Centre for Internet and Society

‘Tulu Wikipedia’ in incubation stage, 600 articles uploaded, says U.B. Pavanaja

praskrishna — 2014-12-07T03:21:11Z

In all, 600 articles have been uploaded to the Tulu Wikipedia which is still in its incubation stage, according to U.B. Pavanaja, Wikipedia representative and Programme Officer, The Centre for Internet and Society, Bengaluru.

The article by Ravi Prasad Kamila was published in the Hindu on November 26, 2014. Dr. U.B.Pavanaja gave his inputs.

Speaking at a workshop on writing articles in Tulu, using Kannada script, for Wikipedia at Sahyadri College of Engineering and Management here on Wednesday, he said that since 2007 till this January there were 135 Tulu articles. The remaining 465 articles were added in the last over nine months.

Workshops on writing articles in Tulu for Wikipedia organised in Udupi and Mangaluru had helped in adding more articles.

Mr. Pavananja, originally hailing from Sullia in Dakshina Kannada, said that if Tulu Wikipedia was to be kept alive at least 50 to 60 articles would have to be uploaded a month and it required at least 10 dedicated writers.

If one wants to write articles in Tulu, he or she would have to log on to bilty.com/tuluwiki and later register there like registering while creating a new e-mail id. Later one can write, edit or read articles written in Tulu using Kannada script.

Karnataka Tulu Sahitya Academy had organised the workshop as a prelude to the three-day ‘Vishwa Tuluvere Parba’ (Global Tulu Festival) scheduled at the college from December 12.

President of the academy M. Janaki Brahmavar requested the participants to write articles about Tulu language and culture and about the coming festival and upload.

One can contact Mr. Pavanaja through pavanaja@gmail.com.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/news/the-hindu-november-26-2014-ravi-prasad-kamila-tulu-wikipedia-in-incubation-stage

‘The IT Act is fine, but its interpretation is not’

praskrishna — 2012-12-21T10:08:43Z

Several organisations such as the Alternate Law Forum and Centre for Internet and Society are campaigning to amend the IT Act 2000. However, SV Raghavan, scientific secretary, office of PSA to the government of India, stated that the law in place is fine but the stakeholders need to be educated on implementing it better.

The article was published in DNA on December 19, 2012.

Raghavan, who was at the National Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS) in the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) on Tuesday to give a lecture on cyber security, specifically singled out the controversial Section 66 that can hold a person viable for posting ‘offensive’ content online. The IT Act 2000 is constituted to keep such law breakers under check.

“The IT Act 2000 gives specific powers to some of the law agencies to take action. In cyberspace, nearly 90% of the users don’t come with any malicious intentions. Now there is a large concerted effort across the country, to teach policemen how to apply this law and interpret it. There is also an effort to teach the judiciary to interpret the law correctly, so that the right people are held accountable,” he said.

“No matter what you do, when the law is written in English, sometimes it comes across two dimensional and the original intent of the law may be lost, which is why there are agencies who are dedicated to teaching the judiciary on how to interpret it,” he added.

As for cyber security amongst civilians, vigilance is simply all it takes.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/dna-bangalore-december-19-2012-the-it-act-is-fine-but-its-interpretation-is-not

‘Some Indian laws could be challenging’

praskrishna — 2012-11-19T04:40:46Z

Wikipedia’s founder member Erik Möller says their principle is not to decide the map of India, but to explain that there is a controversy.

This article was published in Bangalore Mirror on November 15, 2012.

Erik Möller, vice-president engineering and product development, Wikimedia Foundation, is one of the founder members of Wikipedia, along with Jimmy Wales, since it started in 2001. Möller was in Bangalore over the weekend to speak at a technical seminar at the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), a local chapter of Wikimedia. He spoke about India’s role in the growth of Wikipedia not just in the sub-continent, but globally.

BM: How significant is India in the Wikipedia movement?
EM: Very significant and growing. I don’t have the data on exact number of editors based in India. However currently, 2.4 per cent of all Wikipedia edits globally are made from India. As a comparison, the UK’s is 6.5 per cent. India has overtaken Australia and (narrowly) Brazil since last year. In the 2011 fundraiser, India reached the top 10 of countries giving to the Wikimedia Foundation, with 39,000 donors from India giving the equivalent of $360,468. The 2012 fundraiser will be launched in a few days. (Interestingly, India is the only developing nation in the Top 10 contributing nations).

Does the financial support from India surprise you?
Of course not. You are a country of a billion people (laughs). I think Wikipedia appeals to a lot of cultural sensibilities, sharing of knowledge and culture. I think people here want to share.

Where does India stand in the future of Wikipedia’s roadmap?
India was identified as one of three global priority areas in our 2010-15 strategic plan (alongside Brazil and Arabic language countries). While there are active Wikipedia communities in many Asian countries, India continues to be the Foundation’s main focus area in (non-Arabic) Asia through the “Access To Knowledge (A2K)” programme conducted by CIS as our local partner, funded via a grant from the Wikimedia Foundation.

From the standpoint of freedom to internet access, what do you think of Indian laws?

Depending on your interpretation, specific laws in India could be challenging, particularly in areas of mapping (geographically). We are concerned about those things, but have to run with it. We consider ourselves specifically (governed by) US laws from where we are legally published. But then, Wiki is not an advocacy organisation that goes around telling people which politician to vote for. As Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales said, it’s very important all people become educated on the issues. It’s not up to us to decide what’s the correct map of India, of course, but it is up to us to explain there is a controversy.

Are you constantly bombarded with litigation world over?

Surprisingly not.

What are the big developments happening in Wikipedia?

We are currently running two pilot projects – Wikidata and Wikivoyage. For example, today you can find out the GDP of each country on Wikipedia but cannot query and arrange countries by GDP size. Wikidata will allow you to do that. Similarly, Wikivoyage will provide matter-of-fact information on local sites that are of interest to travellers.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/bangalore-mirror-article-kalyan-subramani-nov-15-2012-some-indian-laws-could-be-challenging

‘Smack’ the Trolls!

praskrishna — 2015-04-04T06:38:10Z

A car was put up for sale on a Facebook (FB) page by a woman. The first few comments were genuine questions asking about the price and the woman was asked to check her inbox, where price negotiations were carried out.

The article by Marianne De Nazareth published in the Citizen on March 31, 2015 quotes Rohini Lakshané.

All in a very cordial fashion. Suddenly in a matter of seconds a nasty gender remark was made, as the car was being sold by a lady, which was taken up by a flurry of similar trolls making snide remarks on her gender and therefore the quality of the car for sale. The woman felt harassed and violated.

These faceless nasty internet beings are called trolls and we need to fight them. " Most people shy away from confronting harassment because either they are mostly unaware of how to handle it or they are scared of the harassment shifting to their daily lives in real world. The scare is not unfounded because there have been several instances of that happening around the world," says Chinmayi SK from the Bachchao project .

" A certain type of troll reacts strongly and negatively to high profile women out of a desire to correct those who have been 'taken in' by them," says Pamela Srinivasan, who uses social media frequently to buy and sell." It's an attack on the idea that the women can be powerful and can be experts. The attack is designed to remove the woman's authority."

