Centre for Internet and Society

Works of Veerasalingam Pantulu on web

praskrishna — 2015-01-01T14:47:38Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/works-of-veerasalingam-pantulu-on-web.pdf

Works of Odisha litterateur JP Das to be available online free

praskrishna — 2016-01-03T10:51:10Z

The works of bureaucrat-turned-writer from Odisha, Jagannath Prasad Das, can be accessed free online after the digitisation process is complete.

The article was published in Odisha Sun Times on December 5, 2015.

Saraswati Samman and Sahitya Academy award winner, prominent writer, former IAS officer and cultural historian, popularly known as JP Das, has recently re-licensed 30 of his notable works under a free license called CC-by-SA 4.0. This opens up a whole new window to his books being accessible to readers for free online.

Recently, the scanning of the original books was made by the Bhubaneswar based non-profit and science education research organisation Srujanika which will now be made available after converting them into text form.

Not just Dr Das, many other notable individuals like Padma Shree Debi Prasanna Pattanayak, Manoj Panda, Dr Subrat Prusty, Bharat Majhi and organisations like Aama Odisha, Manik Biswanath Smrutinyasa that have come forward in the past to make their books available online using Odia Wikisource as a platform. Aama Odisha’s founder Soumya Ranjan Patnaik in a public gathering last year had permitted for relicensing and digitizing 19 volumes of Odia books published by Aama Odisha.

“I made a rather late and hesitant entry into the internet and digital world, but it has since become an integral part of my life. My introduction to digital books was through Srujanika’s digitised version of Purnachandra Odia Bhashakosha – all of 95,00 pages in seven volumes — which was impossible to handle on the writing table. That made me think how wonderful it would be to have all Odia books available on the internet that could be easily accessible to every interested reader,” says Das.

“As a beginning, I decided to put my own writings on the internet. Many of our young Odia writers are quite active on the social media. I hope they will take the initiative to get more and more Odia books available on the internet with the help of Odia Wikisource,” he adds.

Notably, Odia Wikisource is a sister project of the Odia Wikipedia and is available at or.wikisource.org on the internet. As a free online Odia-language library, it houses over 119 books already and all of the books are either under public domain or under the above mentioned creative commons share-alike license which gives the freedom of accessing the works for free, reuse them and even correct if any mistakes found, of course following the guidelines made by the Wikisource community. Currently, about 10 Wikisourcers are actively contributing to digitise books of various genres ranging from science to fiction to even the Odia classics.

With more authors generously opening up their work online, it feels like they are worried of the books becoming obsolete from the new generation leaving them with no way to learn about their own language and literature. Regional languages like Odia are facing the struggle to selling more books with the growing trend of English-centric education and rat race for jobs. In such a tough situation, more popular Odia literary content is certainly going to give a boost to readership and will take the language to more people, he expressed.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/news/odisha-sun-times-december-5-2015-works-of-odisha-litterateur-jp-das-to-be-available-online-free

Workplace Solutions Champions Consultative Workshop

praskrishna — 2017-02-03T01:23:38Z

A two day workshop was held on January 21 - 22 at Ecumenical Christian Centre in Bangalore. The workshop was organized by Enable India. Nirmita Narasimhan attended the workshop.

Agenda

Day 1: January 21, 2017

Sl. No.	Agenda Item	Description	Timings
1	Context Setting for the Workshop	What outcomes we hope to achieve during the workshop	9.30 - 10.00
2	Reflections and Sharing	Sharing on achievements and impact, through discussions and activities	10.00 - 10.45
	Tea Break		10.45 - 11.15
3	Reflections and Sharing (Continued)	Sharing on achievements and impact, through discussions and activities	11.15 – 12.45
	Lunch Break		12.45 - 13.45
4	Situational Context for WPS Champions Network	Understanding the background of workplace solutions and their critical role in shaping livelihoods for persons with vision impairment	13.45 - 14.30
5	Curriculum Development	Creation of curriculum for development of quality WPS Implementation professionals	14.30 - 16.30
	Tea Break		16.30 - 17.00
6	Curriculum Development	Creation of curriculum for development of quality WPS Implementation professionals	17.00 - 19.00

Day 2: January 22, 2017

Sl. No.	Agenda Item	Description	Timings
1	WPS Champions Network Long Term Vision and My Personal Vision	Understanding the future of WPS implementation, and personal vision alignment	9.00 - 10.00
	Tea Break		10.00 - 10.30
2	National track: Top Actions for the Year, and Who Will Do What	Understanding the roadmap for WPS across India	10.30 – 11.00
3	Regional Tracks for North, South and West regions: Top Actions for the Year, and Who Will do What	Preparing a region-specific roadmap for WPS in the north, south and west regions	11.00 - 12.00
4	Open Session on Employment	Group discussion on WPS in the context of employment and livelihoods	12.00 - 13.00
	Lunch Break		13.00 - 14.00
5	Logistics and communication channels for next steps	Service management tool demo, Whatsapp group and other information	14.00 - 15.00

