Centre for Internet and Society

విజ్ఞాన నిధి వికీపీడియా..

praskrishna — 2016-12-20T16:38:48Z

The article about Telugu Wikipedia appeared in Namaste Telangana on December 11, 2016.

సిటీబ్యూరో:ప్రాపంచిక విషయాలను, చారిత్రక ఘట్టాలను, శాస్త్రీయ విషయాలను ప్రపంచానికి చేరువ చేస్తున్న విజ్ఞాన నిధి వికీపీడియా. ఆధునిక సాంకేతిక పద్ధతుల ఆధారంగా ఆన్‌లైన్‌తో ప్రపంచంలోని పలు ఆసక్తికరమైన విషయాలన్నింటనీ ప్రజలందరికీ చేరువ చేసే నేస్తం ఇది. అందరికీ ప్రవేశం, అందరికీ ఉచితంగా అందుబాటులో ఉండే ఈ ఎన్‌సైక్లోపెడియాలో మన చరిత్ర, మన సంస్కృతి మరెన్నో విషయాలను జోడించేందుకు సమాచార సైనికులతో వికీపీడియా డేను పురస్కరించుకొని గోల్డెన్ త్రెషోల్డ్‌లో శనివారం ఓ కార్యశాలను నిర్వహించింది. విజ్ఞాన సమాచారం,భౌగోళిక, చారిత్రక అంశాలు, సాంస్కృతిక విషయాలను వికీపీడియాలో చొప్పించేందుకు చేపట్టాల్సిన కార్యక్రమాలను ఈ కార్యశాలలో చర్చించారు. వికీపీడియాలో అందరూ తమకు తెలిసిన ఆసక్తికరమైన అంశాలపై వ్యాసాలు రాయవచ్చని, ప్రపంచానికి కొత్త విషయాలను పరిచయం చేయవచ్చని ఆంగ్ల వికీపీడియన్ టిటో దత్తా అన్నారు. వికీ ట్రైనర్, ట్రైనర్ ద ట్రైనర్ కార్యక్రమంలో వికీపీడీయన్లు కశ్యప్, ప్రణయ్ పలు సాంకేతిక అంశాలను తెలుగు వికిపీడియన్లకు వివరించారు. చరిత్రకారుడు, కవి కట్టా శ్రీనివాస్ మాట్లాడుతూ గోల్కొండ వంటి పలు చారిత్రక ప్రదేశాల్లో ప్రజలకు తెలియని చారిత్రక, సాంకేతిక ప్రదేశాలు, ఆసక్తికరమైన అంశాలు ఉన్నాయని వాటన్నింటినీ సేకరించి, ప్రపంచానికి చేరవేయాల్సిన అవసరం ఉందన్నారు. ఈ కార్యక్రమాన్ని వికీపీడియన్లు చేపట్టి విజయవంతం చేయాలన్నారు. సీనియర్ జర్నలిస్ట్ బీవీ ప్రసాద్, మౌర్య, మీనా గాయత్రి పాల్గొన్నారు.

Link to the original in Namaste Telangana

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/news/namaste-telangana-december-11-2016-article-on-wikipedia

వికీపీడియాతో విజ్ఞాన విప్లవం

praskrishna — 2016-12-20T16:36:06Z

The article appeared in Andhra Bhoomi on December 11, 2016.

