[cr-india] TRAI community radio recommendations

[Vickram Crishna]

At 5:15 PM +0530 12/9/04, Arun Mehta wrote:
>http://www.trai.gov.in/recom9dec.htm
>
>>Thus, we find that the Supreme Court has also upheld the 
>>distinction between broadcasting and press or other media by 
>>affirming that airwaves constitute public property and no 
>>individual has a right to utilise them at his choice and pleasure 
>>and for purposes of his choice including profit.
>
>The suggestion that there is a shortage of spectrum is quite 
>ridiculous. As Mr. Bhatnagar told us during the meeting at Oneworld, 
>the reason why the police and defence are not making more spectrum 
>available, is that the portion currently allocated for broadcasting 
>is so poorly used!

Does the definition of 'individual' not include, as recently held in 
the Supreme Court, the government itself? Can anyone deny that 
hogging the right to news and current affairs, and to relay 
broadcasting, constitutes utilisation of the spectrum at 'choice and 
pleasure and for purposes of pleasure including profit'?

>>             Religious Bodies
>>
>>             It is recommended that a religious body engaged in 
>>socio-economic developmental activities may be allowed to hold a 
>>Community Radio license provided that the Community Radio station 
>>would be used to promote socio-economic development of the 
>>Community.

Who is to define socio-economic development? In fact, what *is* a 
credible definition?

Is teaching religion contra development, assuming some community/area 
got inflicted with a station that decided to run 24 hr evangelism 
(incidentally, very likely in these right-wing days, when everyone 
and his sainted aunt seems to have buckets of money from running 
temples, masjids, gurudwaras and televised 'god' channels - also 
incidentally, that have redefined 'subscription service')?

>>Considering the possibility of biological hazards of RF radiation, 
>>a minimum height of antenna above ground as 15 meter has been 
>>recommended.

Very noble. I hope this restriction will also apply to power lines, 
that often radiate far higher levels of energy from much closer 
distances than this. But then TRAI does not delve into the question 
of who will measure or regulate the ERP. Certainly no-one does it 
today, or if they do, don't do anything about their findings.

>>This is because estimation of EHAAT requires expertise which may 
>>not be available for applicants of Community Radio licensees.

And is available in plenty where precisely?

>>However, it is recommended that the Government while issuing 
>>licenses may estimate the coverage area based on the ERP and 
>>antenna height above ground submitted by  the applicant and if 
>>necessary restrict the ERP and height of the antenna above ground 
>>so that the coverage radius  of the Community Radio does not extend 
>>beyond about 6 Km.
>
>>  The transmitter should be located within the geographical area of 
>>the community to be served.  For this purpose, the applicant would 
>>be required to submit the geographical details of the area to be 
>>served on a map along with the location of the transmitter.

As the current issue of Down To Earth points out, 43% of the 
country's land mass is forbidden to citizens for mapping. I do think 
that TRAI needs to apply its mind a little more to the law of the 
land if this provision is to be made meaningful and equitable. One 
notable feature of the DTE report: citizens are not permitted to 
publish contour maps. What meaning therefore, in requiring submission 
of the map?

A suggestion (made before to TRAI but amplified here): Without 
stalling the current process* of liberalisation of community radio, 
WPC should immediately take steps to publish (within a reasonable 
time-frame, not exceeding the one or two years it takes to 'process' 
frequency clearances for licenses) a public radio frequencies map of 
the country, showing where exactly the frequencies are being 
utilised. Once such a map is completed, it will be easy to 
incrementally add to it as coverage increases, thus enabling citizens 
to measure the progress of growth of the medium as well as identify 
where further effort can be fruitful.

*This being the process that the hon'ble minister for information and 
broadcasting recently informed Parliament has 'No' - not failed to 
take off.

>>With regard to the remaining transmission standards, it is 
>>recommended to adopt the same technical parameters as given in 
>>Article 7.1(e), 7.1(f), 7.1(g), 7.2 and 7.3 of Schedule - C to the 
>>phase-I license Agreement with Private FM Radio broadcasters.

These parameters being the ones that Mr Bhatnagar (the same 
individual - but not the government, this time -  referred to in the 
original analysis) relies on to make the technical claim that only 11 
frequencies are possible in Mumbai and presumably other cities of 
India, since stations in his learned opinion cannot operate with less 
than 800 KHz separation between contiguous channels. Needless to say, 
this totally ignores the reality of dozens of stations running in 
major cities all around the world, including New York, LA and Paris.

Probably those station use some classified technology to transmit in 
FM. Perhaps Indians are too stupid and non-technically minded to 
learn this unique technology.

>>Depending on the geographical conditions and spread of community 
>>(for example Kutch region of Gujarat/ North Eastern States), the 
>>applicant may make a request to the Licensing Authority for higher 
>>transmitter power and antenna height and such a decision may be 
>>taken on a case to case basis and the Government may assign higher 
>>power in such special cases upto a maximum ERP of 500 Watts.
>>
>Is 500W going to be sufficient for Kutch?

Obviously not (since when last seen, Kutch did not host any 
convenient mountains where an antenna could be conveniently placed 
high enough to circumvent the curvature of the earth - the presence 
of the mountain also raising the average ground level to a height 
where placing an antenna on top will still not exceed the 30 meter 
restriction recommended by TRAI), so is there any restriction or 
prohibition of the use of relay 'drone' stations? Are the proposed 
licenses restricted, in short, to a single transmitter? What are the 
licensing provisions for AIR's operations in this regard?

>>the duration of advertisements that can be carried by Community 
>>Radio stations may be restricted to 5 minutes per hour of 
>>broadcast. No sponsored programmes may be permitted.

Puzzling. How do 'sponsored' programmes differ from 'paid 
advertising' supported programmes in the ability to influence 
content? And if that is not the sticking point, what is?

>The Authority recommends that the Community Radio stations should be 
>permitted to share the broadcast infrastructure subject to the 
>condition that at least 50% of the total broadcast time shall be 
>utilized by the licensee to broadcast its own programmes. The 
>licensees would require prior approval of the Licensing Authority 
>for permitting other persons/ agencies/ organizations to utilize 
>their broadcast infrastructure.

All this really means is that one or other single community 
organisation in the area will have to 'front' the
service for the entire community. Plenty of scope here for creating 
dissent and confrontation in the future, I fear.

But in summation, a better set of recommendations than any the 
government has seen fit to share with the public before. It is a pity 
that TRAI did not take our suggestion to get their web admin to 
publish these recommendations as a draft on a wiki, so that 
interested people could go there and add/modify it to create more of 
a consensus. But then we have traditionally had a government that is 
sometimes 'for the people' and definitely always 'of the people', but 
is nowhere near 'by the people', yet.

-- 
Vickram