Centre for Internet and Society

Making Wikipedia Better

Pooja Saxena and Nirbheek Chauhan — 2013-10-25T07:30:44Z

It wasn’t something that we set out to do when we started working on The Ballot, but one of the most satisfying unintentional side-effects of the project has been the chance to correct facts and figures, and remove inappropriate content from entries related to India and its politics on Wikipedia.

The first oddity we spotted was way back in August, the day we announced The Ballot to the world. The Hindi word “bewajah” (which means “without reason”) was cropping up all over the wiki entry on the United Progressive Alliance (UPA). Nirbheek restored this entry. When we were putting together our post about the representation of women in the Lok Sabha, we noticed errors in the census figures on Wikipedia. Once we had extracted the right numbers from the data available on the census portal, not only did we use them in our post, but we also corrected them in the wiki entry. More recently, some missing information in the info-boxes in the entries on a handful of Indian states gave Pooja the opportunity to make her first ever edits!

These, of course, are just the tip of the iceberg. We have a longer list of issues to fix, and an even longer one for potential improvements. If only we could spare more time and involve more collaborators, a real difference could be made to the quality of Wikipedia entries on Indian politics.

We met Subhashish of the Access to Knowledge programme at CIS yesterday and have some great things planned with him for the coming weeks. Stay tuned!

About The Ballot
The Ballot is a visual compendium of information about the world’s largest democracy. Every week till the general elections in 2014, it will publish easily digestible yet relevant nuggets of information about India, its government and its workings, presented as richly illustrated graphs and charts.

About Pareidolic
Pareidolic is a collection of collaborative projects by Nirbheek Chauhan, a software developer, and Pooja Saxena, a typeface designer. Besides their weekly efforts towards The Ballot, Pareidolic also released a free and open source Devanagari to Bharati Braille Converter this year, which is on its way to supporting several other Indian languages.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/making-wikipedia-better

Making the Powerful Accountable

chinmayi — 2014-01-30T06:43:41Z

If powerful figures are not subjected to transparent court proceedings, the opacity in the face of a critical issue is likely to undermine public faith in the judiciary.

Chinmayi Arun's Op-ed was published in the Hindu on January 29, 2014.

It is odd indeed that the Delhi High Court seems to believe that sensational media coverage can sway the Supreme Court into prejudice against one of its own retired judges. Justice Manmohan Singh of the Delhi High Court has said in Swatanter Kumar v. Indian Express and others that the pervasive sensational media coverage of the sexual harassment allegations against the retired Supreme Court judge 'may also result in creating an atmosphere in the form of public opinion wherein a person may not be able to put forward his defence properly and his likelihood of getting fair trial would be seriously impaired.' This Delhi High court judgment has drawn upon the controversial 2011 Supreme Court judgment in Sahara India Real Estate Corp. Ltd v. SEBI (referred to as the Gag Order case here) to prohibit the media from publishing headlines connecting retired Justice Swatanter Kumar with the intern's allegations, and from publishing his photograph in connection with the allegations.

Although the Gag Order judgment was criticised at the time that it was delivered Swatanter Kumar v. Indian Express illustrates its detractors' argument more vividly that anyone could have imagined.

Sukumar Muralidharan wrote of Gag Order case that the postponement (of media coverage) order remedy that it created, could become an "instrument in the hands of wealthy and influential litigants, to subvert the course of open justice".

Here we find that although a former Supreme Court judge is pitted against a very young former intern within a system over which he once presided, Justice Manmohan Singh seems to think that it is the judge who is danger of being victimised.

The Swatanter Kumar judgment was enabled by both the Gag Order case as well as the 1966 Supreme Court judgment in Naresh Sridhar Mirajkar v. State of Maharashtra, which in combination created a process for veiling court proceedings. Naresh Mirajkar stated that courts' inherent powers extend to barring media reports and comments on ongoing trials in the interests of justice, and that such powers do not violate the right to freedom of speech; and the Gag Order case created an instrument - the 'postponement order' - for litigants, such that they can have media reports of a pending case restricted. The manner in which this is used in the Swatanter Kumar judgment raises very worrying questions about how the judiciary views the boundaries of the right to freedom of expression, particularly in the context of reporting court proceedings.

Broad power to restrict reporting

The Gag Order case was problematic: it used arguments for legitimate restraints on media reporting in exceptional circumstances, to permit restrictions on media reporting of court proceedings under circumstances 'where there is a real and substantial risk of prejudice to fairness of the trial or to proper administration of justice'. The Supreme Court refused to narrow this or clarify what publications would fall within this category. It merely stated that this would depend on the content and context of the offending publication, and that no 'straightjacket formula' could be created to enumerate these categories. This leaves higher judiciary with a broad discretionary power to decide what amounts to
legitimate restraints on media reporting, using an ambiguous standard. Exercise of this power to veil proceedings involving powerful public figures whose actions have public implications, imperils openness and transparency when they are most critical.

Court proceedings are usually open to the public. This openness serves as a check on the judiciary, and ensures public faith in the judiciary. In countries as large as ours, media coverage of important cases ensures actual openness of court proceedings - we are able to follow the arguments made by petitioners who ask that homosexuality be decriminalised, the trial of suspected terrorists and alleged murderers, and the manner in which our legal system handles sexual harassment complaints filed by young women.

When court proceedings are closed to the public (known as 'in-camera' trials) or when media dissemination of information about them is restricted, the openness and transparency of court proceedings is compromised. Such compromise of transparency does take place in many countries, to protect the rights of the parties involved, or prevent miscarriage of justice. For example, child-participants are protected by holding trials in-camera; names of parties to court proceedings are withheld to protect their privacy sometimes; and in countries where juries determine guilt, news coverage that may prejudice the jury is also restricted.

The damage done

Although the Supreme Court stated in principle that the openness of court proceedings should only be restricted where strictly necessary, this appears to lend itself to very varied interpretation. For example, it is very difficult for some of us to understand why it was strictly necessary to restrict media coverage of sexual harassment proceedings in the Swatanter Kumar case. J. Manmohan Singh on the other hand seems to believe that the adverse public opinion will affect the retired judge's chance of getting a fair trial. His judgment also seems to indicate his concern that the sensational headlines will impact the public confidence in the Supreme Court.

The Delhi High Court's apprehension about the effects of the newspaper coverage on the reputation of the judge did not need to translate into a prior restraint on media coverage. They may better have been addressed later, by evaluating a defamation claim pertaining to published material. The larger concerns about the reputation of the judiciary are better addressed by openness: if powerful public figures, especially those with as much influence as a former Supreme Court judge are not subjected to transparent court proceedings, the opacity in the face of such a critical issue is likely to undermine public faith in the judiciary as an institution.Such opacity undermines the purpose of open courts. It is much worse for the reputation of the judiciary than publicised complaints about individual judges.

Since the Delhi High Court ruling, there has been little media coverage of the sexual harassment case. Suppression of media coverage leaves the young woman comparatively isolated. Wide coverage of the harassment complaint involving Justice Ganguly, helped the intern in that case find support. The circulation of information enabled other former interns as well as a larger network of lawyers and activists, reach out to her. This is apart from the general pressure to be fair that arises when a case is being followed closely by the public. Media coverage is often critical to whether someone relatively powerless is able to assert her rights against a very powerful person. This is why media freedom is sacred to democracies.

If the Supreme Court was confident that the high courts in India would use their broad discretionary power under the Gag Order case sparingly and only in the interests of justice, the Swatanter Kumar case should offer it grounds to reconsider. Openness and freedom of expression are not meant to be diluted to protect the powerful - they exist precisely to ensure that even the powerful are held accountable by state systems that they might otherwise be able to sway.

