Broadly speaking, any data collected with the use of public funds cannot be restricted for use from any member of the public. 

Having said that, even copyrighted information may be free to use, after all that is precisely what copyleft is. However, the use of copyleft is not commonly applied to textual information other than manuals attached to or related to copylefted software. 

Given the lack of public discourse in the area of copyleft in India, I have my doubts that the census data is copylefted. However, more information is needed. Mere mention of copyright is insufficient to prevent its lawful use and reuse for the public weal, without specifying the restrictions implicit or explicit in the specific license. 

If any government body objects to the use of census data for any purpose relating to the public weal, I believe that there will be a strong case for legal strictures against the Census of India.  

On Tue, Jun 7, 2011 at 9:11 PM, CherianTinu Abraham <tinucherian@gmail.com> wrote:
Census website says :
"Material on this site subject to copyright unless otherwise indicated."

I am particularly curious on how we would be able to use data from census website. I used 2001 census data as input data for my Indian villages pilot project on en.wiki. I was waiting for 2011 census data for further work which would be more updated and correct information. But the site says it is still copyrighted. 

Any legal experts? 

-TC

On Tue, Jun 7, 2011 at 8:51 PM, Naveen Francis <naveenpf@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi all,

New maps for respective states can be created with following base.

Census Maps
http://www.censusindia.gov.in/2011census/maps/maps2011.html
http://www.censusindia.gov.in/2011census/maps/administrative_maps/admmaps2011.html


Kerala administrative maps already created by Rajeshodayanchal as part of Malayalam Wikipedia Map Project.
Please help us to translate the map to other indic languages via following tool  http://toolserver.org/~jarry/svgtranslate/

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kerala-administrative-divisions-map-ml.svg  (Kerala administrative maps in ml)
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kerala-administrative-divisions-map-en.svg  (Kerala administrative maps in en)

Thanks,
Naveen Francis

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Vickram
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