హైదరాబాద్, డిసెంబర్ 10: అన్ని భారతీయ భాషల్లో వికీపీడియాను అభివృద్ధి చేసేందుకు అవసరమైన శిక్షణ అందిస్తున్నామని వికీ ట్రైనర్, ఆంగ్ల వికీపీడియన్ టిటో దత్తా పేర్కొన్నారు. వికీపీడియాను అభివృద్ధి చేసేందుకు వివిధ కార్యక్రమాల నిర్వహణకు అవసరమైన నాయకత్వ శిక్షణ, వికీపీడియాలో పనికొచ్చే ఉపకరణాల గురించి రెండు రోజుల శిక్షణ కార్యక్రమాన్ని ఆయన శనివారం ప్రారంభించారు. తెలుగు వికీపీడియాను అభివృద్ధి చేయడం ద్వారా తెలుగు భాషాభివృద్ధితో పాటు ప్రపంచవ్యాప్తంగా ఉన్న తెలుగు వారికి తెలుగు విశేషాలు అందించిన వారమవుతామని, దీంతో సరికొత్త విజ్ఞాన విప్లవం వస్తుందని ఆయన పేర్కొన్నారు. వికీపీడియాను అభివృద్ధి చేయడానికి కాలేజీల్లో కార్యశాల, ఫోటోవాక్, ఎడిట్ ఆ థాన్ తదితర కార్యక్రమాలను నిర్వహించవచ్చని చెప్పారు. చరిత్రకారుడు, రచయిత, తెలుగు వికీపీడియన్ కట్టా శ్రీనివాసరావు మాట్లాడుతూ గోల్కొండ వంటి ప్రదేశాల్లో కూడా ప్రజలకు తెలియని చారిత్రక, సాంకేతిక ప్రదేశాలు అంశాలు ఉంటాయని అన్నారు. వాటి ఫోటోలు తీసి వికీమీడియా కామన్స్‌లో చేర్చవచ్చని తెలిపారు. ఈ కార్యక్రమాన్ని సిఐఎస్-ఎ2కె ప్రతినిధి పవన్ సంతోష్, వికీపీడియన్ ప్రణయ్ రాజ్ వంగరి నిర్వహించారు. కార్యక్రమంలో తెలుగు వికీపీడియన్లు కశ్యప్, నాగేశ్వరరావు, మీనా గాయత్రీ, వౌర్య వంటి వారితో పాటు కొత్తగా వికీపీడియాలో చేరిన వారు కూడా పాల్గొన్నారు.

Read the original published by Andhra Bhoomi on December 11, 2016

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/news/andhra-bhoomi-december-11-2016-article-on-wikipedia

पीजी जूलॉजी विभाग में एक दिवसीय समागम का आयोजन

praskrishna — 2016-12-20T16:32:41Z

रांची विश्वविद्यालय के पीजी जूलॉजी विभाग में शनिवार को इंटरनेट एक्सेस पर आधारित संगोष्ठी ‘ओपनकॉन हुई। कुलपति डॉ रमेश कुमार पांडेय ने इसकी अध्यक्षता की। कार्यक्रम में डीएसडब्ल्यू डॉ सतीश चंद्र गुप्ता, प्रो संजय मिश्रा, प्रो अभिजीत दत्ता और डॉ बीके सिन्हा मौजूद थे। इसका आयोजन ओपन एक्ससेस इंडिया के सहयोग से किया गया। संगोष्ठी में लगभग 60 प्रतिभागियों ने हिस्सा लिया। कुलपति डॉ रमेश कुमार पांडेय समेत कई प्रतिभागियों ने अपना विकीपीडिया अकाउंट पेज भी खोला।

The article was published in the Hindustan on November 12, 2016.

संगोष्ठी में बतौर रिसोर्स पर्सन सेंटर फॉर फ्यूचर एंड सोसायटी, बंगलुरू के टीटो दत्ता, विकीपीडिया से गंगाधर बधानी मौजूद थे। साथ ही, ऑनलाइन विशेषज्ञों के तौर पर इस्लामिक यूनिवर्सिटी लेबनान की जमीला जाबेर व बंगलुरू की लीना और वृषाली प्रतिभागियों से रू-ब-रू हुईं। इंटनेटर एक्सेस से जुड़ी नवीनतम जानकारियों को पाकर प्रतिभागी खासे उत्साहित थे। उन्होंने शोधकार्य और अध्ययन के लिए इसे बहुत उपयोगी बताया। साथ ही, यह मांग भी की इस तरह के आयोजन नियमित अंतराल पर होते रहने चाहिए। संगोष्ठी में ओपन एक्सेस, ओपन एजुकेशन और ओपन डाटा के विभिन्न पहलुओं पर चर्चा हुई। इसमें विद्यार्थियों, शोधार्थियों और शिक्षाविदों को शोध व प्रोजेक्ट के लिए बेहतर स्रोत विकसित करने के तरीके बताए गए।

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/news/hindustan-november-12-2016-article-1-opencon-conference-held-at-ru

Changing the typographic landscape of a country: one letter at a time

praskrishna — 2016-12-20T16:06:51Z

My interest in designing typefaces in Indian scripts grew out of years of disappointment with the way most Hindi books I came across looked. Apart from a few exceptions, they looked like poor cousins of English books. Whether it was a children’s story book or a novel or magazine, there was usually the same drab typeface.

