The Centre for Internet and Society
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April 2019 Newsletter
https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/april-2019-newsletter
<b>The Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) newsletter for April 2019.</b>
<h3><span>Highlights for March 2019</span></h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">The unprecedented growth of the fintech space in India has concomitantly come with regulatory challenges around inter alia privacy and security concerns. Aayush Rathi and Shweta Mohandas <a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/aayush-rathi-and-shweta-mohandas-april-30-2019-fintech-in-india-a-study-of-privacy-and-security-commitments">have co-authored a report</a> which has analysed the privacy policies of 48 fintech companies operating in India to better understand some of these concerns.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">In today’s increasingly digitized world where an increasing volume of information is being stored in the digital format, access to data generated by digital technologies and on digital platforms is important in solving crimes online and offline. One such mechanism for international cooperation is the Convention on Cybercrime adopted in Budapest (“Budapest Convention”). Vipul Kharbanda <a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/vipul-kharbanda-april-29-2019-international-cooperation-in-cybercrime-the-budapest-convention">has provided a deeper analysis</a> on this in his research paper.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">CIS has responded to ICANN's proposed renewal of .org Registry. CIS has found severe issues with the proposed agreement. These centre around the removal of price caps and imposing obligations being currently deliberated in an ongoing Policy Development Process. Akriti Bopanna <a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/akriti-bopanna-april-28-2019-cis-response-to-icanns-proposed-renewal-of-org-registry">drafted the response</a>.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">The Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion released a draft e-commerce policy in February for which stakeholder comments were sought. CIS <a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/cis-response-to-call-for-stakeholder-comments-draft-e-commerce-policy">responded to the request for comments</a>.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">CIS Access to Knowledge team (CIS-A2K) <a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/ananth-subray-april-15-2019-cis-a2k-proposal-to-wikimedia-foundation-for-2019-2020">has submitted its proposal form for the year 2019 - 2020</a> to the Wikimedia Foundation. CIS thanks all community members who gave valuable suggestions and inputs for drafting this proposal.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><span style="text-align: justify; ">In 2017–2018, the </span><a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation" style="text-align: justify; " title="Wikimedia Foundation">Wikimedia Foundation</a><span style="text-align: justify; "> (WMF) and Google collaborated to start a pilot project in India, working closely with the </span><a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CIS-A2K" style="text-align: justify; " title="CIS-A2K">Centre for Internet and Society</a><span style="text-align: justify; "> (CIS) and the </span><a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_India" style="text-align: justify; " title="Wikimedia India">Wikimedia India</a><span style="text-align: justify; ">chapter (WMIN). <span style="text-align: justify; ">This project, titled Project Tiger was aimed at encouraging Wikipedia communities to create locally relevant and high-quality content in Indian languages. </span>CIS-A2K team submitted Project Tiger final report.</span></li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><span style="text-align: justify; ">The <a href="https://medium.com/rawblog">r@w blog </a>features works by researchers and practitioners working in India and elsewhere at the intersections of internet, digital media and society, and highlights and materials from ongoing research and events at the researchers@work programme at CIS. On the r@w blog we featured an essay titled <a href="https://medium.com/rawblog/the-internet-in-the-indian-judicial-imagination-4b7434bd2353">'The Internet in the Indian Judicial Imagination'</a> by Divij Joshi, as part of a series on <a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/call-for-essays-studying-internet-in-india">Studying Internet in India (2015)</a>; and audio recording of a session titled <a href="https://medium.com/rawblog/objectsofdigitalgovernance-ec4194a24bb">#ObjectsofDigitalGovernance </a>by Khetrimayum Monish Singh, Rajiv K. Mishra, and Vidya Subramanian which was part of the <a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/irc17">Internet Researchers Conference, 2017.</a><br /></span></li>
</ul>
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<h3>Jobs</h3>
<p>CIS is hiring:</p>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/cis-a2k-finance-officer-call-for-application">CIS-A2K Finance Officer: Call for application</a> (Only women candidates).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/jobs/internship">Internship</a><span> - applications accepted throughout the year.</span></li>
</ul>
<h3></h3>
<h3><br />CIS and the News</h3>
<p>The following news pieces were authored by CIS and published on its website in January:</p>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/business-standard-april-3-2019-shyam-ponappa-delayed-cash-flows-and-npas">Delayed Cash Flows and NPAs</a> (Shyam Ponappa; Business Standard; April 3, 2019).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/hindustan-times-april-16-2019-gurshabad-grover-to-preserve-freedoms-online-amend-it-act">To preserve freedoms online, amend the IT Act</a> (Gurshabad Grover; April 16, 2019).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/raw/indian-express-april-21-2019-nishant-shah-getting-through-an-election-made-for-social-media-gaze">Digital Native: Getting through an election made for the social media gaze</a> (Nishant Shah; Indian Express; April 21, 2019).</li>
</ul>
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<ul>
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<h3><br />CIS in the News</h3>
<p>CIS was quoted in these news articles published elsewhere:</p>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/business-standard-sai-sachin-ravikumar-april-3-2019-reddit-telegram-among-websites-blocked-in-india">Reddit, Telegram among websites blocked in India, say internet groups</a> (Sai Sachin Ravikumar; Business Standard; April 3, 2019).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/quartz-india-aria-thaker-april-4-2019-data-leaks-and-cybersecurity-should-be-an-election-issue-in-india">Data leaks could wreak havoc in India, so why aren’t they an issue this election?</a> (Aria Thaker; Quartz India; April 4, 2019).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/the-hindu-sweta-akundi-april-8-2019-microchips-cookies-and-the-internet-privacy-authentication">Cookies, not the monster you may think</a> (Sweta Akundi; Hindu; April 8, 2019).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/india-today-april-17-2019-gulam-jeelani-tik-tok-craze-a-ticking-time-bomb-for-city">TikTok craze a ticking time bomb for city</a> (Gulam Jeelani with inputs from Priyanka Sharma and Ajay Kumar; India Today; April 17, 2019).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/ananya-bhattacharya-quartz-india-april-19-2019-india-bans-tiktok-over-porn-but-not-facebook-twitter-instagram">Almost every social network has a porn problem—so why is India banning only TikTok?</a> (Ananya Bhattacharya; Quartz India; April 19, 2019).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/leon-kaiser-netzpolitik-april-24-2019-jugendschutz-und-cyber-grooming-indisches-gericht-hebt-eigenen-tiktok-bann-wieder-auf">Child protection and cyber-grooming: Indian court rescinds its own Tiktok ban</a> (Leon Kaiser; Netzpolitik.org; April 24, 2019).</li>
</ul>
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<ul>
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<h2><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/a2k">Access to Knowledge</a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Our Access to Knowledge programme currently consists of two projects. The Pervasive Technologies project, conducted under a grant from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), aims to conduct research on the complex interplay between low-cost pervasive technologies and intellectual property, in order to encourage the proliferation and development of such technologies as a social good. The Wikipedia project, which is under a grant from the Wikimedia Foundation, is for the growth of Indic language communities and projects by designing community collaborations and partnerships that recruit and cultivate new editors and explore innovative approaches to building projects.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Wikipdedia</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">As part of the <a href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/access-to-knowledge-program-plan">project grant from the Wikimedia Foundation</a> we have reached out to more than 3500 people across India by organizing more than 100 outreach events and catalysed the release of encyclopaedic and other content under the Creative Commons (CC-BY-3.0) license in four Indian languages (21 books in Telugu, 13 in Odia, 4 volumes of encyclopaedia in Konkani and 6 volumes in Kannada, and 1 book on Odia language history in English).</p>
<p><strong>Project Proposal / Reports</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/supporting-indian-language-wikipedias-program-report">Supporting Indian Language Wikipedias Program/Report </a><span>(Gopala Krishna A; April 5, 2019).</span></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/ananth-subray-april-15-2019-cis-a2k-proposal-to-wikimedia-foundation-for-2019-2020">CIS-A2K proposal to Wikimedia Foundation for 2019-2020</a> (Ananth Subray; April 15, 2019).</li>
</ul>
<p><span><br /><strong>Blog Entries</strong></span></p>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/subodh-kulkarni-april-9-2019-wikimedia-projects-session-at-tata-trust-vikas-anvesh-foundation">Wikimedia projects orientation session at Tata Trust's Vikas Anvesh Foundation</a> (Subodh Kulkarni; April 9, 2019).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/indic-wikisource-speak-sushant-savla">Indic Wikisource Speak: Sushant Savla</a> (Jayanta Nath; April 10, 2019).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/subodh-kulkarni-april-10-2019-svg-translation-workshop-at-kbc-north-maharashtra-university">SVG Translation Workshop at KBC North Maharashtra University </a>(Subodh Kulkarni; April 10, 2019).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/content-donation-sessions-with-authors">Content Donation Sessions with Authors</a> (Subodh Kulkarni; April 10, 2019).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/indic-wikisource-speak-ajit-kumar-tiwari">Indic Wikisource speak : Ajit Kumar Tiwari</a> (Jayanta Nath; April 11, 2019).</li>
</ul>
<h3><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance"><br />Internet Governance</a></h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">As part of its research on privacy and free speech, CIS is engaged with two different projects. The first one (under a grant from Privacy International and IDRC) is on surveillance and freedom of expression (SAFEGUARDS). The second one (under a grant from MacArthur Foundation) is on restrictions that the Indian government has placed on freedom of expression online.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Cyber Security</h3>
<p><strong>Research Paper</strong></p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/vipul-kharbanda-april-29-2019-international-cooperation-in-cybercrime-the-budapest-convention">International Cooperation in Cybercrime: The Budapest Convention</a> (Vipul Kharbanda; April 29, 2019).</li>
</ul>
<div>
<ul>
</ul>
<h3>Privacy</h3>
<p><strong>Research Paper</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/aayush-rathi-and-shweta-mohandas-april-30-2019-fintech-in-india-a-study-of-privacy-and-security-commitments">FinTech in India: A Study of Privacy and Security Commitments</a> (Aayush Rathi and Shweta Mohandas; April 30, 2019).</li>
</ul>
<div><strong>Submission</strong></div>
<div>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/cis-response-to-call-for-stakeholder-comments-draft-e-commerce-policy">CIS Response to Call for Stakeholder Comments: Draft E-Commerce Policy</a> (Arindrajit Basu, Vipul Kharbanda, Elonnai Hickok and Amber Sinha; April 10, 2019).</li>
</ul>
</div>
<div></div>
<div><strong>Participation in Events</strong></div>
<div>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="http://http//cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/ietf-104-prague">IETF 104 Prague</a> (Organized by IETF; Prague; March 23 - 29, 2019). Karan Saini and Gurshabad Grover participated in the event.</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/the-phantom-public-the-role-of-social-media-in-democracy">The Phantom Public: The Role of Social Media in Democracy</a> (Organized by Ambedkar University; New Delhi; April 3, 2019).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/crea-reconference">(re) conference</a> (Organized by CREA; New Delhi; April 10 - 12, 2019).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/data-for-development-mapping-key-considerations-for-policy-and-practice-in-india">Data for Development: Mapping key considerations for policy and practice in India</a><span> (Organized by Azim Premchand University; April 24, 2019). Arindrajit Basu delivered a talk. </span></li>
</ul>
</div>
<h3>Artificial Intelligence</h3>
<p>Participation in Event</p>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/telecom/news/policy-lab-on-artificial-intelligence-democracy">Policy Lab on Artificial Intelligence & Democracy</a> (Organized by Tandem Research, in partnership with Microsoft Research and Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung; Bangalore; April 2-3, 2019). Shweta Mohandas participated in the event. </li>
</ul>
<h3>Free Speech and Expression</h3>
<p><strong>Submission</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/akriti-bopanna-april-28-2019-cis-response-to-icanns-proposed-renewal-of-org-registry">CIS Response to ICANN's proposed renewal of .org Registry</a> (Akriti Bopanna; April 28, 2019).</li>
</ul>
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<ul>
</ul>
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<p><strong>Event Organized</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/events/internet-speech-perspectives-on-regulation-and-policy">Internet Speech: Perspectives on Regulation and Policy</a> ( Organized by CIS; India Habitat Centre, New Delhi; April 5, 2019).</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Blog Entry</strong></p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/akriti-bopanna-april-4-2019-didp-33-on-icann-s-2012-gtld-round-auction-fund">DIDP #33 On ICANN's 2012 gTLD round auction fund</a> (Akriti Bopanna; April 4, 2019).</li>
</ul>
<ul>
</ul>
<div></div>
<h2><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/raw">Researchers at Work (RAW)</a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The Researchers at Work (RAW) programme is an interdisciplinary research initiative driven by an emerging need to understand the reconfigurations of social practices and structures through the Internet and digital media technologies, and vice versa. It aims to produce local and contextual accounts of interactions, negotiations, and resolutions between the Internet, and socio-material and geo-political processes:</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><strong>Announcement</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/raw/call-for-essays-studying-internet-in-india">Call for Essays: Studying Internet in India</a> (Sumandro Chattapadhyay; April 6, 2019).</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><strong>Blog Entries</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://medium.com/rawblog/the-internet-in-the-indian-judicial-imagination-4b7434bd2353">The Internet in the Indian Judicial Imagination</a> (Divij Joshi; April 21, 2019).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://medium.com/rawblog/objectsofdigitalgovernance-ec4194a24bb">#ObjectsOfDigitalGovernance</a> (Khetrimayum Monish Singh, Rajiv K. Mishra, and Vidya Subramanian; April 21, 2019).</li>
</ul>
<p><span>Telecom</span></p>
<p><strong>Article</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/business-standard-april-3-2019-shyam-ponappa-delayed-cash-flows-and-npas">Delayed Cash Flows and NPAs </a>(Shyam Ponappa; Business Standard; April 3, 2019 and Organizing India Blogspot; April 4, 2019).</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Participation in Event</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/telecom/news/bif-conference-on-201csubstitutability-of-ott-services-with-telecom-services-regulation-of-ott-services">BIF conference on “Substitutability of OTT Services with Telecom Services & Regulation of OTT Services</a> (Organized by Broadband India Forum; Taj Mahal Hotel, Mansingh Road, New Delhi; April 5, 2019). Anubha Sinha was a panellist at a BIF conference on “Substitutability of OTT Services with Telecom Services & Regulation of OTT Services”.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
</ul>
<hr />
<h2><a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/">About CIS</a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) is a non-profit organisation that undertakes interdisciplinary research on internet and digital technologies from policy and academic perspectives. The areas of focus include digital accessibility for persons with disabilities, access to knowledge, intellectual property rights, openness (including open data, free and open source software, open standards, open access, open educational resources, and open video), internet governance, telecommunication reform, digital privacy, and cyber-security. The academic research at CIS seeks to understand the reconfigurations of social and cultural processes and structures as mediated through the internet and digital media technologies.</p>
<p>► Follow us elsewhere</p>
<div>
<ul>
<li>Twitter:<a href="http://twitter.com/cis_india"> http://twitter.com/cis_india</a></li>