Chinmayi advises," But, one needs to talk about online harassment because it exists. Because not talking about will not make it go away. Online harassers are like bullies enabled by the anonymity online personas provide. They are unafraid of consequences in the virtual world, which they would otherwise fear in real world. Hence changes will not happen unless you stand up to them. They will continue to harass and their harassment will only grow with time if ignored."

FB sites where people with common interests like gardening or birding or even Cuckoo clock lovers are happily free of trolls. But sites on which commercial selling of used goods happens, or discussions on touchy political topics, that's where people are viciously attacked if the administrator is not vigilant.

" It is best to have a code of conduct laid down and strictly enforced by the moderators of online communities," says Rohini Lakshané, a researcher at the Centre for Internet and Society. " Large online forums can have many, active administrators to whom users can report abuse. It also helps to report abuse to the website/ platform. However, on platforms such as Facebook, where the volume of posts is high, the review process takes time and sometimes reviewers don't understand the nuances of culture or language or other contexts. An effective, easy-to-implement, and less time-consuming measure then is for the community to police itself and smack those who walk out of line."

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/the-citizen-march-31-2015-marianne-de-nazareth-smack-the-trolls

‘Not mandatory’ but maids, guards get fingerprinted

praskrishna — 2011-11-09T05:16:43Z

The Cubbon Park police have begun profiling domestic help in their jurisdiction. Personal details will be stored in a database, which can be accessed by potential employers, writes Hemanth Kashyap in this article published in Bangalore Mirror on 9 November 2011. Sunil Abraham has been quoted in this article.

It is the safety and security of the middle class versus individual rights of the 'lessers'. No guessing the victor in this battle. Recent crimes committed by household help seem to be enough justification for 'voluntary' profiling of maids, cooks, drivers, gardeners and watchmen. The brief of law-enforcing agencies is to keep the crime graph down, not get too involved in the procedural or sociological nitty-gritty. And in pursuit of this black-and-white objective, the city police have decided to go high-tech in this 'citizen-friendly' initiative.

Though the police say it is a voluntary exercise, the job prospects of those who demur will obviously be affected. To start with, the Cubbon Park police — with the assistance of a tech firm which operates a website, the ‘us and them’-sounding hamarisuraksha.com — have visited a few buildings in their jurisdiction to profile the servants and security guards there. Personal details like the servant/guard's voter ID card, thumb impression and photograph have been fed into a database, which will be accessible to anyone. Cubbon Park inspector Badrinath is leading the exercise, which will be extended to other high-end localities in the central division.

According to the cops, the background details on the website will make hiring a domestic help easy and risk-free. The cops feel such a system will also help servants with a clean record land a good job, not just in Bangalore but anywhere in the country. Employers will have to register with the website — one login ID will be given to one apartment complex — after which they can access details of existing or potential domestic help. Employers will also have to inform the cops after hiring a help.

According to the police, the problem of hiring a reliable domestic help is particularly acute in a city like Bangalore, where thousands from all over the country land up every day in search of a job. There have been numerous cases of theft, robbery and even murder where the accused have fled the city or disguised their identity and continued to work in other households. In the absence of a database, tracking the accused in such cases becomes difficult, say the cops.

Hamari Suraksha chief Ashwani Kumar Narula said, "It is a three-pronged effort involving the police, our website, and house, mall and security agency owners. The latter will give us the details of their employees and the info will be fed into a central database. A potential employer can, at the click of a mouse, do a background check before hiring a maid or watchman."

On Tuesday, a camp was held at Vasvani Apartments on St Mark's Road, and hundreds of housemaids, security guards and drivers came forward with their personal details. As it was very new to them, many were perturbed about giving their thumb impressions and photographs. But the police and the website volunteers explained the rationale of the exercise and assured them their details would not be misused.

"This is the first time I am facing this situation. We are working here for years and have not done anything wrong. I feel bad. But the police explaint why they were doing it and I was relieved," said Leena, who works in Vaswani Apartments.

"I am not at all worried. Everything depends on our work. If I am in the right, there will be no problem. The police are doing this for our convenience," said Shobha, another housemaid.

"I am fine with this. I read in the newspapers about the thefts committed by servants, and this exercise by the police will be helpful even for us. I am from Meghalaya and people here don't know anything about me. If my details are on the website, it will be easier to hire me," said Vanmaan, a housemaid in Vaswani Apartments.

'Employers are also potential abusers'

"It is a voluntary move,” said a senior cop. But does refusal to be profiled immediately put a maid under suspicion or under the threat of unemployment, asked some. They were also worried about the leakage of such data.

Vijay Menon of the Citizen's Action Forum, a major body of residents across the city, said, "You can collect fingerprints only under a specific law, and not demand fingerprints just because of their profession. It almost amounts to discrimination. I will definitely not be taking my maid for any kind of fingerprinting. Secondly, how safe is the privacy of this information? Why would I want to replicate that information with various stake-holders, increasing the risk of it being leaked?"

Sunil Abraham, executive director, Centre for Internet & Society, said, "I am worried more about the unrealistic power balance it will create. To begin with, the law does not permit this kind of profiling. The only exception to this rule is the National Population Registry, and now the UID. Second, we have had instances of maids being physically abused by their employers too. If you work on the principle that household help can be dangerous and potential thieves (so you want their fingerprints), then you should be collecting fingerprints of employers too because they also can be potential abusers."

Residents’ welfare associations were almost unanimously positive about the move. N Mukund of the Jayanagar Welfare Association said, "It's a good beginning because security has become a major issue for residents. Despite maids having built a rapport with their employers in many homes, we have had instances of thefts. But it makes no sense to have electronic data in place if it cannot be accessed by my local police station, which doesn't even have an email address."

Dr Radhakrishna of the Koramangala Residents’ Welfare Association said, "Most of these people do not have a permanent address. How do you address that problem? "

Vivek Agarwal, of Mantri Sarovar Residents’ Welfare Association, Sarjapur, said, "Already, the household help has to be registered in the jurisdiction police station. If the police want to take it to the next level, I have no problem with it. We live in a huge apartment complex. Many of us are working professionals who need reliable and safe household help."

'Enact a law'

C V Nagesh, expert in criminal law, said as per law (Criminal Procedure Code), police have no right to force a person or section to give their fingerprints to the police if they are not involved in crimes. He said the Cubbon Park police’s effort may be a good cause, but police have no blanket permission to collect fingerprints of servants and others if they are not into any crimes.

"Law should be enacted, making servant-profiling mandatory and then police or any other agency can collect these details. Then, it becomes legal. If somebody is giving details voluntarily, it is not illegal," said Nagesh.

T Sunil Kumar, Additional Commissioner of Police (Law and Order), said the police were not forcing anybody to give their fingerprints. "It’s absolutely voluntary on the part of servants, watchmen and others to part with their details. If somebody says he is not interested, we will not force that person."

The officer said to check crimes involving these people, the police thought of having a database. So, they approached the resident welfare associations. "They (associations) are asking the servants to get the profile done. We are not asking anybody to come and mandatorily give details. But the law doesn’t stop people from voluntarily disclosing their details. The response is massive and there are not many complaints," he said.

