Centre for Internet and Society

3rd Global Congress on IP and the Public Interest & Open A.I.R. Conference on Innovation and IP in Africa

praskrishna — 2014-01-05T02:52:03Z

From 9 to 13 December 2013, delegates from national and international governmental governmental entities, the private sector, civil society, and academia gathered for five days of interconnected events in Cape Town.

Sunil Abraham participated as a speaker in the sessions on Bridging into the Global Congress: Global Issues, Local Answers?, User Rights Track: What Medicines Can Teach Tech: Exploring Patent Pooling and Compulsory Licensing in the Indian Mobile Device Market, User Rights Track: Reclaiming the World Trade Organisation: A Modest Proposal for a WTO Agreement on the Supply of Global Public Goods, and was a keynote speaker on The Freedom Continuum. Nehaa Chaudhari also participated in this event. Click to read more about the event published on the website of open A.I.R. here. The full programme can be seen here.

Participants will engage with diverse perspectives and future scenarios for intellectual property (IP), innovation and development during the combined 3rd Global Congress on IP and the Public Interest and Open A.I.R. Conference on Innovation and IP in Africa.

The event is now fully subscribed, with only registrations invited by Congress & Conference organisers being accpted. For further details, please visit this website's Cape Town 2013 page.

The University of Cape Town (UCT) Faculty of Law's IP Unit is serving as host of the Congress & Conference. Implementating partners include the Access to Knowledge for Development Center (A2K4D) at The American University in Cairo, the Nigerian Institute of Advanced Legal Studies (NIALS) at the University of Lagos, the Centre for IP and IT Law (CIPIT) at Srathmore University in Nairobi, the Faculty of Law at the University of Ottawa and the Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property
at American University in Washington, DC.

Congress and Conference funding is being provided by Canada’s International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and the Open Society Foundations.

Date: Monday, 9 December, 2013 to Friday, 13 December, 2013
Place: Cape Town
Type of Event: Conference

Sunil Abraham provided a hilarious talk on The Freedom Continuum. An example: “Freedom is like the Kama Sutra – there are many positions one can take.” Mr. Abraham also brilliantly suggested a method for plausible deniability in the world of biometric identification and oppressive government oversight. By posting all of my biometric information (fingerprints, eye scans, etc.) on the internet, I can plausibly deny any crimes or contracts or tracking by the government because, well, it’s all online so it couldn’t have been me, right? So we should (paradoxically) fight incursion into data privacy simply by releasing all biometric data about ourselves.

Also quite amusing was the comparison of the IP debate to Tom and Jerry, that iconic Cat (Kat?) and Mouse duo who are perpetually chasing one another. Tom the Cat represents Big Business, corporate interests, the USTR, etc. Tom is chasing (but can never quite catch) Jerry the Mouse, who represents civil society, human rights activists, the open source movement, etc. An audience member pointedly observed that Jerry typically runs around for a bit and then disappears into a hole in the wall, where he stays for some time before emerging to torture Tom again. The obvious point is that activists (i.e., the audience at the Global Congress) will never make substantial progress until they stop disappearing for long periods of time and start acting more like a cat (or even, perhaps, like a dog).

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/3rd-global-congress-ip-and-public-interest-open-air-conference-innovation-and-ip-africa

"Whatever happened to Privacy?" - International Activism Conference

praskrishna — 2014-02-03T05:56:27Z

Maria Xynou gave a keynote speech and participated as a panelist on the "Suspect Societies" panel. The event was organized by Heinrich Boell Foundation in Berlin on December 5 and 6, 2013.

"Whatever happened to privacy" brought together international activists on focal topics and combined bar camp style work sessions and political round tables with a classic public event, It focussed on an issue which has far reaching consequences for politically active people across the world - the issue of privacy and surveillance. The revelations around the NSA and GCHQ as well as other countries secret service digital surveillance activities have spurred political debate. This debate was intensified at "Whatever happened to Privacy?" formulating political demands, developing action strategies and debating questions such as:

What cultural and political value does privacy have today?
What are the societal implications of the wide spread "I have nothing to hide" attitude?
What political actions are necessary to protect citizens from mass surveillance and what tools exist for people to secure their communications, movements and lives?

For video and more info, click here

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/whatever-happened-to-privacy

SCCR Working Document

praskrishna — 2013-12-07T07:55:27Z

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

CIS Comments to HRD Ministry on WIPO Treaty

praskrishna — 2013-12-07T04:43:08Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/cis-comments-to-hrd-on-wipo-treaty.pdf

India for UN body to resolve internet governance issues

praskrishna — 2013-12-26T08:51:05Z

Multi-stakeholder or multi-lateral - two words encapsulating diametrically opposite views on internet governance stands at the heart of a raging debate across the globe.

The article by Kim Arora was published in the Times of India on December 5, 2013. Sunil Abraham is quoted.

At the Working Group on Enhanced Cooperation (WGEC) meeting in Geneva last month, India suggested forming a multi-lateral UN body to co-ordinate on internet governance issues. And several activists feel that is not the right way forward.

Multi-stakeholder control over the world wide web means parties other than governments, which include the tech community, academia, businesses and civil society. In a multi-lateral arrangement, only the governments will be the decision-makers and every other stakeholder barring the state, is relegated to a purely advisory role. Simply put, the choice is between total state control over the internet or a more democratic set-up where other sections of society are also represented.

Civil society and businesses are concerned that being relegated to an advisory role rather than a decision-making one could lead to disregarding or dumping their inputs.

"Everyone must have a seat at the table," says Rajan Mathews, director general of the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI). "If you are designing a new model, it is important that it is as inclusive as possible. That will create better decisions. It will also discourage back-door bargaining between governments," says Anja Kovacs of the Internet Democracy Project.

The internet architecture has always been controlled by the US. The demand for a more democratised set-up, where other countries also have a voice, started in early 2000s. In 2005, a consensus document, Tunis Agenda, had been signed under the aegis of the UN. It laid out much of the terms of the debate around internet governance, including the focus on enhanced cooperation and the need for a multi-stakeholder model.

In 2011, India put forward a detailed proposal for a multi-lateral UN body that was widely criticised by activists and business bodies at home. In Geneva this November, India's answer to a question on implementing "enhanced cooperation" in a WGEC questionnaire, went like this: "A suitable multilateral, transparent and democratic mechanism must be created where governments, on an equal footing, may carry out their roles and responsibilities in international public policy issues pertaining to the Internet and public policy issues pertaining to coordination and management of critical Internet resources, in consultation with all other stakeholders."

Ajay Kumar of the Department of Electronics and Communication Technology (DeitY), was a part of the delegation representing India at Geneva. The DeitY falls under the union ministry of communication and information technology. Kumar told TOI, that while there is a relook at the 2011 proposal, India has been following the Tunis Agenda when it comes to enhanced cooperation between different countries and other stakeholders.

Nonetheless, Parminder Jeet Singh of the NGO IT for Change has supported the government position at the WGEC meeting. The two other civil society bodies from India at Geneva wanted a multi-stakeholder model. Singh feels that the proposal may have an important role to play at a later stage when "real political talk shapes up". "We don't agree that a Google or an IT for Change should vote in the decision-making about actual public policies. We understand the fear (behind such an arrangement) but we prefer that public policy decisions at global level remain with governments as they are legitimate representatives of the people," he says.

However, Sunil Abraham, executive director of the Center for Internet and Society, warns against the governmental tendency to centralize and for being opaque. He also feels that a single model, whether multilateral or multi-stakeholder, will not work. Every model must change with every issue being brought to the table, he says. "For instance, something like controlling child pornography, will need one kind of model to deal with. The same won't work when dealing with hate speech," Abraham points out.