<li>Twitter - Access to Knowledge: <a href="https://twitter.com/CISA2K">https://twitter.com/CISA2K</a></li>
<li>Twitter - Information Policy: <a href="https://twitter.com/CIS_InfoPolicy">https://twitter.com/CIS_InfoPolicy</a></li>
<li>Facebook - Access to Knowledge:<a href="https://www.facebook.com/cisa2k"> https://www.facebook.com/cisa2k</a></li>
<li>E-Mail - Access to Knowledge: <a>a2k@cis-india.org</a></li>
<li>E-Mail - Researchers at Work: <a>raw@cis-india.org</a></li>
<li>List - Researchers at Work: <a href="https://lists.ghserv.net/mailman/listinfo/researchers">https://lists.ghserv.net/mailman/listinfo/researchers</a></li>
</ul>
</div>
<p>► Support Us</p>
<div>Please help us defend consumer and 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.</div>
<p>► Request for Collaboration</p>
<div>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">We invite researchers, practitioners, artists, and theoreticians, both organisationally and as individuals, to engage with us on topics related internet and society, and improve our collective understanding of this field. To discuss such possibilities, please write to Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, at sunil@cis-india.org (for policy research), or Sumandro Chattapadhyay, Research Director, at sumandro@cis-india.org (for academic research), with an indication of the form and the content of the collaboration you might be interested in. To discuss collaborations on Indic language Wikipedia projects, write to Tanveer Hasan, Programme Officer, at <a>tanveer@cis-india.org</a>.</p>
<div style="text-align: justify; "><i>CIS is grateful to its primary donor the Kusuma Trust founded by Anurag Dikshit and Soma Pujari, philanthropists of Indian origin for its core funding and support for most of its projects. CIS is also grateful to its other donors, Wikimedia Foundation, Ford Foundation, Privacy International, UK, Hans Foundation, MacArthur Foundation, and IDRC for funding its various projects</i>.</div>
</div>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/april-2019-newsletter'>https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/april-2019-newsletter</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaTelecomResearchers at WorkInternet GovernanceAccess to Knowledge2019-09-04T14:36:41ZPageWikimedia Education SAARC conference
https://cis-india.org/a2k/events/wikimedia-education-saarc-conference
<b>Centre for Internet & Society's Access to Knowledge team (CIS-A2K) happy to announce that, Wikimedia Education SAARC conference 2019 programme submissions (proposals) are open from today, 25 April 2019. Deadline for applying for scholarship is 20 May 2019. The conference organized by Christ University in association with CIS-A2K will be held from 20 - 22 June 2019 at Christ University in Bengaluru. The event is being co-organized by Wikimedia Foundation and Wikipedia & Education User Group.</b>
<p id="_mcePaste" style="text-align: justify;">Education is a core function of the Wikipedia project. Many Wiki chapters, the Wikimedia movement, user groups and affiliates are developing education programs across the globe. Wiki has been used as a teaching resource by many teachers. Students are doing assignments on Wiki and adopting modern technologies. The Wikimedia and Education movements have the same goal - to ensure that knowledge is made accessible to every person across the world.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The CIS-A2K team, for instance, is working with the language department of Christ University and other educational institutions to enrich the content of Indic Wikimedia projects with the help of students. Globally many students and educators are involved in the Wikimedia movement and the Education movement working towards democratising education and increasing accessibility of education materials. We believe that students should not only consume knowledge available on the internet but also be a part of the larger Open Internet movement, and help in creating open knowledge resources. The Wikimedia Education SAARC conference will be the first of its kind conference involving SAARC countries, engaging students, education program leaders, educators and researchers working with the Open Education and free knowledge movement.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">This conference will allow us to understand the different efforts made by the communities involved in the Wikimedia Education movement. This will help us to create models, templates and documents that can be replicated in by other institutions or programs. We at CIS A2K were inspired to host such a conference through the course of our work with Christ University. This will be one of the many projects that will be able to use the conference as a platform to showcase their work among the global Wikimedia movement.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify;">Conference Goals</h3>
<ul>
<li>To generate awareness of Wikipedian Education programs and activities happening in Asia by different community members/languages.</li>
<li>Sharing the knowledge and best practices of how to build "trust relationship" with new partners/teachers and how to improve trust in Wikipedia.</li>
<li>Challenges on student retention and how to engage students in the broader Wikimedia movement.</li>
<li>The best method to evaluate and measure the quality of the work done by students.</li>
<li>To introduce tools like the dashboard, across diverse languages, and other tools which will be useful for tracking, assessment, allocation of the topics and others.</li>
<li>Integration of Wiki activities with academic assignments, regular course syllabus.</li>
<li>To bridge the gap and develop a mutually beneficial liaison between Wiki communities and Wikimedia Education stakeholders.</li></ul>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/a2k/events/wikimedia-education-saarc-conference'>https://cis-india.org/a2k/events/wikimedia-education-saarc-conference</a>
</p>
No publisherAdminCIS-A2KEventAccess to Knowledge2019-06-22T09:30:46ZEventCIS-A2K proposal to Wikimedia Foundation for 2019-2020
https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/ananth-subray-april-15-2019-cis-a2k-proposal-to-wikimedia-foundation-for-2019-2020
<b>The Centre for Internet & Society's Access to Knowledge team (CIS-A2K) has submitted its proposal form for the year 2019 - 2020 to the Wikimedia Foundation. CIS thanks all community members who gave valuable suggestions and inputs for drafting this proposal.</b>
<h2>Grants:APG/Proposals/2018-2019 round 2/The Centre for Internet and Society/Proposal form</h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) is a non-profit organisation registered in India that works in different areas such as <a class="text external" href="https://cis-india.org/accessibility" rel="nofollow">accessibility</a>, <a class="text external" href="https://cis-india.org/openness" rel="nofollow">openness</a>, <a class="text external" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance" rel="nofollow">internet governance</a>, <a class="text external" href="https://cis-india.org/telecom" rel="nofollow">telecom</a>, <a class="text external" href="https://cis-india.org/raw" rel="nofollow">research</a>, etc. The organisation's official website may be seen at <a class="text external" href="https://cis-india.org/" rel="nofollow">cis-india.org</a>. Annual reports of the Centre for Internet and Society may be seen <a class="text external" href="https://cis-india.org/about/reports" rel="nofollow">here</a>.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The <a class="text external" href="https://cis-india.org/a2k" rel="nofollow">Access to Knowledge (A2K)</a> program of CIS<sup><a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/Proposals/2018-2019_round_2/The_Centre_for_Internet_and_Society/Proposal_form#cite_note-2">[2]</a></sup> is dedicated to supporting and serving Indian Wikimedia projects and the communities. In the last few years, CIS-A2K has worked towards creating sustainable programs and building community capacity. The primary objectives of CIS-A2K are:</p>
<ul>
<li>Supporting and serving the Indian Wikimedia communities in all possible ways.</li>
<li>Building institutional partnerships.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Bringing more content under <a class="extiw" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_license" title="en:Free license">free license</a></li>
<li>Designing and executing projects with community participation.</li>
<li>Strengthening the Wikimedia volunteers.</li>
<li>Fostering and enabling an appropriate legal and technological ecosystem.</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In 2018–2019 CIS-A2K worked with Kannada, Marathi, Odia, and Telugu communities as Focused Language Area, and Punjabi Wikisource as a Focused Project Area. Some of the major events conducted by CIS-A2K in last 1 year were:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CIS-A2K/Events/Train_the_Trainer_Program" style="text-align: center; " title="CIS-A2K/Events/Train the Trainer Program">Train the Trainer</a></li>
<li><a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CIS-A2K/Events/MediaWiki_Training" style="text-align: center; " title="CIS-A2K/Events/MediaWiki Training">MediaWiki Training</a></li>
<li><a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CIS-A2K/Events/Wiki_Advanced_Training/2018" style="text-align: center; " title="CIS-A2K/Events/Wiki Advanced Training/2018">Advanced Wikidata Training</a></li>
<li><span style="text-align: center; ">Wikisource workshop (</span><a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Punjabi_Wikimedians/Punjabi_Wikisource_Training_Workshop,_Patiala" style="text-align: center; " title="Punjabi Wikimedians/Punjabi Wikisource Training Workshop, Patiala">Patiala</a><span style="text-align: center; ">, </span><a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Gujarati_Wikisource_Workshop,_Ahmedabad" style="text-align: center; " title="Gujarati Wikisource Workshop, Ahmedabad">Ahmedabad</a><span style="text-align: center; ">, </span><a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CIS-A2K/Events/Wikisource_training_Bengaluru" style="text-align: center; " title="CIS-A2K/Events/Wikisource training Bengaluru">Bangalore</a><span style="text-align: center; ">)</span></li>
<li><a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikigraphists_Bootcamp_(2018_India)" style="text-align: center; " title="Wikigraphists Bootcamp (2018 India)">Wikigraphists Bootcamp</a></li>
<li><a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/TWLCon_(2019_India)" style="text-align: center; " title="TWLCon (2019 India)">TWLCon</a></li>
<li><a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CIS-A2K/Events/Women_TTT_2019" style="text-align: center; " title="CIS-A2K/Events/Women TTT 2019">Women's TTT</a></li>
<li><a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wiki_Women_for_Women_Wellbeing_2018" style="text-align: center; " title="Wiki Women for Women Wellbeing 2018">Wiki Women for Women Wellbeing (WWWW)</a></li>
</ul>
<p><a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CIS-A2K/Events/Women_TTT_2019" style="text-align: center; " title="CIS-A2K/Events/Women TTT 2019"></a></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">CIS-A2K is also working with like-minded organisations and institutions such as <a class="text external" href="https://christuniversity.in/" rel="nofollow">Christ University</a>, Bangalore, <a class="text external" href="https://www.mkcl.org/" rel="nofollow">Maharashtra Knowledge Corporation</a>, <a class="text external" href="http://vigyanashram.com/" rel="nofollow">Vigyan Ashram</a>, <a class="text external" href="http://su.digitaluniversity.ac/" rel="nofollow">Punyashlok Ahilyadevi Holkar Solapur University</a>, Odisha state government etc to improve content on different Wikimedia projects and to bring more content to the projects.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Proposal overview</h3>
<p><strong>1.</strong> Please provide a brief description of your organisation's work in the upcoming funding period.<strong><br /></strong>The <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CIS-A2K" title="CIS-A2K">Centre for Internet and Society – Access to Knowledge</a> is submitting the work-plan for the period 1 July 2019 to 30 June 2020. Our plans and programs may be divided into the following verticals:</p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">in <strong>Content Enrichment</strong>, we are proposing activities like edit-a-thons, Wikisource proofread and validation campaign, Wikidata label-a-thons and data-thons, photowalks etc. We'll also work with like-minded institutions and organisations to conduct thematic edit-a-thons or similar activities that will help to improve content on different Indic Wikimedia projects;</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">in <strong>Skill Development Initiatives</strong>, we are proposing to conduct activities like <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CIS-A2K/Events/Copyright_workshop:_South_India" title="CIS-A2K/Events/Copyright workshop: South India">Zonal Wiki workshops</a>, <a class="mw-redirect" href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/MWT" title="MWT">MediaWiki Training</a>, and <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CIS-A2K/Events/Advanced_Wikidata_Training_2018" title="CIS-A2K/Events/Advanced Wikidata Training 2018">Wikidata workshop</a> etc. We will also conduct zonal and regional workshops on different Wikimedia projects.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">in <strong>Partnership</strong>, we will continue our work with the existing partners, and we'll build new partneships. We are proposing activities like outreach, awareness sessions, and workshops for content donation, increasing awareness about the Wiki movement and bridging gender gap;</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">in <strong>Leadership</strong>, we are proposing activities like <a class="mw-redirect" href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/TTT" title="TTT">Train-the-Trainer</a>, Wikisource Conference, <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CIS-A2K/Events/2019/Wikimedia_Summit_India_2019" title="CIS-A2K/Events/2019/Wikimedia Summit India 2019">Wikimedia Summit India</a>, <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CIS-A2K/Intensive_Personalized_Wiki_Training" title="CIS-A2K/Intensive Personalized Wiki Training">Intensive Personal Wiki Training</a>, supporting Indic Wikimedians through <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:CIS-A2K/Requests" title="Talk:CIS-A2K/Requests">request page</a> etc.</li>
</ul>
<p>In this work-plan year, CIS-A2K will continue its transition from Focused Language Area (FLA) to Focused Project Area (FPA).</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>Focused Language Area: Focused Language Area is an approach of CIS-A2K, where we work with a community with all its projects and activities. In other words, CIS-A2K supports all wiki-activities of a particular language community. So far Kannada, Konkani, Odia, Marathi, Tulu, Telugu have been our FLAs.</li>
<li>Focused Project Area: Focused Project Area or FPA is an approach of CIS-A2K introduced in <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CIS-A2K/Work_plan_July_2018_-_June_2019" title="CIS-A2K/Work plan July 2018 - June 2019">2018–2019 work-plan</a> where CIS-A2K mainly focuses on projects. In 2018–2019 CIS-A2K collaborated with <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Punjabi_Wikimedians" title="Punjabi Wikimedians">Punjabi Wikimedians</a>, and our focused projects for Punjabi Wikimedians were Punjabi mostly Wikisource and Institutional Partnership. In the same year, we increased our support towards Wikisource communities in India, appointed a Wikisource project advisor, and conducted and supported several Wikisource project events. In November 2018, we conducted a national-level <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CIS-A2K/Events/Indic_Wikisource_Community_Consultation_2018" title="CIS-A2K/Events/Indic Wikisource Community Consultation 2018">Wikisource consultation</a>.</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">We'll plan programs and activities accordingly keeping (Wikipedia) and Wikisource and Wikidata in mind. We will focus on these two projects as based on our interaction with Indian Wikimedia community members, we have found several Indic Wikimedia communities want further support and focus on these projects. CIS-A2K earlier put some effort to support these projects, and this work-plan year we will put more effort.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">CIS-A2K will continue working towards creating an inclusive Wiki atmosphere in the Indian subcontinent. With an emphasis on creating safe spaces, promoting gender gap bridging activities A2K team would like to work with all the Indian communities, projects and individuals with interesting ideas and for the overall development of Wikimedia movement. Bridging gender gap will remain as a primary focus of CIS-A2K. We'll try to ensure at least 25% of female participants in all the events conducted by CIS-A2K. We'll conduct a quarterly audit, and present the report in our <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CIS-A2K/Reports/Newsletter" title="CIS-A2K/Reports/Newsletter">newsletters</a>.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><img src="https://cis-india.org/home-images/ProposalOverview.jpg/@@images/19a87ca1-0e58-47a3-9055-bf2e181221ab.jpeg" alt="Proposal Overview" class="image-inline" title="Proposal Overview" /></p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Read the full proposal on <a class="external-link" href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/Proposals/2018-2019_round_2/The_Centre_for_Internet_and_Society/Proposal_form">Wikipedia page</a></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/ananth-subray-april-15-2019-cis-a2k-proposal-to-wikimedia-foundation-for-2019-2020'>https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/ananth-subray-april-15-2019-cis-a2k-proposal-to-wikimedia-foundation-for-2019-2020</a>
</p>
No publisherAnanthWikimediaCIS-A2KWikipediaAccess to Knowledge2019-04-15T08:05:23ZBlog EntryIndic Wikisource speak : Ajit Kumar Tiwari
https://cis-india.org/a2k/indic-wikisource-speak-ajit-kumar-tiwari
<b>"Wikisource is going to be as important as Wikipedia because it addresses the issues of citations and references inherently. I will make it as my key pedagogical tool to educate my students and make them a part of this great movement." - Hindi Wiki-librarian Ajit Kumar Tiwari ( अजीत कुमार तिवारी ) share his experience about Hindi Wikisource which approved by Language committee of Wikimedia Foundation Inc , US for separate domain on February 2019.</b>