(Chinmayi Arun is research director, Centre for Communication Governance, National Law University, Delhi, and fellow, Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore.)

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/the-hindu-january-29-2014-chinmayi-arun-making-the-powerful-accountable

Magic words in Wikipedia

tanvir — 2015-09-14T08:37:56Z

The struggle of finding solutions for replacing and retrieving content /words/facts and figures, in this day and age of machines that seem to know everything should ideally be a non-issue. Yet, for many of us who write reports based on the data available at that moment, it is nothing less than a nightmare to come to know that there has been a significant change in the data with which our reports have been written.

How does one mediate between the ever changing nature of data in general and more specifically understand the way a publicly curated knowledge ecology operates (Wikipedia can be taken as an example). It is made clear to us by the various earlier reports¹ that the amount of data exchange and content generation can be astonishingly high when one takes into acount Open Knowledge repositiries such as Wikipedia in the major languages of the world, commons.wikimedia project and other Wikimedia projects.

Our understanding of the available data can often lead us to erroneous conclusions, if one does not account for the constant updating nature of such data. The bigger risk is for a reader/researcher/user to assume that the data quoted in news reports/research or reports as static data (as against the dynamic data discussed here) and form conclusions based on the same. Another catastrophic possibility is to use the data procured in such fashion for planning and evaluation purposes. If one does not acknowledge the possibilty of change of data and plans only with the available data and does not account for the changes under contingency measures the entire planning might be off the mark and might not be successful when executed. Even for the purpose of evaluation, the constant change in data has to be tracked and monitored to appreciate the work/critical evaluation of the nature of the work.

How do we bell the Cat (read as the changing data) if not on the traditional print and digital platforms atleast in the Wikimedia universe? To do this manually is a task that is supremely tasking and prone to high error possibilities. If there is one thing researchers accross subject domains agree it is that no data is always better than wrong data. One must also think of the precious resources that would be spent on this data mining activity, the human hours, the time resources, the physical and infrastructural resources that are consumed in this process of keeping the data feed accurate and updated. I do notdeny the efficacy of systems where data mining is done manually. It is the digital researcher in me who would like to introduce to the readers a tool called 'Magic Words' https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Magic_words used in the Wikimedia universe to plug this problem and offer researchers fewer nightmares regarding the validity of the data.

Magic words offer a one stop solution towards resolving the issues of sourcing, securing and updating our data fields. With this one can be sure that the data fields do not become obsolete and might yield to erronoeus and in worse case contradictory interpretations. If there is a research report which seeks to compare page numbers of Kannada Wikipedia with another Wikimedia project. The traditional way to do this would be to aggregate the number of articles/redirects and publish the same. The reader ends up with a number that is static in nature. Does this mean that this number is permanent, the answer is an easy no because Kannada Wikipedia is by nature and definition a live project that will be changed and added to constantly.

An ordinary reader who does not have the bandwidth to follow the researcher's footsteps in finding out the total number of articles on Kannada Wikipedia will have to be content with the same static number provided even when he knows that the number is no longer accurate. By using the magic word {{NUMBEROFARTICLES}} in a report that is written on Meta, the researcher allows the data to update automatically and changes the nature of data from static to dynamic. A classic example for the static data and the dynamic nature of the data using Magic words can be seen at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Wikipedias (dynamic data represented) https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/List_of_Wikipedias (static data that needs to be updated manually). The change in the nature of presentation of data also implies that the facts and figures available are not just numbers but indicate factors that have driven the nature of data and influenced the formation of number of pages. Dynamic data allows us to ask interesting questions such as 'what factors contributed to the spike/decline in the number of articles' and learn from these numbers.

It becomes an essential responsibility for the researchers working with digital resources and in digital domains to broaden the scope of their research and also extend its validity to a longer course that would be difficult for quantitative research done with traditional resources and hosted on traditional platforms. Given below is a table of key magic words and its function.

Si. No	Magic Word	Used for	Used in Wikimedia Projects and Local Wiki Projects
1	{{NUMBEROFFILES}}	Number of uploaded files.	Metrics and Government Databases
2	{{NUMBEROFEDITS}}	Number of wiki edits.	Metrics and Student Evaluation
3	{{REVISIONDAY}}	Day edit was made	Metrics and Student Evaluation
4	{{REVISIONSIZE}}	The size (bytes of wikitext) of the current revision of this page	Metrics and Data inflow
5	{{NUMBEROFVIEWS}}	Number of page views.	Metrics and Website Traffic
6	{{REVISIONUSER}}	The username of the user who made the most recent edit to the page, or the current user when previewing an edit.	Metrics and Collaboratively written documents
7	{{NUMBEROFADMINS}}	Number of users in the sysop group.	Metrics and Focus group
8	{{PAGENAME}}	Full page title (including all subpage levels) without the namespace.	Metrics and Info websites

Magic words facility can be employed in many and diverse ways (as of now these are fully operational in the Wikimedia universe) if the Mediawiki software is used to build applications. For eg: Websites, evaluation programmes, databases and other applications.

Reference:

1. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CIS-A2K/Indic_Languages#State_of_Indic_Language_Projects
2. https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Magic_words

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/magic-words

Loyola Faculty Enlightened About Open Edn Resources

praskrishna — 2014-07-02T04:50:48Z

“The tremendous changes in the digital technology have introduced the newage faculty to certain open and collaborative tools like Wiki, termed as open educational resources (OER),” Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) progarmme director T Vishnu Vardhan has said.

The article published in the New Indian Express on June 25, 2014 can be read here. T. Vishnu Vardhan gave his inputs.

Adressing a two-day national workshop on ‘“Openness of Knowledge in Digital Era’ at Andhra Loyola College here Tuesday, Vishnu Vardhan stressed that within this context of digital era, openness and transparency gained newer significance, which creates a pre-condition for the transformation of society into knowledge society.

Pointing out that many of the websites were offering opportunity to access the information in almost all Indian languages and with everyone making use of Wikipedia as an OER tool, he explained the changes in the digital technology and also introduced the faculty to certain open and collaborative tools like Wikipedia.

Besides to giving a historical overview of the free and open source software movement, mass collaboration on the internet, details about Wikipedia authors and users, the participants were educated about using the simple technological tools like QR code to create increased and seamless access to knowledge using pervasive technologies like mobile phones.

Graduate and postgraduate teaching faculty from various streams partcipated in the workshop meant to discuss and learn new development in the fields of knowledge sharing and access in digital era.

CIS programme officer Rahimanuddin Shaik, jounalist Malladi Kameswara Rao, ALC principal Fr Kishore, college vice-principal Fr Anil kumaralso participated.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/the-new-indian-express-june-25-2014-loyola-faculty-enlightened-about-open-edn-resources

Letter to Education Secretary, Government of Karnataka, Advocating Adoption of FOSS in State IT Academies

sachia — 2011-08-23T02:55:16Z

The Centre for Internet and Society is a signatory to a letter being sent to the Education Secretary, Government of Karnataka, advocating the adoption of FOSS at state IT academies.

The state of Karnataka has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Microsoft under which three IT academies have been established in the state, in Bangalore, Dharwad and Gulbarga, in 2004-05. Government school teachers are being trained at these academies. As per the MOU, only Microsoft decides the curriculum at these academies, and only Microsoft software applications are being taught to the teachers. This MOU will expire in the coming academic year. Therefore, Gurumurthy Kasinathan and members of the FOSS community in India are sending a letter to the Education Secretary for the state of Karnataka, advocating the adoption of a FOSS-based curriculum in these IT academies, and explaining why this would be a useful move.

The Centre for Internet and Society is one of the signatories to this letter, which is reproduced below.

