Hello friends,
This is a link I recommend you to bookmark.
http://wiki.wikimedia.in/Geographical_distribution_of_Indian_Wikipedians
This list is useful for outreach & also whenever someone needs Wiki-Help in
a particular city. It would be great if Wikipedians could update this
list.:)
We have the following completely unrepresented states/UTs:
* Andaman & Nicobar Islands
* Arunachal Pradesh
* Assam
* Chandigarh
* Chhattisgarh
* Dadra, Nagar & Haveli
* Daman & Diu
* Goa
* Himachal Pradesh
* Jammu & Kashmir
* Jharkhand (AngPradesh is in Mumbai)
* Lakshadweep
* Manipur
* Meghalaya
* Mizoram
* Puducherry
* Punjab (oye, ye ki hoya!)
* Nagaland
* Uttar Pradesh
* Uttarakhand
Okay, all you admins, please update your status (Mikey my boy, that means
you too)!
Abroad, we dont have Indic Wikipedians listed for:
* Africa
* Australia
* Asia (other than India)
* Middle East
* North America
* South America
Unless you would like to stay off list, of course that's acceptable too.
May I also request Tinu / list admins to please forward it all the Indic
language & city Wikimedia lists. We need this resource to be as
comprehensible as possible.
Warm regards,
Ashwin Baindur
------------------------------------------------------
Dear all,
Here is the A2K newsletter for the month of May, 2013. Apologies for the delay.
Wikimedia Foundation, beginning from September 1, 2012, awarded the Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) a two-year grant of INR 26,000,000 to support and develop free knowledge in India. Consequently, Wikimedia Foundation’s India Program became the Access to Knowledge (A2K) program of CIS. In this newsletter, we are pleased to bring you updates about the recently concluded exhibition organised in our offices in Bangalore and Delhi and share with you the feedback to the Access to Knowledge work plan from the wikipedia community.
The A2K team consists of three members based in Bangalore: T. Vishnu Vardhan, Dr. U.B. Pavanaja and Subhashish Panigrahi and one member Nitika Tandon in Delhi. Noopur Raval, Programme Officer left the organisation on April 24, 2013. Archives of our newsletters arehere.
Wikipedians from various communities can request for outreach programs, technical bugs, logistics-merchandize and media, public relations and communications at http://bit.ly/TOcXId.
Celebrating 5 Years of CIS
CIS is now 5 years old and we recently celebrated this by holding an open exhibition in our offices in Bangalore and Delhi from May 20 to 23, showcasing our work and accomplishments over the five year period. We had about 170 visitors coming in to our office. Renowned artists like Tara Kelton, Kiran Subbaiah, Navin Thomas, Abhishek Hazra and Sharath Chandra Ram exhibited their work. The four-day event attracted press coverage: Bangalore Mirror (May 18, 2013), DNA (May 19, 2013), Hindu (May 22, 2013), Prajavani (May 23, 2013), Udayavani (May 25, 2013) and Bangalore Mirror (May 31, 2013). Download all the posters that were part of the exhibition here.
# Announcements
Access to Knowledge Work Plan (April 2013 - June 2014): CIS has announced its detailed plan with projection of outcomes and expected impact of the A2K programme activities. The document has been made in consultation with various stakeholders and keeping in mind the objectives, opportunities and challenges faced by each of the Indian language Wikimedia projects. Feel free to share any feedback.
WMF-A2K Revised Budget (draft) and Utilization (September 2012 - February 2013): In our effort to increase transparency with the working of CIS-A2K programme, we aresharing with you the A2K Programme Budget along with the utilization for the above period. The proposed revisions to the budget along with some notes are here.
CIS Signs MOU with TISS, Mumbai: has signed a MoU with TISS as part of which we will collaboratively work towards building Digital Knowledge Partnerships with select higher education institutions.
India Access to Knowledge IRC can be accessed here: May 13, 2013 (All Language Discussion) and May 26, 2013 (Odia Language Discussion).
# Blog Entries
Odia Wikipedia: Needs Assessment (by Subhashish Panigrahi, May 11, 2013).
Access to Knowledge Work Plan: Synopsis of Feedback by Wikipedians (by Nitika Tandon, May 20, 2013).
Wikipedia Introductory Session organized for Data and India portal consultants (by Subhashish Panigrahi, May 30, 2013).
My First Wikipedia Training Workshop – Theatre Outreach Unit, University of Hyderabad (by T. Vishnu Vardhan, June 19, 2013).
# Event Organised
Kannada Wikipedia Workshop (April 29, 2013, Govinda Pai Research Centre, MGM College Udupi). Dr. U.B. Pavanaja led the workshop and gave a talk on Kannada Wikipedia
# Event Participated
Kannada IRC Meet (organised by the Wikipedia Community, May 7, 2013). Dr. U.B.Pavanaja participated in this.
# Upcoming Event
Digital Humanities for Indian Higher Education (co-organised in collaboration with HEIRA-CSCS, Tumkur University, CILHE-TISS and CCS (IISc), Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, July 13, 2013).