<p dir="ltr"><span id="m_3295304901219593379gmail-m_6597212628377513338gmail-docs-internal-guid-ee7eba51-7fff-12de-cdc2-69e485e8ff6b"></span><strong>CIS :Tell us about yourself, When did you join Wikimedia movement? And What are the projects you are involved in?</strong></p>
<p><em><strong>Ajit : I joined the movement in 2012 as a Wikipedian. I am involved in Wikipedia, Wikisource and Wikidata.</strong></em></p>
<strong><span class="im">
<p dir="ltr">CIS : What are the methods or workflow you follow to contribute on your language Wikisource?</p>
</span></strong><span class="im"></span><span class="im"></span><span class="im"> </span>
<div><em><strong><strong>Ajit </strong>:</strong> I usually upload a book and try to indulge as many editors as possible and distribute the works like header & footer and proofreading to concerned editors.</em></div>
<span class="im"><br />
<p dir="ltr"><strong>CIS :How is the awareness about Wikisource in your language Wikimedia community?</strong></p>
</span>
<div><em><strong><strong>Ajit </strong>:</strong> Its still in an early state but awareness is spreading rapidly since November 2018. I hope till the end of this year, wikisource will be the next best project in Hindi after Wikipedia.</em></div>
<span class="im"><br />
<p dir="ltr"><strong>CIS :We see there’s a growth in Indic Wikisource movement (showing Amir’s stats), what kind of help does the community need to grow?</strong></p>
</span>
<div><em><strong><strong>Ajit </strong> :</strong> Better knowledge and understandings of the copyright acts, proofreading tools and lowering technical gap in the community.</em></div>
<span class="im">
<div> </div>
<p dir="ltr"><strong>CIS :What are the challenges do you face while contributing to the project? Or social challenges while reaching out to aurtors or publishers.</strong></p>
</span>
<div><em><strong><strong>Ajit </strong>:</strong> Copyright is the key concern, however making authors and publishers understand the ethos of Wikisource or free knowledge access is even bigger challenge.</em> </div>
<span class="im"><br />
<p dir="ltr"><strong>CIS : How would you describe the future of Wikisource? What are your personal goals for it?</strong></p>
</span><em>Ajit : Wikisource is going to be as important as Wikipedia because it addresses the issues of citations and references inherently. I will make it as my key pedagogical tool to educate my students and make them a part of this great movement.</em>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/a2k/indic-wikisource-speak-ajit-kumar-tiwari'>https://cis-india.org/a2k/indic-wikisource-speak-ajit-kumar-tiwari</a>
</p>
No publisherjayantaWikisourceCIS-A2KWiki-librarian speakAccess to Knowledge2019-04-17T20:07:20ZBlog EntryIndic Wikisource Speak: Sushant Savla
https://cis-india.org/a2k/indic-wikisource-speak-sushant-savla
<b>Future is bright -- Sushant Savla (User:Sushant_savla) from Gujarati Wikisource community, share his experience & journey.</b>
<p dir="ltr"><strong>CIS : Tell us about yourself, When did you join Wikimedia movement? And What are the projects you are involved in?Dr Hrishikesh Sen at IWCC2018</strong></p>
<p dir="ltr"><em>Sushant Savla</em><strong>:</strong><em> </em><em>Sushant Savla (User Name: Sushant_savla) </em><em>I joined Wikimedia Movement in around 2008. </em><em>I am associated with Gujarati Wikipedia, Gujarati WikiSource, Graphics Lab on Commons (Illustrations SVG)</em></p>
<p dir="ltr"><strong>CIS : What are the methods or workflow you follow to contribute to your language Wikisource?</strong></p>
<p dir="ltr"><em>Sushant Savla</em><strong>:</strong> <em>We take up a book and work on it till it completes. AS we have limited members and all are having good understanding all work on same project and complete it to the level of Validation. A book is chosen, Scanning is done, If not copyright free OTRS is executed, Index is prepared, OCR is done, Page number allotment is kept on Discussion page of Index page and as per the availability of time the Users take up pages and proofreading starts, Experienced Librarians or Manager of the project carries out validation simultaneously. While this work goes on other team parallely stats scanning other book for next project. </em> </p>
<p dir="ltr"><strong>CIS : How is the awareness about Wikisource in your language Wikimedia community?</strong></p>
<p dir="ltr"><em>Sushant Savla</em><strong>:</strong> In the small commmunity of ours all knows about wikisource. However among common people awareness is low.</p>
<p dir="ltr"><strong>CIS : We see there’s a growth in Indic Wikisource movement (showing Amir’s stats), what kind of help does the community need to grow?</strong></p>
<p dir="ltr"><em>Sushant Savla</em><strong>:</strong> <em>Major challenge now is technical support, in conversion of PDF, mobi etc.</em><em>The Second challenge is Outreach. </em><em>The third challenge is lack of time in arranging Contest etc. More technical , automated result giving systems are required to hold competition on grand level. </em><em>The delay in getting OTRS approved is another challenges. Till the time OTRS is approved the enthusiasm of a doner writter fuses off. Speedy process is required. OTRS approver should have time limit.</em></p>
<p dir="ltr"><strong>CIS : What are the challenges do you face while contributing to the project? Or social challenges while reaching out to authors or publishers.</strong></p>
<p dir="ltr"><em>Sushant Savla</em><strong>:</strong><em><strong> </strong></em><em>As such nothing. But a letter of appreciation sort of thing to author would help. we can print that in certificate format and give them. </em></p>
<p dir="ltr"><strong>CIS : How would you describe the future of Wikisource? What are your personal goals for it?</strong></p>
<p dir="ltr"><em>Sushant Savla</em><strong>: </strong><em>Future is bright, Person Goals : more books , more material, More contributors, Keeping them live on project. Need to motivate users by some interesting events.In wikiconference please increase the number of participants. </em></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/a2k/indic-wikisource-speak-sushant-savla'>https://cis-india.org/a2k/indic-wikisource-speak-sushant-savla</a>
</p>
No publisherjayantaCIS-A2KAccess to KnowledgeWikipedianSpeakWiki-librarian speakWikisourceWikipediansSpeak2019-04-17T20:09:09ZBlog EntryIndic Wikisource Speak: Dr. Hrishikes Sen
https://cis-india.org/Indic%20Wikisource%20Speak%20Dr%20Hrishikes%20Sen
<b>There are plenty of people engaged in digitising Bengali books. Plenty of pirated digitised books are available online. We need to tap into that catchment area. I think, if we can prepare high-grade pdf versions of our completed works and spread those to various online non-wiki reader communities, we are likely to get good contributors. -- User:Hrishikes from English and Bengali Wikisource community, share his journey.</b>
<p dir="ltr"><strong>CIS : Tell us about yourself, When did you join Wikimedia movement? And What are the projects you are involved in?</strong></p>
<p dir="ltr"><strong>Hrishikes:</strong><em> Joined in March, 2007. In Wikisource since 2012.</em></p>
<p dir="ltr"><strong>CIS : What are the methods or workflow you follow to contribute to your language Wikisource?</strong></p>
<p dir="ltr"><strong>Hrishikes:</strong> <em>Method: I work slowly; try to give meticulous attention. Don't skip pages usually. Work page-by-page upto the last, even if a page is problematic. Come back to previously worked pages time and again, and correct any mistake.</em></p>
<p dir="ltr"><strong>CIS : How is the awareness about Wikisource in your language Wikimedia community?</strong></p>
<p dir="ltr"><strong>Hrishikes:</strong> <em>Awareness is present in the community, but there is disinclination to work in Wikisource, because of templates and other formatting issues</em>.</p>
<p dir="ltr"><strong>CIS : We see there’s a growth in Indic Wikisource movement (showing Amir’s stats), what kind of help does the community need to grow?</strong></p>
<p dir="ltr"><strong>Hrishikes:</strong> <em>There are plenty of people engaged in digitising Bengali books. Plenty of pirated digitised books are available online. We need to tap into that catchment area. I think, if we can prepare high-grade pdf versions of our completed works and spread those to various online non-wiki reader communities, we are likely to get good contributors.</em></p>
<p dir="ltr"><strong>CIS : What are the challenges do you face while contributing to the project? Or social challenges while reaching out to authors or publishers.</strong></p>
<p dir="ltr"><strong>Hrishikes:</strong><em><strong> </strong>I like this project. Main issue is getting the time: extracting time from real life commitments. I have not been active in author/publisher liaison.</em></p>
<p dir="ltr"><strong>CIS : How would you describe the future of Wikisource? What are your personal goals for it?</strong></p>
<p dir="ltr"><strong>Hrishikes:</strong><em>The main problem is: everybody wants to download books and read them offline. Hardly anyone wants to read online. That attitude is going to stay. So we need to concentrate on giving this to the customers. Books downloaded from our site (transcribed books, not scans) should be of very high quality. If we can achieve this, the future may be good.</em></p>
<p dir="ltr"><strong>CIS : Please share one remarkable work which is available at your domain and you had contributed. </strong></p>
<p dir="ltr"><strong>Hrishikes: </strong>There are many more ,</p>
<p dir="ltr"><span id="docs-internal-guid-ac9ea17a-7fff-c1a0-097b-f5edb5ad6c49"></span></p>
<ul><li style="list-style-type: disc;" dir="ltr">
<p dir="ltr"> Bengali Wikisource <a href="https://bn.wikisource.org/wiki/%E0%A6%B6%E0%A6%95%E0%A7%81%E0%A6%A8%E0%A7%8D%E0%A6%A4%E0%A6%B2%E0%A6%BE_(%E0%A6%B8%E0%A6%BF%E0%A6%97%E0%A6%A8%E0%A7%87%E0%A6%9F_%E0%A6%AA%E0%A7%8D%E0%A6%B0%E0%A7%87%E0%A6%B8_%E0%A6%B8%E0%A6%82%E0%A6%B8%E0%A7%8D%E0%A6%95%E0%A6%B0%E0%A6%A3)">শকুন্তলা (সিগনেট প্রেস সংস্করণ)</a>, <a href="https://bn.wikisource.org/s/a70z">রাজমালা (ভূপেন্দ্রচন্দ্র চক্রবর্তী) </a>,<a href="https://bn.wikisource.org/wiki/%E0%A6%9C%E0%A7%80%E0%A6%AC%E0%A6%A8%E0%A6%BE%E0%A6%A8%E0%A6%A8%E0%A7%8D%E0%A6%A6_%E0%A6%A6%E0%A6%BE%E0%A6%B6%E0%A7%87%E0%A6%B0_%E0%A6%B6%E0%A7%8D%E0%A6%B0%E0%A7%87%E0%A6%B7%E0%A7%8D%E0%A6%A0_%E0%A6%95%E0%A6%AC%E0%A6%BF%E0%A6%A4%E0%A6%BE">জীবনানন্দ দাশের শ্রেষ্ঠ কবিতা </a>,<a href="https://bn.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%A6%AB%E0%A7%81%E0%A6%B2%E0%A6%AE%E0%A6%A3%E0%A6%BF_%E0%A6%93_%E0%A6%95%E0%A6%B0%E0%A7%81%E0%A6%A3%E0%A6%BE%E0%A6%B0_%E0%A6%AC%E0%A6%BF%E0%A6%AC%E0%A6%B0%E0%A6%A3">ফুলমণি ও করুণার বিবরণ </a>, <a href="https://bn.wikisource.org/s/fxiy">পোকা-মাকড় </a>, <a href="https://bn.wikisource.org/wiki/%E0%A6%97%E0%A7%8C%E0%A6%A1%E0%A6%BC%E0%A6%B0%E0%A6%BE%E0%A6%9C%E0%A6%AE%E0%A6%BE%E0%A6%B2%E0%A6%BE">গৌড়রাজমালা </a>,</p>
</li><li style="list-style-type: disc;" dir="ltr">
<p dir="ltr">Hindi Wikisource: <a href="https://wikisource.org/wiki/%E0%A4%95%E0%A4%AA%E0%A4%BE%E0%A4%B2%E0%A4%95%E0%A5%81%E0%A4%A3%E0%A5%8D%E0%A4%A1%E0%A4%B2%E0%A4%BE">कपालकुण्डला </a></p>
</li><li style="list-style-type: disc;" dir="ltr">
<p dir="ltr">English Wikisource : <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandra_Shekhar">Chandra Shekhar </a><a href="https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Collected_Physical_Papers">Collected Physical Papers</a>, <a href="https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Bird_of_Time">The Bird of Time</a> , <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nil_Darpan">Nil Durpan</a>, <a href="https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Folk-tales_of_Bengal">Folk-tales of Bengal </a>, <a href="https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Constitution_of_India_(Original_Calligraphed_and_Illuminated_Version)">The Constitution of India (Original Calligraphed and Illuminated Version)</a> , <a href="https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Calcutta:_Past_and_Present">Calcutta: Past and Present</a> ,<a href="https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_History_of_the_Bengali_Language"> The History of the Bengali Language</a> , <a href="https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_P%C4%81las_of_Bengal/Chapter_4">The Pālas of Bengal</a></p>
</li></ul>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/Indic%20Wikisource%20Speak%20Dr%20Hrishikes%20Sen'>https://cis-india.org/Indic%20Wikisource%20Speak%20Dr%20Hrishikes%20Sen</a>
</p>
No publisherjayantaCIS-A2KAccess to KnowledgeFeaturedWiki-librarian speakWikisource2019-04-26T06:42:48ZBlog EntryIndic Wikisource Speak: Dr. Gitartha Bordoloi
https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/Indic-Wikisource-Speak-Dr-Gitartha-Bordoloi
<b>"People are more aware of Wikipedia than Wikisource." - Gitartha Bordoloi from Assamese Wikisource community, share his experience with CIS-A2K team.</b>
<p id="docs-internal-guid-c9a13f54-7fff-f790-f196-dc27d397de09" dir="ltr">Gitartha Bordoloi from Assamese Wikisource community</p>
<p dir="ltr"><strong>CIS :</strong> <strong>Tell us about yourself, When did you join Wikimedia movement? And What are the projects you are involved in?</strong></p>
<p dir="ltr"><strong>Gitartha:</strong> <em>I'm Gitartha Bordoloi hailing from Jorhat, Assam. I edit in Wikimedia projects under the username Gitartha.bordoloi. I'm a doctor by profession and currently I'm working as a faculty in the Department of Physiology, Silchar Medical College and Hospital, Assam.</em></p>
<em>
</em>
<p dir="ltr"><em>I joined Wikimedia movement in February, 2011. I tried to write an article in English Wikipedia when a friend of mine informed me that there's even a Wikipedia in Assamese and suggested I contribute there too. I'm now mostly involved in Assamese Wikipedia and Wikisource. I contribute to commons also to the best of my ability.</em></p>
<p dir="ltr"><strong>CIS : What are the methods or workflow you follow to contribute to your language Wikisource?</strong></p>
<p dir="ltr"><strong>Gitartha</strong><strong class="gr-progress">: </strong><em>When</em><em> we started as.wikisource we didn't have any scans and we typed or collected only texts. Then after learning about the detailed process I scanned a few books from my personal collection and uploaded those to commons for proofreading in Wikisource. We are currently digitizing scanned books found in Archive and other online sources. We are putting the list of new additions on the wikisource home page and encouraging the volunteers, mostly through social networks, to work on them. Instead of picking random books for proofreading, we are choosing an author every month (based on the birth or death month) and doing proofreading works penned by the author.</em></p>
<p dir="ltr"><strong>CIS :</strong> <strong>How is the awareness about Wikisource in your language Wikimedia community?</strong></p>
<p dir="ltr">Gitartha: <em>The awareness about Wikisource in the community isn't that great reflecting the awareness of the general population. People are more aware of Wikipedia than Wikisource. We're trying to tell people about this project through facebook group, page and twitter. Some articles were published in news papers in the past which we'll have to do again. We'll also arrange some wikisource meets and workshops in near future.</em></p>
<p dir="ltr"><strong>CIS : We see there’s a growth in Indic Wikisource movement (showing Amir’s stats), what kind of help does the community need to grow?</strong></p>
<p dir="ltr"><strong>Gitartha:</strong> <em>Of late there has been a sharp growth in Assamese Wikisource due to active engagement of a number of users which we would like to sustain in the long term. We're planning to conduct the first Assamese wikisource workshop within a few months. Many new users have shown interest in this. Hopefully we'll get the guidance from CIS at every step. When the community grows we should be given a chance to hold a national level program such as TTT which will catch people's eyes and increase the number of contributors.</em></p>
<p dir="ltr"><strong>CIS :</strong> <strong>What are the challenges do you face while contributing to the project? Or social challenges while reaching out to authors or publishers.</strong></p>
<p dir="ltr"><strong>Gitartha:</strong> <em>As a contributor the first challenge I faced in wikisource was its steep learning curve compared to wikipedia. It's one thing to do only the proofreading part, but Wikisource is much more than that. Checking copyright status, uploading, indexing, transcluding, formatting etc take some effort. So the new users have to be kept away from some of the processes. Another major challenge for me is get sufficient time for offline wiki activities which I'm unable to do now. Third major challenge for me is motivating people about developing project without any monetary benefit.</em></p>
<p dir="ltr"><strong>CIS :</strong> <strong>How would you describe the future of Wikisource? What are your personal goals for it?</strong></p>
<p dir="ltr"><strong>Gitartha</strong><strong>:</strong><em>Our</em><em> project is still in the nascent stage and so we're not yet having any social challenges. We hope we face such issues in the coming months with the growth of our community.</em></p>
<p dir="ltr"><strong>CIS : Please share one remarkable work which is available at your domain and you had contributed. </strong></p>
<p dir="ltr"><strong>Gitartha</strong><strong>: </strong>I would like to consider all the works that I've contributed as remarkable and close to my heart. Though one rare book titled "<a class="external-link" href="https://as.wikisource.org/wiki/%E0%A6%B2%27%E0%A7%B0%E0%A6%BE-%E0%A6%9B%E0%A7%8B%E0%A7%B1%E0%A6%BE%E0%A6%B2%E0%A7%80%E0%A7%B0_%E0%A7%B0%E0%A6%82-%E0%A6%98%E0%A7%B0%E0%A7%80%E0%A6%AF%E0%A6%BC%E0%A6%BE_%E0%A6%96%E0%A7%87%E0%A6%B2/%E0%A6%B8%E0%A7%82%E0%A6%9A%E0%A7%80">ল'ৰা-ছোৱালীৰ ৰং-ঘৰীয়া খেল</a>" (Lora-suwalir rong-ghariya khel) stands out. It was published in 1849 and teaches a large number of simple sports and physical activities including dance movements which can be practiced in schools. I found it in archive.org and transferred to commons before completing proofreading process with some other users. </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/Indic-Wikisource-Speak-Dr-Gitartha-Bordoloi'>https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/Indic-Wikisource-Speak-Dr-Gitartha-Bordoloi</a>
</p>
No publisherjayantaCIS-A2KAccess to KnowledgeWikipedianSpeakWiki-librarian speakWikisourceWikipediansSpeak2019-04-17T20:10:28ZBlog EntrySVG Translation Workshop at KBC North Maharashtra University