-----

The Education Secretary

Government of Karnataka

MS Building

Bangalore, Karnataka.

Sub – Microsoft IT Academies in Karnataka

Dear Sri Nadadur,

Karnataka has a MOU with Microsoft under which three 'IT Academies' have been established in the State, in Bangalore, Dharwad and Gulbarga during 2004-05. Government school teachers are being trained in these academies. As per the MOU, only Microsoft decides the curriculum in these academies, and only Microsoft software applications are being taught to the teachers.

There are a couple of issues with this program.

Firstly Microsoft does not allow the teaching of software other than their own proprietary products. This deprives the teachers from learning alternative Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) platforms. There are compelling pedagogical, economic, social and political reasons why the education system needs to adopt and promote FOSS. Free software is software which gives the users the freedom to use, study, modify and share, while in the case of proprietary software, the vendor prevents the study, modification and distribution of the software. The freedoms of FOSS provide users and the rest of society with several important advantages, which are briefly listed below:

a. With proprietary software, the teachers only learn be superficial 'users'. This is because, proprietary software companies prevent access to the “source code” that goes into the creation of software. With FOSS, students can learn not only how to use software, but also how create and modify the software applications. Hence with FOSS, students will not just be passive users but will actually construct knowledge. As we know, 'Constructivism' is a key feature of the National Curriculum Framework 2005.

b. FOSS supports the creation of local language versions of the software. For example, Kerala has locally created software in Malayalam for its IT@School program. Similarly the Kannada community Sampada has created a complete Kannada distribution by customising existing FOSS software.

Though Microsoft has provided Windows and Microsoft Office gratis at these academies, it does not provide the same software to the teachers who are trained at the centre. Hence the teachers who intend to purchase computers would need to shell out considerable amounts for the software which they have become used to in the schools. However, if the teachers are trained on FOSS alternatives to Windows and Office, at at negligible price (the cost of a CD which is around Rupees ten), each teacher can be a given a copy of the software. The training can also cover the installation of the software, if required. In this way, the teacher training can lead to the actual use of computers in the schools and teachers homes and make the training meaningful and lead to the greater dispersion of ICTs. Currently, most teachers learn to use these products but have no continuity of learning which makes the training futile.

Of course, the issue of FOSS is not only one of cost. Even if proprietary software were offered free of cost, our nation will eventually have economic losses, due to permanent dependency on software monopoly.

These are some of the reasons why Karnataka has chosen FOSS in its own ICT@Schools program. The computers in Karnataka schools run on GNU/Linux platform under this program. We would like to submit that the teacher training in the IT Academies at Bangalore, Dharwad and Gulbarga also need to be aligned to the IT@School program, and hence teachers should be taught on the same FOSS software platforms as well.

We had a meeting with Ms Vandita Sharma last November, along with Dr Richard Stallman, the founder of the global Free Software movement, and explained these issues. She was sympathetic to these arguments on the public benefits from FOSS and mentioned that the department would take appropriate action in this regard as is consistent with the public interest and those of the teachers and children in our government schools. She mentioned that the MOU with Microsoft is expiring in the coming academic year and and requested us to formally write to her in this regard, hence this letter.

We request that the Government take a firm stance in favor of adopting and promoting FOSS and chose FOSS in its software procurement to align the department to the government schools.

A few months back, organisations that are working to promote FOSS came together to establish a 'Coalition of the FOSS Community in India' whose goal is to collaborate with governments and other organisations to promote the adoption of FOSS, specially in the public sector. Several of the member of this coalition are based in Bangalore, including the Centre for Internet and Society, Sampada, Swatantra Malayalam Computing, Deeproot Linux, IT for Change etc. Faculty from IIM-B, Bangalore University as well as other academic institutions are also members of this coalition. Members of this coalition are willing to provide any technical support or guidance that the government may require in this regard. For eg, FOSS curriculum for both schools and for teacher training is available in Kerala and can be adapted to Karnataka schools. It should be noted that FOSS is already being used in many institutions in Karnataka, including IISC, IIIT-B, IIIT-H, IITK and many engineering colleges.

We hope our submission will be considered by the education department as well as by the government and we look forward to working with you to help bring these ideals into reality. If you think it would be useful, we could plan a small workshop / interaction, or even a series of workshops for different stakeholders, to discuss the issue in more detail and look at the implications of the choice of the software platforms for the ICT programs in the department.

We look forward to your response.

Yours truly

Gurumurthy Kasinathan and members of the FOSS community in India (list of signatories is provided overleaf)

May 9^th 2009.

Copy - Commissioner for Public Instruction, Sri Kumar Naik

Copy - State Project Director, Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan, Sri Selva Kumar

Copy - Principal Secretary, DPAR (Dept of Personnel and Administrative Reforms) e-Governance

Copy - Principal Secretary, Department of IT

enclosed:

Why Government of Karnataka should adopt and promote FOSS

Kerala IT@Schools project

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/letter-to-education-secretary-may-2009

Leslie Chan Lectures in Tiruvananthapuram and Mysore

praskrishna — 2012-12-12T06:26:42Z

Prof. Leslie Chan from the University of Toronto, Canada is giving a series of lectures in Tiruvananthapuram and Mysore from December 17, 2012 to December 19, 2012.

Programme of Prof. Leslie Chan in Thiruvananthapuram

Knowledge Management in the Open Access Environment
Date: December 17, 2012 Time: 11.00 a.m. – 1.00 p.m. Venue: Dept. of Library & Information Science, University of Kerala Organiser: University of Kerala Contact person : Dr. KP Vijayakumar / 9496749901 (Mob) / 0471-2308034 (Off) E-Mail : kpvijayakumar2@gmail.com
Emerging Trends in Scholarly Communications and Impact Measures in the Open Knowledge Environment
Date: December 17, 2012 Time: 3.00 p.m. – 5.00 p.m. Venue: National Institute of Interdisciplinary Science & Technology (NIIST)(CSIR), Pappanamcode, Trivandrum Organiser: NIIST and CSIR Contact person: Mrs. Nishy P/9645086468 (Mob)/0471-2515293(Off) E-Mail: nishy22@gmail.com Evening : Discussion with Prof. VN Rajasekharan Pillai, Executive Vice President, KSCSTE, Sasthrabhavan, Trivandrum
Lecture-cum-Open Forum on Open Access Initiatives (OAI)
Time: 10.30 a.m. – 1.00 p.m. Venue:Indian Institute of Information Technology & Management-Kerala (IIITMK), Technopark, Trivandrum Organiser: IITMK Contact person : KP Sadasivan : 9447903282 (Mob) / 0471-2527567 Ext.103 (Off) E-Mail: kps31147@yahoo.com or sadasivan.kp@iiitmk.ac Afternoon : Visit to ICFOSS, Technopark, Trivandrum (Co-sponsored by IIITMK & ICFOSS) Contact person : KP Sadasivan : 9447903282 (Mob) / 0471-2527567 Ext.103 (Off) E-Mail : kps31147@yahoo.com or sadasivan.kp@iiitmk.ac

A Special Lecture by Prof. Leslie Chan in Mysore

Emerging Trends in Scholarly Communications and Impact Measures in the Open Knowledge Environment
Organisers: Mysore University Library, Department of Studies in Library and Information Science (DLIS-UoM), Mysore Library and Information Scientist’s Association (MyLISA) and SDM Institute of Management Development, Mysore. Date: Wednesday, December 19, 2012 Venue: Manasa Media Centre, Mysore University Library, Manasagangotri, Mysore

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/leslie-chan-lectures-in-tiruvananthapuram-and-mysore

Legal Challenges to Mapping in India #1 - Laws, Policies, and Cases

Adya Garg — 2016-05-11T13:43:11Z

Responding to the draft Geospatial Information Regulation Bill and the draft National Geospatial Policy made public recently, this post provides an overview of the present configuration of laws, policies, and guidelines that provides the legal framework in India for governance of creation and sharing of geospatial data in India. The post also studies these policies in action by describing the key legal cases around the creation and use of geospatial data. The next post of this series will document the reflections and opinions of the key geospatial industry actors in India, as well as the free and open source mapping community.

