Centre for Internet and Society

Google Graph

praskrishna — 2014-02-13T02:58:56Z

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Google brings tabs to sneak advertisements into your inbox

praskrishna — 2013-07-30T11:05:34Z

The shift away from desktop browsing to mobile web has put the squeeze on Google's advertising revenues from traditional payper-click . But the tech giant is trying to set things right by sneaking ads into the user's inbox.

This article by Indu Nandakumar was published in the Economic Times on July 30, 2013. Sunil Abraham is quoted.

The latest example involves the introduction of tabs in Google-owned popular email service Gmail. Google places both emails as well as advertisements under a promotions tab in the inbox and users find it difficult to distinguish between the two.

Industry observers said this tactic, which has already become the talk of the ad industry, signals Google's renewed attempt at tackling what has been considered the company's biggest weakness: slowing ad sales from desktops.

"Google earnings show that its clickrates have gone down over the past two quarters, so this is possibly a great way to catch-up and place ads right in front of its users to increase sales," said Prasanth Mohanachandran, founder and chief executive of AgencyDigi, a Mumbai-based digital communications agency.

In an emailed response, Google said the new ads replace the ones that were earlier shown on top under the old design. Last week, the Mountain View, California-based Google reported second-quarter earnings that fell short of analyst estimates mainly due to slowness in desktop search and a fall in ad prices. With over 90% of its revenues coming from advertisements, getting people to click on them is crucial for Google.

Over the past few quarters, companies like Facebook and Google have been trying to improve their mobile advertising revenues as more users access web services on smartphones. On Wednesday, rival internet firm Facebook said mobile ads generated 41% of its revenue last quarter, up from 14% from last year.

Internet privacy experts said the decision to place advertisements that are disguised as emails is a "sneaky way of getting more users to click on ads" as Google tries to mitigate the effects of slowing ad sales on desktops. "Users would often mistake these advertisements for actual emails.

May be that's the cost of using a free product ," said Sunil Abraham, executive director of Bangalore-based research firm Centre for Internet and Society. "Previously, ads used to look like ads. Of late, Google has been trying to mix ads with content and that's where the privacy angle comes into play," he added.

A Google spokesman said these ads aren't exactly the same as emails because they don't take up inbox storage. "The new ads act like the old normal inbox ads. When people click the ads, they will either be directed to an advertiser's landing page or the ad will expand within Gmail," the company said in an emailed response.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/economic-times-july-30-2013-indu-nandakumar-google-brings-tabs-to-sneak-advertisements-into-your-inbox

Google and Facebook

praskrishna — 2015-11-30T13:09:03Z

Google and Facebook

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Google aims to win 40% of India with Android One

praskrishna — 2014-09-12T05:50:23Z

When Google launches its low-cost Android One devices next Monday, Indian users will be able to give voice commands, type messages and use almost all major mobile applications in Hindi.

The article by Varun Aggarwal was published in the Economic Times on September 11, 2014. Sunil Abraham gave his inputs.

This is because the California, US based internet giant is hoping that the devices, which have been tailor-made for emerging markets, will help it capture the non-English speaking user base in the country.

Over 40 per cent of the population in India lists Hindi as its first language. Android One will come bundled with local language support and users will not have to download any external application to access their smartphone in Hindi, a person with knowledge of the development told ET.

"Google has been constantly working on developing more salience around Indic computing, providing regional language support to users for its various products and services," a Google spokesman said in an email. Internet users in India could increase by nearly a fourth if local language content is provided, according to a 2014 report from Internet and Mobile Association of India and IMRB International.

In rural India, 43 per cent said they would adopt the Internet if they had content in their local language. Local language consumption growth is estimated to be more than four times that of English, according to Google. The company is trying to take a lead over its competitors by taking advantage of this trend.

Google is working to create more Hindi content online through local partnerships and is expected to launch more products keeping the Indic audience in mind.

