Openness Blog

Comments on the Right to Information Rules, 2017

amber — 2017-04-27T09:25:42Z

On March 31st, 2017, the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, Department of Personnel and Training released a Circular framing rules under the Right to Information Act, 2005 (“RTI Rules”). The Ministry invited comments on on the RTI Rules. CIS submitted its comments on April 25, 2017.

1. Preliminary

1.1 On March 31st, 2017, the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, Department of Personnel and Training released a Circular framing rules under the Right to Information Act, 2005 (“RTI Rules”). The Ministry invited comments on on the RTI Rules.

2. The Centre for Internet and Society

2.1. The Centre for Internet and Society, (“CIS”), is a non-profit organisation that undertakes interdisciplinary research on internet and digital technologies from policy and academic perspectives. The areas of focus include digital accessibility for persons with diverse abilities, access to knowledge, intellectual property rights, openness (including open data, free and open source software, open standards, and open access), internet governance, telecommunication reform, digital privacy, and cyber-security.

3. Comments

3.1 General Comments

The new RTI Rules introduce various procedural hurdles and provides a great deal of discretionary power to the CIC in dealing with RTI applications and appeals. One of the provisions which has attracted attention in the past also is the abatement of appeals upon the death of the RTI applications. This provision, explored in more detail is especially objectionable in light of the threats that RTI activists face.

3.2 Specific Comments

3.2.1 Rule 4 of the RTI Rules states that the fees for providing information under the RTI Act would be ‘as notified by Central Government from time to time’. While the RTI Rules also prescribe the fee for filing RTI applications, this phrase provides a window to increase the fees through subsequent notifications. We recommend that the phrase “or as notified by Central Government from time to time” be deleted in order prevent prohibitive increase in the fees in future.

3.2.2 Rule 4 of the RTI Rules also specifies the fees for provision of information via floppies and diskettes. There is no plausible reason to engage in continued rulemaking applicable to outdated modes of data storage. It would be of much more help if the rules were to prescribe fees for CDs, DVDs and email. We also submit that no fees need be charged for information provided through emails, and this mode of communication must be adopted where possible.

3.2.3 Rule 8 (1)(viii) states that every appellant must affirm that they have not filed an appeal pertaining to similar matters before the Commission or any court. However, the same matter can lead to multiple counts of causes of actions, and the principle of res judicata barring further action should not apply in these cases. Therefore, it is recommended that this requirement is deleted.

3.2.4 Rule 12 permits the withdrawal of an appeal on the request of the appellant and the abatement of an appeal on the death of the appellant. This provisions needs to be evaluated in light of the increasing number of cases of threats received by RTI activists. There have been close to 400 documented cases of attacks on RTI applicants,[1] including cases of murder and physical assault. This provision will serve to enable withdrawal of RTI appeals through harassment and other means of coercion.

Further, the abatement of an appeal upon death of an RTI appellant is a clause without any merit and could translate into murders of appellants to cause abatement of the appeal. Additionally, the Supreme Court’s judgment in the matter of Union of India v. Namit Sharma[2] must be kept in mind which clarified the position that RTI applications and appeals are not in the nature of lis and deal with the question of whether requested information ought to be disclosed. Therefore, there is no reason why appeals should abate upon the demise of the appellant.

3.2.5 Rule 14 permits the CIC to return complaints due to non-compliance with the procedural rules in Rule 13. Such rules[3] have been used in the past to return complaints on unreasonable or artificial grounds. This is an example of additional procedural hurdles introduced by through the rulemaking process instead of making the process more citizen friendly.

3.2.6 Rule 15 (iii) of the RTI Rules gives the CIC the discretion to close a case without even allowing hearing to the applicant. There is no requirement on the CIC to provide a detailed reasoning of its determination either. This rule is in violation of the right to be heard before adjudication under natural justice principles.

3.7 The redressal mechanism under Rule 16 of the RTI Rules leaves a lot to be desired. Beginning with the use of the term ‘communication’ to refer to the complaint regarding a non-compliance of the CIC’s order, the rule takes a cavalier approach to addressing the significant number of cases of non-compliance with the CIC’s order. Further, there is no clear procedure spelt out with regard to how the CIC will deal with such matters and whether parties may be heard before making an adjudication. Further, there is an inconsistency in that a communication may be rejected if not submitted in the prescribed format, whereas in the case of appeals it clearly stated that they may not be returned/rejected only on the ground of non-compliance with the format.

[1] http://attacksonrtiusers.org

[2] https://indiankanoon.org/doc/47938967/

[3] Rule 9 of the RTI Rules, 2012.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/comments-on-the-right-to-information-rules-2017

Training-the-trainer programme and Mediawiki training at Pune

garule — 2016-08-18T11:14:57Z

A two-day long train-the-trainer and Mediawiki training programme was organised during May 28-29 in Pune to better capacity of Wikimedians both technically, and outreach and community building.

