Centre for Internet and Society

Sangeet Baithak: A Hindustani Music Resource Donation Event in Mumbai

praskrishna — 2014-10-07T04:27:49Z

The Access to Knowledge team from the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS-A2K) and Khayal Trust is organizing a music event on October 7, 2014 in Shivaji Park, Dadar, Mumbai. T.Vishnu Vardhan and Tejaswini Niranjana will be participating.

Neela Bhagwat will donate her comprehensive textual compilation of Gwalior Gharana bandishes. Gwalior Gharana is one of the old traditions of Hindustani gayaki and like other gayaki's the tradition has been passed on orally in the guru-shishya parampara. Pt. Neela Bhagwat has over a period of 30 years (of learning and teaching music) meticulously compiled most of the Gwalior Gharana bandishes with notations and notes. This comprehensive collection which will be scanned and hosted on Wikisource and made available under CC-BY-SA 4.0. license.

Click to download the event invite here.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/events/sangeet-baithak

Sangeet Bhaitak

praskrishna — 2014-10-07T04:17:38Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/music-event.pdf

September 2014 NVDA Report

praskrishna — 2014-10-06T04:56:27Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/september-2014-nvda-report.pdf

Big Data and Positive Social Change in the Developing World

praskrishna — 2014-10-01T03:49:58Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/big-data-and-positive-social-change.pdf

CPDP 2015

praskrishna — 2014-09-30T09:52:52Z

The eighth international conference on computers, privacy and data protection will be held in Brussels from January 21 to 23, 2015. The Centre for Internet and Society is a moral supporter of CPDP.

CPDP is a non-profit platform originally founded in 2007 by research groups from the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, the Université de Namur and Tilburg University and has grown into a platform carried by 20 academic centers of excellence from the EU, the US and beyond. As a world-leading multidisciplinary conference CPDP offers the cutting edge in legal, regulatory, academic and technological development in privacy and data protection. Within an atmosphere of independence and mutual respect, CPDP gathers academics, lawyers, practitioners, policy-makers, computer scientists and civil society from all over the world in Brussels offering them an arena to exchange ideas and discuss the latest emerging issues and trends. This unique multidisciplinary formula has served to make CPDP one of the leading data protection and privacy conferences in Europe and around the world. CPDP2014 welcomed 854 guests including 343 speakers from 43 different countries dispersed over more than 60 panels which took place during three full days. It attracted another 500 people in several public evening events including debates, a pecha kucha evening and an art exhibition. CPDP2015 aims to repeat the success of last year and will stage panels within the following main topical themes: Data Protection Reform: European and Global Developments, Mobility (mobile technologies, wearable technologies, border surveillance), EU-US developments concerning the regulation of government surveillance, Health, privacy and data protection, Love and lust in the digital age, Internet governance and privacy.

In 2015 CPDP will take place from January 21 to 23, 2015 in the Halles de Schaerbeek, Brussels, Belgium. Registrations are already open: http://www.cpdpconferences.org/Registration.html. For more details see here.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/cpdp-2015

State Level Seminar on "Odia alphabet and order teaching in primary education"

praskrishna — 2014-09-30T08:51:05Z

Subhashish Panigrahi participated in a state-level seminar on "Number of Odia characters and order teaching in primary education" (ପ୍ରଥମ ଶ୍ରେଣୀରେ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଅକ୍ଷର ସଂଖ୍ୟା ଓ କ୍ରମଶିକ୍ଷା) co-organised by Institute of Odia Studies and Research, and Odia Bhasa Pratisthan in Bhubaneswar on September 14, 2014.

Subhashish discussed about the applied aspects of Odia language in the context of primary education and need for reforms in the total number and order in the character-set citing problems with computer and internet.

