Via: "shaina a"
Dear readers, The usual apologies for cross-posting.
Announcing the launch of CAMP
Friday, November 2, 2007. 6:00 pm.
at Jnanapravaha, 3rd floor Queens mansion, (opp. new Chemould),
G. Talwatkar Marg
Fort, Mumbai.-1
CAMP is a new city-based initiative around art, media and technology
practices, in collaboration with the Khoj International Artists
Association.
www.camputer.org
CAMP's founding members are:
Shaina Anand, filmmaker, artist and media activist, founder of
www.chitrakarkhana.net
Sanjay Bhangar, who trained in indymedia and urban studies, now works
as an independent web developer and technology writer.
Ashok Sukumaran, who trained as an architect and artist, and now
develops speculative technical and conceptual projects. http://0ut.in
The evening consists of an extended screening-cum-talk by the CAMP
initiators, as an introduction to the context, politics and practices
that CAMP will promote. This includes a discussion of Chitrakarkhana's
ongoing work with alternative cable TV and CCTV systems, a social
history of the internet in Bombay as told by Sanjay Bhangar, and Ashok
Sukumaran's recent projects around electrical redistribution, and
design. They will also discuss the CAMP program for this year, and
invite participation in various forms.
The program will be interrupted by refreshments.
Via: Patrice Riemens
As I am savouring a 'Pegu Club Cocktail' (kind of acquired taste, but goes
down well after a while - recipe below), I am reminded of the text on my
bottle of Aromatic Bitters, which is not 'the' well-known brand (now owned
by monster TNC Diaego) but comes from the obscure Chilean firm which
invented the stuff in the first place: Virgilio Brusco & Sons, from the
port city of Valparaiso ('Valpo' for intimi, like 'Cal' or "Kay El', or
'Gabs', for that matter ...) . Here's what's written on their label (never
seen so much text on one...):
"In its (the stuff) fabrication we use, among other aromatizers, the bark
of the _Cusparia Febrifuga_ , a well-known plant that grows at the mouth
of the Orinoco River, down North under in the exhalirating climate of
Venezuela. This plant is mostly sourced from the town Ciudad Bolivar,
whose name used to be the one which, in Castillian (ie Spanish, but never
use that word in Latin America) refers to the place where a river becomes
narrow (in Sp.. sorry, Castillian: 'se angosta'). This common vocable in
our dictionary to refer to the popular name of the Cusparia Febrifuga, and
which can be uttered freely, we cannot use to designate our product, since
it has been trademarked by a foreign firm."
You got it, in my house bar, the only bitters are from 'Licores Aguila" -
along with Turkish State Monopolies Gin, and Eritrean Ouzo ('Zibib'), not
to forget 'Old Monk' Rhum and assorted IMFL brands of course...
Cheers indeed, patrizio and Diiiinooos!
Pegu Club Cocktail:
60ml Gin
25 ml Orange Curacao
25 ml fresh lime juice
Dash of 'Angostora' (see above) Bitters
All in cocktail shaker with ice, shake & serve in chilled glass
garnish with a lime wedge.
(bwo of the wall Street Journal. "we hackers ...." etc.)
Via: Sunil Abraham
-------- Forwarded Message --------
From: Vera Franz
To: ipr&publicdomain
Subject: open position: Intellectual Property (IP) Policy Expert for
TACD
Date: Wed, 24 Oct 2007 18:18:51 +0100
Please circulate freely:
Intellectual Property (IP) Policy Expert
The Transatlantic Consumer Dialogue (TACD) is a forum of US and EU
consumer organisations coordinated by Consumers International that
develops and agrees joint consumer policy recommendations directed to
the US government and European Union to promote the consumer interest
in EU and US policy making. As part of its work, the TACD organises
several meetings, conferences and workshops each year involving
governments, consumer groups, industry and other key stakeholders.
For more information please visit www.tacd.org.
Consumers International is looking for an experienced and highly
motivated professional for secondment to a member of the
Transatlantic Consumer Dialogue to support their IP working group (IP
WG). This is an exciting opportunity to work within a creative and
dynamic team offering a varied portfolio of policy and advocacy work.
There is a strong possibility the position will be based in Brussels;
however, flexibility in location is a possibility depending on the
candidate. The position will involve travel, including to Washington,
D.C. An attractive remuneration package is offered.
Please see the full job description below. Applications (CV, letter
of motivation and names of two referees; no photos) should be sent
to: Julian Knott, Consumers International, 24 Highbury Crescent,
London, N51RX or by e-mail to jknott@consint.org (subject: IP Policy
Expert).
Deadline for applications to reach us: 2 November 2007. Only
applicants who are selected for an interview will be contacted. The
dates of the first round of interviews will be confirmed in due course.