The participants were trained about planning, organising and reporting for outreach programmes, public speaking, advanced editing skills and and the Wikimedia grants structure. Similarly for the Mediawiki training, the major topics covered in the Mediawiki training sessions were Six Wikimedians; bug triage, bots, Mediawiki extensions and scripts, and Wikidata. The sessions were discussed and planned in the Marathi Wikipedia Village Pump in advance. Rahmanuddin Shaik and I facilitated the individual sessions. Thanks to Sanket Oswal, Treasurer, Wikimedia India who shared about the chapter’s ongoing activities, especially the Wiki Loves Earth project. The community members from Nashik shared about their plans for a meetup in the city of Nashik in June.

Santoshi Tiwari, a Wikimedian from the city of Nashik who was attending a programme like this for the first time feels that there is need for more such programmes more often in multiple cities as there are already 16 Wikimedians from her city who are eager to learn more advanced editing skills. “I learnt about many interesting aspects of the Wikimedia world, like the Wikipedia Adventure game, Wikidata and Wikipedia policies and guidelines

. Until this time, I was contributing to Wikipedia on my own but I started contributing to Wikidata after this event. Now I am enjoying playing the Wikipedia Adventure. I also got the opportunity to meet many Wikimedians in person” shares Santoshi. She explains, “this was good as an introductory event but I would like to participate in sessions that are more detail-oriented. Also, having edit-a-thons during such events will be very useful. With a total of about 19-20 people participating in total, 7 female participants is still a good starting point to have a balanced community. However there should be plans for accommodating more people in the upcoming events”.

Going forward, there are plans to have at least one session in four month in cities where there are higher number of Marathi Wikimedians.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/training-the-trainer-programme-and-mediawiki-training-at-pune

Tools orientation for Telugu Wikimedians of Hyderabad

Pavan Santhosh S — 2016-08-17T14:58:57Z

To help Wikimedians learn about essential tools that are used across Wikimedia projects, a tools orientation session was organised during the monthly meetup on July 10 at Hyderabad. Six Telugu Wikimedians; Murali Mohan, Pranayraj Vangari, Rajasekhar, Gullapalli Nageswara Rao, Santhosh Panjala and Sravani participated in this session. CIS-A2K member Pavan Santhosh facilitated this event. The major discussions were around Wikipedia citation templates and Twinkle.

“After the training, I have started using the citation templates in a series of articles about Avadhanam,

a literary performance in ancient India and I will use more in coming days. I have also suggedted for creating a thorough documentation about citation templates so that more Wikimedians could find them online” shares Murali Mohan, one of the participants.

Long time Wikimedian Rajasekhar shares, “I am yet to use everything I learnt from this session. I wish I could have learnt these tools much. I also have shared the idea of connecting experienced Wikimedians with those who want to learn using fast online platforms. These could be using social-media based chat clients like WhatsApp or Facebook messenger or anything of that kind that many would otherwise use in life. This will also reduce the pain of the trainers to travel.” “Most tools, gadgets and extensions are available in English and many are not available in Telugu Wikipedia even though they are useful. It would be useful to have more sessions for us to know which of these these could be useful for us to use”, he adds.

More details about the event could be read here in the event page.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/tools-orientation-for-telugu-wikimedians-at-hyderabad

Edit-a-thon organised to grow content on medicinal plants in Kannada Wikipedia

Ananth Subray — 2016-05-19T10:34:42Z

Two two-day long edit-a-thons were organised in St. Aloysius College and St. Agnes College, both in Mangalore, during March 10-11 and March 12-13 respectively. The edit-a-thons were aimed at creating and enhancing Wikipedia articles related to medicinal plants.

It is always a challenge to find much information about the medicinal plants grown locally, especially in Indian languages and on the Internet. The Kannada Wikipedia also does not have many quality articles in this topic. The Kannada Wikimedia community felt the need for documenting more about the medicinal plants and their use when they gathered for the Kannada Wikipedia’s 13th anniversary. So right after the anniversary a two day edit-a-thon was organised in St. Aloysius College Mangalore during March 10-11, and another one at St. Agnes College Mangalore during March 12-13. This event being a follow up of an earlier edit-a-thon, had 17 participants who already edited Wikipedia and there were three new editors. They, together, created 66 articles during the event. Three active Wikimedians participated in the event and helped in mentoring the new editors. 20 images were uploaded by these participants on Wikimedia Commons and they all had contributed 1412612 bytes of data.

Celebrating the 13th anniversary of Kannada Wikipedia

subha — 2016-05-23T09:08:23Z

The Kannada-language Wikipedia, arguably the largest online encyclopedia in Kannada language, celebrated its 13th anniversary on February 14, 2016 in Mangalore.

To celebrate the journey of the project and the community, Kannada Wikipedians gathered at St. Aloysius College Mangalore, Karnataka. The larger Kannada Wikimedia community including long time Wikipedians and new members like the students, faculty involved in Wikipedia Education Programs gathered, participated in a day long edit-a-thon and chalked out plans for the future. The event is organised by the Kannada Wikimedia community and Dr. Vishwanatha Badikana, Wikipedian and Assistant Professor of Kannada department at St. Aloysius College coordinated the event locally.