The reports of the event are given below:


Above: Report of the event published in Prameya


Above: Report of the event published in Dharitri


Above: Report of the event published in Samaja

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/news/odia-alphabet-and-order-teaching-in-primary-education

Workshop on Enabling Information Systems for Local Governance

praskrishna — 2014-09-30T08:18:42Z

This event was organized by Jamia Milla Islamia at Tagore Hall in New Delhi on September 18, 2014. Sunil Abraham was a participant.

The One day workshop brings together practitioners, researchers and thinkers from the overlapping fields of IT, sociology and governance to seek mechanisms for involvement of local communities as active participants in information systems for governance. Conventional technological models are based on certain apriori assumptions on how engineers and designers expect people to use technologies as well as the social universe in which the information systems function. Social scientists and ethnographers on the other hand, concern themselves with how people use and interpret technologies and tend to have a better understanding of the role of technologies in the everyday life of users.

The first panel concerns itself with how these two diverse and possibly complementary ways of approaching technologies may synergise as a combined sociotechnical process rather than a purely technological one. Another useful way to understand the information systems as inherently socio-technical amalgamations is to examine the “informational model” – or the concepts, categories, and relationships – underlying the systems.Describing the systems in terms of their informational models enables people who understand issues of governance to speak to technologists on a common platform. Thus, the idea in the second panel is to discuss whether there is a need to rethink the mechanisms for building information models for local governance.

Some of the questions relevant to the workshop are:

What is the role of local communities in information systems for governance? How can local participation in governance be enabled/enhanced?
What are some of the existing applications and mechanisms for creating the concepts, categories, relationships, rules and constraints (the information model) used in building information systems for governance and is there a need to rethink them?

Workshop Program - 18 Sep 2014

9:30-10:00 - Registration

10:00-10:15 - Introduction to the Symposium

10:15-11:45 - Panel 1: Community Participation in IT Processes.

Information systems for governance generally involve many different kinds of users and stakeholders. The presentations in this panel are reflect how the role that these communities play at different stages of the technical process shape the conceptualization and outcomes of these diverse systems.

Atanu Garai (Fellow, Society for New Communications Research, Bubhaneshwar): Mechanisms of Community Enrollment in mHealth

Jagdish Mitra (CEO, CanvasM,A Tech Mahindra Company) – Arriving at Saral Zindagi: A suite of mobile applications to ease consumer life styles.

Chair: Dr Biswajit Das, Director, Centre for Culture Media and Governance (CCMG), Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi

Discussant: Dr. Richa Kumar (Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT-Delhi)

11:45-12:00 – Tea/Coffee break

12:00-13:30 - Panel 2: Community Representation in Information Modelling.

This panel describes the (often) implicit "Information Model" underlying IT enabled systems of governance. Making these models explicit also opens up the discussion of how social concepts and categories may be included as part of the model.

Dr Vignesh Ilavarasan P (Department of Management Studies, IIT-Delhi) – Information Models for Service Delivery in the Telecom Sector
Ravi Shukla (CCMG, JMI)–Prototyping Community Participation in Informational Models.
Chair: Dr. Arul Chib (NTU, Singapore)
Discussant: Sunil Abraham (CIS, Bangalore)

1 3:30-14:30 – Lunch

14:30 - 16:00 – Focus Group Workshop - Mechanisms for Community Participation in Information Systems.

The current research with communities around the Jamia Nagar area is taken as a case study. Participants are divided into two groups, the "process" group which is to suggest ways for community involvement in the process, and the "informational model" structure group. Each group is to suggest 5 ways in which communities can participate in IT systems.

List of People in the Second Half (there maybe more/different people):

Atanu Garai, P Vignesh, Ravi Shukla, Arul Chib, Sunil Abraham, Amit Prakash, Vibodh Parthasarathi, Pankaj Aggarwal, Biswajit Das.
Chair: Amit Prakash - I will speak to him beforehand about this.
Introducer: Ravi Shukla (5 Mins) - Q & A (10 mins)
Group Sessions (these can be in different parts of the same room) - it will require writing pads, pens , two white boards and markers/busters. Time is 20 mins.
Group 1 (Processes and Procedures to Involve Communities in Information Systems):

Facilitator: Arul Chib

Participants: Atanu Garai, Pankaj Aggarwal, Vibodh Parthasarthi

This group builds on their own experiences and comes up with 5 suggestions on how the IT process can be made more inclusive. This could mean - what are the different stages at which communities may get involved and how - as well as new ways of involvement.

