Centre for Internet and Society

‘With Internet in every pocket, power to the people’

praskrishna — 2014-02-03T06:05:48Z

Social media is set to grow in India in a big way with Google and Facebook gearing up to tap the regional languages market.

The interview was published in the Tribune on January 12, 2014.

The programme director of Access to Knowledge at the Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore, T Vishnu Vardhan is leading the growth of Wikipedia and Wikimedia projects in Indian languages as part of grant from the Wikimedia Foundation. His experience spans across academics, industry (media) and not-for-profit sectors. He talks about the spread of the Internet and social media in India and their impact on the traditional media. Excerpts:

How powerful are the Internet and social media today?

One way to answer the question is to throw some data. There is 83 per cent of mobile connectivity, so and so per cent of Internet connectivity over computer in India, and so on. The data is important to understand the extent of penetration of digital technology in India, particularly through the mobile telephone rather than the PC-based or laptop-based access to the Internet.

When you say mobile phones, are you talking about smartphones?

These could be smartphones or feature-phones also. So many feature-phones are available in the market now. These phones do not cost much. Hardware, therefore, is not going to be anymore a deterrent for access to Internet. I have seen the elderly also getting accustomed to using computers so they can keep in touch with their children who live abroad.

What about social media and its power in India?

It is very powerful. At least it is believed to be powerful because right from political parties and politicians to small vendors, all are trying to leverage it. During the last five years, there has been a tectonic shift in this regard. It will be very interesting to see how the story unfolds in India.

What is unique about India?

Social media is set to become bigger and bigger in India with companies like Google and Facebook gearing up to tap the regional languages market.

Is English increasingly becoming strong and all pervasive in India?

I would believe it and get worried on that score. But the Internet is bringing in a lot of changes. Font problem has been solved too. The ramification of what takes place when this new regional language enabled market comes on board in social media platforms is still not very clear. But it is certainly going to be huge.

Whatever is happening in India now must be an old story in developed countries?

In the US and Europe, Internet penetration took place in the PC age. But we have bypassed the PC. Internet access in India through phone is growing rapidly. India is taking a completely new path for this.

Some social media websites are also trying to get into the news domain. Have you come across instances where news has been first broken in the social media?

There are many such instances. One of the Wikipedians, Kartik Naga, took some pictures of the Mumbai terror attack and posted on commons. These were available to the world much before the traditional journalists could capture images of the incident. Real-time information about tsunami also came from people.

In the West, some print publications — newspapers and magazines — have closed down because people have apparently switched over to the Internet.

The real issue here is whether traditional media wants to stick to a particular technology or it is ready to embrace a new technology for the production and dissemination of news, which is its core activity. If traditional media is averse to embracing the new technology, there will be all kinds of problems like the paper will shut down or some completely new random players will come and corner an old veteran and so on. But if the new technology is embraced, there will be new ways and means of benefiting from it. It depends on how a traditional media entity is looking at Internet and social media. In the last two or three years, we have also seen so many news stories that got made by social media. There is a buzz about social media, and traditional media picks it up and makes it even a bigger story. I do not agree with this drawing of lines between social and traditional media. I think it is a mixed media.

You mean to say there is no threat to traditional media from social media in the long run?

There is no threat. At the end of the day, production of news is not the business of people active on social media portals. Traditional media could actually thrive by the clever use of Internet and social media.

What about news that breaks in social media and is imaginary or based on rumours. What happens then?

These things do happen. People are working on finding out ways to verify news contents on social media. There are already people whose mission in life is to prevent rumour mongering on the Internet.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/the-tribune-january-12-2014-shubhadeep-chaudhary-with-internet-in-every-pocket-power-to-the-people

Developing Digital Open Knowledge Resources in Indian Languages

praskrishna — 2014-08-22T00:51:52Z

The Centre for Internet and Society's Access to Knowledge team (CIS-A2K) in partnership with the School of Cultural Texts and Records, School of Women's Studies, Jadavpur University, Centre for Indian Languages in Higher Education, and the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai is organizing a two-day workshop for students at Jadavpur University on August 25 and 26, 2014.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/events/developing-digital-open-knowledge-resources-in-indian-languages

Why It's Essential To Grow Indian-Language Wikipedias

subha — 2016-05-28T06:52:53Z

On 15 January, Wikipedia, the free online encyclopaedia celebrated its 15th birthday, meeting this milestone with 36 million articles in more than 290 languages (the English-language Wikipedia alone has crossed the 5-million article mark). But here I want to address some major questions that we need to ask as Indians.

This was published by Huffington Post on January 25, 2016. Also mirrored on Global Voices on February 26, 2016. The post was translated into Greek by Maria Souli. It was translated into Spanish by Daniela Diaz and into Russian by GV Russian

First, what is the state of Indian-language Wikipedia projects? What does India have to take from and give to Wikipedia?

With the growth of free and open source software in India, people are equipped with more freedom than ever. Especially with the recent federal policy-level changes, the nation is enjoying better collaboration with people of different cultures speaking different languages.

According to UNESCO, 197 of the total of 1652 Indian languages are dying despite having a long literary and linguistic heritage.

However, there is a huge gap in the access to knowledge on the internet domain. Of a population of about 1.26 billion only about 15-18% people are connected online, largely from mobile devices. A tiny fraction of this population comprises the technical community. It would be useful to have a metric on the percentage of this community's contribution to grow the languages of this country and its cultural heritage.

Wikipedia as a family

Wikipedia is not just an encyclopaedia. It is also a "family" of several other Open Knowledge members. Wikipedia itself is available in over 290 languages, but it also has other multilingual sister projects such as Wikisource (an online library of many public domain and other important texts), Wikimedia Commons (the world's largest repository of media files and documents), Wikibooks (a free library of educational textbooks), Wikivoyage (a free and open travel guide) and Wiktionary (a database of various languages).

