Terms of Use

This Terms of Use (“Terms of Use” or “Terms”) governs the “User(s)” (as defined below) and the “Contributor(s)” (as defined below), collecting referred to as “you” or “your”, availing the Services (as defined below) being offered by Arghyam (hereinafter referred to as “Arghyam” or “we” or “India Water Portal” or "IWP" or "the Portal"), through its website available at https://www.indiawaterportal.org/ (“Portal”). Arghyam is a registered public charitable trust having its administrative office at #599, 12th Main, HAL 2nd Stage, Indiranagar, Bangalore, 560008, Karnataka, India. 

By using, viewing or accessing India Water Portal, you: acknowledge and agree that you will be legally bound by these Terms of Use and the Privacy Policy (“Privacy Policy”) available at https://www.indiawaterportal.org/static-page/privacy-policy; represent that you are of legal age to enter into and are otherwise legally competent to enter into a binding agreement; we may modify the Terms of Use at any time by posting the changes on the Portal. Your continued use of the Portal or the Services after the new and/or revised Terms are effective, indicates that you have agreed to the revised Terms. If you do not agree to the existing or revised Terms of Use, you should not use, access or view the Portal.

I. Definitions

(i) “Contributor” means and refers to an individual or any legally recognized organization who uploads User Content on to the Portal and who may avail the applicable Services as detailed in Section I (iii).

(ii) “Prohibited Content” shall have the meaning ascribed to it in Section IV (2) of these Terms.

(iii) “Services” shall mean and refer to:

(a) access by Users of the Portal and any content that may be featured on the Portal; 

(b) access of the Portal by the Contributors which is given to the Contributors in order to upload the User Content on the Portal; 

(c) the option available to the Users and the Contributors to subscribe to the newsletter that may be circulated by IWP.

(iv) “User” means and refers to an individual or any legally recognized organization using the Portal, and includes their Representatives, who may avail the applicable Services as detailed in Section I (iii). For the purposes of clarity, “Representative” means any employees or agents or representative of the User(s), if applicable, who may avail the applicable Services as detailed in Section I (iii) on behalf of the User.  

(v) “User Content” means information including without limitation content and/or articles which are created and uploaded by the Contributor on the Portal. 

(vi) “User Information” shall mean any information provided by the User or the Contributors including but not limited to name, date of birth, telephone number, email address, for the creation of a User account or otherwise for the purpose of availing/accessing the Services.

II. Part A: Terms Applicable to Contributor(s)

  1. Access to the Portal:
    As a Contributor(s), you may use and access the relevant Services solely to create and upload User Content independently for and on the Portal in accordance with these Terms.
     
  2. Indemnity:
    The Contributor agrees to indemnify and hold harmless IWP, its trustees, its officers, employees, authorized representatives and agents, against any claims, losses, damages or costs arising from (i) Contributor’s use of the Portal and/or any acts or omissions in relation to the Contributor’s use thereof; (ii) infringement of intellectual property rights of third-parties in respect of User Content uploaded by the Contributors; (iii) Contributor’s breach of these Terms of Use.
     
  3.  Intellectual Property:
    (i) IWP hereby grants a non-exclusive, limited, non-transferable, non-sublicensable and revocable license to the Contributor to access and use the functionalities of the Portal to enable the Contributor(s) to avail of the applicable Services as described in Section 1 (iii) in the territory of India.
    (ii) All right, title and interest in, and to any User Content shall vest solely with the Contributor. 
    (iii) The Contributor hereby grants every User, a license under Creative Commons namely the CC BY-NC-SA 2.5 IN available at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/in/ (“Creative Commons License”), to use the User Content subject to the Creative Commons License terms.(iv)The Contributor hereby also gives IWP a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, irrevocable, perpetual and world-wide right to use the User Content in any manner as it deems fit including sub-licensing the use of the User Content to a third party.

III. Part B: Terms Applicable to User(s)

  1. Access to the Portal: 
    Users may use the relevant Services to view and access the Portal and the User Content featured, subject to these Terms, provided that Users shall be responsible for all acts or omissions of the Representatives.
     
  2. Indemnity: 
    The User(s) shall indemnify and hold harmless IWP, its trustees, its officers, employees, authorized representatives and agents, against any claims, losses, damages or costs arising from: (i) User’s use of the Portal and its contents or the Services; (ii) User’s breach of these Terms of Use; (iii) any acts or omission by User in relation to the Portal or the Services;
     
  3. Intellectual Property: 
    IWP hereby grants the Users a non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable and limited right to Users to avail of the applicable Services as described in Section I (iii) in the territory of India, subject to the Terms herein. 

IV. General Terms of Use

  1. Access to the Portal:
    (i) Information provided by you including User Information, may be viewed by third parties on a need to know basis. You represent that you have all rights required to provide the information that you have provided to the Portal, including the User Information and represent that they are true and accurate.

    (ii) You will be solely responsible for your acts on the Portal including those conducted under the identity assigned to you. 

    (iii) IWP may in its sole discretion permit or deny your attempt to access or use the Portal and you waive any right to claim access to or use of the Portal or any other claim that you may have. Any data of your usage may be retained or deleted at IWP’s sole discretion.

    (iv) You acknowledge that the Services being provided to you under these Terms are being provided in accordance with the laws of India. If you choose to avail of the Services hereunder anywhere outside India, you choose to do so at your own risk and you shall be solely responsible for any compliance with any applicable laws in the jurisdiction from where you access the Services or use the Portal.
     
