Centre for Internet and Society

JNU - Receipt of RTI, request for payment - 26.3.15.pdf

praskrishna — 2016-05-15T02:57:30Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/JNU%20-%20Receipt%20of%20RTI-%20request%20for%20payment%20-%2026.3.15.pdf

IIM-A Response 2

praskrishna — 2016-05-15T02:51:04Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/iim-a-response-2

IIM-A Response 1

praskrishna — 2016-05-15T02:49:48Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/iim-a-response-1

Geospatial Info Regulation Bill will hurt start-ups, small firms

praskrishna — 2016-05-13T15:46:13Z

The Geospatial Information Regulation Bill, 2016, whose draft outlaws the acquisition of geospatial information without the government’s permission, is expected to impact smaller companies rather more than the large ones.

The article by Varun Aggarwal was published in Hindu BusinessLine on May 10, 2016. Sumandro Chattapadhyay was quoted.

Experts said that the law is being created to keep large corporates in check, but if implemented in its current form, its biggest impact would be on start-ups and smaller firms that use or create geospatial data.

“While companies such as Uber and Google can survive by getting all their maps vetted by the government, smaller companies will be impacted. This will act as a big entry barrier in favour of the dominant players such as Google and Microsoft,” said Sumandro Chattapadhyay, research director at Centre for Internet and Society.

“Smaller companies have no means to know what kind of geospatial information they can store and what they cannot. Moreover, if a start-up requires three months to get approvals for your data before you can use it, it’ll be as good as dead,” Chattapadhyay said.

Google declined to comment on the draft Bill.

U-turn by Centre

Sanjay Kumar, president of the Association of Geospatial Industries, recalled that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had in a speech in September last highlighted the importance of geospatial data in everyday life of the common man. “But now, the government seems to be taking a U-turn,” he said.

The Association has hundreds of members, including Google, offering various geospatial services.

“The PM’s campaigns on skill development, digital India and enhancement of the transport sector are heavily dependent on geospatial data. There are several private sector companies that provide services for these projects. If this Bill is passed as drafted, all this development process will be stalled,” said Kumar.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/hindu-businessline-may-10-2016-varun-aggarwal-geospatial-info-regulation-bill-will-hurt-start-ups-small-firms

Google, Apple and Microsoft may need licence for satellite mapping in India

praskrishna — 2016-05-10T15:20:39Z

Cold response from MNCs like Google to India's security concerns is seen as a prime reason for the proposed legislation to regulate mapping of the country, a move that critics call "return of the Licence Raj" and "digital nationalism".

The article by Aman Sharma and Neha Alawadhi was published in Economic Times on May 9, 2016. Sumandro Chattapadhyay was quoted.

A draft of Geospatial Information Regulation Bill, released last week seeking public comments, says anyone mapping India by a satellite or aerial platform will need a licence from a government "security vetting authority". "India as a responsible power must have established guidelines," Kiren Rijiju, MoS for Home, told ET, reacting to the criticism to the move.

"We won't create hurdles for business and technological development, but national security considerations must not be compromised either," said Rijiju. Non-compliance could land you in jail for seven years. On the top of that would be a fine of up to Rs 100 crore. BJP MP Tarun Vijay, who has long been campaigning for such a law, said "patriotic Indians" should use the country's own 'Bhuvan' software application for maps.

"Why do we need Google? We should stop becoming Google's instruments," he told ET. "The patriotic government of Narendra Modi has taken a right step in a big relief to the security establishment. UPA did not take any action despite my pleas to the then Defence Minister AK Antony. I congratulate the Modi government for showing spine in face of arrogance of these IT giants," he said, adding: Google has been "behaving as if it were above Indian law".

A top government official involved in the move said maps of India's sensitive installations were available on Google Maps, increasing the security risk of those sites. Demand to mask those were never complied to. "Pathankot air base, which was recently attacked, can be seen on Google Maps. Terrorists plot strikes on sensitive targets studying Google Maps," he told ET.

"Our plea to black out sensitive installations do not yield results. This Bill is now sending a strong message that US companies cannot be running roughshod over Indian security interests." Companies such as Google, Microsoft and Apple, which have millions of Indians using their maps, would be hit directly by the legislation if it is pushed through. Firms that depend on these maps to provide their services, such as Uber, Zomato and Ola, too would be affected. Google, Apple and Microsoft didn't respond to emails seeking comment.

Mishi Choudhary, legal director at Software Freedom Law Centre, said almost all online businesses today depend on geo-location and provide maps for the use of their services, and that all of them will be forced to seek a licence under the proposed law. "This kind of digital nationalism is a way to create a government-controlled monopoly on all geographical information about the country, conveniently transforming Digital India to Licence India, digitally this time," said Choudhary, who was part of the successful legal fight to scrap Section 66A of the IT Act to ensure freedom of expression on the Internet. An executive at one of the big tech companies said the draft Bill raised far too many questions.