These projects don't just house millions of images, videos, documents and texts, but allow anyone to contribute their knowledge to this ever deepening pool of information. Four Indian languages made an early entry to the Wiki-world back in 2002 -- Assamese, Malayalam, Odia and Punjabi.

Language neutrality

According to UNESCO, 197 of the total of 1652 Indian languages are dying despite having a long literary and linguistic heritage. It's quite shocking. In a blog post on content localisation, social entrepreneur Rajesh Ranjan asks if free and open source software can help save these dying languages. In the context of Wikipedia, there are already 23 South Asian-language projects. Out of these 20 are languages listed in the 8th schedule of the Constitution of India. Many might not have noticed that the "en" in the URL of Wikipedia that denotes the language code of English could be altered with "or" for Odia Wikipedia or "pa" for Punjabi Wikipedia.

Most Wikipedia projects in Indian language projects are relatively small compared to their counterparts. But the Wikimedia communities are thriving.

There are a fairly large number of native speakers waiting out there to access knowledge in their own languages.

When only parts of government websites are available in Hindi, the Hindi Wikipedia has crossed 10 million articles already. The Tamil and Malayalam Wikipedia communities have played a central part in implementing Wikipedia basics learning in the state-run school syllabus. Needless to say that these communities have played a significant role in implementing several free and open source software by pushing for policy-level change. Many Indian languages are in the pipeline to become active Wikipedia projects under the scope of the Wikimedia Incubator.

Maithili Wikipedia and Goan Konkani Wikipedia are the two Indian-language Wikipedias that have gone live in recent years. The world has seen how digital activism has brought a new life to the Hebrew language. There are a fairly large number of native speakers waiting out there to access knowledge in their own languages. Wikipedia could be a great tool for digital activism with openness and sharing.

Addressing gender bias in Wikipedia: Implications for India

India tops South Asia in the gender inequality index in the entire South Asia. The female literacy rate is an alarmingly low 65.46% as compared to 82.14% for men. This disparity is evident in many other sectors as well as in politics.

Digital India aims at digital literacy and availability of digital resources/services in Indian languages. This is closely aligned with the Wikimedia movement's goal....

But gender bias is not just a problem in India. The global free and open source software (FOSS) community has always been worried about the low presence of women contributors -- in the range of 2-5% range. Wikimedia Foundation's former executive director admitted that Wikipedia, like many other collaborative and open projects, does not have a conducive environment for women. But the Wikimedia community and Wikimedia Foundation are both working on improving this state of affairs. Indian-language Wikipedia projects are directly impacted by this global drive, be it the Women's History Month edit-a-thon where Wikipedia content largely related to women are improved every year or the Lilavati's Daughters project where biographies of Indian women scientists were created and enriched in Wikipedia projects.

Complementing Digital India

With a population of over 354 million netizens India still has a long way to go in increasing Indian language content on the web. The Government of India's new campaign Digital India aims at digital literacy and availability of digital resources/services in Indian languages. This is closely aligned with the Wikimedia movement's goal to provide free access to the sum of all human knowledge. In addition to Wikipedia, many other open educational resources and free knowledge projects that are not already a part of the Digital India campaign signal the need for the federal-run campaign to be more collaborative and open. Community-government collaborations like the NROER project to make NCERT books under Creative Commons licenses and IT@School project in the state of Kerala to provide education using free and open tools have gained massive traction and helped more Indian language content come online.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/huffington-post-subhashish-panigrahi-january-25-2016-why-its-essential-to-grow-indian-language-wikipedias

Wikipedia initiative - Celebrating legacy of Bangalore Blue grapes online

praskrishna — 2016-01-29T15:44:36Z

Black is beautiful, and it can go places if it is well researched. When HL Omshivaprakash wrote a Wikipedia article about Karnataka's bidriware, the metal handicraft where gleaming black bowls and hookahs are dotted with delicate silver strips, he didn't expect it to be picked up by the French and Swedes.

Read the article published in the Times of India here. Subhashish Panigrahi gave inputs.

His article has now been translated into their languages. Though it might not lead to more money for the struggling artists of Bidar, they might get an edge while marketing their wares, says Omshivaprakash. This is the advantage that a week-long editathon hopes to achieve. Editors of the online encyclopaedia are celebrating Republic Day by encouraging people to upgrade and contribute articles on those arts, crafts and goods unique to various parts of India. "People are already working on 15 products from Kashmir, Andhra Pradesh, Assam and West Bengal," says Subhashish Panigrahi, Wikipedian and language activist.

India has 213 goods and crafts with geographical indication (GIs) tags. The GI mark is a kind of trademark, which indicates that a product's reputation is linked to its origins in a particular area. Of 213 GI tags, only 70 have English entries. So while intricacies of Muga silk-making in Assam and cultivating Bangalore Blue grapes are explained in detail in English, Alleppey coir has only a sketchy Malayalam entry.

"People should know the history of each item. For example, they should know how Kondapalli toys from near Vijayawada are made,"says Nageswara Rao Gullapalli.

Omshivaprakash, who created a signboard outside Bidar Fort last year, with a QR code that allows users to read the relevant wiki entry on their mobile phones, says a change in design can make a difference."The QR code was etched in bidri to create a socio-economic link between readers and artisans. Though the art is expensive, the artists are not paid well,"he says.

It is this desire to unearth new facts that will see Santosh Shinga, an IIT-B researcher, delving deep into Nagpur oranges, Nashik grapes and Mahabaleshwar strawberries. "I am from Nagpur and interested in fruits,"says Shinga, who knows a bit of orange farming.The only exception in his list is Puneri pagadi, the elaborate headgear recently spotted on actor Ranveer Singh in Bollywood movie 'Bajirao Mastani'.