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/accessibility/news/workplace-solutions-champions-consultative-workshop

Working PDF

praskrishna — 2011-02-24T05:10:37Z

pdf

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/accessibility/publications/working.pdf

Working Draft (Word File)

praskrishna — 2011-02-24T04:51:42Z

word file

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/accessibility/publications/working-draft.doc

Working Draft (PDF)

praskrishna — 2011-02-24T04:57:24Z

pdf

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/accessibility/publications/working-draft.pdf

Work Report on NVDA and eSpeak for the month of May 2014

praskrishna — 2014-06-03T08:37:10Z

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

Work Report on NVDA and eSpeak for the month of June 2014

praskrishna — 2014-07-07T06:37:09Z

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

Women's Wikipedia Editathon

praskrishna — 2016-04-02T15:18:31Z

Wikipedia Editathon

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/copy8_of_w1.jpg

Women's History Month, India-2015

praskrishna — 2015-03-08T09:18:19Z

CIS-A2K is supporting the Indian Wikimedia volunteers organize Wikipedia Women's History Month, India- 2015.

See the event meta page here

8th March is International Women's Day and to celebrate, women in India are organizing edit-a-thons and meetups to create and expand articles of importance to women in Wikipedia in English and various Indian languages. The goal of the month-long event is to encourage more women and transwomen to contribute to Wikipedia and increase the quality of articles related to women in Wikipedia. The event aims at creating new articles, expanding the existing stubs and translating English articles to various Indic languages. Everyone is welcome to join the event as enthusiasts, editors, translators, bloggers or event managers. Anyone who identify themselves as women are particularly encouraged to participate.

Events: Click here to see the list of online and offline events.
Participants: Sign up as a participant!
List of articles : Click here to see the list of languages and articles.
Resources: Organize an event!

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/news/womens-history-month-india-2015

Women on Covid lists get lewd calls and messages

praskrishna — 2021-05-24T06:35:20Z

Perverts are eating into precious time in the middle of a pandemic and adding to the overall anxiety.

Women are getting lewd calls and messages when they share their phone numbers to seek and offer pandemic-related help.

On April 15, Shasvathi Siva tweeted about how her number, shared on blood donation and social media groups, received obscene photos and video calls from strangers.

When she spoke about the harassment on Instagram, she ended up receiving more abuse from men.

With the second wave of the pandemic raging, many patients and families are turning to social media to search for medicines, oxygen, and even hospital beds.

Ambika Tandon, senior researcher, Centre for Internet and Society, says, “There are many stories of how prominent and outspoken women like journalists and activists have received hate speech and messages threatening violence.” What is shocking, she says, is not the harassment, but that it is not stopping even during a medical emergency.

Click to read the complete coverage in Deccan Herald on May 21, 2022.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/deccan-herald-may-21-2021-krupa-joseph-women-on-covid-lists-get-lewd-calls-and-messages

Women in love with Facebook

praskrishna — 2011-05-27T11:35:51Z

There’s one thing these days that determines the passion of the modern Indian woman: their ever-growing love affair with the internet. The article by L Subramani was published in the Deccan Herald on May 27, 2011.

The sight of women updating their Facebook status, tweeting or checking their emails on the move makes it apparently clear that women, more than men, take to internet and in particular to social networking.

Global researches have lent credence to the phenomena that women are either obsessed or even addicted to Facebook and other social networking sites, suggesting that a third of women aged 18 to 34 check their Facebook pages when they wake up in the morning before even going to the toilet, while 21 per cent of those in the same age group check the social networking site before going to bed.

Alarmingly, the same study, by UK-based Oxygen Media and Lightspeed Research-also suggest that 42 per cent from the same age group have no problems posting pictures of them drunk on Facebook.

"I’ve been on Facebook for about a year and a half,” admitted 26-year-old Kate who doesn’t like to tell her real name. “It has sort of become a regular thing. Apart from attending meetings or on important work, I quite naturally check the posts others have made and regularly update my status on FB."

Personal space

She denies that Facebook has gradually crawled into her personal life or could have even contributed to her remaining single. "It’s ridiculous (to say that FB has an impact on my life). I think it’s the best way to catch up with friends and family."

Smartphones with Facebook apps and growing usage of the internet on mobile phones have also opened up the possibility of logging on to social networking sites often and on the move and quite naturally, tech savvy urban women are taken into it, according to cyber researchers.