"So far different vendors were offering different ingredients of the Indian language meal and users were expected to cook it themselves," said Venkatesh Hariharan, founder of Alchemy Business Solutions, a company which works on Indic computing and technology for development.

"If Google offers a comprehensive experience that works out-of-the-box in Indian languages that could attract millions of new users." Indic computing has so far been limited to enthusiasts who had to download a keyboard from one site, a local language dictionary from another and fonts from a third.

"If we really want widespread adoption, then using a mobile phone in Indian languages should be as easy as using it in English," Hariharan said. This is what Google hopes to achieve by introducing devices in partnership with Indian handset makers Micromax, Spice and Karbonn, which will launch the Android One devices for Rs 5,000 to Rs 7,000 next week.

The availability of such devices will also help internet companies such as Facebook and Yahoo promote their products in Indian languages. Facebook currently supports 13 Indian languages. "We are focused on enabling all major Indic languages and on actively promoting them on various platforms," a Facebook spokesperson said.

On the other hand, Yahoo shifted its multilingual support from websites to only mobile apps. For instance, the Yahoo Mail mobile app supports eight Indian languages.

"We can confirm we recently closed down the Indian language sites to better focus on our core offerings," a Yahoo representative said. While experts welcomed Google's push towards Hindi, some want the technologies to be open source.

"Now you'll have some people who will specialise on building Indic computing tools on Google and others doing the same on some other platform," said Sunil Abraham, executive director of Bangalore based research organisation, The Centre for Internet and Society. "At least Google, which seems to have understood and taken advantage of free software, should give back to the free software movement."

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/the-economic-times-varun-aggarwal-september-11-2014-google-aims-to-win-india-with-android-one

Google 380

praskrishna — 2011-11-03T10:23:43Z

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Google

praskrishna — 2018-05-29T15:18:44Z

Google

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Good Practices Handbook

praskrishna — 2011-11-23T09:06:19Z

This current good practices guide is part of the “Free Access to Law – Is it Here to Stay?” research project launched in 2009.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/good-practices.pdf

Good Practices Handbook

praskrishna — 2012-06-21T09:21:07Z

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Gone in a flash

praskrishna — 2011-04-20T04:58:48Z

Net-savvy crowds gather in public places for moments of wacky fun, then vanish. This article by Neha Thirani was published in the Times of India Crest Edition on April 16, 2011.

It's an ordinary day at the MGF mall in Gurgaon, when a group of fifteen people suddenly appears carrying lanterns made from discarded plastic bottles and starts passing them along in relay fashion. Starting from the plaza in front of the mall, the crowd goes into the metro station nearby and back again, and then suddenly disperses, attracting amused stares from befuddled passersby. This lantern-wielding crowd is a flash mob, a global phenomenon that has now hit India.

So is this part of a mass social experiment? Political movement? Performance art? Pointless fun? Malini Kochupillai and Kanishka Prasad, both professors at the Sushant School of Art and Architecture in Gurgaon who orchestrated the event, say it's an effort to add a modicum of vibrancy to otherwise ignored public places, reclaiming the space for public use. Along with their students, the duo has organised about a dozen such 'flash mobs'.

For the uninitiated, a flash mob appears to be entirely random - a group of people, performing an unusual and seemingly pointless act and then dispersing. For those in the know, the flash mob is mobilised by an organiser, who brings together a crowd of people at a predefined location and time via social media, viral emails or mass texting. The crowd then carries out a scripted series of actions. The participants are typically strangers and the purpose is usually satire. Their actions transform a public place for the period of the performance, and engender discussion at the unexpected.