Panigrahi hopes to finish the edits in English by January 30, right in time when the event wraps up by January 31. Karnataka, which tops the list with 30 GI goods, has only a handful of articles and images, says Panigrahi.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/news/times-of-india-january-27-2016-wikipedia-initiative

Read Bengali, Malayalam classics online as free Wiki libraries grow

praskrishna — 2016-01-29T15:51:09Z

Content Includes Classics In Malayalam, Bengali.

The article by Sandhya Soman was published in the Times of India on January 10, 2016.

It was a hunt that took Shiju Alex to many places. Finally, his quest ended at Dharmaram College library in Bengaluru as Alex got hold of a copy of the firstever printed book in Malayalam. He scanned it promptly and volunteers uploaded the text on to Malayalam Wikisource, one of the free online libraries run by Wikipedia. Nasim Ali returned to Wikipedia editing only because fellow Odias were reaching out on social media to help upload the 13-volume Bhagavata Mahapuranam.Now, the entire work is available for free at Odia Wikisource.

Actions speak louder than words when it comes to preserving books in regional languages. Indian versions of Wikisource have more than 1 lakh pages of classic epics, philosophical tracts, and novels and poems in 10 languages. And the num bers are growing. “These are the books that we grow up with and connect emo tionally. Most of us would like to see them online,“ said Subhashish Panigrahi, Wikipedian and programme officer at the Centre for Internet and Society .

As Wikipedians come together in Bengaluru on Sunday to celebrate 15 years of editing and curating the encyclopedia in India, more such stories will be told. The growth has been tremendous in Indian language content creation, especially when it comes to setting up Wikisources, said A Ravishankar, programme director at the Wikimedia India chapter. Malayalam has 26,332 pages, including around 200 of the seminal books in the language. While Telugu has 29,039 pages, Bengali has around 11,000. Sanskrit, Tamil, Kannada, Oriya, Marathi, Gujarati and Assamese libraries are also getting bigger. The content ranges from religious texts such as Ramayan and Bible to first-ever printed literary works.

“Most of these are books in the public domain or the ones relicensed with Creative Commons licences. This allows anyone to edit or make a copy of the work, making it reusable,“ said Panigrahi. Some of the relicensed works include the Kannada Vishwakosha brought out by University of Mysore.

It isn't easy to get works online. Alex finds it difficult to procure the original texts to create their PDF versions. “Every time I go to Kerala, I look for old books,“ said Alex, who uploads the PDFs on a public domain for others to upload them. Editors are also not easy to come by . Panigrahi took to social media to find a new set of editors when he was trying to upload the Bhagavatha volumes. “Wiki's volunteer-editors have their hands full. So we appealed on social media and many people signed up,“ he said.

But the effort is worth it, said Alex. Every time he unearths an old book and posts the link on his Facebook page, the reactions are full of surprise. “Many from the younger generation don't know that Samkshepa Vedartham (the first printed work in Malayalam) was printed in Rome. Also, researchers write to me saying they are happy to see the old books online,“ he said.

Students Pitch In

The Wikimedia Foundation has tied up with various colleges to help with typing and proof-reading. Around 120 students of Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences in Bhubaneswar typed stanzas from the Bhagavata while Christ University students from Bengaluru uploaded chunks of the Kannada Vishwakosha as part of their curriculum.

Tech Hurdle

Though the project started in 2006 with Malayalam Wikisource, it spread to other Indian languages around five years ago. The biggest hurdle remains technology as the open source optical character recognition (OCR) software isn't compatible with many Indian languages. “Google's OCR that was launched last year is much better as it works with most Indian languages,“ said Ravishankar. The new software “extracts text from images of any printed text -and sometimes even handwriting, which opens the door to old texts, manuscripts, and more,“ reads Panigrahi's blog post.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/news/the-times-of-india-january-10-2016-sandhya-soman-read-bengali-malayalam-classics-online-as-free-wiki-libraries-grow

Krishnarajapet Wikipedia Workshop (Coverage in Suvarna Times of Karnataka)

praskrishna — 2013-09-05T06:10:01Z

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

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/suvarna-times-of-karnataka-august-12-2013-krishnarajapet-workshop

Konkani Vishwakosh relaunch tomorrow

praskrishna — 2013-09-25T05:53:33Z

The Goa University in collaboration with Centre for Internet and Societies Access to Knowledge Programme (CIS-A2K) will relaunch its four-volume 3,632-page Konkani Vishwakosh (encyclopaedia) under Creative Commons License CC-BY-SA 3.0. to support the movement of open knowledge and open access on Thursday at 10 a.m. at a function at the conference hall of its administrative building at Taleigao plateau.

The re-release is an initiative by the Goa University to strengthen the Konkani community and language. Information from the Vishwakosh will be used to write the articles on Konkani Wikipedia.

This was originally published in the Hindu on September 25, 2013.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/the-hindu-september-25-2013-konkani-vishwakosh-relaunch-tomorrow

Konkani Wikipedia from Goa University in 6 months

praskrishna — 2013-09-27T11:53:51Z

Piles of the thick four volumes of Konkani vishwakosh or encyclopedia waiting to be picked up by users at the Goa University (GU) will now attain a modern avatar.

The article was published in the Times of India on September 27, 2013. T. Vishnu Vardhan is quoted.

The volumes, work on which was first started by renowned Goan writer and academician late Manoharrai Sardessai at GU, will not only be available in digitized format, but will form the base for a Konkani Wikipedia.

Goa University has become the first varsity in the country to enter into a creative commons licence that will allow data produced and copyrighted by an Indian university available to internet users and open to modification, making GU a champion of sorts of free knowledge. The Konkani Wikipedia is expected to be ready for use within six months, officials said.

The university has signed a three-year memorandum of understanding with the Centre for Internet and Society's Access to Knowledge Programme, which represents Wikipedia in India, for the Konkani Wikipedia project.

"Professors, students and anyone with expertise or love for Konkani can come forward to help with the project for which training will be provided. Information in the Konkani vishwakosh will also be updated as per the current developments," Vishnu Vardhan of the centre said.

