bibekpaudel - Slashdot User

Submission + - How should a constitution protect digital rights ?

Submitted by

Bibek Paudel

on Friday June 12, 2009 @12:47PM

Bibek Paudel writes: "Nepal's Constituent Assembly is drafting a new constitution for the country. We (FOSS Nepal [0]) are interacting with various committees of the Assembly regarding the issues to be included in the new constitution. Especially, the "Fundamental Rights Determination Committee" is seeking our suggestions in the form of a written document so that they can discuss it in their meeting next week. We have informed them informally of our concerns for addressing digital liberties and ensuring them as fundamental rights in the constitution. We'd also like to see the right to privacy, anonymity and access public information regardless of the technology (platforms/softwares). Whether or not our suggestions will be incorporated depends on public hearings and voting in the assembly later, but the document we submit will be archived for use as reference material in the future when amendments in the constitution will be discussed or new laws will be prepared.

Below is the mail[1] I wrote to FOSS Nepal mailing list. I wanted to post a similar message to some international mailing list (like FSF, EFF) but I know only of announcement mailing lists of that kind. If you have something to suggest, please do. We're committed to doing everything we can to make sure that in the future Nepal becomes a country where digital liberties are fully respected. It's my personal dream to make our constitution a model for all other developing (or otherwise) countries as far as digital liberties are concerned.

There are many issues on which your suggestions would be valuable. How's it in your country? How would you want to change it? If you've interesting examples from history, they'd help too. If you're a legal expert, please mention the legal hassles our issues could generate. If you're from the FSF, the EFF etc, please provide your insights. If you're just another citizen like me, how'd you like your government to address filesharing, privacy, anonymity, platform neutrality, open standards etc? This slashdot discussion itself would serve as a reference to our document.

[0] http://fossnepal.org/
[1] http://groups.google.com/group/foss-nepal/browse_thread/thread/10cb7162bc5c3998"

Submission + - File Sharing Parties in Russia and Nepal (torrentfreak.com)

Submitted by

Bibek Paudel

on Tuesday April 21, 2009 @01:33PM

Bibek Paudel writes: "Just around the PirateBay verdict day, file sharers' all over the world have been celebrating the spirit of sharing.

TorrentFreaks writes [0], "Support for The Pirate Bay doesn't stop at the Swedish border, nor it is limited to blogs and forums." On 16th April, a group of Russian Pirate Bay supporters threw a street party at Pushkin Square in the center of Moscow, with the full approval of the Russian government. There are other more prominent supporters too. Novelist Paulo Coelho, who wrote the 65 million-selling book "The Alchemist", is an avid supporter of the 'bay, and even offered to testify in their favor during their court case.

In the South Asian Himalayan country of Nepal, supporters of file-sharing and piratebay came together in a real-life file-sharing party [1]. The whole event was planned and coordinated over the Internet using weblogs and twitter. People came with their laptops, thumb-drives, CD/DVDs, hard-disk and other storage devices and let each other know of the movies, songs, books, programmes or pictures they had and exchanged files with each other. The event named "Satasat GB" started in a Kathmandu restaurant this January with initiatives of some tech savvy youths. Excited by the response, they aimed to share even more data in the future versions of the event. Nepal has 12 hours of power outages every day (recently reduced, used to be 16 hours a day). According to the participants of the event, the reason for organizing the file sharing party- besides the need for the geeks to meet each other and have some fun, is load-shedding and Kathmandu's low internet bandwidth which make it difficult to download huge files over the internet.

[0] http://torrentfreak.com/pirate-bay-supporters-throw-street-party-in-moscow-090416/
[1] http://ekantipur.com/kolnews.php?&nid=188770"

Submission + - Open Source Activity Map of the World (redhat.com)

Submitted by

Bibek Paudel

on Tuesday April 21, 2009 @01:14PM

Bibek Paudel writes: "Georgia Tech and RedHat's Open Source Index project (OSI) has
generated interesting results. The open source activity and environment
maps of the world show scores of 75 countries based on their policies,
practices, and other data in the fields of Government, Industry, and
Community. The interactive map helps explore open source software hotspots around the world.

Overall, France ranks number 1 in the index, followed by Spain, Germany, Australia and Finland. On number 6 is the UK, while the United States is 3 places below. China stands on No. 15 and India on 23.