  2. Prohibited Uses: 
    In relation to the use and access of the Portal its content and features or the Services, you (Contributors or Users), hereby agree and undertake not to upload, modify, transmit, publish, update, share or publish any Prohibited Content (as provided for herein below) which:

    (i) belongs to another person and to which the user does not have any right to;
    (ii) is grossly harmful, harassing, blasphemous; defamatory, obscene, pornographic, pedophilic, libelous, invasive of another's privacy, hateful, or racially, ethnically objectionable, disparaging, relating or encouraging money laundering or gambling, or otherwise unlawful in any manner whatever;
    (iii)harm minors in any way or which infringes any patent, trademark, copyright or other proprietary rights or which violates any law for the time being in force or which deceives or misleads the addressee about the origin of such messages or communicates any information which is grossly offensive or menacing in nature;
    (iv) impersonate another person or which contains software viruses or any other computer code, files or programs designed to interrupt, destroy or limit the functionality of any computer resource;
    (v)threatens the unity, integrity, defence, security or sovereignty of India, friendly relations with foreign states, or public order or causes incitement to the commission of any cognisable offence or prevents investigation of any offence or is insulting any other nation.

    You further agree not to engage in any unauthorized use of the Portal or content therein or the Services; or violate the privacy of any person;
     
  3. Intellectual Property:
    The Contributors and the Users agree and acknowledge that the Portal and all content, (apart from User Content) including any intellectual property rights therein, are the sole property of IWP or its licensors as the case may be. You have no right and you will not use any web-crawler or any data harvesting tools to harvest data of any sort from the Portal.
     
  4. Disclaimers:
    (i) The Portal and any content therein are provided "as is". IWP hereby disclaims all representations and warranties, either express or implied, with respect to the accuracy, adequacy or completeness of the content on the Portal, including without limitation representations and warranties of any kind, either express or implied, representations and warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, or non-infringement. Where applicable laws do not permit the disclaimer of representations or warranties to the extent detailed above, the said representations or warranties are disclaimed to the maximum limit permitted by applicable law.

    (ii) You expressly release IWP and where applicable its trustees, officers, employees, authorized representatives and agents and representatives from any cost, damage, liability or other consequence of any use by you of the Portal, the Services and any content therein.

    (iii)You understand and acknowledge that it is at your own discretion and based on our judgment that you transact on the Portal.

    (iv) IWP reserves the right to upload and remove any content including User Content on the Portal.  

    (v)The Portal may contain links to third party platforms/Portal/web pages maintained or controlled by third parties.  IWP shall not be responsible in any manner for the contents of these third-party platforms/Portal and if you should choose to use the link to view the third-party platforms/Portal, you choose to do so at your own risk. 

    (vi)You hereby expressly acknowledge that IWP or its staff, are not rendering personal advice and have no expertise in determining the effect of the User following any advice that may be featured in the content of the Portal. User(s) further acknowledge that IWP will be in no way be responsible for any risk/outcome associated with using/relying on the User Content, that the User may access on the Portal and that the User will be solely responsible for the same.

    (vii) Users hereby understand and acknowledge that any such advice and guidance is for general informational purposes only and the same is prepared without considering your circumstances, objectives and/ or personal needs.
     
  5. Limitation of Liability 
    The maximum aggregate liability of IWP to you or any third party, whether in contract, tort, negligence, warranty, indemnity or otherwise, howsoever arising, whether in connection with these Terms of Use, your access and use of the Portal, its contents, Services or for any reason related to the operation of the Portal, shall not exceed Rs. 100/- (Rupees One Hundred Only). In no event shall IWP be liable to the User, Contributor and any third party, for any loss of profits (anticipated or real), loss of reputation, loss of data, or any direct, indirect, special, incidental, consequential, punitive, tort or other damages, however caused, whether or not it has been advised of the possibility of such damages.
     
  6. Complaints
    IWP takes matters related to intellectual property rights and privacy very seriously. Should you have any complaints regarding the Portal, including but not limited to abuse and misuse of the Portal, copyright infringement and the like, or any issues related to data privacy please report the same to Mr. Suresh L. Ponnappa at contact@indiawaterportal.org. Please provide your name, email address, physical address and contact numbers so that IWP may be in a position to verify details or check the authenticity of the complaints.
     
  7. Miscellaneous

    (i) Termination: IWP reserves the rights to terminate your access to the Portal or restrict your access to the Portal at any time, in its sole discretion including for your violation of these Terms. You acknowledge IWP’s right to do so and waive any claim that you may have arising from such termination or restriction. Notwithstanding the termination of access, all provisions which by their nature are intended to survive, shall survive termination and continue to be applicable.

    (ii) Force Majeure: In no event shall IWP be liable for any acts beyond its control or for any acts of god.

    (iii) Access: IWP does not make any claim that the Portal and its contents may be lawfully viewed or accessed in the jurisdiction you are viewing it in. You are solely responsible for complying with laws applicable to you. 

    (iv) Waiver: No waiver of any provision of these Terms of Use shall be binding unless executed and notified by IWP in writing to you.  No waiver of any of the provisions of these Terms of Use shall be deemed or shall constitute a waiver of any other provision and no waiver shall constitute a continuing waiver. You hereby waive any present or future claims you have against IWP arising from your use of the Portal or any other User’s and/or Contributor’s conduct.

    (v) Entire Agreement: These Terms of Use, the Privacy Policy and any other agreements you execute with IWP as relevant, shall constitute the entire agreement between you and IWP for the use of the Portal. Any modification to these Terms of Use shall only be binding if posted on the Portal by IWP.

    (vi) Assignment: You may not assign your obligations under this Terms of Use or any part thereof without the prior written consent of IWP.

    (vii) Severability: If any provision of these Terms of Use is determined to be invalid or unenforceable, it will not affect the validity or enforceability of the other provisions of these Terms of Use, which shall remain in full force and effect.

    (viii) Governing Law: These Terms of Use are governed by the laws of India. Any disputes that may arise in connection herewith or relating to these Terms of Use shall be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the competent courts at Bengaluru, India.