The Wikipedia is the fourth most used property on the internet after Google, Facebook and Yahoo, which acts as an internet based encyclopedia where any of the users can upload new information or update or modify an existing chapter. The Konkani Wikipedia too will offer similar privileges to users and GU's Konkani department and the centre will oversee the process from the university campus.

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

Shetye said that GU is glad to associate with Wikipedia which has become a global phenomenon and broken the monopoly of publishers and converted distribution of knowledge into a democratic process.

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

The Konkani vishwakosh was created over a period of 14 years.

Edited by late Manoharrai Sardessai and later Tanaji Halarnkar. GU staffers Ranjan Naik, Kalpana Naik, Kanchan Mordekar, Surekha Naik, Mukesh Thali and Shailendra Mehta contributed to the compilation process.

Contains four large volumes of 3,632 of total pages.

Konkani vishwakosh or encyclopedia encompasses world information in a nutshell with special emphasis on Goa, Konkani, Goan culture, folklore, history, geography etc.

Wikipedia is available in 20 Indian languages including Telugu, Assamese, Marathi, but not in Konkani so far.

Students, professors and anyone interested in contributing to the project can do so by enrolling online at bit.ly/konkanivishwakosh before October 5.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/the-times-of-india-september-27-2013-konkani-wikipedia-from-goa-university-in-six-months

Access to Knowledge Bulletin — June & July 2013

praskrishna — 2013-10-04T10:52:46Z

A2K newsletter for the months of June and July, 2013.

Indian Language Wikipedia Statistics April to September 2013 (by T. Vishnu Vardhan; Nitika Tandon and Subhashish Panigrahi June 30, 2013): The Access to Knowledge team carried out quantitative analysis to identify trends and growth patterns in Indian Language Wikipedias over the time period from September 2012 to April 2013. Though it is difficult for the A2K programme to take direct credit for the growth or lack of it the programme's support has been one of the key factors in impacting the growth of the Wikimedia projects and communities in India since the commencement of the project. Primary focus areas of the statistics are: growth of articles, Active editors, Monthly growth of new editors, Monthly pageviews and New editors statistics from outreach events organized or supported by A2K programme. Link: http://cis-india.org/a2k/blog/indian-language-wikipedia-statistics

Workshops

Wikipedia editing workshop for participants from 10 civil society institutions from across India at the Institute of Internet and Society, Bangalore (Organized by the A2K team members T. Vishnu Vardhan and Subhashish Panigrahi, June 9, 2013)
A 'Kannada' Wikipedia Workshop for Bloggers (organized by CIS-A2K Team, Suchitra, Bengaluru, June 23, 2013). Dr. U.B. Pavanaja conducted the workshop. Link: http://cis-india.org/openness/blog/kannada-wikipedia-workshop-bloggers
Digital Humanities for Indian Higher Education (co-organised by HEIRA-CSCS, Tumkur University, CILHE-TISS and CCS, Indian Institute of Science, July 13, 2013). Link: http://cis-india.org/openness/events/digital-humanities-for-indian-higher-education
A Kannada Wikipedia Workshop (organized by CIS-A2K team, July 21, 2013, Hubli). Dr. U.B. Pavanaja gave training to the participants on Wikipedia. Leading newspapers like Times of India, Vijaya Karnataka, Deccan Herald, VijayaVani, Prajavani, Samyukta Karnataka and HosaDiganta covered the event. Scanned versions of the published articles can be viewed here (http://cis-india.org/openness/blog/hubli-workshop-press-coverage.zip). Link: http://cis-india.org/openness/blog/kannada-wikipedia-workshop-at-hubli
Telugu Wikipedia Training Workshop (organized by CIS-A2K Team in collaboration with Telugu Jati Nava Nirmana Samstha, Hyderabad, July 21, 2013). Dr. Rajasekhar (Telugu WP admin) and T. Vishnu Vardhan conducted the workshop. Link: http://bit.ly/13Z00Ue
A Kannada Wikipedia Workshop at Sagara (organized by CIS-A2K team, Sagara, July 28, 2013). Dr. U.B. Pavanaja gave a talk on Wikipedia and Kannada Wikipedia. Link: http://cis-india.org/openness/kannada-wiki-workshop-at-sagara ● Odia Wikipedia Training Workshop at the Veer Surendra Sai University of Technology (Organized by Odia Wikipedian Gorvachove Pothal and supported by CIS-A2K programme, July 26, 2013). Event link: http://or.wikipedia.org/s/gqw
Telugu Wiki Academy at Centre for Good Governance (co-organised by A2K team and Telugu Wikipedia community, Jubilee Hills, Hyderabad, April 9, 2013). T. Vishnu Vardhan was a speaker at this event. Link: http://cis-india.org/openness/blog/telegu-wiki-academy-at-centre-for-good-governance

Meetups

First Telugu Wiki Meetup @ CIS, Bangalore (co-organised by Telugu Wikipedia community and A2K on June 2, 2013). S.J. Veera conducted the meet-up. Link: http://cis-india.org/openness/blog/telegu-wiki-meet-up-at-cis-june-2-2013
Second monthly Telugu Wiki Meetup @ CIS, Bangalore (co-organized by Telugu Wikipedia community and A2K on July 13, 2013). Event link: http://goo.gl/zVueaO
Telugu Wikipedia Meetup @ Theatre Outreach Unit, Hyderabad (co-organised by TE WP community, ToU and A2K on July 21, 2013). T. Vishnu Vardhan spoke on Copyright-Creative Commons and Wikipedia. Link: http://bit.ly/14ctSxr