Activists are hoping that the Brazil global multi-stakeholder meeting in April next year will take the issue of democratised internet governance forward.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/times-of-india-december-5-2013-kim-arora-india-for-un-body-to-resolve-internet-governance-issues

International View of the State-of-the-Art of Cryptography and Security and its Use in Practice (IV)

praskrishna — 2013-12-26T09:05:40Z

Building on the workshop in Dagstuhl in June-July 2011 (International View of the State-of-the-Art of Cryptography and Security and its Use in Practice), Beijing (International View of the State-of-the-Art of Cryptography and Security and its Use in Practice II), and Athens (International View of the State-of-the-Art of Cryptography and Security and its Use in Practice III) that set the stage for discussions on cryptography among a group of key researchers from Europe, Asia, and North America, the one day workshop in Bangalore, following AsiaCrypt 2013 will again bring together internationally recognized scientists to discuss direction and development in theoretical and applied cryptography and surrounding societal issues.

There will be four focus areas:

Real-life cryptography
Standardization
Regulatory requirements
Innovative use cases for cryptography

Each focus area will be anchored in an invited talk and/or panel, but the emphasis will be on discussion. The participants will address broad research directions in encryption and secure computation and their applications in cloud computing, smart grid, mobile and embedded computing, hardware, software, and network security. They will also examine non-technical issues surrounding deployment and adoption of new security technologies using encryption, such as privacy or economic consideration. Approaches and projects in different countries will be discussed, in order to increase awareness of the R&D activities internationally and continue to for a strong community of research and practice and in order to generate new ideas in this field.

Although the workshop will cover a broad spectrum of issues from the list presented below with a specific focus that will be announced shortly. The topics of interest include (but are not limited to) the following subjects:

Secret versus public ciphers
Cipher and algorithm development process
Algorithms maturity and review
Lightweight cryptography
New requirements for cryptography for novel applications
Cipher implementation and interoperability
Standardization
Regulatory initiatives
Privacy enhancing cryptography

8:15 a.m.	Registration
8:30 a.m.	Opening statement (Organizers)
8:40 a.m.	Opening keynote (TBD)
9:10 a.m.	Panel 1 and discussion: Advances in cryptography; new use cases, Participants: Dan Bernstein (University of Illinois at Chicago), Tanja Lange (Eindhoven), Veni Madhavan (ERNET), others TBD
10.30 a.m.	Coffee break
11.00 a.m.	Panel II and discussion: Regulatory environment and standardization: Sunil Abraham (India CIS), Kazue Sako (NEC), Claire Vishik (Intel), others TBD
12.30 a.m.	Lunch
1.30 p.m.	Panel 3 and discussion: Implementation and interoperability for new environments (e.g., smart grid, Internet of things): Reji Kumar (Smart Grid India), other TBD
3.00 p.m.	Coffee break
3.30 p.m.	Panel IV and discussion: Privacy, social networking, ubiquitous connectivity and cryptography: Rene Peralta (NIST), Kumar Ranganathan, others TBD
5.00 p.m.	Thoughts and next workshop
5.20 p.m.	Closing statements (Organizers)
5.30 p.m.	Adjourn

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/international-view-of-state-of-the-art-of-cryptography-and-security-and-its-use-in-practice

Card transactions with Aadhaar validation need more time: experts

praskrishna — 2013-12-26T06:25:04Z

Cost and supply implications are seen by experts as the main hurdles in implementing the RBI directive.

The article by Kirti V. Rao and Moulishree Srivastava was published in Livemint on December 5, 2013. Sunil Abraham is quoted.

The Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI’s) move to introduce a new card payment infrastructure able to authenticate transactions using Aadhaar unique identity number-linked biometrics may take some time to implement as it has cost and supply implications.

“All new card present infrastructure has to be enabled for both EMV chip and PIN and Aadhaar (biometric validation) acceptance,” RBI said in a notification on 26 November.

Europay MasterCard Visa, or EMV, chip and PIN authentication involves card information stored in a chip that is accessible through a PIN or personal identification number, which replaces a cardholder’s signature.

Currently, all card infrastructure in India such as automated teller machines (ATMs) and point-of-sales (PoS) machines are moving towards full compliance with the global EMV standard that requires reading integrated circuit cards to authenticate credit and debit card transactions.

Although all transactions through debit cards are now required to be authenticated by PIN, validating financial transactions by using the biometric Aadhaar identity number database is yet to gain traction. Such a service is expected to begin in May.

Not all experts are in favour of the central bank’s move to use biometrics data to authenticate transactions.

“This is a terrible idea. Biometrics should never be used as authentication factor since it cannot be revoked when it is compromised,” said Sunil Abraham, executive director of Bangalore-based think-tank Centre for Internet and Society. “Digital signatures and its variations like the EMV chip are the right way to proceed.”

A banker did not fully agree with Abraham.

Pulak Sinha, general manager (payment solutions) at State Bank of India, said: “In our experience, there is a need for biometric authentication in certain geographical segments in the country. Our bank has used biometric authentication for financial inclusion initiatives and has found it very useful. Having said that, each bank is the best judge as to which technology is more relevant for their customers.”

Sinha added, “Also changing new infrastructure to accept all types of technologies has its own challenges as well as financial implications. Again, business cases need to be built and when people get additional services they may have to pay.”

There are cost implications if the RBI directive is to be implemented, according to Rajiv Kaul, chief executive of CMS Info Systems Pvt. Ltd, which runs two cash management companies and has recently received an order from SBI to deploy 8,000 cash machines across the country.

“Some of the ATM infrastructure currently installed have some of the capabilities for EMV chip cards, but even as they are hardware-equipped, software will need to be upgraded,” Kaul said. “For biometric compliance, both hardware and software will need to be installed, which will result in extra cost. So, for the short term, from the biometric perspective, the cost will go up.”
Some experts hold that the notification provides a chance to assess the as-yet-untested Aadhaar-linked biometrics model where the EMV model may be hard to implement.

“RBI has been pragmatic in mandating it incrementally as it is giving Aadhaar a runway to evolve in terms of operations, use cases, risk, technology standards, dispute resolution and get these things in order,” Uttam Nayak, group country manager, India and South Asia at Visa Consolidated Support Services (India) Pvt. Ltd, told Mint on 26 November. “Because Aadhaar is tokenless and doesn’t need a card, it has great potential for inclusion.”

Biometrics-enabled cash and PoS machines will require additional expenditure as they need high-speed Internet connectivity to transmit biometrics data, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, member of the upper house of Parliament, said in a letter to RBI governor Raghuram Rajan.

“The hardware and software cost of upgrading a single unit with biometrics hardware is not very much but changing the entire ecosystem would have costs,” acknowledged SBI’s Sinha. “When people get additional services they will have to pay.”

“A high percentage of the population is still unbanked. The opportunity (to reach people through biometric validation and Aadhaar) is too tempting for the acquirers (banks and others using PoS devices) to not take this up,” said Robin Roy, associate director of financial services at consultancy firm PricewaterhouseCoopers Pvt. Ltd.

Whether there would be enough suppliers of machines to implement the directive is also a concern, some experts said.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/livemint-december-5-2013-kirthi-v-rao-moulishree-srivastava-card-transactions-with-aadhar-validation-need-more-time

INSAF National Convention on Crisis of Capitalism and brazen onslaught on DEMOCRACY

praskrishna — 2013-12-26T10:18:35Z

Snehashish Ghosh is participating in this event as a speaker.

Ever since the Neo-liberal agenda began to unfold 22 years back, the democratic spaces within Indian polity have been squeezing continuously and the present scenario of run up to 2014 elections is reflecting the state of disarray in parliamentary democracy. The mainstream discourse appears to have deliberately failed in bringing out the intrinsic relationship between ‘capitalism’; its ‘crisis’ and ‘democracy’ to the core of analyzing and understanding the present amnesia in political process.

The characteristics of crony, fictitious, lumpen and speculative Capital that is on the driving seat of contemporary phase of capitalism are mirrored in the operational levels of parliamentary democracy - from governance to electoral process- in the form of corporate influences on policies and decision making, rampant corruption at the pinnacle of power, control of money and muscle-power in politics.