1. Introduction

2. Mapping the Legal Journey of Geospatial Data: Past to Present

2.1. National Map Policy, 2005

2.2. Guidelines issued by Survey of India

2.3. Remote Sensing Data Policy (RSDP)

2.4. Civil Aviation Rules

3. Incidents of Legal Actions Faced by Agencies

3.1. Google's Mapathon in Legal Trouble

3.2. One Country - Two Boundaries

3.3. J. Mohanraj v Google and Others

4. Conclusion

5. References

6. Author Profile

1. Introduction

“Maps, like faces, are the signature of history.” – Will Durant [1]

Throughout the course of history geospatial information has played an important role in technological, economic, political and cultural dimensions of the human society. With technological developments taking place, the field of mapping – that is collection, analysis, and representation of geospatial data – is continuously evolving. On the face of it, creation of geospatial data seems to be an exclusive scientific and technological matter. However, the political and economic facets of geospatial data are often as predominant and complex as its scientific practice. Continuing from the colonial era, the political facet of mapping emerged significantly in the public discourse from the 1990s onwards as digital technologies amplified the ability of non-governmental actors to collect, generate, and share geospatial data, in the form of maps or otherwise [2]. This 'democratisation' of the ability to map and share private/user-generated maps structurally undermined the government's ability to have an authoritative and universal voice when it comes to geospatial depiction of the nation and its various components. Similar to the other upsurges in the digitized world, which is often followed by an introduction of legal provisions in order to keep access to and use of digital data under mechanisms of monitoring and permission, mapping in India has also has subsequently been governed under policies addressing both terrestrial mapping and remote sensing. Concerns of national security, naturally, have driven much of these policies.

This post focuses on providing an overview of the present configuration of laws, policies, and guidelines that provides the legal framework in India for governance of creation and sharing of geospatial data in India. The post also studies these policies in action by describing the key legal cases around the creation and use of geospatial data. The next post of this series will document the reflections and opinions of the key geospatial industry actors in India, as well as the free and open source mapping community.

2. Mapping the Legal Journey of Geospatial Data: Past to Present

“We know every inch of the nation, because we map every inch of it!” – Survey of India [3]

Aforementioned slogan adopted by the primary organization responsible for mapping all geospatial data in India indicates the importance of the geospatial data and mapping the same. While it indicates the importance of having access to mapping data in order to be aware of the geospatial features of one’s country, it also cleverly reveals the vulnerability that having access to mapped data brings. The phrase can be said to imply that mapping every inch of the country leads to information about every inch of the nation which is useful if in the hands of government agency but repugnant to security if in the hands of external agencies. This conflict between access to information about the country and the security concerns arising from such an open access has led to a rich evolution of legal policies governing the same.

Set up in 1767, Survey of India (hereinafter “SOI”) was required to map the terrains of India to fulfill the commercial and political convenience of the East India Company [4]. During these colonial times, maps were considered to be essential for governmental purposes and thus their dissemination to unauthorized persons was barred by Clause 5 of the Official Secrets Act, 1923 [5]. Thus, till 1950s mapping was being governed by the colonial provisions which maps restricted to official use only [6]. With independence, the functions of the SOI shifted mainly towards providing information for the defense forces [7].

An important change came in the form of orders and notifications by Ministry of Defence (hereinafter “MOD”) during 1960s, the major one being the 1965 order that permitted distribution of maps of scale 1:4 M [8]. The Map Restriction Policy of the MOD, however, imposed categorical restrictions on sharing of maps, aerial photos, and all geophysical data for various parts of India - with a focus on international border areas in the North-Eastern state, and the coastal zone that included several large cities like Chennai, Kochi, Kolkata, and Mumbai [9]. Dr. Manosi Lahiri notes that "[t]his had a far reaching effect on the mapping culture of independent India and perpetuated the perception among many that maps were a security threat" [10]." By 1971, however, the functions of SOI extended to catering to inter alia all development activities and was hence brought under the ambit of Department of Science and Technology [11].

However, the catalytic transformation came in the form of National Map Policy, 2005 which made SOI the nodal governmental agency for dealing with all processes involving geospatial data. While harping for open access to geospatial data, the policy accompanied by corresponding guidelines have largely restricted the power to map geospatial data to SOI. The Policy and the guidelines have been discussed in detail as under.

2.1. National Map Policy, 2005

The National Map Policy, 2005 (hereinafter, “NMP”) was announced by the Central Government on May 19, 2005 [12]. The preamble of the policy identifies the importance of high quality spatial data in various facets such as socio-economic development, conservation of natural resources, infrastructure development etc [13]. Topographic map database constitutes the foundation of all spatial data and its production, maintenance, and dissemination has been assigned as a responsibility to SOI, which is to "liberalize access" to spatial data without compromising upon security concerns. Thus, the conflict between national security and right to have access to information regarding one’s country is clearly highlighted in the policy as a need for enactment of the same. Thus, the policy objectives include access to National Topographic Database (NTDB) [14] and promotion of geospatial based intelligence, subject to confirmation to national standards of SOI.

In order to realize the security concerns, inter alia, a dual-classification was created amongst the maps, namely - i) Defence Series Maps (“DSM”) and ii) Open Series Maps (“OSM”). While the former constitutes of topographical maps that mainly cater to defence and security requirements of the country, the latter supports developmental activities. Hence, DSMs whether in analogue or digital form, fall under the classified category and the power to issue guidelines pertaining to their use vests digit mainly for developmental purposes, they are not openly accessible by ipso facto and need to gain the ‘unrestricted’ tag after clearance from MOD. A table specifying the distinction between DSMs and OSMs in detail has been provided below:

Sub-Topic	Defence Series Maps (“DSM”)	Open Series Maps (“OSM”)
Why are these maps used?	The maps under this series cater to defence and security requirements of the country.	The maps under this series are useful in supporting various developmental activities in the country.
What are the technical classifications?	Everest/WGS-84 Datum and Polyconic/UTM Projection) on various scales (with heights, contours and full content without dilution of accuracy).	In UTM Projection on WGS-84 datum, bearing different map sheet numbers. (And as provided in Annexure B of the NMP)
Who can use these maps?	Maps (in analogue or digital forms) for the entire country will be classified.	Both hard copy and digital form will become “Unrestricted” after obtaining a one-time clearance of the Ministry of Defence.
How can the maps be used?	Guidelines regarding the use of DSMs will be formulated by the Ministry of Defence.	Guidelines regarding the use of OSMs will be formulated by SOI regarding aspects like procedure for access, further dissemination /sharing, ways and means of protecting business and commercial interests of SOI etc.

While the DSMs are completely classified, restrictive provisions regarding usage and dissemination of OSMs have also been incorporated in the policy. OSMs are not allowed to show any civil and military Vulnerable Areas and Vulnerable Points (VA’s/VP’s). OSMs on a scale larger than 1:1 needs to be disseminated either by sale or an agreement, which will allow the agency to add its own value to the maps obtained, and to share these maps with others.

The primary transaction between SOI and the agency as well as all the subsequent transactions between the agency and other users have to be registered in the Map Transaction Registry for records. While the Map Transaction Registry forms an important part of the NMP, no such registry information has been made available on the official website of SOI as indicated by the screenshot below.

