Centre for Internet and Society

Privacy in Healthcare Chapter

praskrishna — 2014-08-19T05:13:23Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/privacy-healthcare.pdf

Telecom Chapters

praskrishna — 2014-08-19T03:47:10Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/telecom-chapters.zip

CIS-A2K Signs MoU with Andhra Loyola College in Vijayawada: Coverage in Eenadu

praskrishna — 2014-09-09T09:22:23Z

This article was published in Enadu on August 15, 2014.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/news/cis-mou-with-alc-coverage-in-eenadu

Sunil Abraham | The online warrior

praskrishna — 2014-08-12T16:04:21Z

With a vision that combines free speech with digital privacy, this policymaker has redefined the role of the internet in society.

The article by Anirban Sen was published in Livemint on August 9, 2014

Freedom of digital security | Sunil Abraham

Tucked away in a neighbourhood in Bangalore’s upscale Indiranagar residential area is an innocuous, three-storeyed, white building. A grassy empty plot lies opposite. It could be just another house in a neighbourhood dotted by similar structures.

The scene changes dramatically inside. People talk animatedly, poring over computer screens, wired in like it is a hackers’ lair. It has a “secret command centre” kind of room in the basement.

In the midst of what looks like a geek utopia, a bespectacled man rattles off facts and figures on Internet laws, cyber-security and digital privacy. Forty-year-old Sunil Abraham started the non-profit research think tank Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) in 2008.

The venture, which focuses primarily on Internet governance, has attracted investment from philanthropist Rohini Nilekani (ironical, considering Abraham has been an outspoken critic of the Unique Identification Authority of India, or UIDAI, project that was spearheaded by her husband and Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani). Over the years, Abraham has become an authority on issues related to freedom of expression, Internet privacy and security, free software and cyber laws.

His efforts have yielded results. The best example is the Justice A.P. Shah committee report released in October 2012. It puts a stamp of authority on Indian privacy principles, and ensures privacy protections “do not have a chilling effect on the freedom of expression and transparency enabled by the RTI (right to information)”, as Abraham wrote in Forbes India magazine last year.

“We’re not regulatory hawks,” explains Abraham, an engineer by education. “We don’t have an ideology—we don’t have people who are either left or right. And therefore we don’t want to regulate the private sector for the sake of it, just to cause them more grief. We have great appreciation for the role the private sector plays in the economy.” He adds that their design principles are conservatism, forbearance and equivalence. “With these broad principles, we believe we can get Internet regulation right,” he says.

Abraham has actively advocated free speech and privacy of individuals. Last year, in an interview with Mint, he spoke about the need to upgrade the country’s draconian information technology laws. Abraham’s Twitter timeline is full of posts related to open source software, the National Security Agency, hackers, accessibility, and the UIDAI project.

A free software advocate, Abraham’s journey in the area of freedom of expression and speech was thrust on him. “I’m a fraud, and a charlatan,” he says, laughing. “I only have a degree in industrial production engineering. I have never been trained to do what I’m able to do today.”

In 1998, at the behest of T. Pradeep, founder of the non-governmental organization Samuha, Abraham started an organization called Mahiti. It aimed to reduce the cost and complexity of information and communication technology by using free software. In 2008, Bangalore-based legal researcher Lawrence Liang came to him with the idea for CIS. Philanthropist Anurag Dikshit provided the initial seed funding and CIS was born. Dikshit still continues to fund and support CIS.

“I’ve always surrounded myself with competent people,” Abraham says.

At CIS, Abraham’s core team is composed mostly of lawyers, social scientists and mathematicians such as Nishant Shah, Pranesh Prakash and Nirmita Narasimhan. “Initially we were like four individual fingers, but after that increasingly we started to punch like a single fist,” says Abraham, who was born and raised in Bangalore.

For the first 25 years of his life, Abraham never stepped out of the south. In the next 15 years, he would travel across the world and visit more than a dozen countries. Abraham completed his degree in industrial and production engineering from the Dayananda Sagar College of Engineering in Bangalore and during second year of college, organized a peaceful demonstration of 5,000 college and school students against the 1992 Babri Mosque demolition and the Mumbai riots of 1993.

As he talks about the key influences during his days at Mahiti and CIS, one name stands out—noted Internet hacktivist Aaron Swartz, who committed suicide last year. “His courage is something we might aspire towards,” says Abraham of the computer programmer who was posthumously inducted into the Internet Hall of Fame. Other names include Michael Geist, professor at the University of Ottawa, Canada, and an authority on issues related to intellectual property. “Geist is a gold standard on how to precipitate advocacy change,” says Abraham.

Before starting CIS, Abraham had taken up an assignment with the United Nations that helped him develop international acquaintances. While there, he managed the International Open Source Network project backed by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). Since then, he has been working with the governments of countries such as Myanmar and Iraq on issues like open data and open standards. Such policies help upgrade redundant technologies, help in transparency and promote e-governance.

For the Moldovan government, Abraham wrote the open standards policy, which the country’s Parliament did not approve and execute. A similar policy for the Iraqi government became law, and more recently, he has been working with the government of Myanmar. “For Myanmar, I will be working on a national open data policy. Governments also often ask for our help on copyright laws, IT acts, international Internet governance, etc—but most of them come through back-channels and informally,” says Abraham, who spends the little spare time he gets with his daughter.

For CIS, one of the biggest achievements over the past five years was being part of the policy framework for the Union government’s draft national policy on standardizing e-governance. The organization has been working to increase Internet penetration in the country, especially in rural areas. Over the past five years, CIS has been part of the Justice A.P. Shah committee, which focuses on privacy laws in India, and is also working on the country’s telecom policy.

Colleagues at CIS describe Abraham as a workaholic who doesn’t get in the way of fellow workers. Abraham advocates the management ethos of three sources—that of Al Qaeda, Mahatma Gandhi and Scott Adams, who has written books on management and created the Dilbert comic strip. “The first principle in the Al Qaeda school of management is subsidiarity,” explains Abraham. “The Al Qaeda stands for ‘The Hub’. Al means The, Qaeda means Hub. If you think of the hub in a network, it’s a very important component of a network. It brings various nodes together and helps different nodes connect with one another.” He adds, “Nothing that I say should be misunderstood as an endorsement of the terrorist organization. We have no sympathies for what they do.”

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/livemint-august-9-2014-anirban-sen-sunil-abraham-the-online-warrior

NVDA and ESpeak July 2014 Report

praskrishna — 2014-08-11T04:20:35Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/nvda-e-speak-update-july-2014.pdf

Identity and Databases

praskrishna — 2014-08-07T08:32:16Z

The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) and the Say No to UID Campaign invite you to a discussion identity, databases and facilitating technologies that explores the use of personal identifiers across databases and the potential violations of privacy on August 9, 2014 (10.30 a.m. to 1.00 p.m.) at the CIS office in Bangalore.

The discussions will specifically focus on the UID and the NPR and seek to answer:

What information is being collected and databased by each scheme?
What type of technology is needed to collect and database this information?
How and where is this information being databased?
What are the potential risks to the databasing of this information?
Are there legal safeguards protecting against misuse of this information, and if not, what safeguards are needed?
Is there a difference between the state collecting, storing, and using this information and a private entity?

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/events/identity-and-databases

BPM Agenda

praskrishna — 2014-08-06T06:15:25Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/bpm-2014-meet.pdf

Now, Christ students will contribute to Wikipedia

praskrishna — 2014-08-06T05:33:41Z

The department of languages at Christ University has set a precedent by including contribution to Wikipedia as a part of the undergraduate course work.