It is, therefore, important to bring out the correlation between the ensuing crisis in global capitalism - including in India - and the impending crisis in our democracy - to the fore. The divergence in the requirements of the neo-liberal phase of capitalism and ‘democracy’ as its analogous political system seems to be the key in explaining the despair engulfing Indian polity at present. The attempts to transform ‘Democracies’ into ‘Corporatocracies’ that we see today, also emanate from this despondency alone.

Last two decades have also seen the institution of ‘State’ posturing itself more and more aggressively against its own people in order to fulfill its obligations to international financial & trade institutions so to serve the interest of global capital. In such a course, it has extensively resorted to adopt the instrument of ‘fabricating’ cases against the voices of opposition to the interests of the global capital.

Though the instrument of ‘fabrication’ is not new to the ‘State Craft’ but this time it is being used in a targeted and selective manner. Not only the existing criminal laws have been used for this purpose but new laws like UAPA and various state ‘security laws’ were created during this period to meet this requirement.

The ‘Indian State’ is also proceeding feverishly to create a surveillance state through various means of ‘electronic surveillance’ using cutting edge technologies to track mobile phones, internet usage, emails etc. at home while colluding with U.S. military and security establishment internationally against other nations. The business of creating and sharing of its citizen’s databases (both demographic & biometrics etc) has been promoted by Indian establishment by subverting the Constitution, existing norms of parliamentary democracy and citizens’ rights.

It is in this context that INSAF has decided to hold its two day National Convention 2013.

Programme Schedule

Day 1: Crisis of Capitalism and brazen onslaught on DEMOCRACY

10.00 10.30	Registration & Tea/Coffee
10.30 11.00	Introduction by Anil Chaudhary
11.00 13.00	Inaugural address by eminent writer and journalist P. Sainath Chaired by Justice Rajinder Sachar
13.00 14.30	Lunch
14.30 17.30	Panel Discussion: Prof. Vibhuti Patel (Director, Centre for Study of Social Exclusion and Inclusive Policy, SNDT Women's University, Mumbai) Prof. Achin Vanaik (Former Dean of Social Sciences, Delhi University) Prof. Ramesh Dixit (Lucknow, UP)

Day 2: Surveillance state and perils of DEMOCRACY

10.00 10.30	Panel Discussion Dr. Usha Ramanathan (Law researcher and activist, New Delhi) Prabir Purkayastha (Delhi Science Forum) Ms. Subi Chaturvedi (Asstt. Prof. of Journalism Communication, Lady Shri Ram College for Women, Delhi Univ. Founder Hon. Managing Trustee, Media For Change) Snehashish Ghosh (Centre for Internet & Society) Chaired by Ms. Kalyani Menon-Sen (Feminist activist & researcher)
13.00 14.00	Lunch
14.00 16.30	Panel Discussion: Suppressing dissent: Stifling NGOs via FCRA Kabir Dixit (Advocate, Supreme Court of India) Mathew Cherian (Chairperson, Credibility Alliance) Chaired by Sanjay Parikh (Human Rights activist and Advocate, Supreme Court of India)
16.30 17.00	Tea/Coffee

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/insafnational-convention-on-crisis

A Three-Way Race Draws Delhi’s Young, and Everyone Else, Out to Vote

praskrishna — 2013-12-26T07:03:54Z

The polling stations were supposed to close at 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday, just after sunset. But with thousands still waiting in the dark to cast their vote in the state assembly elections, the Delhi Election Commission decided to extend the voting until 6:30 p.m. Then to 7:30 p.m.

The article by Betwa Sharma was published in the New York Times on December 4, 2013. Sunil Abraham is quoted.

Finally, the Election Commission said it would wait until 9:30 p.m. to close the polls. At the polling station in the New Delhi district, those waiting in line agreed that a relatively warm winter evening was helping to draw people out to vote.

Though no official data on voter turnout had been released by 9 p.m., it was clear that voters were coming out in unprecedented numbers for this year’s Delhi state elections. Analysts were predicting that this election would break the previous voter turnout record of 61.75 percent in 1993.

Unlike in the past, this year’s contest featured a potential spoiler in the Aam Aadmi, or Common Man, Party. Its leader, the firebrand anticorruption activist Arvind Kejriwal, was battling to dethrone the state’s longtime chief minister, Sheila Dikshit of the Congress Party, and siphon votes from the other establishment choice, the Bharatiya Janata Party, or B.J.P. (Exit polls by the local media on Wednesday night were showing that the B.J.P. was likely to win the most seats in the state assembly.)

The prospect of upending the political status quo brought out young voters like 23-year-old Hina Kousar, although she had to put up a fight with her family to cast her vote for the Aam Aadmi Party. Her mother lectured her on how governments don’t care about people, but that didn’t deter Ms. Kousar.

“They have the wrong mentality, and young people should change it,” she said. “My granny is 70 years old and I told her to vote.”

Many of the youthful voters turned voting into a social activity, both in person and online. At one polling station, most people cast their votes quietly and left, but many of the young voters came with their friends. They talked animatedly about their choices while leaving the polling stations.

Others called their families to say they had voted. Some clicked photos of each other on their smartphones and posted the images on their Facebook pages.

In less than a year, Mr. Kejriwal, 45, and his party has pasted itself quite literally on city’s consciousness with aggressive campaigns and posters of brooms, symbolizing sweeping away the old order. And that’s why he got Ms. Kousar’s vote.

“The most important thing is that he has promised to remove corruption. The money that is going into Swiss banks is our money. The rising market prices are because of it,” she said.

Several voters between the ages of 20 to 25 who were interviewed by India Ink said they were backing Mr. Kejriwal, who represented a change from the three-term winner Ms. Dikshit. The B.J.P. had no star state candidate that appealed to them, even though its prime ministerial candidate, Narendra Modi, engaged with students at Delhi University earlier this year and is extremely active on social media.

Besides corruption, several young voters, both male and female, said that ensuring women’s safety had to be a priority for any Delhi government.

Another Kejriwal voter, Kavita, a 27-year-old teacher who goes by one name, said that Ms. Dikshit’s government hadn’t effectively improved women’s safety after the gang rape of a physiotherapy student one year ago. “I don’t feel the difference,” she said. “I still feel unsafe on the streets, so let’s see what some new leaders can do to change this.”

Abhilash Sasidharan, 26, after he cast his vote at a polling booth in New Delhi on Wednesday.Betwa Sharma Abhilash Sasidharan, 26, after he cast his vote at a polling booth in New Delhi on Wednesday.

Another Kejriwal supporter, Abhilash Sasidharan, 27, said a safe environment for women is “absolutely” the most important thing to him, but the software engineer also was moved that Mr. Kejriwal had left his lucrative job as a revenue service officer to join politics.

Kavita, 27, after she cast her vote at a polling booth in New Delhi on Wednesday.

“I don’t have the courage to step into dirty politics, but he does and I want to support that,” he said. “Look, Congress has had 15 years, so why not see if someone can do better, and all these parties should feel a threat to do better.”

But not all young people are buying Mr. Kejriwal’s promises of sweeping change. Shiv Raj Syal, 20, called them “flowery and too good to believe,” as he cast his vote for Ms. Dikshit. “He is just very new at this and I don’t think it’s wise to hand over the running of a national capital to a party with no experience,” he said.

The chief minister had focused on development, the college student said, making Delhi a hub for foreign brands and corporates, and transforming it into an international city.

Abhilash Sasidharan, 26, after he cast his vote at a polling booth in New Delhi on Wednesday.

Despite the appearance of a robust youth presence at the polls on Wednesday, analysts are waiting on the Election Commission’s numbers before declaring this election cycle the year of the youth vote.

Sanjay Kumar, an election analyst from the Center for the Study of Developing Societies in Delhi, said that as of July, only 68 percent of eligible voters between the ages of 18 and 21 had registered to vote, far lower than the 86 percent average of other demographics.