Upcoming / Ongoing Events

A Workshop on Posting Articles in Kannada on Wikipedia (organised by the Centre for Proficiency Development Placement Service, University of Mysore, CPDPS premises, Manasagangotri, August 6, 2013). Dr. U.B. Pavanaja will conduct a workshop. The announcement (http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-karnataka/stress-on-posting-articles-on-kannada-wikipedia/article4980552.ece) was made in an article by R. Krishna Kumar in the Hindu on August 2, 2013. Link: http://cis-india.org/news/hindu-r-krishna-kumar-august-2-2013-stress-on-posting-articles-on-kannada-wikipedia
Wikipedia Training workshop for students at the St. Xavier College, Goa Wikipedia
Training workshop for students from Library Science Department at the Goa University, Goa Wikipedia
Training workshop for students from Konkani language Department at the Goa University, Goa

Events Participated

Free Software (organized by Free Software Movement of Karnataka in partnership with Jnana Vikas Institute of Technology, Bidadi, July 24, 2013). Dr. U.B. Pavanaja presented about Wikipedia in this event. Link: http://cis-india.org/news/free-software
Institute of Internet and Society, Bangalore (participated by A2K team, T. Vishnu Vardhan presented about “Building Knowledge Bases and Platforms via Mass Collaboration on the Internet” Presentation Link: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Building_Knowledge_Bases_and_Platforms_via_Mass_Collaboration_on_the_Internet.pdf, Event Link: http://cis-india.org/telecom/knowledge-repository-on-internet-access/institute-on-internet-and-society

Media Coverage (including videos)

A Feature on Wikipedia and Telugu Wikipedians (HMTV, May 30-31, 2013). Watch the video: http://cis-india.org/news/hmtv-may-30-2013-wikipedia-and-telegu-wikipedians

Wikipedia Live Phone-in Programme (HMTV, June 1, 2013). T. Vishnu Vardhan took part in a one hour live phone-in programme on Wikipedia. Video: http://cis-india.org/news/wikipedia-live-phone-in-programme

Wiki donors (by Akhila Seetharaman, TimeOut Bengaluru, June 21, 2013). T. Vishnu Vardhan and Dr. U.B. Pavanaja are quoted. Link: http://cis-india.org/news/timeout-bengaluru-akhila-seetharaman-june-21-2013-wiki-donors

Kannada Wikipedia Workshop at Hasan (Prajavani, June 5, 2013). Dr. U.B. Pavanaja conducted the workshop on June 4, 2013. Link: http://cis-india.org/news/prajavani-june-5-2013-kannada-wikipedia-workshop-coverage

Kannada Wikipedia Workshop at Hasan (Samyukta Karnataka, June 5, 2013). Dr. U.B.Pavanaja conducted the workshop on June 4, 2013. Link: http://cis-india.org/news/samyukta-karnataka-june-5-2013-kannada-wikipedia-workshop-coverage

Kannada Wikipedia Workshop at Hasan (Vijaya Karnataka, June 5, 2013). Dr. U.B.Pavanaja conducted the workshop on June 4, 2013. Link: http://cis-india.org/news/vijaya-karnataka-june-5-2013-report-of-kannada-wikipedia-workshop-in-hasan

Wiki Rahasya: Panel Discussion (Suvarna News, June 13, 2013). Dr. U.B.Pavanaja participated in a panel discussion around Wikipedia in general and about Kannada Wikipedia in specific. Link: http://cis-india.org/news/suvarna-news-june-13-2013-wiki-rahasya-panel-discussion

Blog Entry

Wikipedia Visual Editor (by Nitika Tandon, June 27, 2013). Link: http://cis-india.org/openness/blog/visual-editor.pdf/view

My First Wikipedia Training Workshop – Theatre Outreach Unit, University of Hyderabad (Organized by A2K team, attended by T. Vishnu Vardhan) Link: http://cis-india.org/openness/blog/my-first-wikipedia-training-workshop Wikimedia Foundation has funded A2K to anchor the growth of Wikimedia movement in India. The A2K team consists of three members based in Bangalore: T. Vishnu Vardhan, Dr. U.B. Pavanaja and Subhashish Panigrahi and one member Nitika Tandon in Delhi. Archives of our newsletters can be accessed here (http://cis-india.org/about/newsletters). Wikipedians from various communities can request for outreach programs, technical bugs, logistics-merchandize and media, public relations and communications at http://bit.ly/TOcXId.

About CIS

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

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Please help us defend consumer / citizen rights on the Internet! Write a cheque in favour of ‘The Centre for Internet and Society’ and mail it to us at No. 194, 2nd ‘C’ Cross, Domlur, 2nd Stage, Bengaluru – 5600 71.

To discuss the research collaborations, write to Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, at sunil@cis-india.org or Nishant Shah, Director – Research, at nishant@cis-india.org.

To discuss collaborations on Indic language wikipedia, write to T. Vishnu Vardhan, Programme Director, A2K, at vishnu@cis-india.org

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

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/about/newsletters/access-to-knowledge-bulletin-june-july-2013

Access to Knowledge Bulletin — August 2013

praskrishna — 2013-10-04T10:49:51Z

The Access to Knowledge (Wikipedia) newsletter for the month of August 2013:

Updates from Konkani Wikipedia

The CIS-A2K programme organised a four-day workshop in collaboration with the Goa University for students of M.A. (Konkani) at the Central State Library, Konkani Department, University of Goa from August 21 to 24, 2013. Nitika Tandon and Subhashish Panigrahi conducted this workshop. The event saw 38 students creating 43 new articles on Konkani Wikipedia, which is incubation. The main objective is to bring this seven-year-old project out of incubation into a live Wikipedia project. Event reports, blog entries, videos, guest column and media coverage arising from the workshop can be accessed by clicking on the links below:

Event Reports

Konkani Wikipedia — Climbing up the Indian Language Ladder? (by Subhashish Panigrahi, August 31, 2013):
Konkani Wikipedia Advances in 4 Days — From 90 Articles to 130 Articles! (by Nitika Tandon, August 31, 2013):

Guest Columns

Konkani Wikipedia climbing up the Indian language ladder (by Subhashish Panigrahi, DNA, September 6, 2013).
Recap on Konkani Wikipedia Workshop (by Subhashish Panigrahi, Startup Goa Blog, September 9, 2013).