"On the face of it, the Bill will kill any and every use of the maps. It is also unclear if you get a licence for maps, only you can use it or others can use it, too," he said. "Also, whether every time you update a map, does one have to get a security clearance? Maps have to be live and dynamic, so getting it approved from government each time may not be feasible."

Those working on mapping and geospatial technology said services such as Google Maps are popular because they are faster and easier to use compared to government-prescribed process. "According to Indian law...if I have to buy certain data, I will have to go to the concerned department, like ISRO's National Remote Sensing Agency, or the Survey of India. In the case of NRSC (for satellite data), they will purchase the data for me, and then I will have to pay. That's a long process and hence people went to services like Google Maps, which are easier," said Devdatta Tengshe, a freelance geospatial information systems consultant.

The agency removes sensitive zones from the data and takes about two-three months or even more to respond, which is an unrealistic timeline for people working with digital data, he said. There is also apprehension that the Bill will undermine rescue and humanitarian efforts, such as during disasters like the Nepal earthquake.

"It was user-generated geospatial data that was used by the humanitarian response teams. This situation of lack of openly usable geospatial data holds true for large parts of India, and especially Himalayan India," said Sumandro Chattapadhyay, research director at Centre for Internet and Society. Also of concern is the lack of court's jurisdiction in matters related to the proposed legislation, said SFLC's Choudhary.

A senior government official, however, said companies should not have a problem to come under regulations on security considerations and that the Bill was up for public comments where the companies can lodge their apprehensions. "We are not banning anyone from mapping India — only that the mapping has to be in line with Indian security considerations regarding sensitive installations and correct boundaries being depicted like not showing PoK and Arunachal Pradesh as out of India," this official said.

A group of techies have, meanwhile, got together to create a website called savethemap.in, which aims to educate people and make them send out responses to the draft Bill. It will likely come up with a template response, along the lines as the savetheinternet. in campaign that was instrumental in taking the net neutrality debate to the people.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/news/economic-times-aman-sharma-neha-alawadhi-may-9-2016-google-apple-and-microsoft-may-need-licence-for-satellite-mapping-in-india

Cultural institution AKA GLAM for more OER

praskrishna — 2016-06-09T12:51:46Z

The OER conference was held in Edinburgh, Scotland on April 19 and 20, 2016. Subhashish Panigrahi gave a talk at the event organised by the University of Edinburg.

The vision for the conference was to focus on the value proposition of embedding open culture in the context of institutional strategies for learning, teaching and research. The conference was chaired by Melissa Highton, Director of Learning, Teaching and Web Services at the University of Edinburgh, and Lorna Campbell, OER Liaison at the University of Edinburgh and EDINA Digital Education Manager. The OER 16 conference primarily focused on:

The strategic advantage of open and creating a culture of openness.
Converging and competing cultures of open knowledge, open source, open content, open practice, open data and open access.
Hacking, making and sharing.
The reputational challenges of openwashing.
Openness and public engagement.
Innovative approaches to opening up cultural heritage collections for education.

Subhashish Panigrahi - Cultural Institution aka GLAM for More OER (OER16, 19-20.04.2016) from The Centre for Internet and Society

Resources

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/news/cultural-institution-aka-glam-for-more-oer

Why India’s attempt to police digital maps and satellite images is a ‘dumb’ idea

praskrishna — 2016-05-08T13:05:48Z

Are we back to the license raj?

The story was published by the News Minute on May 6, 2016. Pranesh Prakash gave inputs.

In a move which is receiving widespread criticism from technology and policy experts, the Indian government has proposed the Geospatial Information Regulation Bill that seeks to regulate the use of ‘geospatial information’ of India. Any violation of the proposed act could attract a penalty of up to 7 years in prison and Rs. 1 crore in fines, and the extreme punishments proposed have also been criticised.

So what is Geospatial information?

Geospatial Information has been defined in the act as

any imagery or data acquired through space or aerial platforms such as satellites, aircrafts, airships, balloons, unmanned aerial - vehicles or graphical or digital data depicting natural or man-made physical features, phenomenon or boundaries of the earth or any information including surveys, charts, maps and terrestrial photos.

To put it simply, any imagery of anything on earth (in India) recorded using machines in the sky will be under the purview of the law.

The law forbids any ‘incorrect representation' of the Indian map. For instance, not showing Pakistan Occupied Kashmir as a part of India will now be illegal and attract a fine and jail-term.

Here’s what the draft bill says,

"No person shall depict, disseminate, publish or distribute any wrong or false topographic information of India, including international boundaries through Internet platforms or online services or in any electronic or physical form."