Recent crimes involving domestic help

October 7, 2011

Ashraf (26), a security guard killed Anasuya (42), a woman head cashier of a bank, by slitting her throat inside the lift of an apartment at Seshadripuram. He is absconding.

July 25, 2009

Senior High Court advocate S S Naganand’s house in Sadashiv Nagar burgled, gold and diamond jewellery worth over Rs 80 lakh stolen. Police arrest his Gurkha watchman, Deerendar Bahaddur Thapa, and a gang of six Nepali guards and bust 44 cases in Yelahanka and surrounding areas.

June 26, 2009

Jewellery worth Rs 18 lakh stolen from the house of former Infosys director and iGATE CEO Phaneesh Murthy’s upscale villa in Shobha-Lotus, a residential complex in Brooke fields area of Whitefield.

Police arrest his domestic help Shivalinge Gowda (24) and complex electrician Mohammed Ali (24) and recovred the goods from Ali’s sister’s house in Shimoga.

February 16, 2009

Retired IISc professor and mathematician Purushottam Lal Sachdev, 71, his wife Rita, 62, and their son Munna, 35, are found murdered in their house on 80 Feet Road, RT Nagar. Police arrest his domestic help Deepak (36) his wife Suchitra (29) from West Bengal.

Read the original story published in Bangalore Mirror here

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/maids-guards-get-fingerprinted

‘Mobile’ voters may sway polls

praskrishna — 2014-03-05T11:55:24Z

BABALAL Patel’s tiny tea stall in Mumbai is a long way from Silicon Valley. It is not even that close to Bangalore, the Indian equivalent.

The article by Avantika Chilkoti was published in BDlive on March 5, 2014. Sunil Abraham is quoted.

But one night this month, this ramshackle shop became the venue for a social media experiment that highlights the hi-tech face of electioneering in India, the world’s largest democracy. A crowd gathered outside to watch two television screens showing a live broadcast with politician Narendra Modi as he answered questions the audience submitted by text message.

Similar "tea parties" were held across India, designed to ram home Modi’s humble background as a tea seller and his technological credentials. The nationwide event, organised by using mobile technology more commonly seen in US presidential campaigns, signals a shift in Indian politics.

For decades, political campaigns in India have centred around colossal rallies and billboard advertising. But a growing population of young people, rising internet use and the ubiquity of cellphones mean this year’s battle is playing out equally fiercely online.

"We are moving far ahead of saying that we are building ‘likes’ on social media," says Arvind Gupta, head of information technology and social media for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

"Organisation is being done using digital. So if I’m going to tell everybody there’s an event tomorrow, it can be posted on Facebook, websites, on SMS, on WhatsApp, though the real meeting is happening on the ground."

These techniques, which became familiar during the Arab uprisings of North Africa, are an increasingly important part of communication strategy ahead of a national election that must be held in the next three months, and of which the outcome many believe will be close.

Gupta believes parties are fighting what he calls a "postmodern election" for up to 160 — largely urban — seats out of a total of 543. More than half the 50-strong team working on communications for the BJP are dedicated to digital campaigning.

India’s internet user base reached a point of inflection last year, exceeded 200-million. While that is a fraction of the 1.3-billion population, prompting many to question the power of social media, use is far greater among urban and young voters, millions of whom will be eligible to vote for the first time.

"Social media is suddenly becoming important, not for all constituencies, but for urban constituencies, because for the first time the urban youth and the educated class are very much glued into the election and showing interest," says Rajeeva Karandikar, a statistician and election analyst.

Modi, chief minister of Gujarat, has adapted particularly quickly to the changing environment. He captured the public imagination by using holograms to address rallies and Google Hangouts to interact with the diaspora. He has 3.4-million Twitter followers and more than 10.6-million "likes" on his Facebook page, thanks in part to a slick social media team led by high-profile technology entrepreneurs.

By contrast, Rahul Gandhi, the reticent, undeclared candidate for the incumbent Congress party, does not even have a verified Twitter account.

Some were disappointed by low attendance at the national "tea parties", but the events were lauded for being interactive and, perhaps most important in a country where newspaper readership remains high, grabbed column inches in the press. The audience could speak directly to Modi at venues with a two-way video link and the footage was immediately available on YouTube.

"While answering each question, Modi has a point of view," says Pratik Patel, 28, a chartered accountant who organised the event at his grandfather’s tea shop. "He doesn’t have two ways of looking at the same thing — this helps him to be more decisive and forward thinking."

Social media provide swathes of information to India’s political parties, as they copy the sophisticated data analysis used by US President Barack Obama’s campaigns.

From its offices in suburban Mumbai, digital marketing group Pinstorm tracks social media discussions at constituency level and identifies significant supporters or critics. It describes the service as an early warning system or "social radar", which allows parties to mobilise workers rapidly to oppose or support a point of view.

Sceptics argue, however, that social media have insufficient traction in India to affect results of the coming poll. But the size of the user base does not reflect its full power. Educated, influential Indians use these digital networks and the online debate shapes views in traditional media that reach a wider audience.

"The theory is that since the elites are connected and have more time to spare on social media, let us use social media and the internet more generally to influence discourse through these elites," says Sunil Abraham, executive director for the Bangalore-based Centre for Internet and Society. "It’s an indirect route to the vote."

However, an adviser to the Obama campaign warns that, given differences in funding and the environment, India’s politicians should be wary of using the US presidential race as a model. This year, a simpler technology may prove the best tool for campaigns in India: the cellphone.

"Folks look to the Obama campaign for this sort of stuff," says Ethan Roeder, who worked on data for the 2008 and 2012 US presidential campaigns. "But a lot of these international campaigns would do best looking elsewhere for a model.… No campaign in the history of the world has ever spent that much money to elect a single individual to a single office."

India’s version is markedly cheaper, thanks to the roadside chai wallahs and armies of volunteers, pulling in the new breed of voters.

"I have never attended a political rally in my entire life," says Patel, who helped to organise Modi’s nationwide "tea party". "If people want to connect with me they need to connect with me on social media or via e-mail."

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/bd-live-avantika-chilkoti-march-5-2014-mobile-voters-may-sway-polls

‘Miracle at Marrakesh’ to help visually impaired read

praskrishna — 2013-07-02T10:07:28Z

The treaty will make access to books for the visually impaired, blind and print disabled easier.

The article by Ramya Kannan was published in the Hindu on June 30, 2013. Pranesh Prakash is quoted.

On Friday, in the same city that established the World Trade Organisation nearly two decades ago, another significant treaty was born. In Marrakesh, Morocco, international negotiators signed a treaty that will make access to books for the visually impaired, blind and print disabled easier.

After a week of intense debate among the negotiators (facilitated by the World Intellectual Property Organisation), the Marrakesh Treaty to Facilitate Access to Published Works for Persons who are Blind, Visually Impaired, or otherwise Print Disabled emerged.