The article by H.M.Shruthi was published in the Deccan Herald on August 5, 2014.

Introduced last year on a pilot basis, the programme is all set to get a new outlook this year.

As a part of the initiative, students are required to submit an article to Wikipedia in an Indian language (the second language subject chosen). The languages offered are Kannada, Hindi, Urdu, Sanskrit and Tamil.

Earlier, much to the chagrin of lecturers, students were most often found rehashing material online for their assignments. On the contrary, the students will now be contributors for online content. But this is just one of the outcomes. Through this, the department has not only set out to enrich the regional language resources online, but has also turned students into knowledge producers.

Speaking about the initiative, Kannada Department HoD, Y S Shivaprasad, finds that students have become passionate about digital resources. “There are at least 500 students. In the first two years of the undergraduate degree, students study second language. Even if 10 per cent of them take it forward later, we can enrich our online Kannada resources.”

Since it was the first time last year, the faculty made a list of topics for inclusion in Kannada Wiki. “We were able to bring out 25 good quality articles. Interestingly, this turned out to benefit rural students, as they took a lot of interest in it,” Shivaprasad said, adding that RBI, Yakshagana, poet Raghavanka and Kuppalli were some of the topics covered.

Redesign this year
As per the redesigned format this time, in their first semester, students will digitise one page of an existing piece of literature in the Indian language concerned. This has been included to help them gain typing skills, apart from strengthening vocabulary.

In the second semester, students will be digitising four or five pages of literature. In the III semester, they will have to write one assignment in the second language of their choice and the fourth semester will be dedicated to an article (in Indian language) on the theme of their choice from any core subject.

T Vishnu Vardhan, Programme Director, Access to Knowledge at Centre for Internet and Society (the university is implementing the programme in coordination with this organisation), sees this as an initiative for production of knowledge in Indian languages. “From the past several years, there have been talks about how there is no production of knowledge in Kannada (or other regional languages). This is a step towards it.”

“Adding fun to the otherwise hectic course work, the Wiki assignments helped us acquire editing skills and strengthen vocabulary in Kannada,” said Tejas N K, a final year science student at Christ University.

Having found his love for it, he has decided to contribute articles even in his final year, though it is not part of his course work this time. “It presents a challenge of learning something new and thinking creatively. More over, it is satisfying to know that the information we compile is of use for people seeking online resources in regional language.”

Transformation
Sharing similar enthusiasm is Komal K J, a final year BCom student, who hopes to contribute articles even after completing her degree. She sees a significant transformation: “Earlier, we were collecting information from Wikipedia. Now, we are contributing for it,” the student said.

She has submitted an article to Sanskrit Wikipedia. From formatting the article to inserting images and learning to attribute sources to the information uploaded on Wiki, she takes pride in the responsibility. “It is open for people across the globe to read. Hence, it is a huge responsibility. We have to make sure the information is authentic.”

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/deccan-herald-shruthi-august-5-2014-now-christ-students-will-contribute-to-wikipedia

APrIGF Delhi 2014 (Towards an Accessible Internet for People with Disabilities)

praskrishna — 2014-09-10T04:47:24Z

Sunil Abraham was a speaker at this event organized by International Centre for Free and Open Source Software and ISOC, Australia on August 4, 2014.

Principles and Roadmap for Internet governance

As the Internet seeks to add the next two billion users, a significant proportion of these new users will originate from the Asia-Pacific-Oceania region. These new users–particularly those from remote geographies, poor educational & socio-economic backgrounds, diverse linguistic backgrounds, people with disabilities, and women–will need affirmative action to ensure that they are not left behind.People with disabilities are usually outliers in the use of the Internet. Combined with poverty and cultural attitudes against disability, people living with disability—both existing Internet users and new users—would be doubly disadvantaged.The Internet can open up many opportunities. Policies for digital inclusion are having an impact on improved accessibility to the Internet for people with disability, but more needs to be done.

In India, availability of special care facilities to persons with disabilities has been is traditionally very low despite some progressive legislation, but this appears to be changing. The 2013 circular by the Medical Council of India mandates all medical institutions to be disabled-friendly and asked for immediate compliance reporting. This may be a good time to push for further support to accessibility on the Internet.

Specific Issues of Discussions & Description

Based on necessity, innovation in the disability sector is strong. Many mainstream applications started as specific solutions for people with disability. These include the scanner—initially a reading machine for blind people and speech recognition software— which was designed for people who could not use a keyboard because of physical disability. Today, several robust and affordable technology initiatives in different parts of the world, including many based on Open Source software, are available. These include enhanced accessibility services in Operating Systems (including Windows, Linux, MacOS, and Android), screen readers, braille devices, mobile phone apps (including touchscreen and spatial gestures for input), eye/head-driven entry tools, and foot/puff switches.

This workshop will firstly provide context on accessibility to the Internet for people with disability and what impact it has on participation in education and employment and being an active part of the community.

Secondly, international policies will be outlined including the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the NETmundial Multi-Stakeholder Statement of Sao Paulo. ISOC’s Issues Paper on Internet Accessibility will be detailed together with the work of G3ict on disability and ICT.

Thirdly, examples of hardware and software applications designed to meet the needs of people with disability will be examined and demonstrated. In addition, the increase use of Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs) on the Internet and its impact on people with disability will also be discussed.

The workshop panelists will suggest ways that accessibility for people with disability and their participation can form an integral part of Internet governance process.

The workshop will include speakers with accessibility expertise in policy and application development on the international and national level.The workshop panelists will give presentations of 15 minutes each. This will allow for half an hour’s discussion.Moderator: Satish Babu, Director, International Centre for Free and Open Source Software

Speakers

Mr. Satish Babu, Director, International Centre for Free and Open Source Software
Mr. Sunil Abraham, Executive Director of Centre for Internet and Society, India
Mr. Dipendra Manocha, DAISY Consortium
Ms. Gunela Astbrink, Director of ISOC Australia (Remote)
Mr. Arun Mehta, President, BAPSI

Workshop Organizer

Gunela Astbrink, ISOC Australia
Satish Babu, International Centre for Free and Open Source Software

For more details see the APrIGF website

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/accessibility/news/apr-igf-delhi-2014-towards-an-accessible-internet-for-people-with-disabilities

Connecting the Next Two Billion: The Role of FOSS

praskrishna — 2014-09-10T05:04:58Z

Sunil Abraham was a speaker at this event organized by ICFOSS at the APrIGF in Noida on August 4, 2014.

Specific Issues of Discussions & Description

Connecting the next two billion users on the Internet poses unique challenges that must be addressed. The next two billion users will have very different profiles as compared to the first billion in terms of factors such as geography, demography, gender, disability, technology access, language access, and connectivity devices. In addition, with the coming of the Internet of Things, the users of the Internet may also include devices, sensors and sensor networks. Further, the context of the Internet itself may be changing, particularly in relation to efforts by various State and non-State actors to restrict freedom of access to the Internet and freedom of expression on it.Free & Open Source Software (FOSS) has now assumed greater significance in the light of revelations related to arbitrary surveillance conducted by states. This issue highlights the need to use audited technology and infrastructure to prevent the wanton violation of privacy of citizens. FOSS can be used to build shared community infrastructure that will protect users from privacy abuses. As most of the online applications run on top of free software, there is also a need for greater collaboration between the industry and free software community to ensure security and robustness of software to prevent incidents like the heartbleed bug vulnerabilities. As the next two billion comes online, FOSS assumes great significance for building a safe and secure Internet and robust communication platforms.The panel will discuss the following issues:• Relevance of FOSS as an access enabler and source of robust, cost-effective andfreedom-preserving software• The importance of FOSS in preventing arbitrary surveillance• Co-operation among businesses and free software community to develop secure.