117 people gathered in the event out of which 96 were active editors of the Kannada Wikipedia community. Noted Kannada-computing researcher Kinnikambla Padmanabha Rao (widely known as KP Rao) addressed the public event and engaged with the audience about defining Kannada Wikipedia’s role a large role in widening Kannada’s presence on the Internet. The local organisers also took the event participants through a heritage walk in the heritage village of Pilikula Nisarga Dhama, an open library of the rich cultural heritage of Karnataka. The heritage walk resulted in over 300 image uploads on Wikimedia Commons ranging from the life and culture of coastal Karnataka to select rich heritage of the state. 20 new editors also participated in the event and they were oriented on basics of Wikipedia editing and Creative Commons licenses.

Triveni.K, one of the participants who is now pursuing her MSc. at Christ University, explains this event as a great learning platform for even core Wikipedia policies in details apart from many other Wikipedia policies she learnt here. “I’m little occupied for my exams but when it is over, I will be back on Wikipedia”, shares Triveni.

Prior to the event, four edit-a-thons were organised in four different cities of Karnataka. Themes chosen for the cities were Kannada literature in Mysore, Mechanical Engineering in Sagara, Science-related articles in Bangalore and article on notable female of the coastal Karnataka region in Mangalore. Follow up edit-a-thons were organised after the anniversary celebration with the same themes that were there in the previous session for the first three places where the follow up edit-a-thons in St. Aloysius College and St. Agnes College were both on medicinal plants.

The first ever edit on Kannada Wikipedia was made on 12 June 2003 with a message “Kannada Vishwa Koshakke Suswaagatha!” (meaning “Welcome to the Kannada encyclopedia” in Kannada). However it took over a year -- on July 12, 2004 the first article about a city Shimoga was created. Over the last decade Kannada Wikipedia has been a great gamechanger for the Kannada language where the Wikipedians have played a great role in making it a household name -- needless to say that 705,199 unique visitors read the articles every month as per the December 2015 statistics. The annual average of active editors for last year was 48, 91 (February) being the highest and 22 (May) the lowest and 80 being the count in last December. The peaks and valleys also signify that major outreach like Wikipedia Education Program at Christ University Bengaluru could have boosted the total number of editors during the months when the program was being rolled out. The project since its inception has gone through many ups and downs over time, the major one being a small community to edit and curate such a high level task of creating new articles in Kannada, editing and enriching them with more information and citations, and cleaning up many articles. The biggest hurdle, as explained by Wikimedian Hari Prasad Nadig, has been cleaning up the articles created by paid translations of Google when Kannada Wikipedia along with many other Indian language Wikipedias were used as testing grounds for improving Google Translate, a multilingual machine translation tool. Vasanth S.N., a Kannada Wikipedian who has cleaned up over 60 such articles prefers to use an existing good quality encyclopedia like the 14 volume Kannada Vishwakosha, published by Mysore University and relicensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0 by the university, as a resource to create and improve articles.

The 14th anniversary of Kannada Wikipedia was another milestone in the long journey of Kannada language and there are many more to come. More about the event could be read on the event page on Kannada Wikipedia.

Ananth Subray, Programme Associate, CIS-A2K contributed to this blog.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/kannada-wikipedias-13-year-old-journey-of-knowledge-sharing

Edit-a-thon organised at Christ University Bangalore to celebrate Women’s Day

Ananth Subray — 2016-05-20T13:47:24Z

A day-long edit-a-thon was organised at Christ University Bangalore on March 12, 2016 to celebrate the Women’s Day and grow the women-related articles on Kannada Wikipedia.

Like most other Wikipedia projects, Kannada Wikipedia also has way to go with bringing a balance in articles of all genders. 10 undergraduate students from the university participated in this event and created 20 quality articles of 137819 bytes during this edit-a-thon. Two experienced editors participated as mentors. More about the event could be read in the event page on Kannada Wikipedia.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/edit-a-thon-organised-at-christ-university-bangalore-to-celebrate-women2019s-day

A Kannada Wikipedia brochure for newbies

pavanaja — 2015-10-19T10:46:38Z

This brochure has been created keeping readers and new Wikipedia editors in mind. This would come handy to learn editing Kannada Wikipedia and creating/editing articles in Kannada.

What does it contain?

How Wikipedia is world’s largest free and open encyclopaedia?
Did you know that "anyone can edit Wikipedia"?
How Wikipedia helps in preserving the knowledge and taking it to the next generation. For our languages to survive and grow, it is very important to bring world knowledge in our language. Wikipedia helps in expanding that knowledge repository as anyone can contribute to Wikipedia.
There is no financial gain by writing in Wikipedia. It is very easy to start editing Kannada Wikipedia. Open kn.wikipedia.org, check the help file, tutorial file & videos, start editing in your sandbox (learn more about the Wikipedia sandbox).
No poetry, blog, story, criticism, writing about self, advertisements of any sorts, etc are not allowed in Wikipedia

Download this brochure from here.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/a-kannada-wikipedia-brochure-for-newbies

Rethinking of "Empowering Marathi Schools"

garule — 2016-06-18T17:59:50Z

Like most other Indian language-medium schools, Marathi schools are experiencing a drastic decline of students. To address these grave problem a day long seminar was organised at S. M. Joshi Sabhagriha, Pune. CIS-A2K member Abhinav Garule attended this event to share how teachers could encourage students to contribute to Marathi Wikipedia.