It will address the ‘book famine’ for the visually impaired by “requiring its contracting parties to adopt national law provisions that permit the reproduction, distribution and making available of published works in accessible formats through limitations and exceptions to the rights of copyright right holders.” Very simply, it allows the waiver of copyright restrictions in order for books to be available in formats such as formats such as Braille, large print text and audio books.

Pranesh Prakash of the Centre for Internet and Society, in his closing remarks said: “It is historic that today WIPO and its members have collectively recognised in a treaty that copyright isn't just an ‘engine of free expression’ but can pose a significant barrier to access to knowledge.”

To recognise that copyright should not frustrate access for some groups of people and thereby to free books from that ‘constraint’ is of immeasurable significance for people otherwise unable to access books in the conventional format.

The treaty also provides assurances to authors and publishers that that system will not expose their published works to misuse or distribution to anyone other than the intended beneficiaries. “There are no winners and no losers, this is a treaty for everyone,” said Moroccan Minister of Communications Mustapha Khalfi, going on to describe it as the “Miracle in Marrakesh.”

There are an estimated 285 million blind and partially-sighted people in the world, of which the largest percentage lives in India. Only 1 to 7 per cent of all books published are available in formats accessible to them. India’s key campaigner for the treaty, the late Rahul Cherian of Inclusive Planet was full of beans when he spoke to The Hindu in December last year, anticipating the possibility of a treaty half a year later.

“It is a breakthrough!” he said excitedly as he broke the news, “The Extraordinary General Assembly of the World Intellectual Property Organisation has referred the Treaty for Visually Impaired Persons to a diplomatic conference in June of 2013.”

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/the-hindu-ramya-kannan-june-30-2013-miracle-at-marrakesh-to-help-visually-impaired-read

‘IT hub’ K’taka ranks No 12 in e-deals

praskrishna — 2016-12-28T01:54:33Z

Karnataka may be dubbed the ‘IT hub’ of the country but when it comes to e-governance transactions, the state clearly has a long way to go. Statistics from Union government web portal Electronic Transaction Aggregation and Analysis Layer (etaal), which manages e-transactions undertaken by e-governance projects, suggests that Karnataka ranks 12th in the country with just 5.66 crore e-transactions this year as of Monday.

The article by Christin Mathew Philip was published in the New Indian Express on December 27, 2016. Sunil Abraham was quoted.

Among the states with maximum number of e-transactions this year so far are Andhra Pradesh, topping the list with 101 crore e-transactions followed by Telangana (80.35 crore e- transactions) and Kerala (75.30 crore e-transactions).

Karnataka’s poor standing on the e-governance transactions front can largely be attributed to a low number of e-services - 86 - in sharp contrast to Andhra Pradesh’s 250. The e-services include registration of births and deaths, land record registration, utility, bill payments and other government related services.

This clearly underlines the fact that Karnataka needs to include more government services online and also create more awareness among the people about the existing e-governance projects to achieve ‘digital India’ and cashless payment system.

When contacted, Karnataka’s IT minister Priyank Kharge said: “Karnataka is a pioneer in e-governance projects, which includes Bhoomi, Khajane and Mobile-One. Mobile-One is offering nearly 4,500 services, both government and private services at the finger tip. All these initiatives have become the model for other states.”

Statistics from Union government web portal Electronic Transaction Aggregation and Analysis Layer (etaal), which manages e-transactions undertaken by e-governance projects, suggests that Karnataka ranks 12th in the country.

Commenting on this, IT Minister Priyank Kharge said, “The Centre has also recently ranked Karnataka at No.13 in ease of doing business in the country. I don’t know how they are coming up with such rankings without considering the merit.”

Sunil Abraham, executive director of the Centre for Internet Society, a Bengaluru based-research organisation, said: “The government should make e-services friendly to the citizens and also make it more transparent.” He said implementation of proposed Electronic Service Delivery Bill, which will make it mandatory for every government organisation to deliver public services online at a stipulated period, will bring more accountability and attract more people to use government e-services.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/new-indian-express-december-27-2016-christin-philip-mathew-it-hub-karnataka-ranks-12-in-e-deals

‘Internet is an absolute human right’

praskrishna — 2015-02-05T15:10:58Z

The right to the internet is an absolute human right, Bengaluru-based lawyer Lawrence Liang said.

The article was published in the Times of India on February 1, 2015. Pranesh Prakash was quoted.

Pranesh Prakash, policy director, Centre for Internet and Society, said people should fight for this right "as we fight for the right to food".

There was vigorous espousal of the concept of net neutrality at the session on 'Is free internet a fantasy?' Net neutrality is the notion of keeping the internet free and open. It implies preventing broadband companies from blocking or deliberately slowing down legal content; and preventing them from collecting a higher fee from content providers to enable them to reach consumers faster.

Session moderator and writer Vivek Kaul noted that broadband companies had been arguing for the right to price internet services differentially on the grounds that they had made huge investments on their infrastructure. Prakash challenged that argument saying the companies were already highly profitable and their consumers were anyway paying for the internet. "Even the argument that large content providers like Google and Facebook are having a free ride on their networks is not true because they pay intermediaries who carry their traffic," he said.

Last November, US president Barack Obama upheld net neutrality, saying that for almost a century, "our law has recognized that companies who connect you to the world have special obligations not to exploit the monopoly they enjoy over access into and out of your home or business." He went on to say: "It is common sense that the same philosophy should guide any service that is based on the transmission of information — whether a phone call or a packet of data."

If broadband companies are allowed to charge content providers higher for faster internet services, it would discriminate against those who can't afford to pay such rates. This would mean lopsided availability of information - a fundamental resource for a democratic world.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/times-of-india-february-1-2015-internet-is-an-absolute-human-right

‘Hacking’ sparks row over exam evaluation

praskrishna — 2013-07-02T08:58:17Z

Over the past two days, Cornell University student Debarghya Das’ blog post on ‘Hacking the Indian Education System’ has kicked off a debate across the country over the security of data published online and the practice of moderation of marks obtained by school students in board examinations.

The article by Vasudha Venugopal and Karthik Subramanian was published in the Hindu on June 7, 2013. Pranesh Prakash is quoted.

The 20-year-old Cornell student extracted large amounts of class X and XII student results from a website that hosted the ICSE results using an automated program. Over 1,760 schools are affiliated to the ICSE and more than 1.2 lakh students took the board exams. Based on interpretation of the data sets, he raised allegations of large-scale “tampering” of marks by the authorities, ostensibly to maintain a healthy graph on the results.

Information Security experts said what the student did could not be viewed as a major security breach as much as it was exploiting a loophole. “Anyone with basic programming skills will be able to pull it off,” said Pranesh Prakash, policy director at the Bangalore-based Center for Internet and Society. “There are add-ons available on popular internet browers that allow users to read the embedded codes on a website and run programs to mine data.”

Government websites are most susceptible to loopholes because too many people use them, says Nitesh Betala, Chennai coordinator of Null, a community of programmers that meets regularly to explore these loopholes in public domain websites. “We inform the system administrators directly hoping that they would plug loopholes before others exploit them.”

Debarghya too explained on his blog (deedy.quora.com) on Thursday that what he did was not illegal. “I did not illegally access any database system. All I did was access information that was available to any person who entered a number into the website could access. I simply mined the data.”

