Palagummi Sainath, the Rural Affairs Editor of The Hindu, is planning to launch an online platform called 'People’s Archive of Rural India' to archive various aspects of rural life in India, reports The Hindu. While the details on how this platform will work are still sketchy, the report states that the platform is expected to go live in June this year, on an experimental basis and will comprise of audio, video, print and still photos from various rural regions in the country. This platform will reportedly include content from Sainath's media archive and also allow users to submit content to the online archive, provided the content complies with their guidelines. However, there is currently no information on how this submission process will work at the time of writing this article. Wikipedia Model? It is also not clear if the platform will be offering any type of infrastructure to the users, since Sainath apparently stated at a conference in Bangalore, that they had provided cameras to 15 video volunteers to capture various content from rural regions. We therefore wonder if the platform will work on a model similar to Wikipedia, where the site allows users to contribute information but has also appointed regular volunteers called Wikipedians, who contribute majority of the information present on Wikipedia. We believe this type of structure is essential for any community project to stay alive and remain relevant, after the initial enthusiasm among users wanes or dies down. Funding & Rights The report states that the platform will not accept any direct funding from…