A cursory glance at many of the dating sites also suggest that women of all ages use the relative anonymity to reach out to new friends or to talk their minds out. Surprisingly, a few of them are also from small towns and places not on the radar for prolific internet usage.

A recent study by Google to understand the profiles of people using various internet browsers suggested that nearly 36 per cent of Indian women are using Chrome — Google’s own browser — for its seemingly faster performance that would make updating Facebook status or accessing videos and photos much easier.

"Women mostly use the internet for accessing entertainment and would like it to be fast,” Nikhil Rungta, country marketing head, Google India said. “It became clear that most of them use Chrome either for social networking or accessing multimedia or entertainment content."

However, Nishant Shah, a researcher on cyber behaviour and director of research at Bangalore-based Centre for Internet and Research, is sceptical about the numbers. "There aren’t any specific studies to suggest that Indian women are on social networking more than men," he said.

"This doesn’t look possible when researches have shown that men outnumber women in overall internet usage. It may even be possible that many men are posing as women in social networking sites."

Bangalore-based writer and social commentator Vaasanthi feels that social networking provides the space women always look for. “It may be called ‘Facebook’, but you aren’t talking to a real face. This gives the freedom and the courage for women to freely express themselves,” she said.

"Given that most women today come from nuclear families, they actually don’t have that many people to talk to in real world. The virtual world provides them what they can’t get in real world."

She also said there is no need to feel alarmed about the Facebook phenomenon. "Facebook or social networking phenomenon is a new change and any change would initially cause concerns. But surely this would fade away," she said.

Read the original here

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/women-love-facebook

Women Arrested in Mumbai for Complaining on Facebook

praskrishna — 2012-11-21T11:32:04Z

For over 30 hours following the death of the Shiv Sena leader Bal Thackeray on Saturday, stores throughout Mumbai closed their shutters and taxis and autorickshaws stayed off the streets.

This article by Neha Thirani and Hari Kumar was published in New York Times on November 19, 2012. Pranesh Prakash is quoted.

While analysts throughout Mumbai debated whether the citywide shutdown following the death of Mr. Thackeray was inspired by fear or respect, one 21-year-old woman and her friend were arrested for raising a similar question.

On Sunday, the police in Palghar, in Thane district, on the outskirts of Mumbai, arrested Shaheen Dhadha after she posted a status update on Facebook that questioned the shutdown, also known as a bandh. A local daily, the Mumbai Mirror, reported that Ms. Dhadha, 21, had written, "People like Thackeray are born and die daily and one should not observe a bandh for that." The police also arrested her friend who "liked" the post, whom NDTV identified by her first name, Renu.

The women were arrested under Section 505 of the Indian Penal Code for “statements creating or promoting enmity, hatred or ill will between classes.” Srikant Pingle, station house in charge of the Palghar police, told India Ink that the local Shiv Sena chief, whom he identified as “Mr. Bhushan,” filed the complaint against Ms. Dhadha because her comment on Facebook hurt Shiv Sena’s sentiments. Mr. Pingle declined to comment further on the details of the arrests.

Sudhir Gupta, the defense counsel for the two women, told NDTV, “Their posts don’t incite violence. It can’t be said they have made any derogatory remarks. They don’t belong to any political ideology.”

In a phone conversation with India Ink, a police officer of the Palghar station, who identified himself only as Gavali, said that the arrest took place on Sunday night and that the pair had been taken to court on Monday.

The two women, who were sentenced to 14 days in jail by the court, received bail after a bond of 15,000 rupees ($270) was paid, reported NDTV.

The Times of India reported that a mob of 2,000 Shiv Sena workers vandalized her uncle’s orthopedic clinic in Palghar. Repeated calls made to the Dhada orthopedic hospital in Thane went unanswered, while Harshal Pradhan, a Shiv Sena spokesman, said that he was unaware of the incident.

A police officer at the Palghar Police Station, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that no one has been arrested in the attack on the clinic.

Pranesh Prakash, program manager with the Center for Internet and Society, said the arrests of the two women were a violation of free speech and the misapplication of the law. “There were thousands of people on Facebook, Twitter and in person who were saying the exact same kinds of things that this girl is alleged to have said,” said Mr. Prakash. “And the fact that only she and one other person who liked that comment have been arrested shows a clear arbitrariness in the application of the law.”

In an open letter addressed to the chief minister of Maharashtra, the former Supreme Court Judge Markandey Katju defended the two women, saying, “To my mind it is absurd to say that protesting against a bandh hurts religious sentiments.” He further said that the arrest appears to be a criminal act as it is a crime to wrongfully arrest or wrongfully confine someone who has committed no crime.