The ICSE council, on its part, said it does not publish the examination results in an online manner on its website. Instead, hard copies of results are despatched to schools. But the results are disseminated to third parties such as media organisations.

Krupakar Manukonda, who runs a blog on education for the not-for-profit organisation Takshashila, said: “The online results of all the boards have serious privacy problems. I think the respective boards should issue a passcode along with a hall ticket or entering Date of Birth, First name and Last name should be made mandatory to access marks.”

Das deduced after much data crunching and statistical analysis that the “marks had been tampered with”. His claim is supported by graphs purporting to show that nearly 33 scores, such as 91, 92, 86 and so on, were never awarded to any student.

However, teachers deny the allegation. “The word tampering is wrong. There is moderation that happens across education boards,” explained a teacher, who has worked with ICSE schools in Hyderabad and Chennai. “After the first round of corrections, raw data is given to officials and head examiners who analyse how students have performed. They try to ensure the bell curve of the results does not look awkward. If it does, the implication is that the checking has been either too liberal or very strict.”

After the first moderation, there is a final moderation which is often done by a different set of teachers. “There are some instructions given to us earlier, and some changes made later, depending on analysis by the board,” said a teacher. Teachers are not told about moderation methods in both CBSE and ICSE boards.

The ICSE council says that it does follow the practice of moderation. “In keeping with the practice followed by examination conducting bodies, a process of standardisation is applied to the results, so as to take into account the variations in difficulty level of questions over the years (which may occur despite applying various norms and yardsticks), as well as the marginal variations in evaluation of answer scripts by hundreds of examiners (inter-examiner variability), for each subject.”

Some teachers are however puzzled by the findings. “It is understandable that there are many 35s because a student on the verge of passing, is often pushed to the mark. But I don’t understand why there are no 85, 87, 89, 91 and 93. And, with cut throat competition for every single mark in colleges, teachers are very careful, especially with top scoring papers,” said another senior teacher.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/the-hindu-june-7-2013-vasudha-venugopal-karthik-subramanian-hacking-sparks-row-over-exam-evaluation

‘Entrepreneurship will become a common, respectable profession’ – 25 quotes from Indian startup journeys

praskrishna — 2016-10-25T00:40:09Z

From success to status, witness the memorable journey of Indian entrepreneurship in these excerpts and stories! StoryBites is a weekly feature from YourStory, featuring notable quotable quotes in our articles of this past week (see the previous post here). Share these 25 gems and insights from the week of October 16-22 with your colleagues and networks, and check back to the original articles for more insights!

The article by Madanmohan Rao was published by Your Story on October 23, 2016. Subhashish Panigrahi was quoted.

When it comes to e-commerce, IoT will exceed overall expectations. – Avinash K Gautam, Silvan Innovation Labs

Chat will play an important role in the future of communication for customer service. – Girish Mathrubootham, Freshdesk

The customer experience is important, especially when things go wrong. – Radhika Aggarwal, ShopClues

Organisations will have to prepare for a digital future and they will have to use technology skills that offer artificial intelligence and design thinking. – Vishal Sikka, Infosys

Design isn’t only about ‘wow’ features. Learn about user preferences and behaviour. – Jay Dutta, SAIF Partners

Overall, there are 30–40 million sarkari naukri aspirants in the country. - Konark Singhal, Sarkari.Jobs

The growth of energetic startups is sure to translate into growth for the agriculture sector if channelised appropriately. - Varun Khurana, Crofarm

Awareness with respect to organic food is on the rise. - Likhita Bhanu, Terra Greens

Almost 100 percent of adhoc transport still happens through truck stands or ‘nakas’. - Kausalya Nandakumar, SmartShift

The opportunities to build connected mobility and electric vehicles in India are immense. - Chetan Maini, Reva

We foresee a paradigm shift in corporate outlook towards on-site childcare. - Chirag Shah, Little Big World

There is need for collective action towards bolstering growth for our cottage industry. - Parul Mehta, Ishanya Foundation

India has more than 250 million students enrolled in government and private schools. Unfortunately, more than 70 percent of children never complete their education. - Anil Bhansali, Microsoft India

Sales this festive season have probably not changed too much over last festive season. - K.Vaitheeswaran, retail entrepreneur

India has become our largest market outside of the Chinese mainland. - Lei Jun, Xiaomi

There is no better time for anyone who can read and write in their native Indian language. - Subhashish Panigrahi, Centre for Internet and Society

Both men and women have to balance work and life, however, a woman is at the receiving end of prejudiced approaches more than men. - Shweta Jain, William Grant & Sons

Mistreating and disrespecting women doesn’t make a man cool, it makes him a monster. - Sunny Leone

Social crowdfunding is here to change the face of social activism. - Piyush Jain, Impact Guru

It’s beneficial that angel investing is considered sexy. - Siddhartha Ahluwalia, Babygogo

Future growth depends on empowering people. Innovation and globalisation have created opportunity the likes of which has never before existed. – Alec Ross, ‘The Industries of the Future’

Live in the present and be grateful for what you have in life. - Anni Sharma, SelfV Survivor

Follow your dream and passion consistently. - Shyamala Ramanand, Akanksha

Life’s not an easy journey. We live only once and we are responsible for own happiness. - Haritha Khandabattu

If you solve a real problem, you will do well. And God knows we have a lot of problems to solve. – Suveen Sinha, ‘Tip of the Iceberg’

Entrepreneurship should be a happy and joyous journey and a journey filled with purpose to be called truly successful. - Ashok Soota, Happiest Minds

Entrepreneurship will become a common, respectable profession. - Sanjay Padode, DaRT

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/news/your-story-madan-mohan-rao-october-23-2016-startup-journeys-quotes-respectable-profession

‘Digitisation only way to preserve valuable literature for posterity’

praskrishna — 2014-04-04T12:40:33Z

Digitization is the only way to ensure preservation of valuable Odia books and old palm-leaf manuscripts for posterity, said eminent linguist Padmashri Dr Debiprasanna Pattanayak while inaugurating the two-day Odisha Day celebration organized by the Odia Wikimedia Community at Jayadev Bhawan here today.

The article was published in Odisha Sun Times on March 29, 2014. Subhashish Panigrahi is quoted.

“Collaborative effort and open access to knowledge repositories can help enrich our language and culture”, Dr. Pattanayak said while taking part in the deliberations. He lamented the fact that the majority of current Odia publications are not available on the net.

Among others, Prof Udayanath Sahu, the editor of Odisha Review Lenin Mohanty, editor, Odisha Bhaskar, Pradosh Pattnaik, language researcher, Subrat Prusty from Kalinga Institute of Social Science (KISS) and principal Dr Madan Mohan Sahu, Allhadmohini Mohanty, chairman, Manik-Biswanath Smrutinyasa along with the Trust’s secretary Brajamohan Patnaik, senior members Sarojkanta Choudhury and Shisira Ranjan Dash took part in the deliberations.