Building community communication infrastructure using FOSS to restrict the dependence on centralised services.

Moderator and Speakers

Moderator: Ms. Mishi Choudhary, Executive Director, SFLC.IN, New Delhi
Dr. Rahul De, IIM Bangalore (Remote)
Dr. G. Nagarjuna, Free Software Foundation of India (Remote)
Mr. Prasanth Sugathan, Counsel, SFLC.in
Mr. Satish Babu, Director, ICFOSS
Mr. Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore
Mr. S. Ramakrishnan, Media Lab Asia/Govt. of India

Workshop Organizer

This workshop will be jointly organised by International Centre For Free and Open Source Software (ICFOSS), an autonomous institution under the Government of Keralamandated with the objectives of co-ordinating FOSS initiatives within Kerala, as well as linking up with FOSS initiatives in other parts of the world and SFLC.IN, a donor supported legal services organisation that works to protect freedom in the digital world.The details of the contact person for the workshop is given below:Name: Mr.Satish BabuDesignation: DirectorOrganisation: International Center for Free and Open Source Software (IC-FOSS).

For more details see the APrIGF website.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/news/apr-igf-delhi-2014-connecting-the-next-two-billion-the-role-of-foss

We the goondas

praskrishna — 2014-08-04T15:06:18Z

You can now be arrested in Karnataka even before you commit an offence under the IT Act. You could be in jail under the Goonda Act even if not guilty under the Indian Copyright Act. If govt thinks you are planning to send a 'lascivious' photo to a WhatsApp group, or forwarding a copyrighted song, you can be arrested.

The article by Shyam Prasad was published in the Bangalore Mirror on August 4, 2014. Sunil Abraham gave his inputs.

Have a smartphone? Run for cover. Bizarre as this might sound, the cops are going to come after you if you so much as forward a song to a friend. Forget actually doing it, any plans to do so could land you in serious trouble too. You could be labelled a 'goonda' in the eyes of the State and find yourself behind bars.

In a completely unfathomable move, Karnataka has brought most offences under the Information Technology Act, 2000, and Indian Copyright Act, 1957, under the ambit of the Goonda Act. Until now, people with a history of offences like bootlegging, drug offences and immoral trafficking could be taken into preventive custody. But the government, in its enthusiasm, while adding acid attackers and sexual predators to the law, has also added 'digital offenders'. While it was thought to be against audio and video pirates, Bangalore Mirror has found it could be directed at all those who frequent FB, Twitter and the online world, posting casual comments and reactions to events unfolding around them.

So if you are planning a digital 'offence' — which could be an innocuous opinion like the young girls' in Mumbai after the bandh declared on Bal Thackeray's death — that could attract the provisions of the Information Technology Act. You can even be taken into preventive custody like a 'goonda'. Even those given exceptions under the Indian Copyright Act can find themselves in jail for a year without being presented before a magistrate. Technically, if you are even planning to forward 'lascivious' memes and images to a WhatsApp group or forwarding a song or 'copyrighted' PDF book, you can be punished under the Goondas Act.

The law-makers clearly did not dwell much on the implications while bringing the majority of the populace within the ambit of this law. On July 28, the Karnataka Legislature passed (it took barely a minute from tabling to voice vote), 'The Karnataka Prevention of Dangerous Activities of Bootleggers, Drug-offenders, Gamblers, Goondas, Immoral Traffic Offenders, Slum-grabbers and Video or Audio Pirates, (Amendment) Bill, 2014'. The amendment adds, "Acid attackers, Depradator of Environment, Digital Offenders, Money Launderers and Sexual Predators", to the title. In common parlance, this law is known as the 'Goonda Act'.

The move has come as a shock to the legal community which has slammed it, terming it an attempt by the state to usurp central powers. The government had earlier included 'piracy' under the Goonda Act. But it was applicable only to those pirating film DVDs. Now, this will include books, film songs, music, software or anything big corporates and multinationals claim they have copyright on.

Sunil Abraham, executive director, Centre for Internet and Society, is left in no doubt that the new law is "a terrible thing". "It is a sad development. It is not just bringing the provisions of the IT Act, but also the Copyright Act, that will hurt the common man," he said.

'Digital Offenders' means "any person who knowingly or deliberately violates, for commercial purposes, any copyright law in relation to any book, music, film, software, artistic or scientific work and also includes any person who illegally enters through the identity of another user and illegally uses any computer or digital network for pecuniary gain for himself or any other person or commits any of the offences specified under sections 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74 and 75 of the Information Technology Act, 2000."

Section 67 of the IT Act will be the most dangerous for the common man with a smartphone in hand now. The section, "Publishing of information which is obscene in electronic form," includes "any material which is lascivious or appeal to the prurient interest." This could have a very broad interpretation.

Advocate Nagendra Naik says, "The Goonda Act provides for preventive arrest. In the Information Technology Act and The Copyright Act, you have to commit the offence to be arrested. But here, you can be taken into preventive custody even before you commit the said offences. In normal arrests, you can straightaway apply for bail. But under the Goonda Act, you cannot. There is a long process of review and you will be in custody at least till then. The third impact is, you can have a history sheet started against you by the police. Technically, your slips on WhatsApp will attract the Goonda Act against you."

Supreme Court advocate KV Dhananjay said the Goonda Act is a draconian piece of legislation and it necessarily mocks at the institution of courts and lawyers. "After the passage of the various amendments to the Goonda Act, Karnataka now looks like a mini North Korea where police mood swings will decide whether the ordinary citizen has any right at all," he said.

Advocate Shyam Sundar, says, "What if your smartphone has a list of repeated material sent out over days or weeks. Most people do not even know if their phones are affected by viruses which could be sending out such material. Another example is of Facebook. There are so many FB pages with pornographic content. If someone who has subscribed to such a page sends you a friend request and you accept it, that content will surface on your page. It will have a history of repetition. The amendment clearly opens up huge problems for the common people. There is no doubt of the law being grossly misused and the amendment to include provisions of the IT Act has been done without application of mind. What is lascivious appeal in the first place? A porn star has been made a film star in India. Is this not lust? Are there enough filters in place to secure your smartphone from online abuse?"

The new law will in all probability create more corruption than anything else, say experts. Dhananjay says, "Until last week, police postings in Bangalore and other bigger cities were selling for tens of lakhs. Thanks to these amendments, some postings that enforce the Goonda Act will now sell for a couple of crores. The public will not feel safe due to this draconian legislation. Those who enforce the Goonda Act, however, will become richer through corruption, thanks to the fear created by these new amendments."

One year in jail for the innocent too

Sunil Abraham gives two examples by which the amended Goonda Act will become a ruthless piece of legislation. "If I publish an image of a naked body as part of a scientific article about the human body, is it obscene or not? It will not be obscene and, if I am arrested under the IT Act, I will be produced before the magistrate within 24 hours and can explain it to him. But now, I will be arrested under the Goonda Act and need not be produced before a magistrate for 90 days. It can be extended to one year. So for one year, I will be in jail even if I have not committed any wrong. Another example pertains to bringing offences under the Copyright Act under the Goonda Act. In the Copyright Act, there is an exception for reporting, research, educational and people with disability. A visually impaired person, for example, can, without paying royalty, convert a book into another format like Braille or audio and share it with another visually impaired person on a non-profit basis. But if he is arrested under Goonda Act, he will be in jail for one year, even before he does it."