The blog post by Pooja Saxena was published in Storyweaver on December 1, 2016.

Some letters didn’t look like what we were taught in school, on others the matras (vowel marks) didn’t arch at the right places. Overall, the books and the letters inside them had an air of neglect. They looked old and completely unexciting. When I first learned that designing typefaces was a real job, I thought here was the opportunity to change all that.

Cambay, Devanagari typeface designed by Pooja Saxena for Google Fonts

Changing the typographic landscape of a country as diverse as India is not a one-woman job, but every now and then a project comes by that has the potential to make a small difference. Two years ago, as a result of a conversation with Subhashish Panigrahi, the Access to Knowledge programme at the Centre for Internet and Society commissioned a Ol Chiki typeface family. The Ol Chiki script, about which I knew precious little at the time, is used to write the language Santali, which is spoken by over six million people in India and its neighbouring countries. At the time that we started working on this project, there was no Unicode compliant typeface available in the script, making it impossible for it to be used on computers and cellphones, and online in a consistent and future-proof way. We hoped to change that by designing a small, but useful typeface family (it comes in regular, bold and italics) along with input methods and keyboard layouts that would allow a person to type Ol Chiki text easily.

Guru Gomke, Ol Chiki typeface designed by Pooja Saxena with research inputs from Shubhashish Panigrahi,for the A2K Programme at the Centre for Internet and Society.

This project was especially challenging because not only was Ol Chiki a completely unfamiliar script to me and Subhashish, but there was limited material available for us to consult. While designing a typeface in a script one reads and/or writes, or is at least familiar with, one’s experience with those letters can act as a guide. By writing them and seeing them printed in different fonts, in many people’s handwriting — some good, some bad — and on hand painted signs, one develops an instinct for identifying which parts of a letter make it recognisable. That way we know what parts of the letter can be exaggerated, and what others can be played down without compromising legibility. For an unfamiliar script, this visual vocabulary and the traditionally correct way of writing letters must be learned. Manuscripts, printed documents, handwriting manuals and samples, metal type, linguistic information about the script, feedback from native readers — all form parts of a puzzle that needs to be put together to design a competent typeface.

The story of Ol Chiki script is fascinating. The script is less than a century old, and was devised by Pandit Raghunath Murmu, who wanted to create a script that could accommodate all the features of the Santali language — something that the scripts used to write Santali so far had failed to do. Legend has it that he based the design of the letters on objects commonly found in the everyday environment of the Santals. Even though the script was created between 1920 – 1940, the Santal community has many myths about how it was created. One says that the script came to be at the time when the Earth itself was created, another says that the script was given as a divine gift to a learned man, Pandit Raghunath Murmu. It is after Pandit Raghunath Murmu, who is reverentially called Guru Gomke, that the Ol Chiki typeface that I designed was named. You can find out more about the Ol Chiki typeface and input methods project here.

Custom lettering for the Tamil branding of the Coovum Art Festival, designed by Pooja Saxena

If you’re interested in Indian type design and le ering, consider following the work of these exceptional designers — Noopur Datye, one of the co-founders of type design collective, Ek Type, who has designed custom typefaces TV channels like LifeOK; Kimya Gandhi, who is partner at Mota Italic, and recently designed an inventive Devanagari handwriting font; or Lipi Raval, whose flamboyant Gujarati typeface Mogra is a complete head-turner.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/news/story-weaver-december-1-2016-pooja-saxena-changing-the-typographic-landscape-of-a-country

International Accessibility Summit of Shaastra 2017

praskrishna — 2016-12-18T02:21:22Z

The Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) is partnering with IIT, Madras for a summit on international accessibility. The summit will be held at IIT in Chennai from December 31, 2016 to January 3, 2017. Nirmita Narasimhan will be the panel moderator this event.

This year’s Summit strives to bring about a change in society by addressing an issue that is taken for granted by most people: Accessibility.

Climbing stairs, listening to a lecture, reading a billboard, expressing dissent are some activities that most of us tend to perform quite effortlessly. Turning a “blind eye” to a “lame joke” is something that comes naturally to a lot of us. We crib to no end when people refuse to talk to us in a language we understand because it makes us feel like an outsider. If there is one thing that human beings hate, it is the feeling of being excluded or pitied upon, as this is a constant reminder of what one cannot do.