11 volumes of eminent Odia writer Dr Jagannath Mohanty were released in free Creative Commons licenses. Besides, a DVD containing a new Odia Unicode free font designed by www.OdiaLanguage.com a new Odia input tool, free software and offline Wikipedia were also released on the occasion.

KISS will digitize these books by training its students, the organisers said.

Odia Wikipedia admin Mrutyunjaya Kar gave the inaugural speech while Subhashish Panigrahi from the Centre for Internet and Society read out the annual report and the vision of Odia Wikipedia.

It was announced that the Odia WikiSource project will be activated soon.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/odishasuntimes-march-29-2014-digitisation-only-way-to-preserve-valuable-literature-for-posterity

‘Chilling’ Impact of India’s April Internet Rules

praskrishna — 2012-01-27T04:32:51Z

Kapil Sibal’s demand that Internet companies self-censor users’ content is just the latest move by the Indian government to restrict information on Facebook and other social media Web sites. This article by Heather Simmons was published in the New York Times on December 7, 2011.

The most stringent government push came in April, when the “Information Technology (Intermediaries Guidelines) Rules 2011” were introduced.

The rules require “intermediaries,” companies like Facebook, Google and Yahoo that provide the platform for users to comment and create their own content, to respond quickly if individuals complain that content is “disparaging” or “harassing,” among other complaints. If the complainant’s claim is valid, these companies must take down the offensive information within 36 hours.

So, what impact have these rules had so far?

A yet-to-be-published study by the Center for Internet and Society in Bangalore concludes that free speech on the Internet in India is already being curtailed in a “chilling” manner.

Rather than carefully studying take-down notices, intermediaries are erring “on the side of caution,” the report says, and over-complying after complaints are filed, perhaps because they don’t have the legal or administrative manpower to examine every complaint.

In the study, a researcher working for C.I.S. sent notices to intermediaries in seven different situations, saying he found specific user-generated material offensive. In six of the seven, these companies took down the “offensive” material, and often removed more than was asked for. (In the seventh case, the researcher asked a shopping portal to remove information on one brand of diapers, saying they caused diaper rash and were therefore harmful to minors. The shopping site rejected the request, calling it frivolous.)

The study does not name the specific intermediaries involved, but they are understood to be the big social media and Internet companies that dominate the industry.

Two examples:

The researcher objected to a comment below an article on a news Web site about the Telangana movement, which aims to create a separate state in Andhra Pradesh. The comment, which was well-written and not obscenity-laced, condemned the violence in the Telangana movement and called its leaders selfish, but supported the cause over all. The researcher wrote the intermediary that the comment was “racially and ethnically objectionable” and “defamatory.”

The researcher received no written response, but within 72 hours the intermediary had taken down not just the “offensive” comment, but all 15 comments that were published below the article.
The researcher sent a take-down notice to another intermediary, defined as a “host and information location tool,” asking that it remove three links provided on its search engine after entering the words “online gambling.” The links, the researcher complained, were “relating or encouraging money-laundering or gambling,” which is illegal under the April rules.

The intermediary wrote back to the complainant, saying that the intermediary’s search engine was a “mere conduit” with no control over the information passing through its platform.

But it subsequently removed the three links mentioned in the take-down notice, and all other URLs of the three Web sites, including their subdomains.

The rules seem to encourage “privately administered injunctions to censor and chill free expression,” C.I.S. says. A third party whose information has been removed is not informed about the take-down request or given a chance to defend itself.

The study’s results show the “rules are procedurally flawed as they ignore all elements of natural justice,” C.I.S. concludes.

The original was published in the New York Times

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/chilling-impact-of-indias-april-internet-rules

‘ಕನ್ನಡ ವಿಶ್ವಕೋಶ’ಕ್ಕೆ ಇನ್ನು ಲೈಸೆನ್ಸ್ ಹಂಗಿಲ್ಲ

praskrishna — 2014-07-14T07:55:12Z

ಮೈಸೂರು ವಿಶ್ವವಿದ್ಯಾಲಯ ಇದೇ ಮೊದಲ ಬಾರಿಗೆ ತನ್ನ ಮೂರು ದಶಕಗಳಷ್ಟು ಹಳೆಯ ‘ಕನ್ನಡ ವಿಶ್ವಕೋಶ’ದ ಮೊದಲ ಆರು ಸಂಪುಟಗಳನ್ನು ‘ಕ್ರಿಯೇಟಿವ್ ಕಾಮನ್ಸ್ ಲೈಸನ್ಸ್’ನಡಿ (ಮುಕ್ತ ಪರವಾನಗಿ) ಅಂತರ್ಜಾಲದ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯಾದಲ್ಲಿ ಬಿಡುಗಡೆ ಮಾಡಲಿದೆ

Click to read the original published in Prajavani on July 14, 2014 here.

ಇದಕ್ಕೆಂದೇ ಕಳೆದ ಫೆಬ್ರುವರಿಯಲ್ಲಿ ವಿಶ್ವವಿದ್ಯಾಲಯವು ಸಿಐಎಸ್‌ (ಸೆಂಟರ್ ಫಾರ್ ಇಂಟರ್‌ನೆಂಟ್‌ ಅಂಡ್ ಸೊಸೈಟಿ) ನೊಂದಿಗೆ ಒಪ್ಪಂದ ಮಾಡಿಕೊಂಡಿದ್ದು, ವಿಶ್ವಕೋಶದ ಆರು ಸಂಪುಟಗಳು ಇದೀಗ ಸಂಪೂರ್ಣ ಉಚಿತವಾಗಿ ಅಂತರ್ಜಾಲ ಓದುಗರಿಗೆ ಲಭ್ಯವಾಗುತ್ತಿವೆ.

ಇದೇ ರೀತಿ ಕನ್ನಡ ವಿಶ್ವವಿದ್ಯಾಲಯವು ಕೂಡ ತನ್ನ ವಿಶ್ವಕೋಶಗಳನ್ನು ಕ್ರಿಯೇಟಿವ್ ಕಾಮನ್ಸ್‌ನಲ್ಲಿ ಬಿಡುಗಡೆ ಮಾಡಬೇಕೆಂದು ಕನ್ನಡ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯಾ ಸಮೂಹವು ಕೋರಿದೆ. ಆದರೆ, ಅದಕ್ಕೆ ವಿ.ವಿ ಇನ್ನೂ ಒಪ್ಪಿಗೆ ಸೂಚಿಸಿಲ್ಲ. ಎಲ್ಲ ವಿ.ವಿ., ಅಕಾಡೆಮಿ, ಪರಿಷತ್ತು ಕನ್ನಡ ಸಾಹಿತ್ಯ ಪರಿಷತ್ತುಗಳು ತಯಾರಿಸಿದ ಮತ್ತು ಸರಕಾರದಿಂದ ಅನುದಾನ ಪಡೆದು ತಯಾರಾದ ಎಲ್ಲ ಮಾಹಿತಿ ಸಾಹಿತ್ಯಗಳನ್ನು ಕ್ರಿಯೇಟಿವ್ ಕಾಮನ್ಸ್ ಪರವಾನಗಿಯಲ್ಲಿ ಬಿಡುಗಡೆ ಮಾಡಬೇಕು ಎಂಬುದು ಬಹುತೇಕರ ಒತ್ತಾಯವಾಗಿದೆ.