On social networking sites, people came out in support of Ms. Dhadha and her friend. The Facebook group “Ban Shiv Sena” had about 36,400 "likes" as of Monday afternoon, while the party’s official Facebook page had just under 2,700. On Twitter, several commenters expressed solidarity with the two women, including Milind Deora, the government minister of state, communications and information technology, who said, "To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize ~ Voltaire."

In Maharashtra, Shiv Sena has a history of banning books, movies and other popular culture that are critical of the political party. In 2010, Rohinton Mistry’s book, "Such a Long Journey," was withdrawn from the syllabus of Mumbai University after Shiv Sena officials complained that the book insulted Bal Thackeray. Ironically, in a January 2007 interview with Shekhar Gupta, the editor in chief of The Indian Express, Mr. Thackeray said that what differentiated him from the mafia is that journalists and others were free to disagree with him and criticize him.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/india-blogs-nytimes-nov-19-2012-neha-thirani-hari-kumar-women-arrested-in-mumbai-for-complaining-on-facebook

Women arrested for Facebook post: Did cops act under Sena pressure?

praskrishna — 2012-11-21T11:17:37Z

After Bal Thackeray's death, during the Mumbai Bandh, a 21-year-old criticised the shutdown on her Facebook page — her friend approved of it — next thing they know, they are facing a case, and this morning they were arrested.

YP Singh, Alyque Padamsee, Rohan Joshi, Karuna Nundy and Pranesh Prakash took part in a discussion about the arrest of two girls over a Facebook comment. The discussion was aired in NDTV on November 19, 2012.

The anchor asked Pranesh Prakash:

Who are these people scrolling through people's Facebook posts and Twitter accounts, finding these comments and taking action?

Pranesh Prakash said that it could be anyone. The reality is doesn't really matter because the laws are written in such a way that if it is public and stuff that is on Facebook for different purposes can either be public or private, if it is public these laws can very often apply and that is a problem. We haven't quite figured out to what extent these laws apply. The IT Act section 66A for instance, is unconstitutional, section 295 A which has been applied, and section 505 which also seems to have been applied in this case make it a clear case of misappropriation of those provisions. These kind of arrests will happen. It doesn't quite matter if we have right laws at one level and it clearly doesn't help if we have bad laws. What we need to do at least in part to remedy the situation is to amend the IT Act to make it consonant and consistent with civil and political rights and to do so in multi-stakeholder fashion involving civil society, industry and government. Right now it doesn't protect privacy and freedom of speech as much as it should.

Watch the full video aired on NDTV

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/ndtv-video-ndtv-special-ndtv-24x7

Woman Alleges Harassment at Major International Conference

praskrishna — 2016-03-30T17:06:10Z

A prospective lawyer's name tag was flipped, and she was asked rude questions by a CEO at a conference, where, ironically enough, she was invited to devise sexual harassment policies.

The article by Kavita Patil was published in Bangalore Mirror on March 30, 2016.

Padmini Baruah, 22, a National Law School of India University (NLSIU) student representing Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), at the ICANN55 (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) held at Marrakech, alleged that she was sexually harassed by Khaled Fattal, the chairman and CEO of The Multilingual Internet Group.

On March 2, Baruah had reached out to the conference ombudsman and expressed her concerns about the lack of a specific sexual harassment policy. She was directed to the ICANN55's Standards of Behavior, who invited her for a discussion at the conference in Marrakech.

About three hours before her meeting with the ombudsman on March 6, she had a shock. "I was, unfortunately, subjected to sexual harassment in the nature of verbal remarks and infringement of my personal space by the perpetrator in question, a man I eventually came to know was called Khaled Fattal," she recalled. "Fattal approached me, pulled at my name tag, examined it and dropped it. A little later, he lifted my name tag and flipped it back and forth asking me, "Where are you from?"

He then leaned in, lecherously looked at me and asked, "Do you know how to make a cheese sandwich?" I was taken aback and responded angrily saying, "Yes, that is why I came here, to make you cheese sandwiches." He went on to throw another lecherous look my way and said, "Well, I love veg sandwiches."

Sunil Abraham, executive director of the CIS, said, "ICANN doesn't have a special cell where complaints can be raised but they have an ombudsman. The ombudsman is investigating the case and is in touch with both Baruah and also the perpetrator." He said after she raised the sexual harassment complaint, he received many mails from women who had faced harassment at the event but never made an attempt to raise their voice. "Through CIS we have issued a public statement of support for Baruah and we are waiting for the result of the investigation," he said.

Fattal and the ombudsman were not available for comment despite repeated attempts made by BM to get a response. Baruah, meanwhile, was informed by the ombudsman that her's was the first harassment case reported in the history of ICANN.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/bangalore-mirror-march-30-2016-kavita-patil-woman-alleges-harassment-at-major-international-conference