Effective date: 1 April 2025. Last updated: 30 April 2026.
1. Acceptance
By accessing or using Bodhi Commons ("the Platform," "bodhicommons.org"), you agree to be bound by these Terms of Service. If you do not agree, you must not use the Platform.
These Terms constitute a binding agreement between you and Bodhi Commons. If you are using the Platform on behalf of an organisation, you represent that you have authority to bind that organisation to these Terms.
2. The Platform
Bodhi Commons is a free, open-access platform for bilingual long-form political knowledge - articles, essays, annotations, and analytical tools - primarily in Malayalam and English. We provide the platform as-is. We reserve the right to add, modify, or remove features at any time.
You must be at least 13 years of age to create an account or use interactive features.
3. Accounts
3.1 Registration
To submit articles, annotate content, or access interactive tools, you must create an account with a valid email address and a password. You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your account credentials.
3.2 Accuracy
You agree to provide accurate and truthful information during registration. False identity, impersonation, or using a fake email address are grounds for immediate account termination.
3.3 Account security
You are responsible for all activity that occurs under your account. Notify us immediately at [email protected] if you suspect unauthorised access.
3.4 Account termination
You may delete your account at any time from your account settings. We may suspend or terminate accounts that violate these Terms. Published content associated with a terminated account may remain in the archive; see Section 6 for how authorship attribution is handled.
4. Content You Submit
4.1 Your responsibility
You are solely responsible for any content you submit, post, or publish on the Platform. By submitting content you represent that:
- you are the original author of the work, or have all necessary rights and permissions;
- the content does not infringe any third-party copyright, trademark, or other intellectual property right;
- the content does not violate any applicable law, including the laws of India;
- any factual claims in the content are, to the best of your knowledge, accurate.
4.2 Licence you grant us
By submitting content for publication, you grant Bodhi Commons a non-exclusive, royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable licence to publish, display, translate, adapt, and distribute that content on the Platform and in promotional materials, under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) licence.
You retain full copyright ownership of your content. The CC BY-SA licence does not prevent you from publishing the same content elsewhere.
4.3 Content published under Creative Commons
All original editorial content on Bodhi Commons is published under CC BY-SA 4.0. This means anyone may share, reproduce, or adapt any article on this platform, provided they attribute the original author and Bodhi Commons, and distribute any derivative work under the same licence.
5. Prohibited Conduct
You agree not to use the Platform to:
- publish content that is defamatory, obscene, or constitutes harassment of any individual or group;
- incite violence or hatred on the basis of religion, caste, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, or disability;
- spread demonstrably false information that could cause public harm;
- infringe any person's copyright, privacy, or other legal rights;
- impersonate any person, organisation, or public figure;
- scrape, crawl, or systematically download content in a way that damages our infrastructure;
- attempt to gain unauthorised access to any part of the Platform or its supporting systems;
- use the Platform for spam, unsolicited commercial communication, or electoral campaigning;
- upload malicious code, viruses, or any software designed to disrupt, damage, or intercept data.
We reserve the right to remove any content and to suspend or permanently ban accounts that violate these prohibitions.
6. Content Removal and Account Deletion
If you delete your account, your personal profile and login credentials are removed. Published articles you authored will remain in the public archive with an anonymised byline, unless you negotiate withdrawal with the editorial team before account deletion.
If you believe content published on the Platform infringes your copyright, contact us at [email protected] with details of the infringing material. We will investigate and respond within 14 days.
7. Third-Party Links and Services
The Platform may contain links to third-party websites. We do not control and are not responsible for the content, privacy practices, or terms of those third-party sites.
AI tools and features on the Platform (Idea Forge, annotation assistance, knowledge graph) use third-party language model APIs. Outputs from these tools are not editorial content and should not be treated as authoritative.
8. Disclaimers
The Platform and all content on it are provided "as is" and "as available," without any warranty of any kind, express or implied.
Bodhi Commons does not warrant that the Platform will be uninterrupted, error-free, or free of viruses or other harmful components.
Opinions and analysis published on Bodhi Commons represent the views of the individual authors, not of Bodhi Commons as an organisation. We publish a range of perspectives; publication does not imply endorsement of any view expressed.
9. Limitation of Liability
To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, Bodhi Commons and its operators, editors, and contributors shall not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages arising from your use of or inability to use the Platform.
Our total aggregate liability to you for any claim shall not exceed INR 5,000 (five thousand Indian Rupees), regardless of the form of action.
10. Indemnification
You agree to indemnify, defend, and hold harmless Bodhi Commons, its operators, and contributors from any claim, loss, liability, or expense arising out of: (a) your use of the Platform; (b) your submitted content; (c) your violation of these Terms; or (d) your violation of any third-party right.
11. Privacy
Your use of the Platform is also governed by our Privacy Policy, which is incorporated into these Terms by reference.
12. Changes to These Terms
We may update these Terms from time to time. We will notify registered users of material changes via email at least 30 days before the new Terms take effect. Continued use of the Platform after the effective date constitutes acceptance.
13. Governing Law and Disputes
These Terms are governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of India. Any dispute arising out of or in connection with these Terms shall be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of Kerala, India.
Before initiating any legal proceedings, please attempt to resolve the dispute by writing to [email protected]. We will endeavour to respond within 14 days.
14. Miscellaneous
If any provision of these Terms is held to be invalid or unenforceable, the remaining provisions will continue in full force. These Terms, together with the Privacy Policy, constitute the entire agreement between you and Bodhi Commons regarding your use of the Platform.
Questions about these Terms? Write to [email protected].
See also: Privacy Policy · Editorial Policy