We seem to be called in to the cop station a bit too often - visit #2 for Wikipedia (1st was for WCI 11), this time it got better, taken in a Police Van to MRA Marg. The worst part, they dont drop you back, you need to make your own way :(

The guards at Bombay House were pretty clear, we have orders not to allow photography on Homy Mody Street in front of the building for security reasons. Its odd that such orders are given in the first place, as public roads are not under their purview and we were certainly not trespassing their property. Aditya offered to delete the pics if they could show that its illegal, obviously they could not. Just because they are scared of terror threats, whoever gave the order seems to think they have the right to deny the public of their rights and curtail freedom. Talk about misuse of power.


From: apsengupta@gmail.com
Date: Mon, 30 Jan 2012 09:52:17 +0530
To: wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
CC: wikimedia-in-mum@lists.wikimedia.org
Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-in-mum] [Wikimediaindia-l] Report on Wikipedia Takes Mumbai II

Harriet,

On Mon, Jan 30, 2012 at 05:32, Outofindia <outofindia@gmail.com> wrote:

Sounds like a fun time was had by all.

A question:
Is there anyway of finding out in advance what buildings are considered to have have "Security fears"?


Yes- if there is a yellow board that declares the building as a "Prohibited Area", you are not allowed to photograph such buildings. We saw quite a few of these buildings- such as the RBI building. These boards are required to be registered with the police/government, so it isn't like anyone can put them up.

Everything else is fair game- as long as you are not trespassing on their property (which we weren't) or harassing them (we were super nice and polite with the Bombay House folks as well as the police- so this wasn't a problem either).
 

Warm regards

Harriet
Still in NYC.







Harriet Vidyasagar

www.outofindia.net

www.womenofindia.net

INDIA: 91-99011 66276

USA: 1-301-649-2240



On Sun, Jan 29, 2012 at 11:24 AM, Anshuman Fotedar <anshuman.fotedar@gmail.com> wrote:
Greetings!  This is a short note on Wikipedia Takes Mumbai II.  Forty people turned up near the Oval Maidan at Churchgate at 8 am yesterday. The landmarks that were photographed included the Babulnath Temple, Nehru Science Centre, Opera House, St Thomas Cathedral, INS Vikrant and Yazdani Bakery. After the photos had been clicked many of the participants proceeded to Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education, TIFR where they were shown how to upload to Commons using both the usual upload process and by using the mediawiki-uploader mass upload script.

Nikita Belavate and Karthik Nadar put in a lot of work into the event. They helped many people contribute to the Commons while having a good time, and they deserve praise for making all of this happen.

Our heartfelt gratitude to Pranav Curumsey, Vickram Crishna, Dr Nagarjuna, Noopur Raval and Moksh Juneja for all the help and mentoring. Thanks to Shrinivasan T for mediawiki-uploader :) And apologies if I missed anyone out.

Do visit our maintenance category WTM, specially created for the event. 313 pictures have been uploaded so far.

Sincerely
Anshuman Fotedar

PS:

1. 
During the photowalk, some of the participants who were taking pictures of Bombay House were interrupted by private security personnel and asked to handover their cameras so that the pictures could be removed. Pranav and Aditya Sengupta, who were among them, peacefully put forth the fact that they were not not breaking any laws by photographing the structure from the outside since it was not a legally protected one. They were standing on the road, and not trespassing. To resolve the matter, Aditya, Pranav and Krutikaa Jawanjal accompanied the security personnel to the police station where they explained that they were within their rights to do what they did, and that citizens of the country need not take prior permission to take exterior photographs of private property that was not accorded legal protection. The PSI on duty made a noting in his station diary and informed us that Bombay House has security fears, which is why one should speak to their bosses before taking pictures, but agreed with them per se that there is no law that prohibits people from taking pictures there.

2.
The group that went to Bombay House (and subsequently to Yazdani Bakery, St. Thomas Cathedral) and other places  was delayed owing to the incident at Bombay House and discovered serendipitously that entry to INS Vikrant was open. Covering Vikrant took a while, adding to the delay. Consequently they (this includes me) never reached HBCSE but uploaded from home instead. Although we did get several good contributions from the participants in this group as well, I do recognise that it may have been nice if we could have joined in with the participants who uploaded together at HBCSE. I apologise.

_______________________________________________
Wikimedia-in-mum mailing list
Wikimedia-in-mum@lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-in-mum



_______________________________________________
Wikimediaindia-l mailing list
Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l



_______________________________________________ Wikimedia-in-mum mailing list Wikimedia-in-mum@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-in-mum