HAVE THEY READ STATUTE?
Supreme Court advocate KV Dhananjay says, "The definition of a 'digital offender' is simply laughable. I do not think that whoever asked the state government to include 'digital offence' under the Goonda Act has carefully read the Constitution of India. Under the Constitution, both copyright and telecommunications are exclusive central subjects. This means that states simply cannot make any law on these subjects." Dhananjay gives the example of payment of income tax. "You know already that only the central government can demand and collect your income taxes. Can any state government say that it will create a new law to punish its resident who defaults in payment of income tax? You would simply laugh at any such law. This new definition of 'digital offender' is no less amusing. Offences under the Information Technology Act, 2000, are exclusively punishable by the central government only. State governments have no power to say that an Act shall become an offence when it does not even have the power to regulate such an Act."

CRIMINAL LAW EXPERTS SAY
Senior designate advocate, MT Nanaiah: "This law will be too harsh. There are MLAs who do not know the meaning of cyber crime. We (advocates) will be kept busy at the cost of innocent people because of this step. It provides for arresting anyone who would allegedly be planning to do something. Finding him guilty or otherwise comes later. What happens if your phone is lost or somebody sends something from your phone without your knowledge? For the first few years, innocents will go to jail. Then the courts will probably intervene and call for modifying what is at best a bad law. A similar situation arose with Section 498(A) of IPC and Sections 3 and 4 of Dowry Prohibition Act. It was misused to such an extent that courts had to step in." Senior designate advocate and former State Public Prosecutor HS Chandramouli : "Even social legislations have been misused. And, in this case, most people are illiterate about what cyber crime is. It is mostly teenagers and college students who will feel the heat. These are the people who mostly forward material considered obscene. It is necessary to educate people through discussions, workshops in the bar associations, law college and with experts. The amendment has been passed in the Legislature without discussion, which is a tragedy. At least now, before it is gazetted, people should be warned about what is being brought into the Goonda Act. I do not know how fair adding 'digital offenders' in the Goonda Act will be to the public, but the chances of misuse are more. There are no riders or prosecution for misuse. And how many policemen know about cyber crimes? During the infamous 'kidney' case (where people were cheated and their kidneys removed) many policemen did not know the difference between kidneys and testicles."

ONE YEAR IN JAIL WITHOUT CHANCE OF BAIL FOR..

Forwarding a song from your phone
Forwarding an e-book from your email
A nude photo which the govt thinks is obscene
Any software that a company says it owns
A movie which a company says it has copyright on

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/bangalore-mirror-shyam-prasad-august-4-2014-we-the-goondas

'I'm going to ruin you, dear'

praskrishna — 2014-09-09T09:55:47Z

Revenge porn is sweeping across the developed world. And now it's being seen in India. The culprit, says Prasun Chaudhuri, is often a former friend, partner, relative or colleague.

This article by Prasun Chaudhuri with additional reporting by Varuna Verma in Bangalore was published in the Telegraph on August 3, 2014. Rohini Lakshane gave her inputs.

How would you feel if you casually opened a mail and found the link to a pornographic site — and it turned out to contain pictures of yourself naked? That's what Kalpana did. She clicked on a link sent to her and, to her horror, found that the face of the girl who "was available for sex" was hers. Her stomach lurched when she saw that the pictures showed her own bedroom. The site also contained her personal and contact details.

Kalpana was shattered. The subject line of the mail had said "I'm going to ruin you, dear". It had seemed like a prank. Only, it wasn't. It was a very real and malevolent attempt to destroy her reputation.

The 24-year-old Mumbai-based bank executive had become a victim of revenge porn — a new form of cybercrime in which ex-lovers or boyfriends upload intimate photos and videos of their former partners for the world to see. Mostly, the sexually explicit pictures are of women posted by jilted or spurned men.

Kalpana's photos, it was later found, were posted by her recently divorced husband, Pranay. They were taken when the two lived together.

Revenge porn is a trend sweeping across the developed world — from the US and Japan to countries in Europe. And now it's being seen in India, fuelled by the growing access to the Internet and camera-wielding mobile phones — all that is needed for taking and posting offensive pictures.

"Now that you have gadgets you tend to capture every moment of your life in pictures or videos," Calcutta-based psychiatrist J.R. Ram points out. "Not only that, you want to share these images through networking apps in your mobile phone or the Internet — without ever thinking of the consequences."

National Crimes Record Bureau (NCRB) figures — released on July 1, 2014 — show a 63.7 per cent rise in cyber offences from 2012 to 2013. During this period, the category "transmission of obscene content in electronic form" reflects a quantum jump —104.2 per cent — with 1,203 cases registered and 737 people arrested. "The data show cyber offences against women have increased sharply," NCRB director-general R.R. Verma says. "But we do not have any specific data on revenge crimes."

More and more such cases, however, are now coming to light. Kalpana lodged a complaint with the Navgarh police station in Mumbai. Ashish was arrested under a number of sections of the Indian Penal Code and the Information Technology Act.

Sneha, a 22-year-old college student from Udupi in Karnataka, also went to the police with the complaint that her ex-boyfriend had put up her photographs and videos on the Internet. M.B. Boralingaiah, superintendent of police, Manipal district, says the boy was arrested and sent to judicial custody.

"There has been an exponential rise in the number of cases of cyber revenge being reported to the police," Boralingaiah says. "This could also be because of increasing awareness of cyber laws, which prompts more people to approach the police." The Karnataka police are now setting up cyber crime police stations at regional levels across the state. Currently, only one police station, in Bangalore, deals with such crimes.

The profile of the criminal in revenge porn, Boralingaiah adds, is different from that of the average criminal plotting a scam using the Internet. In all the cases that have been reported, the accused is a former friend, partner, relative or colleague with no criminal history. They are also educated, intelligent and technologically savvy.

And that is why, despite suspicions, it is not always easy to catch the offender. The police say they have to first track down the origin of the pornographic site where the pictures are posted. "When we receive a complaint we try to locate the IP address (the unique identifier for the computer)," says Siddhartha Chakraborty, in charge of Cyber Police Station, Lalbazar, Calcutta. "But these crooks are clever enough to use some fake IP address of a distant country."

Once the police zero in on the IP address, it asks the web hosts to remove the offensive images, which they normally do. "But the procedure can take weeks or even months," Chakraborty adds.

Debarati Halder, a lawyer and cyber victim counsellor based at Tirunelvelli, Tamil Nadu, says she comes across 10-15 cases of revenge porn every month across the country, mostly involving college students. Often, the victims themselves take pictures while taking a shower or in their inner wear and share them with their boyfriends.

Many young women, Halder says, see such acts as symbols of independence or defiance.

"Taking 'sexy' images of themselves offers them a false sense of liberty, bypassing the repression imposed upon them in the real world," she says. "They feel relatively uninhibited in cyberspace and tend to experiment with their looks and sexuality, but are unable to determine where to draw the line."

The young are not greatly concerned with privacy and security on the Internet, Canada-based Internet safety expert Terry Cutler stresses. "They don't understand that once you send out an inappropriate photo or video, you no longer control it."