V.S. Sampath, the chief election commissioner in India, said that youth participation in the electoral process had been a priority in recent years, and several efforts including visiting universities and colleges had been made to register them, which had resulted in a “significant increase.”

In 2011, Mr. Sampath said, 119,000 voters between the ages of 18 and 19 were on the electoral rolls in Delhi, which accounted for 0.93 percent of total Delhi voters, but now the numbers had gone up to 405,000, or 3.4 percent.

Election observers have also pointed out that the hype about social media, especially Twitter, becoming a tool for political expression and organization for the youth has not necessarily translated into a surge in voting in that demographic of users.

The political debates on social media could translate into votes by the next elections, according to Sunil Abraham from the Centere of Internet and Society in Bangalore, who describes the Internet penetration as “limited,” and social media use even smaller and dominated by the economic elite.

Mr. Abraham, however, said social media is influencing the political discourse, not by motivating voters, but by influencing the coverage in mainstream media.

Relative to the country’s population, he added, social media users had a “disproportionate influence on discourse.”

But the young voters who spoke to India Ink said that at least for them, social media did play a role in drawing them into politics this year. Mr. Syal, the Congress voter, for instance, said that he had posted a message on his Facebook wall criticizing some of Mr. Kejriwal’s claims, which drew 50 comments.

And Mr. Sasidharan, the Aam Aadmi Party supporter, posted on Facebook a photo of him holding up his finger stained with ink, showing that he voted, immediately after coming out of the polling station. “I hope that it inspires more people to come and vote,” he said.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/nytimes-december-4-2013-betwa-sharma-a-three-way-race-draws-delhis-young-and-everyone-else-out-to-vote

You Too Can Write on Wikipedia! — Training workshop

praskrishna — 2013-12-06T07:55:38Z

The Centre for Internet and Society's Access to Knowledge (CIS-A2K) team in collaboration with Andhra Pradesh Tourism Development Corporation and National Institute of Tourims and Hospitality Management is organizing a two-days training workshop (December 5-6, 2013) in Gachibowli, Hyderabad.

As you may know, Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia, and is the 5th most-visited website in the world! It's completely free to use and re-use, it has no advertising, and is available in more than 280 different languages - including 20+ Indian languages. Wikipedia articles are written by ordinary people who volunteer to share their knowledge with the world.

What will you gain from Wikipedia editing?

It improves writing skills. Wikipedia provides students/professionals/researchers a platform to hone their writing skills. Writing on Wikipedia enhances critical thinking and the ability to see all sides of a story. Students will find this incredibility useful in both their personal and professional lives while evaluating the pros and cons of different situations, projects, assignments etc. Wikipedia editing also strengthens research skills. A Wikipedia editor has to provide credible references by looking up books, journals and online materials. Writing on Wikipedia is a good practice for those who will also work on a thesis or a research project.

Your articles will be read by thousands of people across the globe. If you edit a Wikipedia article, it is there *forever* and the audience can be any number from the 500 million who read Wikipedia every month!

It'll boost your chances in admissions or scholarships or placements.

It teaches students how to collaborate! Editing Wikipedia is magical. You add some content and someone from some other part of the class or school or town or country or somewhere else in the world adds a little bit more and makes the contribution that much better. Wikipedia helps one learn how to work productively with other people, even those you don’t know and may never actually meet.

The workshop will cover the following:

What exactly is Wikipedia and how does it work?
Who edits Wikipedia?
How do I edit Wikipedia?
What can I edit?
How can I input text in Indian languages?
How do I insert images?
How do I find and add references?
Do’s and Don’ts

Schedule

December 5, 2013 (Day 1)

Timing	Activity
09.30 to 10.00 a.m.	Welcome and Introduction
10.00 to 11.15 a.m.	Building Knowledge Bases and Platforms via Mass Collaboration on the Internet
11.15 to 11.30 a.m.	Tea/Coffee Break
11.30 to 01.00 p.m.	Wikipedia demonstration + Basics of Wikipedia Editing (hands on activity)
01.00 to 02.00 p.m.	Lunch Break
02.00 to 02.15 p.m.	Energizer
02.15 to 03.45 p.m.	Basics of Wikipedia Editing (Hands on activity)
03.45 to 04.00 p.m.	Tea/Coffee Break
04.00 to 05.30 p.m.	NPOV on Wikipedia (Spectrogram activity)
05.30 to 05.45 p.m.	Look back on what has worked and what has not

December 6, 2013 (Day 2)

Timing	Activity
09.30 to 11.15 a.m.	Advanced Wikipedia Editing (Hands on activity)
11.15 to 11.30 a.m.	Tea/Coffee Break
11.30 to 01.00 p.m.	On Wiki activity
01.00 to 02.00 p.m.	Lunch Break
02.00 to 02.15 p.m.	Energizer
02.15 to 03.45 p.m.	Wikimedia projects and Tourism
03.45 to 04.00 p.m.	Tea/Coffee Break
04.00 to 05.30 p.m.	Group Activity – Wiki projects on Tourism
05.30 to 05.45 p.m.	Feedback and Closing session

For map of the venue: click this link: http://sh.st/r90j

For venue: click this link: http://sh.st/r889

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/events/you-too-can-write-on-wikipedia-2014-training-workshop

Access to Knowledge Bulletin — November 2013

praskrishna — 2014-02-25T13:41:04Z

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

CIS-A2K Narrative ReportThis narrative report captures the work done by the A2K program during the period of September 2012 to June 2013. It examines projects and activities and its impact and outcomes over a period of the initial Ten months of the Grant. This report will also inform CIS-A2K program’s strategy for the next one year to achieve the goals set out by its donor, Wikimedia Foundation, and goals listed in our Work Plans (which were developed in consultation with the Wikimedia community in India). Importantly, this Narrative Report is critical for the Wikimedia community in India, Global Wikimedia community and the Wikimedia Foundation to get a comprehensive overview of A2K’s work and to critically assess the A2K program’s eligibility for further support. The report compiled by by T. Vishnu Vardhan, Nitika Tandon and Subhashish Panigrahi can be accessed at http://bit.ly/1dFyjpO.
► Announcements

CIS Signs MoU with Christ University, Bangalore (November 20, 2013): The Access to Knowledge team signed a MoU as part of which CIS-A2K and Christ University will impart Wikipedia education in Indian classrooms: http://bit.ly/1ehr8kz.
We are happy to share with you that Rahmanuddin Shaik has been selected for the role of "Community Communications Consultant" at CIS-A2K! Rahmanuddin is an active contributor on Wikimedia Commons, Telugu Wikipedia and Telugu Wikisource: http://bit.ly/1bwrEu3.

►Articles

ಅಂತರ್ಜಾಲದಲ್ಲಿ ನೆಟ್ಟ ಸಸಿಗೆ ಈಗ ಹತ್ತು ವರ್ಷ (by Dr. U.B. Pavanaja, Kannada Prabha, November 1, 2013): http://bit.ly/17LOw4O. The article highlights 10 years of Kannada Wikipedia, the current status of the Kannada Wikipedia vis-a-vis number of articles, number of editors, active editors, and page views per month.
Train The Trainer Programme for Wikipedians (by Subhashish Panigrahi, DNA, November 14, 2013):http://bit.ly/ILwLMr. The article was edited by Rohini Lakshane of DNA.

►Blog Entries

Train the Trainer Program (by Subhashish Panigrahi, November 18, 2013): http://bit.ly/18hjw0n.
Konkani Vishwakosh Under CC-BY-SA (by Nitika Tandon, November 26, 2013): http://bit.ly/1gnVV2z.

► Events Organised

Wikipedia Orientation Programme for MA Students (Christ University, Bangalore, November 12, 2013): http://bit.ly/ItxAtu. Syed Muzammiluddin was the trainer. Twenty students participated.