Accessibility is an attempt to get rid of this exclusion in various important spheres – physical environments, public spaces, the digital realm, education, employment, technology, transport. It is concerned with the removal of barriers, to set the record straight on what causes a disability: not an individual’s inability to do something but the society’s tendency to throw unnecessary obstacles. Accessibility is a spectrum - it means usability, it means removing limitations and tapping opportunities.

The International Accessibility Summit of Shaastra 2017, IIT Madras, a 4 day-long event to be held between 31st December, 2016 to 3rd January, 2017, is a platform for multiple stakeholders in the field of Accessibility and Assistive Technology to come together and share their knowledge. It is a chance for students from various fields of study to meet and ideate on how to make India truly accessible.

To know more about International Accessibility Summit, please watch the teaser.

Video

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/accessibility/events/international-accessibility-summit-shaastra-2017

"Decoding the Digital"- Winter School at IIIT Bangalore

praskrishna — 2016-12-17T01:39:20Z

The Centre for IT and Public Policy at IIIT Bangalore organized a winter school from December 12 to 14, 2016 at the IIIT campus on Decoding the Digital, where the theme for the same was Smart Cities and Social Media. Vanya Rakesh participated in it.

The event involved lectures, interactive discussions, film screenings and group activities on topics ranging from smart communities, smart phones, intelligent transportation, big data, privacy, surveillance, etc. For more inflo, click here

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/decoding-the-digital-winter-school-at-iiit-bangalore

Wikipedian Pavan Santhosh says Telugu Wikipedians are creating Knowledge revolution (in Telugu)

praskrishna — 2016-12-17T01:35:04Z

Pavan Santhosh said that Telugu Wikipedians are creating a knowledge revolution in Telugu. On Sunday, December 12, 2016, in Golden Threshold, Abids, Telugu Wikipedians celebrated Telugu Wikipedia day. Telugu Wikipedians Pranay Raj and Meena Gayathri who successfully completed 100 Wikidays challenge successfully were given mementos and cut a cake on this occassion.

Clipping of the article that appeared in Andhra Jyoti on December 12, 2016:

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/news/andhra-jyoti-december-12-2016-telugu-wikipedians-are-creating-knowledge-revolution

Wikipedia is a Newspaper

praskrishna — 2016-12-17T01:27:21Z

Coverage about Mini MWT and TTT first day. News item also explains about Telugu Wikipedia and its growth. Mentioned some of the participants and organizers Pranay, Katta Srinivasa Rao, Kasyap, etc.

Clipping of the article as it appeared in Namaste Telangana on December 11, 2016:

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/news/namaste-telangana-december-11-2016-wikipedia-is-a-newspaper

Multistakeholder Consultation on Encryption

praskrishna — 2016-12-17T01:22:35Z

The Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) in collaboration with ORF and Takshashila Institution is organizing a Multi-Stakeholder Consultation on Encryption on December 17, 2016 at TERI in Bengaluru.

The consultation is intended to help shape the discussions around the new draft encryption policy slated to be released sometime early next year. The consultation will be divided into two segments: an open house and a panel discussion with high-level government representatives, including Dr. Gulshan Rai, the National Cyber Security Coordinator. The sessions start at 10.30 a.m. on December 17, 2016 and will go on for until approximately 4.30 p.m.

The discussions themselves will highlight inputs from the three main constituents affected by an encryption policy: civil society and end users, the private sector and government. The range of civil liberties and constitutional rights implicated by encryption, as well as the needs of businesses to secure data flows will be discussed. Government officials too are expected to join the consultation and will provide perspectives on encryption and legitimate access to data for law enforcement purpose.

For more info reach out to Udbhav Tiwari (udbhav@cisindia.org) or Bedavyasa Mohanty (bedavyasam@orfonline.org)

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/events/multistakeholder-consultation-on-encryption

11th DSCI-NASSCOM Annual Information Security Summit 2016

praskrishna — 2016-12-17T01:14:15Z

Udbhav Tiwari participated as a panelist in the 11th DSCI-NASSSCOM Annual Information Security Summit 2016 in New Delhi on December 14, 2016. The event was organized by DSCI and NASSCOM.

The Panel was on "Designing Privacy in Data Centric Business Architectures - Designing Privacy in Product, Services & Operations". Udbhav's co-panelists were: Gowree Gokhle, Partner, Nishith Desai Associates - Moderator; Sachin Lodha, Principal Scientist, TCS Innovation Labs; and Ankur Jain, Director IT & CISO, PayU.