Day by day number of students in Marathi Schools is decreasing. Yashwantrao Chavan Pratishthan (यशवंतराव चव्हाण प्रतिष्ठान) and Marathi Shala Tikavalya Pahijet (Facebook Group) have planned to discuss about addressing these issues. Former Director of Education of the Government of Maharashtra Mr. Vasant Kalpande has been invited to chair the seminar and share activity based learning that could help solve problems of the Marathi schools. Abhinav is planning to share how the teachers could use Wikipedia as a learning tool and encourage their students to edit and learn about various topics of interest.

Thanks to the organisers that they provided me a slot for sharing about editing Marathi Wikipedia. I started my presentation with an inspiring video of long-time Marathi Wikimedian Abhay Natu which tells a lot of his experiences of editing Marathi Wikipedia. I demonstrated basics of Wikipedia and Wikimedia projects and demonstrated digitization using Google's OCR tool with some of the participants. The audience was quite interested to know about verifiability of the Wikipedia content. Yashwantrao Chavan Pratishthan is interested in organising Wikipedia workshops in different cities of Maharashtra. We are planning to organise the next meeting with Yashwantrao Chavan Pratishthan spokesperson in this week to take this forward.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/rethinking-of-empowering-marathi-schools

WikipediansSpeak with Dr. Kishore Kumar Rai Sheni: Tulu Wikipedia in the making

pavanaja — 2016-06-18T18:06:49Z

Dr. Kishore Kumar Rai Sheni, Principal, Shri Ramakrishna P.U. College, Mangaluru shares with Dr. U.B. Pavanaja of the Centre for Internet and Society's Access To Knowledge (CIS-A2K) programme his insights on bringing more contributors of different corners of the society to grow Tulu Wikipedia. Tulu Wikipedia is in Incubator at present and there are a bunch of contributors who are expanding the project to bring it live.

When I caught up with Dr. Kishore Kumar Rai Sheni during an ongoing Tulu Wikipedia edit-a-thon in his college, Shri Ramakrishna P.U. College, Mangaluru, he left me with his wonderful ideas of expanding the Tulu Wikipedia. Back in 2014, with a few sporadic contributors, the Tulu Wikipedia community probably did not exist. After several outreach programmes in and around Mangaluru, it has grown to about an eight-editor community. It could look really tiny today but has potential to grow to a bigger community provided the constant effort by these eight people continue. This edit-a-thon is one of the stepping stones to build this community. About 37 people who hardly know anything about Tulu Wikipedia are participating in this event where six of the experienced editors will support them. The project is all about creating a live encyclopedia on the internet. We have enough and many Tulu authors and teachers who otherwise contribute to the language and literature. The idea is to bring them aboard. In collaboration with three other institutions here; Ramakrishna PU College, Ramakrishna Degree College and Tulu Sahitya Academy, we're trying to bridge the gap of lack of Wikipedia in our language. So far, very little work has been done in documenting the rich Tulu culture in Tulu language. There is no encyclopaedia of any sort in Tulu at this moment. There is also a need to bring the entire world's knowledge to the Tulu speakers. I hope Tulu Wikipedia will be the future to take our language and culture to the world, and fill the gap of knowledge that exists today.

Tulu Wikipedia Incubator is available at https://incubator.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wp/tcy.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/wikipediansspeak-with-dr-kishore-kumar-rai-sheni-tulu-wikipedia-in-academics

"Sau Dhuni Teen" project: Wikipedia workshop in TISS, Mumbai

Abhinav Garule — 2016-06-18T18:08:13Z

A two-day multilingual Wikipedia workshop was organised at the Women's Studies Department of Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai during the 22nd through the 24th August. This was one of the outreach events under the scope of the "Sau Dhuni Teen" project that aims at bringing digital content on 100 notable persons, 100 key books, and 100 key concepts relating to women's studies, gender studies, and more broadly, interdisciplinary social sciences, between January 2015 and March 2016.

This event being a women-only event has participation from both students and faculty. 18 participants signed up for the event where 14 of them turned up for the first day and 10 on the second day. As they were introduced to Wikipedia editing for the first time, none has prior Wikipedia editing or even typing (in their own languages) experience. They were oriented with Wikipedia editing where we showed the “How to edit Hindi Wikipedia” video tutorials. Six new articles were created during the event where three articles were edited and enhanced. Helping out one new editor to type out in Assamese script was slightly tough. The future plans to engage with these participants was discussed and we have planned to meet once or twice in a quarter for an edit-a-thon. The event was organised in collaboration with Centre for Indian Languages in Higher Education (CILHE).