And further states,

"Whoever acquires any geospatial information of India in contravention of the law shall be punished with a fine ranging from Rs 1 crore to Rs 100 crore and/or imprisonment for a period up to seven years."

And it doesn’t end here.

In what is reminiscent of India’s license raj era, the law also mandates that any person or institution acquiring or disseminating any geospatial imagery will have to first seek permission and license from a government authority. So Google Maps, Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap and others can operate in India only with a specific license from the Indian government.

The government authority will also run “sensitivity checks” on the imagery to protect India’s security and sovereignty.

Technology and policy experts are openly gunning for the bill and are holding no punches back.

“This proposed bill is as dumb as the draft encryption bill of last year which would have made WhatsApp illegal. It is unenforceable and will only serve to make India look like a backward, despotic country,” says Kiran Jonalgadda, founder of HasGeek and a social technologist.

Pranesh Prakash, Director of the Centre for Internet and Society, is of the view that this bill goes against the philosophy of Digital India and is regressive in nature. “It bears semblance to the conditions that prevailed in the License Raj. The bill is a clear over-reaction to legitimate security concerns. The government ought to encourage open mapping and should have limited the security restrictions to a set of officially declared security installations across India,” he says.

While the government's motive may be in the best interest of maintaining national security in order to prevent the misuse of sensitive data, such stringent measures may hinder the operations of navigation services and other applications that rely on geospatial information, and it will be the smaller players who will be affected the most. “Every map maker has to create different maps for different countries and hope they're not shown in the wrong country. Google Maps can afford to do this. OpenStreetMap and Wikipedia cannot. They will effectively become illegal,” adds Jonalgadda.

These stringent rules are not entirely unexpected and the government has cracked down on institutions in the past for ‘wrong’ geographical depiction of India.

The government had taken harsh rebuke against Twitter earlier this year for showing parts of Jammu and Kashmir in Pakistan and China. In another such instance, Al Jazeera was banned from broadcasting by the Information and Broadcasting Ministry because of repeatedly using a wrong map of India and was accused of cartographic aggression. The RSS too carried an inaccurate map of India (without some parts of Jammu and Kashmir) in its mouthpiece, Organiser and later apologised for its inadvertent error.

Nikhil Pahwa of Medianama has an exhaustive explanation and critique of the bill, and tells you how you and your businesses will be affected if the law is enacted. Read his piece here.

Here are his final comments from his piece, and they are pretty scathing.

This looks like a policy made for policing Google maps that has ended up throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

The people involved in drafting this have absolutely no clue about how users and businesses use geospatial data to make users lives easier, and how integral it is to every day life. Data is changing and increasing every single minute, and it is impossible to police it.

Collection and dissemination of realtime data and its utility is what makes location information useful and special. This kills realtime information.

It looks at location information from the myopic viewpoint of businesses and platforms, and ignores crowdsourced information, and indeed, independent crowdsourced maps.

A separate policy regarding just security establishments and their removal from mapping information, as well as the depiction of national boundaries of India was all that is needed.

It’s hypocritical of a government that promised “maximum governance, miminum governance” to try and enforce a License-raj.

Interestingly, even as the government wishes to impose punitive measures on erring private bodies, government organisations will not be regulated by the Geospatial Information Regulation Bill.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/the-newsminute-may-6-2016-why-indias-attempt-to-polic-digital-maps-and-satellite-images-is-a-dumb-idea

Tulu Wikipedia Editathon to Improve Quality of Articles in Tulu Wikipedia

praskrishna — 2016-05-07T15:43:42Z

The Centre for Internet & Society's Access to Knowledge team (CIS-A2K) organized a Wikipedia editathon for improving Tulu Wikipedia. Dr. U.B. Pavanaja conducted the sessions.

Dr. Kishore Kumar Rai, Principal of Shri Ramakrishna PU College, who himself is an active Tulu and Kannada Wikipedian provided the lab for this activity. Any Wikipedian (Tulu/Kannada) can walk-in and make use of the lab to edit Wikipedia. He has also procured more than 100 Tulu books from Tulu Sahitya Academy which will be kept there for reference.

Agenda

Improve the quality of articles in Tulu Wikipedia
Increase the length of short articles
Add inter-wiki links
Add references
Add images
Add categories
Improve language

The event will continue in June. More details can be accessed here.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/events/tulu-wikipedia-editathon-to-improve-quality-of-articles-in-tulu-wikipedia

Promoting Online Content Through 'Wiki Malayalam'

praskrishna — 2016-05-06T15:35:14Z

Practical sessions on using Wiki Malayalam as a medium to preserve the language and promote digital media were held on Thursday, the final day of the two-day workshop on ‘Wiki Malayalam.’