There are, according to some estimates, at least 3,000 voyeuristic websites where such pictures can be posted. The visuals are often copied and replicated across multiple porn sites, making it virtually impossible for the authorities to wipe off the digital prints. "Often these clips are available on mirror sites, web archives and caches. Video footage can also go viral on social networks and porn buffs even share these images offline," Chakraborty warns.

But people seldom think that the intimate pictures that they shoot with their lovers may one day become public. "When you're in love you trust your partner. You don't expect him to use these pictures to humiliate you when things fall apart," says Antara, a 32-year-old IT analyst in a government agency who has been a victim of revenge porn. She says that her husband, to seek a quick divorce, uploaded intimate pictures on porn sites to show that she was a woman of "bad character".

Also worrying is that a large number of women are victims of non-consensual and amateur pornography. Abir Atarthy, a Calcutta-based cyber-security expert, recently solved a case in which a college student found her pictures, shot in her bedroom, circulating on a social networking site.

"She was shocked because she not taken those pictures, nor had anybody else," Atarthy says. A thorough check revealed that a boy whose advances she had spurned had installed a hidden spy program in her laptop. "The program — capable of switching on the webcam even if the machine was offline — had been taking her snaps from her private life and sending the visuals to the youth whenever she connected to the Internet," he says.

Rohini Lakshané, a researcher at the Bangalore-based Centre for Internet and Society, describes such non-consensual acts as sexually violent crimes. "I don't like to use the term 'revenge porn', for it's an act of violence against women," she says. "Sometimes women are even raped and coerced into sex, filmed, threatened and blackmailed over the release of the footage online," Lakshané says.

The intention is to humiliate the woman and make her life miserable is the equivalent of throwing acid on her face, holds Dr Subhrangshu Aditya, a student counsellor at Jadavpur University, Calcutta. "These men can't accept rejection and it's their way to settle scores."

The victim, the experts say, doesn't just feel betrayed but often falls into depression — not just because of the ex-partner's action but because she sees herself as a partner in the crime, for the pictures uploaded may have been shot with her consent. "Their guardians also blame her for this and avoid reporting the matter to the police apprehending a bigger scandal," Halder adds.

The lawyer urges victims of such crimes to always approach the police. "Indian women have a strong legal recourse against perpetrators of revenge porn," she says. The amended 354 [C] of the Criminal Law (Amended) Act 2013, also known as the "voyeurism section", criminalises capturing and sharing images of a woman in private space. Section 66(E) of the IT Act criminalises the publication and transmission of images of an individual's private parts without his or her consent.

"These are watertight laws, strong enough to book an offender," she says, adding that the law also protects a victim's identity.

Across the world, laws are now being framed to punish cyber porn offenders. In January, Israel voted to define posting of images without consent as sexual harassment, punishable by up to five years in jail. Many states in the US already have laws against revenge porn and Britain may bring in one soon.

But perhaps the best way to prevent such crimes is by safeguarding privacy — at home and in the virtual world (see box). Cyber security expert Cutler sums it up aptly: "Just think this before you click the send button: If I were to post the visual on the Internet, would I care if it landed on the front page of a newspaper or the 8pm news?"

Some names have been changed to protect identities

How to Safeguard Your Privacy?

Get acquainted with the privacy settings of the social networks, dating and matrimonial websites you use
Do not upload any single close-shot picture on the Internet; this can be morphed and misused
Never film yourself during sexually intimate acts; even if you delete the pictures and videos these can be recovered from your device
Watch out for weird webcam activity; malicious software can easily infect your computer or phone and control the webcam
Remove your memory card from your mobile or format the hard disc of your computer before giving the device to service centres
Don't give your device to others and always lock your applications (especially picture galleries) in your mobile
Install and update antivirus and antimalware in your device

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/the-telegraph-august-3-2014-i-am-going-to-ruin-you-dear

Kannada Wikipedia Presentation for Kannada Science Writers

praskrishna — 2014-08-06T10:15:09Z

The following is the media coverage for the Kannada Wikipedia presentation at the Central University at Gulbarga on July 30,2014, in Gulbarga edition of Prajavani Kannada daily, dated July 31.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/kannada-wikipedia-presentation-prajavani-coverage

July 2014 Bulletin

praskrishna — 2014-08-11T05:46:53Z

Seventh issue of the newsletter (July 2014) below:

We at the Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) welcome you to the seventh issue of the newsletter (July 2014). Archives of our newsletters can be accessed at: http://cis-india.org/about/newsletters

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Highlights
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Nehaa Chaudhari participated in the 28^th session of the World Intellectual Property Organisation Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (WIPO-SCCR) held in Geneva from June 30 to July 4, 2014. The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) gave its statements on the Limitations and Exceptions for Libraries and Archives and Proposed Treaty for the Protection of Broadcasting Organizations.
India became the first country to ratify the Marrakesh Treaty and the Accessible Books Consortium was launched. Nehaa Chaudhari who participated in the 28^th session of the WIPO-SCCR reports on this in a blog entry.
Vikrant Narayan Vasudeva produced a research paper on patent valuation and license fee determination as part of the Pervasive Technologies project.
Our grant application to the Wikimedia Foundation was approved. CIS has been awarded Rs. 12,000,000 for the next one year for the Access to Knowledge (Wikipedia) project.
CIS and the University of Mysore organized the Open Knowledge day in Mysore on July 15, 2014. Six volumes of Kannada Vishwakosha was re-released under the Creative Commons (CC license).
We helped the Ministry of Science and Technology draft the Open Access Policy for the DST/DBT.
The first of the seven proposed roundtable meetings on “Privacy and Surveillance” conducted by CIS in collaboration with the Cellular Operators Association of India and the Council for Fair Business Practices was held in Mumbai on June 28, 2014. Anandini K. Rathore has blogged on this.
Bedavyasa Mohanty has produced a blog entry that analyses the nuances of interception of communications under the Indian Telegraph Act and the Indian Post Office Act.
Vinayak Mithal has written a blog entry on the Constitutionality of Indian surveillance law that analyses ICANN's reactive transparency mechanism, comparing it with freedom of information best practices. He describes the DIDP and its relevance for the Internet community.
Nishant Shah speaks on the right to freedom of speech and expression in the latest interview conducted as part of the Cybersecurity series being done with a grant from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Ottawa.
Nishant Shah’s peer reviewed article “Asia in the Edges: A Narrative Account of the Inter-Asia Cultural Studies Summer School in Bangalore” was published in Inter-Asia Cultural Studies Journal, Volume 15, Issue 2, on July 3, 2014. Nishant gives a narrative account of the experiments and ideas that shaped the second Summer School, “The Asian Edge” hosted in Bangalore, India, in 2012.
CIS recruited two new staff members in its Bangalore office. Rohini Lakshane joined as a Program Officer in the Pervasive Technologies project and K.N. Medini joined as a Senior Accounts Officer. Their profiles can be accessed at http://cis-india.org/about/people/our-team.

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Accessibility and Inclusion
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Under a grant from the Hans Foundation we are doing two projects. The first project is on creating a national resource kit of state-wise laws, policies and programmes on issues relating to persons with disabilities in India. We compiled the National Compendium of Policies, Programmes and Schemes for Persons with Disabilities (29 states and 6 union territories). We will be publishing this soon. The draft chapters along with the quarterly reports can be accessed on the project page. The second project is on developing text-to-speech software for 15 Indian languages. The progress made so far in the project can be accessed here.