https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/subodh-kulkarni-april-10-2019-svg-translation-workshop-at-kbc-north-maharashtra-university
<b>The Centre for Internet & Access to Knowledge (CIS-A2K) wing organized an SVG translation workshop in collaboration with KBC North Maharashtra University, Jalgaon on 14-15 March 2019. The workshop was a part of India level campaign. Total 58 participants attended the workshop and contributed to Commons till 31 March 2019.</b>
<h3>Background</h3>
<p>During the edit-a-thons and thematic workshops, the need for images in Marathi was realised. Many articles on health and science have images with labels in English. The issue was discussed with few institutions. KBC University came forward to start the activity under this campaign.</p>
<h3>Objectives</h3>
<ul>
<li>Orientation of Wikimedia projects</li>
<li>Localisation of SVG images</li>
<li>Commons upload policies and process</li></ul>
<h3>Facilitators</h3>
<ul>
<li>Krishna Chaitanya Velaga -- <a title="User:KCVelaga" href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:KCVelaga">User: KCVelaga</a></li>
<li>Subodh Kulkarni, CIS-A2K --<a title="User:Subodh (CIS-A2K)" href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Subodh_(CIS-A2K)">Subodh (CIS-A2K)</a> </li>
<li>Prof. Manish Joshi, SOCS KBCNMU, Jalgaon -- <a title="User:Joshmanish" href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Joshmanish">Joshmanish</a> </li>
<li>Dr. Snehalata B. Shirude, SOCS KBCNMU, Jalgaon --<a title="User:Snehalata Shirude" href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Snehalata_Shirude">Snehalata Shirude</a> </li></ul>
<h3>Agenda</h3>
<ul>
<li>Introduction to Wikimedia projects, Marathi Wikipedia, Commons</li>
<li>Account creation, basic editing skills</li>
<li>Copyrights, Commons upload process</li>
<li>Graphics images, types of formats, features</li>
<li>Installation of fonts, Inkscape</li>
<li>Resources for translation, verification before uploads</li>
<li>Selection of images, tags, categories for upload</li>
<li>Using translated images in local Wikipedia</li></ul>
<h3>Report</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify;">As the participants were not aware of Wikimedia projects, the first two sessions dedicated to an introduction to various projects. The participants opened accounts on a smartphone and created user pages after logging in on computers. They were introduced to basic skills in Wikipedia editing, giving references/wiki links and adding images from Commons. The Commons platform was explained in detail. The missing images in Marathi language articles and Commons as well were shown. The discussion on these topics resulted in understanding the need for SVG translation exercise.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The next session was to download and install the necessary software on each computer. The participants installed Google Input Tools for Marathi typing and also Inkscape. Before translating images on Inkscape, the students first practised Marathi typing on their sandboxes. After this, the main graphics sessions were conducted. Krishna explained various types of formats, differences between raster and vector graphics, the importance of SVGs and actual SVG file translation process. He demonstrated the process for images with different difficulty levels. They were introduced to resources available as a part of the campaign for SVG translation and necessary techniques. The usage of various online resources like encyclopedia and thesaurus available was also explained. The images were selected and working tags were applied by the participants. The faculty facilitated the process of work distribution among the students. The participants were able to upload 100+ images on the first day.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><img src="https://cis-india.org/home-images/SVGWorkshop.jpg/@@images/6d0456b2-a79a-49eb-abd0-73e551f0fbb0.jpeg" alt="null" class="image-inline" title="SVG Workshop" /></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: justify;">Pictured above: Students from Day 1 helping others on Day 2 (Picture by Subodh Kulkarni)</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">On Day 2, around 20 participants newly joined the workshop. This group comprised of teachers, journalists, doctors, and other enthusiastic citizens. Active students from Day 1 facilitated the training of this new batch. Having conducted a session on the previous day greatly helped to facilitate this session easily. The experienced teachers and citizens helped others to get correct translations and terms. This boosted the speed of the work. The images were also used in the articles on Marathi Wikipedia.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">With the help of science teachers, the images were verified before uploading to Commons. Due to active participatory work on the second day, the total images crossed 200 mark. The students continued to contribute till last day of campaign i.e. 31 March. At the end, due to consistent work <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Creations_from_STC19_in_mr">Marathi category</a> reached the highest number with a total of 357 images among <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Creations_from_STC19">all Indian languages</a>. The workshop and further work was well organized and motivated by Prof. Manish Joshi and Prof. Snehalata Shirude from Computer Science department.</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify;">Link to the Wikipedia page report<a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CIS-A2K/Events/SVG_Translation_Workshop_at_KBC_North_Maharashtra_University,_Jalgaon_(14-15_March_2019)"> here</a></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/subodh-kulkarni-april-10-2019-svg-translation-workshop-at-kbc-north-maharashtra-university'>https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/subodh-kulkarni-april-10-2019-svg-translation-workshop-at-kbc-north-maharashtra-university</a>
</p>
No publishersubodhFeaturedCIS-A2KMarathi WikipediaAccess to Knowledge2019-04-26T06:47:40ZBlog EntryContent Donation Sessions with Authors
https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/content-donation-sessions-with-authors
<b>CIS-A2K has adopted an integrated approach towards knowledge generation in Marathi language. With the involvement of various stakeholders in different programmes, CIS-A2K facilitated a comprehensive workshop for publishers, printers, designers and writers on 7 September 2018.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The State Govt. Language department, All India Marathi Literary Body & All India Marathi Publishers Consortium took the lead to organize this workshop. In this workshop, noted authors Sunilkumar Lawate and Laxmikant Deshmukh expressed their willingness to donate their books to Wikimedia projects. The awareness about content donation was spread among the writers' community through this workshop.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Objectives</h3>
<ul>
<li>To promote the concept of content donation in Wikimedia projects</li>
<li>To develop repository of reference books on Commons & Wikisource</li>
<li>To facilitate organizations working in developmental sector for developing open knowledge on internet</li>
</ul>
<h3>Report</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">To promote Marathi language, Marathi language fortnight (1-15 January) and Marathi Day (27 February) was celebrated in Maharashtra. CIS-A2K organized various events on this occasion with state government, publishers, writers and other stakeholders in knowledge business. Some of the authors responded to the appeal to donate their literature in public domain. The following content donations were received in February and March 2019.</p>
<h3><a class="external-link" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:%E0%A4%B6%E0%A5%82%E0%A4%A8%E0%A5%8D%E0%A4%AF_%E0%A4%95%E0%A4%9A%E0%A4%B0%E0%A4%BE_(Shoonya_Kachara).pdf">Book on Home Composting</a></h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Kaustubh Tamhankar, an active citizen from Thane is promoting innovative home composting methods for zero garbage. He has produced some manuals and videos on the process. As the awareness about environment friendly lifestyle is increasing, the author thought of releasing the first manual on Commons. CIS-A2K community advocate (CA) trained him in basics of Wikipedia and Commons. He completed the OTRS process and uploaded the book on zero garbage. He has planned to upload some more manuals and videos in future.</p>
<h3><a class="external-link" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Books_by_Sunilkumar_Lawate">Books by Sunilkumar Lawate</a></h3>
<p><img src="https://cis-india.org/home-images/VSKhandekar.jpg/@@images/eaaf1a61-67d6-4c7a-9930-789769cc79e3.jpeg" alt="VS Khandekar" class="image-inline" title="VS Khandekar" /></p>
<p>Pictured above: Cover page of the book 'V. S. Khandekar Biography' by Sunilkumar Lawate</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://mr.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%A4%B8%E0%A5%81%E0%A4%A8%E0%A5%80%E0%A4%B2%E0%A4%95%E0%A5%81%E0%A4%AE%E0%A4%BE%E0%A4%B0_%E0%A4%B2%E0%A4%B5%E0%A4%9F%E0%A5%87" title="mr:सुनीलकुमार लवटे">Prof. Sunilkumar Lawate</a> is an educationist, social activist and writer in Maharashtra. He participated in the FOSS & Wikimedia workshop conducted in September 2018. He approached CIS-A2K for release of his books in CC-BY-SA on the occasion of Marathi Day on 27 February. CA trained the author in copyrights, Commons upload process and OTRS process in the session held at Kolhapur on 27 February. Prof. Lawate uploaded his 21 books on Commons. These are reference value books on education, child rights, literature, autobiographies, social issues and classic literature. The newspapers covered this event as feature of Marathi day. Because of good media coverage, many responses from other authors in Maharashtra have been received for content donation.</p>
<h3><a class="external-link" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Books_published_by_Lek_Ladaki_Abhiyan,_India">Books by Lek Ladaki Abhiyan</a></h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">We all know that vast amount of training materials and case studies are produced in development sector. But it is not available to society at large. It is restricted to NGOs, funding agencies, etc. for project period. If it is brought in Wikimedia, it will be searchable for all and will be linked to various articles also as reference resource. CIS-A2K is approaching several such organizations for content donations. CIS-A2K received positive response from Adv. Varsha Deshpande, President of Lek Ladaki Abhiyan, Satara about bridging gender gap activities on Wikimedia projects. Lek Ladaki Abhiyan (LLA) is one of the most active organizations working on Women's issues in Maharashtra. The activities cover wide range of issues viz. stopping child marriages, counselling workshops for adolescents, pre-marriage counselling, child labour issues, legal aid to women facing violence, sting operations for exposing cases of female foeticide, hostel for girls etc.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">LLA organization is involved in content generation on women's issues for the last two years with the support of CIS-A2K. The process proved useful for the members and other participants. On the occasion of Women's day on 9th March, LLA re-licensed 8 books and uploaded on Commons. The convener Adv. Varsha Deshpande has authored 6 books. She has taken this noble initiative. The content is spreading across beneficiaries and getting good feedback also. The books cover all the issues mentioned above. The articles created in women's day workshop and books donated by this organization have contributed to reduction in gender gap. LLA would like to lead the movement with other like-minded organizations in urban, rural, tribal areas to facilitate the open knowledge generation on women's issues.</p>
<h3><a class="external-link" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Books_by_Laxmikant_Deshmukh">Books by Laxmikant Deshmukh</a></h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://mr.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%A4%B2%E0%A4%95%E0%A5%8D%E0%A4%B7%E0%A5%8D%E0%A4%AE%E0%A5%80%E0%A4%95%E0%A4%BE%E0%A4%82%E0%A4%A4_%E0%A4%A6%E0%A5%87%E0%A4%B6%E0%A4%AE%E0%A5%81%E0%A4%96" title="mr:लक्ष्मीकांत देशमुख">Laxmikant Deshmukh</a> is former IAS and writer in Maharashtra. He was president of All India Marathi Literary Festival in 2017 at Badoda. He was co-organizer for the FOSS & Wikimedia workshop conducted in September 2018. From that event, he has been promoting open knowledge concept and Wikimedia projects. The training session at Pune was held on 16 March for re-licensing his 4 works. The books are on socio-economic issues of Maharashtra.</p>
<hr />
<p>Link to the <a class="external-link" href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CIS-A2K/Events/Content_donation_sessions_with_authors">Wikipedia page report here</a></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/content-donation-sessions-with-authors'>https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/content-donation-sessions-with-authors</a>
</p>
No publishersubodhMarathi WikipediaCIS-A2KAccess to Knowledge2019-04-10T01:28:21ZBlog EntryWikimedia projects orientation session at Tata Trust's Vikas Anvesh Foundation
https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/subodh-kulkarni-april-9-2019-wikimedia-projects-session-at-tata-trust-vikas-anvesh-foundation
<b>Researchers in development sector produce a pool of training material and case studies. However, these do not trickle down to the society and many in the public domain are unaware of the same.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Largely the research is restricted to non-profit organizations or their funding agencies during the project period. If the research carried out in development sector is re-licensed and then linked to Wikipedia articles as references we could see a larger section of the society gaining access to such information. The twin advantages of posting such content is that the information will be searchable online through search engines and the Wikipedia page with numerous hyperlinks leading to different sources will act as a reference resource. Larger sections in the public domain will have access to information which would perhaps be hard to gain access to.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><img src="https://cis-india.org/home-images/VAFContent.jpg/@@images/04b6fbcf-bc09-4026-9c0f-6ade9ab1772c.jpeg" alt="VAF Content" class="image-inline" title="VAF Content" /></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span class="discreet">Pictured above: Meeting at Vikas Anvesh Foundation office to discuss the possibility of disseminating the research work done, through Wikipedia. Subodh Kulkarni was the resource person for the meeting. [Picture by Sdeora14 licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license].</span></p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Orientation Session</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Keeping this in view an orientation session was conducted by Centre for Internet & Society’s Access to Knowledge wing (CIS-A2K) at Tata Trust’s Vikas Anvesh Foundation (VAF) in Pune. CIS-A2K and VAF joined hands to explore possibilities of content enrichment in Wikimedia projects. Dr. Ajit Kanitkar and Subodh Kulkarni were the facilitators for the session attended by eight participants.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Report</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The researchers at VAF presented their publications in the form of study reports, papers in journals and conferences and datasets. Advisor Ajit Kanitkar presented story of 'Gems of Purest Ray Serene', a book about the life stories of twenty-two outstanding Indian social workers. The content of the book is uploaded on VAF's website <a href="http://www.socialworkindia.in/profiles/madhukar-dhas">socialworkindia.in</a> which is freely downloadable. The book is published in Marathi and Hindi language also.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">After the presentations from VAF, CIS-A2K facilitator presented different Wikimedia projects.In the discussions, it was realised that Wikipedia articles related to social issues and development sector lack reliable references. The research work on VAF website can be linked as references. The publications could be uploaded on Wikisource for wider reach. The images and videos during the work can also be uploaded on Commons.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Follow-up</h3>
<p>VAF will discuss the process of content donation with management and decide on the further steps. The training regarding Wikipedia editing and Commons uploads would be planned.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/subodh-kulkarni-april-9-2019-wikimedia-projects-session-at-tata-trust-vikas-anvesh-foundation'>https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/subodh-kulkarni-april-9-2019-wikimedia-projects-session-at-tata-trust-vikas-anvesh-foundation</a>
</p>
No publishersubodhCIS-A2KWikipediaAccess to Knowledge2019-04-09T00:56:25ZBlog EntrySupporting Indian Language Wikipedias Program/Report
https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/supporting-indian-language-wikipedias-program-report
<b>CIS-A2K team submitted Project Tiger final report. </b>
<h2>Background</h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In 2017–2018, the <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation" title="Wikimedia Foundation">Wikimedia Foundation</a> (WMF) and Google collaborated to start a pilot project in India, working closely with the <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CIS-A2K" title="CIS-A2K">Centre for Internet and Society</a> (CIS) and the <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_India" title="Wikimedia India">Wikimedia India</a> chapter (WMIN). This project, titled Project Tiger was aimed at encouraging Wikipedia communities to create locally relevant and high-quality content in Indian languages. The name Project Tiger was chosen to reflect the Indian metaphor of a tiger representing a strong, or brave person (Baagh in Hindi, Puli in Tamil, etc).</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Through this project, support was provided to active and experienced Wikipedia editors in the form of Chromebook donations, and stipends for Internet access. Additionally, a three-month-long editathon was conducted, as well as a language-based contest on Indic Wikipedia that aimed at addressing existing Wikipedia content gaps.</p>