Many countries aren't indexed, because of the unavailability of enough data, says the FAQ.

Activity map: http://www.redhat.com/about/where-is-open-source/activity/
Environment map: http://www.redhat.com/about/where-is-open-source/environment/"

Submission + - Linux Terminals for school kids in hilly villages (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by

Bibek Paudel

on Tuesday January 06, 2009 @02:02AM

Bibek Paudel writes: "The BBC carries a story on the success of the E-Library project based on the Linux Terminal Server Project in the schools of remote hilly villages of Nepal. Started by Help Nepal Network (HeNN) and supported by Madan Puraskar Pustakalaya (MPP, the organization behind NepaLinux) and the Free/Open Source Software Community of Nepal (FOSS Nepal), students from Nepal's top engineering schools volunteer for the project.

"Much of the country is remote and accessible only on foot, and many of its people have never glimpsed a computer, let alone touched one. Working with other organisations, including Save the Children-Norway, HeNN is setting up the libraries with the use of what is called the Linux Terminal Server Project (LTSP). This is a free and open-source (accessible to everyone) package which connects one powerful central server in the school, using the Linux operating system, to a number of diskless low-end computers. When linked to the server, each computer receives a full Linux desktop.

LTSP is seen as a cost-effective, power-saving and durable technology, not only in schools but also in other sectors. What's more, it is also virtually free of tampering and computer viruses — and the Linux software developed by Madan Puraskar Pustakalaya, a charitable educational library based in Kathmandu, is being provided free of cost.

And its appeal is growing. In front of the little shops on the rough village streets, men gather to play cards and drink tea. But even they have developed a fascination for the computer. So the school has arranged some computer classes for them, too."

The BBC further writes, "Before this, anyone wanting access to computers or sizeable shops would have to walk two hours and drive two more, so the system has proved highly significant for local pupils. Most of the places where E-libraries have been set up so far are in the hills."

"Kamal Prasad Sharma, aged 12, a student at Saraswati Secondary School in a small village not far from Kathmandu, was afraid when he saw a computer for the first time.""

Submission + - Ten hours of power cut every day (wordpress.com)

Submitted by

Bibek Paudel

on Friday December 19, 2008 @05:04AM

Bibek Paudel writes: "Nepal is a country whose power potential is roughly 83,000 MW, which is equivalent to the combined installed hydroelectricity capacity of Canada, the United States and Mexico [0], although less than 1 percent has been developed [1]. In recent years, load-shedding has been an unmistakable feature of daily lives in Nepal. People plan their days accordingly. They sleep and wake up accordingly. Businesses and office-goers, professionals try to adjust their work and daily routine in harmony with the load-shedding schedule published by the Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA, aptly called No Electricity Authority of Nepal). NEA is very good at doing it. It changes its schedule and duration time and again, citing different reasons. In summers, its usually because of the flooding at certain rivers that grains and rock try to disturb the hydro-power plants. In winters, its because most rivers originating in the mountains decrease in their volumes because the snow melts less. At other times, its because one or the other power plant needs to be closed because of technical difficulties. At no points do we learn about measures taken to forestall annual occurrences of such events.

Effective from today, NEA has imposed, another schedule[2]. There will be 70 hours of power cut every week. That is 10 hours a day. NEA says that, come mid-January, the duration will be increased. Imagine how lives will move. Industries have already declared that it'd be impossible for them to sustain.

There is an yearly loss of 25.15 percent power[3] (of total power capacity) by NEA due to power leakage.

[0] http://www.nepalnews.com.np/contents/englishdaily/trn/2003/jan/jan26/features1.htm
[1] http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/archive/ieo00/hydro.html
[2] http://nea.org.np/loadshedding.jpg
[3] http://www.kantipuronline.com/kolnews.php?nid=170922"

Comment George Orwell's predicted this long ago (Score 1) 74

by bibekpaudel on Sunday April 20, 2008 @03:41PM (#23136118) Attached to: Google Invests In Genetic Indexing

Google looks all set to become the next evil guy in the tech-world. What if the next "matrix" is built inside the Googleplex? After Google starting to aggree sharing its data with the CIA, the government beginning to index DNA of everyone arrested and now google willing to index the world's genetic information, the BIG BROTHER that George Orwell predicted is now only a matter of time.

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