Media Coverage

Wikipedia writes a new script (by Joyce Dias, August 24, 2013, The Goan). CIS-A2K workshop held in Goa is mentioned extensively. Nitika Tandon and Subhashish Panigrahi are quoted.
Konkani Wikipedia makes headway (by Diana Fernandes, OHeraldO, August 24, 2013). Nitika Tandon is quoted.
Konkani Wikipedians Speak (Goan Voice Daily Newsletter, September 4, 2013). Konkani Wikipedia workshop organized in Goa from August 21 to 24, 2013 is mentioned in this newsletter.

Blog Entries

Voices from Goa: Frania Pereira tells Why She Writes Articles on Konkani Wikipedia (by Subhashish Panigrahi, August 27, 2013).
Voices from Goa: Wikipedia Editor Rusita Paryekar (by Subhashish Panigrahi, August 27, 2013)

Other Wikipedia Updates

Event Reports

A Kannada Wikipedia Workshop at Krishnarajapet (by Dr. U.B. Pavanaja, August 14, 2013). The workshop was co-organized by the CIS-A2K team along with Kannada Sahitya Parishat of KR Pet.
Wikimania 2013: Wikipedians represent Indian Languages in Hong Kong (by Subhashish Panigrahi, August 19, 2013). The event was organised by Wikimedia Foundation. Subhashish participated in the event.
An Odia Wikipedia Workshop at Sambalpur (by Gorvachove Pothal, August 27, 2013). This workshop was held at Veer Surendra Sai University of Technology, Burla, Sambalpur on July 26 and 27, 2013. Odia Wikipedian Gorvachove Pothal organized this workshop with financial support from the CIS-A2K programme.

Events Co-organised

Digitization of Books for Indic Language WikiSource (co-organised by Wikimedia India and CIS-A2K, CIS, Bangalore, August 18, 2013).
A Workshop on Editing Wikipedia in Mumbai (organised by the Centre for Indian Languages in Higher Education and CIS-A2K, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, August 24, 2013). The workshop was aimed at assisting students to take part in the Indian Languages Mela at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (September 20-21, 2013) which is hosting a competition for best Indian language entries on Wikipedia.

Event Organised

Mobile Training Workshop @ CIS (CIS, Bangalore, August 29, 2013). Rachita and Keerthana Chandrashekar gave a talk on mobile campaigns.
Wikipedia Training in Telugu for Dr. B.R. Ambedkar Open University, Hyderabad (Dr. B.R. Ambedkar Open University, Hyderabad, September 5-6, 2013). T. Vishnu Vardhan taught a module on "Knowledge and Openness in the Digital Era".

Events Participated

Wikimania 2013: The International Wikimedia Conference (organised by Wikimedia Foundation, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, August 7 – 11, 2013). T. Vishnu Vardhan and Subhashish Panigrahi participated in the event.
Wikimedia Asia Meeting (organised by Wikimedia community, Hong Kong, August 10, 2013). T. Vishnu Vardhan and Subhashish Panigrahi participated in the meeting. Unedited transcript of the entire conversation is posted online.
వికీపీడియా:సమావేశం/హైదరాబాద్/ఆగష్టు (Hyderabad, August 25, 2013). T.Vishnu Vardhan participated in the meeting through Skype.

Media Coverage

Wikipedia Gains Massive Traffic Thanks To Vernacular Languages (Before It’s News, August 1, 2013). T. Vishnu Vardhan is quoted.
Wikipedia boom in Marathi, Malayalam and other desi languages (by Sandhya Soman, The Times of India, August 1, 2013). T. Vishnu Vardhan is quoted.
Wikipedia boom in vernacular languages (by Divya Saboo, DNA, August 1, 2013). The Centre for Internet and Society is mentioned.
Stress on posting articles on Kannada Wikipedia (by R. Krishna Kumar, Hindu, August 2, 2013). Dr. U.B.Pavanaja is quoted.
India’s Indigenous Languages Drive Wikipedia’s Growth (by Mahesh Sharma, TechCrunch, August 6, 2013). T. Vishnu Vardhan is quoted.
Krishnarajapet Wikipedia Workshop Coverage (Prajavani, August 12, 2013).
Krishnarajapet Wikipedia Workshop Coverage (Vijaya Vani, August 12, 2013).
Krishnarajapet Wikipedia Workshop Coverage (Suvarna Times of Karnataka, August 12, 2013).

Other guest columns:

ଅବସର ପରର ଦ୍ବିତୀୟ ଜୀବନ, ଅବସର ପରେ ସକ୍ରିୟ ଭାବେ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆରେ ଲେଖାଲେଖି ଜାରୀ ରଖିଥିବା ଜଣେ ଡାକ୍ତରଙ୍କ ସ‌ହ ଭାବାଲୋଚନା (by Subhashish Panigrahi, Odiapua, September 10, 2013).

Ongoing / Upcoming Events

Digital Resources in Telugu: A Workshop for Research Scholars (co-organised by the Department of Cultural Studies, English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad and CIS-A2K, September 13, 2013).
Train the Trainer — Four-day long Residential Training Workshop in Bangalore (organised by CIS-A2K, Bangalore, October 1 – 5, 2013). The programme will be held in the first week of October.

Wikimedia Foundation has funded A2K to anchor the growth of Wikimedia movement in India. The A2K team consists of three members based in Bangalore: T. Vishnu Vardhan, Dr. U.B. Pavanaja and Subhashish Panigrahi and one member Nitika Tandon in Delhi.

Archives of our newsletters can be accessed here (http://cis-india.org/about/newsletters). Wikipedians from various communities can request for outreach programs, technical bugs, logistics-merchandize and media, public relations and communications at http://bit.ly/TOcXId.