<h2 style="text-align: justify; ">Needs Assessment</h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">As a part of Project Tiger, CIS-A2K facilitated a <a class="text external" href="https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSc_-xcSKuBRVmJI5UHoeRE1066qoX6USgqmc_yN89iSAjzO-w/viewform" rel="nofollow">needs assessment</a> process in the month of December 2017, prompting a large number of responses between December 2017 and March 2018. Among these, the highest percentage of responses came from Wikimedians who were associated with Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons. A notable percentage of responses came from students. Among 190 responses, it was found that 16% of users edit Wikimedia projects on mobile phones. Additionally, out of 189 users, 51.85% said they use laptops for editing. 73 users reported that they share their devices with others to make contributions.</p>
<p>Our learnings from this process are:</p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">150 users who contribute to Wikipedia belong to the age groups of 20-35 and 35-50. Younger community members can consistently bring in more contributions and have a sustainable presence within the community. Supporting these young Wikimedians is very important.</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Users with personal devices can make more contributions to Wikipedia than those without them. Sharing devices between users is a barrier to maximising contributions.</p>
<ul>
<li>Most users are genuinely interested in contributing to Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">There is a requirement for skill development activities (Writing skills, tools, gadgets) within the Indian Wikimedia community. Skills development will directly result in increased contribution to Wikimedia projects. Additionally, Wikimedians also showed interest in obtaining easier access to books, journals, etc.</li>
</ul>
<h2>Chromebook Distribution</h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">CIS-A2K received a large number of requests for Chromebooks and access to the Internet from community members CIS-A2K observed 271 <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Supporting_Indian_Language_Wikipedias_Program/Support" title="Supporting Indian Language Wikipedias Program/Support">requests</a> for laptop and internet access (including draft requests, requests from IP address, and withdrawn requests by applicants).</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In the first round of responding to these requests, 26 requests were answered with support. 11 of these 26 Chromebook recipients are female Wikipedians. In the second round of responses, CIS-A2K supported 24 requests. In just two rounds all Chromebooks were distributed among the users. Total Chromebooks are delivered <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Supporting_Indian_Language_Wikipedias_Program/Support/Laptops" title="Supporting Indian Language Wikipedias Program/Support/Laptops">are 50</a>. The first stage of distribution involved delivery of Chromebooks to Odia Wikimedian <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Ssgapu22" title="User:Ssgapu22">Ssgapu22</a>. Subsequently, we prepared a <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Supporting_Indian_Language_Wikipedias_Program/Support/Laptops/Help" title="Supporting Indian Language Wikipedias Program/Support/Laptops/Help">help document</a> intended to make the Chromebooks convenient to use for Indian Wikipedians. Then the Chromebooks were transported to the recipients, either by courier (35–40 Chromebooks), or in person by community advocates at events. CIS-A2K has successfully shipped Chromebooks even to rural areas in India including the border areas of West Bengal. CIS-A2K has made a final third list which serves as a waiting list, with 25 pending requests that are open for support. Support via Chromebooks has created a noticeable increase in all forms of contributions by Wikimedians to the Wikimedia projects.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Read the complete report published on <a class="external-link" href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Supporting_Indian_Language_Wikipedias_Program/Report">Wikipedia page</a></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/supporting-indian-language-wikipedias-program-report'>https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/supporting-indian-language-wikipedias-program-report</a>
</p>
No publisherGopala Krishna AWikimediaCIS-A2KWikipediaAccess to Knowledge2019-05-01T05:04:24ZBlog EntryDesign and the Open Knowledge Movement
https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/saumyaa-naidu-design-and-the-open-knowledge-movement
<b>With the objective of connecting the open knowledge movement with design, the Access to Knowledge team at the Centre for Internet and Society co-organised the Wikigraphists Bootcamp India 2018 with the Wikimedia Foundation during September 28-30, 2018 in New Delhi. The event was held at the School of Design at Ambedkar University Delhi. As part of the bootcamp, a panel discussion was held in order to bring together design practitioners, educators, open knowledge contributors, and design students to explore how design and open knowledge communities can engage with each other. In this post, Saumyaa Naidu shares the learnings from the panel discussion aimed at exploring the potential collaborations between design and the open knowledge movement.</b>
<p> </p>
<h4><a href="#1">Introduction</a></h4>
<h4><a href="#2">Exchange between Design Academics and Open Knowledge</a></h4>
<h4><a href="#3">Potential Means of Engagement with Open Knowledge in Design Practice</a></h4>
<h4><a href="#4">Applications of Open Knowledge in Design Education</a></h4>
<h4><a href="#5">Conclusion</a></h4>
<hr />
<h2 id="1">Introduction</h2>
<p>Design has historically been functioning in a closed paradigm, both with regard to practice and education. The design process, resources, and products are largely proprietary and limit who can access them. On the other hand, increased use of digital technology offers the potential for greater access and knowledge sharing. In this setting, a dialogue on design and openness becomes essential. There is a need to build sensitivity among designers towards <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_knowledge">open knowledge</a> and open access practices. Such an exchange can not only allow for design resources and products to be available in the open domain, but also help designers build an extensive shared knowledge base.</p>
<p>With the objective of connecting the open knowledge movement with design, the Access to Knowledge team at the Centre for Internet and Society co-organised the <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikigraphists_Bootcamp_(2018_India)">Wikigraphists Bootcamp India 2018</a> with the <a href="https://wikimediafoundation.org/">Wikimedia Foundation</a> from 28th to 30th September, 2018 in New Delhi. The event was held at the School of Design at Ambedkar University Delhi. As part of the bootcamp, a panel discussion was held in order to bring together design practitioners, educators, open knowledge contributors, and design students to explore how design and open knowledge communities can engage with each other.</p>
<p>The discussion was preceded by an introduction to the open knowledge movement and its potential in creating access and inclusion, by <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Satdeep_Gill">Satdeep Gill</a>. Satdeep is a community outreach coordinator for India at the Wikimedia Foundation. He is also one of the founding members of <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Punjabi_Wikimedians">Punjabi Wikimedians</a> User Group. Satdeep was the programme leader for the Wikiconference India in 2016. The introduction provided a brief history of copyrights and the beginning of the copyleft movement. It discussed creative commons licensing and the role of Wikipedia in the open knowledge movement.</p>
<p>The panel included <a href="http://www.aud.ac.in/faculty/permanent-faculty/detail/137">Suchitra Balasubrahmanyan</a>, <a href="http://www.matratype.com/">Pooja Saxena</a>, and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Shyamal">Shyamal</a>. Suchitra Balasubrahmanyan is the dean at the <a href="http://www.aud.ac.in/academic/schools/sd">School of Design in Ambedkar University Delhi (AUD)</a>. Her research has been on multiple areas such as history of craft and design, and design education in India. Her practice focuses on social communication design. Pooja Saxena is a typeface and graphic designer whose work centres on multi-script design. She has designed an Ol Chiki typeface for Santali language which is available for free and open use. Pooja also teaches typography at several design schools including <a href="https://pearlacademy.com/">Pearl Academy</a>, <a href="http://www.nid.edu/index.html">National Institute of Design</a>, and <a href="http://srishti.ac.in/">Srishti school of Art, Design, and Technology</a>. Shyamal is an independent researcher and an ornithologist. He has been contributing to Wikipedia for over fifteen years now. In addition to his contributions about the biodiversity of birds, he has also created several illustrations relating to the same. The panel was moderated by Saumyaa Naidu, a designer and researcher at the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS).</p>
<p>The discussion was aimed at addressing three primary questions around design and the open knowledge movement; how academic materials in design inform unstructured or open knowledge spaces and in what ways do these unstructured spaces come back into design education?, what are the potential means of engagement with open knowledge in design practice?, and in what ways can it be applied in design education?<br /><br /></p>
<h2 id="2">Exchange between Design Academics and Open Knowledge</h2>
<p>The discussion began with an enquiry into the challenges faced in the design of knowledge production and the knowledge production of design. It was directed at understanding the various ways in which design education and academia interact with open knowledge. Prof. Suchitra responded by saying that it is still early days for such an interaction to take place as the discipline of design itself is very proprietary in its approach. The work created in different areas of design is often guarded. Locating the discussion at the School of Design in AUD, she suggested that the Social Design course, which looks at the social application of design, believes in socially produced knowledge and contributing to it. However, the university is constrained by the academic environment which does not facilitate the open exchange of knowledge. There is a culture of copyright and protection of work in academia, and heavy funding is required for journal subscriptions. There is an imbalanced gatekeeping of knowledge as countries like India, which have weaker currencies, cannot access this knowledge or contribute to it. The social design community, a small community yet, is interested in making this knowledge freely accessible, in community participation, in co-designing, and in challenge the idea of one ‘super-designer’ who gets all the credit.</p>
<p>Open knowledge spaces such as Wikipedia often make their way into classrooms when students use these resources for assignments. It was pointed out by Prof. Suchitra that there is a lack of regard among students for giving due attribution to material taken from such platforms. Social Sciences universities also consider Wikipedia as an unreliable source, and discourage its use. There is a need to build the culture of knowledge sharing, borrowing, and contribution. She believes that this should be initiated at the level of school education, and not just design schools, so it is internalised at an early stage. She also shared an epistemological concern regarding such a cultural shift in design as it is commonly believed that the knowledge designers produce belongs to them and their livelihoods are connected to it. Hence, open knowledge and open source are antithetical to the profession. This means that the profession itself has to be imagined differently. The social design programme, in this regard, is trying to ensure that when students create work based on interactions with a community, also go back and present it to the community. This is to say that the work produced cannot be exclusively owned by the designers.</p>
<p>The open knowledge movement in India is closely tied to accessibility of information in Indian languages. The availability of a design knowledge base in Indian languages was discussed in this context. Prof. Suchitra explained that most design education in India is in English and is borrowed from another cultural and geographical setting. Design is a discipline of making, and making has its own language. In that sense, the act and content of design transcends language. But, it is the pedagogy which is held by language. The act of making, which is ubiquitous, and is done naturally by everybody, gets held back when it comes to the transmission in different languages. There can be sanskritised words for design terminology, but the vocabulary of everyday use should be applied to represent this knowledge. The School of Design is looking for ways in which important and more provocative texts in design can be made available in other Indian languages. When students are exploring a career in design and they want to learn about it, the information about courses, programmes, and universities should also be available in their language.</p>
<p>The students at AUD recently demanded that education at the university be provided in multiple languages. Since AUD is funded by the Delhi state government, the students want the medium of instruction to include languages of the state (Hindi, Urdu, and Punjabi) apart from English. However, in order to accomplish this, the university would require multilingual teachers. At a personal level, Prof. Suchitra feels that the medium of instruction cannot be monolingual, and that it is good to be multilingual. There is also the conflict that it doesn’t do justice to either languages, and there is no neat answer yet. She believes that technology provides some answers in the sense that students can access the material through translations in whichever language they prefer. Being located in Delhi, the university attracts students from all parts of the country, so it needs to be multilingual in different ways. Technology can intervene and provide a layer by which access can be given in the language of one’s choice. She inferred that this is not a question of one or two languages, but of languages everywhere.<br /><br /></p>
<h2 id="3">Potential Means of Engagement with Open Knowledge in Design Practice</h2>
<p>Presently, there is limited participation from design practitioners on open knowledge platforms. From the perspective of a design practitioner and educator, Pooja Saxena explained that apart from Wikipedia, designers use The Noun Project, which offers both free and paid ways to use icons. She mentioned how students also use this platform but it appears that they are not as interested in contributing to it. They are guarded about the work they create but are fine with using someone else’s work that is available for free. Pooja suggested a much needed change in the understanding that open knowledge simply means that it is open for use. It must be seen as a community which one needs to engage with in whichever capacity and give back to. Agreeing with Prof. Suchitra, Pooja also observed that students fail to give fair attribution when any work is available for free. There is a lack of training and communication around attribution among designers. Regarding open source softwares meant for image making and creating illustrations, Pooja said that despite her several attempts of using them, she has always gone back to proprietary softwares. She believes that there are not enough people contributing to making these open source applications better to work with. A middle path she recommended for designers is creating work in formats which can be edited across applications, so that the work created can be built upon in any application, and is not bound by a proprietary software.</p>
<p>As an experienced Wikipedian, Shyamal also stressed upon the idea of finding ways to productively give back to the open knowledge community. He talked about the opportunities that design students have in terms of creating quality images and graphics, and making them available for public use. An example of such an opportunity could be creating clipart or icons that can be used for roadside signages or other such public resources. Another possibility he proposed was publishing rough drafts or discarded work on platforms like Wikipedia, so it can be refined and used by others. It is not well known that aside from the textual part of Wikipedia, there exists a larger environment which includes projects like Wikidata, which is a semantic database, and Wikimedia Commons, which is meant for a variety of media such as images, video, audio, and even 3D models now. This offers a variety of options to designers to make their work available for open use. Another aspect that Shyamal brought attention to in this regard is to make the work available in a way that it can be easily found by others, by effectively using metadata and writing appropriate descriptions.</p>
<p>A relevant example of engagement of design with the open knowledge community was shared by Pooja through her type design project. This included designing a typeface family for the Ol Chiki script, which is used to write in the Santhali language. The project was initiated by Subhashish Panigrahi at CIS in order to set up the Santhali Wikipedia. But, at the time there were no unicode compliant fonts available for Ol Chiki. This was a clear example of how a design intervention in the form of a typeface could lead to knowledge being shared and possibly even created in the future. The project was then funded by the Access to Knowledge programme at CIS. Pooja described the process of designing the typeface. She mentioned that even though the Santhali language is spoken by over 6 million people, Ol Chiki is not a commonly used script. The script itself was invented less than a hundred years ago, which meant that there is little documentation available of the script to look at. The team then engaged with the community to understand how they would like the letters to look like, and whether the letters in the font were correct. This was done through comprehensive feedback forms to test the letters and ask specific questions around their form and placement. The exercise was repeated a number of times to get accurate letters.</p>