Map Transaction Registry, Survey of India, URL: http://www.surveyofindia.gov.in/pages/view/48

The policy allows users to publish maps on hard copy or web (with or without GIS interface) subject to a certification from SOI in case of depiction of international boundaries. The policy also upholds the validity of the previous MOD notifications pertaining to mapping subject to the modifications introduced by the policy and authorises SOI to issue further guidelines corresponding to the policy.

2.2. Guidelines issued by Survey of India

Under the powers vested by the NMP, SOI has issued detailed clarificatory guidelines in furtherance of the policy [15]. The restrictions arising on mapping of geospatial data can be attributed to two major factors namely, Security concerns and Copyright provisions [16]. Under the guidelines, copyright of both digital and analogue maps has been vested with the SOI. Penal consequences have been mentioned as a result of violation of SOI’s copyrights. In furtherance of security concerns, the guidelines uphold the Ministry of Finance (Department of Revenue) Notification No. 118-Cus./F.No.21/ 5/62-Cus. I/VIII dated 4th May 1963 which prohibits the export of all maps/digital data in 1: 250K and larger scales through any means. Digital Topographical data has been an exclusive licensing domain of only Indian individuals, organisations, firms or companies.

While paper maps can be accessed from SOI offices against payment of price, digitisation of maps has been strictly made forbidden by the guidelines. Ownership of digital data has been vested completely with the SOI and can only be gained against payment after application through a specified proforma.

2.3 Remote Sensing Data Policy (RSDP)

In 2011, the confusion pertaining to applicability of NMP to both territorial and satellite mapping was resolved with the release of the Remote Sensing Data Policy (RSDP). The policy recognized the importance of remote sensing data and noted that it was largely used by government and non-government users from Indian and foreign remote sensing satellites. However, again banking upon the need for security considerations, the policy was released with the purpose of “…managing and/ or permitting the acquisition/dissemination of remote sensing data in support of developmental activities" [17]. Department of Science (DOS) was made the nodal government agency for all actions pertaining to remote sensing data under the policy.

A basic perusal of the policy indicates a parallelism between the RSDP and the NMP. Thus, similar to NMP, RSDP assures of a government managed Indian Remote Sensing Satellites (IRS) Programme, the data produced by which will be solely owned by the government and other users could only be provided with licences if need be. Any attempt at acquiring and/or dissemination of remote sensing data within India requires permission through the nodal government agency. National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC) of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO)/ DOS is vested with the authority to acquire and disseminate all satellite remote sensing data in India, both from Indian and foreign satellites. NRSC is also supposed to maintain a systematic National Remote Sensing Data Archive, and a log of all acquisitions/ sales of data for all satellites. Thus, nodal government agencies were created for both terrestrial mapping and satellite imagery, former being SOI and latter NRSC.

2.4 Civil Aviation Rules

Aerial instruments and aircrafts act as important instruments for geophysical surveys and mapping. Thus, this area does not go ungoverned. While, till date, India doesn’t impose an explicit bar on foreign registered aircraft overflying its territory for aerial photography and geo-physical survey, the same is subject to prior clearance under rule 158 and 158A of the Aircraft Rules, 1937 on account of safety and security concerns, the procedure for which has been given under Civil Aviation Rules (CAR) [18]. CAR is applicable to inter alia agencies undertaking aerial photography, geophysical surveys etc. An application is required to be made as per Annexure E which inter alia requires confinement of photography/sensing to the exact area as applied and cleared by the Ministry of Defence. The application is forwarded by DGCA to the Ministry of Defence and other agencies responsible for issuing NOC.

DGCA’s restrictions extends to voluntary geographic information with prohibition of civilian drones in India. Unmanned drones are an important equipment used for the purpose of collecting geo-spatial data. The ban on flying drones in India exist from October, 2014 but is not in common knowledge [19]. While it is argued that drones could harm people and lead to chances of crashing, the major argument has always been the use of drones by anti-national elements to peruse sensitive places for plotting terror attacks [20]. While there is an ambiguity regarding using drones in India, flying drones over defence establishments and historical places is completely banned [21]. Thus, civilians using drones for clicking pictures of monuments etc. have often been confronted by the police [22].

Thus, there is no single policy that acts as a deterrent for mapping in India but an accumulation of multiple policies, guidelines and legal provisions that are used by departments of government to restrict mapping in the name of security. These restrictions have also witnessed incidents in their furtherance as detailed below.

3. Incidents of Legal Actions Faced by Agencies

Since the advent of restrictive mapping policies, numerous incidents have come forth when agencies have found themselves faced by legal actions for violating such policies. In recent times, these incidents were publicly highlighted in 1998 when the sale of the CD-Roms of Delhi Guide Maps created by Eicher were prohibited [23]. Eicher has been one of the oldest players of the private mapping market, creating city and road maps for India in the private sector for public distribution. While having faced a ban in earlier times, it is also one of the few companies been able to access the SOI data for value addition. It works in collaboration with SOI now, often launching products in ‘strategic alliance’ with them. After the implementation of NMP, we have witnessed two major legal controversies, both involving SOI on one hand and Google on the other.

3.1. Google's Mapathon in Legal Trouble

In furtherance of Google’s constant endeavour to have every nook and corner mapped, Google holds a competition called ‘Mapathon’ each year [2]. The competition invites people to map their local surroundings incentivised by lucrative prizes to winners. However, an initiative launched for purely mapping purposes had to face a large legal hurdle in the year of 2013. Google-Mapathon, 2013, held in February-March, had declared Vishal Saini as the 1st winner who had mapped the military-prone city of Pathankot. According to legal provisions governing mapping practices in India, civil and military Vital Areas (VAs) /Vital Points (VPs) cannot be shown on maps in public domain [25]. Thus, the tech-giant found itself amidst legal controversy for having held the competition without permission from Survey of India after a concern raised by BJP’s Tarun Vijay. A case was filed by SOI at the R.K. Puram Police Station. The primary contention was that the “Mapathon 2013 activity is likely to jeopardise national security interest and violates the National Map Policy. Citizens of the country, who are ignorant of the legal consequences, are likely to violate the law of the land” [26].

Considering the involvement of a U.S. based company, the investigation was handed over to CBI During the probe, it was alleged by then Surveyor General of India Swarna Subba Rao that Google did not refrain from “polluting” [27] the internet with classified material despite having been asked so. Further, then Additional Surveyor-General of India R.C. Padhi wrote claimed that “The Survey of India is only mandated to undertake ‘Restricted’ category surveying and mapping, and no other government/private organisations or any individual are authorised to do so” [28]. He told Reuters that some of the information provided by locals to Google could be ‘sensitive’ and the security of the nation could not be compromised at any cost [29].

Google on the other hand said that its primary motive was to map local information of daily needs such as hospitals, restaurants, markets etc. and the competition was in tandem with national laws. Further, it was heard that Google had been approached regarding Mapathon by SOI and it had replied with intimation of willingness to talk to SOI. However, SOI had not reverted back and Google was always ready and willing to talk out the matter. However, the much hyped case did not have a substantial result and CBI had to close the probe on account of lack of evidence [30].

Considered a thing of past, the controversy resurfaced in the recent times of January, 2016 post the Pathankot Air Base strike [31]. Google was dragged to the court for having displayed sensitive geospatial data regarding Pathankot that made possible an airstrike at the location. An injunction was sought to refrain Google from showing sensitive military areas and defence establishments on the maps made available by it. While the injunction was refused, Delhi High Court had asked the centre and the additional solicitor to look into the same and keep the court apprised. Thus, this can be termed as an open and unfinished matter ongoing legal contemplation.