# Press Coverage
Report on CIS 5 Years Celebration (Prajavani, May 23, 2013). Prajavani published a report of Dr. U.B. Pavanja’s talk “From Palm Leaf to Tablet – Journey of Kannada”.
Report on CIS 5 Years Celebration (Udayavani, May 25, 2013). Udayavani published a report of the evening programme hosted as part of the Centre for Internet and Society's 5 year celebrations in its Bangalore edition.
A Feature on Wikipedia and Telegu Wikipedians (HMTV, May 30 – 31, 2013). T. Vishnu Vardhan is quoted in this half an hour feature on Wikipedia and Telugu Wikipedians.
Wikipedia Live Phone-in Programme (HMTV, June 1, 2013). T. Vishnu Vardhan speaks about Telegu Wikipedia in the discussion that was telecasted live.
*About CIS*
CIS was registered as a society in Bangalore in 2008. As an independent, non-profit research organisation, it runs different policy research programmes such as Accessibility, Access to Knowledge, Openness, Internet Governance, and Telecom. The policy research programmes have resulted in outputs such as the e-Accessibility Policy Handbook for Persons with Disabilities with ITU and G3ict, and Digital Alternatives with a Cause?, Thinkathon Position Papers and the Digital Natives with a Cause? Report with Hivos, etc. We have conducted policy research for the Ministry of Communications & Information Technology, Ministry of Human Resource Development, Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, etc., on WIPO Treaties, Copyright Bill, NIA Bill, etc.
CIS is accredited as an observer at WIPO. CIS staff participates in the Standing Committee for Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR) meetings regularly held in Geneva, and participate in the discussions and comments on them from a public interest perspective. Our Policy Director, Nirmita Narasimhan won the National Award for Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities from the Government of India and also received the NIVH Excellence Award.
*Follow us elsewhere*
Get short, timely messages from us on Twitter
Join the CIS group on Facebook
Visit us at http://cis-india.org
*Support Us*
Please help us defend consumer / citizen rights on the Internet! Write a cheque in favour of ‘The Centre for Internet and Society’ and mail it to us at No. 194, 2nd ‘C’ Cross, Domlur, 2nd Stage, Bengaluru – 5600 71.
*Request for Collaboration*
We invite researchers, practitioners, and theoreticians, both organisationally and as individuals, to collaboratively engage with Internet and society and improve our understanding of this new field. To discuss the research collaborations, write to Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, at sunil(a)cis-india.org or Nishant Shah, Director – Research, at nishant(a)cis-india.org
CIS is grateful to its donors, Wikimedia Foundation, Ford Foundation, Privacy International, UK, Hans Foundation and the Kusuma Trust which was founded by Anurag Dikshit and Soma Pujari, philanthropists of Indian origin, for its core funding and support for most of its projects.
Thanks
Nitika Tandon
Program Manager
Access to Knowledge
The Centre for Internet & Society
Dear Dharma Adhyaksha,
Hello!
>
> This is interesting to know that CIS-A2K (whatever that means)
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge Will help you know
more about the Access to Knowledge (A2K) programme.
> could file
> RTIs to get information so it can be made public.
> Can you people also try and get pictures release in public domain or under
> any other Commons compatible license?
>
We have been trying to speak to the various State Information and Public
Relations Departments (which holds huge archive of images) in this regard.
But very difficult to get them agree.
>
> For starters you might try getting pictures from websites who have clearly
> shows interest in right to information. That could be for example Arvind
> Kejrival and Anna Hazare related websites of anti-corruption movements.
Very useful idea :-) Thanks for the suggestion. Will take this up.
> I
> suppose not just these but every political party should be happy to release
> their photos under compatible licenses. They can consider it as free
> publicity and we can finally have images of events and politicians which
> our articles lack.
Yes, we could give this a shot.
> You can try government websites also, but i guess they
> won't reply any sooner.
True
Best,
Vishnu
Dear All,
Institutional partnerships (especially in the higher education context) is a cross-cutting activity across A2K's various language plans and also the pilot project. A2K Team is happy to share with you an important outcome on this front.
CIS-A2K has signed an MoU with TISS as part of which we will collaboratively work towards building Digital Knowledge Partnerships with select higher education institutions. The objective is to enhance digital literacy in the Indian languages and facilitate collaborative knowledge production and free dissemination. A2K along with TISS will co-design and jointly implement relevant training programmes to achieve this. Further, within TISS campuses we will endeavour to bring teaching-learning processes onto free and open digital platforms, including Indian language Wikipedias. The A2K team would like to acknowledge the pivotal role played by our Adviser Dr. Tejaswini Niranjana in buildig this collaboration.
We'll keep you posted as and when new developments shape up and would like to actively involve Mumbai Wikipedians in planning, designing and rolling out Wikipedia training programmes.
Thanks
Nitika Tandon
Program Manager
Access to Knowledge
The Centre for Internet & Society
Dear All,
During interactions with many Wikipedians, it has been realized that many
are looking for data, that is otherwise not available in the public domain,
which could be used for enhancing quality of articles/projects on
Wikipedia. Please let us know if anyone of you requires help in filing
RTIs. CIS-A2K could file RTIs for any particular data on your behalf.
Apologies for cross posting.
Best regards,
Vishnu