<p>Through this process, Pooja made a key observation on perfection. Designers are often trained to share or show their work only when they think it is perfect. But, in the case of the typeface, it was impossible to achieve something even close to being finished without showing it and seeking help from the community. The project also led to inspiring a design student from the National Institute of Design, who belongs to the Santhal community, to create letters in Ol Chiki script as part of the <a href="http://www.36daysoftype.com/">‘36 days of type’</a> challenge on Instagram. The typeface thus, can contribute towards such projects as well. Pooja concluded that the typeface being available for free can also lead to students making a version of it that serves their purpose better.</p>
<p>Further on open typefaces for Indian languages, Shyamal spoke about the several issues regarding the use of Indian languages, specific to Wikipedia and in general as well. He correlated the lack of academic disciplines in Indian languages with the lack of vocabulary of technical terms. Several people also oppose borrowing words from other languages. In an example of needing to translate the labels of an illustration of a four-stroke engine into an Indian language, the engineer would not know the terms in that language, and the language expert will not know enough about engineering. Shyamal suggested transliterating English words as a first step, so that somebody who doesn’t know English can understand what the word sounds like. Another technical concern is the use of open source fonts of Indian languages for better compatibility on Wikimedia Commons. The platform replaces proprietary fonts with equivalent open source ones during the process of uploading. This changes the typesetting in the illustration in terms of spacing between the letters and sentences, and the resulting design can end up looking different from the intended one. Hence, it is important to include identification and use of open source fonts as part of the learning process in design.</p>
<p>Shyamal further talked about the need to create more awareness about copyright. He explained that the fact that anything we create is automatically copyrighted is not really understood by most people. People posting images on Facebook and Instagram would allow others to use their work when asked, but would hesitate to give a written permission. It would be useful to license out the work. This lack of copyright awareness hinders the creation of a vast visual database on Wikimedia Commons. There is little visual information available online about objects, monuments, maps, places, etc. in India. The advantage of using systems like Wikipedia is that you can geotag places, you can semantically describe them so that people who speak other languages can find that content. The value of availability of such content online for an outsider is not well understood yet. As a practice, when learning something new, Shyamal himself tries to add it on Wikipedia or on related projects, so that it can be of use to anyone else looking for it as well.</p>
<p>On encouraging designers to contribute to open knowledge, Pooja advised that designers can contribute through side projects or self-initiated projects as they are not looking to make any money from them to begin with, and would be able to share the work for free. These side projects can take the form of resources or tools that other people can use to build something else. She also pointed out that it is not necessary that designers cannot get paid to do open work, and shared the example of the Ol Chiki typeface, which was paid for by a patron. There are also organisations that commission projects which are supposed to be available for free use because those organisations need that product to be available for free. Google fonts for example, commissions the typefaces to designers which are eventually available as free and open fonts. It is important for designers to be aware that such opportunities exist, and that they need to be sought.<br /><br /></p>
<h2 id="4">Applications of Open Knowledge in Design Education</h2>
<p>The discussion led to several suggestions on involving design students in the open knowledge movement. Pooja recommended that students can be encouraged to make their assignments available on Wikimedia Commons. Design students are often expected to work on projects that address problems that exist in the real world. In most cases, these projects remain with the students and not get implemented in the real world. If such projects were available on open platforms like Wikimedia Commons, they can be taken forward by others who are tackling the same concerns. It is also something that design students would benefit from because their work will be publicly available.</p>
<p>In order to address the disregard for attributions pointed out earlier, Prof. Suchitra stressed upon the need to build a culture among design students to attribute fairly. This would allow for acceptable acknowledgement to someone who has produced work and contributed it to the open domain. She added that this is being initiated in other design spaces such as the Decolonise Design group, which some design faculties are a part of. The group looks at ways of finding different cultural anchors for design. One such project is where design faculties have gotten together to share design assignments, in order to see what kind of assignments we set in the classroom for teaching various kinds of concepts in design. The faculties are trying to form an international platform where teaching methods can be shared and a bank of design assignments can be created. These methods and assignments are otherwise considered proprietary.</p>
<p>Prof. Suchitra also talked about the onus on public funded educational institutions to make their work available on open platforms, at least in projects which have a larger use. The Industrial Design Centre (IDC), Powai already has a portal on which design related educational material is available for anyone who is interested. They offer an online course in design which anyone can register for and attend. It is only for the certification at the end of the course, that one needs to pay to take an exam. Design courses otherwise tend to be quite expensive. She mentioned that the School of Design at AUD has been contemplating sharing the thesis work that students produce on <a href="https://www.academia.edu/">Academia</a>, a platform for academics to share research papers, where it can be downloaded for free. This allows for the work to be viewed by people outside the school, which is a significant step for young designers. Design as a profession fundamentally does not allow sharing, and this certainly needs to change. She gave the example of textiles, where the traditional artworks and motifs are picked up from different sources and placed on fabrics. Such reuse borders on unethical practice. Therefore, we need to identify the boundaries of open source. The ethical aspects of it need to be opened up and discussed, otherwise it can lead to asymmetrical knowledge practices. The attribution or acknowledgement that the work individually or culturally belongs to somebody, needs to be recognised.</p>
<p>On the learning by doing approach in design education, Pooja raised the concern that there is a lack of attention towards ‘learning by reading’. Design related reading materials are not available on open platforms and in different languages. She suggested that even if the readings are available in English, it is also useful for them to be available in a vocabulary that is more acceptable for someone for whom it is not their first language. Further, the ‘doing’ is also framed by a certain perspective, and often that perspective is quite closed. It does not take into account where the students is coming from. For example, a branding assignment for a product for new mothers does not consider how eighteen year old students would understand the product without any interaction with the users. It doesn’t ask why does it have to be branding to begin with. It also limits the objective to ‘selling something’ while there are other ways in which design can intervene. In the assignments where students engage with a community, there is often a clear asymmetry between the students and the people they are designing for. There is a vast gap in the knowledge and experience shared by the two. Consequently, students are forced to either assert themselves in this community or misrepresent themselves. This also takes away from students wanting to share their work on open platforms. Pooja recommended that they would be more willing to put the work out in the open when they are working with their own community because they can then see how it affects people in a much more direct way.<br /><br /></p>
<h2 id="5">Conclusion</h2>
<p>The discussion brought forward various intersections in design and open knowledge, and the possible ways in which the two can lend to each other. Broader interventions such as a cultural shift in design around sharing work and discussing its ethical aspects, availability of academic material in design on open platforms and in different Indian languages, sensitivity around fair attribution and copyrights among designers, and designers seeking out or self initiating projects that contribute to the open domain were discussed. In terms of specific steps, ideas including design practitioners creating works in formats which are editable on open applications, adding more visual content on platforms like Wikimedia Commons, creating and using more open typefaces in Indian languages, and students sharing their assignments on open platforms were considered. Other ways of engagement with design education could be through internships and workshops that demonstrate the need for open knowledge systems.</p>
<p>During the interaction with the audience, another key concern was brought up by Govind Sivan, a student at the School of Design at AUD. He spoke about the prevalent approach in design schools of giving primary importance to originality. Students work towards thinking of unique ideas and any similarity between their own and a classmate’s assignment is seen as a failure of creativity. Such an approach goes on to curb shared knowledge and collaborative working, and needs to be changed in order to make way for openness in design. Prof. Suchitra also advised that there is more value to design in thinking of it as a collaborative project.</p>
<p>Design is also gradually opening up its process to include the people being designed for through open research methods such as co-design and participatory design. All aspects of a design process such as need identification, data gathering, and the end product can be <a href="https://www.designsociety.org/publication/34842/Three+layers+of+openness+in+design%3A+Examining+the+open+paradigm+in+design+research">conceptualised</a> for openness. These directions can be explored by both designers and the open knowledge community for the creation of a greater and more accessible knowledge base.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/saumyaa-naidu-design-and-the-open-knowledge-movement'>https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/saumyaa-naidu-design-and-the-open-knowledge-movement</a>
</p>
No publishersaumyaaAccess to KnowledgeFeaturedDesignOpennessEducationHomepage2019-04-01T12:13:00ZBlog EntryMarch 2019 Newsletter
https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/march-2019-newsletter
<b>The Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) newsletter for the month of March 2019.</b>
<h3><span>Highlights for March 2019</span></h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><span>The Indian Patent Office (IPO) on 1 March 2019, published a draft of the “Manual of Patent Office Practice and Procedure, Version 3.0”. CIS </span><a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/comments-and-suggestions-to-the-draft-patent-manual-march-2019">provided comments</a><span> on patenting of computer related inventions.</span></li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><span>The Centre for Internet and Society's Access to Knowledge (CIS-A2K) team has </span><a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/Proposals/2018-2019_round_2/The_Centre_for_Internet_and_Society/Proposal_form">submitted its proposal for the year 2019-2020</a><span> to the Wikimedia Foundation. CIS-A2K has proposed to undertake content enrichment, skill development initiatives, cement partnership with existing partners and build relationships with new ones, and activities like Train-the-Trainer, Wikisource Conference, Wikimedia Summit India, Intensive Personal Wiki Training, supporting Indic Wikimedians through request page, etc.</span></li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><span>Tarun Bharat Sangh (TBS), an organisation working on rejuvenation of rivers in India, has began documentation of rivers on Wiki, especially to draw attention to and mitigate the crisis of toxic deposits facing more than 40 rivers in India. The work was started by Jal Biradari, TBS’s Maharashtra based group, in Sangli district with the help of the Access to Knowledge (CIS-A2K) team of CIS. </span><a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/subodh-kulkarni-rejuvenating-indias-rivers-the-wiki-way">A report from the first pilot workshop</a><span> conducted by CIS-A2K during 22-25 December 2018 at Tarun Bharat Sangh Ashram, in Alwar, Rajasthan has been published.</span></li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><span>With the objective of connecting the open knowledge movement with design, the Access to Knowledge team at the Centre for Internet and Society co-organised the Wikigraphists Bootcamp India 2018 with the Wikimedia Foundation during September 28-30, 2018 in New Delhi. Saumyaa Naidu </span><a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/saumyaa-naidu-design-and-the-open-knowledge-movement">in a report has shared the learnings</a><span>from the panel discussion aimed at exploring the potential collaborations between design and the open knowledge movement.</span></li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Karan Saini, Pranesh Prakash and Elonnai Hickok co-authored a policy brief titled <a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/improving-the-processes-for-disclosing-security-vulnerabilities-to-government-entities-in-india">Improving the Processes for Disclosing Security Vulnerabilities to Government Entities in India</a><span>. The policy brief has recommended changes pertaining to current legislation, policy and practice to the Government of India regarding external vulnerability reporting and disclosure.</span></li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><span>Arindrajit Basu, Elonnai Hickok and Aditya Singh Chawla co-authored a White Paper titled 'The Localisation Gambit'. The paper was edited by Pranav M.B., Vipul Kharbanda and Amber Sinha. Anjanaa Aravindan provided research assistance. Government of India has drafted multiple policy instruments which dictate that certain types of data must be stored in servers located physically within the territory of India. The </span><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/the-localisation-gambit-unpacking-policy-moves-for-the-sovereign-control-of-data-in-india">White Paper serves as a resource for stakeholders</a><span> attempting to intervene in this debate and arrive at a workable solution where the objectives of data localisation are met through measures that have the least negative impact on India’s economic, political, and legal interests.</span></li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><span>The Technology Law Forum at the National Academy of Legal Studies and Research (NALSAR) has published the Report on Data Privacy and Citizen's Rights' Symposium.This report is a compilation of all the speakers' speeches during the panel discussion. Shweta Mohandas was one of the eight speakers at the panel and the excerpts from her presentation has also been covered </span><a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3356776">in this report</a><span>.</span></li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><span>CIS in its r@w blog featured an essay titled</span><a href="https://medium.com/rawblog/users-and-the-internet-bcd763ac474"> 'Users and the Internet'</a><span> by Purbasha Auddy, part of a series on </span><a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/call-for-essays-studying-internet-in-india">Studying Internet in India (2015)</a><span>; and audio recording of a session titled </span><a href="https://medium.com/rawblog/selfiesfromthefield-61e18a7154ba">#SelfiesFromtheField </a><span>which was part of the </span><a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/irc17">Internet Researchers Conference, 2017.</a></li>
</ul>
<ul>
</ul>
<h3>Jobs</h3>
<p>CIS is hiring:</p>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/cis-a2k-finance-officer-call-for-application">CIS-A2K Finance Officer: Call for application</a> (Only women candidates).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/jobs/internship">Internship</a><span> - applications accepted throughout the year.</span></li>
</ul>
<h3></h3>
<h3>CIS and the News</h3>
<p>The following news pieces were authored by CIS and published on its website in January:</p>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/business-standard-shyam-ponappa-march-7-2019-recapturing-the-commons">Recapturing the Commons</a> (Shyam Ponappa; Business Standard; March 7, 2019).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/raw/nishant-shah-march-10-2019-indian-express-digital-native-how-an-information-overload-affects-what-you-forward">Digital Native: How an information overload affects what you forward</a> (Nishant Shah; Indian Express; March 10, 2019).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/raw/nishant-shah-indian-express-march-24-2019-digital-native-lessons-from-facebook-instagram-and-whatsapp-going-down">Digital Native: Lessons from Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp going down</a><span> (Nishant Shah; Indian Express; March 24, 2019).</span></li>
</ul>
<div></div>
<ul>
</ul>
<h3><br />CIS in the News</h3>