While it is understandable that some areas are considered as vulnerable due to security concern. The lost keeps changing often leading to transgression into security places. But the major point being the list of vulnerable areas is classified and not released to public. In absence of such a list, how is it possible for google to vet its data to comply with security concerns.

3.2. One Country - Two Boundaries

Another major legal controversies in the field of geospatial mapping has been with regards to wrong depiction of international boundaries of India by Google. A basic perusal of the official website of SOI provides a list of only three documents under the tab of ‘Public Awareness’, all dealing with the crime of depicting wrong Indian boundaries [32]. While one of them includes the certified map with correct boundaries, to be complied with, other is a gazette notification bringing the Criminal Law Amendment Act, 1961 which criminalized the act of showing wrong depiction of boundaries. Section 69A of the IT Act has also been used earlier to restrict access to links depicting incorrect maps of India [33] though it only speaks about restricting public access to data, necessary in the interest of Sovereignty and Integrity inter alia, the section per se does not deal with dissemination of geos-spatial data.

It was in the year of 2014, that on the directions of Department of Science and Technology, SOI filed a complaint against Google at the Dehradun Police Station for depiction of international boundaries not in a “wrong manner” i.e. not in compliance with Government of India authentication [34]. The result was that today Google shows different boundaries on Indian domain, in compliance with SOI and different on International domain.

Google was also involved in a controversy when in 2009, Google maps for India marked areas of Arunachal Pradesh, including its capital Itanagar and Tawang, in China [35]. It was followed by an apology from Google and an immediate rectification for Indian users. However, Google uses a different version for China and the world creating disparity in the boundary depiction [36].

Google has not been the only platform having faced the anger of Indian community for wrong depiction. In 2011, copies of the Economist Magazine were seized for having depicted the map of Kashmir divided between India, Pakistan and China [37]. For similar reasons, Al-Jazeera was taken off air by the Indian government after a 5-day ban imposed under Section 69A of the IT Act [38]. Modi’s visit to Queensland University of Technology was accompanied by an “unqualified apology” from the authorities for having depicting Indian map without portions of Kashmir [39]. Urban Development Department of Bihar also ended up show-causing one of its employees for putting up wrong map on its website and substituting the same with SOI’s version after media attention [40]. India seems to be the country often having been angered due to wrong depictions of maps.

While India seems to be actively involved in Geo-politics, it isn’t the only country Google has fallen in legal trouble with, for wrongly depicting International Boundaries. In 2010, Google gained a lot of media attention for allegedly starting the ‘First Google Maps War’ [41]. It occurred when a Nicaraguan official led his forces to the Costa Rican territory on other side of the customary border and used Google Maps as a proof to deny trespassing. Nicaragua and Costa Rica have a long territorial dispute and Google seem to have fuelled it by depicting the Nicaraguan version of border according to which that area of Cost Rican territory came within the boundaries of Nicaragua [42]. Despite Nicaragua’s petition to Google to not accept Costa Rica’s petition to shift borders, Google voluntarily changed its borders to comply with the Costa Rican stance [43].

Another such incident followed in the case of Google’s depiction of Dutch-German border with respect to Dollart Bay [44]. Germany claimed the border to be closer to Dutch land while Dutch claimed it to be more towards centre. Google, however, chose to depict a self-version that transferred the German city of Emden to the territorial control of Netherlands. This infuriated the city which resorted to expressing its displeasure and asking Google to change the depiction. Google, this time, however remained dormant and no amendment in the depiction of Dutch-German border could be witnessed.

At the time of Crimean referendum supporting independence, U.N. had passed a resolution condemning the same and supporting territorial integrity of Ukraine. Google, however, believed in the contrary and was quick to bring changes into its maps to depict formation of independent Crimea [45]. Rather than a mistake, this time, Google had adopted a stance against the UN resolution and used its maps to vocalize the same.

Similarly during the inclusion of South Sudan in the U.N.G.A., while members voted, they were unaware of the exact territorial division between North and South Sudan. It was then that Google initiated the process of collecting geo-spatial information regarding South Sudan from locals in order to better the territorial integrity [46].

Thus, Google has times and again fallen into criticism for wrong depiction of international boundaries and even varied depictions of boundaries as per the perspective of the political entity. However, “Popularity does not bestow authority” [47] and Google’s maps cannot be accurately relied upon for proving sovereign territorial holds. Thus, most of the international incidents have witnessed countries resorting to peaceful petitions to Google informing it regarding the inaccuracy of the border and requesting a shift in the same. Hardly has the world witnessed penal provisions being invoked against Google for depicting versions other than the perceived ones.

3.3. J. Mohanraj v Google and Others

Apart from the above two incidents, another pertinent case is the 2008 judgment by the Madras High Court in J. Mohanraj v (1) Secretary To Government, Delhi; (2) Indian Space Research Organisation, Bangalore; (3) Google India Private Limited, Bangalore . A writ petition was filed by Mohanraj seeking a complete ban on Google Earth and ‘Bhuvan’; mapping initiatives by Google and ISRO respectively [48].

The petition was allegedly filed in public interest considering the security apparatus of Indian Government along with the threat posed by the terrorists. The petitioner claimed that the initiatives such as Google Earth used high quality satellite imagery to display bird’s eye view of various establishments including minute details and were bound to cover defense establishments and sensitive areas, posing a threat to Indian security. Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam’s speech was referred to indicate his views against such open creation of geospatial data. The provisions of the NMP was highlighted and it was alleged that such mapping practices violated the individual rights of a person under Article 21 of the Constitution. Further, it was claimed that such practices could only be taken up by SOI and were outside the purview of private organizations.

However, the Court held that the petitioner was unable to produce any specific “Guidelines/Rules/Law laid down by the Central/State Governments, prohibiting the private organisations or any other individuals to Interactive Mapping Program, covering vast majority of the Planet”. Since the court could only interpret existing provisions and not lay down guidelines, passed the judgment against the petitioners.

From the above explained incident it seems that the NMP per se does not refrain creation of mapping data by agencies other than SOI. The centre of the conflict seems to lie with the interpretation of the policy by SOI claiming itself to be the exclusive agency entitled to map data. Hence, often though complaints and cases are filed against such activities, no concrete consequence emerges from the same. Further, the courts have also neglected the grievance of the issue and given ambiguous judgments in most cases. Thus no judicial sanction or opposition to the SOI’s guidelines exist till date often allowing SOI to continue with following its own version. While these cannot be termed as a solution, they definitely indicate towards the root of the problem.

4. Conclusion

It can be concluded from above compilation of legal provisions and incidents that it is perhaps SOI’s interpretation to NMP that gives rise to exclusive authority to map geospatial data and not the policy per se. The objective of the policy clearly advocates for promotion of the use of geospatial knowledge and intelligence. More than one provision under the SOI guidelines indicate towards the arbitrary abuse of power. First, a provision regarding ‘Settlement of disputes’ has been included in the guidelines. Secretary, Department of Science & Technology has been vested with binding decision making powers in case of a dispute on the applicability or interpretation of the guidelines between the SOI and any other person. Thus, instead of a judicial forum, an executive authority has been vested with quasi-judicial powers. Such a dispute resolution mechanism cannot be considered as devoid of bias towards the governmental agency, hampering fair and equal justice. Second, SOI assumed the power of mapping data but under the guidelines considers itself devoid of complete responsibility for the loss caused to any person on account of failure of proper dissemination of data. Third, the SOI has reserved the right to add, delete, modify or amend every provision of the guidelines at any time without assigning any reason or notice.