This rather quirky social phenomenon, popular in the US and Europe, originated in 2003 when Bill Wasik, senior editor of Harper's Magazine, organised the first successful flash mob in Macy's department store. Over a hundred people converged on the store, gathered over an expensive rug and pretended to be shopping for a 'love rug' for their shared apartment. Wasik's aim was apolitical. Through amusement, he wanted to question notions of conformity and the hipster culture of wanting to be a part of the 'next big thing'. Since then, there have been hugely successful flash mobs all over Europe and America. The biggest recorded flash mob has been the International Pillow Fight Day, which took place on March 22, 2008 in over 25 cities simultaneously. More recently, Egypt has seen a series of flash mobs who left security forces befuddled by their silent protests.

While the word was officially coined in 2003, the phenomenon can be traced back to 18th century England where workers in an assembly line would stitch secret messages into garments to plan a congregation of strangers.

Nishant Shah, research director for the Centre for Internet and Society in Bangalore, says the growth in places of globalised consumption parallels the formation of flash mobs. "We can call malls places of public consumption, but at the back of our minds is the uneasy thought that the sign reads - rights of entry reserved. The mall, then, is only for certain public, " says Shah. "What flash mobs do is abuse the space - subverting the intention of the space that they are orchestrated in. "

This social experiment that has now made its way to metros across the country has been loosely related to locations of consumerism. The first ever flash mob in India took place on October 4, 2003 when a group of over 60 people swarmed the then newly built Crossroads mall in Mumbai. The flash mobbers shocked the malls security guards when they inexplicably starting screaming into their cellphones vague directions such as: "Infosys becho ek hazaar, and SBI gheun tak don she. " This was followed by some frenzied dancing, and a moment later, they were gone.

New media professional Noel Braganza, 26, organised a flash mob in the main courtyard of Phoenix Mills, Mumbai on Independence Day last year. Along with his colleague Nicole, Braganza spread the message over social media entirely;"We didn't take any prior permission, and this was possible because we organised it around Independence Day - our concept was patriotic, not disruptive, " says Braganza. At 4 pm on August 15, 2010, a crowd of over one hundred people, dressed in tri-color, lined up in rows in the courtyard of Pheonix Mills, sang the national anthem and then dispersed. Though most were there by design, some of the shoppers present joined spontaneously. "There was a huge snaking queue outside Big Bazaar that stopped in its tracks and started singing. "

The Urban Gorillaz - as the Gurgaon group is called - has organised its events with a particular focus on reclaiming spaces that have largely been ignored, or usurped by private developers. "Most public spaces in Delhi are decrepit and in desperate need of refurbishment, " says Kochupillai. "Perhaps increased use of these spaces will push the authorities to look beyond roads, flyovers and parking lots and give pedestrians an equally deserving space in the public realm. " The group encourages people to engage with the spaces available to them so that they do not become unused and unsafe.

By studying what prevents or promotes the use of public space - such as movement patterns, active/ inactive zones and traffic interference in pedestrian areas - the group hopes to encourage architects and urban planners to create spaces where people can relax without feeling like they are trespassing or encroaching. "A flash mob says that you can create public spaces but we will decide how we will use them, " says Nishant Shah. "It gives a certain sense of power to the user who is no longer a consumer but an architect of the space. "

Started as an exercise in an architecture class at the Sushant School of Art and Architecture, the Urban Gorillaz facebook group has grown to over 400 members.

Up until now, they have orchestrated over ten flash mobs doing a variety of random acts from exercising in the main courtyard of Heritage city, flying paper planes in an office complex, sketching people passing by in a mall, creating installations for passersby to paint and building a canopy on a sidewalk with rope and bamboo. The one which attracted the most attention was during the Commonwealth Games, where they organised the 'Common Man Games' at Nehru Place to entertain Delhi citizens who were sidelined during the games. The games included track and field and pitthu.

"The first reaction of most people is what are you selling or promoting? And I reply that I am promoting public space, " says Kochupillai. "On occasions when guards have asked us to stop, we simply move into an area that is not under their jurisdiction. " The group has not encountered much antagonism, with most people amused rather than angry. Pragya Vig, 19, is a member of the group and a second year student at the college. "It set me thinking - why aren't we using the public spaces?" says Vig.