Wikipedia Orientation Programme for the Second Language Students (Christ University, Bangalore, November 12, 13, 16 and 19, 2013): http://bit.ly/1bxsOYF. T. Vishnu Vardhan, Syed Muzammiluddin and Dr. U.B.Pavanaja were the trainers. About 1200 second language students participated in the programme.
Documentation and Wikipedia Contribution — A One Day Workshop (Kalinga Institute of Social Studies, Bhubaneswar, November 14, 2013). The workshop was conducted by Subhashish Panigrahi: http://bit.ly/1fSvl1v.
Documentation and Wikipedia Workshop (Kalinga School of Management, Bhubaneswar, November 16, 2013): http://bit.ly/Imf0DV. Subhashish Panigrahi conducted the workshop.
Konknni Wikipedia Workshop (organised by Dalgado Konknni Akademi and CIS-A2K, Goa Central State Library, November 16 and 17, 2013): http://bit.ly/1fSwiH5.
Tenth Anniversary of Wikipedia (H N Multimedia Hall, National College, Basavanagudi, Bangalore, November 17, 2013): http://bit.ly/1eJ6da9. Dr. U R Ananthamurthy, Prof. G. Venkatasubbiah and Ravi Hegde were the guests of honour. Dr. U.B. Pavanaja conducted the workshop.
First Phase of Odia Wikipedia Workshop (Indian Institute of Mass Communication, Bhubaneswar, November 18, 2013): http://bit.ly/18doDer. Subhashish Panigrahi conducted the workshop.
Konkani Wikipedia Workshop (Nirmala Institute of Education, Goa, November 19, 2013): http://bit.ly/1fSAUwT. Nitika Tandon conducted the event.
Konkani Vishwakosh: Doubt Solving Session I (Goa Central State Library, November 26, 2013): http://bit.ly/1gnVV2z. Nitika Tandon conducted the session.
Konkani Vishwakosh: Doubt Solving Session II (Goa Central State Library, November 28, 2013): http://bit.ly/1gnVV2z. Nitika Tandon conducted the session.
Editing Sprint for Vishwakosh (Goa Central, State Library, November 30, 2013): http://bit.ly/1gnVV2z. Nitika Tandon conducted the event.

► Event Co-organised

The Relaunch of Creative Commons India (co-organised by Wikimedia India, Acharya Narendra Dev College and CIS, India Islamic Cultural Centre, November 12, 2013): http://bit.ly/HPxrAO. Dr. Shashi Tharoor, Minister of State for Human Resource Development was the chief guest at the event.

► Event Participated In

Wikimedia Diversity Conference (organized by German Wikipedia Community, GLS Campus, Berlin): http://bit.ly/Ixr9W8. T. Vishnu Vardhan was a speaker at this event and made a presentation on the challenges and opportunities for the Wikimedia movement in India.

► Media Coverage CIS gave its inputs for the following media coverage:

Kannada Wikipedia and its Tenth Anniversary (RadioCity, November 2, 2013): http://bit.ly/1dHEwBI.
Indian Govt to Build Machine Translation System for 22 Indic Languages (by Brindaalakshmi, Medianama, November 14, 2013): http://bit.ly/J4qg7V. CIS MoU with Goa University is mentioned.
10th anniversary of Kannada wikipedia (by ND Shiva Kumar, The Times of India, November 15, 2013): http://bit.ly/IxqDr7.
Tenth Anniversary of Kannada Wikipedia (Udayavani, November 15, 2013): http://bit.ly/1aFwqF1.
ಕನ್ನಡ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯಕ್ಕೆ ಈಗ ದಶಮಾನೋತ್ಸವ. ಅದರ ಪ್ರಯುಕ್ತ ಒಂದು ಆಚರಣೆ (Avadhi Website, November 16, 2013): http://bit.ly/ImiBSy.
ಕನ್ನಡ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯಗೆ 10, ಬೆಳವಣಿಗೆ ಸಾಲದು: ಪ್ರೊ .ಜಿವಿ (OneindiaKannada, November 17, 2013): http://bit.ly/19blS17.
Tenth Anniversary of Kannada Wikipedia (Vijayavani, November 17, 2013): http://bit.ly/1b7exSa.
ಕನ್ನಡ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯಕ್ಕೆ ದಶಮಾನೋತ್ಸವ ಸಂಭ್ರಮ (Prajavani, November 18, 2013): http://bit.ly/1hWtt9v.
ಕನ್ನಡದ ಆನ್‌ಲೈನ್ ವಿಶ್ವಕೋಶ ದುರ್ಬಲ (Vijaya Karnataka, November 19, 2013): http://bit.ly/1hWtsCy.
Panaji: DKA organizes two day Konkani Wikipedia workshop (Daijiworld, November 18, 2013): http://bit.ly/1inoi03.

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 Muzammiluddin Syed, one member Nitika Tandon in Delhi and one Advisor Dr. Tejaswini Niranjana. Archives of our newsletters can be accessed here (http://cis-india.org/about/newsletters). Wikipedians from various communities can request for outreach programs, technical bugs, logistics-merchandize and media, public relations and communications at http://bit.ly/TOcXId.

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

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, at sunil@cis-india.org or Nishant Shah, Director – Research, at nishant@cis-india.org. To discuss collaborations on Indic language wikipedia, write to T. Vishnu Vardhan, Programme Director, A2K, at vishnu@cis-india.org

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

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

When the virtual world wakes up the real one

praskrishna — 2013-11-30T09:35:06Z

The unprecedented wave of voices speaking up against sexual harassment in recent times has as much to do with technology as the determination to seek justice. From Twitter to Tumblr, and blogs to pastebin, the internet's anonymity, reach and speed allow small, personal stories of abuse to swell into big stories.

The article by Malini Nair was published in the Times of India on November 24. Nishant Shah is quoted.

The outrage over the Tehelka case started with a post on pastebin, an anonymous document sharing site, on Wednesday evening. It contained the email managing editor Shoma Chaudhury had sent to the Tehelka staff with editor Tarun Tejpal's "atonement" letter appended below. A few hours later, the story had ballooned into a heated debate, and the outpouring forced what was being dismissed as an "internal matter" to be treated as a criminal case.

The two women who recently spoke up against harassment at the hands of a retired Supreme Court judge also used Facebook and the blogosphere to tell their stories, ensuring that the real world was actually moved into taking action. "The social web's biggest comfort is that we are no longer alone," says Nishant Shah, director, Research at the Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore. "No matter what has happened to us, it has happened to somebody else. The possibility of finding credulous and empathetic audiences who but share our pain, understand it, and respond to it is unprecedented." Retweets and comments have often been described as the digital equivalent of holding hands.

Shah's pick of web campaigns that highlighted the problems include Blank Noise which calls women to talk of small, everyday stories of harassment, the Pink Chaddi drive and Why We Need Feminism, a web venture across American universities.

The other reason why the net encourages victims of abuse who might otherwise have stayed quiet to speak out is its "pseudonymity", as Shah terms it. In societies where there is shame attached to talking about sexual assault, the online space saves women from having to put themselves out in the "physical space" while ensuring that the perpetrator is exposed, he points out.

A plus for social web is that it gets other victims to speak up as well, gathering force and magnitude in the process. This happened in the instance of the legal interns. Another instance that surfaced just a month ago was of two American women science bloggers Danielle Lee and Monica Byrne. When Lee refused to write a piece for free for Biology Online, she was called "urban whore" by an enraged editor. She blogged about it and the ensuing storm over social media got her huge support. After Lee's expose, Byrne blogged about an acutely sexual conversation a powerful science writer inflicted on her. The outrage this provoked abated only after he made amends.

As an article in Gender and Culture blog project puts it: "( The digital world provided) a forum for these victims to document their abuse, and a courtroom where the abusers have been judged and found guilty by public opinion".