While depiction of wrong boundaries has been specifically been criminalized and can be accepted as symbolic of sovereign hold over contentious territorial areas, it hardly fulfills a security purpose other than acting as a proof to the international community. The incident regarding Mapathon, on the other hand, though did not result in penal consequences towards Google, seem counterproductive in the first place for asking for a ban on increase of geospatial resource data. Considering the same, prudency demands that India also adopt policies and measures that are more peaceful and accommodating in nature such as resolving territorial matters by talking out with Google and other agencies. The current and proposed stringent penal provisions only act as dis-incentivising measures for geo-spatial agencies to map India, which is not the motive sought to be achieved by the bill.

However, the interpretation of the policy cannot be blamed alone for restrictions such as depiction of VAs and VPs have been specifically mentioned in the policy. Above mentioned policies and guidelines have often been criticized for being overly restrictive in nature and a consequence of colonial hangover. In times of crowdsourcing of mapping data, the need of the hour exist in critically analysing the existent policies and their interpretation. The same is especially so in the absence of a high quality digital version of the correct boundary of India. While a map in PDF form has been put up by Survey of India, the same cannot be converted to digital form to be complied with or used to resolve territorial disputes of detailed nature. This makes it absolutely impossible to completely comply with the Indian version of the boundaries without a proper resource acting as a comparison check. The need of the hour is for the Government to release less ambiguous and specific details as to what it considers to be outside the scope of private mapping and the correct boundaries along with a less stringent policy framework so that India can protect its security, sovereignty and integrity while promoting creation and dissemination of geo-spatial data.

5. References

[1] SV Srikantia, 'Restriction on maps: A denial of valid geographic information,' [2000] 79(4), Current Science 484.

[2] Fatima Alam, 'Mapping the politics of cartography,' Infosys Science Foundation, 31 March 2015, http://www.infosysblogs.com/infosysprize/2015/03/mapping_the_politics_of_cartog_2.html, accessed 11 May 2016.

[3] 'About Us,' Survey of India, http://www.surveyofindia.gov.in/pages/view/10-about-us, accessed 11 May 2016.

[4] Ibid.

[5] R Ramachandran, 'Public Access to Indian Geographical Data,' [2000] 79(4) Current Science 450.

[6] Ibid.

[7] Supra, 4.

[8] “Scale represents the relationship of the distance on the map/data to the actual distance on the ground. Map detail is determined by the source scale of the data: the finer the scale, the more detail.” Seen at http://gif.berkeley.edu/documents/Scale_in_GIS.pdf.

[9] Dr. Manosi Lahiri, 'Survey & Mapping in India: The Regulatory Framework,' Directions Magazine India, https://www.mlinfomap.com/Pdf/Survey&Mapping-Lahiri%202.1.pdf, accessed 11 May 2016.

[10] Ibid.

[11] Supra, 2.

[12] ‘Guidelines for implementing National Map Policy,’ Survey of India, http://surveyofindia.gov.in/files/nmp/Guidlines%20for%20Implementing%20National%20Map%20policy.pdf.

[13] 'National Map Policy, 2005, Preamble,' Survey of India, http://surveyofindia.gov.in/files/nmp/National%20Map%20Policy.pdf.

[14] Ibid, Objectives.

[15] Supra, 11.

[16] Supra, 5.

[17] 'Remote Sensing Data Policy, 2011,' National Remote Sensing Centre, Indian Space Research Organisation, http://www.nrsc.gov.in/Remote_Sensing_Data_Policy.

[18] Civil Aviation Requirement Section 3 Air Transport Series ‘F’ Part I Issue I, 12th October 2010.

[19] Nandagopal Rajan, 'Why India needs rules for flying drones, soon' (The Indian Express, 9 July, 2015) http://indianexpress.com/article/technology/gadgets/why-india-needs-rules-for-flying-drones-soon/ accessed 11 May 2016.

[20] TNN, 'Now, flying a drone can land you in prison' (The Times of India, 15 February, 2016) http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/jaipur/Now-flying-a-drone-can-land-you-in-prison/articleshow/50990613.cms, accessed 11 May 2016.

[21] Ibid.

[22] Supra, 19; 20.

[23] Supra, 5.

[24] tech2 news staff, 'Why is Google’s Mapathon in hot waters in India? All you need to know' (Tech-2, 12 Aug, 2015) http://tech.firstpost.com/news-analysis/why-is-googles-mapathon-in-hot-waters-in-india-all-you-need-to-know-228810.html, accessed 6 May 2016

[25] Supra, 12.

[26] Supra, 24.

[27] ‘PTI, 'Google ‘polluted Internet’ with classified material: Survey of India' (The Hindu, 10 August, 2014) http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/technology/internet/mapathon-2013-row-google-polluted-internet-with-classified-material-says-survey-of-india/article6300853.ece, accessed 11 May 2016.

[28] Sandeep Joshi, ‘Google didn’t take permission for Mapathon’ (The Hindu, 24 April, 2013) http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/google-didnt-take-permission-for-mapathon/article4648589.ece, accessed 6 May 2016.

[29] Supra, 24.

[30] Abhishek Sharan, 'CBI may close probe against Google in Mapathon case' (Hindustan Times, 12 February, 2015) http://www.hindustantimes.com/india/cbi-may-close-probe-against-google-in-mapathon-case/story-CgZYWoP9NgYA3xVepjr5bN.html, accessed 6 May 2016.

[31] PTI, 'Pathankot attack: Sensitive sites on Google Maps under Delhi HC scanner' (Times of India, 15 January, 2016) http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech/tech-news/Pathankot-attack-Sensitive-sites-on-Google-Maps-under-Delhi-HC-scanner/articleshow/50596143.cms, accessed 6 May 2016.

[32] ‘Public Awareness,' Survey of India, http://www.surveyofindia.gov.in/pages/display/190-public-awareness), accessed 6 May 2016.

[33] Aman Sharma, '7-year jail, Rs 100 crore fine soon for showing PoK, Arunachal as disputed' (The Economic Times, 05 May 2016) http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/7-year-jail-rs-100-crore-fine-soon-for-showing-pok-arunachal-as-disputed/articleshow/52117889.cms, accessed 6 May 2016.

[34] Jaspreet Sahni 'Survey of India files complaint against Google maps for wrong depiction of India's boundaries' (News18, 13 December 2014) http://www.news18.com/news/india/survey-of-india-files-complaint-against-google-maps-for-wrong-depiction-of-indias-boundaries-731101.html, accessed 6 May 2016.

[35] Itanagar agencies, 'Arunachal fumes over wrong map on iPhone4' (Deccan Herald, 04 October, 2010) http://www.deccanherald.com/content/101784/F, accessed 6 May 2016.

[36] CC, 'How Google represents disputed borders between countries' (The Economist, 04 September, 2014) http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2014/09/economist-explains-1, accessed 6 May 2016.

[37] The Kashmir Walla, 'Ten Maps of Kashmir That Angered India' (The Kashmir Walla, 14 May, 2015) http://thekashmirwalla.com/2015/05/ten-maps-of-kashmir-that-angered-india/accessed 11 May 2016.

[38] Ibid.

[39] Ibid.

[40] Ibid.

[41] Frank Jacobs, 'The First Google Maps War' (The New York Times, 28 February, 2012) http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/28/the-first-google-maps-war/, accessed 11 May 2016.

[42] Ethan Merel, 'Google’s World: The Impact of "Agnostic Cartographers" on the State-Dominated International Legal System' [2016] Columbia Journal of Transnational Law 442-444.

[43] Ibid.

[44] Europe, 'Google map gives German harbour to Netherlands' (BBC, 23 February, 2011) http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-12558741, accessed 11 May 2016.

[45] Supra, 42, 448.

[46] Ibid, 449.

[47] Supra, 47.