JOB DESCRIPTION
Job title: Intellectual Property Policy Expert
Location: Brussels
Reports to: Co-Chairs of TACD IP Working Group
Duration: 1 year contract with possibility for extension
Main responsibilities:
• Assist with TACD IP policy development and strategic planning;
• Supporting and building on the ongoing work of the TACD IP Working
Group, establishing policy positions for future work, and elaborating
campaign and advocacy strategies;
• Helping to organize consultations and follow-ups with US and EC IP
policy makers;
• Providing strategic input to the organisation of TACD IP events,
including input on the overall agenda, the specific topics to be
discussed, and identifying possible speakers;
• Advocating and campaigning for changes in EU and U.S. policies
based on the identified IP WG priority areas;
• Research, policy tracking and briefing of TACD participants on key
IP policy issues;
• Disseminating policy recommendations on priority areas and event
reports (internally: website, list-serves, newsletters, tele-
conferences; and externally: website and relations with governments,
media and other relevant stakeholders);
• Facilitating dialogue amongst the existing network of EU and U.S.
consumer organisations, via electronic list-serves and face-to-face
meetings;
• Planning and delivering a media strategy to further the influence
of TACD's recommendations on IP issues.
Profile:
Essential
• Experience in advocating policy positions;
• Strong commitment to furthering the goals of the international
consumer movement;
• Degree-level education;
• Excellent written and spoken English;
• Highly motivated and a good communicator;
• Proven ability to manage and prioritise a varied portfolio of work;
• Proven ability to work on own initiative as well as part of a team;
• Proven ability to deliver tangilble results;
• Able to travel frequently, in particular to the U.S.
Desireable
• Sound and proven expertise in IP issues in particular copyright and
patents;
• Experience working with or for International Institutions, EU and/
or U.S. Government;
• Experience in campaigning or advocacy;
• Language skills, in particular French or Spanish;
• Awareness of consumer policy issues;
• Experience in the non-profit sector.
Tasks:
In particular, the IP policy expert will be responsible for the
following tasks:
• Moving the Paris Accord forward: Coordinating and drafting a top
level statement on the Paris Accord and negotiating its
implementation with key stakeholders. (The Paris Accord is an
initiative aimed at establishing a set of principles that recognize
the creative community's desire to earn a living, the interest of the
public in obtaining affordable access to works, and the interests of
both parties in supporting an environment for creativity and
innovation. For further information please visit http://
www.cptech.org/a2k/pa/);
• Assisting in the development of research based positions on the
economics of copyright;
• Working on key agenda items at the World Intellectual Property
Organisation;
• Working on the copyright acquis in the EU;
• Supporting the policy initiatives on research and development and
pharmaceuticals;
• Undertaking official reporting duties for the IP WG grants.
- --
Sunil Abraham, sunil@mahiti.org http://www.mahiti.org
Director - International Relations
Mahiti Infotech Pvt. Ltd.
"Vijay Kiran" IInd Floor, 314/1, 7th Cross, Domlur
Bangalore - 560 071 Karnataka, INDIA
Ph/Fax: +91 80 51150580. Mob: (91) 9342201521
http://www.linkedin.com/in/sunilaabraham
Via: "Ramanathan Muthaiah"
Heise online, in the English pages, http://www.heise.de/english,
reports about Max Planck Society (MPG) terminating licensing contract
with Springer publishing house.
Amongst other things, Heise reports that, " "Even at the very last
minute the Springer publishing house had not been prepared to lower
its inflated prices," MPG Vice President Kurt Mehlhorn said. "The MPG
therefore had had no other option but to terminate the contract," he
added. "
Full report is available at:
http://www.heise.de/english/newsticker/news/97652
The same report also observes that, " . . . MPG is one of the
initiators of the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in
the Sciences and the Humanities . . ."
On the same subject of this e-mail, The Net York Times dated
22-Oct,2007 has an article on page 1:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/22/technology/22library.html
Via: "Prashant Iyengar"
Thanks Mahesh. And no apologies required. I greatly prefer this
conversation to a passive audience. :)
Your mail has atleast made me conscious that my application has a
Linux-based audience and I should be doing more to help them out. It
has also made me aware exactly of how useless it is in certain
situations like the one you mentioned!
Will work on this and come up with something very soon.
Regards,
Prashant
On 10/24/07, Mahesh T. Pai wrote:
> Prashant,
>
> First, my apologies if my mail hinted about your programming
> capabalities; that was not my intention.
>
> Yes, I did intend that the database is available to users of GNU/Linux
> systems, and as an ardent user of GNU/Linux, I do feel that lack of
> specialised software for accessing Indian legal databases is a major
> obstacle in acceptance of FOSS in Law offices /and/ courts.