In the coming month, the Urban Gorillaz are planning flash mobs in the metro to raise awareness for a women's right to personal space.

Not all flash mobs have any apparent rationale. In the week after the death of Michael Jackson, Bangalore saw a spontaneous flash mob. At every red light signal, whenever the traffic would stop, people would suddenly come together and perform popular Michael Jackson dance moves. When the light changed, they would be gone in a flash.

Read the article in the Times of India

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/changing-tide

GoldenEye ransomware attack hit operations at Pipavav Port, JNPT

praskrishna — 2017-07-06T22:53:13Z

Shipping ministry says the GoldenEye ransomware attack at JNPT and Pipavav port may result in bunching of inbound and outbound cargo.

The article by Jyotika Sood and Utpal Bhaskar was published in Livemint on June 28, 2017. Pranesh Prakash was quoted.

Operations at one of three terminals at India’s largest container port, Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT) run by AP Moller-Maersk, near Mumbai, were disrupted by a global ransomware attack, the port said on Wednesday. The version that caused the disruption has been dubbed GoldenEye by security firm Bitdefender Labs.

Operations at the Danish firm’s terminal at Gujarat Pipavav Port were also affected, but by the Petya variant of the ransomware.

Ransomware typically logs users out of their own systems and asks them to pay a ransom if they want to access the encrypted data.

“The central server is in Europe which we can’t control. It is not a problem aimed at India... we have become collateral damage,” said a senior Indian government official involved in cybersecurity operations.

The ransomware hit the integrated transport and logistics firm’s global operations on Tuesday across its 75 terminals. It also impacted Chernobyl’s radiation monitoring system, law firm DLA Piper, pharma firm Merck, a number of banks, an airport, the Kiev metro, British advertising giant WPP and Russian oil firm Rosneft, according to Bitdefender Labs.

“The IT (information technology) department of JNPT became aware of the attack at around 4.30pm on Tuesday. The Windows server started conking off and the master file got encrypted and we couldn’t access any data. The operations immediately came to a standstill,” said a JNPT official requesting anonymity.

AP Moller-Maersk operates the Gateway Terminals India (GTI) at JNPT which has a capacity to handle 1.8 million standard container units. JNPT, which ships more than half the containerized cargo passing through India’s ports, serves a vast hinterland comprising all of northern and western India.

“While DP World and JNPT terminals are operational, the Gateway Terminals India operated by APM is completely shut,” said the JNPT official.

This is the second major ransomware attack since May after hackers exploited a loophole that was first identified by the US National Security Agency, to create WannaCry, that affected several businesses in more than 150 countries including India.

The ministry of corporate affairs and the Andhra Pradesh Police were affected, besides several large organizations..

“While the terminal operator is taking steps to address the issues disrupting operations, it is anticipated that there could be bunching of in-bound and out-bound container cargo,” India’s shipping ministry said in a statement.

Maersk group, through its terminal and infrastructure business, has invested $800 million in India.

“The global attack has impacted APM terminal of the JNPT port. The operations at the terminal have slowed down and are being entered manually. We are trying to handle the crisis by diverting traffic to other terminals,” JNPT chairman Anil Diggikar said, adding that JNPT’s operations have not been affected to a great extent.

He said it would take around 24 hours to clear the backlog.

Gujarat Pipavav Port told stock exchanges that the ransomware did not have “any major impact on the company at this point in time”.

Concerns have been expressed about the safety of India’s infrastructure projects with power generation and transmission projects figuring high on terrorist threat lists.

Ravi Shankar Prasad, minister of electronics and information technology, on Wednesday said advisories have been issued and the government is keeping a close watch on developments.

The Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In), the agency coordinating efforts on cybersecurity issues, in a 27 June advisory warned, “It has been reported that variants of Petya ransomware with work-like capabilities are spreading.”

Such attacks pose a grave threat to the economy and businesses. Cybersecurity Ventures predicts global annual cybercrime costs will grow from $3 trillion in 2015 to $6 trillion by 2021.