Of course there are problems with the internet's version of justice — it tends to play judge, jury and executioner with giddy recklessness. In the Tehelka case, the first questionable moment came when the survivor's email was tweeted and re-tweeted with no concern for her requests for anonymity. "The problem with Twitter and Facebook is the incredible and gross violations of privacy of the survivor. And otherwise responsible adults join lynch mobs calling either the survivor or the accused names, making ridiculous allegations, desperately looking for an easy narrative to hang everything on," says author Nisha Susan, who led the Pink Chaddi campaign.

Commentator Santosh Desai says that it is tough to choose between an unbridled but powerful social web and one that is cautious and governed by norms. "Earlier, there were receivers and broadcasters who were few and governed by licenses and a code of behaviour. Now everyone is a broadcaster, everyone is a circulator and everyone is an aggregator. Having no oversight here could be problematic," he says.

Susan says communities need to go beyond social media in such situations. "It should also be a time for us to reflect. On what we would do in such a situation, how we could perhaps prevent it, on the sense of entitlement powerful men have all over the world, on the awful pressures young women face. We should all be reflecting. Instead we are just re-tweeting."

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/the-times-of-india-malini-nair-november-24-2013-when-the-virtual-world-wakes-up-the-real-one

Chances and Risks of Social Participation

praskrishna — 2013-11-30T09:13:59Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/chances-risks-social-participation.pdf

November 2013 Bulletin

praskrishna — 2014-01-04T04:38:08Z

Our newsletter for the month of November 2013 can be accessed below.

The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) welcomes you to the eleventh issue of its newsletter (November) for the year 2013:

Highlights

CIS is pleased to announce the second "Institute on Internet and Society" to be held in Yashada, Pune from February 11 to 17, 2014. Any members from the civil society (students, research scholars, academicians, scientists, legal professionals, etc.) who engage in issues concerning Internet and Society are encouraged to apply.
The National Resource Kit team is pleased to bring you its research for the states of Tripura, Nagaland and Chattisgarh.
CIS-A2K team signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Christ University in Bangalore to introduce Wikipedia in classrooms.
The Access to Knowledge narrative report capturing the work done by CIS-A2K team in the first ten months of the grant along with its strategy for the next 1 year is published.
Last month we organised the Seventh Privacy Round-table in collaboration with FICCI, DSCI, and Privacy International in Delhi. The developments are captured in a report by Elonnai Hickok.
Along with Wikimedia India and Acharya Narendra Dev College, we organised the Relaunch of Creative Commons in India. Dr. Shashi Tharoor was the chief guest.

Accessibility and Inclusion

As part of our project (under a grant from the Hans Foundation) on creating a national resource kit of state-wise laws, policies and programmes on issues relating to persons with disabilities in India, we bring you draft chapters for the states of Madhya Pradesh and Arunachal Pradesh, and the union territory of Daman and Diu. With this we have completed compilation of draft chapters for 27 states and 5 union territories. Feedback and comments are invited from readers for the following chapters:

► National Resource Kit Chapter

The Tripura Chapter (by CLPR, November 13, 2013): http://bit.ly/1bCFPwq.
The Nagaland Chapter (by CLPR, November 13, 2013): http://bit.ly/1cmKzq0.
The Chattisgarh Chapter (by Anandhi Viswanathan, November 30, 2013): http://bit.ly/1cSczSt.

Note: All of these are early drafts and will be reviewed and updated.

► Other Accessibility Update

# Events Participated In

E-Accessibility Workshop 2013 (organised by Directorate of Information Technology, Government of Maharashtra, Mahaonline Limited and National Internet Exchange of India, November 19-20, 2013): http://bit.ly/1cQ0wd8. CIS was one of the trainer organisations for the event.
National Conference on Harnessing Technology for the Empowerment for Persons with Visual Impairments (organized by NAB Centre for Blind Women & Disability Studies, Indian Islamic Cultural Centre, New Delhi, November 19, 2013). Dr. Nirmita Narasimhan participated as a speaker: http://bit.ly/IzLOty.

Access to Knowledge

The Access to Knowledge programme addresses the harms caused to consumers and human rights, and critically examines Open Government Data, Open Access to Scholarly Literature, and Open Access to Law, Open Content, Open Standards, and Free/Libre/Open Source Software.

The following has been done under grant from the Wikimedia Foundation (http://bit.ly/SPqFOl). As part this project (http://bit.ly/X80ELd), we held 8 workshops, signed a MoU with Christ University for teaching Wikipedia to students, published a detailed narrative report of activities done during the initial period of the Wikimedia grant.

►Wikipedia

# Articles

ಅಂತರ್ಜಾಲದಲ್ಲಿ ನೆಟ್ಟ ಸಸಿಗೆ ಈಗ ಹತ್ತು ವರ್ಷ (by Dr. U.B. Pavanaja, Kannada Prabha, November 1, 2013): http://bit.ly/17LOw4O. The article highlights 10 years of Kannada Wikipedia, the current status of the Kannada Wikipedia vis-a-vis number of articles, number of editors, active editors, and page views per month.
Train The Trainer Programme for Wikipedians (by Subhashish Panigrahi, DNA, November 14, 2013): http://bit.ly/1ehr8kz. The article was edited by Rohini Lakshane of DNA.

# Announcement

CIS Signs MoU with Christ University, Bangalore (November 20, 2013): The Access to Knowledge team signed a MoU as part of which CIS-A2K and Christ University will impart Wikipedia education in Indian classrooms: http://bit.ly/1ehr8kz.

# Report

CIS-A2K Narrative Report (September 2012 – June 2013) (by T. Vishnu Vardhan, Nitika Tandon and Subhashish Panigrahi, November 29, 2013): http://bit.ly/1dFyjpO. The report throws some light on the CIS-A2K program strategy in the next one year.

# Blog Entries

Note: A couple of the below blog entries were carried in the Access to Knowledge newsletter last month.

Konkani Vishwakosh Digitization Project (by Nitika Tandon, November 13, 2013): http://bit.ly/1dodyuK.
Konkani Vishwakosh Under CC-BY-SA (by Nitika Tandon, November 13, 2013): http://bit.ly/1cm9wBH.
Train the Trainer Program (by Subhashish Panigrahi, November 18, 2013): http://bit.ly/18hjw0n.

# Event Co-organised

The Relaunch of Creative Commons India (co-organised by Wikimedia India, Acharya Narendra Dev College and CIS, India Islamic Cultural Centre, November 12, 2013): http://bit.ly/HPxrAO. Dr. Shashi Tharoor, Minister of State for Human Resource Development was the chief guest at the event.

# Events Organised

Wikipedia Orientation Programme for MA Students (Christ University, Bangalore, November 12, 2013): http://bit.ly/ItxAtu. Syed Muzammiluddin was the trainer. Twenty students participated.
Wikipedia Orientation Programme for the Second Language Students (Christ University, Bangalore, November 12, 13, 16 and 19, 2013): http://bit.ly/1bxsOYF. T. Vishnu Vardhan, Syed Muzammiluddin and Dr. U.B.Pavanaja were the trainers. About 1200 second language students participated in the programme.
Documentation and Wikipedia Contribution — A One Day Workshop (Kalinga Institute of Social Studies, Bhubaneswar, November 14, 2013). The workshop was conducted by Subhashish Panigrahi: http://bit.ly/1fSvl1v.
Documentation and Wikipedia Workshop (Kalinga School of Management, Bhubaneswar, November 16, 2013): http://bit.ly/Imf0DV. Subhashish Panigrahi conducted the workshop.
Konknni Wikipedia Workshop (organised by Dalgado Konknni Akademi and CIS-A2K, Goa Central State Library, November 16 and 17, 2013): http://bit.ly/1fSwiH5.
Tenth Anniversary of Wikipedia (H N Multimedia Hall, National College, Basavanagudi, Bangalore, November 17, 2013): http://bit.ly/1eJ6da9. Dr. U R Ananthamurthy, Prof. G. Venkatasubbiah and Ravi Hegde were the guests of honour. Dr. U.B. Pavanaja conducted the workshop.
First Phase of Odia Wikipedia Workshop (Indian Institute of Mass Communication, Bhubaneswar, November 18, 2013): http://bit.ly/18doDer. Subhashish Panigrahi conducted the workshop.
Konkani Wikipedia Workshop (Nirmala Institute of Education, Goa, November 19, 2013): http://bit.ly/1fSAUwT. Nitika Tandon conducted the event.