►NVDA and eSpeak

Monthly Update

Work Report for July (by Suman Dogra, July 31, 2014).

Blog Entry

India's Ratification of the Marrakesh Treaty Celebrated; Accessible Books Consortium Launched (by Nehaa Chaudhari, July 1, 2014): India became the first country to ratify the Marrakesh Treaty.

Media Coverage

SpicyIP Tidbit: India ratifies the Marrakesh Treaty for the Visually Impaired (by Thomas J. Vallianeth, Spicy IP, July 1, 2014).

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Access to Knowledge
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As part of the Access to Knowledge programme we are doing two projects. The first one (Pervasive Technologies) under a grant from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) is for research on the complex interplay between pervasive technologies and intellectual property to support intellectual property norms that encourage the proliferation and development of such technologies as a social good. The second one (Wikipedia) under a grant from the Wikimedia Foundation is for the growth of Indic language communities and projects by designing community collaborations and partnerships that recruit and cultivate new editors and explore innovative approaches to building projects.

►WIPO

Participation in Event and Statements
Nehaa Chaudhari participated in the 28^th session of WIPO-SCCR held in Geneva from June 30 to July 4, 2014. The following have been the outputs from the event:

Statement on the Proposed Treaty for the Protection of Broadcasting Organizations at WIPO SCCR 28 (by Nehaa Chaudhari, July 2, 2014).
Opening Comments by India on Limitations and Exceptions for Libraries and Archives at WIPO SCCR 28 (posted by Nehaa Chaudhari, July 7, 2014). This was the statement made by the Indian delegation at WIPO-SCCR 28^th session on July 2, 2014.
Statement on the Limitations and Exceptions for Libraries and Archives at WIPO SCCR 28 (by Nehaa Chaudhari, July 3, 2014).
28th Session of the WIPO SCCR: Report on the Proposed Treaty for the Protection of Broadcasting Organizations (by Nehaa Chaudhari, July 29, 2014).

► Pervasive Technologies

Research Papers

Patent Valuation and License Fee Determination in Context of Patent Pools (by Vikrant Narayan Vasudeva, July 9, 2014). Vikrant has produced research that examines patent valuation and license fee determination in detail.
Grounds for Compulsory Patent Licensing in United States, Canada, China, and India (by Maggie Huang, July 29, 2014). In her research paper Maggie tries to answer questions about the grounds of compulsory licensing in international treaties with specific examples from America and Asia.

►Wikipedia
As part of the project grant from the Wikimedia Foundation we have reached out to more than 3500 people across India by organizing more than 100 outreach events and catalysed the release of encyclopaedic and other content under the Creative Commons (CC-BY-3.0) license in four Indian languages (21 books in Telugu, 13 in Odia, 4 volumes of encyclopaedia in Konkani and 6 volumes in Kannada, and 1 book on Odia language history in English).

Announcement
Our grant application to the Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC) of the Wikimedia Foundation was approved by its board which met in Frankfurt from May 21 to 24, 2014. CIS had requested a grant of Rs. 18,406,454 and were awarded Rs. 12,000,000 for the next one year.

The following were done this month:

Articles / Blog Entries

Aircel & Wikimedia Foundation announce Wikipedia Zero (by Dr. U.B.Pavanaja, Prajavani, July 3, 2014). As per this, users of Aircel need not pay for data for accessing Wikipedia.
ଇଣ୍ଟରନେଟରେ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଅକ୍ଷରସଜ୍ଜା (by Subhashish Panigrahi, Samaja, July 4, 2014).
State of Odia Language in Computing and Future Steps (by Subhashish Panigrahi, Sovereign, July 7, 2014).
ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଭାଷା ବିକାଶର ରାସ୍ତା (by Subhashish Panigrahi, The Sambad, July 23, 2014).
University of Mysore Re-releases Kannada Vishwakosha (Encyclopaedia) under Creative Commons Free License (by Dr. U.B.Pavanaja, July 24, 2014). Leading English and Kannada dailies like Andolana Kannada, City Today, Deccan Herald, Hosa Diganta, Kannada Jana Mana, Kannada Prabha, Rajya Dharma, Samyukta Karnataka, The Hindu, The New Indian Express, Udayavani, Vijaya Karnataka, and Vijaya Vani published about this. Scanned versions of the published articles can be downloaded here.
Wiki Loves Pride 2014 and Adding Diversity to Wikipedia (by Dorothy Howard, Wikimedia Blog, July 25, 2014).
Doctors and Translators Are Working Together to Bridge Wikipedia's Medical Language Gap (by Subhashish Panigrahi, Global Voices, July 27, 2014). This was re-published on the Wikimedia Blog, July 30, 2014.
Classical Odia Language in the Digital Age (by Subhashish Panigrahi, Odisha Review, posted on July 28, 2014). The essay was published in the magazine’s June edition.

Event Organized

Open Knowledge Day (co-organized by Mysore University and CIS-A2K, Kuvempu Institute of Kannada Studies, University of Mysore, July 15, 2014). The event coincided with the Open Knowledge Festival in Berlin from July 15 to 17. Dr. U.B.Pavanaja conducted the event. On this occasion Mysore University released six volumes of Kannada Vishwakosha under the Creative Commons (CC) license.

Participation in Events

National Level Seminar on Computer Application and Odia Language (organized by Institute of Odia Studies and Research, July 6, 2014). Subhashish Panigrahi was a panelist.
Open Knowledge Festival 2014 (organized by Google, Omidyar, et.al., Berlin, July 15 – 17, 2014). Subhashish Panigrahi represented India as the India Ambassador of OpenGLAM local and made a presentation.
#NAMA: The Future of Indic Languages (organized by Medianama, The Oberoi Hotel, Bangalore, July 24, 2014). Subhashish Panigrahi participated in the event.

News and Media Coverage
CIS-A2K team gave its inputs to the following media coverage:

Wikipedia edit-a-thons to add content on LGBTs (by Renuka Phadnis, The Hindu, July 7, 2014).
Font problem hits Odia (by Bibhuti Barik, The Telegraph, July 7, 2014).
Four volumes of Kannada Encyclopaedia digitised (by R. Krishna Kumar, The Hindu, July 12, 2014).
‘ಕನ್ನಡ ವಿಶ್ವಕೋಶ’ಕ್ಕೆ ಇನ್ನು ಲೈಸೆನ್ಸ್ ಹಂಗಿಲ್ಲ (Prajavani, July 14, 2014).
Soon, all 14 volumes of Kannada encyclopaedia to be online (by R. Krishna Kumar, The Hindu, July 15, 2014).
ವಿಕಿಪಿಡಿಯಾಗೆ ಕನ್ನಡ ವಿಶ್ವಕೋಶ (Kannada Prabha, July 15, 2014).
ಕನ್ನಡ ವಿಶ್ವಕೋಶದ ಆರು ಸಂಪುಟ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯಾಗೆ (Udayavani, July 15, 2014).
ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯಾದಲ್ಲಿ kannada ವಿಶ್ವಕೋಶ : ಈಗ ಆನ್ ಲೈನ್ ನಲ್ಲಿ 6 ಸಂಪುಟಗಳು ಮುಕ್ತ…ಮುಕ್ತ……( Just Kannada, July 15, 2014).
Six Kannada encyclopaedias released (Webindia 123, July 15, 2014).
150 Rare Books Get New Lease of Life Online, Courtesy Students (by Anila Backer, New Indian Express, July 15, 2014).
Open Access: Students help revive and digitize rare books for Malayalam Wiki Library (Spicy IP, July 15, 2014).
'Trolled' from US Congress, Wikipedia bans edits (by Narayan Lakshman, The Hindu, July 25, 2014).
Telugu Wikipedia struggles to stay afloat (by Renuka Phadnis, The Hindu, July 27, 2014).
The joys of being a Wikipedian (by Svetlana Lasrado, New Indian Express, July 29, 2014).
Kannada Wikipedia Presentation (Vijayavani, July 30, 2014).
Kannada Wikipedia Presentation for Kannada Science Writers (Prajavani, July 31, 2014).