Experts believe India is ill-equipped to face such attacks.

“These cases of malware attacks highlight the need for proper planning of cybersecurity at all levels, especially for the government infrastructure networks,” said Pranesh Prakash, policy director at the Centre for Internet and Society, a Bengaluru-based think tank.

“Transportation and shipping companies are ill-prepared for cyberattacks,” added Amit Jaju, executive director, fraud investigation and dispute services, EY.

The emergency playing out at the ports assumes significance, given India’s Rs8 trillion investment plan until 2035 under the Sagarmala programme, which involves the construction of new ports to harness the country’s 7,517km coastline and setting up of as many as 142 cargo terminals at major ports.

“Indian companies lose approximately Rs40,000 crore due to cybercrime every year. India is among the top 5 countries today in terms of the frequency and the number of cyber attacks,” Jaju said.

“We are not prepared at all. This is a question of cyber literacy because the latest attack has reused the same Windows vulnerability that was exploited by WannaCry ransomware last month and for which security patches were released almost three months ago by Microsoft,” added cybersecurity expert Mohit Kumar.

Anirudh Laskar, Mayank Aggarwal, Shally Seth & Komal Gupta contributed to the story.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/livemint-june-28-2017-jyotika-sood-utpal-bhaskar-golden-eye-ransomware-attack-hit-operations-at-pipavav-port-jnpt

GoI body National Mission for Manuscripts has digitised 3 million manuscripts

praskrishna — 2015-04-05T03:20:06Z

Twelve-year-old government body National Mission for Manuscripts (NMM) has digitised over thirty lakh manuscripts and 185,88,390 pages in all as of 31 December 2014, Mahesh Sharma, Union Minister of State for Culture, Tourism & Civil Aviation said in the Rajya Sabha this week. He added that the National Archives of India (NAI) is set to digitise another 1,100,000 historic records. The government has spent over Rs 25 lakhs on digitisation as of January 2015 as compared to ~ Rs 36 lakhs in 2012-13.

The blog post by Sneha Johari was published by Medianama on March 13, 2015.

The NAI has digitised 41 non-priced NAI publications and 484 manuscripts which consist of 106,974 pages, 42 newspapers and printed books (10,346 pages) and 187,878 documents made of 613,413 pages of NAI’s oriental and public records collection.

Digital conservation over micro-film

Sharma said that the government is looking at strengthening the Public Records Act. He added that digitisation would be the preferred form of conservation since it had many advantages over micro-film processing and would provide better access to archives electronically which could be used by scholars, historians and academicians.

The NAI operates two schemes for funding the preservation of documentary heritage. These schemes include funding for preservation and conservation of rare books, old and rare documents, government libraries and museums among others.

The NMM is an organisation under GOI’s Ministry of Culture set up to create a national manuscript resource to enhance access, awareness and use for educational use. It offers courses, workshops and fellowships on Manuscriptology and Palaeography. Sharma said that the Ministry had some proposals to collaborate with foreign countries for digitisation of Indian documents but had not taken those up due to issues of national importance. Some of NMM’s challenges arise from the scale of manuscripts found in India (claimed at ~5 million), languages which cannot be read, in a poor and neglected condition and the lack of scholars who can study these manuscripts.

The NMM has 31 Manuscript Conservation Centres (MCCs) across the country under the NMM. The MCCs include organisations like Manuscript Library, University of Calcutta, Kolkata, Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute (BORI), Pune, Karnataka State Archives, Bangalore and INTACH Orissa Art Conservation Centre, Bhubaneswar.

The New Indian Express featured a report where Jayadhir Tirumalrao, Professor at the Centre for Dalit and Adivasi Studies and Translation, Hyderabad was among others who developed a script for the tribal language Gondi. The report claims that Gondi language was the only tribal language in India to have its own literature.

