Community Radio Gives India's Villagers a Voice

[icernet-admin at listserv.cddc.vt.edu]

India's first independent community radio initiative is in this millet- and
tomato-growing village in the southern state of Karnataka. It is a cable
radio service because India forbids communities to use the airwaves. A media
advocacy group, with the help of U.N. funds, laid cables, sold subsidized
radios with cable jacks to villagers and trained young people to run the
station. "The power of community radio as a tool of social change is
enormous in a country that is poor, illiterate and has a daunting diversity
of languages and cultures," said Ashish Sen, director of Voices, the
advocacy group.

Emboldened by a Supreme Court ruling in 1995 declaring airwaves to be public
property, citizens groups and activists began pushing for legislation that
would free the airwaves from government control. Two years ago, India
auctioned its FM stations to private businesses to air entertainment
programs. And late last year, India allowed some elite colleges to set up
and run campus radio stations. By keeping the airwaves restricted, activists
complain, the Indian government lags behind such South Asian neighbors as
Nepal and Sri Lanka. Nepal launched South Asia's first community radio
station in 1995 and today has at least five independent stations across the
country that address people's complaints and act as hubs of information in
times of strife. In Sri Lanka, Kothmale Radio has been an integral part of
the Kothmale community for 14 years. 

Source:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A21353-2003Sep16.html