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/sau-dhuni-teen-project-wikipedia-workshop-in-tiss-mumbai

Wikipedia workshop in the theme of “Sau Dhuni Teen” in Pune University

Abhinav Garule — 2016-06-18T18:08:36Z

A two-day Wikipedia workshop was organised in the Srimati Savitribai Phule Pune University on the 20th August 2015. The workshop was focused on enriching Wikipedia with 100 articles related to notable Indian women under the scope of the “Sau Dhuni Teen” project.

To begin with, we announced it in the Marathi Wikipedia village pump prior to the workshop inviting Wikipedians to join. The primary goal of the project was to to introduce Wikipedia as an encyclopaedia for research and a concept to new editors, to promote Marathi Wikipedia and promote the use of Indian languages in Wikipedia.This workshop provided a platform to have an open interaction within the editors, existing as well as new. Interestingly, there was a male:female ratio of 1:10 among the new participants out of which five edited Wikipedia before coming there. Six new accounts were created on that day. Each of the participants created at least one new article which resulted creation of 15 new articles where 28 articles in English, Bangla and Hindi Wikipedias were edited totally. As the participants were new, learning typing using Wikipedia’s native Marathi input method “Aksharantaran” was slightly difficult for some where some found the Google’s input easier. Unavailability of sandboxes (user subpages where users work on a draft Wikipedia article until it is fully ready to be published) in Marathi Wikipedia was a concern as many editors were unsure if their article might be changed and/or deleted during the time when they were editing. During the workshop one good quality article was created and the second one was in progress by the end of the second day. We helped the editors to refer to the existing good quality articles for understanding how to write one.

We are planning to to engage with the participating new editors once or twice in a quarter. The event is being organised in collaboration with Centre for Indian Languages in Higher Education (CILHE).

More details of the workshop could be found in the Meta event page.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/wikipedia-workshop-in-the-theme-of-201csou-dhuni-teen201d-in-pune-university

Edit-a-thon to improve Kannada-language science-related Wikipedia articles

pavanaja — 2015-09-04T08:25:51Z

A three-day Kannada Wikipedia edit-a-thon was conducted for science lecturers of institutions who gathered at the District Institute of Education and Training (DIET), Bengaluru this August 18. The idea of this event was to improve science-related articles that are part of the Government of Karnataka's high school syllabus.

During the span of three days the lecturers were taught about basics of Kannada Wikipedia, editing policies, Kannada input, creating and editing articles on Kannada Wikipedia, and they all participated in contributing to about 20 articles science-related article based on topics listed in the high school syllabus (as per the Karnataka state syllabus). Some of the lecturers who were first-timers faced problems with Kannada typing where most others took some time to understand the Wikipedia markup and citations. As this was the first iteration of the project, two more edit-a-thons will follow; one in November 2015 and another one in February 2016. We invite all Kannada Wikimedians to join and mentor these new Wikimedians.

Images of the edit-a-thon can be found on Wikimedia Commons Category “Kannada Wikipedia Workshop for DSERT Bengaluru Aug 18-20 2015”. Dr. U.B. Pavanaja and Tito Dutta from CIS-A2K conducted the workshop.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/edit-a-thon-to-improve-kannada-language-science-related-wikipedia-articles-1

Journalism Students of the SDM College Ujire Enrich Karnataka’s Folklore And Folk Art in Kannada Wikipedia

pavanaja — 2015-09-15T09:09:12Z

As part of an ongoing partnership with the Shree Dharmasthala Manjunatheshwara (SDM) College Ujjire, with active support from a few Kannada Wikipedia editors, CIS-A2K began an outreach programme so that the journalism students could help many Kannada readers about Karnataka’s rich folklore and folk art.

Both first year and second year students of Master of Communication and Journalism (MCJ) of SDM College participated in this workshop. Out of 35 participants, 11 were female. Students had discussed already about enhancing Kannada Wikipedia articles on folklore and folk art forms of Karnataka. About 20 new user accounts were created and the students have started creating articles in their user sandboxes which they will later move as articles upon enhancement with vital information. Some of the students chose to find existing articles and add more information to them. Long time Kannada Wikimedian S N Vasanthkn. from Dharmasthala helped as resource person to help the new editors with Wikipedia editing. However, as first timers, many struggled with the encyclopedic way of writing and maintaining neutral point of view. These students will be mentored by Vasanth as he is visiting them every Monday.

More details from the event page.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/journalism-students-of-the-shree-dharmasthala-manjunatheshwara-sdm-college-ujire-enrich-karnataka2019s-folklore-and-folk-art-in-kannada-wikipedia

Odia Wikisource has a new Wikisourcer, and he is the youngest in the Odia Wikimedia community!

subha — 2015-08-21T17:40:56Z

Prateek Pattanaik (User:Shrijagannatha on Odia Wikisource) is a young researcher of Odia literature and Odissi music. He has not just digitized as many as 54 Odia-language poetry dating early 18th century but has also annotated, both poetic and prosaic translation in his blogs “Sri Jagannatha” and “Utkal Sangeet”. He has also brought a complete book “Kisora chandranana champu” on Odia Wikisource. A recent entrant into the Odia Wikimedia community, Prateek is also the youngest Odia Wikimedian. He has also digitized 18-19th century 54 poem written by various poets.