Group 2 (Inclusion of Communities in Information Models)

Facilitator: Ravi Shukla
Participants: P Vignesh, Sunil Abraham

This group builds on their experiences to come up 5 suggestions on how community voices and concerns may be included in the Information Model. This could mean for instance - how to include minority voices in the model, or other factors of geography, culture, scale and temporality.

After this there are 10 minutes of presentation each by one representative from each group (this gives other people the space to wind-up/present).

This is followed by a summary by the discussant (Arul Chib) followed by discussion and winding up/ thanks giving by VP. (30 + 5 mins)

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/workshop-on-enabling-information-systems-for-local-governance

Publishing Next

praskrishna — 2014-09-30T07:50:28Z

T. Vishnu Vardhan was a speaker at Publishing Next organized by CinnamonTeal Publishing, a Margao (Goa)-based publishing house that provides publishing services to authors and publishers. The event was held in Goa on September 19 and 20.

For speakers click here. Read the full description on Publishing Next website.

Schedule | publishing next

Schedule

For descriptions of each session, please view this page.

19th September 2014			20th September 2014
	Hall 1 (Panel Discussions and Presentations)	Hall 2 (Workshops)		Hall 1 (Panel Discussions and Presentations)	Hall 2 (Workshops)
09:00 – 10:00	Registration of attendees		09:30 – 10:00	Insight Talk by Klaus Willberg
10:00 – 10:20	Inauguration / Address		10:00 – 11:30	A Pulse on Publishing
10:20 – 11:00	Keynote Address		11:30 – 12:00	Tea
11:00 – 11:20	Tea		12:00 – 13:15	Worse Off Without Verse?	Physical Distribution in a Global World: 12.00-12.45
11:20 – 11:45	Presentation by Netex Knowledge Factory		13:15 – 14:00	Lunch
11:45 – 13:15	Publishing in Indian languages		14:00 – 14:20	Presentation by HP India
13:15 – 14:00	Lunch		14:20 – 15:20	The Art of the Book	Fiction/History/Research : 14:20 – 15:00
14:00 – 14:20	Presentation by NewsHunt		15:20 – 15:45	Q&A on ISBN Issues
14:20 – 15:45	Open Publishing, Copyright and Copyleft	Face to Face: Printers and Publishers: 14:20 – 16:15	15:45 – 16:15	Tea
15:45 – 16:15	Tea		16:15 – 16:30	Presentation by IppStar	Publishing Environments in Brazil and Sri Lanka: 16:15 – 17:00
16:15 – 17:30	The Business of Graphic Books	Publishing Translated Literature: 16:15-17:00	16:30 – 18:00	e-Publishing in India
17:30 – 19:00	Are There Enough Good Books for Children?	eBook Development and Distribution: 17.30-18.30	18.00 – Publishing Next Industry Awards Presentation Ceremony
20:30 – Networking Dinner at Hotel Sandalwood

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/news/publishing-next

National Consultation on Media Law

praskrishna — 2014-09-30T06:52:50Z

The Law Commission of India and the National University, Delhi have joined hands to organize the National Consultation on Media Law at the India Habitat Centre in New Delhi on September 27 and 28, 2014. Nehaa Chaudhari participated in this event.