[48] J. Mohanraj v (1) Secretary To Government, Delhi; (2) Indian Space Research Organisation, Bangalore; (3) Google India Private Limited, Bangalore, 2008 Indlaw MAD 3562.

6. Author Profile

Adya Garg is a law student at West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences, Kolkata and has completed her second year. An ardent *SRK fan*, and a dancer at heart, she loves reading books in her free time. Always excited about exploring new fields, she never misses an opportunity to work on areas outside her legal curriculum.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/legal-challenges-to-mapping-in-india-1-laws-policies-cases

Lecture on Open Access and Open Content Licensing at ICAR (short course)

Admin — 2018-12-05T16:19:56Z

The ICAR-Indian Institute of Horticultural Research (IIHR) a constituent establishment of Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) organised a short course on 'ICTs for Improving Efficiency and Effectiveness in Agricultural Research, Education and Extension of NARES' during November 13-22, 2018 in Bangalore. Anubha Sinha delivered a lecture to the participants.

Read for more information about the programme.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/news/lecture-on-open-access-and-open-content-licensing-at-icar-short-course

Learning and Understanding the Frameworks of Rights at Work

Admin — 2019-07-21T15:19:00Z

On July 13, 2019, Torsha and Mira attended the 'Learning and understanding the frameworks of rights at work' workshop held by Kai Hsin Hung at IT For change in Bangalore.

It was a workshop for tech workers and researchers to explore and understand the social and legal frameworks to help assess their working conditions with an introduction to key concepts and simple tools. One of the key concepts that was introduced here were the standards laid down by the Fairwork Foundation on minimum pay,improving working conditions, approachable management, understandable contracts and equal representation. The second concept introduced was the multidimensional model of unacceptable forms of work. We were also involved in two sets of activities where we explored what these dimensions of work mean to us.

For more info, see the brochure

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/news/learning-and-understanding-the-frameworks-of-rights-at-work

Launch of Assamese Wikipedia Education Program at Guwahati University

nitika — 2013-07-26T11:43:37Z

The Assamese Wikipedia community has shown a rapid growth in the past six months from 20 active editors in January 2012 to 29 active editors in June 2012. The absolute numbers might seem low but in terms of percentages its an overwhelming increment of 45 per cent.

This increment can partly be credited to the photography and article contest, conducting workshops at various educational institutions and organic community growth.

Though Assamese Wikipedia is still a small project with about 1600 articles, the Assamese Wikipedians have the drive, willingness and zest to get more editors and multiply their community. Their enthusiasm and determination has led them to start with an Assamese Wikipedia Education Program. The program was launched on October 14, 2012 with 15 masters students (90 per cent of these are women students) under the guidance of Prof. Dulumoni Goswami, Head of the Department of Education, Guwahati University.

The day before the launch some of the Assamese Wikipedia editors including Jyoti and Durbhajyoti met to design and alter the Wikipedia Education Program for Assamese Wikipedia. It was decided that the entire program will be divided in four different stages which are as follows:

Stage 1: Introduction to Wikipedia + Introduction to Education Program + Assamese typing
Stage 2: Editing Assamese Wikipedia
Stage 3: Advanced editing including adding references, headers, TOC and wiki markups
Stage 4: Concluding the Education Program

In accordance with each of these stages there will be set of deliverables expected out of the students which are as follows:

Deliverable 1: Create Wikipedia user accounts and user pages
Deliverable 2: Submit a two-page typed article in Assamese
Deliverable 3: Students will select one article each and start editing their articles
Deliverable 4: Students will continue enhancing their articles and will start adding references, wiki markups and pictures, if desired.

Assamese Wikipedia Education Program initiated in Guwahati University

On Oct 14, 2012 at 11 a.m., the program was initiated with an introduction about Assamese Wikipedia and Wikipedia Education Program. Students were completely thrilled with the idea of them contributing to Wikipedia articles and created their usernames during the session. Since students were not familiar with Assamese typing a larger part of the session was dedicated to teach students on how to type in Assamese using Rudali. As a deliverable, students will be submitting two-page article typed in Assamese on paper before the first week of November. Thereafter, a second in-class session will be organized where students will be taught editing Assamese Wikipedia.

Students learn Assamese typing using typing tool Rudali.

All the students have willingly enrolled themselves in the program and have not been forced by the faculty members. Indeed, three students were not studying in Guwahati University but still wanted to be a part of the Assamese Education Program. A loud cheer and good wishes to the Assamese Wikipedia community!

Video

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/launch-of-assamese-wikipedia-education-program

Krishnarajapet Wikipedia Workshop (Coverage in Vijaya Vani)

praskrishna — 2013-09-05T06:45:12Z

Prajavani covered the Kannada Wikipedia workshop organised by the CIS-A2K team and the Kannada Sahitya Parishat of KR Pet., on August 12, 2013. A scanned version of the report is produced below.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/vijaya-vani-august-12-2013-krishnarajapet-wikipedia-workshop

Krishnarajapet Wikipedia Workshop (Coverage in Suvarna Times of Karnataka)

praskrishna — 2013-09-05T06:10:01Z

Suvarna Times of Karnataka covered the Kannada Wikipedia workshop organised by the CIS-A2K team and the Kannada Sahitya Parishat of KR Pet., on August 12, 2013. A scanned version of the report is produced below.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/suvarna-times-of-karnataka-august-12-2013-krishnarajapet-workshop

Krishnarajapet Wikipedia Workshop (Coverage in Prajavani)

praskrishna — 2013-09-05T05:50:24Z

Prajavani covered the Kannada Wikipedia workshop organised by the CIS-A2K team and the Kannada Sahitya Parishat of KR Pet., on August 12, 2013. A scanned version of the report is produced below.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/prajavani-august-12-2013-krishnarajapet-workshop

KP Rao feted

praskrishna — 2013-04-15T16:47:29Z

KP Rao who had designed fonts for Indian languages including Kannada and devised the first phonetic keyboard driver for Indian languages, was felicitated at a programme organised at Sahyadri College of Engineering and Management on Tuesday, reports DHNS from Mangalore.

This was published by Deccan Herald on April 10, 2013. Dr. U.B.Pavanaja was quoted.

Speaking after the felicitation, he said the biggest challenge in those days was to display and print the characters of our languages.

The computers used and spoke only one language. The system of putting in Indic text phonetically was his invention and all keyboard softwares for Indian languages use this method.

Kannada wikipedia editor UB Pavanaja said Rao had created a mechanism for feeding Indic characters into computers. Later, he released a free software for Kannada called 'Sediyapu,' he said.

Below is a scanned version of the report published in the Deccan Herald:

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/deccan-herald-april-10-2013-kp-rao-feted

Konkani Wikipedia workshop at AIMIT, St Aloysius College

praskrishna — 2013-09-12T06:09:42Z

St. Aloysius College is organizing a Konkani Wikipedia workshop at AIMIT, St Aloysius College (Autonomous), Beeri, Mangalore on September 13, 2013. Dr. U.B. Pavanaja from the CIS-A2K team will participate in the event.

The workshop is aimed at people who want to edit Konkani Wikipedia using Kannada script. Konkani Wikipedia is in incubator at present. Konkani speaking people want to bring this out of incubator. Adding enough content to the Konkani Wikipedia will enable that. Those interested in adding content to Konkani Wikipedia will be trained in the workshop. This will be a full day event.

Click to read about St.Aloysius Institute of Management

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/konkani-wiki-workshop-aimit-september-13-2013

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Krishnarajapet Wikipedia Workshop (Coverage in Suvarna Times of Karnataka)

Krishnarajapet Wikipedia Workshop (Coverage in Prajavani)

KP Rao feted

Konkani Wikipedia workshop at AIMIT, St Aloysius College