Here is a list if things that Open Knowledge Foundation, India, would like to pay more attention to in the coming days:
- Push for Open Science practices in Indian research institutions. OKFN has been promoting Open Science all over the world for quite some time now. In India, we have a lot of work to do in this respect. We have to involve more and more research bodies in the spirit of Open Science in order to see any considerable progress. Also, encouraging individual researchers to practice Open Science too can go a long way in bringing about a change.
More involvement of citizens in the spirit of Open Knowledge. OKFN is fuelled by the thousands of citizen activists all over the world, who devote their time and energy to the common dream of a better informed world. In India, there is a lot of scope for involvement of the masses in order to work towards making ourselves a better managed nation. Constitutional instruments like the Public Interest Litigation (PIL), the Right To Information (RTI), etc., lose their relevance without complete transparency in the dissemination of government as well as non-government data. Building a mass-based system of knowledge-banks can help us a lot in achieving our goal. We can assist the governments for making more information public, wherever necessary.
Push for education. We would have to work as much as we can in ensuring at least basic education for those children, who are not likely to see the light of education due to various reasons. This is a monumental task, taking into account the gigantic size of the population of India. However, every little helps. Involving the masses can to a great extent result in a quicker transformation of the present scene (for example, we can have citizens making study material open and free and also involve them more in the dispersion of education). We aim to arrange for vocational profession-based education for the adult population. This way, we can work towards uplifting the economy from the grassroots.
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p>Feel free to contact us with your suggestions. Also, tell us how You can help the cause.
Subhajit Ganguly,
Ambassador,
Open Knowledge Foundation Network, India.