►Openness

Blog Entries

Mozilla brings Indian Communities together Twice in One Month (by Subhashish Panigrahi, Mozilla Website, July 8, 2014).
Mozilla Brings Indian Communities Together (by Subhashish Panigrahi, Opensource.com, July 13, 2014).
Department of Biotechnology and Department of Science, Ministry of Science and Technology, Government of India, release Open Access Policy (by Anubha Sinha, July 18, 2014). We have also been acknowledged in the policy.

HasGeek Event

The Fifth Elephant (NIMHANS Convention Centre, July 25-26, 2014). CIS was a community outreach partner.

Media Coverage

Plan for open access to science research (by Renuka Phadnis, The Hindu, July 22, 2014).
Indian Govt looks to provide free access to publicly-funded research works (by Riddhi Mukherjee, Medianama, July 23, 2014).

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Internet Governance
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►Freedom of Expression

As part of our project on Freedom of Expression (funded through a grant from the MacArthur Foundation) to study the restrictions placed on freedom of expression online by the Indian government and contribute to the debates around Internet governance and freedom of expression at forums like ICANN, ITU, IGF, WSIS, etc., we bring you the following outputs:

Blog Entries

ICANN’s Documentary Information Disclosure Policy – I: DIDP Basics (by Vinayak Mithal, July 1, 2014).
Reading the Fine Script: Service Providers, Terms and Conditions and Consumer Rights (by Jyoti Panday, July 2, 2014).
Facebook and its Aversion to Anonymous and Pseudonymous Speech (by Jessamine Mathew, July 4, 2014).
Free Speech and Surveillance (by Gautam Bhatia, July 7, 2014).
Delhi High Court Orders Blocking of Websites after Sony Complains Infringement of 2014 FIFA World Cup Telecast Rights (by Anubha Sinha, July 8, 2014).
GNI and IAMAI Launch Interactive Slideshow Exploring Impact of India's Internet Laws (by Jyoti Panday, July 17, 2014).

FOEX Live

We are also posting a selection of news from across India implicating online freedom of expression and use of digital technology: July 7, 2014.

►Privacy

As part of our Surveillance and Freedom: Global Understandings and Rights Development (SAFEGUARD) project with Privacy International we are engaged in enhancing respect for the right to privacy in developing countries. We have produced the following outputs during the month:

Blog Entries

Models for Surveillance and Interception of Communications Worldwide (by Bedavyasa Mohanty, July 2, 2014).
The Constitutionality of Indian Surveillance Law: Public Emergency as a Condition Precedent for Intercepting Communications (by Bedavyasa Mohanty, July 4, 2014).
UK’s Interception of Communications Commissioner — A Model of Accountability (by Joe Sheehan, July 24, 2014).

Event Report

First Privacy and Surveillance Roundtable (by Anandini K Rathore, July 18, 2014).

Article

Private Censorship and the Right to Hear (by Chinmayi Arun, The Hoot, July 17, 2014). The article was also mirrored on the website of the Centre for Communication Governance.

Participation in Events

Information Influx Conference (organized by the Institute for Information Law, University of Amsterdam, July 2 – 4, 2014). Malavika Jayaram was a speaker.
Consultation to Frame Rules under the Whistle Blowers Protection Act, 2011 (organized by National Campaign for People's Right to Information and Centre for Communication Governance, National Law University, New Delhi, July 5, 2014). Bhairav Acharya participated in the event.
Best Practices Meet (organized by DSCI, Hotel Leela Palace, Bangalore, July 9, 2014). Sunil Abraham was a panelist.
Rethinking Privacy: The Link between Florida v. Jardines and the Surveillance of Nature Films (organized by Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, July 11, 2014). Bhairav Acharya gave a talk.
Region as Frame: Politics, Presence, Practice (organized by International Association for Media and Communication Research, Hyderabad, July 18, 2014). Sunil Abraham was a speaker for these panels: Governing Digital Spaces: Issues of Access, Privacy and Freedom, UNESCO panel debate, and Special Session on Research Paths In and Outside of the Academy.
ICT Awareness Program for Myanmar Parliamentarians (organized by Myanmar ICT for Development Organization, July 26 – 27, 2014, Yangon). Sunil Abraham participated in the event as a speaker and presented on Innovation Ecosystem and Thinking about Internet Regulation.

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News & Media Coverage
--------------------------------------
CIS gave its inputs to the following media coverage:

Cyber-crimes shoot up 52% in India over last year (by K.V.Kurmanath, Hindu Businessline, July 2, 2014).
COAI, Centre for Internet & Society to hold pan-India meetings on privacy issues (IANS, July 4, 2014). The news was mirrored in the Times of India , NDTV, Business Standard , Economic Times , and World News.
Living in a Fish Bowl (by Shuma Raha, The Telegraph, July 16, 2014).
Terror recruiters target Indians on internet (by Sandhya Soman, July 18, 2014).
The trouble with trolls (by Vishal Mathur, Livemint, July 22, 2014).
India’s dedicated Cryptology centre gets Rs. 115 crore funding (by Harichandan Arakali, SearchSecurity.in, July 28, 2014).

►Cyber Stewards
As part of its project on mapping cyber security actors in South Asia and South East Asia with the Citizen Lab, Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto and the International Development Research Centre, Canada, CIS conducted 2 new interviews. With this it has finished a total of 19 interviews:

Video Interviews

Lobsang Gyatso Sither (July 31, 2014).

Lobsang Sangay (July 31, 2014).

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Digital Humanities
--------------------------------
CIS is building research clusters in the field of Digital Humanities. The Digital will be used as a way of unpacking the debates in humanities and social sciences and look at the new frameworks, concepts and ideas that emerge in our engagement with the digital. The clusters aim to produce and document new conversations and debates that shape the contours of Digital Humanities in Asia:

Peer Reviewed Article

Asia in the Edges: A Narrative Account of the Inter-Asia Cultural Studies Summer School in Bangalore (by Nishant Shah, Inter-Asia Cultural Studies Journal, Volume 15, Issue 2, July 3, 2014). This is the narrative account of the experiments and ideas that shaped the second Summer School, “The Asian Edge” which was hosted in Bangalore, India, in 2012.

Blog Entry

Reading from a Distance — Data as Text (by P.P. Sneha, July 23, 2014).

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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.

► Follow us elsewhere

Twitter: https://twitter.com/CISA2K
Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/cisa2k
Visit us at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge
E-mail: a2k@cis-india.org

► Support Us
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.

