[cr-india] Dribbles from the Ministry

[Vickram Crishna]

Today's Asian Age has a snippet on page three about community radio 
(yes! CR has achieved page 3 status!) in India.

It says, in part, that the I&B ministry wants to encourage community 
radio service like radio FM for fishermen in coastal TN  (not in 
other coastal areas?) and a service for sugarcane farmers (aaah! that 
takes care of rural Maharashtrians, if not the kolis). Probably now 
that the untrusting Chopra has been replaced with the Teresa-inspired 
Chawla, more of our citizens turn out to be patriotic after all, even 
the fisherfolk who regularly used to trawl the troubled waters of our 
neighbouring island state. Where of course, the seditious rebels are 
already considered patriotic enough to have their own radio station 
in their own land.

The unattributed quotes point out that there is only one community 
radio in the country, Anna. However, the ministry plans to change the 
scenario soon, to pep up us slackers. 27 of the over 50 applications 
from institutes meet the ministry guidelines, it seems, so most of 
them will be on air by the end of the year.

And the ministry is not satisfied by this achievement - it is also 
working on a new policy for community radio stations. It is 
considering 'letting' various communities own and run such stations 
themselves (not just well-recognised educational institutions - is 
that where the other 23 plus institutions lost out in the first 
round?)

It is also discussing (with whom?) fund resources for the stations, 
since the new stations will cost about 7 to 8 lakhs to set up and 1 
lakh per annum to run, according to officials (thankfully, unlike our 
schools, this running cost is not proposed to come out of a 
government bounty that isn't paid for months, if not years, on end). 
The ministry is instead 'toying' letting the new stations beam ads of 
a certain kind, such as government messages or those of voluntary 
organisations on social issues.

The officials have not been kind enough to let the writer of this 
story (Ashwani Talwar) know whether they got any ideas for all this 
from the active community of radio enthusiasts in this country, 
though a lot of it will sound terribly familiar to the listmembers 
here. I am sure you will not mind allowing me to shout an early 
hurrah to you all, for keeping the struggle going all these years.

-- 
Vickram