ಜುಲೈ 15ರಂದು ಮೈಸೂರು ವಿಶ್ವವಿದ್ಯಾಲಯದ ಕುವೆಂಪು ಕನ್ನಡ ಅಧ್ಯಯನ ಸಂಸ್ಥೆಯಲ್ಲಿ ನಡೆಯುವ ‘ಮುಕ್ತ ಜ್ಞಾನ ದಿನಾಚರಣೆ’ ಕಾರ್ಯಕ್ರಮದಲ್ಲಿ ಕುಲಪತಿ ಡಾ.ಕೆ.ಎಸ್. ರಂಗಪ್ಪ ವಿಶ್ವಕೋಶವನ್ನು ಅಂತರ್ಜಾಲದಲ್ಲಿ ಲೋಕಾರ್ಪಣೆ ಮಾಡುವರು.

ಏನಿದು ಕ್ರಿಯೇಟಿವ್ ಕಾಮನ್ಸ್ ಲೈಸೆನ್ಸ್?: ಜ್ಞಾನ ಯಾರ ಸ್ವತ್ತೂ ಅಲ್ಲ. ಅದೊಂದು ಮುಕ್ತ ಹಾಗೂ ಸುಲಭದಲ್ಲಿ ಎಲ್ಲರಿಗೂ ದಕ್ಕುವಂಥದ್ದಾಗಿರಬೇಕು. ಇದಕ್ಕೆಂದೇ ಅವತಾರವೆತ್ತಿದ್ದ ಅಂತರ್ಜಾಲ ‘ಲೈಸೆನ್ಸ್’ ಎಂಬ ಯಮಪಾಶಕ್ಕೆ ಸಿಕ್ಕಿ ನರಳುತ್ತಿದೆ. ಇದಕ್ಕೆ ಎಬೆನ್ ಮೊಗ್ಲೆನ್ ಎಂಬುವರು ‘ಕ್ರಿಯೇಟಿವ್ ಕಾಮನ್ಸ್ ಲೈಸೆನ್ಸ್’ ಎಂಬ ಹೊಸ ಚಳವಳಿಯನ್ನೇ ಜಾಗತಿಕವಾಗಿ ಹುಟ್ಟು ಹಾಕಿದ್ದು, ಲೈಸೆನ್ಸ್ ಎಂಬ ಪರಿಕಲ್ಪನೆಯನ್ನೇ ತೊಡೆದುಹಾಕಲು ಶ್ರಮಿಸುತ್ತಿದ್ದಾರೆ.

ಇದರಡಿ ಮೈಸೂರು ವಿಶ್ವವಿದ್ಯಾಲಯ ಇದೇ ಮೊದಲ ಬಾರಿಗೆ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯಾಗೆ ತನ್ನ ಆರು ಸಂಪುಟಗಳನ್ನು ಜಾಗತಿಕ ಶಿಷ್ಟತೆಯಾದ ಯೂನಿಕೋಡ್‌ನಲ್ಲಿ ಮುಕ್ತಗೊಳಿಸಲಿದೆ.

ಏನಿದು ವಿಶ್ವಕೋಶ?: ದೃಶ್ಯ ಮಾಧ್ಯಮಗಳ ಹಾವಳಿಯಲ್ಲಿ ವಿಶ್ವಕೋಶಗಳು ಎಂದರೆ ಏನು ಎಂದು ಕೇಳುವ ಯುವಜನರೂ ನಮ್ಮ ನಡುವೆ ಇದ್ದಾರೆ. ಗ್ರಂಥಾಲಯಗಳಲ್ಲಿ ದೂಳು ತಿನ್ನುತ್ತಾ ಎತ್ತರದ ಕಪಾಟುಗಳಲ್ಲಿ ಇಂದಿಗೂ ಇವುಗಳನ್ನು ಕಾಣಬಹುದು. ಜ್ಞಾನದ ವಿವಿಧ ಶಾಖೆಗಳ ವಿವೇಚನೆಯುಳ್ಳ, ಸಾಮಾನ್ಯವಾಗಿ ಬಿಡಿ ಲೇಖನಗಳನ್ನು ಅಕರಾದಿಯಾಗಿ ಒಳಗೊಂಡ ಭಂಡಾರವೇ ವಿಶ್ವಕೋಶ.

ಭರತನ ನಾಟ್ಯಶಾಸ್ತ್ರ ಬಹುಶಃ ಪ್ರಪಂಚದ ಮೊದಲ ವಿಶ್ವಕೋಶ. ನಿಜಗುಣ ಶಿವಯೋಗಿಯ ವಿವೇಕ ಚಿಂತಾಮಣಿ ಕನ್ನಡದ ಮೊದಲ ವಿಶ್ವಕೋಶ ಎನಿಸಿದೆ. ಇಂಗ್ಲಿಷ್‌ನ ಬ್ರಿಟಾನಿಕಾ ಎನ್‌ಸೈಕ್ಲೋಪೀಡಿಯಾ ವಿಶ್ವಕೋಶ ಜಗತ್ತಿನಾದ್ಯಂತ ಹೆಸರುವಾಸಿಯಾಗಿದೆ. 1768–-1771ರ ನಡುವೆ ಮೊದಲ ಬಾರಿಗೆ ಪ್ರಕಟವಾದ ಅದು ವಿಶ್ವದ ಅತ್ಯಂತ ಹಳೆಯ ವಿಶ್ವಕೋಶ ಕೂಡ ಹೌದು. 1931ರಲ್ಲಿ ಶಿವರಾಮ ಕಾರಂತರು ‘ಬಾಲಪ್ರಪಂಚ’ ಕೋಶವನ್ನು ರಚಿಸಿದ್ದರು. ಎನ್‌ಸೈಕ್ಲೋಪೀಡಿಯಾ ಬ್ರಿಟಾನಿಕ ಮಾದರಿಯಲ್ಲಿ ಮೈಸೂರು ವಿವಿಯಲ್ಲಿ ಕನ್ನಡ ವಿಶ್ವಕೋಶ ರಚಿಸುವ ಪ್ರಯತ್ನ1954ರಲ್ಲಿ ಆರಂಭವಾಯಿತು.