Right after Prateek finished his first digitization of an entire book “Kishorachandranana Champu” by Baladeba Ratha (1779-1845 AD) on the Odia Wikisource (or.wikisource.org), Subhashish Panigrahi caught up with Prateek asking him about his passion for Odia literature and Odissi music.

Subhashish Panigrahi (SP): Hi Prateek, please tell little bit about yourself?
Prateek Pattanaik (PP): I live among the pristine hills of Damanjodi, in the district of Koraput, Odisha, with my parents. My mother, Mrs.Pallabi Mohapatra, is a teacher in Delhi Public School, Damanjodi, where I study. My father, Mr. Dipak Kumar Pattanaik, is lecturer in Botany in the Government College, Koraput. Currently I'm studying in 11^th standard in the Science Stream.

SP: What influenced you to take so much interest in Odia literature and Odissi music?
PP: When I was young, my grandfather, Dr. P. C. Mohapatra, would tell me bedtime stories that recounted the exploits of Lord Jagannatha – tales about King Indradyumna, Chodaganga Deva, Jayadeva, the Panchasakha; those of Dasia Bauri, Salabega; about how Lord Jagannatha would wander hopelessly in hunger, banished by Lakshmi; how he would chase the eggplant-plucking lady, enchanted by her rendition of the Gita Govinda. Those tales fascinated my imagination, and attracted me towards the Lord. And thus it began, my endless journey of discovering the infinite cult that surrounded the smiling Gods at Puri.

As a kid I brought a triad made of neem wood from Puri. I would worship them, and dress them in the Beshas, costumes of Lord Jagannatha, using thermocole and paints- I smeared sandalwood paste on them and covered them with tiny blankets during winter. My mother inspired me – she was the typical Odia homemaker – from making “Pana” on the “Makara Sankranti” to making 'pithas', a large variety of traditional delicacies. And I would offer all of them to my Lords. She made herbal oils for my Lords when they were ill with fever. She would never say no to me no matter how unrealistic my demands. She tried her hand even at making the traditional “patta chitra” canvases for me to draw.

During my summer vacations, I would unconditionally rush to Koraput to my grandparents, and I still do. My Grandmother, Mrs. Kanak Lata Sabat, who is an Odia-language teacher, taught me the Odia alphabet when I was very young. My father would bring me pictures of Lord Jagannatha from the Temple stall outside the Puri Temple. I became famous in my entire family for my ability to tell them apart without seeing their name. I was stubborn – I told him to buy those Odia books even when I did not know how to read. And those were the first books I read in Odia- filled with vivid descriptions of the Beshas of the Lord; with simple lines from the Odia Bhagabata to complex lines from medieval poets. When I asked my grandmother to tell me who was this man called Upendra Bhanja, whom the books praised no end, she revealed to me the master he was, and told me about his unbeatable command over the words he spoke.

I grew up to being automatically attracted to Odissi Music – which I would hear amidst songs of the Gita Govinda in local Temples, and Patachitras- filled in the soaring structures of the Puri Temple. I myself figured out how to do those paintings, and began by singing songs of Bhajan Samrat Bhikari Bal. Later, I heard of age-old classics from my grandma again – songs which she had learnt while in the third standard- “Ki Shobha go Kunje”, “Galani ta Gala Katha” and so on. I learnt them myself, and began going to my sir who would explain to me the nuances of Odissi Classical Music.

When I was in ninth standard, the Jagannatha temple of Koraput came forward to use my PowerPoint presentations on the Jagannatha cult that I had made them for my pleasure, during my leisure time. They took them and printed them, and made a public exhibition. It was praised no end. I became somewhat of a child-size know-it-all of the Jagannatha cult, but I saw there was still more to discover.

SP: How you started learning about “Champu”?
PP: The word “Champu” itself attracted me. It had a distinct ring to it, an alien-sounding word that was never used in real life. My father told me it was a song in which each line started with the same letter. I asked him to show it to me. He could not. He himself had not seen more than a single song. And when the truth dawned on me that it was not 'a' song- it was a collection of 34 songs, after the 34 letters of the Odia alphabet, I had to get my hands on it. Fortunately, the “Open Access to Oriya Books” (OAOB) project by Srujanika had tons of Odia books digitized and hosted on the website http://oaob.nitrkl.ac.in, and I could finally behold what it was. I was amazed – I ran my eyes down the 'Ka' song,and read “Ka-Ka-Ka-Ka”. What talent! My god, who wrote this? Kabisurya. Kabisurya who? Kabisurya Baladeba Ratha. I discovered the man and was similarly amazed by folktales of his talent.

When I saw the 'Ga' song was the same song my Grandma loved – I was again amused. I knew that all the while! Above each song, it was written 'Raga so and so'. So all of these could be sung. But how could I learn how to sing them? A single recorded CD, from the busstand taught me. In a year, I could sing it entirely. I understood the depth of the lines from the simple commentary below them, and was disappointed by how less known they were in this day and age. I thought what I could do – I sung them at the temple during the Ratha Jatra, and they were an instant hit! People longed to hum those ancient tunes. But they could not. These songs were outdated, no one sung them except a few maestros of Odissi Classical Music, and no one could comprehend them. But people loved them. They did not know what they meant, exactly but they sure did get the feeling. And that was what mattered.