About CIS

Follow us elsewhere

Twitter: https://twitter.com/CISA2K
CIS group on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/cis.india
Visit us at: https://cis-india.org

To discuss the research collaborations, write to Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, at sunil@cis-india.org or Nishant Shah, Director – Research, at nishant@cis-india.org.

To discuss collaborations on Indic language wikipedia, write to T. Vishnu Vardhan, Programme Director, A2K, at vishnu@cis-india.org

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/about/newsletters/access-to-knowledge-bulletin-august-2013

2nd Odia Wikipedia Edit-a-thon

praskrishna — 2013-04-01T10:17:22Z

The event is being organized today, April 1, 2013 online by the Odia Wikipedia Community, from 10.00 a.m. to 7.00 p.m. The Centre for Internet and Society is supporting this event.

Click to read about the event on Facebook

"ଓଡ଼ିଶା ଦିବସ - ୨୦୧୩" ଉପଲକ୍ଷେ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆରେ ମିଳିତ ଗଣ-ସମ୍ପାଦନା ତଥା ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆ ସହ "ଅନଲାଇନ ଓଡ଼ିଶା ଦିବସ ପାଳନ" . ଏହି ଦିନ ଆମେ କଣ କରିବୁ: ସକାଳ ୧୦ ଘଟିକାରୁ ନେଇ ସନ୍ଧ୍ୟା ୭ ଘଟିକା ଭିତରେ ଆମେମାନେ ନିଜ ନିଜର ଗାଁ, ପଞ୍ଚାୟତ, ସ‌ହର ଉପରେ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆରେ ପ୍ରସଙ୍ଗମାନ ତିଆରି କରିବୁ । କେମିତି ତିଆରିକରିବେ ପ୍ରସଙ୍ଗ:

୧. http://or.wikipedia.org/s/ 8b -> ଏହି ଲିଙ୍କଙ୍କୁ ଯାଇ ଉପରେ ଥିବେ "Type in Odia" କୁ ଯାଇ "Enable (Ctrl-M)" ରେ କ୍ଲିକ କରନ୍ତୁ । ଖୋଜିବା ପାଇଁ ଥିବା ଘରେ ନିଜ ଗାଁର ନାମ ଟାଇପ କରନ୍ତୂ ।

This ia a mass article writing event or Edit-a-thon on the occasion of "Odisha Dibasa -2013". We are inviting you to join and take part in creating articles about your villages, Grama Pachayata, Block on Odia Wikipedia.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/odia-wikipedia-editathon

Access to Knowledge Bulletin — January 2013

praskrishna — 2013-04-05T06:58:56Z

In the first issue of our newsletter for 2013, we are glad to introduce you to our new programme director, Vishnu Vardhan, provide you an update of the Access to Knowledge (September to December 2012) Report, the Indic Languages Wikipedia Statistical Report 2012 and reports of the events organised in Goa in the month of December 2012.

Wikimedia Foundation, beginning from September 1, 2012, awarded the Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) a two-year grant of INR 26,000,000 to support and develop free knowledge in India. Consequently, Wikimedia Foundation’s India Program became the Access to Knowledge (A2K) program of CIS.

Wikipedians from various communities can request for outreach programs, technical bugs, logistics-merchandize and media, public relations and communications at http://bit.ly/TOcXId.

CIS Office in Delhi

The A2K team consists of four members: T. Vishnu Vardhan, Nitika Tandon, Subhashish Panigrahi and Noopur Raval.

New Project Director for Wikipedia Project

T. Vishnu Vardhan is the new Programme Director-Access to Knowledge at CIS. Vishnu has over the last 11 years worked in various capacities as researcher, grant manager, teacher, project consultant, information architect and translator. Vishnu managed the Art, Crafts and Culture portfolio of Sir Ratan Tata Trust and also worked as Research Coordinator at the Centre for the Study of Culture and Society in Bangalore.

Distinguished Fellow

Tejaswini Niranjana, a Senior Fellow at the Centre for the Study of Culture and Society (CSCS), Bangalore, and Visiting Professor at Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai is joining our team as an Adviser to the 'Access to Knowledge' programme. She will guide the A2K team in expanding the Indian language Wikipedias and in increasing the number of active editors through strategic partnerships with Higher Education institutions across India.

Events Organised by CIS:

Note: The events in Goa were organized in the month of December 2012. However, reports were published the following month.

Two-day Wiki Workshop in Goa University: An Introduction (by Nitika Tandon, January 15, 2013).
Wikipedia in St. Xavier's College, Mapusa, Goa (by Nitika Tandon, January 19, 2013).
Promoting GLAM in Goa (by Nitika Tandon, January 24, 2013).
Konkani in Wikipedia Incubator — Taking it to the Next Level (by Nitika Tandon, January 25, 2013).
A Wiki Workshop at Raj Kumar Goel Institute of Technology, Ghaziabad (RKGIT, Ghaziabad, January 17, 2013).
Odia Education Program (Indian Institute of Mass Communication, Dhenkanal, Orissa, January 26, 2013).
Odia Wikipedia 9th Anniversary Celebration (Academy of Media Learning, Samantha Vihar, Bhubaneswar, Orissa, January 29, 2013).

Meeting

Bringing Konkani Encyclopedia in Public Domain (by Nitika Tandon, January 22, 2013).

Event Participated

Celebrating the success of Wikipedia in Wikipedia Summit Pune 2013 (organized by Wikipedia Club, Pune, January 12 – 13, 2013).

Media Coverage

First Odia Wikipedia Education Program concludes at IIMC, Dhenkanal (Odisha Diary Bureau, Dhenkanal, January 27, 2013).
Odia Wikipedia's 9th Anniversary and Workshop on Application of Odia in Media (Sambad, January 30, 2013).