>
> I am aware of judis.openarchive site; and I do appreciate and thank
> you for your efforts in providing *and* maintaining it. Do keep your
> excellent work up.
>
> Prashant Iyengar said on Wed, Oct 24, 2007 at 12:06:43AM +0530,:
>
> > Linux users can install it on their systems, even that will not be
> > necessary because I'll shortly be posting instructions on how one
> > install this database on a Linux/Apache/PHP system (without Mysql, but
> > with a search engine called Swish-e).
>
> Yes, that is more than sufficient. Thanks in advance.
>
> Err .... if you had said in the first mail, I would have waited
> patiently ....
>
> > I don't need help coding front ends. The one that comes with this
> > software (remodelled from the one on the site judis.openarchive.in)
> > has all the features anyone will need although it may not win awards
> > at a beauty contest.
>
> It is is useful, functional and enough when I need it. ,
>
> And, guess I should explain why I asked for a GNU/Linux version - I
> happen to be an AIO without even a typewriter in my office, (No longer
> in practise). As a matter of principle I use only FOSS at my home. And
> I am very much eager to have a look at the decisions. If I were
> working at some other office / location than I am now, I may not have
> access to even the text of the RTI act. On one occassion, when I was
> working at a remote place, I had to spend 3 hours on my personal
> mobile phone to get a friend to read out the relevant parts of the RTI
> Act. This was a situation when the request was of a questionable
> nature, and I did turn down the application ;(
>
> --
> Mahesh T. Pai <<>> http://paivakil.blogspot.com/
> ``Those willing to give up a little liberty for a
> little security deserve neither security nor liberty''
> _______________________________________________
> commons-law mailing list
> commons-law@sarai.net
> https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/commons-law
>
Via: "Mahesh T. Pai"
Prashant,
First, my apologies if my mail hinted about your programming
capabalities; that was not my intention.
Yes, I did intend that the database is available to users of GNU/Linux
systems, and as an ardent user of GNU/Linux, I do feel that lack of
specialised software for accessing Indian legal databases is a major
obstacle in acceptance of FOSS in Law offices /and/ courts.
I am aware of judis.openarchive site; and I do appreciate and thank
you for your efforts in providing *and* maintaining it. Do keep your
excellent work up.
Prashant Iyengar said on Wed, Oct 24, 2007 at 12:06:43AM +0530,:
> Linux users can install it on their systems, even that will not be
> necessary because I'll shortly be posting instructions on how one
> install this database on a Linux/Apache/PHP system (without Mysql, but
> with a search engine called Swish-e).
Yes, that is more than sufficient. Thanks in advance.
Err .... if you had said in the first mail, I would have waited
patiently ....
> I don't need help coding front ends. The one that comes with this
> software (remodelled from the one on the site judis.openarchive.in)
> has all the features anyone will need although it may not win awards
> at a beauty contest.
It is is useful, functional and enough when I need it. ,
And, guess I should explain why I asked for a GNU/Linux version - I
happen to be an AIO without even a typewriter in my office, (No longer
in practise). As a matter of principle I use only FOSS at my home. And
I am very much eager to have a look at the decisions. If I were
working at some other office / location than I am now, I may not have
access to even the text of the RTI act. On one occassion, when I was
working at a remote place, I had to spend 3 hours on my personal
mobile phone to get a friend to read out the relevant parts of the RTI
Act. This was a situation when the request was of a questionable
nature, and I did turn down the application ;(
Via: "Prashant Iyengar"
Hi Mahesh,
Not sure what you mean. This software that I'm distributing works
without the necessity of installing any server like mysql or apache or
postgresql. If you're suggesting that I distribute mysql dumps so that
Linux users can install it on their systems, even that will not be
necessary because I'll shortly be posting instructions on how one
install this database on a Linux/Apache/PHP system (without Mysql, but
with a search engine called Swish-e).
I don't need help coding front ends. The one that comes with this
software (remodelled from the one on the site judis.openarchive.in)
has all the features anyone will need although it may not win awards
at a beauty contest. Nothing prevents people with a rudimentary
knowledge of HTML and javascript from changing it to suit their
aesthetic sensibilities.
After a lot of experimenting with mysql, I decided against using it on
a large scale. Mysql's fulltext search leaves MUCH to desire when
you're working with 20000 files with an average of 30k.The mysql
servers that most shared web hosting services provide usually
breakdown very frequently and are not reliable at all for this kind of
use.
In addition, for an offline version, windows users would need to
install a mysql/apache server on their systems with all of its
inherent security implications.They are not particularly easy to
install as well and tend to be memory hogs.
I'm not averse to developing on the Gnu/Linux environment. All the
coding/cleaning up for this project was done primarily on Fedora.