SP: From spending your entire childhood to creating two blogs with so much annotation on these early writings, and using social media to popularize them, to bringing them on Wikisource, what made this leap?
PP: One fine day, it struck me that the same way I made PowerPoint slides, I could make something digital. Why not a website which anyone can see? Wouldn't that breathe new life into the traditional melodies? Good. And so over a span of two long years, I typed out the entire Champu and created two websites; Shri Jagannatha (shrijagannatha.wordpress.com) for the Jagannatha cult, and later, Utkal Sangeet (utkalsangeet.wordpress.com) for the classical songs. The Utkal Sangeet project was a great learning experience, I used tags, so that you could find any song, view it on any device, sort songs by Raga, Tala, Poet, Book, etc. I translated songs, and uploaded their recordings as well.

SP: Did you ever share your work with other fellow researchers? You must have struggled to find these resources, isn't it?
PP: U.S. Researcher in Ethnomusicology at U.C. Davis, Dr. David Dennen AKA 'David Uncle',was the first and only person who helped me. He himself has submitted his PhD Thesis on the Kishora Chandrananda Champu, from villages to research centers. He sent me tons of research books in digital form, painfully scanning them himself only for me, from locations like Australia and America. None from Odisha even assisted; the people at the Odisha state museum refused to let a child like me to see their manuscripts, and none of the research institutions even responded in an email. David uncle constantly inspired me to carry on further, not being swayed away. He encouraged me constantly, and he is as important to this project, on the Champu, as my very own parents.

Then in February 2015, it struck me that I could use social networking to propagate the richness of the Cult at Puri – the grandeur in literature, dance, music, art, sculpture, food and all. I started a new Twitter handle @shrijagannatha, and linked it with my site. Now the handle has 820 followers within 6 months. Many Twitter users have been very appreciative, and they became family now. From the Grandfather @nidhi_budha to the 'untimely gourd' @akala_kushmanda, they post random tweets about Odisha to digitization of the Odia script, with which I struggled greatly at the beginning. This soul, devoted to a similar cause as me, was @subhapa, Subhasish Panigrahi, an active volunteer in the Odia Wikipedia, one of the founding fathers. After months, Persuaded by the Wikimedians, I too contributed the entire text of the Kishorachandrananda Champu to the Odia Wikisource by using my Utkal Sangeet project. It is a collaborative project, which will blossom healthily. Since so many people visit the Wikimedia projects, my small contribution to this free online library could probably quench their literary thirst.

SP: What are your plans to expand your work on Wikisource?
PP: In the future, I plan to make my site even more accessible for the layman. I have a few ideas as of now, to make the ideas reach out to everyone, even someone as young as me. I want to be an active, useful member of this online digital movement for Odia language, and go on with my task forever.

SP: Thanks Prateek for taking time to share such an inspiring and insightful story. Would you like to add more about expanding project for digitizing such valuable literature?
PP: As for my future plans, I would like to type out other such works of Kabisurjya Baladeba Ratha, like his “Ratnakara Champu”, “Premodaya Champu” and even the satirical “Hasyakallola”. I would definitely contribute the same to Wikisource. The books being rare, they may be lost if not saved. I would like to translate the Kishora Chandrananda Champu, the main one, into English in its entirety – word by word, retaining its true essence so that the Western Audience and even people of their states can understand the marvel it is. Now, I'm researching on various commentaries and references so that I can write my own. The form itself is rare, and more so, such an intricately interwoven part of the typical 'Odia' identity that it cannot be ignored. Let the world glance upon the talents of (Upendra) Bhanja and Kabisurya (Baladeba Ratha) and identify that a small, peaceful state in the East has been the birthplace for such great art.
Thanks!

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/kisorachandrananachampu-on-odia-wikisource

Konkani Wikipedia Goes Live After 'Nine Years' of Incubation

subha — 2016-06-18T18:15:05Z

Konkani Wikipedia is the second Wikimedia project after Odia Wikisource that has gone live out of incubation. The project stayed in the incubation for nine long years and the community has gone through a long debate to have a Wikipedia of their own. Here is a blog highlighting three Konkani Wikimedians and an advocate of the Wikipedia movement whose efforts finally paid off.

Read the original blog entry published on Wikimedia Blog on July 15, 2015 here.

The Goan Konkani Wikipedia (available at gom.wikipedia.org) has gone live after spending nine long years in incubation.

An Indo-Aryan language, of the Indo-European family of languages, Konkani is the official language of Goa. It is a minority language in other Indian states, such as Maharashtra, Karnataka, northern Kerala, Dadra and Nagar Haveli, and Daman and Diu. It is spoken by about 7.4 million people.

Konkani can be written in five different scripts: Devanagari—officially used by the Government of Goa—as well as Latin (locally known as Romi Konkani), Kannada, Malayalam, and Persian. Of these, the Goan Antruz dialect of the language, in the Devanagari script, is considered standard by the Indian constitution.

