[cr-india]: community radio in India

[Kanchan Kumar]

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On Wed, 03 Mar 2004 Frederick Noronha (FN) wrote :
>Could anyone help please? FN
>
>On Mon, 1 Mar 2004, Jean Parker wrote:
> > Dear Fred:
>I have read articles and archival postings from various sources but still have some historic questions.  


Dear Frederick Noronha/Jean Parker,

I am attempting to provide some more information/answers here:

Q1.	What was the actual date of the Supreme Court decision saying that the airwaves should not be controled by a monopoly?  Who brought the original case to the court the resulted in this decision and what were the issues reviewed in this case?

February 1995. The Supreme Court delivered this historic judgment in Ministry of Information and Broadcasting v. Cricket Association of Bengal, which involved the rights of a cricket association to give telecast rights to an agency of its choice. The Court ruled that, "Airwaves constitute public property and must be utilized for advancing public good"(Operative part of Judgement available on Ministry of I&B Website).


Q2.	Apart from Unesco and the World Bank, who are other major funders of community radio projects in India?

Community radio projects in Pastapur, Andhra Pradesh (NGO: Deccan Development Society) & in Budhikote, Karnataka (NGO:Voices and Myrada) are Unesco funded. The community radio project in Palamau, Jharkhand (NGO: Alternative for India Development) is funded by National Foundation for India while the Bhuj initiative is a collaborative venture of Kutch Mahila Vikas Sangathan (Bhuj) and Drishti Media Collective (Ahmedabad). If I am not wrong, only Radio Mana (NGO: Velugu) had some links with the World Bank.

Q3.	Who are the key groups and individuals involved in promoting community radio in India at the moment?  

Several non-profit and development organizations in India have been campaigning to get communities permission to set up low-cost local radio broadcasting facilities. ‘VOICES’ convened a gathering of policy planners, media professionals and non-governmental associations in September 1996 to study how community radio could be relevant in India. A ‘Bangalore Declaration’ calling for establishment of community broadcasting in the country was signed. The UNESCO sponsored workshop from July 17-20, 2000 in Hyderabad issued the ‘Pastapur Initiative on Community Radio’ that urged the government to take its intentions of freeing broadcasting from state monopoly to its logical conclusion by making media space available not only to private players but also to communities. Drishti Media Collective and Magic Lantern Foundation organized a ‘Media and Human Rights Workshop’ as part of the conference on ‘Globalization, Social Movements, Human Rights & the Law’ in December 2000 at Panchgani in Maharashtra.  The last two days of the workshop were spent exclusively discussing the range of issues pertaining to community radio.

 In June 2001, a four-day UNESCO workshop on ‘Community Broadcasting in the Digital Age’ was organized in Kothmale, Sri Lanka. Participants from India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, and Maldives resolved to make the struggle for community radio a South Asia-wide movement. A media-watch website http://www.thehoot.org carried out an ‘Internet Conference on Community Radio in India’ from November 30, 2001 to February 10, 2002, the edited proceedings which are available on their website. In March 2003, the UNDP-IIM, Bangalore workshop on ‘ICTs & Cross Media Partnerships’ focused on community radio and brought the experiences in this field on a common platform.

Projects:

A few community-based organizations have initiated radio projects to support their community development work. The Deccan Development Society (DDS), an NGO working with poor, rural, dalit women in the Zaheerabad area of Medak district, A.P. for over a decade, set up a community radio station with assistance from UNESCO in 1998. VOICES started an audio production centre, Namma Dhwani (Our Voice) in 2001 at Budikote in the Kolar district of Karnataka. They have recently ventured into cable radio. The Kutch Mahila Vikas Sanghatan (KMVS) in Gujarat built on its long presence in the area doing development work and started airing a 30-minute programme made by them in the Kutchi language on All India Radio's Bhuj station in December 1999 by purchasing a commercial slot. They have since acquired the AIR slot for two subsequent series. Chala Ho Gaon Mein is a community radio programme supported by the National Foundation for India and produced by community representatives of Alternative for India Development (AID), an NGO. The programme is broadcast once a week on AIR Daltonganj in the Palamau district of Jharkhand. 


Q4.	How has the application and licensing process evolved, especially recently, and what is the actual process at this time?
Q5.	Why is the government so anxious to be a visible part of the Chennai station but disallow Radio Mana to broadcast? 
Q6.	Has the application and approval process improved in any way in recent months?
Q7.	Are these stations required to pay a "spectrum fee" of Rs. 400,000 per year?  Has this prohibitive amount been challenged by any of the advocacy groups? 

Community radio has been allowed in India only in its campus radio avatar. The broadcast laws in India do not permit the community radio as conceptualized by media advocacy groups and development NGOs. There is no licensing process for granting autonomous broadcasting spaces to communities and the social sector.

All these questions (4-7) relate to the public policy pronouncement to grant ‘community broadcasting’ licenses to established universities, colleges and schools. This decision to allow setting up FM transmitters to run radio stations in the campuses is being projected as a move to open up the broadcasting sector for non-profit social sector by allowing community radio stations. While the policy pronouncement is not unwelcome as it dilutes somewhat the hegemony of the state and market over broadcasting, but to open it up only for an urban, educated, elite coterie in areas that are already well served by media betrays the fundamental philosophy behind community radio as the world understands it today. 

(As mentioned by Suresh Menon also, some of the information required about the community radio (campus) radio policy, procedures, discussions, developments, problems, applications so far and licences granted is available on the community radio mailing list [CR-India: a discussion forum on Community Radio in India] moderated by Frederick Noronha and Subbu Vincent @ www.sarai.net)

Q8.	the "high level" meeting that took place some months ago to try and get the licensing process moving more quickly


You are probably referring to the Radio Broadcast Policy Committee set up to make recommendations for FM radio. Radio broadcasting shifted from being a government monopoly in India to a highly commercialised service after MIB announced the auctioning of licences to set up 140 FM stations in 40 cities in mid-November 1999. The Phase II of liberalization of FM transmission is on the anvil. The Radio Broadcast Policy Committee evocatively spells out steps that give a boost the private broadcasting sector.

On the issue of non-commercial broadcasting, the Committee proposes allotment of funds for development of such channels but states that this “will be initially required in all A+, A and B category towns, followed by its expansion in other cities in future.”  This can be seen as backing the policy to set up FM transmitters and run radio stations in the campuses.

The recommendations are still under consideration.


Kanchan Kumar
Research Scholar  (PhD Communication)
S. N. School, University of Hyderabad
Gachibowli; Hyderabad, A.P. 500046 (India)
Mobile: 098480-92604