Click to view the:

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/national-consultation-on-media-law

List of Useful Sources

praskrishna — 2014-09-30T06:51:41Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/list-of-useful-sources.pdf

Overview of Responses

praskrishna — 2014-09-30T06:49:53Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/overview-of-responses.pdf

Consultation Paper on Media Law

praskrishna — 2014-09-30T06:47:54Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/consultation-paper-media-law.pdf

National Consultation on Media Law Schedule

praskrishna — 2014-09-30T06:34:57Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/national-consultation-on-media-law-schedule.pdf

Implementation of IT in Kannada

praskrishna — 2014-10-10T09:39:00Z

Dr. U.B.Pavanaja conducted a Kannada Wikipedia Workshop at Basaveshwara Science College, Bagalkot on September 20, 2014.

The workshop was sponsored by Basaveshwara Science College. Thirty-seven students participated. Kannada popular science writer and Kannada Wikipedian T G Srinidhi helped in conducting the workshop.

A scanned version of the article published by Prajavani is given below:

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/news/kannada-wikipedia-workshop-bagalkot

105 Kannada books released under Creative Commons

praskrishna — 2014-09-30T05:57:37Z

Contents will now be available in Wikisource for use by everyone.

The article was published in Bangalore Mirror on September 29, 2014.

Kannada book lovers will now be able to legally download more than 100 books that have been released by the state government under the Creative Commons licence. The treasure trove, which includes a good mix of classics and rhythmic writings, have been digitised by the Department of Kannada and Culture and some of them put up on Wikisource, the website from where details for Wikipedia pages are sourced.

The licence entitles anyone "to use the work in a commercial product or otherwise, and to modify it according to their needs." The licence is not limited to use in Wikipedia.

The initiative, which aims to enrich Kannada language and culture, is the brainchild of UB Pavanaja, a Bangalore-based writer. Pavanaja, along with some other Wikipedia contributors, approached the department to digitise and re-release Kannada classics. The department then decided to give CC licence to 105 books last month. With this licence, the source copy (soft copy) of the books will be made available.

The books released by the department include 35 volumes of the Samagra Dasa Sahitya (complete Dasa literature), 15 volumes of Samagra Vachana Samputa (complete Vachana literature), 36 volumes of Rigveda Samhita, Kumaravyasa Bharata, Jaimini Bharata, Nalacharitre and Mohana Tarangini. Soon, all these will be available for anyone who wants to read them online.

"According to India's copyright laws, any book will be out of copyright after 60 years. So technically, classics are out of copyright but this applies to the text only. But when someone publishes even a classic, they hold the copyright to the information they have keyed in and edited," said Pavanaja who is also a member of the advisory committee to the state government of Kannada software development. "What the department has given is rights to re-published versions of the classics and also the commentary, criticism, essays on these classics they have published. Any information that is out of copyright is uploaded to wikisource.org. They have given us soft copies of some of the books. The rest of the books for which CC licence is provided will have to be typed again and uploaded to Wikisource."

Pavanaja, who is also a popular contributor of Kannada information on Wikipedia, feels the 'free and open' knowledge movement in Kannada and especially Wikipedia is hampered by lack of contributors.

"Malayalam Wikipedia has nearly 1,000 editors. Kannada also has 600 registered editors, but only about 22 are active. So while the number of Wikipedia articles in other languages are increasing in leaps and bounds, there are only about 18,000 Kannada articles. This is a very small number considering there are around 18 lakh hits for Kannada every day."

Director of the Department Kannada and Culture KA Dayanand told Bangalore Mirror that they are currently only uploading books to which the department holds the copyright.

"I have also written to the writers who hold copyrights of books published by us. If they give permission, more books will be released. If more Kannada books are available online, it can only boost Kannada on the Internet."

In another related development, Mysore University has released six of the 14 volumes of its encyclopedia. Four of these will be available for anyone to read online, modify and use it. The Hampi Kannada University has a huge 29-volume encyclopedia. Sources say the university is in the initial stage making this available on Creative Commons.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/news/bangalore-mirror-shyam-prasad-105-kannada-books-released-under-creative-commons