The Konkani Wikipedia has many heroes, as we see them. Melissa Simoes and Darshan Kandolkar are two of the many long-term contributors who joined during the Konkani Wikipedia @ Goa University program and are still active even after the program formally concluded. Darshan is an assistant professor at the Government College Pernem in Goa. His professor at Goa University, Dr. Madhavi Sardesai—who passed away last year—played a vital role in inspiring him to go for higher studies in Konkani. Darshan realized that there is a lot to be written in Konkani when he was introduced to Wikipedia, and after that, he became dedicated to contributing to the project.

“I would like to bring more students as contributors to our Konkani Wikipedia,” Darshan says. “My aim is to start with my students at Government College Pernem. Being an alumnus of Goa University, I also want my juniors there to join our community and enrich Konkani Wikipedia.”

“I have a dream to start a project for the freedom fighters of Goa and involve a diverse set of people, from students to journalists and columnists. I also want to build partnership with educational institutions so we could engage with the students for a longer run and the existing Konkani community could mentor them,” he continues.

“Being a new Wikipedia project, Konkani Wikipedia needs more quality measures and the articles have to grow to good quality articles with more images and templates, I want to take it to the level of English Wikipedia with both quantitative and qualitative growth in articles!”

The Konkani Wikimedia community has been using social media actively to promote the Konkani Wikipedia project, and to celebrate the successes of its contributors. After Melissa became the top contributor to the project, her fellow editor Luis Gomes congratulated her. That brought Melissa into the spotlight, gaining the attention of editors from the global Wikimedia community. The community is continuing a tradition to rewarding the most prolific contributor of each month as the “Wikipedian of the Month”.

Melissa was introduced to the Wikipedia program at her university where the target for each participating student was to write one article each about a village in Goa. “I wrote my article just for the sake of the marks, but never bothered to think about why I am writing it. After the program was over, I became inactive on Wikipedia.

“After some time, I met Father [Luis Gomes] in parish and then Darshan and Father inspired me to resume editing. Then, it became an addiction and I never stopped even for a day. I would come back from work and sit in front of my computer.

“Now, I am a teacher, and my fellow teachers are mostly women. I would like to introduce the Goan Konkani Wikipedia to them so they could also contribute to Wikipedia,” Melissa says.

As Konkani Wikipedia went live, long term Wikimedian Fredrick Noronha, an early advocate of Konkani Wikipedia, said, “It is a wonderful feeling to see the Goan Konkani Wikipedia live. I would like to congratulate all who have been involved in some or the other way with the making of Konkani Wikipedia live from the days of its inception and incubation.

“I am not a great contributor or even a language expert. I come from a content background and found my interest in Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons and Creative Commons long ago. But this helped me to associate myself in some way with the Konkani Wikipedia incubator. I am happy that CIS-A2K chipped in to help build a community and help it grow in collaboration with the Goa University.

“Students of the Konkani department in the university are the real heroes to take this effort forward by filling the Wikipedia incubator with more editing activity to which the institutional backing acted as catalyst,” he added.

Fredrick feels there are major challenges that the community now has to start taking measures for: “The macrolanguage is written in multiple scripts. Out of five of the scripts three—Devanagari, Romi/Latin and Kannada—are actively used in printing and publication currently. People using all the scripts should be equally participating in a movement like Wikipedia to take their languages to other native speakers using Wikipedia as a digital tool.

“The second challenge is with the contributors. Goa, being home to majority of the Konkani language speakers, has English education from the primary level. This means many have a great level of technical ability. The technical contributor community here would be of great use to Konkani Wikipedia if tapped,” he adds.

“The technical contributors are eager to contribute but have not been approached in a manner that would interest them. Similarly the Konkani authors who are helping propagate the language to masses have sadly no or very little clue about Wikipedia’s existence in Konkani. This disparity is stopping a massive flow of local encyclopedic content to the Konkani Wikipedia. Unless we tap into the technological and the linguistic groups it will be only a tip of the iceberg.”

Fredrick explains that the the current Konkani Wikipedia community is primarily made up of students of Goa University. “This is both good and bad,” he says. “Having young and enthusiastic students as Wikipedia editors is helping the project to leap forward, which might not have happened if the faculty were targeted instead. There is, however, a great need for diversification.

“The approach to bring in authors in the 60–70 years age group will vary from the approach to bring in, for example, technical people. Our outreach strategies should ultimately fulfill both the literary and technological contributors, so that their work can help us to both grow content and to solve the problem of the multiple scripts, respectively,” Fredrick adds.

The Konkani Wikipedia community is organizing a public seminar on July 18 at Goa University to celebrate the launch of the Konkani Wikipedia and to pay tribute to Dr. Madhavi Sardesai, who always dreamed of the Konkani Wikipedia getting out of incubation.

Video


Wikimedian Darshan Kandolkar shares his experience of contributing to Konkani Wikipedia. Video in Konkani. Video by Wikimedia India, freely licensed under CC-BY-SA 4.0.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/konkani-wikipedia-goes-live