Previous digitisation initiatives:

In November 2014, around 55 books written by the Indian author and activist Niranjana in Kannada would be digitized and made available on Kannada Wikisource, allowing Kannada speakers to access these books easily.
In October 2014, the Ministry of Culture launched a national portal for museums. Collections in all museums under its control and those under the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) will be digitized and presented on this portal.

In July 2014, the Department of Biotechnology and Department of Science and Technology (DST), under the Ministry of Science and Technology released the draft of Open Access Policy. The objective of this policy is to provide unrestricted access to research work funded by the departments. The draft states that since all funds disbursed by DBT and DST are public funds, it is important that the information and knowledge generated through the use of these funds are made publicly available as soon as possible.
In September 2013, Goa University entered into a 3 year MoU with the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) for building the Konkani Wikipedia.
In June 2013, Tata Communications Media Services planned to digitize documents of historical and cultural significance such as films and documentaries from the archives of Doordarshan and Films Division of India which go back to 1947 including speeches of India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and other leaders.
In May 2013, Punjabi Sahitya Akademi Reference Lab scanned and saved around 1,000 manuscripts, stone-printed scripts, poetry books on computer hard discs, adding that the digitized editions will be available across the globe through the internet.

The Indian Government spent Rs 4.5 crores in 2010-11 for digitization and modernization of public libraries.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/news/medianama-march-13-2015-sneha-johari-goi-body-national-mission-for-manuscripts-has-digitised-3-million-manuscripts

Godrej India Cultural Lab

praskrishna — 2011-12-14T05:45:43Z

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Goa University to make available online Konkani Wikipedia, within 6 months

praskrishna — 2013-10-03T09:35:55Z

Thick heaps of the four volumes of Konkani language ‘vishwakosh’ or encyclopedia , till now available only in hard copy, will now attain a modern access.

This blog post was published by Jagran Josh on September 30, 2013. CIS signed an MoU with Goa University for digitizing Konkani Vishwakosh under Creative Commons license.

The four volumes of encyclopaedia work, initially started by prominent Goan writer and academician late Manoharrai Sardessaiat of Goa University, will now be accessed in digitized format, alongside forming a base for a Konkani Wikipedia.

As mentioned by officials, the Konkani Wikipedia is to be ready to access within upcoming six months. With this, Goa University has turned out to be the first varsity in the nation to enter into a creative commons licence that will permit copyrighted produced data by an Indian university accessible to internet users and open to modification (wiki), making Goa University a victory of sorts of free information.

The university has signed a three-year MoU (Memorandum of Understanding) with the Centre for Internet and Society's Access to Knowledge Programme. This centre represents Wikipedia in India, and now also the Konkani Wikipedia project.

After Google, Facebook and Yahoo, Wikipedia is the fourth most used asset on the internet which operates as an internet based encyclopaedia. Over Wikipedia, any of the users can upload new information and can also update or amend an existing topic. The Konkani Wikipedia is also planned to offer similar privileges to its users. GU's Konkani department and the centre will manage the development from the university campus.

"The Konkani vishwakosh covers all realms of knowledge like any other encyclopedia. The Konkani Wikipedia will act as a digitized repository of knowledge for future generations and Konkani speakers across the world. I look forward to the pleasure of going to the internet and clicking away to access a Konkani Wikipedia," GU vice-chancellor Satish Shetye said.

Shetye told, GU is delighted to relate with Wikipedia, which has become a global trend breaking the monopoly of publishers and transforming the way of sharing of knowledge into a democratic process.

GU registrar Vijayendra Kamat mentions, "At present, it takes time for a page with information in a regional language to download because they are usually found in the form of scanned pages, which are accessible as images and not text. The Konkani Wikipedia will make the text accessible as is the case of any English text on the internet”.

