Taking radio to grassroots, tackling phobia and obstacles

By Frederick Noronha, IANS

Bangalore : A law for community radios is in place and now the challenge is to overcome the fear of technology and make it freely available to the masses at the grassroots, its campaigners say.


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Supporters who long lobbied for the opening up of community radio in India finally succeeded last year when licences were handed out to not-for-profit organisations, starting with just a few and moving slowly. Now they are working to spread skills that make broadcasts at the grassroots possible and easy.

“Don’t wait for (newer and better) technology to arrive. Muddy your hands with whatever technology is available,” Faridabad-based Ideosync Media Combine’s N. Ramakrishnan told a two-day “technology for radio” consultation here.

Ramakrishnan together with former journalist Hemant Babu, a self-taught techie, introduced transmitters and basic electronics to grassroots campaigners, who want to benefit from the new community radio broadcast policy.

The United Nations Development Programme and Unesco, along with the World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters (AMARC, by its French initials), sponsored a technology-for-radio consultation at Benson Town here earlier this week.

The UN, grassroots campaigners and a number of others ranging from global fund raisers to activists, believe that radio has immense power in democratising communication, given its low-cost nature and easy-to-use solutions.

But given the fact that radio has been tightly government-controlled and out of the hands of most in this country, it’s a learning-from-the-start that is taking place here right now.

“Sunil is from Ahmednagar (in Maharashtra) and came to our workshops six months back. Of six groups working to build micro-transmitters, five got it right, and Sunil’s group did so first,” said Babu, explaining that a brief refresher on high-school electronics and physics is all that is often needed.

Babu argues that community radio should not just generate content “democratically”, but its technology should also be “democratised” and placed in the hands of those who run it.

“This phobia about technology has to be wiped out. Let everyone understand what’s happening behind the electronics,” Babu said at the meet.

A young man called Sunil, speaking in Marathi and Hindi, explained confidently how his electronics repairs background helps him learn to create transmitters without any difficulties.

At the meet, a technical manual on all aspects of broadcasting was released. Grassroots media campaigners from Nepal, which despite its political challenges has far more experience in community radio, were also present.

Engineers also attended the sessions to try to understand lower cost alternatives, to reduce price barriers to make grassroots rural broadcasting a reality.

Unesco, New Delhi, has also released a technical manual on radio use at the grassroots.

Besides, the focus was also on radio programme production technology, building affordable studios, low cost transmitters, archiving software for radio programmes, and FM transmitter options available from firms like WEBEL from West Bengal.

Steve Buckley, president of AMARC, was also present. AMARC said that India has a great potential for community radio, given its diversity, multiplicity of languages, and skills built at the grassroots.

(Frederick Noronha can be contacted at [email protected])

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