However I think that a large number of users in India use Windows as
the default OS and I also recognize that typically the kind of people
who will be the users of this software will be the activist types for
whom installation and operation has to be made as simple and
straightforward as possible. The software I'm distributing may not be
the objectively "perfect" way of implementing such a thing, but I'm
hoping it will be useful nonetheless. Also, and importantly,
everything I'm putting up has the potential of being reused and
repackaged by others into their own software - a prospect I eagerly
look forward to.
Incidentally, I'm not sure if you've checked the site
judis.openarchive.in yet, but I've had mysql dumps of Supreme Court
cases and Madras High Court cases up there for almost a year. So
there's that option for you as well.
Thanks for the interest!
Prashant
On 10/23/07, Mahesh T. Pai wrote:
> Prashant Iyengar said on Tue, Oct 23, 2007 at 09:24:47PM +0530,:
>
> > download and install on your hard drive for free (Windows Only).
> > The installation file can be downloaded at
> > http://judis.openarchive.in/CIC.exe (17Mb approx/10-15mins on 256kbs
> > connection)
>
> Why don't you simply put up a database dump of the decisions in, a
> format importable into, say, PostGreSQL / MySQL???
>
> Somebody may even bother to help you create a web based front end to
> access this. Note that both PostgreSQL and MySQL will run on WIndows
> too.
>
> That way, your maintenance effort will be divided into (a) providing
> diff files for new decisions; and (b) maintaining the front end. My
> guess that you will get plenty of help in maintaining and updating (b).
>
> --
> Mahesh T. Pai <<>> http://paivakil.blogspot.com/
> DICTIONARY, n. A malevolent literary device for cramping the
> growth of a language and making it hard and inelastic.
> _______________________________________________
> commons-law mailing list
> commons-law@sarai.net
> https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/commons-law
>
Via: "Mahesh T. Pai"
Prashant Iyengar said on Tue, Oct 23, 2007 at 09:24:47PM +0530,:
> download and install on your hard drive for free (Windows Only).
> The installation file can be downloaded at
> http://judis.openarchive.in/CIC.exe (17Mb approx/10-15mins on 256kbs
> connection)
Why don't you simply put up a database dump of the decisions in, a
format importable into, say, PostGreSQL / MySQL???
Somebody may even bother to help you create a web based front end to
access this. Note that both PostgreSQL and MySQL will run on WIndows
too.
That way, your maintenance effort will be divided into (a) providing
diff files for new decisions; and (b) maintaining the front end. My
guess that you will get plenty of help in maintaining and updating (b).
Via: "Prashant Iyengar"
Dear All,
As some of you may know, over the past year I've been running a free
website of Indian Supreme Court Judgments at
http://judis.openarchive.in
I've recently diverted my attentions to the decisions of the Central
Information Commission and I'm glad to report that I've just finished
programming a database/search engine of CIC Decisions that you can
download and install on your hard drive for free (Windows Only).
The installation file can be downloaded at
http://judis.openarchive.in/CIC.exe (17Mb approx/10-15mins on 256kbs
connection)
The database contains full texts of over 5000 RTI decisions and is
fully searchable.
Screenshot available here : http://judis.openarchive.in/openjudisrti.jpg
Note that I haven't yet made this database available online and it is
only available in its offline form.
Hope this will be of use to Information activists in India.
Look forward to receiving feedback on this.
Regards,
Prashant
Ps. You may also download the Supreme Court version of OpenJudis
(including about 23000 full texts of the Supreme Court) at
http://www.nlshare.nl/files/details/4353/openjudissetup.exe . (330 Mb)
For this you will also need to separately download and install Swish-e
for windows :http://www.swish-e.org/distribution/swish-e-2.4.5-win32.exe
(4.5 Mb)
Via: "Ramanathan Muthaiah"
THE HINDU, in it's print and Internet edition dated 20-Oct,2007
carries an article on DNA fingerprinting and it's relevance to
Geographical Indications.
http://www.hindu.com/2007/10/20/stories/2007102054080400.htm
Excerpt from the article:
"The measure has been precipitated by the rapid destruction of the
Western Ghats and the high demand for medicinal plants from drug
manufacturers."
"... other medicinal and aromatic plants in the Western Ghats that are
facing extinction of ""mesua," "punnaga," "lodra," "kampilaka,"
"maramanjalu," and "agarbathi gida" (agar wood tree), "cancer gida"
(mapia), "noni," "trichopus" and "nagakesara."
Within the same article, an additional note, available in a boxed
format, is on DNA fingerprinting.
http://www.hindu.com/2007/10/20/stories/2007102054540400.htm
(c) COPYRIGHT THE HINDU