# Event Participated In

Wikimedia Diversity Conference (organized by German Wikipedia Community, GLS Campus, Berlin): http://bit.ly/Ixr9W8.

# Media Coverage

CIS gave its inputs for the following media coverage:

Kannada Wikipedia and its Tenth Anniversary (RadioCity, November 2, 2013): http://bit.ly/1dHEwBI.
10th anniversary of Kannada wikipedia (The Times of India, November 15, 2013): http://bit.ly/IxqDr7.
Tenth Anniversary of Kannada Wikipedia (Udayavani, November 15, 2013): http://bit.ly/1aFwqF1.
ಕನ್ನಡ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯಕ್ಕೆ ಈಗ ದಶಮಾನೋತ್ಸವ. ಅದರ ಪ್ರಯುಕ್ತ ಒಂದು ಆಚರಣೆ (Avadhi Website, November 16, 2013): http://bit.ly/ImiBSy.
ಕನ್ನಡ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯಗೆ 10, ಬೆಳವಣಿಗೆ ಸಾಲದು : ಪ್ರೊ .ಜಿವಿ (OneindiaKannada, November 17, 2013): http://bit.ly/1fSAUwT.
Tenth Anniversary of Kannada Wikipedia (Vijayavani, November 17, 2013): http://bit.ly/1b7exSa.
ಕನ್ನಡ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯಕ್ಕೆ ದಶಮಾನೋತ್ಸವ ಸಂಭ್ರಮ (Prajavani, November 18, 2013): http://bit.ly/1hWtt9v.
ಕನ್ನಡದ ಆನ್‌ಲೈನ್ ವಿಶ್ವಕೋಶ ದುರ್ಬಲ (Vijaya Karnataka, November 19, 2013): http://bit.ly/1hWtsCy.
Panaji: DKA organizes two day Konkani Wikipedia workshop (Daijiworld, November 18, 2013): http://bit.ly/1inoi03.

Note: The following are not a part of the Wikimedia Grant:

► Other

# Blog Entries

History of Creative Commons in India (by Priyank Dwivedi, November 13, 2013): http://bit.ly/17txcH7.
How Can We Make Open Education Truly Open? (by Dr. Nishant Shah, DML Central, November 22, 2013): http://bit.ly/1ezsAyj.

# Events Participated In

Conference on e-Governance for India: Opportunities, Challenges and Policy Alternatives (organised by OECD Korea Policy Centre in partnership with the Centre for Good Governance, Hyderabad, November 6-7, 2013): http://bit.ly/1cGP13c. Sunil Abraham was a panelist in the session on OECD Principles on eGovernment and their applicability to the developing world and India.
Indo-European Conference on the Role of the Patent System in Fostering Innovation and Technology Transfer (organized by European Patent Office, FICCI and European Business & Technology Centre, November 29, 2013, New Delhi). Nehaa Chaudhari participated in this conference.

Internet Governance

CIS is doing a project (under a grant from Privacy International and International Development Research Centre (IDRC)) on conducting research on surveillance and freedom of expression (SAFEGUARDS). So far we have organised seven privacy round-tables and drafted the Privacy (Protection) Bill. This month we bring you a report from the seventh privacy round-table held in Delhi, and an analysis on why Facebook is more dangerous than government spying. As part of its project (funded by Citizen Lab, Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto and support from the IDRC) on mapping cyber security actors in South Asia and South East Asia we did an interview with Namita A Malhotra, a researcher and lawyer from Alternative Law Forum. With this we have completed a total of 12 video interviews:

►Privacy

# Event Report

Seventh Privacy Round-table (organised by FICCI, DSCI, Privacy International and CIS, October 19, 2013): http://bit.ly/187pFOO. The report was published in the month of November.

# Newspaper Columns

Open Secrets (by Nishant Shah, Indian Express, October 27, 2013): http://bit.ly/1b5uvK0.
I Just Pinged to Say Hello (by Nishant Shah, Indian Express, November 24, 2013): http://bit.ly/183H34t.

# Blog Entries

An Interview with Caspar Bowden (by Maria Xynou, November 6, 2013): http://bit.ly/17LQqFX.
India's Response to WGEC Questionnaire (by Snehashish Ghosh, November 13, 2013): http://bit.ly/HX0r96.
Why 'Facebook' is More Dangerous than the Government Spying on You (by Maria Xynou, November 19, 2013): http://bit.ly/HWLFzi.
CIS Supports the UN Resolution on “The Right to Privacy in the Digital age” (by Elonnai Hickok, November 30, 2013): http://bit.ly/1c2A89q.

# Events Organised

IDEX Impact Assessment Workshop (organised by IDEX, CIS, Bangalore, November 16, 2013): http://bit.ly/1bxRfFm.
The Evolving Cyber Threat and How to Address It (CIS, Bangalore, November 22, 2013): http://bit.ly/1cEkUZY.
Panel on Privacy, Surveillance & the UID in the post-Snowden era (Institution of Agricultural Technologists, Bangalore, November 30, 2013): http://bit.ly/1ctSHW3.

# Events Participated In

Chances and Risks of Social Participation (organised by Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society and Friedrich Ebert Foundation, Berlin, November 22, 2013). Dr. Nishant Shah gave the keynote: http://bit.ly/18PcMXN.
Expert Committee Meeting on Human DNA Profiling Bill (organised by the Ministry of Science & Technology, Government of India, New Delhi). Sunil Abraham participated in the meeting: http://bit.ly/19CpDbD.

# Upcoming Event

Big Democracy: Big Surveillance - A Talk by Maria Xynou (CIS, Bangalore, December 3, 2013): http://bit.ly/1j4mzgu.

► Cyber Security

Laird Brown, a strategic planner and writer with core competencies on brand analysis, public relations and resource management and Purba Sarkar who in the past worked as a strategic advisor in the field of SAP Retail are working in this project:

# Video Interview

Part 12: An Interview with Namita A. Malhotra (November 15, 2013): http://bit.ly/1j8MCjN.

# Documentary Film

First Look: Cyber Security Film (by Purba Sarkar, November 18, 2013): http://bit.ly/1alHhVu. The trailer was presented by Laird Brown recently at the IGF.

# Upcoming Event

DesiSec: Episode 1 - Film Release and Screening (December 11, 2013): Screening of the first documentary film on cyber security in India.

News & Media Coverage

CIS gave its inputs to the following media coverage:

EC guidelines on social media: Welcome move, but not enough (by Shruti Dhapola, FirstPost, November 1, 2013): http://bit.ly/1c3fNkt.
NSA leaks helping India become 'Big Brother' state? (British Broadcasting Corporation, November 1, 2013): http://bit.ly/1b7ftDG.
Spy agencies, IB and RAW, put spanner in proposed privacy law (by Nagender Sharma and Aloke Tikku, Hindustan Times, November 2, 2013): http://bit.ly/1aox4HP.
India must support UN's e-snooping move: Human rights activists (by Indu Nandakumar, Economic Times, November 11, 2013): http://bit.ly/18LrI5s.
Social media promotions can backfire, too (by Ratna Bhushan and Varuni Khosla, The Times of India, November 11, 2013): http://bit.ly/1gMj7rg.
YouTube is the answer to what has changed in India (by Moulishree Srivastava, Livemint, November 20, 2013): http://bit.ly/1fg214A.
When the virtual world wakes up the real one (by Malini Nair, November 24, 2013): http://bit.ly/1hovyd3.