The article was published by New Indian Express on May 6, 2016.

The event was organised jointly by Swadeshabhimani Media Study Centre in conjuction with Centre for Internet and Society and the Wiki Malayalam Fraternity. The sessions were promising, enriching and a big help for promoting online content through Wiki Malayalam which is still in its infancy, the participants said.

Rahimuddhim Sheik of Centre for Internet and Society, and Manoj Karangimadathil, Wikipedia Fraternity, led the sessions on Wiki technicals. It was followed by an interactive practical session wherein participants learned to be an editor and reporter in Wiki Malayalam. Participants were taught to create articles on sandbox through observation of articles published on Wikipedia.

Various aspects for making Wiki Malayalam presentable such as adding more images to the articles were imparted effectively.

Environmentalist Madhav Gadgil, speaking after inaugurating the two-day workshop,the other day, said, “Authenticity of the information in Wikipedia is often questioned but the discussion page offers the option to point out misleading information and to ensure true information and details.”

The introductory session by Madhav Gadgil incorporated various themes and ideas about the workshop, wikipedia commons, wikipedia projects, and its pillars and principles.

In his session he briefed about how wikipedia gives an in-depth information on particular material on a chronological order and various external references for further extensive reading. As an examples Madhav Gadgil discussed about the Athirapilly Hydroelectric Project in Wikipedia. It sets out a chance for anyone to start a new article on any subject.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/news/new-indian-express-may-6-2016-promoting-online-content-through-wiki-malayalam

Spread awareness through Malayalam Wikipedia: Gadgil

praskrishna — 2016-05-05T15:43:59Z

"Contribution of information by people of Rukadi village near Kolhapur to Marathi Wikipedia, by referring to media reports, helped spread the word about mass fish deaths in the region. Similar efforts should be initiated in Kerala so that information about local movements like Plachimada campaign would be available in the public domain," opined environmentalist Madhav Gadgil. He was speaking at the Malayalam Wikipedia workshop hosted by Swadeshabhimani Media Study Centre at Vakkom Moulavi Memorial Hall here on Wednesday.

The article was published in the Times of India on May 5, 2016.

The scientist spoke at length on how the information technology in general and the Wikipedia in particular, could help create awareness among commoners about the harmful effects of environmental degradation. He added that though Malayalam Wikipedia is ahead of other Indian languages in documenting geographical details, the content doesn't stretch beyond official information. He suggested that controversial information too must be documented with reference to media reports.

Fuad Jaleel, volunteer editor of Malayalam Wikipedia, explained Wikipedia policies on notability and reliability. The two-day workshop is organised in association with Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) and Malayalam Wikipedia community. On Wednesday, the event focused on identifying topics for wiki-articles and creating basic village/town data by making use of census. Forty participants attending the workshop will contribute articles to Wikipedia on Thursday. Representatives from CIS Bengaluru and members of Malayalam Wikipedia Community will assist them.

"The intention is to add wiki-articles on environmental issues at panchayat level. Malayalam Wikipedia could be used as a medium for citizen journalism. We will organize more workshops and classes," said Ram Kamal, one of the coordinators of Swadeshabhimani centre. V K Damodaran delivered welcome speech and A Suhair presented vote of thanks in the inaugural session.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/news/the-times-of-india-may-5-2016-spread-awareness-through-malayalam-wikipedia

April 2016 Report

praskrishna — 2016-05-05T14:52:52Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/april-2016-report

March 2016 Report

praskrishna — 2016-05-03T20:51:13Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/march-2016-report.pdf

Privacy Issues with DRM

praskrishna — 2016-05-03T02:39:51Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/privacy-issues-with-drm.docx

Brochure - Sensitization Seminar

praskrishna — 2016-05-01T16:01:43Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/brochure-sensitization-seminar

T’puram to host Wikipedia workshop on May 4, 5

praskrishna — 2016-05-01T14:01:24Z

The workshop will be led by Prof. Madav Gadgil and a team of experienced Wikipedia editors.

Thiruvananthapuram: The Swadeshabhimani Media Study Centre jointly with the Centre for Internet and Society and the Wikipedia fraternity of Kerala, is conducting a two-day workshop on Wikipedia from 4 to 5 May at the Vakkom Moulavi Foundation Trust Hall, Thekkinmoodu. The workshop will provide guidance as how to contribute contents on Kerala or to translate pages in English on Kerala in the Wikipedia encyclopaedia. The workshop will be led by Prof. Madhav Gadgil and a team of experienced Wikipedia editors.

This article was published in Mathrubhumi on May 1, 2016. Read the full article here.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/news/mathrubhumi-may-1-2016-thiruvananthapuram-to-host-wikipedia-workshop-on-may-4-5