The Konkani vishwakosh, containing four large volumes of total of 3,632 pages, is a work of period of 14 years. It was edited by late Manoharrai Sardessai followed by the editor Tanaji Halarnkar. For the compilation process, GU Staff members, Ranjan Naik, Kalpana Naik, Kanchan Mordekar, Surekha Naik, Mukesh Thali and Shailendra Mehta contributed to it.

Konkani vishwakosh or encyclopedia covers, concisely presented world information with special weight given on information on Goa, Konkani, Goan culture, folklore, history, geography etc. The Wikipedia is offered in 20 Indian languages that includes Telugu, Assamese, Marathi, but not in language Konkani so far.

Interested Students, Professors or anyone else could contribute to this Konkani Encyclopaedia project by enrolling online at bit.ly/konkanivishwakosh, before 05 October 2013.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/jagranjosh-september-30-2013-goa-university-to-make-available-online-konkani-wikipedia-within-6-months

Goa university re-releasing Konkani encyclopaedia on Sept 26

praskrishna — 2013-09-25T05:59:07Z

The Goa University in collaboration with Centre for Internet and Societie's Access to Knowledge Programme (CIS-A2K) is re-releasing its four volume 3632 page Konkani Vishwakosh (encyclopaedia).

Click to read the original published in the Times of India on September 24, 2013.

This is being done under Creative Commons License CC-BY-SA 3.0 to support the movement of open knowledge and open access, an official statement said.

The function will be held on September 26, at 10am in the conference hall of the administrative building of the Goa university.

The re-releasing of the Konkani Vishwakosh is an initiative by the Goa University to strengthen the Konkani community and language, the statement said adding that the information from the Vishwakosh will be used to write the articles on Konkani Wikipedia.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/the-times-of-india-september-24-2013-vijay-desouza-goa-university-re-releasing-konkani-encyclopaedia-on-september-26

Goa University Partners CIS India To Build Konkani Wikipedia

praskrishna — 2013-10-03T09:44:21Z

The Goa university has entered into a three year memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) for building the Konkani Wikipedia, reports navhindtimes.

This blog post by Apurva Chaudhary was published by Medianama on September 30, 2013.

As part of this partnership, Goa University will be uploading the four volumes of Konkani encyclopedia and the Konkani wikipedia is expected to be available in six months. It appears that the partnership with CIS India includes processes such as scanning, digitization, and creating articles as per requirement of Wikipedia. CIS India has also called out for volunteers for a period of three months to help them digitizing the Konkani encyclopedia.

This is quite notable since most of the development in digitizing documents in Indian language did not include Konkani language, which is spoken in western coast of India. Besides, since the university will upload the Konkani encyclopedia on Wikipedia, it will allow users to search through texts. Most of the digitization projects just scan the books and upload the pages in image format, which makes it difficult to search or perform any kind of data related query.

Last year in May, Wikipedians were digitizing Indian language, out-of-copyright texts online, trying to address the comparative paucity of Indic language texts online. Wikisource is a repository of documents and archived material that serves as a reference source for Wikipedia, and a means of improving access to information sources. Of the 64 languages Wikisource is available in, 8 are Indian: Tamil (stats), Malayalam (stats),Telugu (stats), Kannada (stats), Sanskrit (stats), Marathi (stats), Bengali (stats) and Gujarati (stats). Note that most of these Indian language Wikipedia’s receive active contribution from CIS India under its CIS-A2K program.

Wikipedia had recorded 43.5 million pageviews in Indian language wikis, as of October 2011. In June 2013, the Hindi language Wikipedia had received monthly pageviews of 7.8 million, Tamil language Wikipedia had received 5.2 million pageviews, among others. So there’s clearly a demand to access information in local languages.

That said, while more languages are being added to the list, it should be seen that the articles in these languages do not contain just one or two sentences. According to an analysis by Shijualex.in, many articles posted under Indian language Wikipedia were under 2kb, indicating that it contained only couple of sentences.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/medianama-september-30-2013-apurva-chaudhary-goa-university-partners-cis-to-build-konkani-wikipedia