<p>CIS was quoted in these news articles published elsewhere:</p>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/economic-times-rahul-sachitanand-march-3-2019-why-entrepreneurs-are-wary-of-new-draft-e-commerce-policy">Why entrepreneurs are wary of the new draft e-commerce policy</a> (Rahul Sachitanand; Economic Times; March 3, 2019).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/internet/website-not-found-pop-ups-leave-net-activists-fuming/articleshow/68279112.cms">'Website not found' pop-ups leave net activists fuming</a> (Tushar Kaushik; Economic Times; March 6, 2019).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/more-urban-indian-women-are-acting-against-offensive-calls-and-text-messages">More urban Indian women are acting against offensive calls and text messages</a> (Aria Thaker; Quartz India; March 8, 2019).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/aria-thaker-quartz-india-march-12-2019-twitter-unlike-facebook-barely-carries-political-ads-in-india">Unlike Facebook, Twitter is a ghost town for political ads in India so far</a> (Aria Thaker; Quartz India; March 12, 2019).</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/handelsblatt-frederic-spohr-march-13-2019-wahlkampf-beeinflussung-wie-die-chinesische-mega-app-tiktok-indiens-wahlkampf-beeinflussen-koennte">Wie die chinesische Mega-App TikTok Indiens Wahlkampf beeinflussen könnte</a> (Handelsblatt; March 13, 2019).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/hindu-kv-aditya-bharadwaj-march-15-2019-when-laugh-lines-turn-worry-lines">When laugh lines turn worry lines</a> (K.V. Aditya Bharadwaj; Hindu; March 15, 2019).</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/medianama-march-18-2019-zaheer-merchant-proposed-intermediary-liability-rules-threat-privacy-and-free-speech">Proposed Intermediary Liability Rules threat to privacy and free speech, global coalition tells MeitY</a> (Zaheer Merchant; Medianama; March 18, 2019).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/times-of-india-march-31-2019-ketaki-desai-now-police-use-apps-to-catch-a-criminal">Now, police use apps to catch a criminal</a> (Ketaki Desai with inputs from Sanjeev Verma; Times of India; March 31, 2019).</li>
</ul>
<div></div>
<ul>
</ul>
<div></div>
<h2><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/a2k">Access to Knowledge</a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Our Access to Knowledge programme currently consists of two projects. The Pervasive Technologies project, conducted under a grant from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), aims to conduct research on the complex interplay between low-cost pervasive technologies and intellectual property, in order to encourage the proliferation and development of such technologies as a social good. The Wikipedia project, which is under a grant from the Wikimedia Foundation, is for the growth of Indic language communities and projects by designing community collaborations and partnerships that recruit and cultivate new editors and explore innovative approaches to building projects.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Copyright and Patent</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span>Access to Knowledge is a campaign to promote the fundamental principles of justice, freedom, and economic development. It deals with issues like copyrights, patents and trademarks, which are an important part of the digital landscape. We prepared the India report for the Consumers International IP Watchlist, made submission to the HRD Ministry on WIPO Broadcast Treaty, questioned the demonisation of pirates, and advocated against laws (such as PUPFIP Bill) that privatize public funded knowledge.</span></p>
<p><strong>Submission</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/comments-and-suggestions-to-the-draft-patent-manual-march-2019">Comments and Suggestions to the Draft Patent Manual March 2019</a> (Achal Prabhala, Feroz Ali, Ramya Sheshadri, Roshan John and Anubha Sinha; March 21, 2019).</li>
</ul>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Wikipdedia</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">As part of the <a href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/access-to-knowledge-program-plan">project grant from the Wikimedia Foundation</a> we have reached out to more than 3500 people across India by organizing more than 100 outreach events and catalysed the release of encyclopaedic and other content under the Creative Commons (CC-BY-3.0) license in four Indian languages (21 books in Telugu, 13 in Odia, 4 volumes of encyclopaedia in Konkani and 6 volumes in Kannada, and 1 book on Odia language history in English).</p>
<p><strong>Blog Entries</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/train-the-trainer-program-2018">Train the Trainer program 2018</a> (Sailesh Patnaik; March 6, 2019).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/the-city-of-bhubaneswar-is-going-open">The city of Bhubaneswar is going Open</a> (Sailesh Patnaik; March 7, 2019).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/subodh-kulkarni-rejuvenating-indias-rivers-the-wiki-way">Rejuvenating India’s Rivers the Wiki Way</a> (Subodh Kulkarni; March 7, 2019).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/c95ca8ccdca8ca1-cb5cbfc95cbfcaaca1cbfcaf-cb6cbfc95ccdcb7ca3-cafc9cca8cc6-cb8caecbecb5cb6-caeca4ccdca4cc1-ca4cb0cacca4cbfcaf-cb5cb0ca6cbf">ಕನ್ನಡ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯ ಶಿಕ್ಷಣ ಯೋಜನೆ ಸಮಾವೇಶ ಮತ್ತು ತರಬೇತಿಯ ವರದಿ</a> (Ananth Subray; March 7, 2019).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/saumyaa-naidu-design-and-the-open-knowledge-movement">Design and the Open Knowledge Movement</a> (Saumyaa Naidu; March 31, 2019).</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Event Organized</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/events/wikimedia-summit-india-2019">Wikimedia Summit India 2019</a> (Organized by CIS-A2K; New Delhi; March 16 - 17, 2019). CIS-A2K team organized a two-day Wikimedia Summit event for the participants taking part in the Wikimedia Summit in Berlin.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Openness</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Our work in the Openness programme focuses on open data, especially open government data, open access, open education resources, open knowledge in Indic languages, open media, and open technologies and standards - hardware and software. We approach openness as a cross-cutting principle for knowledge production and distribution, and not as a thing-in-itself.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><strong>Event Organized</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/openness/events/talks-by-richard-abisla-and-kaliya-young">Talks by Richard Abisla and Kaliya Young</a> (Organized by CIS; Bangalore; March 4, 2019).</li>
</ul>
<h2><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance">Internet Governance</a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">As part of its research on privacy and free speech, CIS is engaged with two different projects. The first one (under a grant from Privacy International and IDRC) is on surveillance and freedom of expression (SAFEGUARDS). The second one (under a grant from MacArthur Foundation) is on restrictions that the Indian government has placed on freedom of expression online.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Cyber Security</h3>
<p><strong>Research Paper</strong></p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/improving-the-processes-for-disclosing-security-vulnerabilities-to-government-entities-in-india">Improving the Processes for Disclosing Security Vulnerabilities to Government Entities in India</a> (Karan Saini, Pranesh Prakash and Elonnai Hickok; March 20, 2019). <span>This is an update to our previously released paper titled "Leveraging the Coordinated Vulnerability Disclosure Process to Improve the State of Information Security in India". The full document can be accessed </span><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/resources/Improving%20the%20Processes%20for%20Disclosing%20Security%20Vulnerabilities%20to%20Government%20Entities%20in%20India.pdf">here</a><span>.</span></li>
</ul>
<div>
<ul>
</ul>
<h3>Privacy</h3>
<p><strong>Research Paper</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/the-localisation-gambit-unpacking-policy-moves-for-the-sovereign-control-of-data-in-india">The Localisation Gambit: Unpacking policy moves for the sovereign control of data in India</a> (Arindrajit Basu, Elonnai Hickok and Aditya Singh Chawla; March 19, 2019).</li>
</ul>
<div><strong>Participation in Events</strong></div>
<div>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/nullcon-security-conference">Nullcon Security Conference</a> (Organized by Nullcon; March 1 - 2, 2019; Goa). Karan Saini attended the event.</li>
<li><span><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/seminar-on-201cevolution-of-communication-social-media-beyond201d">Seminar on “Evolution of communication: Social Media & Beyond”</a> (Organized by TRAI; Hotel Radisson Blu GRT, Near Airport, Chennaii; March 15, 2019).</span></li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/dsci-infosys-roundtable">DSCI-Infosys Roundtable</a> (Organized by Infosys; Bangalore; March 25, 2019). Sunil Abraham was a speaker.</li>
</ul>
<strong> </strong></div>
<ul>
</ul>
<h3>Free Speech and Expression</h3>
<p><strong>Event</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/events/internet-speech-perspectives-on-regulation-and-policy">Internet Speech: Perspectives on Regulation and Policy</a> (Organized by CIS; India Habitat Centre; New Delhi; April 5, 2019).</li>
</ul>
</div>
<p><strong>Participation in Event</strong></p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/just-net-coalition-workshop-on-equity-and-social-justice-in-a-digital-world">Just Net Coalition Workshop on Equity and Social Justice in a Digital World</a> (Organized by Just Net Coalition Workshop on Equity and Social Justice in a Digital World and its partners; Bangkok; March 25 - 27, 2019). Anubha Sinha participated in the event.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Artificial Intelligence, ICT and IoT</h3>
<p><strong>Participation in Events</strong></p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/rfcs-we-love-transport-apps-edition">RFCs We Love: Transport & Apps Edition</a> (Organized by India Internet Engineering Society; March 2, 2019; Go-Jek; Domlur, Bangalore). Gurshabad Grover was a speaker at this event.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/consultation-on-draft-e-commerce-policy">Consultation on Draft E-commerce Policy</a> (Organized by Alternative Law Forum and IT for Change; March 14, 2019; Tony Hall, Ashirwad , Off St.Marks Road; Bangalore). Arindrajit Basu attended the event.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/international-conference-on-justice-education-legal-implications-of-artificial-intelligence">International Conference on Justice Education:Legal Implications of Artificial Intelligence</a> (Organized by Nirma University; Ahmedabad; March 15 - 16, 2019). Arindrajit Basu attended the conference. </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/facebook-ai-for-india-summit">AI for India Summit</a> (Organized by Facebook; Leela Palace, Bengaluru; March 26, 2019). Shweta Mohandas participated in the event.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/roundtable-on-consumer-experiences-with-new-technologies-in-apac-singapore">Roundtable on Consumer Experiences with New Technologies in APAC (Singapore)</a> (Organized by Consumers International; Google, Singapore; March 26, 2019). Arindrajit Basu participated in the event.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
</ul>
<div></div>
<h2><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/raw">Researchers at Work (RAW)</a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The Researchers at Work (RAW) programme is an interdisciplinary research initiative driven by an emerging need to understand the reconfigurations of social practices and structures through the Internet and digital media technologies, and vice versa. It aims to produce local and contextual accounts of interactions, negotiations, and resolutions between the Internet, and socio-material and geo-political processes:</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><strong>Blog Entries</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://medium.com/rawblog/collectionandidentity-5a970b35f842">#CollectionAndIdentity </a>(Ravi Shukla, Rajiv K. Mishra, and Mrutyunjay Mishra; March 2, 2019).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://medium.com/rawblog/the-many-lives-and-sites-of-internet-in-bhubaneswar-11b4ba2a72e4">The Many Lives and Sites of Internet in Bhubaneswar</a> (Sailen Routray; March 2, 2019).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://medium.com/rawblog/effective-activism-the-internet-social-media-and-hierarchical-activism-in-new-delhi-894a47cdcdc3">Effective Activism: The Internet, Social Media, and Hierarchical Activism in New Delhi </a>(Sarah McKeever; March 12, 2019).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://medium.com/rawblog/campuscampaigns-user-perceptions-in-pre-digital-and-digital-eras-8bb2ffac4ac1">#CampusCampaigns: User Perceptions in Pre-digital and Digital Eras </a>(Arjun Ghosh; March 12, 2019).</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://medium.com/rawblog/taking-open-science-offline-ec08ae7e0fae">Taking Open Science Offline</a> (Shreyashi Ray; March 21, 2019).<br />
<div></div>
</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Participation in Event</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/raw/presentation-at-global-digital-humanities-symposium">Presentation at Global Digital Humanities Symposium</a> (Organized by Michigan State University; March 21 - 22, 2019). P.P. Sneha gave a virtual presentation of her work on digital cultural archives.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
</ul>
<hr />
<h2><a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/">About CIS</a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) is a non-profit organisation that undertakes interdisciplinary research on internet and digital technologies from policy and academic perspectives. The areas of focus include digital accessibility for persons with disabilities, access to knowledge, intellectual property rights, openness (including open data, free and open source software, open standards, open access, open educational resources, and open video), internet governance, telecommunication reform, digital privacy, and cyber-security. The academic research at CIS seeks to understand the reconfigurations of social and cultural processes and structures as mediated through the internet and digital media technologies.</p>
<p>► Follow us elsewhere</p>
<div>
<ul>
<li>Twitter:<a href="http://twitter.com/cis_india"> http://twitter.com/cis_india</a></li>
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<p>► Support Us</p>
<div>Please help us defend consumer and 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.</div>
<p>► Request for Collaboration</p>
<div>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">We invite researchers, practitioners, artists, and theoreticians, both organisationally and as individuals, to engage with us on topics related internet and society, and improve our collective understanding of this field. To discuss such possibilities, please write to Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, at sunil@cis-india.org (for policy research), or Sumandro Chattapadhyay, Research Director, at sumandro@cis-india.org (for academic research), with an indication of the form and the content of the collaboration you might be interested in. To discuss collaborations on Indic language Wikipedia projects, write to Tanveer Hasan, Programme Officer, at <a>tanveer@cis-india.org</a>.</p>
<div style="text-align: justify; "><i>CIS is grateful to its primary donor the Kusuma Trust founded by Anurag Dikshit and Soma Pujari, philanthropists of Indian origin for its core funding and support for most of its projects. CIS is also grateful to its other donors, Wikimedia Foundation, Ford Foundation, Privacy International, UK, Hans Foundation, MacArthur Foundation, and IDRC for funding its various projects</i>.</div>
</div>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/march-2019-newsletter'>https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/march-2019-newsletter</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaResearchers at WorkInternet GovernanceAccess to Knowledge2019-07-18T02:14:11ZPageComments and Suggestions to the Draft Patent Manual March 2019
https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/comments-and-suggestions-to-the-draft-patent-manual-march-2019