► 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, atsunil@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 primary donor the Kusuma Trust founded by Anurag Dikshit and Soma Pujari, philanthropists of Indian origin for its core funding and support for most of its projects. CIS is also grateful to its other donors, Wikimedia Foundation, Ford Foundation, Privacy International, UK, Hans Foundation, MacArthur Foundation, and IDRC for funding its various projects.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/about/newsletters/july-2014-bulletin

Access to Knowledge Bulletin — July 2014

praskrishna — 2014-10-04T14:46:22Z

The Access to Knowledge (Wikipedia) newsletter for the month of July 2014:

University of Mysore Re-releases Kannada Vishwakosha (Encyclopaedia) under Creative Commons Free License

The University of Mysore and the Centre for Internet and Society co-organized the Open Knowledge Day in Mysore on July 15, 2014. On this occasion Mysore University released six volumes of Kannada Vishwakosha under the Creative Commons (CC) license. Kannada Vishwakosha brought out by the University of Mysore can easily be termed as the best encyclopaedia in Kannada. It has been modelled after the famous Britannica encyclopaedia. Mysore University Vishwakosha has 14 volumes having a total of 13802 pages. The very first volume was brought out in the year 1969 and the final volume was released in 2004. Many famous Kannada authors, scientists, academicians and stalwarts from other fields have worked on creating this encyclopaedia.

Leading English and Kannada dailies like Andolana Kannada, City Today, Deccan Herald, Hosa Diganta, Kannada Jana Mana, Kannada Prabha, Rajya Dharma, Samyukta Karnataka, The Hindu, The New Indian Express, Udayavani, Vijaya Karnataka, and Vijaya Vani published about this. Scanned versions of the published articles can be downloaded here.

Announcement

Our grant application to the Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC) of the Wikimedia Foundation was approved by its board which met in Frankfurt from May 21 to 24, 2014. CIS had requested a grant of Rs. 18,406,454 and were awarded Rs. 12,000,000 for the next one year.

Articles / Blog Entries

Aircel & Wikimedia Foundation announce Wikipedia Zero (by Dr. U.B.Pavanaja, Prajavani, July 3, 2014). As per this, users of Aircel need not pay for data for accessing Wikipedia.
ଇଣ୍ଟରନେଟରେ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଅକ୍ଷରସଜ୍ଜା (by Subhashish Panigrahi, Samaja, July 4, 2014).
State of Odia Language in Computing and Future Steps (by Subhashish Panigrahi, Sovereign for national Level Seminar on "Computer Application and Odia Language", July 7, 2014).
ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଭାଷା ବିକାଶର ରାସ୍ତା (by Subhashish Panigrahi, The Sambad, July 23, 2014).
Wiki Loves Pride 2014 and Adding Diversity to Wikipedia (by Dorothy Howard, Wikimedia Blog, July 25, 2014).
Doctors and Translators Are Working Together to Bridge Wikipedia's Medical Language Gap (by Subhashish Panigrahi, Global Voices, July 27, 2014). This was re-published on the Wikimedia Blog, July 30, 2014.
Classical Odia Language in the Digital Age (by Subhashish Panigrahi, Odisha Review, posted on July 28, 2014). The essay was published in the magazine’s June edition.

Event Organized

Open Knowledge Day (co-organized by Mysore University and CIS-A2K, Kuvempu Institute of Kannada Studies, University of Mysore, July 15, 2014). The event coincided with the Open Knowledge Festival in Berlin from July 15 to 17. Dr. U.B.Pavanaja conducted the event.
Wikipedia orientation for Christ University UG students, Bangalore

Participation in Events

National Level Seminar on Computer Application and Odia Language (organized by Institute of Odia Studies and Research, July 6, 2014). Subhashish Panigrahi was a panelist.
Open Knowledge Festival 2014 (organized by Google, Omidyar, et.al., Berlin, July 15 – 17, 2014). Subhashish Panigrahi represented India as the India Ambassador of OpenGLAM local and made a presentation.
# NAMA: The Future of Indic Languages (organized by Medianama, The Oberoi Hotel, Bangalore, July 24, 2014). Subhashish Panigrahi participated in the event.
Kannada Wikipedia Presentation for Kannada Science Writers (organized by Karnataka Rajya Vijnana Parishath at PDA College of Engineering, Gulbarga, July 29, 2014). Dr. U.B. Pavanaja gave the presentation and demo. Thirty-two participants attended the workshop.
Kannada Wikipedia Presentation for Students and Research Scholars (organized by Central University of Karnataka, Gulbarga, July 30, 2014). Dr. U. B. Pavanaja gave the presentation and demo. 37 participants attended the presentation.
Talk about Kannada Wikipedia (organized by District Kannada Sahithya Parishath, S.M. Pandit Auditorium, Gulbarga, July 30, 2014). Dr. U.B. Pavanaja gave a talk as inaugurator of the first session of the Jilla Sahithya Sammelana (district literary festival). About 600 people attended this talk.

News and Media Coverage

CIS-A2K team gave its inputs to the following media coverage:

Wikipedia edit-a-thons to add content on LGBTs (by Renuka Phadnis, The Hindu, July 7, 2014).
Font problem hits Odia (by Bibhuti Barik, The Telegraph, July 7, 2014).
Four volumes of Kannada Encyclopaedia digitised (by R. Krishna Kumar, The Hindu, July 12, 2014).
‘ಕನ್ನಡ ವಿಶ್ವಕೋಶ’ಕ್ಕೆ ಇನ್ನು ಲೈಸೆನ್ಸ್ ಹಂಗಿಲ್ಲ (Prajavani, July 14, 2014).
Soon, all 14 volumes of Kannada encyclopaedia to be online (by R. Krishna Kumar, The Hindu, July 15, 2014).
ವಿಕಿಪಿಡಿಯಾಗೆ ಕನ್ನಡ ವಿಶ್ವಕೋಶ (Kannada Prabha, July 15, 2014).
ಕನ್ನಡ ವಿಶ್ವಕೋಶದ ಆರು ಸಂಪುಟ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯಾಗೆ (Udayavani, July 15, 2014).
ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯಾದಲ್ಲಿ kannada ವಿಶ್ವಕೋಶ : ಈಗ ಆನ್ ಲೈನ್ ನಲ್ಲಿ 6 ಸಂಪುಟಗಳು ಮುಕ್ತ…ಮುಕ್ತ……(Just Kannada, July 15, 2014).
Six Kannada encyclopaedias released (Webindia 123, July 15, 2014).
150 Rare Books Get New Lease of Life Online, Courtesy Students (by Anila Backer, New Indian Express, July 15, 2014).
Open Access: Students help revive and digitize rare books for Malayalam Wiki Library (Spicy IP, July 15, 2014).
'Trolled' from US Congress, Wikipedia bans edits (by Narayan Lakshman, The Hindu, July 25, 2014).
Telugu Wikipedia struggles to stay afloat (by Renuka Phadnis, The Hindu, July 27, 2014).
The joys of being a Wikipedian (by Svetlana Lasrado, New Indian Express, July 29, 2014).
Kannada Wikipedia Presentation (Vijayavani, July 30, 2014).
Kannada Wikipedia Presentation for Kannada Science Writers (Prajavani, July 31, 2014).

Wikimedia Foundation has funded A2K to anchor the growth of Wikimedia movement in India. The A2K team consists of six members, four based in Bangalore: T. Vishnu Vardhan, Dr. U.B. Pavanaja, Subhashish Panigrahi and Rahmanuddin Shaikh. One team member Nitika Tandon is based in Delhi. We also have one Advisor Dr. Tejaswini Niranjana working with us. Archives of our newsletters can be accessed here. Wikipedians from various communities can request for outreach programs, technical bugs, logistics-merchandize and media, public relations and communications here.

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.

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

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. 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-july-2014