Digital Natives

CIS is doing a research project titled “Making Change”. The project will explore new ways of defining, locating, and understanding change in network societies. Having the thought piece 'Whose Change is it Anyway' as an entry point for discussion and reflection, the project will feature profiles, interviews and responses of change-makers to questions around current mechanisms and practices of change in South Asia and South East Asia.:

► Making Change

# Blog Entries

Methods to Conceive and Condense Social Change (by Denisse Albornoz, November 30, 2013): http://bit.ly/1ezrBhw.
Blank Noise and the Active Citizen Dissonance (by Denisse Albornoz, November 30, 2013): http://bit.ly/IwOHu9.

► Other

# Blog Entry

Digitally Enhanced Civil Resistance (by Denisse Albornoz, November 20, 2013): http://bit.ly/18ndc7p.

Telecom

Shyam Ponappa, a Distinguished Fellow at CIS is a regular columnist with the Business Standard. The articles published on his blog Organizing India Blogspot is mirrored on our website:

► Newspaper Column

Predictability in Infrastructure (by Shyam Ponappa, Business Standard, November 6, 2013 and Observer India Blogspot, November 10, 2013): http://bit.ly/1dLZ0Fp.

Knowledge Repository on Internet Access

CIS in partnership with the Ford Foundation is executing a project to create a knowledge repository on Internet and society. This repository will comprise content targeted primarily at civil society with a view to enabling their informed participation in the Indian Internet and ICT policy space. The repository is available at the Internet Institute website: http://bit.ly/1iQT2UB.

►Upcoming Event

Institute on Internet and Society (organised by Ford Foundation and CIS, Yashada, Pune, February 11-17, 2014): http://bit.ly/180mQi9. The application form is available at http://internet-institute.in/form. Registrations close on December 15, 2013.

► Modules

Internet Engineering Task Force (by Anirudh Sridhar, November 30, 2013). The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) is an open standards body with no requirements for membership and does not have a formal membership process either: http://bit.ly/1c4aOQr.
World Summit on Information Society (WSIS) (by Anirudh Sridhar, November 30, 2013). The World Summit on Information Society was first proposed by the International Telecommunication Union in 1998. The main focus of the WSIS was to address issues related to the global digital divide. However, the scope of the WSIS was broadened later to include internet related public policy issues: http://bit.ly/186dbnV.

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:

► Event Participated In

From Seemingly Transparent to Definitely Opaque (organised by University of St. Gallen, Switzerland, November 4-7, 2013): http://bit.ly/19b6IW1. Nishant Shah taught this course and also presented on a panel on 'Secrets of Digital Culture'.

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, at sunil@cis-india.org or Nishant Shah, Director – Research, at nishant@cis-india.org. To discuss collaborations on Indic language wikipedia, write to T. Vishnu Vardhan, Programme Director, A2K, at vishnu@cis-india.org.

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

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/about/newsletters/november-2013-bulletin

Election Commission to monitor conduct of political parties on Facebook, Twitter and Google

praskrishna — 2013-12-30T07:02:06Z

With Congress and BJP hammering away at each other in the ongoing assembly contests that will set the stage for national polls next year, the Election Commission wants to make sure social media and online platforms run by Google, Facebook and Twitter are not used to breach the code of conduct that governs candidates and parties. The commission's key concerns relate to malicious content and exceeding the campaign expense limit.

The article by Ajmer Singh was published in the Economic Times on November 25, 2013. Sunil Abraham is quoted.

The Election Commission, which summoned the social media companies to a meeting last Monday, directed them to cooperate in monitoring content. They were asked to set up a mechanism that would help prevent posting of material that could vitiate the election atmosphere, according to Election Commission officials who are aware of the development and didn't want to be named. If such content is posted, the mechanism should also allow for its speedy removal, they said.

"It is difficult to monitor and track content on social media or Internet sites, since the servers are based out of the US," said one of the officials cited above. "EC has asked social media giants to cooperate for compliance with the code of conduct, pre-certification of advertisement on the web and monitoring malicious content."

The companies declined to comment and referred ET to the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) for a response. "It was a sensitising meeting on the code of conduct with some legal and corporate affairs representatives of Internet firms which are members of IAMAI," said Subho Roy, president of the grouping.

"The Election Commission representatives explained to us the model code of conduct, its importance during the last 48 hours of the election, the pre-certified advertisements and why they were important in accounting of the candidate's expenses. They also wanted to understand from us what are the current methods of removing illegal content from websites under existing laws. The Election Commission also assured us that at no point there would be any attempt to censor social media," said Subho Roy, IAMAI president and one of those present at the November 18 meeting.

The commission has classified social media into five types - collaborative projects such as Wikipedia; blogs and micro blogs such as Twitter; content communities such as Google-owned YouTube; social networking sites such as Facebook; and games and apps.

"We have received many complaints about misuse of social media platforms, and it is becoming unmanageable. So all these sites shall now be strictly monitored and asked to comply with EC's instructions," an official said.

According to Election Commission guidelines, "Legal provisions relating to election campaigning apply to social media in the same manner in which they apply to any other form of election campaigning using any other media."

The social media companies will also need to make sure that any advertising they carry conforms to the rules.

An official said social media companies have been asked to "keep an eye on any breach of model code of conduct, in respect of any party or candidate who posts hate messages or creates hatred or tension between different castes, communities, religions, etc. The social media giants have been directed to ensure pre-certification of advertisement on web/social media (clearance of political advertisement by a committee before being displayed in social media/web by any registered party or by any group or association)".

An executive at one of the companies said it would be difficult to keep a check on what was being posted as this may count as a breach of privacy, besides being impinging on other rules.
"It is a highly contentious issue and (it's) impossible to monitor malicious content," said this person who didn't want to be named. "The diktat issued by EC can't be implemented since it overrides the Information Technology Act. We all comply with the IT Act, and the model code of conduct is not for us but for political parties and candidates."

A privacy advocate pointed out the difficulties that the social media companies may face when it comes to implementing the Election Commission guidelines.

"This is what we call proactive censorship or proactive monitoring and may interfere with the intermediary's immunity from liability, when they have no actual knowledge of content. It may be in conflict with provisions of the IT Act (Section 79) and could have serious privacy implications," said Sunil Abraham of the Centre for Internet Society, and an expert on privacy laws. "Pre-censorship is required by Indian law and courts only for cinema that is exhibited in theatres. In the case of books, this type of censorship has been held to be unconstitutional. This case is worse because it is private pre-censorship of user-generated content that is not subject to judicial review."

The Election Commission had, on October 25, asked candidates to provide information about social media accounts and expenditure on online campaigns. It had clarified that the provisions of the code of conduct would apply to the Internet, including social media websites.

A Congress member said social media accounts would be difficult to police as these may be in the name of individuals and have no direct links to parties or candidates.

"The biggest problem is that candidates or political parties may not be operating their Twitter handles or posting advertisements on Facebook or the web, but (through) an unknown Internet army, which builds up a social media campaign and posts hate messages," the person said. A senior Congress MP, who didn't want to be named, suggested that such efforts were extensive on behalf of BJP prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi, the chief minister of Gujarat.

"More than 90% of Twitter traffic is emanating from Rajkot, Ahmedabad and Baroda, all in Gujarat," this person said. "Who are these people, campaigning and managing an obnoxious campaign?"

BJP denied that its Internet campaigns were in violation of any Election Commission guidelines.
"There is no truth in these allegations and Congress has little understanding of this," said Arvind Gupta, who heads BJP's IT cell. "Narendra Modi has a pan-India presence and is a popular leader, they are just jealous of him. We have a social media cell, which acts responsibly and complies with guidelines."

Election Commission officials said social media companies have been asked to resolve issues related to malicious content and provide details of serious infringements. The ministry of communications and information technology has also been asked to suggest ways of tackling the matter.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/economic-times-november-25-2013-ajmer-singh-election-commission-to-monitor-conduct-of-political-parties-on-facebook-twitter-google