<b>A coordinated civil society response to the consultation on the Patent Manual. CIS provided comments on patenting of computer related inventions. </b>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span>On behalf of the accessibsa project (</span><a href="http://www.accessibsa.org/"><span>www.accessibsa.org</span></a><span>), the </span><span>Médecins Sans Frontières Access Campaign (</span><a href="https://msfaccess.org/"><span>https://msfaccess.org/</span></a><span>) and the Centre for Internet and Society (</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/Achal/Downloads/www.cis-india.org">www.cis-india.org</a><span>) , as well as numerous endorsing organisations and individuals across Indian Civil Society, we are pleased to present our comments, feedback and suggestions on the </span><span>draft Manual of Patent Office Practice and Procedure, Version 3, published on 1 March 2019, to which your office invited comment from all stakeholders.</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The Indian Patent Office (IPO) on 1 March 2019, published a draft of the “Manual of Patent Office Practice and Procedure, Version 3.0” (hereafter, the “Manual”). This draft extends upon the previous Manual, Version 01.11, dated 22 March 2011, which is currently the Manual in force.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">At the outset, we should note that the current draft Manual does not differ substantially from the version in force. Aside from a few updations (for instance, noting the Indian Supreme Court decision in the Novartis case of 2013, as regarding Section 3(d) of Indian patent law), the current Manual under consideration is similar in most aspects to the Manual in force. However, given that several provisions in the current Manual in force were insufficient to implement Indian patent law as it was intended even in 2011, as well as the fact that there have been numerous developments in law, scholarship and practice since the time the Manual was last updated in 2011, we urge the IPO to take this opportunity to reflect upon the developments in patent law and practice, as well as the extensive scholarship now available to us.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Preamble</span>: Indian patent law was substantially amended in 2005, and we began the process of implementing this law a few years later. Today, in 2019, we have data and evidence from almost 14 years of practice, and we suggest that the IPO fully incorporate all learnings available to us, to bring the full force of Indian patent</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">law into effect, as originally intended. The Manual of the Patent Office has the potential to be a comprehensive handbook on implementing patent law for all stakeholders including patent agents, applicants and the courts. The current version, in the manner proposed, is not. Our suggestions, if adopted in entirety, would make this so: furthermore, our suggestions provide a much-needed opportunity to correct course, by understanding and correcting the failures of the system to implement the original and far-sighted provisions in the Indian patent law amendment of 2005.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Overarching themes</span>: Several of our suggestions for the current Manual under consideration are systemic, and, as such, require broad and serious attention to completely overhaul.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Structure</b>: The Manual under consideration is badly composed and incomplete. Tabular columns are an inappropriate format for a patent manual. Furthermore and separately, the IPO makes use of several instances of “Guidelines” when examining patents. The IPO currently consults, among others, Guidelines for pharmaceuticals, biotechnology and computer related inventions. These guidelines are randomly categorized, badly deployed, hard to locate and amended haphazardly, without notice or any attention. There is no excuse for the IPO Guidelines to not form a part of the Patent Office Manual, thus giving them stability, and subjecting them to a transparent and participative process, like the rest of the Manual. Lastly, the Guidelines should evolve to covering the examination of Biologics as a distinct category, as we should with other frontier technology, such as Artificial Intelligence and Synthetic Biology.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Coherence</b>: We have three inter-locking layers in the patent system in India: the patents act, the patent rules and the patent manual (which should incorporate the patent examination guidelines). The IPO is currently soliciting suggestions for the draft Patent Office Manual, while it has an ongoing amendment to the Patents (Amendment) Rules, 2018. We expect the final Rules to be published shortly; however, we are also being asked to provide suggestions on the Manual, without any knowledge of what the IPO’s final version of the Rules will look like. (For instance, the Patent Rules have suggested a procedural change in how pre-grant patent oppositions will be conducted in India; however, since the Rules are not final, it is unclear how they integrate with the Manual, and how we can comment on the process, since the status of the Patent Rules remains unclear). Furthermore, the Manual makes no reference to the Rules. As such, the IPO should decide and publish a final version of the Rules, and only then solicit feedback on the Manual (which it could do in the current time by extending the date of feedback on the Manual). Regardless, the IPO must achieve coherence and cohesion between its many layers, including the patents act, the patent rules, and the patent manual. This coherence, if achieved, would allow the Manual to serve as a handbook for all stakeholders involved in the patent system, including serving as a basis for open-book exams for patent agents.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Updation</b>: Patent law and practice are fast evolving fields. The IPO necessarily needs to keep up with the pace of technology, as well as evolving interpretations of existing patent law provisions. For instance, the Indian Supreme judgment in the Novartis case was announced in 2013; however, it has taken over 6 years for this important judgment to formally reflect in the work of the Patent Office Manual, despite being Indian law for these 6 years. The IPO, therefore, needs to update the Manual and the examination guidelines, frequently – at least as frequently as major events in technology and the law require.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Transparency & Accountability</b>: In the current time, stakeholders in the Indian patent system, be they multinational corporations or ordinary members of Indian society, are faced with considerable challenges when attempting to view patent information. Despite the IPO having made information</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">available online for some years, the information on Indian patents is needlessly limited, often inaccurate, often incomplete, and frequently unavailable. On occasion, this is due to insufficient disclosure on the part of the applicant, but overwhelmingly, it is because the IPO is not well organized and insufficiently invested in transparency or accountability. For instance, mandating pharmaceutical patent applicants to provide an INN (International non-proprietary name) on all applications where the information is available, would invaluably assist in extending the transparency and utility of the IPO’s functioning with the Indian public. Patent information in India is the right of every Indian citizen to have, and we have made several suggestions by which the IPO can move towards complying with our constitutional right to information.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Specific themes:</span> Drawing from law, scholarship and practice over the last 14 years of Indian patent law, we strongly urge the IPO to consider these very specific suggestions on having their work comply with the spirit and letter of Indian patent law.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Focus on Biologics:</b> Biologics are a relatively new category of therapy that have quickly become the world’s most expensive medicines emerging as critical therapies in areas like cancer. 7 out of 10 of the world’s best-selling medicines are biologics, and they will play only an increasingly important part in public health in India. Therefore, identifying, understanding and examining patent applications on biologics is of crucial importance to Indian citizens. The IPO would benefit from identifying biologics as a critical category; providing them their distinct field of invention; as well as developing guidelines and practices for evaluating biologics, along with other frontier technology that emerges.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Expedited examination:</b> Since 2016, expedited examination of patents has been the law. More recently, there are reports that the IPO is considering PPH partnerships with some rich country economies such as Japan. This is unwise, especially since even in the extended examination currently underway, the IPO has faced several challenges. We strongly suggest that the IPO needs to evidence the ability to manage the ordinary processes in place with accuracy and compliance with Indian law, before attempting to expedite the said processes, especially since the non-functioning of the patents side of the Intellectual Property Appellate Board (IPAB) has meant that India has not had a corrective mechanism for any incorrect grants that may have been made at the IPO since May 2016.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Check exceptions to patentability first:</b> The law, as has evolved in the Novartis Case in the Supreme Court, and the Roche vs Cipla case before the Delhi High Court, clearly points towards applying all exceptions to patentability under Sections 3 & 4 of the Indian Patents Act, first, before applying the test of patentability under Section 2 (1)(j). Such a procedure would make the work of the IPO more efficient, as well as fair.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Making anti-evergreening provisions work:</b> The Manual currently does not capture the guidelines explicitly laid out in the Indian Supreme Court’s judgment in the Novartis case. Specific principles relating to how to apply Section 3(d) were laid out in the judgment which have no reflection in the Manual. Like with Section 3(d), applicants also routinely circumvent other anti-evergreening provisions in Indian law, such as Section 3(e) and 3(i). Sometimes, these provisions are circumvented alone; other times, when combined, applicants take advantage of the confusion and adduce evidence on one ground, and then use that as a basis to circumvent the other grounds. To apply anti-evergreening provisions in Indian patent law efficiently and fairly, we suggest an anti-</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">evergreening checklist that will facilitate this process, and which we recommend be an official part of the examiner’s report, both within the process and as a reported output.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Computer related inventions:</b> The Manual currently does not adequately regulate Computer Related Inventions (CRIs). We suggest the introduction of a 3-step test to comprehensively regulate the patentability of mathematical methods, business methods, computer programmes and algorithms as laid down in the Indian Patents Act. Furthermore, we suggest ways in which the law can be applied more carefully within the Manual to detect camouflaging of claims, with an intent to confuse the IPO and Indian patent examiners, especially when conjoined to computer technology, by noting that (1) mathematical methods may sometimes be claimed as “technological development”, (2) that business methods must be evaluated as such, regardless of their application through computers, computer programmes, computer networks or other programmable apparatus, and that (3) that the scope of algorithms needs to be extended to any invention where the function claimed to be performed can only be carried out by means of a computer programme.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Finally, while the nature of our comments and suggestions are deep and extensive, we are aware that we have also asked for the system to be evaluated in full, rather than in parts. As such, the Indian Patent ecosystem is large and complex, and the IPO has been engaged with setting the Patent Rules (under finalization), the Patent Office Manual (the subject of our commentary in this communication) as well as the Examining Guidelines (which we recommend move from being arbitrarily categorized and extended to becoming a formal part of the Patent Office Manual).</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In order to comprehensively react to changes to the Indian Patent ecosystem, we require the opportunity to comment comprehensively on a range of inter-linked proposals.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In this spirit, we hope you will allow us – as civil society – to react, once more, to the Patent Rules (as connected to the Patent Office Manual) as well as each of the Examining Guidelines (old and new, i.e. including those intended such as for biologics), in the interests of fairness and transparency. We look forward to assisting you at every step of this process.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Thank you for your time. We trust that, as civil society researchers, activists and academics, who have devoted a considerable number of years towards the research of intellectual property, and the protection of public interests and human rights in India, our submission will be considered seriously and acted upon. We remain, of course, at your disposal, should you or your office have any questions – which we will gladly answer.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Sincerely,</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Achal Prabhala, Feroz Ali, Ramya Sheshadri, Roshan John and Anubha Sinha</p>
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For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/comments-and-suggestions-to-the-draft-patent-manual-march-2019'>https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/comments-and-suggestions-to-the-draft-patent-manual-march-2019</a>
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No publisherAchal Prabhala, Feroz Ali, Ramya Sheshadri, Roshan John and Anubha SinhaPatentsAccess to Knowledge2019-04-05T02:15:07ZBlog EntryRejuvenating India’s Rivers the Wiki Way
https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/subodh-kulkarni-rejuvenating-indias-rivers-the-wiki-way
<b>Tarun Bharat Sangh (TBS), an organisation working on rejuvenation of rivers in India, has began documentation of rivers on Wiki, especially to draw attention to and mitigate the crisis of toxic deposits facing more than 40 rivers in India. The work was started by Jal Biradari, TBS’s Maharashtra based group, in Sangli district with the help of the Access to Knowledge (CIS-A2K) team of CIS. Here is the report from the first pilot workshop conducted by CIS-A2K during 22-25 December 2018 at Tarun Bharat Sangh Ashram, in Alwar, Rajasthan.</b>
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<h4>Events details on Wikimedia <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CIS-A2K/Events/Workshop_of_river_activists_at_Tarun_Bharat_Sangh,_Bhikampura,_Rajasthan">meta page</a></h4>
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<h2>The Workshop</h2>
<p>As per a <a href="http://www.indiaenvironmentportal.org.in/files/file/status_trace_toxic_materials_indian_rivers.pdf">Government of India report</a> 42 rivers in India are polluted with toxic heavy metal deposits in them. To mitigate this crisis Tarun Bharat Sangh (TBS), an organization working on rejuvenation of rivers in India began documentation of rivers on Wiki. The work was started by TBS’s Maharashtra based group Jal Biradari in Sangli district with the help of the Access to Knowledge team of CIS (CIS-A2K).</p>
<p>Realizing the potential of the project TBS decided to integrate this as training module in their capacity building workshops conducted at Bhikampura in Rajasthan. The first pilot workshop was conducted by CIS-A2K during 22-25 December 2018 at Tarun Bharat Sangh Ashram, Bhikampura, Alwar in Rajasthan for 34 participants from eight states of India. Dr. Rajendra Singh, Maulik Sisodiya and Subodh Kulkarni, CIS-A2K were the facilitators. The objectives behind organizing the workshop was to build an open knowledge resource on water related issues in all Indian languages, document the river basins of India, train volunteers working in the sector to work in Wikimedia projects, open street mapping exercises and photo walks along the river and post free content on Commons and Wikisource projects.</p>
<p>The documentation structure for river basin was decided through participatory process. The participants were divided into 6 groups for working on 6 river basins of Arvari district. The resource material available with TBS in the form of maps, reports, training booklets was used to prepare the schematic maps of each river basin. The water bodies such as ponds, manmade structures like dams were also listed.</p>
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<th><img src="https://cis-india.org/home-images/WorkshopofRiverActivities.jpg/@@images/e336ea4b-9b8b-4b22-a647-79950225f98e.jpeg" alt="null" class="image-inline" title="Workshop on River Activities" /></th>
<th><img src="https://cis-india.org/home-images/WorkshopofWaterActivities.jpg/@@images/d96a9ca9-4520-4d09-9eb4-f215492c8839.jpeg" alt="null" class="image-inline" title="Workshop on Water Activities" /></th>
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<td style="text-align: center;" colspan="2"><em>Activists during the workshop conducted by TBS in Alwar, Rajasthan in December 2018</em><br /><br /></td>
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<p>After this pre-work, the training on Wikipedia editing started. The participants worked in sandboxes first on their articles. The manual of style, giving offline and online references and categorisation were discussed and practiced on sandboxes. The Commons session started with elaborate discussion on copyrights, licenses and encyclopedic content. The images were uploaded on Commons and used in the articles. The articles in the sandboxes were presented by each working group. Taking into consideration various suggestions, appropriate modifications were done. The finished new articles and the additional content into existing articles were then moved in the main namespace of respective language Wikipedia. TBS has decided to re-license 30 books and training material on river in CC-BY-SA. Participants who attended the workshop have started contributing in various languages.<br /><br /></p>
<h2>Participants' Feedback</h2>
<blockquote style="text-align: justify;" class="quoted">“Rivers are essential for existence of life in land. Keeping its sanctity and health is very important. The Wikimedia workshop gave an insight on river pollution issues and the importance of reviving them. As Wikipedia is an open platform it can create a larger impact by reaching out to the society.” - <a title="en:Username:Mrityunjay1010" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Username:Mrityunjay1010">Mrityunjay1010</a></blockquote>
<blockquote style="text-align: justify;" class="quoted">“The wiki-workshop on "Rivers on Wiki" has been my maiden experience in the context of generalizing the knowledge for common good. The workshop gave me a lens to see the usage of Wikipedia in regional languages as a medium for environmental consciousness building as well as conservation. Wikipedia as a means for social audit was also another enriching experience in that workshop.” - <a title="en:Username:Simantabharati" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Username:Simantabharati">Simantabharati</a></blockquote>
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For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/subodh-kulkarni-rejuvenating-indias-rivers-the-wiki-way'>https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/subodh-kulkarni-rejuvenating-indias-rivers-the-wiki-way</a>
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No publishersubodhCIS-A2KAccess to KnowledgeWikimediaWikipediaFeaturedHomepage2019-04-01T13:18:33ZBlog Entry