled a CD comprising 50 songs of a famous actor which we priced at Rs.35 per copy. Despite this, people went ahead and bought pirated copies for Rs.50. It was only later that we found out that these copies had 150 songs of the same actor, which is why they got preference over ours,” recollects Mohan and adds that there is no support from law enforcers as well. Sunil responds to this by saying that law enforcers are under constant pressure by other companies, whether legal or illegal, and hence they do not support copyright laws, mainly because they get caught in the constant tug-of-war.

So, is there any solution to eradicate or, at the very least, to control commercial piracy in India? Milan opines that the government needs to adopt a vigilante approach. Like, for instance, by providing a toll free number where people can call when they come across an instance of commercial piracy. “The only way to deal with the matter is to convince a consumer of piracy that there is no end-value to what he’s getting. The aim of copyright owners must be to ensure that copies are available to a larger mass and across different forms of technology,” she says. Mohan echoes the sentiment saying, “We request the government to provide us with a separate court and law enforcement officers who have specialised knowledge. Else, we need to start a thought-provoking campaign among both rural and urban consumers to convince them.”

“I would aim for a more sustainable product. Instead of a thought-provoking campaign, there should be some sort of collaboration. For a consumer, a pirate is a friend and both the copyright owner as well as the consumer needs to be kept happy. In order for that to happen, business holders must stop looking at ancient methods to curb the menace and instead try to get revenues from the new technology,” concludes Sunil.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/piracy-boils-down-to-convenience

Piracy

radha — 2009-08-26T10:43:47Z

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/copy_of_scancolor2008.jpg

Other Advocacy

radha — 2015-03-30T13:35:49Z

CIS sometimes is a part of advocacy related initiatives that do not fall in any of the above categories (accessibility, openness, Internet governance or intellectual property). More information about such activities can be found in this weblog.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/advocacy/other-advocacy

Open Video Summit

radha — 2009-12-10T06:21:01Z

The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), iCommons, Open Video Alliance and Magic Lantern are organizing a workshop on December 15, 2009 at TERI, Bangalore

The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), iCommons, Open Video Alliance and Magic Lantern are organizing a workshop on December 15, 2009.

This workshop in Bangalore—modelled after a similar meeting in October 2008 at Yale University—draws together experts from tech, art, film, NGOs and business to explore the future of online video.

When: December 15th, 2009

Where: The Energy and Resources Institute- Southern Regional Centre

(TERI-SRC)
4th Main, 2nd Cross, Domlur II Stage
Bangalore- 560071

What: The Open Video Summit is a one-day workshop to explore issues of intellectual property and telecom policy for video. By inviting experts from different fields to participate in the workshop, we aim to create a framework for open video in India and to better understand how the online video medium is developing. We also hope to expand the network of researchers who have open video on the radar and to foster international collaborations. We expect between 30-40 participants to attend.

Participants should bring some specialized knowledge or insight about the state of online video to the event. The workshop is highly interactive and its success will depend on the quality and dynamism of our discussions. This workshop will in turn direct iCommons research efforts in the area of online video policy.

Why: We’re now surrounded by cameras in cellphones, laptops, and everywhere else. Software and storage advances have made video remix an emergent art form. For the first time, huge numbers of people are communicating through video. Video is almost like a new language, a new toolkit for self-expression. This has some pretty profound implications.

But while sites like YouTube have enabled millions of people to broadcast themselves, it offers just a glimpse into the future of the online video medium. Heading into this future, the tools for creating, manipulating, and sharing video must be available to everyone. And while having community-developed, open source versions of these tools is a critical charge, it’s only one part of a larger puzzle. Open video requires that networks and technical, legal and business structures support the ability of huge numbers of individuals to use video in ways that go beyond just watching.

The Open Video Alliance was created to support industry coordination toward an open video ecosystem. OVA members develop free and open source software and conduct policy research to support a more participatory video medium. The OVA also coordinates the Open Video Conference, a multi-day summit of thought leaders in business, academia, art, and activism to explore the future of online video. The first OVC was host to over 800 guests, including 150 workshop leaders, panelists and speakers. Over 8,000 viewers tuned in from home to watch the live broadcast.

Meeting Organizers:

The Open Video Alliance is a coalition of organizations devoted to creating and promoting

free and open technologies, policies, and practices in online video. OVA founding members include Mozilla, the Participatory Culture Foundation, Kaltura, iCommons, and the Yale Information Society Project.

iCommons is a project-based incubator organization dedicated to promoting free culture and the global commons.

The Centre for Internet and Society critically engages with concerns of digital pluralism, public accountability and pedagogic practices, in the field of Internet and Society, with particular emphasis on South-South dialogues and exchange.

Magic Lantern Foundation is a non-profit group working with media and human rights.

This meeting made possible with the support of the Ford Foundation.

Working schedule:

Morning:

Keynote talk and brief discussion
Lightning presentations by selected participants
Breakout discussion groups

Afternoon:

Lunch
Breakout discussion groups
Plenary discussion to identify focus areas and summarize

Evening:

Film Screening

Space is limited. Please RSVP to conference@openvideoalliance.org, and feel free to contact us with any questions you may have. We look forward to meeting you in Bangalore.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/events/open-video-summit-1