The discussion primarily focused on:

Core Principles - Privacy should not solely be governed by laws, regulations and industry codes but should instead be guided by a core set of principles that companies choose to follow uniformly across their international presence. In fact, laws and regulations should form a basic, minimum standard of requirements and actual practice should attempt to follow these principles to ensure true compliance to the ideals of privacy. These core, minimal principles are: Notice, Transparency, Accountability, Security and Use Limitation.
Privacy as an Incentive - Privacy should be looked at not as a isolated right or legal compliance but an inclusive outlook which can be economically beneficial to both consumer and enterprise facing companies. Customers are increasingly starting to value privacy and providing it in an transparent manner (along with ensuring sufficient modern technical infrastructure) to ensure reliable protection can distinguish business in an increasingly crowded marketplace.
Sound Technological Bedrock - Privacy as a notion in data (and now big data) centric architectures can only be enforced with modern, secure and open technological processes that ensure policy compliance and provide a clear audit trail for any breaches. Measures such as Homomorphic encryption, Multi-party computation, K-anonymity and Identity Management systems must be explored, tested and implemented according to need and requirements of businesses to ensure adequate privacy protection.
Need for a clear Indian legal framework - India's current legal framework with regard to privacy ranges from scattered to non existent, so there is a strong need for their to be a strong, clear and uniform legal framework to govern privacy for both Indian citizens as well as interactions with data from other jurisdictions. This will ensure that organisations will have a clear standard to follow, will have an easier time implementing privacy policies avoid sectoral clashes and can be held accountable for any breaches of legal standards. A large part of the work required for this has been done by the Justice AP Shah Committee on Privacy as well.

For more info see this page

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/dsci-nasscom-annual-information-security-summit-2016

7th Emerging Markets Finance Conference

praskrishna — 2016-12-17T00:51:00Z

Anubha Sinha participated as a panelist in the "Intellectual Property, Copyright and Patent Finance" session in Mumbai on December 15, 2016. The event was organized by Finance Research Group in association with Vanderbilt Law School.

Programme Committee

N. Prabhala, Centre For Advanced Financial Research And Learning
Tarun Ramadorai, Imperial College London
Subrata Sarkar, IGIDR
Ajay Shah, National Institute for Public Finance and Policy
Avanidhar Subramanyam, University of California, Los Angeles
Ram Thirumalai, Indian School of Business
Susan Thomas, IGIDR
Pradeep Yadav, University of Oklahoma, Business School
Yesha Yadav, Vanderbilt Law School

For more info and the agenda click here.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/news/7th-emerging-markets-finance-conference

Myanmar Digital Rights Forum

praskrishna — 2016-12-17T00:44:25Z

Sunil Abraham was a speaker at the Myanmar Digital Rights Forum in Myanmar on December 14 and 15, 2016. The two day event was organized by Phandeeyar, You Can Do IT, Engage Media and Myanmar Centre for Responsible Business with support form the Embassy of Sweden.

More than 55 representatives from technology companies, government, media and civil society organizations gathered at the innovation lab Phandeeyar to participate in the Myanmar Digital Rights Forum. The event was organized to address critical digital rights challenges in Myanmar. Participants discussed the issues raised by the increasing access, in recent years, of large numbers of Myanmar citizens to the internet, social media and mobile phones. For more info see here.

Click to read the agenda

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/myanmar-digital-rights-forum

Myanmar Digital Rights Forum Agenda

praskrishna — 2016-12-17T00:32:46Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/files/myanmar-digital-rights-forum-agenda.pdf

25th WIPO SCCR Agenda

praskrishna — 2016-12-16T22:44:14Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/25-wipo-sccr-agenda.pdf

Best Practices in Digital Accessibility

praskrishna — 2016-12-16T22:35:44Z

Nirmita Narasimhan will be part of a discussion on the best practices in digital accessibility to be organized by the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore (IIMB) on 19 December 2016 in Bengaluru.

IIMB is also inviting few select panel members who work in organizations to talk about specifics such as their tangible activities, success stories, and needs.The outcome of this discussion will be featured in the journal - IIMB Management Review. Nirmita will be attending as a special audience invitee.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/accessibility/news/best-practices-in-digital-accessibility