About CIS

CIS was registered as a society in Bangalore in 2008. As an independent, non-profit research organisation, it runs different policy research programmes such as Accessibility, Access to Knowledge, Openness, Internet Governance, and Telecom. The policy research programmes have resulted in outputs such as the e-Accessibility Policy Handbook for Persons with Disabilities with ITU and G3ict, and Digital Alternatives with a Cause?, Thinkathon Position Papers and the Digital Natives with a Cause? Report with Hivos, etc. We have conducted policy research for the Ministry of Communications & Information Technology, Ministry of Human Resource Development, Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, etc., on WIPO Treaties, Copyright Bill, NIA Bill, etc.

CIS is accredited as an observer at WIPO. CIS staff participates in the Standing Committee for Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR) meetings regularly held in Geneva, and participate in the discussions and comments on them from a public interest perspective. Our Policy Director, Nirmita Narasimhan won the National Award for Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities from the Government of India and also received the NIVH Excellence Award.

Follow us elsewhere

Get short, timely messages from us on Twitter
Join the CIS group on Facebook
Visit us at http://cis-india.org

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

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/about/newsletters/access-to-knowledge-bulletin-january-2013

Musician donates Gwalior Gharana songs to free e-library

praskrishna — 2015-01-22T15:25:49Z

A few years ago, Mumbai-based musician Neela Bhagwat realized that her old notebooks filled with lyrics and notations of age-old 'bandishes' were in tatters. Afraid that she might lose them forever, Bhagwat decided to make fresh copies.

The article by Sandhya Soman was published in the Times of India on January 20, 2015. T. Vishnu Vardhan gave his inputs.

Once she wrote it all down, Bhagwat handed over the notebooks to a team to upload her collection of around 330 bandishes of the Gwalior gharana to a free, online library.

"I was always keen on sharing the compositions with others. Digitization is the way to go as it can be accessed from anywhere," says Bhagwat. Based on her notebooks, around 337 bandishes have been converted to PDF format by student and music researcher Tejaswini Niranjana. "I will be uploading them soon to Wikisource, which is one of the platforms of Wikipedia," says Niranjana.

Bhagwat and a few other music-lovers like her are taking up digital archiving projects to preserve India's cultural heritage without any institutional support or grant. "I have about 337 bandishes, my guru had more than 1,000 and his guru would've had still more. So much has got lost now," says Bhagwat. Even if she is willing to teach, few are able to understand, internalize and work on these classical compositions. "No student of mine has learnt all of it. So I thought it best to keep them in the public domain," says Bhagwat.

Along with music students, scholars also find these projects helpful.

For example, Andhra Pradesh-based lexicographer Peddi Sambasiva Rao has created a master index of all the compositions of Annamacharya for Telugu Wikisource recently. Now, he is in the process of digitizing the lyrics of all the 15,000 songs of the 15th century composer along with a fellow enthusiast. "Carnatic music lovers find it difficult to locate individual songs as there are 29 volumes of Annamacharya's works. Instead of publishing the index as a book, I thought of approaching Wikipedia, which is known to everyone," says Rao.

As the index is in Unicode, the standard text encoding format, the Telugu kirtanas will soon come up on search engines, says T Vishnu Vardhan, programme director, Access to Knowledge, CIS, which helped host these projects. "By June, we hope to have the entire Annamacharya kirtanas at a single source and eventually do the same for the songs of the Gwalior Gharana. This is the only way to make our cultural heritage accessible to future generations," says Vardhan.

Bhagwat says cultural and educations institutions should take the lead in digital archiving as the benefits are multi-fold. Once the bandishes are online, Bhagwat's students abroad will have the text along with the DVDs that she has brought out. "By the second or third Skype lesson, they would've learnt it," says Bhagwat.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/news/the-times-of-india-january-20-2015-sandhya-soman-musician-donates-gwalior-gharana-songs-to-free-e-library

Winners of the Opensource.com 2015 Community Awards

praskrishna — 2015-02-12T01:23:44Z

Every year, Opensource.com awards people from our community who have excelled in contributing and sharing stories about open source.

These stories are about open source as we use it in our everyday lives as well as how it helps to build a better world and future in technology. This year, we present to you the 2015 Opensource.com Community Awards in the following categories.

People's Choice Awards

Subhashish Panigrahi

An educator and open source activist, based in Bangalore, India.

Reader's Choice Awards

Recognizes the community's favorite articles from 2014. Voted on by the community.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/news/opensource-2015-award-winners

Centre for Internet and Society

‘With Internet in every pocket, power to the people’

Developing Digital Open Knowledge Resources in Indian Languages

Why It's Essential To Grow Indian-Language Wikipedias

Wikipedia as a family

Language neutrality

Addressing gender bias in Wikipedia: Implications for India

Complementing Digital India

Wikipedia initiative - Celebrating legacy of Bangalore Blue grapes online

Read Bengali, Malayalam classics online as free Wiki libraries grow

Students Pitch In

Tech Hurdle

Krishnarajapet Wikipedia Workshop (Coverage in Suvarna Times of Karnataka)

Konkani Vishwakosh relaunch tomorrow

Konkani Wikipedia from Goa University in 6 months

Access to Knowledge Bulletin — June & July 2013

Workshops

Meetups

Upcoming / Ongoing Events

Events Participated

Media Coverage (including videos)

Blog Entry

About CIS

Access to Knowledge Bulletin — August 2013

Updates from Konkani Wikipedia

Event Reports

Guest Columns

Media Coverage

Blog Entries

Other Wikipedia Updates

Event Reports

Events Co-organised

Event Organised

Events Participated

Media Coverage

Other guest columns:

Ongoing / Upcoming Events

About CIS

2nd Odia Wikipedia Edit-a-thon

Access to Knowledge Bulletin — January 2013

Musician donates Gwalior Gharana songs to free e-library

Winners of the Opensource.com 2015 Community Awards

People's Choice Awards

Reader's Choice Awards

More online free content in Telugu Wikipedia soon