Hi, There is a factual error. I am not employed with Prajavani. I write just one column per week as freelancer. Regards, Pavanaja From: wikimedia-in-blr-bounces(a)lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wikimedia-in-blr-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Srikanth Ramakrishnan Sent: 13 May 2014 12:50 To: Wikimedia India Community list Cc: Kannada Wikipedia Discussion List wikikn-l(a)wikipedia.org; Mailing list for Wikimedians / Wikipedians in Bangalore, India Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-in-blr] [Wikimediaindia-l] On CIS's grants request from Wikimedia Foundation Hi all, I have one important question here. The Foreign Contribution Regulatory Act prohibits money received from abroad to be used as payments or salaries to anyone employed with the press or media. I believe Dr. Pavanaja is a columnist for Prajavani. How does this work out? It's just a preemptive question. On 12 May 2014 17:45, Hari Prasad Nadig <hpnadig(a)gmail.com> wrote: Fellow Wikimedians, As you all know, Center for Internet and Society, Bangalore has sought funding of about 1.8 Crores through the FDC process from Wikimedia Foundation to carry out work on seven local language projects in India that includes Kannada, Telugu among others. [1] The funds primarily cover the salaries of the people belonging to the CIS-A2K team among other administrative expenses and other expenses as outlined on their proposal page. The proposal was up for Community review and comments until April 30th and many have recorded their response about it [2]. Several community members have come forward in pointing out that the staff salaries being paid and that being proposed - are quite on the higher side (which is up to 2.4 Lakhs per month per person). Apart from the concerns on extremely high salaries for Indian norms of the team members of CIS-A2K team, there have been some serious concerns raised about some apparent Conflict of Interest [3] and non-compliance with the local laws (mainly Karnataka Societies act and the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act). However, looks like the proposal has moved forward through the FDC process for funding despite the concerns raised and has gotten through to the next stage. More concerns have now been raised by several community members on the Staff Assessment discussion page here: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants_talk:APG/Proposals/2013-2014_round2/… I invite you to participate in the discussion and help steer this in the right direction. [1] - https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/Proposals/2013-2014_round2/The_C… [2] - https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants_talk:APG/Proposals/2013-2014_round2/… [3] - https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge/Draft_Work_plan_J… Thank you, -- Hari Prasad Nadig http://hpnadig.net http://twitter.com/hpnadig http://flickr.com/hpnadig _______________________________________________ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l -- Regards, Srikanth Ramakrishnan, What goes around, may not necessarily come around, it may simply bounce back. Please sign this petition for Volvo buses in Coimbatore: https://www.change.org/en-IN/petitions/the-transport-minister-tamil-nadu-in…