ಕುವೆಂಪು ಅವರ ನೇತೃತ್ವದಲ್ಲಿ ಮೈಸೂರು ವಿವಿಯು ಯೋಜನೆ ಸಿದ್ಧಪಡಿಸಿ, ಸರ್ಕಾರಕ್ಕೆ ಸಲ್ಲಿಸಿತು. 1954ರಿಂದ 1968ರವರೆಗೆ ಈ ಯೋಜನೆ ರಾಜ್ಯ ಸರ್ಕಾರದ ಸಾಹಿತ್ಯ ಮತ್ತು ಸಂಸ್ಕೃತಿ ಅಭಿವೃದ್ಧಿ ಇಲಾಖೆಯ ಅಧೀನದಲ್ಲಿತ್ತು. ದೇಜಗೌ ಅವರು ಕನ್ನಡ ಅಧ್ಯಯನ ಸಂಸ್ಥೆಯ ನಿರ್ದೇಶಕರಾಗಿದ್ದಾಗ ಅಂದಿನ ಮುಖ್ಯಮಂತ್ರಿ ವೀರೇಂದ್ರ ಪಾಟೀಲ, ಶಿಕ್ಷಣ ಸಚಿವ ಕೆ.ವಿ.ಶಂಕರಗೌಡ ಹಾಗೂ ಹಣಕಾಸು ಸಚಿವ ರಾಮಕೃಷ್ಣ ಹೆಗಡೆ ಅವರ ಮೂಲಕ ಮೈಸೂರು ವಿವಿಯ ಶಾಶ್ವತ ಯೋಜನೆಯಾಗಿ ನೆಲೆಗೊಳ್ಳುವಂತೆ ಮಾಡಿದರು.

ಪ್ರೊ.ದೇಜಗೌ ಅವರ ಮಾರ್ಗದರ್ಶನ, ಪ್ರೊ.ಹಾ.ಮಾ. ನಾಯಕ ಅವರ ಸಾರಥ್ಯದಲ್ಲಿ ಕನ್ನಡ ವಿಶ್ವಕೋಶ ಪ್ರಕಟಗೊಂಡಿತು. ಇದೀಗ ಇದನ್ನು ಅಂತರ್ಜಾಲಕ್ಕೆ ಮುಕ್ತವಾಗಿ ಹಂಚಲಾಗುತ್ತಿದೆ.ಕೆಲವು ಅಂತರ್ಜಾಲ ಕೊಂಡಿಗಳು ಹೀಗಿವೆ, ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯದಲ್ಲಿ ಮೈಸೂರು ವಿ.ವಿ.

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For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/prajavani-july-14-2014-four-volumes-of-kannada-encyclopaedia-digitised

‘By weakening our security, govt is putting us at risk of espionage’

praskrishna — 2015-10-02T03:09:46Z

After the BlackBerry encryption and IT Act fiascos of recent years, the government last week sent yet another cyber policy howler, the Draft National Encryption Policy, only to withdraw it in the face of severe protests. S. Raghotham and Mayukh Mukherjee spoke with Pranesh Prakash, policy director, Centre for Internet & Society, on the government’s continued misadventures with data privacy and encryption.

This interview of Pranesh Prakash was published in Asian Age on September 27, 2015.

First we had Section 66A in the Information Technology Act. Now we have these attempts at breaking encryption and invading privacy. Your comment.
The Draft National Encryption Policy (DNEP) was not only an invasion of privacy and a restriction on anonymous speech, but was, most importantly, a direct assault on national security. It was quite clearly drafted by people who did not understand encryption, who think that encryption is something that only a handful of people do, without realising that encryption is baked into most of our technologies.

It is clear that the government’s cyber-law division needs people who are better versed in both the law (including constitutional rights) as well as technical aspects of IT. It’s not just Section 66A, but a host of other provisions in the IT Act which display a similar cluelessness. For instance, gaining unauthorised access to a protected system for purposes of defamation is, as per Indian law, sufficient to commit the offence of “cyber terrorism”.

How does this compare with the previous government’s attempts to gain access to BlackBerry communications?
L’affaire BlackBerry concluded with the government realising that while they could get BlackBerry to locate a network operations centre in India, they still couldn’t decrypt everything since BlackBerry Enterprise Service allowed enterprises to control the encryption. However, the government seems to have drawn the wrong lesson from that, and wants to prevent end-users from using encryption the way they have already managed with telecom companies and Internet service providers, who are not allowed to deploy bulk encryption which saves their customers’ data from being intercepted by attackers.

The government seems to be saying, if the US National Security Agency (NSA) doesn’t get you, we will. How are we to respond to this?
If you’re using Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Hotmail, etc., you already have opportunistic traffic-level encryption for email. Ironically, no @deity.gov.in or @nic.in address has even this basic level of encryption. This is the shocking state of affairs even many years after National Informatics Centre (NIC) publicly acknowledged that multiple email accounts that they host were hacked into. National security is a collective form of security — we can’t increase national security by making individuals less secure. We can’t, for instance, improve national security by telling people not to use locks on their houses. That will only decrease security, not increase it. And we are in a situation where our government conducts all their email communications using the online equivalent of postcards, rather than using sealed envelopes. The Central government urgently needs to appoint a group of security experts who work with NIC to shore up our defensive security.

A slide on an NSA programme called BOUNDLESSINFO-RMANT showed that in the month of February 2013, the NSA has collected 12.5 billion data records relating to phone calls from India, far more than what they had collected from China. The fact that our government mandates weak telecom security (by restricting bulk encryption) might account for this. By weakening our security, the government is putting us at greater risk of espionage and at the hands of hackers.

What are some of the ramifications for businesses and individuals if the government were to have keys to all encrypted information as it seeks?
The government, in the DNEP, did not even seek key escrow (which is what the debate was about in the 1990s in the US’ “crypto war”). Here the government more or less sought to tell companies and individuals that they have to keep plain text, making storage-level encryption pointless. This means that all your company’s information — emails, passwords and financial records — would be vulnerable to compromise by hackers. It is like telling a company that it is allowed to own a government-approved safe for storing important documents, but it has to keep a copy of all the important documents outside the safe.

Is the encryption policy fiasco some junior bureaucrat’s ignorance of what he was proposing or is it part of the government’s continued efforts to somehow gain control over information flows?
The government intended to gain greater access to everyday transactions. This would violate citizens’ privacy, which the government has been arguing is not a fundamental right. They went about it in a manner that is absurd in its consequences. The policy would have required you to record every mobile phone call and Skype call, to keep a plain text version of communications, which would harm national security. While I don’t believe the government would intentionally weaken national security, as they would have had this draft policy been carried forward, one cannot say that the government wouldn’t do so wantonly, much in the same way that they haven’t even employed basic security in their email systems.

Do you perceive a higher level of desire in the current government to control information flows?
The Indian government’s pursuance of harmful technology policies is nothing new. However, I hope that as a tech-savvy person heading an ostensibly tech-savvy government, Prime Minister Narendra Modi steps in and halts these deleterious policies. One disappointment of the last year has been the lack of progress on the Privacy Act, which seems to have been shelved for the time being. I believe the government’s motivations are genuine and grounded in the public interest. However, as in any constitutional democracy, the citizenry ought to be engaged in both defining the public interest as well as in debating how we best protect and uphold it within the norms laid down in our Constitution, which includes guarantees of fundamental rights which are inviolable except in limited circumstances.

For most of these policy problems, the best way forward is to ensure that the government follow a system of issuing green papers — essentially non-papers meant to stimulate public discussion — before it issues white papers which contain statements of policy intent, based on which it finally formulates policies or laws. Currently, interaction between policymakers and civil society is far too infrequent. The government needs to inject far more subject-matter expertise into policymaking.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/asian-age-september-27-2015-s-raghotham-and-mayukh-mukherjee-by-weakening-our-security-govt-is-putting-us-at-risk-of-espionage