[cr-india] An interesting experiment by Vasundhara Vahini

[Vickram Crishna]

On Mon, 2006-03-27 at 17:23, ujjwala barve wrote:

> The organisers knew that the farmers did not undestand
> English very well, especially that of International
> experts. Therefore they provided a small FM radio
> receiver set with ear pohones in the conference kit
> (which incidentally was a rucksack that can be
> attached to a motorbike).

Using such easy to setup systems has been a frequent feature of
conferences held in impromptu locations, ie, venues where putting
expensive multichannel fixed translation systems is not feasible, for
several years now, since the Asian Social Forum in Hyderabad, in 2003. 

Typical users include both international meets of the kind described
here, where Indian people have been able to benefit from the learnings
imparted by international experts, and national meets where people from
different parts of the country have been able to communicate using their
own languages, aided by translators. 

Incidentally, at Radiophony, we have found the most successful sessions
are those where the people doing translations are drawn from among the
active workers, because they already possess the expert knowledge of the
areas being discussed, and can more easily accommodate requests for help
from among their listeners. 

Thus, at an international women's meet on issues relating to mines and
mining, attended by women mine workers and mine affected women from all
over the world, where the languages used included English, Spanish,
Hindi and Telugu, held outside Vizag, women from several countries,
active in their own country movements, handled the translations for
their language groups. One small group from the Philippines brought
their own wired system, because only the five of them needed translation
to Filipino. This translator herself listened to the sessions on the
Spanish translation channel.

At another meet, where Telugu, Oriya, Hindi and English were the main
languages felt to be needed, enough workers from Tamil Nadu actually
came, that a channel was devoted to Tamil as well. 

The blanking out of all research and development of inexpensive wireless
systems by a thoughtless policy on telecommunications, embodied in an
antiquated 1885 law imposed on Indians to keep governance firmly in the
hands of colonial rulers and perpetuate a de facto policy that dates to
1857, when British troops broke the resistance movement due to one
surviving telegraph line, has meant that such systems are not at all
commonplace.

The latest invocation of this law to prevent community level
communication came this Sunday, when the community oriented local radio
station in Mansoorpur was shut down. The women's radio station in
Oravakal, shut down in 2003 by invoking the same law (except that
ministry officials verbally quoted 'national security' in
justification), remains closed till today. 

> Even Mr. Sharad Pawar and other dignitaries listened to the
> simultaneous translation for a while during the inaugural session.
> 

This would be really quite funny, if it wasn't so galling. Mr Pawar
heads the Cabinet special committee on community radio, that was charged
last November with deciding on revamping the existing campus radio
policy (as briefed among others, by TRAI), deliberately misnamed
community radio policy by the former government, the one responsible for
endorsing the closure of India's first independent station (such doughty
defenders of 'freedom' as Arun Shourie presided over that unfortunate
decision). 

Obviously Mr Pawar is not in any hurry to oversee this policy change.
Could this be because his own Baramati station got its license in a
Tatkal mode (depending on who you ask at VIIT, the time taken was either
three months or six months - other campus stations have had to wait up
to two years, or see their applications rejected without any
explanation)? This could be the media version of a silver spoon. The
fulsome praise for the Baramati agricultural radio station seen on this
list over the past few weeks has for some reason fallen short of
mentioning this uncomfortable reality. 

Of course, Mr Pawar is in good company - the president of India, who
usually has no shortage of words to support destructive technologies,
also stayed silent on the use of cost effective technologies like low
power FM at a national meeting in Delhi last year to launch Mission 2007
- where this kind of simultaneous translation was also used! At the same
meeting, Mr Chidambaram (Mr FM himself!) failed to endorse the Mission
with committed budgetary support, and Mr Mani Shankar Aiyer, the
Panchayati Raj minister, pouring oil of troubled waters (after all, he
is also the Petroleum minister), said he had no idea that villagers were
barred from running their own local radio stations. The communications
ministry, in its turn, chose to launch an unspecified 100,000 village
knowledge center mission, hopefully not to compete with Mission 2007.
Needless to say, neither of these initiatives can claim to champion the
cause of local radio stations in any meaningful fashion, although
everyone agrees that low power FM is the most cost-effective application
of ICT4D at the grassroots level. 
-- 
Vickram 


		
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